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yiangchen · 8 months

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it's so tragic funny that while i was watching t100, jroth was so adamant that there was nothing romantic there with bellarke, that it literally made me doubt what was very clearly being written as romantic (and it actually was. like, we know this now. it has been confirmed).

looking back, bellarke could have kissed at so many different points in the show, without changing anything else but having them kiss, and it would have made perfect sense. it would have flowed. it would have aligned with their relationship development.

just think about it. 1x09. unity day. is this a bit early? yes. but do they have the chemistry? yes. and have they had sufficient build up for two characters to have their first kiss? yes. honestly more than a lot of ships that happen in the first season of their show. especially since day trip just happened! plus, the flirting during unity day was...not subtle.

listen...she wanted to kiss him here so bad. seriously though. clarke could have and that would have been a very natural progression of this scene. it would have especially fit the early drop ship days vibe.

(or you could add in a scene where clarke finds him later, now sufficiently buzzed, they flirt some more, then she kisses him, and bellamy's like, "woah, woah, princess, what are you doing?" but he's smiling and she just shrugs with a smile and goes in to kiss him again, saying "having fun", and bellamy says, "you're drunk" and clarke is exasperated saying, "well you told me to!" and bellamy laughs, very amused, and from the look in his eyes, you can tell that he is also very very VERY smitten.)

if you still think that's too soon, yeah, i tend to agree. i love the idea of s1 bellarke in fanfic, but for the show, i prefer a bit more of slowburn. so let's push it to season 2. no, that's not a true slowburn, but still, you had to wait a little for it, and a lot of shows do this successfully. so anyway. 2x05. post iconic reunion hug, shot in a very romantic way i might add.

bellamy is watching clarke sleep by the fire, she wakes, we have some platonic gazing with firelight flickering across their faces...

we all know how the scene goes. he reassures her. he confides in her. she reassures him back.

i'm sorry, but the way they are looking at each other here? dude, if they had been sitting any closer, they could have kissed. i tend to think it would be more in character for clarke to initiate a first kiss with bellamy in s1-4, but in this scene, i 100% could see bellamy going in to kiss her after this.

(and yes, i'm aware that octavia was pretending to be asleep this whole time, but honestly, her reaction to them would have added some much needed levity to the situation. octavia is a bellarke shipper, after all. also, some people might say that this would make clarke's "i love you" to finn less believable, but i disagree. you can have feelings for two people at the same time. i mean, she literally kisses lxa very quickly after finn's death sooo yeah...plus, it would have made the bellarke angst of s2b/3 even better.)

maybe you still want more of a slowburn though, and that is perfectly fair, which brings me to s3, which in my opinion would have been one of the best seasons for canon bellarke. alright. 3x05. hakeldama yup! it was prime time for a first kiss. i mean, all the build up of s1/2 obviously, but also...this had just happened:

but anyway...back to hakeldama. this is the peak of their angst. nothing tops it.

but then, after the heat of the moment, the softness comes in. as it always does with these two. they wind up sharing the softest, most romantic scene in this entire show (fight me).

that last gif, man...at this point, i think they would both go in for the kiss. mutually initiated. god, it would have fit the scene so well!

(some people might say that this would invalidate clarke's love for lxa, considering everything that happens two eps later, but again, i disagree. like i said before, you can have feelings for two people at the same time. people might also say that this would undermine bellamy's relationship with gina, but you know what? the whole fucking narrative undermined that relationship, so i really don't care. i loved gina, but if clarke can kiss lxa right after finn's death, then bellamy can kiss clarke right after gina's death. this show is messy, okay? and bellarke are messy as fuckkkk.)

still think it would be too early? okay. season 4 then. very recently, i realized how easy making bellarke canon in s4 would have been, holyyyy. starting off in 4x03. bellamy is sleeping on the couch and clarke watches him sleep with the softest smile on her face (i'm still crying about this btw). i can't find the right gif, but you all know the smile! then clarke is struggling so bellamy wakes up and is there to support her, making a declaration that has romantic undertones, it just does!

and then clarke lowkey makes a move on him lmao. for real though?? what was this???

i would only change one thing here. he takes a seat beside her first and then puts his hand on her shoulder. so that way they are eye level (aka kissing level).

when she lifts her head off their hands, their faces would be so close. maybe bellamy would tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, not realizing how intimate that kind of thing is until he does it. i could see them kissing here. clarke would initiate. although, i think it would be so much better if it was just an almost kiss. bellamy tells her she should get some sleep right before it happens.

and then in 4x06...

it's actually so funny how she says that and then she's like 'oh no. that sounded like it implied something. i did not mean to imply.'

and bellamy's over here like 'omg she's implying.'

which leads to him literally about to confess. i'm sorry, but there is no other way to interpret....

and of course clarke interrupts, but this is the moment, you guys! this could have been the moment.

right after this, before roan's interruption, there's a pause, and then clarke kisses him. it's a quick one. the kind of kiss where she has both of her hands on his face and he's so stunned by it that his eyebrows raise in surprise and before he can even process that it's happened, she's pulled back and they're looking at each other, a bit in awe, both surprised that she just did that.

then in 4x09, we actually get to see the reunion!! and it's the running kind. just like 2x05. only this time, after they run to each other and hug, bellamy pulls back and takes her face in his hands to examine her for injuries, and once he realizes she's okay, probably after she reassures him and puts a hand on his face, then he kisses her, but they both go in for it (and i cry).

in 4x13, i would change the location of the head and heart scene. somewhere more private...a bedroom (!). so, after this moment:

and bellamy turns away, upset, clarke pulls him back to face her and takes his face in her hands. his eyes are watery. so are hers. she kisses him. one thing leads to another and we get the sex scene we deserved!! then they're lying in bed, cuddling. bellamy's head is on her chest and clarke's playing with his hair. that's when she decides to ruin the moment lmao and continues the head and heart convo with "we've been through a lot together, you and i." i can just see it so well. they would shift so that they're laying on their sides, facing one another. maybe clarke's fingers play with the hair at the nape of his neck now. when she says he has a big heart, her palm rests on his bare chest. when she says he has to use his head too, her fingers of her other hand shift from his neck to his temple. when bellamy says, "i've got you for that," clarke kisses him. their foreheads stay touching for a few breathes, then she pulls back to look at him and says that raven's premonition came true. like...am i crazy or would this have worked so well?? literally the same dialogue but...they're together.

(plus, this could have led to clarke raising bellamy's kid--august--along with madi over those six years they are separated, i'm just saying!)

maybe you still think that season 5 was the ultimate time for bellarke to go canon, and you know what? i honestly might just agree. the set up was there with clarke calling bellamy every day for 2,199 days. the potential was there. madi was the biggest bellarke shipper i swear. she wanted them to be together even more than all of us combined i think. for a bellarke kiss though, you would almost have to drastically change the course of events...unless you go with 5x13 and blecho have broken up earlier in the season. after clarke wakes bellamy from cryo (still crying about this moment, yeah!), i could see them having a moment.

before jordan walks in, maybe clarke helps bellamy out of the pod, and once they're both standing, bellamy would finally make his move. instead of bellamy asking why they're the only ones there, clarke does. bellamy tells her, "we'll figure it out, clarke, but first, i have something i wanna say." maybe he does something soft, like take her hand or brush her hair behind her ear. clarke is staring at him, not quite believing what is happening right now, but deep down, she knows. he tells her, "those six years without you were the worst of my life and i don't wanna waste any more time." clarke is wearing a watery smile, still not quite sure she believes what she's hearing. she tells him, "i radioed you every day you were gone." bellamy's whole face lights up and he tells her, "i know." their foreheads touch. both of his hands are cradling her cheeks, her hands are cradling his wrists. she whispers his name. it's the kind of kiss where the time before the kiss is excruciatingly long, but once they kiss, it becomes much more urgent as they finally give in to all of the feelings. god. would have been ICONIC.

plus, they both looked absolutely gorgeous in this scene. hello???

would have been one hell of an aesthetically pleasing first kiss holyyyy. then jordan interrupts and makes some comment about how his mom and dad were right all along :)

if not season 5 though...moving onto season 6. 6x10 to be exact. i know i've said that other times were the ultimate time for canon bellarke, but this episode is too! or right after it in 6x11. there are two scenarios that i see playing out here. (in both, blecho have broken up previously.)

in the first scenario, it's 6x10. as soon as bellamy saves clarke and she wakes up, instead of going in to hug him, i swear when i was watching it that i really thought she was going in for the kiss. that was the one and only time where i legitimately thought they were about to kiss while watching. it had never made more sense than in that moment. even with all of jroth's attempted brainwashing, my mind was stronger in that moment. it saw it coming. or at least i thought i did lmao. i know they didn't actually kiss.

but listen.

they really should have.

clarke is literally looking at him like this:

come on, man.

i usually say that bellamy should be the one initiating post s4, but in this moment, it would have been clarke.

and if not then, the other scenario is that they hug as usual. clarke gets some rest as usual. but when she wakes up in 6x11 and bellamy is at her side, they are in a separate private tent. they have that same conversation that they do. they argue about clarke risking her life again. but then...

he tells her, "hey, i just got you back." he says it firm but soft. i see bellamy initiating the kiss here, especially since he's almost lost her twice now, but once clarke realizes that this is really happening, that after all this time he wants her just as much as she wants him, she would for sure be the one initiating everything else. she would be sitting in his lap making out with him so fast jfsldkjfaslk and you know what? good for her!! they either just kiss a lot here, laying down on the bed, all tangled up together, and then they're interrupted, or maybe, just for once, they're allowed to be happy, uninterrupted, and they sleep together. either way. natural progression.

that's really the point of this longwinded post. so many times it could have happened. all of them a nature progression of the story that was being told.

then comes season 7...

there are no words.

6x13 left them off in a perfect place...

the set up was literally right there! they should have kissed in 7x01!! they should have lived happily ever after with madi in a seaside cabin situated in a field of gold!!

#so many wasted opportunites for an iconic first kiss i am TELLING YOU #absolutely TRAGIC #bellarke #t100 #this has been sitting in my drafts for weeks #just reread it and oof.......#so many feelings #so so many

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nightgoodomens · 2 months

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Hi, not sure how interesting this is but imma share it anyway. Just rewatched one of GO's interviews where they talk about whether they'd choose to be on hell or Heaven's side. Michael said Heaven's nice cuz in S1 they wore nice kilts and David would love that, then told him "I've seen you in one before". The only place where they were both in and David wore kilts was BYT premium. He remembered David in Kilt 20 years later in a random interview and I'm not sure how to feel about that. BAFTA's kilt has now found several other layers. Also, it's funny how DT pretended to struggle to recall a simple shooting date while mentioning every single minor detail in it ( including actors hang out sessions to which he wasn't invited. I Wonder who told him about those sessions? No idea!) Again there was a moment in S1 press where Michael mentioned his 2002 film admitting it was a very obscure movie early on in his career, then David excitedly jumped on saying he totally rememberes the movie and how great Michael was in it. I believe the crush(obsession?) was very much crushing at least on DT's side, probably Ms too with the kilt thing, but they were both oblivious about it. Now look at them making their mutual insanity our problem...

“Now look at them making their mutual insanity our problem.” Lmao isn’t this spot on 😂😂😂

I think something clicked for David all those years ago (and he will be reminding Michael of fucking up all these years ago for the rest of his life 😂) and Michael is so insane about David now partly because he knows he fucked up then and he doesn’t want to miss out ever again. Remember when he said that when the baby came he was binging everything that David has ever been in 😅

The fact that he remembers David in that kilt is absolutely sending me. What if both idiots crushed then already but neither had the balls to say anything. Their story is insane. Especially since even that pic exists from the premiere with David randomly in the background of Michael’s photo.

Insane.

The fact that they met again to work on a story of two beings destined to be together…

#NightGoodOmens talks Michael and David #imagine thinking your crush never noticed you and finding out years later that oh he did notice you very clearly

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justin-chapmanswers · 1 year

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You're trying too hard to make the II cast sound like real people. They're always whining about not being liked or being betrayed and have social anxiety 24/7 when that's not how people really are. you could balance it out with some s1-styled minimum-necessary dialogue where characters just call each other dumb and ugly and stupid and kick each other into the sun. idk i just feel like scenes like those get to the point faster and keeps things balanced

Totally get that from the perspective of anyone who's entry-point to the show is s1, which I'm sure is plentyyy-common. And there's definitely a lot of this sentiment in the air today with Webz's video on the subject having just come out, with plenty of smart analysis regarding how the different eras of the show depict character.

I like a lot of what comes with the season one era. It's fun to revisit us as kids work with what came naturally to us. It's fun to see the wacky spontaneity that'd come about that would then be put to paper and never questioned. (And, even at that, I wasn't part of the writing team until fairly late into the season. So I can't take all too much credit for the early-show artistry.)

That all said, like noted above, that's what came naturally to us at that point. We as writers have never really written the show forrrr an audience. We write it for us. In-so-far as we're looking to impressive ourselves, entertain ourselves. Create something we'd enjoy watching, were we not the creators. And I wholeheartedly believe that's the way to write. We're not young adults making a show for kids, we're just making a show for us... that is also viewable and (hopefully) understandable for a younger audience, as well.

That doesn't mean, at all, that we're not influenced by the audience and what we read online. I read way too much for my own mental health, that's a work-in-progress, but I also find it important to embrace the element of conversation between creator and viewer with online projects. And that influence becomes a little part of me for the next time I write.

That aside, were we to just try to write in the essence of season one, I believe that at best it'd come across as a shadow of its former self, trying desperately to replicate the past. I completely understand that this ask isn't blatantly saying "make more season one," but the reality is that a lot of that old style just doesn't click with who we (or at least I) are anymore. A character I care about is called a mean name and kicked into the sun, I'm going to be less-quick to find that charming and silly and am probably going to be quicker to say "oh no :((((( ." Obviously it's very very tone-dependent, but my soul drips with sentimentality, so of course that's going to carry through when I'm bringing my art to the world. Anything less would be dishonest.

And, frankly, I've seen a lot of strong feedback that gives the very opposite essence of this ask: "please please, bring back the tone of season two, that's what I'm here for." Which I completely get as well. I love it, a lot of the work that I'm proudest of is from later season two. Ultimately, I do like to find a balance, and the best I can do is hope that people vibe with that.

Even with more recent work of mine on the show, I'll look back on and criticize myself on how that's it. Too jokey here, too schmaltzy there, need more room to breathe and explore here, this section is nonsense and cuttable there. It happens. But come the end, I'm happy season one exists. I'm happy season two exists. And I'm especially happy that we're able to work on a production that is so authentically us.

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powerbottomblake · 1 year

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ok I finished my rewatch here is the S1 recap brought to you by my brain juices having been put in a blender after that. I will tell you guys, rewatching S1 after watching S2 is so incredibly rewarding this show is just. really good!! it is!! now here are my various disorganized thoughts:

shannon's death scene is so much more hard-hitting on a rewatch. the way when she's being carried she asks for mary then reaches for her is so incredibly intimate she's surrounded by her sisters but she wants mary at her side and the ensuing goodbyes are very much heart-wrenching and there is NO way to read shannon/mary as not romantic especially since we later get hints from everyone that it was pretty much an open secret? everyone knew their relationship was special. props to the cast for delivering such an emotional scene that comes this early in the show (the tear falling from beatrice's face to land on shannon's as she kisses her forehead and says "I'll miss you, sister" is just. Cinéma. Filmé)

the way it is stressed time and again that resurrection is something the halo provides specifically for ava. there's also the way there's a direct parallel with areala bc they're both the only warrior nuns to have received the halo AGAINST their wills and I think you could say resurrection happened for areala too which is very interesting and very neat (the way these two bookend the cycle of warrior nun being fed into the church killing machine)

the way it is basically textual that vincent was the drunk driver that caused ava's accident and that is INSANE. they're both at the center of how the trajectory of their lives was fundamentally rewritten and they're both the cause that sets them on their path. vincent becomes her father figure and develops genuine affection for her and he fills a place in her life that has always been empty before and this really sets the scene for their S2 interactions.

on the topic of vincent there are so many scenes where he stands around in apparent deep meditation and comes afterwards with answers or a set course and those are literally the moments he gets his visions/messages from adriel and it happens right under our noses and we're none the wiser!! you only catch it on rewatch

ava's bisexuality is hinted at so early like literally the first person to hit on her and offer her a drink is a girl!! and then when she escapes the cat's cradle she says "I'm gonna make love to" pointed look at a girl "someone" like it was there right at the beginning

JC is the best person to have a first lay with! I am a person who subscribes to ship having to be each other's true loves not necessarily their first loves and JC was safe and harmless enough for ava to explore things that were denied her in her past life (sexuality, desire, infatuation) bc in the grand scheme of things JC does not matter. and ava subconsciously KNOWS this. ava is never 100% vulnerable or open with JC and not just bc of, you know, the supernatural things happening around and to her constantly but even the most basic information abt herself she withholds for a LONG time. JC is very interesting thematically bc he's what ava thinks freedom looks like and what she thinks she wants but absolutely not what she needs (which is basically what she explores all throughout S1). He's an uprooted vagrant person not beholden to anyone but his own whims but that means he never develops any significant bonds there's no purpose and no real belonging with him. Hell, he leaves his partners of 18 months for ava who he met a week ago. His entire character is based on leaving whereas ava wants, deep down, someone who will stay for and with her. all throughout.

the vincent monologue at the end of episode 1 hits different on a rewatch "prophets are hard to come by in these times" and he went and fashioned himself into one!! this whole things has been him trying to find a type of salvation that the church does not offer him!! especially since he's haunted by who he was in the past and when he joined the OCS he thought maybe this darkness is a demon that can be exorcised and confronted that it was in fact all him he wanted a miracle powerful enough to banish that very darkness. adriel probably sensed that vulnerability in him and came to him in visions using that to get him onboard

mary's whole s1 arc is basically that tough action guy whose wife gets killed and he goes on a rampage to find out who did it and why. she's a female john wick. which. again. I am puzzled by the fact that shannon and mary was apparently not written to read as romantic?? my dearest people you WROTE it that way. you tapped into the romance tropes.

lilith is somehow both an eldest daughter (derogatory) and a middle child (derogatory). and also a bitch and a delight and I love her so much

JC. repeatedly. and I say. REPEATEDLY. offers ava moments of vulnerability where he opens up abt himself and his life and ava offers NOTHING in return. ava is extremely guarded even as she wants him and only offers up her story when she has to and even then it's mostly to distract him from asking questions abt who the people after her are. and that's juxtaposed with how ava, after that very painful moment with mother superion and being offered comfort from beatrice, legitimately opens up to beatrice almost instantly there. Beatrice hugs her once and ava is like I spent 12 years not feeling anything below my chest I didn't kill myself I have a very complicated relationship with nuns and thus catholicism bc I wasn't treated well like the contrast there is mindblowing.

bringing me to my next point: ava instinctively: 1/knows beatrice is safe, 2/knows she is safe with beatrice, 3/ wants to trust beatrice SO BAD. and she wants intensely, for beatrice to believe her and (then in the back end of season once they're paired up) to believe in her

ava fleeing the OCS is done so well bc in 24hrs she gets put through mother superion's psychological warfare, then she hears abt the previous halobearer who I'm sure she was picturing as someone of a certain age then sees the picture and realizes shannon died young, then she goes visiting the murals of the cat's cradle and all the warrior nuns are pictured young and fighting demons, constantly, AND THEN she reads that part abt how areala died her second death YOUNG too. she gets hit with the reality of this fate, the danger of it, the certainty of a death that'll come sooner rather than later as she's appointed humanity's champion while having to fight horrors beyond a normal human's comprehension constantly. ofc my girl bailed. it's all done so very well everything that has to do with ava's arc is insanely well written

jillian calls beatrice "a petite member of the clergy" when she sees the footage of beatrice taking out an entire security team and that is SO FUCKING FUNNY. imagine calling beatrice petite to her face

on that topic beatrice's hallway fight gets projected to a room full of journalists and I am obsessed with that. did she go viral on the internet were there memes abt ninja nuns going feral

all throughout when something happens that pushes against the Norms and Rules beatrice will question it and it can come off as cold but really it's bc Beatrice strives on structure!! if she has to step outside the bounds of it, it better be righteous and worth it. like when she asks if vincent is intent on not giving the halo to lilith and keeping it within ava and he says yes her first reflex is but lilith is next in line. but the politics. this isn't to say beatrice was FOR killing ava like the moment she hears it could kill her she's NOT down to take it away from her but everytime the Order of Things is challenged Beatrice has to be walked through as to why. and if it's WORTH it. which oh boy the way this ties to her S2 arc makes me slightly insane bc ava comes barreling through that structure and beatrice says yes. she is worth upending my whole world for anyway-

Which is NOT to say that beatrice will take well to any kind of authority you actually have to earn her respect otherwise beatrice has. absolutely. zero chill. the tone she takes with duretti who's the fucking CARDINAL. from VATICAN. a pope HOPEFUL?? she is polite yes but curt and cold and very much flirting with impertinence like duretti tries to seduce her into his clique the way he did lilith and it fails astronomically and she basically tells him to go fuck himself?? to A CARDINAL?? DIRECT OVERSIGHT OVER THE OCS?? FROM THE VATICAN??? "you may always count on me to remain faithful. to God." and did you call him a power hungry whore too did you give him the finger beatrice???????

anyway I miss this show so fucking much

#warrior nun #this is a mess of jumbled thoughts it's here for safekeeping #wn S1 recap #might do another post abt supes/ava bc my god. what a layered relationship #and a dedicated JC vs beatrice post bc that specifically drives me insane

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markantonys · 11 months

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pulling together some of the s2 images we have so far! there's a LOT of stuff in the two teaser reels, so i'm focusing mostly on the shots from those that i can connect to the new promo images (which are especially helpful since we know what episodes they came from). sorry for the long post, i tried to do a read more but then for everything under the read more the images just displayed one by one instead of 2 or 3 in a row the way i'd formatted them and it looked bad.

first, rand. predicting that some of the first things we'll see from him is dream torment by ishamael (likely the source of the wheel shot) and meeting lanfear while alone and vulnerable:

then he'll go to cairhien and meet up with moiraine and lan, and have his lord arc (and get a fancy outfit):

then duel turak at falme in 1x08 (likely after receiving sword lessons from lan, which could be the Lan Shirtless With Sword shots we have several of):

i think these scenes with moiraine (and lan) are from the early episodes where she still has her s1 outfit and hair:

then she gets a fancy new outfit for cairhien (potentially the crying-in-the-bath scene), which could be where the beach scenes take place - but cairhien is landlocked (though it IS on a river), so maybe she keeps this outfit for the rest of the season and these beach scenes are at falme? i will say that i'm pretty confident the daylight beach scene is the same outfit as the cairhien promo pic, but not confident that the evening beach scene is the same outfit.

on to perrin's plotline. we have several shots (i've just included one) from a scene of his party encountering the seanchan in daytime and being made to kneel. loial is still free here.

loial appears to be getting captured here at night, and there's also shots of perrin's party fighting seanchan at night. the same scene?

we know loial is in seanchan captivity by 2x05, so all the above scenes must happen during or before that episode.

aviendha fights a whitecloak at night, which we've been thinking is the adaptation of the book scene where perrin frees an aiel from a cage (there IS a cage just behind avi here), and thus perrin & co would also be involved in this scene. could be the same nighttime fight scene as above, a three-way fight between perrin & co, whitecloaks, and seanchan? or it could just as easily be a different scene - if so, i'd guess in the second half of the season after loial has been captured and as perrin gets closer to falme.

we do know that the seanchan and whitecloaks will clash in falme, and in a market-y location that looks somewhat similar to the promo pic of perrin and aviendha:

overall, it seems like whitecloaks, seanchan, and aiel will all be heavily involved in perrin's plotline, which is great setup since all those groups are significant parts of his storyline at various points in the future.

from what we know so far, the girls' portion of the white tower plotline seems pretty straightforward and similar to TGH. egwene has novice kitchen duty in 2x01, then later prepares for a journey (with liandrin i'd imagine) and is made damane.

nynaeve takes the accepted test in 2x03 (side note: i'm extremely skeptical that portal stones and the flicker scene will make it and imo they should be cut even though they're cool, so i think the "what might be" episode title is for this episode, referring to the alternate life/lives nynaeve sees in her test, and perhaps rand can still see some alternate lives in his ishamael-tormented dreams). at some point she trains in the sword with warders, probably because she wants to be able to protect herself while being blocked. do we think that brown belt indicates she's an accepted, or is that still a novice outfit and this scene is set before her test?

the picture of elayne could be investigating in a basement while black ajah hunting? i also thought maybe the ways en route to falme, but it doesn't really look like the s1 ways.

mat's storyline is trickier to figure out because we have very limited shots of him so far. we know that in 2x01, he is crying in a room. from descriptions of the scene shown at cons, we know he is imprisoned by liandrin at some point in s2. seems likely enough that the below image is him in captivity, although it's also possible he could be at an inn or something there (feeling guilty for abandoning his friends) and gets captured later in the episode.

the only other images we have of him are these two of him wearing his exact same outfit from season 1 and the crying-in-a-room scene and standing against a generic background:

falme seems the most likely option - the stonework on image 1 looks similar to the stonework in the perrin & aviendha picture, and the arch in image 2 could be a falme arch like what we see in the perrin & aviendha and seanchan vs. whitecloaks picture. alternately, picture 2 could be tar valon since i think there were some white stone arches in the streets of that city too. if it is tar valon, it could be either a) early in 2x01 and we see his capture onscreen, rather than the episode opening with him already in captivity, or b) after he gets out of liandrin's clutches.

how will he get out of liandrin's clutches? maybe he breaks out on his own, or maybe siuan gets wind of what's going on and intervenes to make liandrin let him go - this could also serve as an event to strengthen siuan's suspicions of black ajah in the tower, leading to her creation of the wondergirls task force.

i will end the post here since i hit the 30 image limit haha

#yes i did feel very pepe silvia meme as i compiled this post #wot #wot on prime #wot book spoilers #wot show spoilers #the wheel of time #long post

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decepti-thots · 2 years

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ok so. i have now had a chance to skim through both volumes of the mtmte notebooks and instead of posting the entire thing one blurry photo at a time, i am going to do a quick post with my initial reactions/stuff that stuck out to me/etc.

if you want to keep things a surprise for when you get it and read it yourself, just ignore this post, haha! and i really do recommend getting this if you can. this is a very very fun thing to have for a comic. it's WILD to have this kind of stuff for one as niche as MTMTE, like the fact this exists is honestly kind of absurd (admiring).

it is amazing how many things from late game stuff is right there in 2010 notes. the rewind transformation sound thing that is in LL #23 (iirc)? THAT'S IN THESE. repeatedly. he has a whole thing about rewind having old transformation sounds and rung's transformation sound, it comes up and is iterated on several times. so though these notes are from "pre-production" and the first "series", there's a ton of stuff that goes right through to the end of the run.

one thing that LEAPED out at me is related to my opinion that mtmte series one is in part a slightly tilted LSotW sequel in its way. because it turns out two of the characters jro originally wanted for MTMTE were impactor and guzzle, who would have showed up later. like. holy shit i did not see that coming. that's wild to me. like it makes sense because again, a lot of mtmte s1 is indirectly a follow on from parts of last stand. but it's so far removed from that context that just seeing jro like 'yeah i want impactor and guzzle here' is. weird.

this guy wanted prowl for his book so fucking much folks, there are so many bits where he's trying to worm prowl in, LMAO rip

jro was not lying about how the plan was for chromedome to be the surrogate re: the baby. but by surrogate he meant instead of GRIMLOCK, chromedome was going to ADOPT THE BABY. i am losing it.

the rung situation is interesting. rung WAS suggested as being primus right from the start of these notes, but it wasn't the only idea he was throwing around- he wanted something to be up with rung but hadn't 100% settled on any one thing for ages here (though the primus thing comes up the most). other possibilities included him being the hivemind scraplet concept that got reused for Silent Light (yes, really), and him being one half of an unstable combiner. there's a lot of different stuff re: the primus concept too. so it's not WRONG to say the primus stuff was planned from the start per se, but it was in no way a sure thing.

in general there's looooads of stuff in there about religion. lots of different concepts for the guiding hand, for rung, for the knights. the early notes especially talk a lot about quintessons, there's various ideas for how to incorporate them, and unicron. which is vindicating because i have said FOR AGES i always got a vibe that jro was writing a universe in which 'the quintessons' was at least one plausible possibility for 'who made these guys', and while there's no actual discussion in here of the quintessons as direct creators (though yeah, there's talk of them as the knights), i wasn't far off. unicron too, he has various concepts including 'a small mech like rung as primus'. also one time he was like 'what if unicron was an idea' and the 2022 annotations are just 'oh dear' LMAO

oh and TONS about the concept of whirl being super religious in a 'fire and brimstone avenging' kind of way??? like this is something he returns to a lot, he liked the idea of the irony with rung, haha. (also, they were gonna have wayyy more of a prominent antagonism, i think. that's the vibe i got.) there's an issue pitch he mentions about some 'witchfinder general ft extreme violence' type coming on board and whirl hero worshipping him. it's interesting stuff

brainstorm was straight up gonna be bad. he was an actual decepticon double agent, and the quark plot originally had nothing to do with him- he was developing time travel, but jro literally says at one point he needs to come up with like. actual motivation for him. the quark plot was originally chromedome stealing it and going back in time to save the person who died after overlord.

who was… swerve. no joke. swerve and CD were originally the ones he was pitching as "best friends" before rewind replaced swerve (and then later on they're made married instead obviously, but that was wayyy later that was decided). also, one idea jro puts up before he makes said swap is that prowl is paying swerve to keep an eye on CD, but he starts to feel guilty and actually grows to like CD… which THEN jro would swap so CD was doing that to rewind before dropping it partway through actually writing the series, ofc.

oh man there's so much chromedome shit in here btw. AND rewind. those two get a lot of iteration and attention. originally CD's abilities were gonna be an outlier thing, it might have been implied he was in part a prisoner AT the institute, there was going to be a thing where he regretted having the opportunity to shadowplay megatron and didn't take it… also, i thought this specifically was VERY interesting:

surprising absolutely none of you. i am sure. yes, there's a lot of stuff hammering out cybertronian reproduction in here. lmao. (there is a point where the phrase 'birthing fields' is used.) but! specifically one thing of note, it goes into quite a lot of detail about ye olde concept of quickswitch being created (from what cd/prowl/etc learned from overlord, as a new phase sixer), and what that plot would have looked like. which is very very neat as i have always been SUPER curious about that. a lot of stuff re: nature vs nurture seems like it cropped up in that concept, plus the ethics of creating new life during wartime which feels like it became a foundational thing for MTOs conceptually.

drift! there is A LOT of drift stuff early on in here! fun fact: there was originally a plan to have rodimus want to detour to investigate his dead duplicate and drift got mad and refused because he was 100% desperate to find the knights, and they would have split up and the comic would have alternated between them/their crews. i can see why this was dropped in favour of exiling drift because that sounds like a structural nightmare in a monthly comic, but MAN i didn't expect that to even have been conceptualised. there's also LOADS about drift like, being someone who is very deliberately manipulating rodimus in series one. i'm just gonna show this whole character breakdown, because imo it is VERY interesting and puts to rest a lot of 'how much is deliberate, how much is it fandom overanalysing him?' stuff. while most of this didn't actually happen, it's clear a lot of thought was being put into drift's internal contradictions right from the start, they're definitely present.

god i have so much more shit i could say but i should probably stop here for now. LMAO. but it's just absolutely wild. a lot of the stuff here was definitely cut for a reason. many of the ideas are 'interesting, but near impossible to execute in the format', many more are 'buckwild but not necessarily good', some are genuinely like 'ah, yeah, not surprised you dropped THAT immeditaely', but just the sheer AMOUNT of conceptual STUFF going on here is fucking wild. there is so, so much just. raw STUFF he's poking at right from the start. you'd think they had told this man he had to create a continuity from scratch. it's an incredible document of just how much work went into this comic before issue #1 was even written.

#idw #meta

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ridiasfangirlings · 7 months

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you this is going to sound like an unpopular opinion but gora is not consitent when it comes to writieng characters

Honestly you’re right and you should say it :P I love K but I do agree there’s some inconsistencies with how the characters are written, especially between different media. I think some of that is just to be expected from a project like K, that’s a collaboration between different writers who all presumably have their own viewpoints when it comes to each character. I definitely get the impression that certain members of Gora are more partial to certain characters, and that some characters are written slightly differently depending on who happens to be doing the writing.

I also feel like K as a series grew and changed the more Gora wrote — in particular I think a lot of the earlier parts of the series don’t always quite fit with characterization from later media. Fushimi is a big example of this, his character from S1 is almost entirely different from how he acts in all subsequent media and it feels like they bent a little far to explain why he acts the way he does in episode 5 of season one (while I do appreciate that Fushimi went from generic vaguely yandere guy to sad disaster child it definitely makes his characterization feel a bit off when you compare season one to season two). Similarly S4 in general feels a lot more antagonistic and sinister in the early episodes of S1, and I feel like the Munakata of Side Blue the novel and the Munakata of the 7Stories adaptation of Side Blue aren’t quite the same. I kinda suspect that while Gora did have some ideas for how the story and characters should play out from the start (the Greens are teased as early as Side Blue, for example) there was also some measure of ‘throwing things at the wall to see what sticks and running with that.’ For example, the Ashinaka kids are much more prominent in season one to the point you’d expect them to be more of a focal point going forward but they largely disappear after this aside from Kukuri and even she’s largely relegated to cameos, and while there’s no way to say for sure I do wonder if we would have seen more of her and the other students if they’d been more popular with the audience.

And outside of the character writing we do know that Gora is not adverse to changing their minds and adding things to canon after the fact. Take the differences between S1, The First manga and the First Story novel for example. Hisui being behind Colorless isn’t even so much as hinted in season one of the anime but The First manga has a whole scene of Kotosaka interacting with Colorless which makes it clear. This is a fairly important scene in regards to what comes later and I feel like it would be odd for them to skip out on it in the anime, unless it’s something Gora came up with after season one had already been animated. Both the manga and novel also place a lot of emphasis on Colorless having the physical fox mask, which shows up only very briefly in the first season of the anime (offhand I think it’s just the random kid who calls Mikoto in jail and the personification of Colorless as a fox in that moment, whereas The First even replaces Shiro finding bloodstained clothes with Shiro finding a fox mask). The Return of Kings novelization adds a whole character arc for Neko that’s not in the anime, and while I think that was a huge plus it still does change that characterization slightly just by having this arc occur. In some ways K reminds me of writing a fic and changing things between drafts, it’s just for Gora one of those drafts was already animated or published and they just decided to roll with later changes as if those were there from the start.

#k project #Talking K #yeah I love K but consistency is not their strong suit #'Fushimi acts yandere because he's copying Niki!'#y'all absolutely made that up on the fly to explain why it never really happens again sorry #also don't get me started on the ways Homra in Las Vegas did not line up with Case Files .3.#Side Blue I feel like really stands out as feeling off to me versus later stuff #I think there was a lot of 'we have a basic outline but will figure out the rest as we go'

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imthepunchlord · 2 months

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Ok, so I was gonna wait to send this, but I'm afraid I'm gonna forget it, so I'll just send it now. This idea came to me after remembering one of your old asks where you put out the idea that the canon miracle box was one Fu put together with miraculous from several different boxes, and this line in a more recent asks "And throughout history, in hero selection, it's been a mix of free-roaming kwamis deciding, inheritance or stealing, and chosen by Guardians. With some kwamis becoming free roaming after they're lost or a faction of Order falling." So pretty much if you do decide to go with the idea that the og 7 aren't as connected, maybe (if you want to follow a similar start to canon) during the fall of the order (whether it was from Feast, Statue Mei Shi, a supernatural creature, a magic using enemy, a fire, or just some natural disaster) one of the guardians gave Fu a few miraculous they could collect (the just ladybug, cat, fox, bee, and turtle and not a whole box). Some time after the fall Fu event decides to carve a box reminiscent of the older boxes. As for the other miraculous they managed to survive and are still out in the world. This isn't really a suggestion for anything and more of just a little idea I had that I just wanted to share, so feel free not to take it too seriously.

Thank you for the suggestion, unfortunately I'm just going to have to put this as a "we'll see" answer.

I am currently making plans and changes to ML on what I think is going to be the best story route.

And at this time, that doesn't really involve the OG 7 being together in anyway.

Not only is Butterfly and Peafowl not with Fu, but for sure Fox isn't going to be with Fu either. It's either a family heirloom of the Rossi family (with Lila's great grandmother being a Guardian or pupil that was sent away with the Fox during the chaos of the Fall) OR Lila actually does buy it at the jewelry store, with Trixx drawn to her because she's a naturally deceptive person, and maybe an ancestor of Lila did use Fox before so Trixx is up to work with this bloodline again.

Bee also may not be with Fu, as at this time, Bee is still planned to wind up in Chloe's possession, and with what I'm thinking, that would work easier if Bee was not in Fu's possession.

I also can't say for sure that Fu will even have Ladybug and Cat.

Especially as I'm debating if Fu should even be in Paris at the start. At the core, there's not a lot he brings in to the story, he doesn't engage himself with the leads at all, most of s1, he stands in the background and watches. And him picking heroes isn't even all that exclusive to him. Early concept had Ladybug and Cat just coming into Marinette and Felix's lives on their own.

Though you do have the movie toeing the middle between the two concepts, with Ladybug and Cat in Fu's possession, but Tikki and Plagg pick the heroes themselves and their Miraculous zipping away from Fu.

But, given how uninvolved he is in most of s1, and his "tests" are kinda dicey, it may be better that he comes in later, drawn to Paris by it's Miraculous activity, and everything he brings in can be there post his arrival. And it can add that meeting Fu (and by extension Lila) can confirm that there's far more Miraculous out there than just 3.

At this time, the only confirmed Miraculous in Fu's possession is the Turtle. He is planned to have a few more, though not the 17 he has in canon.

#ask Punchie #miraculous changes #master fu

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thesherrinfordfacility · 9 months

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does aziraphale understand suffering?

i spent quite a while last night thinking about this topic following reading this thought-provoking analysis from @lstarart which, as the first bit indicates, early-days aziraphale only understood what it is to suffer in the abstract when it has a direct link to whether or not someone is Good (summarising very poorly!). nonetheless, i thought perhaps the concept of suffering according to aziraphale might need exploring a little further.

(warning: very long post - frankly it's just self indulgent)

suffering from lack of self-worth

one of the most heartbreaking moments in s2 for me is when in ep6 it seems that shax has a penchant for driving right at the heart of insecurity. she demonstrates this with maggie and the insult she directs at her, which to me acts somewhat as a parallel for crowley, culminating in the line “you are unloved, and unlovable. you’re nobody, and you’ll live - and you’ll die - a nobody.” now first of all - crowley isn’t there to hear it, and so only the audience can draw this as a narrative parallel. second - maggie’s reaction is to rise up to meet shax, and fight fire with fire; she looks first back at nina, perhaps for conviction or strength, says to the demons, “my god, you lot are pathetic.”, and appears instead to own those insecurities and refuse to be ashamed of them.

but then shax later turns her attention on aziraphale, who doesn't have that same conviction nor bolster from crowley being physically present, and shax directly drives at the heart of things about him of which he ought to be ashamed. we’ve always seen these elements of aziraphale as being the most lovable parts of him, and are what makes him the enigmatic and dynamic character that he is. however, as is hinted in s1 and now becomes abundantly clear, aziraphale guards these deep in his soul as being his deepest faults, cracks that he has ignored as they have widened, and has carried as a mark of him being lacking:

“Aziraphale… what are you? Crowley’s emotional support angel? The softest touch. The one who went native. Do you need more big, human meals, Aziraphale? Shall we send up the sushi?”

ive written about this before, so a lot of this is going to be repeated, but my thought process on these particular ‘faults’ is this; it is not beyond belief that aziraphale has major issues with self-worth and feeling like he isnt ‘enough’. what shax strikes at are, as i said, elements of ‘fault’ within aziraphale that we have had glimpses of through s1 and into the earlier episodes of s2; she remarks on his propensity for indulgence (sushi/meals), his tendency to be overtrusting and naive ("softest touch"), his lack of traditional angelic quality ("went native"), and the question of what exactly crowley feels for him and what purposes aziraphale serves in their dynamic (emotional support angel").

the way i see it is that aziraphale looks to two sources when evaluating his own self worth; heaven (and possibly god by extension), and crowley. heaven and the archangels completely disregard aziraphale, and are condescending and reductive in how they perceive and interact with him, with gabriel going so far as to insult his corporation (an insecurity that, iirc, we can even glean directly from the book when aziraphale reacts 'with disappointment' to the body he is in after adam splits him from madame tracy).

and crowley? well, to my mind, crowley’s dispensation to overprotect (whilst coming from a good place, of that i’m certain) reduces aziraphale’s agency, especially when crowley essentially talks over him in ep5 (and at other points too), and i could imagine leaves aziraphale questioning what exactly he is able to contribute to their relationship other than being a receptacle for crowley’s sense of loneliness and desertion. we know that's not the case, that it's infinitely more than that, but i could imagine that in this sense of feeling dismissed, aziraphale could see it like this.

then we have the two occasions where crowley strikes at aziraphale in regards to his naivety and belief, (“how could someone as clever as you be so stupid?”, “you’re better than that, angel!”) which, whilst is entirely valid from crowley’s perspective - because aziraphale is naive in his belief in higher power being willing to do the right thing, or be better - from aziraphale’s perspective, he’s struggled through millennia of reconciling his belief system and whether or not the side that he ‘belongs to’ is in fact Good or Right, and he in this he's still struggling. but hes getting there, and crowley has effectively been by his side guiding him through this monumental shift in his psyche; to have it turned on him in this manner had to hurt, even if he knows/realises after the fact that crowley was right.

imo, all of these elements strike at the notion that aziraphale is not “good enough”, especially in the eyes of the two entities to which he needs most to in fact think of him as enough, exactly as he is, in order to affirm any sense of self-worth. as i said in another post on this point:

“he's good enough to guard the eastern gate, but not good enough to keep adam and eve from temptation. he's good enough to guard and monitor the antichrist, but not enough to be truly accepted as part of the heaven hive (his physical sentry post on earth notwithstanding). he's good enough for crowley to run away with to alpha centauri, but not enough to convince crowley to choose to stay and fight with him to prevent the apocalypse… right up until ep6 when he's good enough to be loved by crowley enough to spend eternity with, but not enough for crowley to sacrifice his hang-ups with heaven and help him rebuild it as a team so noone else ever has to suffer what they both did.”

what point am i trying to reach here, as regards aziraphale’s perspective on the concept of suffering? well, to me, in this context, he knows suffering very well. he knows suffering of the personal kind, and it has never left him. It might have burrowed its way down, hidden under the affirmation that ‘i’m happy with myself, and crowley seems to want to know me, so it’s fine’, but it never has left him. he has been essentially ignored and neglected and traumatised by his experience with heaven, and slowly dismantling that belief system has been difficult and painful. however, instead of resolving to replace the source any sense of self-esteem with a belief in himself, he appears to have instead replaced it with crowley. and that's not fair on crowley, to be put on that pedestal (yes, my favourite topic of pedestals rears its ugly head).

aziraphale takes the opportunity with heaven given by metatron not only as one that would prevent further harm to him and crowley but also to others, an opportunity arguably of a more altruistic kind, but he sees it as an assurance that he, as himself (someone who is not wholly Good and in fact has faults), is what is needed to bring change to a broken system. it wouldn’t surprise me if in s3 aziraphale initially changes his emotional allegiance to heaven, away from crowley - a mirror of his resolution at the end of s1 - because the opportunity he’s been given, in his eyes, shows that heaven considers him enough, even if crowley no longer does. he channels his suffering in a wholly unhealthy way, unable or refusing to find self-worth in anywhere but a third party where he lays his absolute loyalty, whereas instead he needs to find it within himself first and foremost.

suffering from fear of discovery

somewhat leading on from this is aziraphale's fear of his and crowley's relationship being discovered. ive covered this in multiple other posts, but please be mindful that i go into this section under my own interpretation that neither crowley nor aziraphale have been in love with each other since the pre-fall scene. aziraphale is clearly crushing on the angel who crowley was (AWCW), that much is obvious (and AWCW is rather... ignorant of this), and even in a short space of time aziraphale comes to care enough for AWCW that he experiences concern and fear for the repurcussions should he start asking questions. but i don't think he's in love.

arguably, aziraphale and crowley from eden onwards begin very much as acquaintances. this evolves into allyship and burgeoning friendship, but the tone of their relationship to each other doesnt seem to shift until 1601, when aziraphale vocalises his worry over their arrangement, "but if hell finds out, they won't just be angry - they'll destroy you." aziraphale doesn't express any kind of concern for himself, only for crowley.

now this, i think, is a reflection of aziraphale's prejudice on hell being the black in the black and white; even if heaven found out, whilst they'd be angry, they wouldnt do anything drastic because it's the side of love and mercy. hell by contrast is torture and pain and cruelty. but beyond this - because i do think at this point aziraphale has started to truly recognise that crowley is not of hell himself - i think it is also out of genuine concern compared to that of his own wellbeing. the two reasons are not mutually exclusive.

this kind of continues into 1793; crowley tells him not to thank him for rescuing him, and aziraphale seems to recognise that crowley has a point - he immediately rewords his thanks as being "very grateful", and instead offers a transaction to express his gratitude. maybe not as deep and meaningful, but he seems to recognise that placing crowley under any scrutiny, however inadvertently, could spell for disaster. there is also the suggested risk of heaven now potentially keeping a closer eye on aziraphale, which is compounded by the legendary chocolates scene that didn't unfortunately make its way into the final cut.

that being said, the scene is in the script book - and as such, im mindful to accept it firmly as canon (can't remember if neil has confirmed it canon or not, given its not in the show). as a recap: in this, gabriel and sandalphon turn up unexpectedly to aziraphale's bookshop just before its opening in 1800, tell him he's being commended, and is required to return to heaven, thereby abandoning his sentry post on earth.

at this point, unnoticed by gabriel and sandalphon, crowley turns up armed with a gift box of chocolates. aziraphale pushes that he needs to remain in earth, citing that only he is able to properly thwart his hellish counterpart, adding that crowley is wily and cunning and brilliant - prompting gabriel to remark that it sounds like aziraphale admires him. this aziraphale understandably immediately denies, adding that he can't possibly like or admire a demon, but does respect him. crowley at this point has disappeared, but later enacts a pantomime that gabriel overhears, and gabriel resolves later to keep aziraphale stationed in earth.

if nothing else, this must put the alarm bells in aziraphale's head that heaven can turn up any time they want, and it could be at the most damning time; in this instance, it very nearly was. i would like to think that crowley understood why aziraphale had to say what he did, understood it was nothing personal, and aziraphale absolutely does not think this himself, and it was instead a ruse to protect them both from discovery. but following on from this scene? it would stand to reason that that fear is always in the back of aziraphale's mind; that heaven is just as capable as hell of ripping them apart and potentially making them suffer for it.. and in this case, the separation would have been a byproduct. imagine what their sides could do if they actually tried.

but back to 1827, where crowley is pulled down the hell hatch; what i personally believe to potentially be a direct consequence of aziraphale complimenting him on doing a good deed, and hell potentially overhearing. but this moves swiftly into 1862, which starts off tense and cold, for reasons that ive recently parsed out. aziraphale is placed into an incredibly difficult position by crowley's request for holy water. crowley is desperate for it, his body language and certain cues in that scene support that, but aziraphale doesn't fully know why. we, the audience, can hypothesise that it's likely a direct result of the 1827 yeeting, but aziraphale doesn't necessarily know that - a) because he's not truly listening to crowley in that conversation, and b) crowley presumably hasn't told him. at the very least, aziraphale doesn't seem to put the puzzle pieces together until 1967.

he immediately refuses the holy water because it could harm crowley, and to boot would mean that aziraphale himself would come under scrutiny. in the same breath, he reduced their friendship to fraternisation, either out of hurt/upset of crowley having ghosted him for (what we assume is) 35 years, or to put distance between them for crowley's and his safety; it'll be horrendous enough to be discovered for that, let alone if either side find out how far the fraternisation has actually gotten. if you bring the 1800 missing scene into this, that reaction would make sense.

1941 is rather self-explanatory, because it openly poses the risk that if aziraphale and crowley's relationship were discovered, crowley would be subject to a pretty shit existence in hell. aziraphale saves them though, and all is well, but it was a remarkably close shave. i do think that we are missing a key part of context that will be revealed in s3, but for the moment let's speculate that there is a trilogy aspect to 1941, and in that last part they get a little too close to More, and/or the reason behind the holy water request is revealed and discussed, but for sake of crowley's immediate safety aziraphale once again refuses.

between then and 1967, aziraphale seems to come to the conclusion that crowley having access to holy water is the lesser of two evils, and even if it is dangerous, it is infinitely more palatable than crowley being subject to whatever hell could bring to him. aziraphale hands it over, but is still beside himself at doing so - that he could be responsible for crowley's destruction - and physically and emotionally distances himself from crowley because of the implications of it. but nonetheless it seems that aziraphale firmly places crowley's wellbeing above his own, and risks discovery in order to ensure that crowley has a way out if things go tits up again.

i think it can be accepted that crowley and aziraphale don't truly interact again until 2008(?) when the antichrist business begins. aziraphale visibly blanches at gabriel's mention of crowley in the sushi bar, which i think can be interpreted as being out of that long-stagnating guilt of their association, reawakening the fear of heaven finding out, and also just out of good ol' fashioned pain of the separation aziraphale presumably enforced following, "you go too fast for me".

their interactions from st james seem stilted and tense (even in the ritz and the bookshop, to me it all feels very business-like, especially from aziraphale's perspective), up until tadfield manor, where their old dynamic seems to rise to the surface for air, and they settle into their old familiarity. crowley gets aggressive about being complimented, but it seems that aziraphale's fear of heaven finding out about them takes a backseat. that express lack of fear doesn't really come back to bite aziraphale until the archangels later accost him, and accuse him of consorting with the enemy - aziraphale denies this, not knowing that they have literal evidence of it.

but once we cycle through to the airfield, it feels like all bets are off; because as far as theyre both concerned, they're breaking away from heaven and hell. they do their little body swap, get them momentarily off their backs, and they don't have to hide anything anymore. we find out from crowley's perspective in s2 that that isn't entirely the case - that shax and beelzebub still manage to work their way into his life - but he doesn't tell aziraphale, and aziraphale assumes that they're free to live - and love? - as they please. this is evident in how gung-ho (by aziraphale standards) he goes in demonstrating his affection for crowley throughout s2.

aziraphale suffers for his association with crowley, and crowley for vice versa. and they both know that the other suffers, or at least surmises it. aziraphale specifically knows that their relationship, if the full extent were truly discovered, could lead to their respective downfalls, and this is where i think the true point of suffering comes into this context. aziraphale is obviously apprehensive of what heaven would do and how they would react to their relationship, but it's never really explicit what exactly he fears - he never mentions a fear of falling, for example. no, instead, the only true fear he vocalises is what would happen to crowley - a much more powerful and compelling motivator for hiding the truth.

and that has to hurt aziraphale, this being of love who wholly cares and (post-1941) loves crowley (and arguably also realises that crowley might have Feelings for him too), but the safety of the subject of that love is directly compromised should he act on it, or even acknowledge it. the only time he truly does is at the end of s2, by pleading with crowley to finally be with him where he (in his mind) thinks they won't have to hide anymore - who would dare challenge them? - but crowley can't do it.

and that's understandable, but it will require them to not only mask what they feel for each other from their respective sides (as if metatron didn't know already - he explicitly states that he knows about their association), but also now, once again and with the aim of not fully feeling the pain of their separation, from each other. the need to mask and hide and camouflage that love is suffering of a different kind, and again - aziraphale knows it all too well.

suffering from crisis in belief

now this is where i think we get to the kind of suffering that either aziraphale can't understand, or refuses to acknowledge because of the implications threatening to shake apart a core tenet of his character.

for this, im going to start back at the beginning, and specifically with adam and eve. aziraphale seems to know that without a literal weapon to protect themselves - which so happens to be a flaming sword, he went all-out - their lives are going to be rather short ones. eve is already expecting a baby, and aziraphale sees the absolute need to protect human life as paramount. he is a guardian, so this would track. he seems to understand that they would come to harm, that they would suffer, if they didn't have a means with which to defend themselves. the only key point that he and crowley both seem to miss is the implication of knowledge, specifically between good and evil, could also lead to suffering in humanity.

aziraphale just seems to know that it must be bad, even after literally seeing the fall (presumably) first hand... there is an issue with knowing the difference between good and evil, because it leads to conflict. but when crowley brings up that god should have made it more difficult to get to the tree, if it would lead to this, aziraphale chalks it up to all being 'ineffable'. he justifies that whatever happens to humanity - and by extension whatever suffering it encounters - it will all have been for a reason. that being said, he obviously feels some degree of doubt; he gives them the sword.

then we come on to mesopotamia, a thousand years later, when aziraphale is faced with the flood. he tries to excuse the flood by way of remarking that it only appears to be localised, and even then some humans are going to be spared. but crowley quite rightly points out that there are children that will be killed, and aziraphale meekly agreed, giving the suggestion that he too thinks it immoral, but that they cannot judge the almighty, and once again it must all be for a Reason. this extends into uz, when aziraphale battles directly with disobeying god's orders to bring suffering to job and his family when they have done nothing but be loyal and faithful in god. he remarks that he doesn't think that this is truly what god wants, but evidently can't be sure - and yet nonetheless fully commits to ending their suffering, and in turn expects to fall for it. he doesn't.

we then fast-forward to golgotha, and both of them watch as god's son is crucified, this time adding that he doesn't get consulted on policy decisions - intimating that if he did, if he had a choice, this wouldn't be happening at all, and he would end jesus' suffering. this one is difficult, because we as the audience know that the wider context is that jesus is submitting himself to die for humanity's sins; we could assume that aziraphale doesn't necessarily know this, but maybe he does, and to know might hypothetically cause him further internal conflict. does he save the one, and ensure the suffering of the rest? to have that dilemma would bring him too close to acting god, but it's an interesting prospect nonetheless. in any case, aziraphale seems to recognise jesus' suffering.

we don't really then have any further flashbacks of aziraphale being faced with human suffering until 1793, with the reign of terror. it doesn't go into detail on the intricacies of the terror or indeed the revolution, but he does remark that the execution of suspected and confirmed counter-revolutionists was "terrible". he remarks to crowley that he had heard france was getting rather "carried away", which would indicate that he had at least heard of what was happening and why.

we could take this in either two ways; that aziraphale, as a foreshadowing of 1827 - doesn't see why the people were revolting (and resulting at this point in robespierre and the committee's measures) - doesn't understand why people would be driven through their suffering to revolt, or he does see it and still feels that the measures they've resulted are not suitably justified. we don't have enough narrative of aziraphale in this particular setting to be able to reliably gauge what aziraphale's reaction to the terror truly is.

if i were optimistic, however, i would say it was the latter, because that would indicate that aziraphale has a higher level of thought on suffering, but still finds that the terror is unjustifiable - i think that would be a perfectly fair conclusion to arrive at, objectively. but unfortunately i think it is the former - that he doesn't really stop to consider why the people are revolting, doesn't see why the objectively awful thing they are doing may actually have moral justification, and what has driven them to these extremes. again, we don't know the reason why this might pose internal conflict for aziraphale... but we definitely do in 1827.

everyone knows this minisode, i think; a lot of it hinges on aziraphale being faced point-blank with reconciling why morality is not binary, and is always dualistic. he sees elspeth digging up bodies, desecrating them, and selling them to a surgeon for money. this is bad. he justifies his conviction because it is an immoral thing to do, and instead elspeth should have chosen another, more righteous, good, path. crowley correctly points out that that is difficult - if not impossible - when to do good is not an option that you can afford, or it has not been afforded to you. aziraphale argues that in fact to have experienced suffering, to start from the bottom, gives you more opportunities and more choices to chose the good thing simply because it's good. he further argues that it is ineffable, and that suffering is ultimately for a Reason.

but then he learns what is done with the bodies. he cradles the tumour of a young boy that didn't survive because doctors and surgeons didn't know what it was. he is confronted with the prospect that what he believes to be bad is in fact good, because it leads in this instance to human advancement and the possibility of ending suffering to more people. and he still misses the point. it's not as simple as switching out the label, because nothing is wholly good or bad; everything is a bit of both.

digging up bodies has the potential to hurt the people that mourn that person, but it educates others into ensuring that medically-preventable death doesn't need to happen. you could extrapolate this to elspeth - giving her the money doesn't guarantee her a better life, it could even make her a target, but it gives her a chance to feed and house herself away from the streets. preventing her suicide is good because her life is worth living and she could give and do so much, but she'll now presumably live her life suffering through the grief of losing morag. all he - and crowley - can do is give her the choice, and that is the right thing.

i think the ultimate issue with aziraphale being confronted with the suffering of humanity is that it directly plunges his belief into crisis, and specifically the belief that god is good, that god is benevolent, and god is ineffable. he watches as people suffer - all the examples ive listed above - and it directly contradicts his steadfast confidence in god and her action/inaction, because it leads to the question 'why'. further than that - what if he doesn't agree with the answer, if it's ever given? he definitely sees and acknowledges suffering, but doesn't look deeper into why they are given suffering in the first place, because of what answer he could potentially find.

aziraphale opts to turn a blind eye, to deliberately not see it, because he is scared of the possibility that he doesn't agree. he might not even realise he's doing it; that he's avoiding confronting the fact that he might not like what he finds. as i alluded to in the golgotha example, to potentially know more would be to place him in the position of god; able - and potentially enticed - to change the paths that people are going down that they should be able to follow or divert off of by their own choice.

heres where i come to the example of maggie; she is struggling with paying the rent, and resolves to move out. aziraphale initially doesn't fully comprehend that she cannot pay, just chalks it up to him being absent-minded and forgets the concept of not being able to pay for things, but when she clarifies, he offers up the opportunity to just forget the debt. ultimately, it means nothing to him, but i don't think he means this in a superior way; he's a supernatural, millions-year-old being where money is frankly irrelevant. its obvious that forgiving the debt, regardless, benefits him, and acts as his main motivator (and he even acknowledges this to crowley, "it hardly counts; a purely selfish action."), but he is being indirectly benevolent and kind through that selfish action. a bit of good, a bit of bad. maggie is grateful, but he doesn't take any gratification from it - if anything, he looks uncomfortable.

i think it's possible that now, following his historical experiences, being in the position of being able to do good somewhat makes him more uncomfortable that he's willing to admit. because to do good like this would be to acknowledge suffering. acknowledging suffering by way of countering it puts him in the position of having to understand why the suffering exists. and if suffering exists, then that shakes his belief of god - and himself - being good in the first place.

#good omens #a very VERY convoluted meta and frankly i absolutely hate it #there is so much wrong or non-sensical about it but i did my best #but i spent so much time on it that i couldnt not post it #so im resolving to just bury it in other posts lmao #if there are errors just pretend you didnt see them pls #aziraphale meta #s1 meta #s2 meta #flashback meta

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kmze · 2 months

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Thoughts on 2x01 - 2x11 So much better than S1, I am so much happier having more characters involved in the storyline and Katherine is such a great villian. I also noticed the lighting is warmer and brighter this season. I think I read somewhere that was intentional because they were introducing werewolves (warm orange hue) whereas the first season was vampires (cold blue hue). Also feel like I can SEE the scenes now (modern lighting on shows is the bane of my watching experience everytime) Random thoughts under the cut!

I cannot stress enough how much Katherine makes everything better, Nina deserved more accolades for how she played two very different characters interchangeably so flawlessly. Her presence even made me care more about the love triangle and the albit messed up dynamic. I mean her and Elena look EXACTLY the same and the Salvatore's want me to believe there's no transference issues? I'm so sure.

I definitely get more from Stefan and Katherine than I do from Damon and Katherine though. Katherine brings out the meaner side of Stefan that he pretends doesn't exist and I appreciate that. She is clearly still under his skin though as much as he wants to deny it because I really loved their scenes in 2x04.

Damon and Elena have great sexual tension and chemistry but I just cannot vibe with it because he killed her brother like a month ago?? I just continue to be flabbergasted by that (I am a hater).

Obviously I have seen the Stefan and Caroline scenes from 2x02 and 2x03 dozens of times but watching them like this in a rewatch makes me love them even more. Especially their scenes in the woods and at the swimming hole, Stefan is so much lighter around her. Even his scenes with Lexi last season didn’t feel as effortless. I know this early on he's friends with her because of Elena and "hero-boyfriend" duties but he still let her distract him at the grill because I think he genuinely likes being around her. Him showing her his insecurity about Damon and Elena already shows they have a lot of trust building between them. I love them.

I was so happy and almost cried at Liz being the first person to see how much Caroline changed when she became a vampire! The physical strength gave her so much confidence and Liz saw that instantly. It was so sad watching Caroline (kudos Candice) have to compel that away. I was just thinking in S1 like damn I can't believe their relationship was this rough but this moment sold how and why they become so close in the later seasons.

It’s really not a surprise Aimee and Sarah died, they were always too eager to get wasted in a town with mysterious deaths weekly. The odds were never in their favor. Katherine killing Aimee on the dance floor in front of everyone had me cracking up though! The best crazy bitch ever. The masquerade episode was probably my favorite so far in my rewatch, this is when the contrived events work with everyone playing a part in the game!

Caroline turning into a vampire really helped start to remove her from being stuck under Elena. Especially now as she's getting involved in Tyler's storyline who truly has nothing to do with Elena narrative-wise. She's even got her own love triangle brewing already.

I like how easily Stefan accepted he was going to be stuck in the tomb with Katherine for a few days, as if it was a weekend retreat. In all honesty he probably wanted to avoid Elena and the self sacrifice mission so he wouldn’t have to go along with it since he’s in “boring-choice-matters-self” mode. Because I thought it was odd he wouldn’t let Elena even see him and then told Damon to keep her away from there, so that's my theory.

Trapping Elena in the house was the best move for everyone involved. I’m sorry but the whole suicide mission was getting on my nerves. Girl shut up and sit down.

Someone should really have told Jenna already about vampires because then she'd stop inviting them into the house! Sadly I do not care about Alaric and Jenna either, I remember when I first watched I did but now, meh.

Bonnie and Jeremy are cute I don't care what anyone says! I know they have their issues in the later seasons but they could have come back to them, I can't have nice things.

Bonnie and Damon really do have great chemistry as enemies to reluctant allies, I will never forgive TPTB for denying me this.

Elijah is zzzzzz so far.

Lines that made me laugh:

Damon: Elena’s on a martyr tear that rivals your greatest hits (I yelled! he wasn't lying oh my god!)

Caroline: They were more... gold with amber highlights (she's so unintentionally funny)

#tvd rewatch #tvd spoilers #S2 rewatch #2x1 - 2x11 #my elena tolerance is very low lmao #but I'm enjoying almost everything else #and everyone is sooooo pretty #I mean the cast has always been gorg it was the cw #but this season is like damn #everyone can get it!#k rewatches tvd

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princess-of-the-corner · 11 months

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I mean, let's be real abt these retcons:

They started in Origins.

Chloe going from Marinette's rival and the two being on mostly equal footing in S1 to a long time bully so bad Mari was dreading the new school year in Origins

Was there ever any hints of Adrien and Chloe being close childhood friends until Origins?

Even Alya being a new kid feels like it wasn't initially intended thanks to her saying Nino was 'like a brother' to her in Animan, which usually implies 'these two characters have known each other for years', not 'this girl hasn't been in this city a whole year yet'

There are probably more but those are the three that always stick out to me

People just didn't notice or weren't burnt out by the show enough to realize just how retcon-y the show was even early on.

It's gotten much worse and is just blatantly in everyone's faces now, instead of being just a few things that get brushed off bc the rest of the show seemed good

Not... really?

Like we know Chloé's been bullying people for a while and that Mari started standing up to her. Origins still has her standing up to Chloé a bit, but it increases after gaining the extra confidence boost. That's not a retcon.

The Alya and Nino friendship I could see being just that they became fast friends. Especially for going 'he's like a brother to me' to dating in just an hour or so. And Alya did feel a little disconnected from the class dynamics, even with her being quick to make friends.

I'll give you the fact that Chloé and Adrien being childhood friends never seemed like a thing, but even in later seasons it never comes up unless Adrien is trying to use it to curb her behavior. Season 1 at least had two whole episodes(three if you consider that Origins is a two parter) where we see Chloé's genuine care for Adrien as a friend.

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the-eeveekins · 7 months

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It's time for my theories about why Season 2 of The Witch From Mercury was so rushed.

Hint: it's the executive meddling.

- Banrise ordered a 24/25 episode Gundam series. The goal was to bring in new fans, but doing it with a shorter series. We pretty much know this to be true from interviews. The story evolved and eventually settled into the school setting with duels, focused around Suletta & Miorine. Most of the other elements were for the sake of moving this main story along.

- There were probably two versions of G-Witch: the 24 episode plan, and outlines for a longer version that expanded upon the story and setting if they got an extension. Season 1 was probably slower paced because they expected it to get extended to a full 50 episodes, like 00 and IBO, at some point during production.

- Season 1 airs, production struggles, but the show is incredibly popular, drawing in new fans and trending weekly on Twitter. Gunpla is flying off the shelves and is difficult to find, especially Aerial, resulting in record sales numbers. Gundam is the most popular it's been with mainstream anime fans since the SEED/00 days.

- Despite all this, Banrise decides against extending the show, setting it to end at season 2. Personally I think executives didn't have faith in the longevity of G-Witch's popularity to renew it for a 3rd/4th season, especially when they had a Seed movie on the horizon, and as usual played it safe with their traditional fans instead of capitalizing on G-Witch's potential.

- Banrise requested some changes for the 2nd Season at some point: they don't want Suletta & Miorine's relationship being explicit, as it has proven unpopular with conservative fans, and tell staff to tone down their relationship and make it subtextual. Guel has been popular with traditional Gundam fans, who also want more serious mobile suit battles, so they tell the staff to find a way to include them more in S2.

- My reasoning is that we can be 99% certain that Banrise suppressed Suletta & Miorine's relationship in the show. Between their homophobic press release, some comments (and art) by the staff and the fairly accurate leaker mentioning a kiss scene, I think it's a pretty safe assumption that they were forced to change how the relationship was depicted, perhaps as early as S1. There was a lot of foreshadowing to a kiss and a wedding that never happened.

- As for the Guel and DoF stuff being forced in, this is less shade on Guel/DoF and more about how if they only had 24 episodes, side-content almost completely disconnected from the main story should have been one of the first things cut. Maybe the staff was just incompetent and bit off more than they could chew, but we also know Guel was very popular with Gundam's more "traditional" fanbase, who also complained from the start that the show was set at a school and not a traditional war drama. Episode 15 feels more like the staff needing to capitulate to Banrise/those fans than being at all necessary to the plot, while adding in the Guel/Lauda plot later to keep him around to appease Banrise and "traditional" fans.

- Season 2 airs, and while it still managed to hit all the major story beats from the original storyline, the pacing was rushed to comply with the requested changes AND finish telling their original story. Guel's sub-plot and the Dawn of Fold episode were added, but ended up largely disconnected from the main story. Things like Chuchu & Nika's resolution, more details on Notrette/Quiet Zero, and additional battle scenes for units like the Demi-Barding and Gundam Schwarzette were cut in order to finish the story in 24 episodes. Suletta & Miorine got less screen time together and their kiss and wedding were cut, with the epilogue changed as a result.

- Staff still found a way to make Suletta & Miorine's marriage explicit in the show with the rings and the sister-in-law line. Banrise exces either didn't notice or didn't care because there wasn't an on-screen kiss or wedding and their girls never said "I love you." Regardless, I don't think Banrise has an issue with how the relationship was depicted on-screen, but are very anal about an "official source" confirming they're married, despite it being confirmed in the anime. So far no changes have been made to the broadcast versions currently available.

At the end of the day this is all just speculation. Maybe the staff did just have poor project management (they certainly struggled to finish episodes on time) and wrote more than they could possibly hope to fit into 24 episodes and made poor choices for what to keep and what to cut. It wouldn't be the first time such a thing happened. But there's just a little too much evidence that they were probably forced to make changes to G-Witch during production, which I personally believed resulted in the absolutely bonkers pacing of S2 (that, in my opinion, worked out really well until about episode 20) and multiple plot points that just were either unnecessary for the main story or felt half-baked.

I'm generally happy with the final product because they at least landed Sulemio's ending despite being held back by Banrise. And while the pacing resulted in a rushed ending, the show still managed to tell a solid story with amazing characters, animation, music and mechanical designs. I personally thought the story was great and don't have an issue with how it ended, it just needed either more time to breathe or for the show to be more streamlined so it wasn't rushed.

The things I loved about G-Witch significantly outweigh the things I didn't like, which is why it's my favorite piece of media ever despite it's flaws. But the fact that it had the potential to be so much more, but was kneecapped by poor project management and/or executive meddling, will always be a little frustrating.

#g witch #the witch from mercury #gundam the witch from mercury #gundam #mobile suit gundam the witch from mercury

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