#but i have zero interest in cheating plotlines

[purrincess-chat]

Ironically, "Marinette is dumped by Adrien, then gets into romantic relationship with Chat Noir" is more or less beginning of "Chat Blanc"

It's basically as if (some) MariChat shippers want first half of "Chat Blanc" (where Chat Noir has "happy romantic relationship with Marinette" after finding out that she is Ladybug and deciding to don't tell her about it) to happen, but without "second half" (where Gabriel finds out that "Adrien = Chat Noir" and exploits it to akumatize Chat Noir into Chat Blanc)

There's a really weird double standard in the fandom, and a lot of people infantalize Adrien and are weirdly protective of him. So, I think a lot of people are taking the secret keeping personally, but the thing about it is, it shouldn't fall on Marinette to reveal all of the dirt on his family. Nathalie tried to have Gabriel tell him two seasons ago, but they never did and never pushed it again. I think if anyone should tell him, it should be Nathalie. Ya know, an actual adult in the situation who knows more than Marinette does.

Marinette has had her own share of trauma the past few seasons and has had to deal with way more than she should have. I think one telling moment to me that a lot are overlooking throughout this whole discourse is in Migration when Adrien is talking to the blue boy about Marinette keeping secrets from him back then. He wasn't pressed about knowing the secret; he just didn't want her to feel guilty about it. Because he has secrets too. I can maybe see a similar situation happening in s6 where she feels guilty about it, and maybe it does cause some contention in their relationship, but it doesn't necessarily mean they have to break up over it. They could and probably will work through it. I doubt she will ever tell him, at least not as Marinette bc that would mean a reveal, and we know the writers are milking that for all it's worth, so I doubt the secret is going to break them up necessarily.

The main and most plausible threat I could see is Lila/Cerise/Iris/whoever the fuck. But we will have to see.

#cat replies #asks #s5 discourse #i feel like i remember seeing thomas at one point saying #that they would date for the remainder of the show #but it was before everything in s5 so no one could tell if he was being serious or not #but i hold hope that its true #bc i really dont want back and forth shit #it was fun before they became official #but i have zero interest in cheating plotlines #or break up switch sides over and over #THAT is boring to me and unfulfilling #and imo would rob them of deeper development #so like rip to all yall that are into that but im different #give me a couple that goes through trials together and works to stay together #just bc theyre a couple now doesnt mean they cant experience drama and hardship #a breakup is not the only way to give a couple drama #yall broadcasting your own lack of creativity #it really is mc stans all over again #ml fandom salt #ugh

[ravenadottir]

cmm

one last time, because i hope i never have to talk about this again. wanna know how tragic it was to wake up in the morning and spend a solid thirty minutes on today's episodes?

i'll tell you... through bullet points... SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO THROUGH IT.

🚨🚨 SPOILER ALERT! 🚨🚨

sooooooo... episode 9, filler. @bobby-mckenzie called it yesterday, and yes, oh, yes it was. not even a good filler, 'cause if episode 9 was a snack, it would be yogurt. (shout out to elladine for this reference).

next we have the confirmations fusebox thought it was important to address, such as:

- gary bleaches his hair. my whole trauma is clear, thank you so much for the observation. i would've died of curiosity if you hadn't confirmed it. except WE ALL KNEW IT, and it was the one fun thing to banter about, so thanks ? no "good effort" medals for you.

- rocco has a big dick. i don't know what to tell you except... yay? for chelsea? my mc is not bouncing on that so why should i care??? what do you want me to do with this information? next time i replay s2, look him up and down and go "rocco... NICE COCK." ?? that's... weird that they felt the need to put this out there.

- lucas actually planning a van/bike trip with rocco. I'M REALLY GLAD THIS IS THE LAST TIME I SEE LUCAS NOT BEING LUCAS.

- MAYO LOG, 'BON HAPPY EAT' AND PEOPLE SAYING BILL SOUNDS LIKE GARY. I- PLEASE. i'm ✨disgusted✨

- gary misspelling a word that's so fucking obvious and common? really going out of your way and reinforcing the working class stereotype here, fusebox. they really grabbed gary by the tiddies and said "you're not gary, you're his dumb cousin, barry."

- rahim in fact brought the horse for his chad character, and you know what?? WE DIDN'T EVEN GET TO SEE THE DAMN HORSE. i repeat, THEY COULDN'T DRAW THE HORSE! do i understand how he knew about the murder mystery? no, i do not. am i gonna play it back to remember? NO ❤, I SIMPLY DO NOT CARE. CONSISTENCY LEFT THE BUILDING OVER A YEAR AGO, and i'm about to as well.

- "love on the prairie", by hannah GODDAMN griffiths??? can you be more obvious? IT'S A MIRACLE HOMEGIRL GOT TO WRITE A WHOLE GODDMAN BOOK OVER WHAT... 5 HOURS SHE WAS IN THERE? moving on.

- hannah got a surname but not... noah? carl? henrik? kassam? ibrahim? hope? priya? lottie? marisol? like- THANKS, I'LL MAKE SURE TO MAKE A FULL-ON FANFIC AND MOODBOARD WITH THIS PIECE OF SHIT INFORMATION. i'm sorry, i'm getting aggressive again, but it really tickles the pits of hell inside of me that we got her surname and not anyone else's. good for the... 3 hannah stans that are with her i guess??? 🗣 AND SHE WASN'T EVEN THERE!!!!!

- oh yeah, marisol was the killer in mine. i really tricked myself into believing this wasn't gonna be a "BLUE'S CLUES" children's detective club, and the nail thing was gonna be a ✨MISDIRECT✨. my bad. i will bring zero expectations with me next time.

- again. if this whole special was to finalize some plotlines the players needed to be unvailed, why didn't all the characters get surnames? THERE'S NO REASON FOR THAT.

ALL I HAVE TO SAY IS 'WOW'.

did i leave something untouched? i think so, because married mc's get some consequences if they cheated?

not if you're single tho. nothing interesting happens if you chose to bed someone. which is weird that i banged gary but didn't get a scene with him ?? like, nothing ??

besides that, that's all it happened. which means this whole special could've been resumed within FIVE episodes. not ten! five was more than enough.

did the single mc get a cool scene with chelsea at the end? one that i actually pictured it could be chelsea and mc in the finale of season 2 if mc is single? yes, i did. was it worth it? NO. it was the only consistent thing on chelsea so far, and for that, i... thank ... you? I DON'T. THE WHOLE THING WAS A WASTE OF MY TIME AND ENERGY.

but if you wanna see it, here it is. they laugh a lot and made me think there was some funny oregano in the drinks, but eventually they got to tell each other how special they are to one another. it was actually nice, but that's the only cumpliment i have.

this would've been perfect on afterparty if mc stole the money and was single. here? "you can always count on chelsea" should've happened back then, when mc needed a shoulder to lean on, but i digress!

i was also disappointed thinking these creepy pictures could mean something, and they were the house owner's, which would turn out to be someone importnat, but hey, I GUESS I SET MYSELF TO FAILURE EXPECTING THE BARE MINIMUM.

the only thing i truly thought about chelsea and how she's treated by men was confirmed but i can't give props to them because... RANDOM? OBVIOUS? HAS BEEN SAID BEFORE?

IN CONCLUSION:

i'm honestly sad that they felt the need to ruin all these characters for us, just so they would have a small money grab. like-

STOP INVESTING ENERGY AND RESOURCES ON SPECIALS THAT DO NOTHING FOR THEM. PLEASE, I'M BEGGING YOU. FOCUS ON THE NEW SEASON AND PLEASE, STOP WITH THE SPIN-OFFS.

milking this season just so you wouldn't do them justice?? no one asked for this. no one asked for yet another piece, if you can call it that, that just doesn't bring anything to the table. they ruined a good thing and for what?

like-

this is the type of thing people remember hating but can't remember the reasoning behind said hatred. you know why? THE WHOLE THING WAS BUSTED.

and the fact that they had zero care for female li's?? henrik? carl? hope? the actual history about the others? the whole mystery was so forced and unfunny how obvious it was.

no other new layers on anything except for disgusting foods chelsea made??

fusebox really out here saying they put some effort into this.

#litg cmm #litg murder mystery #litg murder mystery spoilers #spoilers #litg #I TRIED TO LIKE IT #BUT THANKS I HATE IT #i'm- #don't even know what i am right now #call me dramatic #but to put some paid options in there #and deliver trash in return? #the mystery is why i keep coming back to play their shit

[initiumseries]

Hey! I love your thoughts on bad tv and I’d love to hear a series wrap up on CAOS if you want to make a post about it. If not no worries and thanks for posting your thoughts on the show over the last year. Loved them and love your blog too!

Thank you!! Sure I can totally do a series wrap up, pretty much right now, in response to this ask. 

So, if I had to distill my issues with this series into a few bullet points it would be: 

-plot -world building/continuity -characters

Plot

CAOS struggles with plot, and I think the biggest reason why, is they just seemed to completely lose track of what the hell they were doing lol. Season 1, ends up being the tightest season because the plot was simple: Sabrina’s dark baptism and her leaving her mortal life behind to become one with witchkind. They beat us to death with the Satan stuff, and they cram as much corny imagery as possible in, even if it doesn’t really make sense. 

why are they having class in a hallway? Do witches not use technology? Why is that blackboard so small? Why isn’t this just a normal classroom setting?

Sabrina’s Season 1 character arc is also clear: she decides, fuck the rules, she’s going to straddle both worlds and everyone’s just gonna have to accept it. It’s not good, but it’s clear. S2, 3, 4 get completely lost in all this other weird stuff. Sabrina is actually not her father’s daughter, but Satan’s, and that plotline goes absolutely nowhere when Sabrina conveniently doubles herself (and experiences 0 consequences for it) and rules hell while also staying in Greendale as herself (seriously, it’s not like satan was dying or anything, he was perfectly fine. For what reason did Sabrina need to become Queen? There’s no answer or explanation for that, she just...did. Ok :/).  Father Blackwood goes apeshit and pulls a Jonestown, for no real reason, CAOS starts leaning heavily into this white feminism stuff (for godsake, the coven kills a DEMON, with the fucking pain of childbirth?! Are you SERIOUS??) Then, s3, it’s about losing their powers because Satan is childish and petty, and a new group of spellcasters are out to kill the witches, and Prudence and Ambrose hunting Blackwood. S4, the eldritch terrors, which honestly, make so little sense, I couldn’t even be bothered. Each season, CAOs falls deeper into the trap of trying to up the ante, make the danger BIGGER, WILDER, more insurmountable, while being completely unprepared to stay consistent with their characters/motivations and undercutting their own BIG ideas with stupid, nonsensical solutions (let me trap this all powerful eldritch terror by taking it to a party, proposing and luring it into a magicked dollhouse...wtf?). 

Worldbuilding/Continuity

What I hate most about these writers for Riverdale and CAOS is that they just don’t feel beholden to being consistent in their worldbuilding and continuity. I don’t find anything cool about kids living in houses with old tvs and rotary phones, but then having a cell phones or wearing modern clothes. Historical anachronisms like that should serve a purpose. 

It COULD be interesting if the conceit is that Zelda and Hilda are OLD, so they take comfort in old things like that, but then that should be specific to the Spellman house, and it should be weird. People should take note of it when they’re there, Sabrina should be conscious of it because she grew up in a time where TVs didn’t look like they were stuck in the 50s. But instead, it’s just...a stupid mess of aesthetic anachronisms for no reason other than they can do it and I just find that to be lazier than utilizing those details in an interesting way. 

In season 1, we get a relatively clear idea that the witches have a certain way of life, that bleeds into season 2. It’s still very sloppy; the anti-pope, using satan where we’d use “god”, introducing the feast and other dangerous parts of being a witch, and essentially just doing the opposite of christianity (except for the racism/sexism ofc. That would require too much thinking I guess). But by season 3, essentially the witches’ way of life have been completely turned upside down. And we never...unpack that. There’s no mourning for literal millennia of supposed tradition, there’s no real floundering or struggling. There are apparently no other adults AT ALL in this magical world outside of Blackwood, Zelda and Hilda, so there’s no real way to get a sense of the REALITY of losing their way of life for these witches, or this world. Is it even a world? Or just a handful of people? Lol. What it means to have to choose a new god to pray to, and is there an divisiveness over who? In Harry Potter, the kids’ parents are tangentially involved when they start pulling their kids out of Hogwarts. Do any of these kids’ parents pull them out of the school when they start praying to Lilith and then Hecate? Do any of the boys have issues with moving from a male god to a female one? Where did all these kids come from if they didn’t have parents and families? Is this witch world just...the school? Why? It would have been interesting watching the witches struggle and scramble to regain their powers while also being hunted by this new, threatening group whose magic seems to be much older, much darker. But instead, they just pivot, and have a fucking picnic before the full moon. 

There’s nothing interesting about characters just constantly pivoting around obstacles without having any real emotional reaction, any real struggles. Obstacles like losing their powers, should be an actual obstacle. They should struggle, there should be emotional weight, and consequences. Instead, Sabrina continues to break rules to suit her agenda, put her friends and family and risk and everyone just...rolls with it. No one is angry at Sabrina for the loss of their powers? Her choice to not become Queen of hell is why they lost their powers right? No one has feelings about that? Sabrina isn’t ostracized? We never see the way these choices, or the overarching plot obstacles impact the characters emotionally. Instead, they’re doing this stuff:

Which is completely ridiculous to me. It all just...HAPPENS. Which is this entire series. Stuff happens, and the characters just, do stuff in reaction to it. Harvey, Theo and Roz are ostensibly human, living human lives. They end up getting pulled into Sabrina’s world, and no one has any strong feelings about that? Harvey’s brother is killed, Roz is turned to stone and Theo talks to his dead great aunt and none of them are haunted by any of that? No? They just decide to create a faux scooby club to fight demons?  Ok. And that cheerleading things is over as quickly as we see it. Stuff like this is insanely frustrating to watch because it makes the show a nonsensical slog to sit through. There’s nothing interesting or engaging to latch onto because they just hammer through it all and make up stupid solutions to get themselves out of the impossible stakes they threw the characters in in the first place. They introduce ideas and discard them just as quickly. An ex:angels show up, start killing people, Sabrina channels satan and kills them, and then that’s the last of those guys. Metatron (jfc even the name is stupid) shows up and is killed just as quickly.  Why bother introducing them then? Why bother do any of the things you’re currently doing in this show if you have no intention of seeing it through? 

Characters 

No one on this show gels, at all.  I don’t believe Theo/Roz/Harvey/Sabrina have been friends for ages. I don’t believe Sabrina and Nick are “end game” (why the hell do we keep saying this riverdale? It’s stupid and senseless). I don’t believe any of these relationships at all. Part of this is because the cast have no chemistry with each other:

they do not look like a friend group or couples at all, these are a bunch of people paired together.

But also because they weren’t consistent at all. 

Father Blackwood went from a witch/warlock purist, to a raging sexist, to a cult leader who killed his followers, to a raging maniac bent on hitler-esque destruction in 4 seasons...for nothing. It served no purpose. He didn’t even DO anything. He was nice to the Eldritch Terrors, and became immortal...for nothing. He killed the coven, for nothing. He killed his wife in childbirth, for nothing. Zelda stole the baby, for nothing. None of that amounted to anything worth while in the entire series. So what was the point?  Zelda marrying Faustus also made no sense and only happened to show JUST how sexist he was! But why? WHY? We don’t receive explanations for character behaviour, and when we do, it still makes no sense. 

Sabrina breaks all these rules and experiences ZERO consequences. At all times, and it makes her a terrible main character. Everyone else abides by the rules but she doesn’t and doesn’t have to pay for that? Why? She straddles both worlds instead of committing to one, and that was the closest we got to seeing consequences for her. Everyone rushes in to help Sabrina break rules instead of holding her accountable for feeling above them. Sabrina creates 2 versions of herself, and they sloppily tie in that all the realms are converging in on each other because of what she did. Except she and Sabrina Morningstar had been hanging out...ostensibly for days/weeks/months (who knows? Not this show!) before we saw any potential issues, and then we end up finding out that this is about the next eldritch terror, not about Sabrina existing as a double in 1 universe. People get upset for a second and then move on to help her. So why have rules in this world at all if it means nothing to break them? 

Nick goes through literal hell, and immediately cheats on Sabrina because of how a man made of clay looked at her. That’s laughable to me. It makes no narrative sense. Their relationship doesn’t even make sense.

Roz and Harvey spend 90% of their time almost fucking. It’s bizarre. Their getting together was random and every single scene with them alone in it is like a precursor to fucking and I don’t get why. This show does not grasp how to build up relationships. Also do these kids not have parents? Theo and Harvey stay having constant sleepovers with their respective partners, in their parents’ houses? Really? At seventeen? Lol k. 

I feel like, if CAOS were better thought out, it could have actually been interesting. But it was just a smorgasbord of stuff happening, and characters doing stuff, and none of that following in any real narrative way. Storytelling has structure for a reason, and a show with a good story structure usually yields an enjoyable watching experience. CAOS is a pretty strong example of how throwing that out and relying so heavily on aesthetics and still taking the show so seriously it’s not even fun terrible, gets you nowhere. Ultimately I’m glad it’s over.

#caos #caos netflix #the chilling adventures of sabrina

[go-ldy]

You feel like Veronica is a better person than Betty? Some of V fans are always going on and on about how awful Betty is (and I get it about the cheating part), but they act like V never did something that wasn’t right? Or that just Because in 4x19 she was “the voice of the reason” it means she is always right sigh. I honestly think the issue is how the writers showed their friendship (which was mostly V helping B because Betty was always in the main mistery of the season, after episodes of not

+ episodes of not talking to eachother, so it looks like B doesn’t care about V, but that’s mostly on the writers who never care about a friendship unless it fits the mistery of for drama I guess.). Sorry for the long question, but I just can’t at some of V fans being so hard on my girl lol.

Thanks for the question! Truthfully, I am sympathetic to Veronica fans on this. I wouldn’t say that Veronica is a “better person” than Betty. Everyone on Riverdale is flawed imo, and everyone has done some extremely shady shit. But I do think Veronica has been a better friend to Betty than vice versa. As you pointed out, mostly we only see their “friendship” when Betty needs something from Veronica. And Betty kissing her best friend’s boyfriend is... not a good look. Especially when you contrast it to how Veronica prostrated herself to Betty after kissing Archie, someone Betty had no claim over, in the Pilot episode. So it makes the friendship look one-sided. 

I also think that Betty generally gets the meatier plots - usually Betty is either driving the A-plot or a part of the central plot whereas Veronica gets stuck, yet again, feuding with her dad or making rum. Betty is my girl, and I am not complaining that she gets the best storylines, but I also love Veronica, and her stories and plotlines are lacking. I think sometimes fandom sees this as a zero-sum game - like, if Betty got fewer meatier plotlines, it would mean Veronica would get more. But I want both the female leads to be part of the A-plot and have interesting, complex stories. And I don’t think that’s asking for too much tbh!! 

Betty as a character is to blame for this. Riverdale as a whole does a poor job with friendships, and in particular has let down Veronica and Betty as a friendship. We got it a little in season 1, but almost nothing since then except for when Betty needs something from Veronica. Their relationship could be multi-layered and complex, but the writers of this show have largely chosen to just pay it lip-service. 

This is something I think about a lot when I’m writing fic. I have barely written any Veronica or Betty interactions in any of the fic I’ve written and a lot of it is because I struggle with their dynamic. I feel like we know so little about what actually makes them work as friends and so... mostly I avoid writing them sadly.

#Anonymous #Riverdale #Betty Cooper #Veronica Lodge #I mean... these two characters love each other #and would do anything for each other when push comes to shove #but we just so rarely get to see this from them #RD negativity

[albatris]

is there romance in atdao or is it all just found famiy vibes? if there is romance im real curious about how peeps would express those kinda feelings

hello hi hello this took me AGES I’m very sorry I kept getting distracted by things such as being asleep

anyway yes thank you for the question! romance? yes, we’ve got some of this going on, sure, though I would count the romance as within the found family c:

I don’t know if you wanted a Ramble™ but this is a topic I can ramble about and I’m in a bit of a rambling mood so you can have a ramble, free of charge, just take it up to the register and have them enter the code “logan this is not what I ordered”

but yeah, your question? about eight vaguely relevant tangents immediately spring to mind! also spoilers?? spoilers after the cut

I really should have formatted this response in a way that puts the super spoiler heavy part at the end but since when have I ever ever in my life made things easy for my dear sweet followers

y’all know what I’m like with spoilers by now 

but yeah, to set the scene, there’s two main romantic......................... situations going on in the story, the first being between Noa and Alice, and the second being between Kai, Tris and Shara. so, the former I would describe as “a legitimate romantic subplot” and the latter I would describe as a character tripping and falling into it by sheer chance and just being like “oh whoops well I guess this is what I’m doing now” which is also extremely valid

Noa and Alice end up not being, like, Confirmed Endgame by the end of the story even though much of the plot looks like it’s heading in that direction, and like...... yeah, in my head, they do end up in a romantic relationship at some point post-story, but I’m not sure on what sort of timeline

during the story itself, it’s established that they do share mutual feelings for each other and this is likely heading towards a romantic relationship, but I think since much of the story sees Noa still trying to find her feet in just, like....... having friends at all, and trusting those friends, and knowing who she is in relation to others on any sort of level, I think near the end of the story she decides that she’s not at a place where she wants to try and figure out a romantic relationship just yet

it’s not a hard no, it’s just a “hey not right now” and a “let’s see what happens later down the track, for now it’s just nice to be around friends” ‘cause even that is just super new territory for her

which I worry will make people feel cheated, but also, I think it’s the ending for this subplot that would make the most sense for where the characters are at and would be the most fitting c:

and secondly there’s like

hm. ok

well, there WAS a vaguely jokey post I made yonks back where I pitched the idea of an ATDAO polyamory ending being just like. Alice who’s dating Noa who’s dating Shara who’s dating Kai who’s dating Tris. and I stand by this being solid as hell. but also, given the ending to Noa’s subplot with Alice, it doesn’t really work in the story canon, n though I think Noa and Shara is a dynamic I really enjoy, it would likely not actually play out in reality :P

which leaves the trio of Shara, Kai and Tris, a trio I’ve always vibed with and had vaguely on my radar as a valid poly ending but for some reason didn’t twig that I could just, like, make it canon and no one can stop me LMAO

but yeah, this one, like I said, it’s not so much aHD whole big subplot, it’s just something that falls into place super casually and is never really brought up beyond “oh is this a thing that’s happening?” “yeah” “cool ok”

I think there’s a brief window as a reader where you might be like “ugh this is gonna be a stupid love triangle or some weird jealousy thing” but then it just ends up being a complete non-issue. there’s basically zero romantic drama for this plotline, Tris and Shara are bros and Kai is dating both of them

n as for your question itself, it depends on whether you mean, like.......... how they would go about expressing to someone else that they have romantic feelings or, like, how they express their affections in a romantic scenario

‘cause for the former, the answer for both Tris and Noa is just.... they don’t

Noa because at the start of the story she views her crush on Alice as a huge fucking inconvenience that’s going to make things messy and complicated, so she just tries to ignore her romantic feelings as hard as she can (obviously this doesn’t last hahaha). but yeah, she’s just very pissed off that she has a crush and doesn’t want to acknowledge it :P she also has no idea how to respond when Alice expresses romantic interest in her, this is all extremely new territory

and Tris because he doesn’t realise he’s even experiencing romantic feelings in the first place?? like. the boy has so much baseline anxiety jitteriness that stuff like, idk, feeling your heart pick up pace, butterflies in the stomach, any kinda social nerves you get around the people you like, etc, he experiences this with Kai and is automatically just like “great now you’re here and I’m having a panic attack can you please leave”

just slaps a label of Bad Vibes onto it then later is like Wait A Minute

but yeah, I think neither of them would be super comfy actually expressing their feelings out loud or making that first move, Noa because she’s super fuckin petty and stubborn and Tris because he’s waaaaaaaay too fuckin socially anxious for that shit are you kidding

in terms of how they express their affections though??

so like. I have to reiterate that I’m aro and ace and I have a lot of difficulty in articulating what makes a romance A Romance, like??? I have relationships that are friendships and relationships that are romantic, but I myself don’t really experience romantic attraction in the way other people do

as such, the way I write characters in their romantic expressions tends to be just an extension of how they act in their friendships? which I think is a pretty ok thing to base a romance off anyway, but like, yeah, romance, this is a mystery to me for the most part, do I look like I know what a romance is

anyway I think once Alice and Noa get a little closer there’s a lot of good-natured ribbing and friendly insults, n since they already had a bit of a rivalry going on beforehand I would imagine this competitive streak doesn’t disappear :P Noa is generally uncomfy with being Openly affectionate and soft with others, so I think there would be a lot of more “indirect” ways she shows this care. I think they have the kind of relationship where from an outside perspective you don’t really get how it’s warm and affectionate, but it’s just ‘cause you don’t know the lingo, right

Tris is just the cheerleader type in all friendly relationships I think, lots of encouragement and hype and compliments and enthusiasm, he’s very excitable and very easily impressed hahahaha. though I think it takes people a while to click that he’s legitimately being 100% earnest and genuine, the constant deadpan does not work super well in his favour

anyway I’m gonna hop back up for a sec so I can cover Shara and Kai real quick

these two are............ a bit more direct with actually verbalising their feelings to people? Shara is a socially anxious type, but also not someone who enjoys beating around the bush, n she generally likes to just speak what’s on her mind and be direct with others whenever she can. Kai just kinda........ I mean, I don’t think they consider romantic affections to be a super big deal? at least in theory? I say in theory ‘cause, like, I think they give the impression that this kind of conversation is just super smooth and easy for them, and on the inside they’re like “it’s really not a big deal it’s just feelings it’s whatever” but they’re still anxious about it and had to hype themself up for like a week before going through with it lmao

but ye, in terms of how they express their affections, they’re both fairly similar. you suddenly will just Not Be Able To Get Rid Of Them, they’ll constantly be hanging around in the same space or dragging you into whatever shenanigans they’ve got going on, I think for both of them their favourite expression of love is just sharing in experiences or sharing the same space, just Being Involved And Around 

a “hey come help me run errands” type or a “I’m gonna hang off the back of your sofa while you’re studying and sometimes slingshot balls of paper at you with a rubber band” type :P

and now I have to go on Another Tangent just ‘cause the subject matter is vaguely relevant and idk where else I’m gonna go on this tangent

there is definitely some part of me that’s still super super fond of the idea of Kai being aro??? and I initially did write them as such, but for the moment this is not something that’s remained canon in text ‘cause I’m a little bitch ‘cause like

Kai would be aro in very much the same way I am, which is to say, they’re a person who is extremely full of love and who has difficulty in differentiating what the step is supposed to be between friendship feelings and romantic feelings, so, someone who may not necessarily “get” what makes a romance a romance or experience any feelings different from a strong friendship, but who is still open to being in a romantic relationship

(the difference between us being that Kai Really Really Likes People and enjoys being close with others as much as possible, where I’m more the awkward standoffish hermit type lmao)

but yeah, I was kinda like. well. despite being a perfectly valid aro person in a romantic relationship myself, if I were a fictional character people would probably call me bad rep HAHAHA. like “yeah they’re apparently aro but they don’t really ACT aro and the author put them in a romantic relationship ://”

and while I think there’s value to be had in fiction in exploring the different ways a person can be aro, I just, like................... thought about the hypothetical future discourse and was just like UGH. I cannot be fucking BOTHERED

I get enough people in real life being like “ok but you’re not REALLY aro like why do you even bother having that label it’s not like it matters in your context” even though I’m the goddamn expert on my own experiences you bastards

lmao

but yeah I think aro Kai is canon in my heart hahahaha. and they may end up articulating some of the same feelings, maybe just not with the label applied, who knows

anyway that’s my rambles done I think! thanks for reading n have a nice night c:

#Anonymous #i started to ramble then i was like #oh man i better keep this short actually and try and get through this quick and then by the end of it i was #back to rambling #it's fine #i would go into more detail abt the relationships themselves but i think. this reply is super lengthy as is :') #i think i have been on some rambles abt shara and kai in the past?? but idk if i could find those to link them lmao #atdao #there's an only tangentially relevant ramble about being aro right at the end #cuz its like. im aro and i feel this in my heart but also #*gestures vaguely* #anyway g'night team

[visionaxry]

Emily in Paris is tres terrible

If for some reason you decided to check out the new Netflix show Emily In Paris, DON’T. Go watch The Devil Wears Prada instead. It’s practically the same thing, only in the latter you actually get good performances and character depth.

Coming into this show I was expecting a cute heart-warming story. 10 minutes in I thought how great it would be to watch a show about a woman figuring out herself and her work life in a new country. And then all my hopes went down the steaming bidet once Gabriel opened his door.

Emily in Paris truly tested my gag reflex, and here’s why.

First of all, the premise of somebody going to Paris – “a perfect romantic city” – is so overused and unrealistic. Paris sure is pretty but it’s also dirty, polluted, and has more than 29 thousand people sleeping in the streets. But of course Emily lives in some parallel universe where Paris is apparently Paradise. Idolization of anything, even a city is harmful. So this “perfect” Paris is not apreciated.

The Instagram followers ridiculousness. There’re actual people whose job is to promote Instagram accounts, you don’t become an influencer overnight by posting a pic of you eating un pain au chocolat (which is just bread with chocolate, stop creaming your pants, Emily).

On top of that, the abundance of French stereotypes is exhausting. Too hard to write complex characters and present actual reasoning for their actions? Don’t bother, just put every French cliche you’ve ever heard of.

And that chambre de bonne is just ridiculous. Who knew that maids used to have such big apartments? (By the way, you can see a more realistic room that you could get in Paris in the movie Monte Carlo. Ah, such a good movie.) The creators were going for an aesthetic, thus missed an opportunity to show Emily struggling to adjust to her new life. It’s quite impossible to believe that Emily’s going through a rough time when her life is seemingly perfect, and any inconvenience doesn’t affect her at all.

The ex. It’s very typical to introduce a romantic partner of the protagonist at the start of your story and not give them enough depth, so that the audience doesn’t get attached to them and the inevitable break up brings relief. Now they can root for the protagonist to get together with the planned love interest. Yay. 

However, this structure might work for a movie, but when you have 10 episodes to flash out your story and therefore the protagonist, wouldn’t it be better to use this opportunity to develop the secondary characters? Not for their own sake but to develop the main character through them. 

Every character you spend some time on should play some important role, right? Otherwise why should we  bother watching their scenes. Shouldn’t the current boyfriend of the main lead tell us something about the protagonist? Like, why did the main character choose to be in this relationship, what do they see in their partner and therefore what qualities do they value in people? How do they act in personal relationships? What role does their partner play in their life?

The main character is dull and unrelatable with zero character development. A conventionally attractive privileged white woman whose biggest struggle to overcome is her coworkers not being nice to her straight away. We’re constantly told that it’s hard for Emily to adjust but it’s never shown. In fact everything solves itself rather smoothly, carrying no repercussions for her.

With such an unlikable selfish protagonist you find yourself more interested in secondary characters. It actually feels like we get to know Mindy and Camille more. Compared to them, we know nothing about Emily’s family relationships or literally any backstory on her. Who is Emily? Why are we following her? Why should we care? What is her inner conflict? Oh right, she has none. Because by the end of the show she stays the same exact character that we met in the beginning. If Emily’s experience does not influence her at all, why should it matter to the audience? And what is the point of telling this story?

Feminism: the lost potential [episode 3]. “Non, Antoine. Sexism isn’t sexy. Shut the f*ck up.” That’d be enough for me from such a bland show. But no, we’re left with an ambiguous conclusion, when Emily doesn’t disagree with Antoine’s perception that women enjoy men’s unsolicited attention. And then this topic is not discussed again. Thanks for that, Emily in Paris. How about next time (which will hopefully never happen) you either have the bravery to actually speak on the issue and educate people or at least do not cause more damage.

Finally, the most annoying plotline that decidedly ruined the show. Did you ever watch a movie, and there’s a couple that you love, but you feel like something’s missing? So, you just think “I wish some cheating was involved”. If you actually do think that sometimes, media content has tricked you into thinking that cheating is sexy and exciting, when it’s actually destructive and disgusting. THE CHEATING. Stop normalizing it!!! Enough. It always takes away from a relationship. And we’re tired of seeing it. Give us some healthy couples. And if you think they’re boring, you just don’t know how to write them. If you get rid of the cheating plotline, the show becomes slightly bearable. It’s still boring and irritating, but at least it’s not as problematic.

Anyway. Similarly, to how “Enola Holmes” should’ve been a series, this show should’ve been a movie. There was no point of dragging out this – I want to say – story. Because nothing happened. Was there a big revelation in the finale, that we were led up to? No. Did Emily learn anything thanks to her “journey”? Nope. Was it just 5 hours of her hooking up with unremarkable men who all look the same, while being a terribly arrogant person? You decide.

#emily in paris #tv show review #tv show rant #netflix tv shows #netflix emily in paris #worst tv show #shows i hate

[chispas-and-broken-bindings]

Salty ask list #5, 8, 19, 22. Spill the tea~

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?*

I don’t think so. I enjoy a lot of pairs in fics, that I don’t think or want to be cannon. A good writer can make me ship almost anything! Looking at you @woodswit with your JoryxSansa priest fic ::fans self::

8. Have you received anon hate? What about?*

           Well, not on Tumblr, but in Know The Love, my first fic, I got what felt like a lot of anon hate comments on one particular chapter. The story is an AU where Jon and Sansa did not grow up together, thus Sansa spends most of the story as Alayne while they fight to take Winterfell back from the Boltons (fArya! plot from the book). I made the choice to have Jon realize who she was without her confessing it to him and without them having a conversation about it immediately (they do eventually unpack her deception), and then I separated the characters for several chapters afterward….and while I stand by the choice, people were verrrrrrry disappointed.

“I don't know what the point of any of this is now. I just feel underwhelmed. I feel cheated. The one thing I was reading this story for, and you chuck it off screen like it didn't even matter.

“I'm going to stop reading at this point, it's clear this is only going to be frustrating with zero satisfaction, and needless confusion, and opacity from this point.”

“What a waste of a plotline. What a waste of a reveal.”

“Lame. That's definitely a "Choice", and one I feel slapped in the face by.”

“Youve given me buyer's (reader's?) remorse”

There was one that said I was as bad as D&D…lol, but it looks like it got deleted. Anyway, while I anticipated some disappointment, I guess I didn’t realize how much of a funk it would put me in. It made it harder to finish the story. So, a big shout out to everyone who left positive comments, because they helped get over it, and remembering that I write fanfic for myself and to explore themes that I’m interested in.

Anyway, I think this experience leads well into the next question.

19. What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

That it is so “shippy” for lack of a better word. ASOIAF are not books that are inherently romantic, at least in my opinion. They are very much ruminations on politics, the dissonance between how people view themselves and the actions they take, character growth (good and bad), and the effects of war, personal traumas, political instability, etc.

Not that I don’t like the romance part of it (I love Jonsa and love reading fics that lean way into the romance aspect), but I also like exploring the other bits in my writing, and I like focusing on all the characters’ flaws, even the characters that I love. The fandom has become a bit toxic in certain circles where if you don’t hold up their fave as perfect or if don’t spend enough time on the ship aspect, they get critical.

For example, I never really intended Know the Love to be that much about Jon x Sansa. It was always more about Sansa and her journey home. Still, I tagged it as such, because I know how much non-Jonsas seem to hate that ship and didn’t want them stumbling in and leaving angry anons either, but it feels like tagging a pair makes it seem like the pair has to be the central part of the story…and maybe I’m just bad at tagging. I’m not sure.

Anyway, just wish the fandom was a little less shippy.

22. Popular character you hate?

Hmm, I don’t think there are any popular characters that I hate…but there are characters that I prefer to enjoy privately, because I really hate their vocal fans. Dany is the obvious, cliché, example. I’ve thought she was fascinating…and highly problematic from book 1. I saw her dark turn way before I started noticing Jonsa, and I think what GRRM is doing with her character is, in many respects (though not all), really brilliant. But it feels impossible to enjoy and discuss what he is doing and the mechanics of how he is doing it, without getting so much hate, so whatever, there are lots of smart people, with thicker skin than mine, who are doing it instead. Cheers to them!

I think the second one, would Sandor Clegane. I just don’t get the love…like, at all. And I hate when he’s paired up romantically with Sansa. Yuck.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Imagine that you were put in charge of a modern, high-budget, well-written Animorphs TV series. What changes to the plot/characters/world would you make while adapting it? (Books that you'd skip, arcs that you'd rearrange, things you would add or outright alter...)

[Important caveat: I have ZERO experience in set design, directing, editing, camerawork, or any other processes involved in TV production, unless we’re going to be super generous and count the bit of scriptwriting and stage-acting I did in high school.  Ergo, these ideas might make no sense in practice.]

Animate it.  I would much much prefer to see an anime-style show to a live-action one for a handful of different reasons:

Battle scenes, morph sequences, and alien appearances wouldn’t be constrained by budget realities.  Although we’ve come a long way from AniTV’s practical effects, in 2019 Runaways still minimizes Old Lace (the sentient dinosaur) and struggles with her somewhat less-than-convincing appearance while she’s onscreen.  I’d like to see real-looking battles between exotic animals and highly unusual aliens.  I’d like to see Ax portrayed as a deer-scorpion-centaur with no mouth who also has complex facial expressions.  I’d like taxxons and hork-bajir that match their descriptions in the books.  CGI for a moderate-budget TV show can’t do that yet.

The characters’ appearances could match their descriptions in the books.  I don’t really care about AniTV’s Jake having blue eyes or Marco having short hair.  I do care about the fact that Cassie is described as short, chubby, dark-skinned, natural-haired, and androgynous in self-presentation… whereas AniTV’s Nadia-Leigh Nascimento is (through no fault of her own and 100% the fault of Nickelodeon) none of those things.  I’d like to see all of the characters drawn in a way that matches their canon racial heritage, and voiced with actors of those ethnicities as well.  For bullshit marketing reasons of bullshit, that’s not as likely to happen in a live-action show.

I’d want the show to convey the frequent mismatches between characters’ physicality and their personalities.  It’s an important motif of the books.  It’s part of the reason that Tobias has been claimed by the trans* community.  It’s a major plot point, lest new viewers think that the vice principal of the school is actually trying to kill his own students.  It doesn’t come off in AniTV, for all that I commend them for even trying (casting Shawn Ashmore’s twin as controller-Jake, portraying Chapman as straight out of Stepford), just because the nature of controller-ness and nothlitization are difficult to convey literally.  Animation has a lot of tricks, from deliberately distorted drawings to screensaver-like “mental space,” that can actually convey concepts like mind control or body dysmorphia pretty well — Alphonse in Fullmetal Alchemist and Aang in Avatar the Last Airbender great examples of body-mind mismatch and multiple consciousnesses in one body, respectively.

Use a cold open for every episode.  I am a sucker for Batman cold opens or any other opening scenes that pick up in the middle of the characters’ everyday lives, because they work so well to convey that there is a crapton of life happening outside of the plot of any given episode.  Several Animorphs books (#9, #14, #35, #41, #51) open this way, to great effect, and I love the way that it gives us slices of life we might not otherwise see (morphing to cheat on science homework, completing entire offscreen missions, having dinner with the family) and help build these characters’ worlds outside of individual episode plots.

Introduce James sooner (and have better disability narratives).  There are several aspects of Animorphs’ social justice consciousness that age okay (Rachel shutting down Marco’s constant flirting) or not well at all (Mertil and Galfinian).  One important way the series could update Animorphs is through having canon disabled characters like James, Mertil, and Loren have bigger roles and not resorting to kill-or-cure narratives.  Maybe James could come in sooner and form a Teen Titans West-esque team with the other Auximorphs so that he and Collette and the others could be recurring supporting characters with unique plotlines.  Maybe Loren could still gain morphing power, but remain blind and brain-damaged so that the hork-bajir need to work with her to figure out accommodations while sleeping rough.

Modify Jake’s and Cassie’s parents to account for the contemporary setting.  The fact that the kids so often disappear all afternoon or even overnight without anyone worrying just wouldn’t translate to a contemporary reimagining of Animorphs.  Tobias and Ax are each other’s only family on the planet whereas Marco’s dad and Rachel’s mom are both overworked single parents.  Jake’s family, however, and Cassie’s…

Cassie’s parents are so freaking cool in canon that they would definitely start to worry if Cassie went for an entire “weekend at Rachel’s” without answering any texts or calls.  Maybe there could be some scenes with them talking about how they have this super-mature responsible daughter whom they can trust not to get into trouble even if she does hate cell phones, but oh well because they’re not big on technology either.

Jake’s parents are… less cool, but they still try their best.  The show might explain their lack of concern about either of their disappearing kids through upping the hippie factor from his mom, maybe until she practices Free-Range Parenting.  (Why yes, it is true that Jake’s family would have the necessary privileges to get away with free-range crap while Cassie’s family would not, because yes it is the case that black families have been arrested for leaving kids alone for 10 minutes while white families are allowed more passes under the law.  Yes, that is a steaming pile of racist bullshit.)  The other way it could go is by having Jake’s parents completely checked out, which could get in the way of plots like #31 that hinge on them genuinely caring about their kids, but could also introduce an interesting dynamic if it partially parentifies Tom.

Include at least one Rashomon plot.  The TV series would by necessity lose the first-person narration, with all its brilliantly subtle shades of bias and misinterpretation.  One way to try and bring that back in would be to convey the same events from multiple points of view with subtle differences in the way that each person perceives what happened.  This could happen somewhere in the Visser One plot, with Rachel interpreting the scene as a straight Animorphs-vs-yeerks battle, while Visser One interprets it as Visser Three incompetently sabotaging her as Animorphs ruin her life, while Marco interprets it as a struggle to protect his mom and also save his friends, while Visser Three interprets it as the andalite bandits flagrantly plotting with Visser One, while Jake interprets it as Marco going off the rails from stress… and the only witness who has a sense of what actually happened is Eva.  Other possibilities abound.

Start with a plan to make one episode per book… and modify as necessary.  There are areas of the series I’d like to see expanded (#50 - #54 covers a lot of ground in relatively little space) and areas that I think could afford to be compacted (#39 - #44 feature a whole lotta nothin’).  But instead of adding or discarding an entire book, I think you could spread out many of the plots by simple virtue of TV shows not being constrained by first-person narration.

Certain books just wouldn’t get straight-translated today anyway (#40, most notably). I don’t think any books are so bad or useless that they couldn’t be modified into decent television episodes.

The ramping-up that leads to open war happens mostly in the background of #44 - #51, but a bunch of scenes with just controllers talking to each other could go into that process in a lot more detail.  This content could help fill out plots like #44 and #48 that frankly don’t have a lot else going on.

The entire plot of Visser happens over a nonspecific period of time between #30 and #45, so instead of getting one book we could get an entire running Yeerk Empire subplot with major consequences for the main plotline.

Similarly, the andalites’ decisions happen mostly offscreen but have major consequences for the Animorphs.  The consequences for the Electorate after the events of #38 could also run for a whole subplot that sets up their decision to nuke Earth in #52.

The biggest absence from the last couple books is Rachel.  Her last book is a friggin’ dream sequence, she acts out of character in #52 especially, and the narration order cuts off directly before giving her one last book.  It wouldn’t be necessary to add an entire episode just to rectify this oversight, when #51 could still be Marco-centric but also show her and Jake on their sabotage mission, and #52 could have the same rough plot but with a few scenes between her and Tobias thrown in for good measure.

Anyway, maybe the various Chronicles could be a handful of Doctor-lite episodes where the Animorphs themselves are incidental and Elfangor or Aldrea has the helm.  Maybe the events of the Chronicles could come out organically over the course of the show, for instance by expanding the memory-dumps Tobias gets in #1 and #33 or having Jara tell Dak’s story in #13 or #23.  The Megamorphses, on the other hand, could pretty easily just occur as regular-series episodes, albeit possibly as two- or three-parters.

Lean into the comic-book aesthetic.  Animorphs is written very much in the style of a graphic novel, from its “teens with superpowers save the world from aliens” plot to its heavy use of onomatopoeia.  Even the use of hypertext symbols around thought-speak hearkens back to the comic book convention of using pointed brackets around alien languages to convey translation.  The show could homage this motif through having dramatic transformation sequences, “uniforms” of multicolored spandex the kids use to morph, an opening credits sequence that emphasizes the power of each animal, and other superhero-comic elements throughout.

Have the violence be consequential.  To keep the examples from earlier: in Fullmetal Alchemist, as well as in Avatar, characters that get hurt stay hurt.  A character getting shot or stabbed is portrayed as a potentially life-changing event.  Characters’ injuries do not disappear between episodes, and even alchemy and waterbending are not portrayed as total fixes.  Characters scar, they become disabled, they spend entire episodes in recovery, they accrue trauma, and they do not shrug off life-ending injuries.  Animorphs helps to justify the idea that six kids could (mostly) survive (most of) an entire war against a friggin empire through making the protagonists nigh-unkillable thanks to their healing abilities, but it nevertheless shows that shooting someone will result in that person bleeding and screaming and possibly dying.  Having a sci-fi or action show meant for children isn’t actually a valid excuse for portraying violence as cool or funny or inconsequential the way that (Avengers Assemble, Teen Titans, Kim Possible, Dragonball Z, Pokemon, etc.) too many children’s sci-fi/action shows opt to do.

#animorphs #anitv #racism mention #long post #asks #anonymous #animorphs meta #ableism mention #teen titans #avatar the last airbender #fullmetal alchemist #Anonymous

[mtvswatches]

Jane the Virgin 2x09 Chapter Thirty-One

Spoilers disclaimer (please read before sending messages or writing comments.)

Click here for previous recaps!

Stray thoughts

1) Okay, I really liked the exchange between little Jane and the little boy for two reasons. First, the fact that, even though Alba was teaching Jane a very dangerous lesson that perpetuates harmful stereotypes for both boys and girls, little Jane knew from the get-go that’s not a proper show of affection and she wouldn’t acknowledge it…

Second, the fact that the little boy taught Jane a far more valuable and realistic lesson…

If someone is mean to you and treats you poorly, they most definitely don’t secretly like you. On the contrary, they openly dislike you. Abuse and mistreatment should always be taken at face value.

I do wonder what connection the show will make between this flashback and the current storyline…

2) So…

Michael and Jane are not officially back together but it seems this episode is going in that direction… I’m actually curious to know how far into the show the love triangle will actually be over (personally, I’ll consider it over when  Jane has stuck to ONE of the love interests for at least 5 episodes in a row…)

3) Grandpa? Are we going to meet Rogelio’s FATHER?!

4) Ah, hell, what a way to tease me! He’s not coming… and now Rogelio says that she’s kind of depressed. I’m predicting they have split up.

5) YES!! This is way better than what I had expected!

Rogelio’s mom seems to believe that he will be devastated when he finds out, but if he is, I think it will only be momentary. I hope. I have a lot of faith in Rogelio. I think he will be thrilled.

6) Damn, Magda really did a good one on Petra. Things are not looking good for her…

7) “Great Books 105” sounds like such a boring class, tbh. Also, prediction: all the tall students? Basketball players who were probably promised a passing mark in Jane’s class without her knowledge, or something like that.

8) So… the students used to call the class Books for Ballers. I hope Jane finds a way to motivate them.

9) Michael might or might not be dating someone. So what? Xiomara looked at him as if he was cheating on Jane, but Jane was the one that dropped him like a hot potato TWICE to be with Rafael.

10) It’s really sweet that both Jane and Xiomara trust Rogelio to be able to handle the situation. I really, really hope he doesn’t disappoint me…

11) The whole baby-can’t-sleep plotline reminds me of the Mad About You live episode in which the two characters were trying to use one of these techniques to get baby Mabel to sleep on her own. It was a great episode, definitely groundbreaking, and I don’t think it receives enough recognition, probably because it was a 90s sitcom. Jane is, in fact, using the exact same technique they were trying out in that episode.

12) Shouldn’t they take the moron to a therapist or a psychologist to see if they can help her trigger some memories? Just telling her “please remember” shouldn’t have worked so easily…

13) Well… drawing parallels between Pride and Prejudice and basketball is a bit far-fetched, yet she seems to be making a connection with the students. But how are they expected to hand in a paper in their second class?

14) Rogelio… shame on you… you’re in show business, you should’ve read between the lines…

ROGELIO: My father is dying. XIOMARA: What do you mean? ROGELIO: I mean, think about it. He was too ill to travel. And I can't even bring him up to my mother without her changing the subject. Clearly, he is dying. JANE: Who is dying? XIOMARA: His dad. He thinks. ROGELIO: I'm not ready to lose him. But I must stay strong. I have to help my father achieve everything on his bucket list. I have to make sure he gets to see Bette Midler in concert. And Wicked on Broadway. He always wanted to vacation in Mykonos.

15) Good for you, Rogelio. He reacted really well. He was mostly surprised that he hadn’t realized sooner, and he didn’t understand why his mother thought he wouldn’t be able to handle it. So instead of freaking out about his dad being gay, he’s worried that his mom doesn’t trust him to act maturely in the face of a situation like this. YES YES YES. Rogelio, I fucking love you, you are truly the best fucking character in this show.

16) Oh, Mateo, ya nasty! What a bitch move!

17) She failed the McBaskets dude and I’m sure she’ll suffer the consequences, although I really hope she doesn’t.

18) OMG Rogelio organized a super gay dinner and I’m loving it! And I 1000% believe THIS should be made into the official prayer before meals…

19) Oh, she didn’t want to tell Rogelio because she didn’t want it to be real, not because she didn’t trust Rogelio to react well. She’s just afraid about losing her life partner and being alone, which she’s never been before. But I really, really, really love the fact that NOT ONCE did she say anything even remotely discriminatory. No one did. This is how you do a “gay” storyline. Well done, show. Well done.

20) Petra and Rafael are bonding, and Petra actually gave Rafael some solid advice about his mother (although I would 100% support him not talking to her, ever.) And what do you know? They found evidence against Magda…

21) Good commentary…

NARRATOR: Oh, my God! This perfectly encapsulates what's wrong with higher education! Privileging athletics and alumni contributions over academic rigor!

And this is one of those times in which the narrator seems to be voicing exactly what Jane would think, and that’s why I sometimes feel the narrator might be her, you know?

19) Okay, this is where this storyline has taken us…

20) YES!!!

21) Uh-oh…

NARRATOR: It should be noted that these words will come back to haunt Petra. But you don't know that yet. Pretend you don't know that.

I’m actually not a fan of this… “foreshadowing”, for a lack of a better word. I think the phrase was ominous enough to require that type of meta-commentary, and it’s one of those instances in which it’s better to let the viewers make that connection when the time comes, you know? It kind of ruins the future reveal, in a way.

22) Are we back to this? OMG this fucking show and the constant and annoying back and forth! Can’t anyone be IN LOVE with the same person for more than two episodes straight? They fall in and out of love every other week! What type of people are these?!

It annoys me to no end, you have no idea.

23) Michael girlfriend confirmed, then.

24)

25) So, he turned her down? I think not showing at her house would’ve sent a better message. If he showed up, that means that he still cares. Also, when did he make time to meet a new person and start dating them,  being on the run and all of that?

26) Grandpa Gay!

27) OMG!

Why did she lie to Rogelio, though?

28) I’m zero invested in the storyline of Rafael and his mom. Meh. Rafael just doesn’t do anything for me. I couldn’t care less about him.

29) So, Mia isn’t Mutter, and then this happened…

Is Mutter Rafael’s mom…?

30) Okay, alright, show, color me mildly interested. You win.

31) My favorite part of this episode, as usual, was Rogelio’s storyline, but I’ll admit that the cliffhanger definitely grabbed my attention. I hope this leads to something interesting because Rafael usually bores the shit out of me.

32) Hope you enjoyed my recap, and, as usual, if you’ve got this far, thank you for reading! If you enjoy my recaps and my blog, please consider supporting it on ko-fi.Thanks!

#Jane the Virgin #JTV #Jane Villanueva #Gina Rodriguez #Rogelio De La Vega #is probably the only character I care about #mine #JTV recap #JTV 2x09

[recentanimenews]

Summer 2019 Anime, Ranked.

With the exception of Fire Force’s twelfth episode, we’ve wrapped up our coverage of the Summer 2019 season, which is just as well since we’re technically in the second week of Autumn.

Between Braverade, sesameacrylic and MagicalChurlSukui we watched and reviewed eleven shows in all (plus additional coverage from Oigakkosan, not detailed here), totaling 132 episodes, or approximately 53 hours. Without further math, here’s how we ranked those shows, and why.

11. HenSuki

RABUJOI Score: 7.00/10 MAL Score: 6.83/10

Pros: Novel premise, colorful pastel palette, likable characters, generally witty banter, risque ecchi situations that never cross hard lines of decency.

Cons: Uneven at best animation, silly central mystery that drags on too long, “twist” resolution feels like a cheat.

Verdict: An enjoyable, fluffy guilty pleasure. I try to watch one per season.

10. Lord El-Melloi II Case Files

RABUJOI Score: 7.77/10 MAL Score: 7.44/10

Pros: Built-in goodwill from Fate/Zero, always intriguing setup for cases, sumptuous setting, production, and mechanical design, stirring score, bonkers magical battles.

Cons: Excessive magical technobabble can be exhausting, conclusions to mysteries can feel contrived/arbitrary, non-Fate fanatics will end up hopelessly lost by most cameos or name-drops.

Verdict: A pale shadow of the classic upon which it’s based, but nonetheless a fun and moderately clever detective series.

9. Fire Force (Episodes 1-11 of 12)

RABUJOI Score: 7.82/10 MAL Score: 7.75/10

Pros: Gorgeously bizarre alternate-universe setting, elegant world-building, virtuoso action sequences, powerful orchestral soundtrack.

Cons: And MC who is dull and cliched within an inch of his life, Characters who go from evil-to-good (or vice versa) at the drop of a hat, a tedious central conspiracy, the potential for character bloat, frustratingly uneven gender balance, pathetic bouts of fanservice.

Verdict: A stylish show primarily about spontaneous human combustion might’ve weathered news of the horrific KyoAni arson attack, but isn’t quite good enough to watching following into the Fall.

7 (tie). How Heavy are the Dumbbells You Lift?

RABUJOI Score: 7.83/10 MAL Score: 7.68/10 Pros: A fresh, original premise to which it remains totally devoted, marvelous comic timing in the rapid-fire, self-deprecating, fourth-wall breaking dialogue, lovable and believable MC, decent animation, one hell of an earworm OP.

Cons: Ecchi elements and a superfluous Russian chick don’t add much, some parody bits are too on-the-nose, the show loses momentum in the final couple episodes.

Verdict: The show that inspired me to get off my skinny, underdeveloped backside and actually join a gym for the first time in my life!

7 (tie). Cop Craft

RABUJOI Score: 7.82/10 MAL Score: 6.94/10

Pros: Cool reverse-Isekai-lite premise, Range Murata character design, toe-tapping OP and lively soundtrack, entertaining buddy cop dynamic, engaging fights and chases.

Cons: Lame villains, some odd narrative choices, inconsistent/unfocused direction, disappointing animation, underutilized supporting cop cast, lots of loose ends.

Verdict: A show with some good parts to work with, mostly used badly. A wasted opportunity that’s not as good as our episodes ratings indicated.

6. DanMachi II

RABUJOI Score: 8.25/10 MAL Score: 7.45/10

Pros: Appealing, charismatic characters you love to root for, amusing romantic polygons, tremendous score, superb utilization of twelve episodes to tell a variety of engaging stories with a beginning, middle and oh-so-epic end, culminating in a quiet finale that doesn’t forget its core goddess-child dynamic.

Cons: Villains’ barks prove far worse than their bites, a couple slower episodes between mini-arcs don’t really distinguish themselves, and that huge Amazoness Phryne…what the hell?! 

Verdict: After the very lame Sword Oratoria spinoff DanMachi got a proper sequel, focused on the characters we cared about, full of emotion, excitement, and good old-fashioned fantasy ass-kickin’.

5. Fruits Basket 1st Season (Episodes 14-25)

RABUJOI Score: 8.50/10 MAL Score: 8.36/10

Pros: Impeccably-rendered characters and depictions of their various psychological issues, dark and poignant flashbacks, exquisitely cozy slice-of-life, a good balance of the mundane and the mystic, and hard-hitting cathartic scenes.

Cons: Some members of the Souma family are more interesting (and tolerable) than others, but even the less interesting ones get plenty of screen time, Tooru’s saintly selflessness can wear thin at times.

Verdict: A beautifully-crafted second half that rewarded patience by delivering some of the strongest and most moving episodes of the year.

4. Master Teaser Takagi-san 2

RABUJOI Score: 8.58/10 MAL Score: 8.40/10 Pros: Truly magnetic chemistry in the central pair, Deft use of subtle facial expressions and body language in the animation, superb performances by Takahashi Rie and Kaji Yuki.

Cons: Like the first season, the various teasing games can grow repetitive, as can Nishikata’s denseness and inability to see more than one or two moves ahead, the side stories involving side characters often felt like padding.

Verdict: Continues and refines the brilliantly simple teasing formula of the first season, while ever-so-gradually blurring of the line between teasing and flirting. A sweet and touching, slow-burn portrayal of young, awkward first love.

2 (tie). Vinland Saga (Episodes 1-12)

RABUJOI Score: 8.67/10 MAL Score: 8.57/10

Pros: Flawed but rootable MC whose character is more complex than it initially seems, his multi-layered antihero mentor, exemplary action and battle sequences, powerful score, compelling exploration of the hard old world, with enticing glimmers of a brighter new one.

Cons: That said mentor would keep a kid dedicated to murdering him around so long stretches credulity at times, those battle sequences sometimes feature individuals or groups doing superhuman things that detract from the otherwise naturalistic milieu.

Verdict: While not quite as big, loud, epic, or bonkers as Attack on Titan, or Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, Vinland Saga is arguably Wit Studio’s most balanced and human series. Looking forward to the second half.

2 (tie). Astra Lost in Space

RABUJOI Score: 7.77/10 MAL Score: 7.44/10

Pros: Very well done futuristic world- and space-building, a large-ish main cast that you steadily come to know and love, the sense of family that arises from the crewmembers’ experiences together, an optimistic spirit of exploration that isn’t constantly beset by mortal peril, creative planets and lifeforms, thankfully subverted expectations for a Lerche-style bloodbath.

Cons: “Character gets a backstory” formula to some episodes felt repetitive at times, the crew almost faces too little mortal peril considering their circumstances, they similarly rely on a lot of luck, some major plotlines and twists could have been left out and still resulted in a pretty strong show.

Verdict: Maybe the season’s biggest surprise hit, the ambitious Astra calls to mind some of the best of live-action shades-of-gray sci-fi (Firefly, Battlestar, Expanse) while maintaining an old school optimistic, exploratory outlook. It set out to do and say a lot, and was mostly successful in doing so.

1. O Maidens in Your Savage Season

RABUJOI Score: 8.58/10 MAL Score: 8.40/10 Pros: Fearlessly tackles tough social topics on adolescence, sexuality, gender roles, upbringing, and abuse, ably juggles multiple, diverse love stories and triangles at once, pleasingly drawn and animated, and despite all its serious themes, doesn’t leave out the comedy.

Cons: What seemed to be an irreversible dive into an abyss that would tear the five girls apart, they work almost everything out almost too easily for a tidier ending than expected; while the show dips a toe in LGBTQ themes through Momo’s awakening, her’s is one of the least developed arcs despite being one of the most interesting.

Verdict: A rare-for-anime honest and unblinking exploration of the awkward, painful, and sometimes savage emotional journey to adulthood all kids must face (and not always at the same speed). By the numbers, the best show I watched this Summer, and the one I looked forward too most from week to week.

Summer 2019 Big Board:

By: rabujoistaff

#Anime #News #RABUJOI – An Anime Blog

[southsidewrites]

Thoughts on Riverdale and Marginalized Groups

So, after a lot of thought, I’ve realized what one of my biggest issues with Riverdale is, and that’s their flippant treatment of marginalized and disenfranchised groups.  I’ll preface this by saying I am a straight white woman, meaning that I will undoubtably have gaps in my understanding and experience.  I do always welcome additions/corrections from people who have lived these experiences, though, so don’t feel bad for calling me out (politely please).  I just need to put this in words though because my discomfort with this show is so much deeper than “ew, cringey plotlines”

Warning: This is going to be long (and it’ll probably still not cover even half of the issues).  Topics covered will be people of color, Native Americans, the LGBTQ community, people with mental illness, and people suffering from poverty/homelessness.  Read on for more.

People of Color

Riverdale has a lot of people of color for a network show.  No doubt about it.  However, these people of color have literally some of the least development.  It’s like they were cast to shoot a few promo pics and then forgotten as soon as they were introduced,  Most prominent examples:

Josie and the Pussycats: When I saw they were an all-black group, I was thrilled.  Then, they promptly disappeared.  This feels like such a half-hearted attempt to be diverse without any care for making them actual people.  A huge dissapointment.

The Serpents: Aside from Jughead, our main Serpents are all people of color.  And what do we get for them? No backstories, no real names in some cases, no representations of healthy families, and definitely no solid character development.  Again, a huge disappointment.

Reggie: One of the most under-developed characters on the show.  Not much to say other than he’s a stock douschey bad boy.  Again, no family and no development to speak of.

Special shout-out to the Lodges who are canonically Latino but show almost no sign of it other than an occasional “mi’ja”.

Extra special shout-outs to Chuck and Dilton who basically serve no purpose on this show other than a half second of storyline.

Basically, this show loves hiring actors of color, but when it comes to actually giving them screentime and worthwhile development, no such luck.

The Uktena

This I wanted to touch on in addition to people of color because it was extra disappointing.  The whole episode that introduced the Uktena and their history with the Serpents and the Blossoms was downright fascinating.  It was interesting, complex, and a sort of thoughtful exploration of colonialism.  Then, once they could promo it and get the box checked, it was gone, leaving us wondering if the Serpents are/aren’t the Uktena and why the heck is it being run by a white man?  Cool idea, pitiful execution.

LGBTQ

Ugh.  This one is hard to even start because I am PISSED. Riverdale has given us a few non-straight ships (Joavin, Kevin/Moose, and Choni), and they’ve all been messy af.  Let’s break it down.

Joaquin/Kevin: Initially built on a lie, but immediately a fan favorite.  Some interesting potential.  Ripped away as soon as it got good. 

Kevin/Moose: A rebound couple with a history of cheating.  Possibly the realest thing on this show, but kind of a disappointment.  Why can’t Riverdale just give Kevin a love interest that isn’t built on a foundation of lies/cheating/death?  Also, why can’t they develop Kevin as more than a stock gay best friends?  Literally, he just seems to be there for other people to vent to.

Chery/Toni: I’ve said a lot of this before, but this ship pisses me off the most because it could have been so good. Instead, we get a rushed romance that goes from literal enemies to literal girlfriends in the span of like three two-minute interactions.  Then, they get no  individual or relationship development, no valid screen time, and no anything really.  They’re just there to be there, and it seems to clear to me that they only exists to appease us.  It’s such a shallow cop-out relationship, and it makes me mad.  I would have been happy to wait for season three to get Choni if it meant I got well-developed, natural Choni instead of forced down my throat Choni.  Do better, Riverdale.

I don’t know what else to say other than I’m mad, and I want some valid LGBTQ relationships.  Give me some depth on these characters--tell me their struggles, their joys, their messy teenage emotions as they wrestle with who they are.

ALSO LET’S NOT FORGET THAT THEY MADE A WHOLE EPISODE ABOUT CONVERSATION THERAPY AND THEN DROPPED IT LIKE IT WAS NOTHING. Conversion Therapy is downright traumatizing.  Even a few days can literally destroy teens.  I am not okay with how passively they “rescued” Cheryl, and literally all she needed to do to feel better was kiss Toni.  That’s just wrong, and it downplays such a huge, traumatic problem that is still a problem today.  Basically, they just wanted Toni to play hero, and they thought that could be an “edgy” way to do it.  Not okay with it being taken so lightly.

Mental Illness/(and kind of abuse)

So, a while back, Lili made some remark in an interview about how Riverdale tackles mental illness in a complex and real way.  Lies.  Sorry if this one gets heated, but I am someone with a diagnosed mental illness, and I get heated about poor representation.

Betty has some sort of mental illness.  Not sure if it’s depression, PTSD, something else, or some combination, but it’s there.  Calling it “darkness” and having it presented as her becoming some sort of dominatrix in a wig is creepy, romanticizing, and not to mention offensive. Her darkness isn’t profound or dramatic, it’s an illness, and she needs help and support.  Taking down bad guys is not the solution--real treatment is.  

Archie was sexually groomed and abused and watched his father get shot.  No way the boy doesn’t have PTSD.  Maybe instead of making him make all these dumb, thoughtless decisions, develop that a little more so we can see him as a struggling, hurt kid and not an idiot that’s easier to manipulate than a jar of play-doh.  

Cheryl attempted suicide and then literally burned down a house after her murderous father killed himself.  And how was that handled?  Not at all.  Literally, she should be hospitalized and given real, meaningful treatment, not sent back to her crazy abusive mother, sent to conversion therapy, and then initiated into a gang.  Honestly, it’s so ridiculous that I don’t even have words.

In general, all these kids are going through some heavy stuff, and there is not a doubt in my mind that they are suffering some clinical trauma and abuse issues.  I’m not sure how/if the show should tackle this, but what they’re doing now just isn’t working.

Poverty/Homelessness/Economic Disparity

Let’s talk about the Southside for a minute.  Jughead has been bounced around in foster after being semi-homeless.  Toni is admittedly couch-surfing while semi-living with her uncle.  Fangs and Sweet Pea have zero backstory.  All of them are lower-class, go to a poor school, live in trailers or other lower-class housing options, and all of them joined a gang (which typically don’t attract people with means and money).  And how does the show introduce them? Villains.  How shallow is it that the rich side of town was initially presented as good guys and the poor side as bad guys.  Sure, that dynamic was mostly demolished in Season 2, but it definitely started that way.  Not to mention, the three main Serpents are POC while the core four are all white or white-passing.  While some of these dynamics were disrupted, the foundational assumptions are still there, and they’re a bit too heavy-handed for my taste.  

Basically, the Serpents were introduced as the “edgy” foils to the main characters, but none of them have any of the development to go with it.  The ONLY reason I care about the Serpents is the fanon development because canonically, they’re beyond shallow.  They’re barely even characters--really, they’re just kind of plot pawns that keep the action moving.  Overall, they should have been more developed.  At least give the kids some parents, some background, some internality, because I cannot get behind them as heroes or villains when all we know it that they come from the “rough” side of town.

IN CONCLUSION/ TL;DR

Riverdale needs to stop worrying about checking inclusivity boxes and develop their damn characters.  Instead of trying to cram in a little bit of everything, slow down and do a couple things well because right now, it feels phony.  Like, “yeah, he include all sorts of real-world issues and problems, and our character are totally #diverse.”  When in fact, the show is about four kids, three of which are white, all of which are straight, three of which are upper middle class/wealthy, and all of which have been through severe trauma/abuse.  Don’t tell me this show is inclusive if your definition of inclusivity is two second storylines that have no development and serve only to forward the stories of four main characters.

As I said before, I welcome feedback/additions/corrections.  I just had to get this off my chest before I punched a literal wall.

#becca rants #maybe delete later #mega rant

[epochryphal]

OKAY TIME TO LIVEBLOG SPACE PATROL LULUCO - IN ITS ENTIRETY

season 1

;;;;u;;;; i love this pacing n humor n tone fuck me

also i remember now how Fucking hype i was for prettyboy and midori mmmmmm also p sure there’s a life fiber reveal and i’m Eager

YOU’RE UNDER ARREST!  YOU’RE FREE TO GO!  god i’d seen that but it’s so good in-context too

Space Cheating

Justice

a-Wake! Judg-ment, gun MOR-phing!

Sorry To Interrupt Your Pointless Discussion, But *I’m* Here

FUCK is midori’s voice nonon’s va because holy shit i did not see that coming somehow and i’m extra starry eyes

(it can get you a boy, or a boyfriend, or an ex-boyfriend)

“whups, i got captured, oh darn”

“so i should stay normal?” “no, stay wonderful” oh my goddd linesss

“i’ll learn my lessonnnn. kayy, lesson learnnnned”

“give it a rest or i’ll kill ya!” “very well, you’re hired”

- - -

season 2

[...loses track of seasons]

wait shit the flame captain is ira FUCKING GOOD

IT SHOULD TRIGGER THE WILL OF JUSTICE OR SOMETHING

oh my God that’s how orange mom shows up i love her

Frick okay i went to actually look up the seiyuus and - luluco is papika, that’s, Good, fuck. also she was anzu in the gantz: o movie? NONON’S SEIYUU WAS SCARLET CLAW OF COURSE SHE WAS AAAAAAAAAA typecasting WAIT SHE WAS HARUKA IN FLCL TOO?? o_o. that, i did not expect

the fucking “clapping”, and also how he just, movetilts with the whole desk

JUSTICE IS OVER

THOSE ARE LIFE FIBERS IN HER CAPE FOR SURE MMMMM

“yes my ma’am” pfff

snrrrk. shoplift/resell theme

IS IT STILL IN THE BOX

Waves Of Justice Are Still Running Through His Brain

space yen

A CRIME FOR A CRIME EQUALS JUSTICE! THIS IS HOW! WE ADULTS! CARRY OUT JUSTIIIIIIICE

perishable

Mmmmmmmm Cocoon Sphere

dpfjg I Think I’ve Been Here Once Before

KLK-X

3.5 star review means it’s basically the real thing-

MmmmmmmmmmMMMM COVERS BOY Good Good Evil Talk - ldbtngfj pffdt Kill-***-Killian the verbal censoring i’m fhfgh

FUTATSU. II KOTO O -

shitty background nova while OuO life fiber nova peeks into main view is G o o d

some kind of space fraud

THE MYSIC ARUGHDHFH LIGHT IT ON FIRE the garbage letters THE SELF DRAMA THE LOSE YOUR WAY TE GUTS FNFVJGNJF WHAAATTTTT IT CAN STILL BURN HOTTERRR i’m still not dead yettt. wow. wow

i can’t believe literally no one tried to light the original life fiber / ragyo on fire, in retrospect, holy shit?? aikuro with your lighter what were you DOING

magic planet lwa at 3.7 i... trigger i love that you’ve done this

firewood of justice

30,000 lightyears in prison

sucy............ “you gun goblin” [stuffs luluco full of mushrooms] Fuck the very good constant updating how much time left

djhgn the counting and the lil goblin

and the music stops

pffffffffffff wipe, wipe, wipe... dochi demo ii kedo ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

what... is up with Violence and se’chan. full-color girl... and the backwards “people have different sets of values”... [ah, i hadn’t heard of sex and violence with machspeed]

kyuuuuuu

the lil everyone doing the hand pose for the picture........ i deeply need cosplayers doing that

ohh my god blackholeian. also his voice is so familiar

BLACK HOLES BECAME BLACK HOLES BY SHOPLIFTING

stupid middleschooler who eats nothing but sweet bread

DINOSAURS WERE SHOPLIFTED

2000 glasses.......

the good static fave

Special Flat First Love

zero void mmmm

Nothingling

the pinnacle of worthlessness - ZA! NOSSINGU!

GOD there’s the badbad alphaomega joke

heh... evil as incomprehensible, in this one, rather than klk’s incomprehensible, is interesting juxtaposition

mmmm the theme without luluco in it is good

pfff. what a good joke, that inferno cop would look like chief over justice - oh my god senpai

ooo “justice will never die?” “normally, no”

Hell Ain’t Big Enough For Two Agents Of Justice

aaaa god i’m such a sucker for their fucking theme messages? oh wow another plotline about “normal is something you decide for yourself” “truly precious things will never disappear, especially if they’re intangible”

Arrest Him

a middle schooler in love for the first time is Invincible,

ojii-san... he’s only 21...

He Shoplifted My Most Prized Possession

fuckifnfjf justice chant

YATTA!! JUSTICE IS A MIRACLE!!!!

god the very cute tsuzuku/continued incorporation of format, is good

If You Ask Me, Only After One Dies And Comes Back To Life Do They Become Normal

fucking, the good gurren lagann prow shit

oh my god the fucking unending hearts and the hair blowing and the i’m only a middleschooler idk about the void

emotion big bang.....

oh my god normal

PRETTY TRANSFORM god those sherbert colors what good animation bullshit

fucking covers voidmonster

mmm the themes of loveydovey first loves, i see u in darlifran

Love Is Justice

fucking- microblackhole activated by big bang

You Finally Pulled The Trigger -

ahdnfhjjnffnf People Die When They Are Shot - I’ll Teach You That Normal Fact Of Life Right Now!!

gosh she’s cute without her hairclip

in the end you’re only taking pleasure in shoplifting!!

oh my god

okay i didn’t check if blackhole headman (ahem... doc scratch) was voiced by uzu/viral’s seiyuu and i will in a mo but that’s my guess [update: Yep despite it not being listed on wikipedia at all wtf]

Arrest Him Again. you’re supposed to introduce your boyfriend to your dad - Normally

aww the highfive...

JusssTiiiice

Trigger-chan

outfit...

that was sweet, and absolutely not the sort of thing i could have watched serially heh. it’s nice to feel in on the jokes

awwww the highfive

...so... crossover art with nonon/midori ira/chief and uzu/blackholeian outfit swaps totally exists right. right. blease. also villain uzu is something i never knew i needed? also the casts interacting is precious art ideas - nonon on chief over justice’s shoulder for step one

#luluco bloggin #anime bloggin

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

I am genuinely concerned that comic book youtubers are going to create a GamerGate situation where there are extremists who poison the mass perception of people who criticise comic books or certain decisions in general.

 Like I have genuine problems with Amadeus Cho and Jane Foster being Hulk and Thor and I think Riri Williams and Miles Morales are bad characters (the latter being especially saddening because, unlike Riri, he had a strong initial concept powering him). I think Sam as Captain America was creatively problematic and that Marvel have been pulling the replacement hero thing for social/political reasons (and probably not sincere ones at that) as opposed to genuine creative ones. Similarly I think the America book is a lame super hero comic book and Gabby Rivera isn’t a strong super hero comic book writer. Similarly I think Marvel’s modern editors and assistant editors really do tend to suck at their jobs right now.

 But my rationales for all of those things honestly don’t have much crossover with certain Youtube comic book commentators (I’m sure you’ve all seen the kind) and I actually disagree and believe in a lot of other types of characters and directions cut from the same kinds of cloths as those above examples.

 I think Ice Man being gay made a certain amount of sense with his history and if you did have to pick a classical character to reveal as in the closet he was one of the best choices for it. We are in a position where Bobby could legitimately be given a strong romantic storyline and an iconic (for him, not necessarily within Marvel as a whole) love interest. I mean before Bendis had Jean out Bobby who honestly knew or cared who Bobby’s (comic book, not movie) love interests were? Hardly anybody aside from hardcore X-Men fans and most of them would argue Polaris was really the big one for Bobby. But at the same time most of them shipped Polaris with Havok anyway so what did that matter?

  I’ve said numerous times before Kamala Khan is the best new superhero character to come out of Marvel in the last 20 years. My problems with her series stem from the decompression alongside the fact that I don’t think her villain pool has been managed as well as it needs to be to enable her to last long term.

 Carol becoming Captain Marvel is something I find profoundly organic and logical, a brilliant stroke of character development that makes use of an iconic title by giving it to an iconic character who truly has claim to it. Look to me Carol’s outfit is always going to be the Ms Marvel outfit she wore for decades but at the same time to me Carol’s codename will always be Warbird, not Ms Marvel or Captain Marvel. I’m just from that generation.

 I think the general idea of temporarily having a black person become Captain America is interesting and understand the logic of making it Sam but at the same time I think the book never fulfilled it’s potential and ultimately Issiah Bradely or even Patriot would’ve been a much more interesting choice. But at the end of the day I cannot accept the creative bankruptcy of replacing Steve for the THIRD time and doing it the SECOND time in less than 10 years.

 I like Jane Foster’s Thor outfit, there are moments and aspects to her stories I find interesting but the way the series went about it overly denigrated the real Thor (and yes I will call him the real Thor, it is literally his name and he is supposed to be the actual figure from Norse mythology). I mean he was literally called out as ‘unworthy’ and the reason for his unworthiness made no sense at all. He realizes the Gods are assholes so he loses his worthiness. That isn’t how the hammer works, it’s just a binary ‘you are worthy or you are not’. Conviction in your personal beliefs doesn’t matter or else countless bad guys would be able to lift the hammer too. Additionally there were times where he narrative divulged into cheap, shallow in-universe attempts to ‘comment’ on the backlash against the concept. The Absorbing Man was at least somewhat exaggerating the complaints over a female Thor and at least dabbling in strawman arguments whilst Titania’s solidarity with Foster because she was stepping into the role of a man was utter out of character nonsense considering Titania’s arch nemesis is SHE Hulk. Jane consequently knocking out someone who’d surrendered was also ill considered. And I also cannot get over how we’ve been here before. Beta Ray Bill and Thunderstrike are testament to that. Once again creative bankruptcy.

 I’ve spoken countless times before how I think Miles had a good concept and still has potential but he’s been mismanaged and currently sucks shit as a character and how Marvel and certain fans and certain media outlets building him up as the best thing since sliced bread (or at least as great as Peter Parker) is profoundly unearned.

 I think the quality of editing at Marvel has clearly gone down hill but unless there really is some weird ass super Secret Empire conspiracy wherein Marvel went hardcore into hiring people because of their gender regardless of their qualifications, I don’t think the reason for that decline in quality is due to some (but far from all) of the editors and assistant editors being women. Frankly Steve Wacker is/was a major editorial player for awhile and his only legitimate qualification for being a Spider-Man editor was he could get the product on the shelves on time. The editing present in that product and their overall quality was shit 99% of the time. The guy lacked sufficient knowledge, passion or understanding of the character to really edit Spider-Man properly. This is a guy who was an amateur stand up comedian before entering comic books and has to my knowledge zero writing experience so why the fuck he was qualified to edit anything is beyond me. Maybe the new slew of editors and assistant editors are the same bunch of unqualified morons but I don’t think that’s got much to do with their sex or gender. After all Ann Nocenti was a solid X-Men editor and Molly Lazer edited Spider-Girl which was obviously a brilliant book. And shit Jeanette Kahn was President and EIC of DC comics for over 20 years and MOST of the stuff under her tenure was baller as shit. John Byrne Superman. Frank Miller Batman. Perez Wonder Woman. Wolfman Titans. DeMatteis/Giffin JLI. Kyle Rayner Green Lantern. Vertigo. Milestone. Watchmen. Frankly she oversaw what was maybe the single best EIC tenure for DC EVER in terms of quality.

  I gave up reading Coates’ BP run because I found it dull but I think T’Challa SHOULD have a book along with Blade, Luke Cage, Shang Chi and Jessica Jones.

I think the America Chaves series was problematic as a superhero story but the times where it does focus on the normal life stuff are generally good.

I was very impressed by Spider-Gwen when she debuted and looked forward to her ongoing, even defended her debut issue until I realized the critics were ont he money and it sucked and continues to suck to this day. It’s a profoundly shallow book but it could have been great and I supported it initially hoping it would be great.

I felt the Chelsea Cain Mockingbird series had moments of poor research, mischaracterisation and disingenuousness. I am specifically talking about how in issue #3 (I think) Cain uses Bobbi as a mouthpiece to criticise the lack of female representation within superhero comics. Okay cool. But she did it by essentially pretending that there never were any in the Marvel universe, that they got no respect in-universe and that Bobbi herself was at most a teenager growing up inspired by those male heroes whom she could never be like because she was male. Except there were female heroes, they did get in-universe respect (maybe not as much as was deserved but it wasn’t like people forgot they existed) and Bobbi is clearly too old to have grown up with any of the heroes other than the WWII guys like the Invaders. 

Similarly her retconning of the Phantom Rider thing in her final issue fixed one problem but did so utterly illogically whilst opening up multiple other problems. Look I’d also retcon the Hell out of Phantom Rider gaslighting and raping Mockingbird if given the chance I hate that plotline. But Cain retconned it by just having Mockingbird say that the stuff we have clear on the page evidence of didn’t actually happen. She was saying the colour blue is the colour red and always had been but it wasn’t. And Cain’s new spin on that Phantom Rider thing essentially threw Hawkeye under the bus by making him profoundly insecure and an asshole, because he’d rather believe his wife was raped rather than she cheated on him. Not to mention if Cain’s story is to be believed Mockingbird let the man she was sleeping with die for exactly no reason. There were other times during Cain’s run where I felt she was mischaracterizing some people or else was being too on the nose about stuff. 

But there were other times I thought the series was really funny, really action packed, i generally loved the pacing and I felt when it did cut more realistic (like the first issue when Bobbi is having a health check up) or in issue #3 when it was discussing the psychology of a sixth grade girl (even though said girl’s story had insufficient resolution, like did she go to jail or what?) it was incredibly refreshing. Truth be told a lot of the stuff in that series writing wise becomes easier to understand when you realize it’s partially a zany comedy and not really taking itself too seriously nor is it asking you to do the same, which is starkly different to say Spider-Gwen’s approach wherein it is playing stuff seriously but there is arbitrarily zany shit thrown in for the sake of it.

 I think Laura becoming Logan’s successor makes sense but it doesn’t mean it’s okay to just axe off Logan because he’s broken. FIX him and then down the line replace him. Laura’s book as is frankly just...an okay X-23 book with a new costume. I never cared for Laura outside of X-Men Evolution or the Logan movie (where she was more endearing) anyway.

 I didn’t agree with the female exclusive screenings of the Wonder Woman film but I also felt Zeus’s involvement in her origin was an unacceptable compromising of the specific feminist ideas and messages Wonder Woman was supposed to represent. I felt the same way about Azzarello’s run on the character which is where the Zeus origin came from and was happy Greg Rucka tried to fix that in his 2016 run.

 I’ve said before a poc actor playing Peter Parker is fine and dandy in my book and I was very open to Zendaya possibly playing Mary Jane (until I saw the movie...ugh...). My only concerns were in a significant way having the characters change to reflect the realities of them now being poc.

 I’ve suggested some basic ideas on how to maybe get more representation in Marvel and DC, including for queer, Trans and mentally ill characters and as I’ve seen it I’ve called shit out I found to be racist, sexist, homophobic, etc, e.g. I was disgusted by Civil War II killing off Rhodey and called out the way Cindy Moon was initially handled by Slott. And my frequent lambasting of MJ’s depiction under Slott (especially in Superior #2) should I hope by this point go without saying.

 So yeah my views don’t line up with those of Diversity and Comics but nor do they line up with those of ComicsAlliance and their hordes either. But because of people like the former people like the latter are going to broadbrush label and demonize people like me. People who might SEEM like we agree with guys like D&C but actually we’re coming at it from a very different angle and we don’t actually agree with their rationales 99% of the time.

 But in the times we live in right now nuance is apparently as dead as Batman’s parents.

 Frankly as I get older I guess I see myself socially/politically speaking being more of a moderate when it comes to comic books...and right now that feels like a profoundly lonely place to be.

#Marvel #marvel comics #DC #DC Comics #diversity and comics #Spider-Man #Peter Parker #Miles Morales #Ultimate Spider-Man #MCU #marvel cinematic universe #dceu #dc extended universe #Wonder Woman 2017 #Wonder Woman movie #War Machine #james rhodes #Carol Danvers #kamala khan #Ms Marvel #Jenette kahn #Steve Wacker #Anne Nocenti #Superman #Batman #Wonder Woman #Titans #Teen Titans #Ice Man #Bobby Drake

[cinnamon-suncat]

Hey there! I hope that this doesn't sound strange, but I have a question. I know that Syrena is in a relationship and you only roleplay relationships building organicly, and Syrena is amazing and I think that our characters would be really well-matched. If they spent time together I think a relationship would organicly grow, like how you want. Would you be open to a plot-line like this?

I really appreciate you checking instead of just trying to interfere in Syr’s existing relationship, but no, I’m not open to cheating/seduction plotlines (which I think is what you’re asking for?).

While it’s true that I refuse to put my characters in relationships which didn’t grow organically, that doesn’t mean that I approach RP entirely viewing my character as someone who has agency above my own – it just means that I turn down offers like ‘hey we’ve never RPed before but let’s put our characters in a relationship!’I like building relationships, yeah! But that doesn’t mean that Syr has greater control over a RP than I do, and I myself am not interested in a plotline focused on drawing her away from Braden, no matter how well matched she might be with your character.

Syr’s plenty flirty though (with zero intent behind it, mind you, she just thinks it’s fun) and totally open to new friends, so if you’re down for a fun flirty friendship and if you understand that there is no romantic or sexual future for your character with Syr, then feel free to message me off anon! I’m not currently taking new RP partners on, but I do have an ever-growing list of people that I plan on RPing with when my own schedule is a bit more amenable to it.

#Anonymous

[thecatsaesthetics]

I was seeing your tags in the gifset of Morwenna and her sister, and I don't why but the way Rowella spoke about her foot in front of Mr. Whitworth and the fact Morwenna maybe has told her about his fetish and about Drake, make me think that maybe she's gonna manipulate him and then, when she's married, it will be intentionally that her husband find her cheating on him with Mr. Whitworth.

Because the way she says: 'Why, sister, would you agree to marry that man?' I don't find the way she's gonna be interested on him. Even worse about his fetish. It would be awesome if Rowella help to get ride off Mr. Whitworth.

I mean I think we would have to give Debbie Horsfield if she does go down the path of having Rowella helping her sister escape her marriage. If she sticks with the books 100% with this plotline it becomes super obvious why she wanted to change the Ross and Elizabeth from being a blatant rape to having Elizabeth “consent” at the end of the attack. It had nothing to do with updating to text it has to do with her own worship of Ross. 

From everything I’ve read about this plot with Morwenna, Whitworth, and Rowella I’m utterly disgusted. It’s one thing to go down the Morwenna and Drake are separated, she’s in a loveless abusive marriage, but it’s another thing to paint a 15-year-old girl as some kinda sexual manipulator. If Debbie Horsfield saw that storyline and thought “Oh this is something I’ll do.” but the Ross and Elizabeth stuff cross the line, I’ll have zero respect for her as a creator. 

#poldark #wehavegotthedreamersdisease

[bunnyandbirb]

Birb’s B-Movies #2: Pass Thru

Neil Breen is a truly visionary actor/producer/director/writer/editor, and the owner of Neil Breen Films, LLC. You may know him from his previous works, Double Down and I am Here….Now. My favorite masterpiece of his is undoubtedly Fateful Findings, the science fiction drama where Neil plays a magical hacker who exposes all “the most secret government and corporate secrets.”

In preparation for his upcoming film, Twisted (set to release in 2018), I decided to sit down and watch the one film that I’ve never seen: Pass Thru (2016) and trust me, this is a work of pure Breenius. The website for the movie describes the movie as such:

“Artificial Intelligence from far into the future arrives to immediately CLEANSE the human species of millions of humans who are harmful to other humans. A VISIONARY, REVOLUTIONARY FILM which pushes the human species to the limits of controversial, thought-provoking actions.”

I have to admit, this is probably the most confusing Breen movie I’ve seen to date (and that’s really saying something.) I honestly don’t even remember the names of any of the characters, but that hardly matters. It has a very similar message to his other films, which he makes sure to hammer into your head so that even if you don’t understand the plot, at least you end up with something. We’ll get into that near the end, though.

The movie starts with overly long mountain/desert landscape shots that were probably taken an hour away from his house, since he lives near Las Vegas. Then something strange happens.

There’s a rock with white paintings on it, and suddenly a giant ginseng root-looking “hand” comes out and delicately prods the paintings with a stick. It then cuts to a random tiger chilling on a cliff above, and then immediately cuts again to two pristine clocks by the rock with some shitty black smoke effect crawling across the screen.

I don’t even get a chance to try to comprehend what these things mean before another series of confusing imagery: walking legs, a girl in her room reading about space, some old man just sitting in the desert with magazines, and then Neil Breen himself, picking up what looks like trash from a party he threw the other night. A red dot appears in the sky, and finally we get our first real dialogue of the film.

It is at this time that I have the horrible realization that everyone in this movie has received thorough direction from Neil Breen on how to read lines off a script. Each syllable is robotically intonated, each word spoken unnaturally slowly and with an awkward pause… nothing anyone says in this movie sounds real. Breen was debatably the worst actor in Fateful Findings, and it seems like he tried really hard to get everyone on his level this time.

Three kids (names unknown) sit around in a room, and the boy has somehow found the red sky dot (which is apparently some kind of signal.) The two girls try to sound excited but somehow manage to sound even more apathetic as they raise their voices. The boy goes from “I’m following the signal!” to “I lost the signal” in literally one second, so I guess he just sucks.

The next few minutes of this movie are just pure chaos. Each scene is somehow too short and at the same time way too long, and the sequence that they’re placed in just makes zero sense whatsoever. Let me just run through them (keep in mind, these are in chronological order):

Neil Breen lies in a pile of his own filth in his trailer.

Neil Breen lies outside in the dirt while some faceless man with a gun pays him to clean up the evidence of a ‘smuggling site’ (i.e. Gatorade bottles and soup cans.)

Some “immigrants” (who just look like tourists) are led through a ravine

Neil Breen wakes up in the dirt with the garbage still around him, finds a dirty syringe and injects it into his arm. He then dies and we get this great special effect: 

The nameless boy calls one of the girls and then proceeds to have an entire conversation by himself. 

A random hand bleeds while it touches barbed wire.

I was confused enough at this point, but then I kept watching and realized that the entire movie is edited like this. Let it be known that I tried three times to write this post while reformatting the events of the story to make them more clear, but it was actually impossible. So instead of trying again, I’m just going to run through the four most hilarious parts of the movie. Honestly, you wouldn’t understand the plot even if I gave more information than this, so to hell with it.

1. The Great Immigration

One plotline involves a group of “immigrants” who are being herded along by human traffickers. The “immigrants” all act like a bunch of middle schoolers on a boring field trip (and are dressed similarly), and are constantly whining: “Where are we going?” “Why do we have to walk so far?” “Stop yelling at us.” The human smugglers in the movie are incredibly incompetent at both smuggling and acting, which makes every one of these scenes a pleasure to watch.

The traffickers filter through the immigrants, stopping a few who happen to be hiding plastic baggies (of what looks like cocaine) under their shirts.) One of them is a woman who is pretending to be pregnant, and is clearly not an actor because she can’t stop smiling in what (I’m assuming) is supposed to be a serious situation. They line up these baggies and start handing them out, designating who they’re going to: lawyers, bankers, “the CEO”, etc. Basically all the people Breen talks shit about in every movie he makes.

Their leader shoots some woman and a kid because she “has absolutely no VALUE for you two on the STREETS.” (Uh, lady, you’re in a desert.) Two of the women manage to escape, even as a man shoots at them at point blank range four times (and apparently misses each time.) Nobody bothers to go after them. The rest of the immigrants are “trapped” in a truck and they all freak out because they clearly cannot escape:

2. Neil Breen cleaning up his house

The two women that escaped from the traffickers stumble into Neil Breen’s trailer, and he invites them to stay with him. For some reason, the women yell everything they say even when they’re standing right next to each other. Also, they vehemently don’t want to stay with him - can’t blame them, really.

In order to convince them to stay, Breen insists that he will “clean it” for them. No words can explain the beauty of this scene, so I have to just show you the clip:

3. Neil Breen “isn’t that corrupt”

Coming to the end of the movie, it’s revealed that Breen is actually an alien artificial intelligence (who has a name, but hell if I remember that much). His mission is to just kill all the humans that he doesn’t like. Okay, he actually said those who “cause harm to other humans,” but isn’t that technically every living human? Whatever, I will not question our lord and savior Neil Breen.

Breen teleports into mansions and inserts himself into conversations with the people that he shit talks all the time (i.e. lawyers, Big Pharma, government officials, bankers, etc. etc.) and just makes everything awkward.

Here’s a transcript of an actual conversation:

A: “I know senior, national elected government officials who I can force my political... *insert pause where she forgets her lines*... bias and influence on fellow politicians to vote my way, for a payoff of course.”

Breen: “ISN’T THAT CORRUPT?”

Everyone: …….

[Breen looks away as everyone else stares at him.]

B: “I know companies that can hack into any government national agency or corporate facility. For the right price, you can get any information that you want. And they don’t need to know why or your reason. These places are so vulnerable and unprotected, and there is no way they can keep up with the technology.”

Breen: “ISN’T THAT CORRUPT?”

Everyone: ……..

This same exact conversation repeats itself until Breen decides to leave, and then the people are like, “Who the fuck was that guy?”

Breen teleports in front of the mansion, fades out of his tuxedo and into his regular janitor clothes, and then waddles away as shitty explosion effects happen in the background.

“If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth,” he says. I’m pretty sure those were not ‘truth explosions,’ but you do you, Neil.

4. The Newsroom and Neil Breen

After that shitshow, Neil decides to make his big move by appearing on some news channel to make his traditional monologue. Throughout the movie, the news anchors have been reporting some very interesting news. Serious criminals, lawyers, bank management, and even accountants have mysteriously vanished overnight.  According to one of the hosts, “It’s as if all the harmful people on Earth are disappearing.” Oh, he also mentioned that “Ignorant reality shows about families, housewives, groups, individuals… those casts are all gone.” So I guess Breen is now lumping the Kardashians with corrupt government officials on his ‘Evil People’ list.”

Neil shows up uninvited onto the news broadcast, and the hosts rightfully call out for security guards. Breen fires back with, “You won’t need security. You’re gone.”

And so they are:

I won’t even try to recount all of the nonsense the Neil says in his speech, but here are the some select quotes:

“I am not of this Earth. I am artificial intelligence from FAR into the future.”

“Human evolution has ended, and there can be no further advancement.”

“I have eliminated 300 million humans from the planet today”

“Violate laws and regulations”

Breen also really loves listing things, as can be witnessed in this single speech.

Neil Breen lists the things he hates (in order within the speech):

Illegal wars

The abuse of the media systems

Films

TV

Radio

The Internet

Violence

Corruption

Political correctness

Fear of the truth

Excuses

Second chances

Third chances

Warnings

Sympathy

Cheats

Thieves

Criminals

Abusers

Corrupters

Dishonest humans

Abusers of:

Other humans

The planet

The environment

Children & animals

Violence

Corruption

Corporate corruption

Failed political systems

Failed judicial systems

Failed educational systems

Failed environmental systems

There are a lot of other hilarious things in this movie aside from these moments.

 Like seriously, what the hell is this:

But I won’t get into any more of the gems from this film, because this has already gone on long enough. Watch it yourself to experience them all.

I’ll be looking forward to Twisted, Neil!

~Stay tuned for nonsense~

- birb

#monday #movie review #movies #neil breen #pass thru #really late #birb #b movies #bad movies #movie monday #thisisbunnyinthetags #birb has a new job #everyone congratulate birb #bunnyandbirb #text post #long post #review