#I WILL QUOTE THE ENTIRE GODDAMN EPISODE

[haycartsflowercarts]

My official, very serious, very professional opinion on Obi-Wan Kenobi, Part VI:

This Is The Best, There Is Nothing I Don’t Love

[itwoodbeprefect]

the way that in hutchinson for murder one starsky goes "cause if they can bring in my partner on a murder one, i want no part of this police department, this city or this country" is just. oh god. he jumps ALL the way from changing careers or moving house right into denouncing his whole citizinship and the american dream altogether, and i know he's playing a part here to lure their bad guy into a trap but. is he? is he really.

[crithaus]

It's 2 am but I'm awake so tlovm fans get this right in the episodes where Percy and gang are retaking Whitestone, specifically the ones where Vax is mind controlled and they've just escaped the residuum melting acid tank, Keyleth and Vex both call him via the magic earrings trying to snap Vax outta being bisexually mind controlled and keyleth gives him a half seconds pause, barely anything but Vex fakes dying in the ACID on her turn, lies through her pearly little teeth to him and that stops Vax dead in his tracks for a second, it's enough to shake him outta damn mind control by former cerberus assembly archmage delilah goddamn briarwood for a moment

I will scream a new singularity into the universe, and they keep talking for a moment actually and right after Matt-as-delilah asks Vax just who tbe fuck he's whispering to he LIES, RAW Vax should have told Sylas and Delilah right then and there that the acid trap failed but he lies by ommission to protect his sister and family and girlfriend, sobs, and then when they're all seconds before the actually ziggurat fight Matt is explaining the parameters of mind control to Liam, yea sure Vox Machina is still technically your friends but the Briarwoods are your new friend-ier friends now and if shit pops off youll be protecting the briarwoods, and Liam's like :/, mostly accurate quote, "so if I see," points to Laura, "her, the most important person in the world to me, I wanna fight her?" Like twinnies on top forever I fear, he would punt scanlan off of the ziggurat for free at that moment but Gods forbid he has to lay a hand on his sister, and then he's like well I'll just guard Delilah's body and not hit anyone anyway, he isn't even willing to entertain the idea of fighting Vex (and co but...)

And then like during the fight after sylas dies, like sam said that tlovm is its own canon and also that the twins specifically got so wicked pulverized throughout the entire campaign that he had to start giving all but their very biggest owies to everyone else so the runtime wasn't 140+ minutes of footage from exandrian intensive care but I'm still SAD about Keyleth getting Delilah's last hurrah attack instead of vex cuz Vex was DYING, in a room with a magic dampening sphere too so no healing and Vax was like hey dm I will run up this 90° wall to reach my sister take those laws of gravity and shove them up ur ass my boy, like she was getting tossed around like a ragdoll, Liam was going to cry it was awesome, he had tunnel vision and it was getting vex somewhere safe and blowing all their useless potions on her, he wouldn't put her down until keyleth started testing fate fucking with the endless abysmal orb, Vex was fine but oh man the future of her death at the hands of something Percy was involved in?? Foretold tens of episodes before, insane how an unscripted dnd game shakes out

Anyway twinnies goes insanely insanely hard in the campaign it's unreal it's wild, Liam spent 2 and a half whole hours in one of his trials of the take episodes mourning by his own admission his sister being gone for about 8 hours away from Him, i am a codependent siblings enjoyer and this shit will feed you

also I fear I need to reiterate, twinnies? Perfect, no notes. Twincest? An abomination, please do not misconstrue my affections here abeg

[sadboytournament]

ROUND TWO

Propaganda

Read more added due to the length

Anthony Lockwood: (via @its-your-mind)

Simon Petrikov: (via @transgendersimonpetrikov) "...

Simon. Simon is not initially introduced as Simon, rather is introduced as Ice King, an insane and Really out of it "villain". Throughout almost all of the first 3 seasons, you ONLY see him being weird and getting beat up a lot but under all of it is incredibly sad for reasons he can't distinguish aside from crushing loneliness. Until the Christmas special, they pull a COMPLETE 180 on ice kings character and reveal his backstory - and just to shine some light on this, up until this point in the show, Finn is the only CONFIRMED human in the show. All others are assumed to be extinct. Simon's/Ice King's backstory reveals a few things to the main characters and the audience that makes the characters see him in a new, sympathetic light - he was a human antiquarian with a fiancee (named betty) who just so happened to put a cursed crown on his head as a joke to amuse betty. And then boom! He's cursed. Unlike some other, admittedly limited amount of characters, however, after putting on the crown, he does not immediately go insane. It happens over the course of a few years (which in itself implies he has insane amounts of willpower, even still coming through with Ice King given that the crown tells its users to freeze the whole world with themself inside) .

So, he's cursed, and betty supposedly left him, as that's to what he's known. He assumed he scared her and she ran away and doesn't love him anymore, and spends years grieving over that. But in the few years after putting on the crown and before fully losing his mind, he has to take care of a girl after a goddamn war (where the climax is a detonated mutagenic bomb that makes radioactive zombies and shit) that he found crying in the middle of the street. So, if his mental state was already declining BEFORE, it sure as hell is now because he has to wear the cursed crown more and more to protect himself and this girl and the effects of it clearly show every time he puts it on in flashbacks with himself in Clear distress over the effects of it . So after a while he is scared for himself, and, to quote him, "I fear my thoughts are no longer my own". So then he begrudgingly leaves the girl he cared for over the course of several years before he goes fully mad and loses himself. So then aside from some mentioned stuff that happens before his insanity fully sets in (like being hypnotized which surely did not help his already deteriorating mind) and then for a thousand years he's just pretty much Gone.

In season 4 episode 25, "I remember you", he goes to marceline (the girl he cared for, though he doesn't remember that) and asks her to help him write a song to draw in the ladies. I won't go through the whole episode, but the song they end up making is not anything like that - he took over notes and pages from a scrapbook and Marceline found some he wrote before he fully went mad while desperately trying to get him to remember who he was, and they turned the notes into a song. There is a lot of crying from marceline, meanwhile Ice King has zero fucking clue what's going on there and just thinks they're having fun. The entire episode is up on YouTube, and I would recommend watching just to get the idea.

Near the end of season 5, he gets a brief moment of lucidity and return to his former self, and he makes a time portal to say sorry and goodbye to betty, and she jumps through only to discover that without the crown Simon is dying. He says later in the episode that he'd rather Die than go back to being Ice king. She wants to find a way to help him so she gets him turned back into ice king so she can find a way to cure him, with her going insane by gaining magic in the process (by proxy of mms, which is a whole thing itself).

Series finale rolls around, he's finally back, but in a chaos deitys "stomach", which reverted him and betty back to their sane, non magic selves. Their moment is short lived by the "stomach" closing in on them, about to crush them to death. They've seemingly accepted their fates, and embrace before their impending deaths, but they're given a way out, betty staying behind despite his pleas and using the original wish state of the crown to wish Simon safe and thereby fusing with the chaos deity and leaving. The next scene is Simon breaking down and crying where she previously was.

So, 12 years pass between the finale and the spin off, and he's just absolutely tired with everything. Hes a 20th century man frozen in time and thrown into into new world after living 1000 years insane and sad without the love of his life with him and he has to deal with that. He is constantly barraged with people talking about a story he wrote when he was insane, saying that it was great, wishing he'd write more, etc etc. Even saying he was cooler when he was insane. Still grieving betty, he tries to Actually Perform A Ritual That Could Destroy The World just to see her again. It goes wrong and the 2 main characters from the story he wrote while insane pop out of his head. After a bit, he finds out that they're not fiction and instead a universe planted in his head . Their magic was stripped from their world when he was reverted back to himself and since he's wallowing in so much misery he decides to find a way to go Back to being insane and commit the equivalent of suicide and perform ego death once again for people he just met because he felt his life was worth so little that serving any purpose even if detrimental to himself would give himself a meaning to live. Just as he's about to finish this, he finally gets to talk to now-chaos-deity betty, and she gets it in his head that his life is worth living and then sends him off to live his life after an emotional scene of them finally ready to let go of their losses..."

[sailorblossoms]

Gosh I really dislike seeing any variation of the "front seat are for people who haven't been kidnapped" used for "lighthearted" jokes. It's not funny, and I doubt it's really meant to be. You see through that quote that the adult Baz idolizes and follows is fucked in the head. That she's the type to call "tough love" to shit that's frankly just abusive.

As someone who has seen those old little European cars in person, let me tell you: the backseat are designed for fucking children. No grown person can go there comfortably, much less a tall grown person like Baz. Think about that: he has been immobilized and contained in a small, dark place for fucking weeks, and the first thing his aunt does is make him sit in a space that's way too small for him... and she essentially does it as punishment. "How dare you make me worry!" "You're a powerful Pitch and you ought to be embarrassed for allowing yourself to be kidnapped!" she basically says. It's doing a lot for characterization while communicating things that are pretty fucked up (helping explain why Baz is all fucked up) – it shouldn't get treated with the levity one gives to a catchphrase or a life laugh love print.

Even ignoring the context, I fail to see the punchline. "This almost adult is being treated like a child haha" could maybe be funny in potentially harmless family sitcom scenarios depending on how it's done, but certainly not when applied to someone who has the mind and the soul of a human being who has just survived torture no human would. Especially when considering intent of the person saying it. This is not a case of the story telling you to consider it funny (The Nanny comes to mind: it has an episode that uses kidnapping in a pretty humorous way, and big part of the humor is that at no point is anyone actually in danger; the kidnappers are a silly couple, and the kidnapping is mostly just the characters sitting in a pretty comfy sofa for a while after a failed attempt at rescuing their dog... the whole thing is constructed so you don’t take it seriously.) (I get that one criticism is that the books don't really explore the aftermath of Baz's kidnapping, which is valid; I'd say it's likely mostly him keeping himself so busy and not being in many potentially triggering scenarios, not that we're all meant to dismiss it with the goddamn numpty line. Also, repression is a realistic way to cope: note how "I was cold then" has Baz, who usually has no issues thinking about his shit and articulating it, being purposely vague, avoiding details that would awaken memories or focus on the coffin. The entire focus is on the numpties)

[buckybarnesss]

on fire: a teen wolf novel chapters 4-6 chapters 1-3 here

cox communications doesn't respect 3rd shift workers so last night i had to go into my brick and mortar office. i was able to get a lot of reading done but due to rules and regulations i was unable to write down my thoughts as i went. instead i used those little sticky note tabs to mark passages of interest so that's why this post took a little bit longer as i had to review what i had marked.

anyway.

our national nightmare continues.

ngl this book is weird. it's bizarro season 1.

it's non-canon compliant post-episode 5 the tell. i genuinely do not understand why they just didn't tap nancy holder to write a novelization of season 1.

warning: kate argent's existence and general grossness.

so buckle up buttercups here's a preview of what's to come:

we start this chapter from kate's point of view and it makes me feel dirty already. cast it into the fire, isildur. she’s just vile. just look at these nauseating quotes that she has all within the first page: 

“nothing beat the feel of cold, hard steel -- unless it was the rippling muscles of a well-built man.”

this bitch.

”god, all those muscles. the last time she’d seen him, he’d still been in high school. still a kid. a stupid, gullible kid, who should have died in the hale house fire along with the rest of his family.”

tell me again how the intention wasn't for derek to have been a minor when kate was grooming him? tell me fucking again.

“maybe she should’ve taken advantage of derek while he’d been down on the floor, writhing from the nine hundred thousand volts she’d sent skittering though his kick-ass body. for old time’s sake.”

chris and victoria are there too, being way more normal about things. they brought egg salad and cold cuts which feels like it’s hitting the beat where victoria comes in with cookies in the show. 

despite having grounded allison for her skipping school with scott on her birthday they are perfectly fine with her having not only a study date with lydia but allowing her to sleep over. it’s apparently to cover the arrival of a shipment of weapons. kate isn’t impressed that they’re still hiding everything from allison and disappointed there isn’t some super-special weapon in the shipment. 

this entire time she’s being weird and kind of sexual about an uzi. like, fuck off kate. 

now we’re back to scott and allison at the seedy motel plot where they are trying to locate jackson. “scott’s first instinct was to throw his arms around allison and duck, but she yanked the door open and barreled inside the motel like a superhero.”  uou are goddamn right, scott. that is ally a. 

the motel is basically an off the books brothel. one of the patrons supposedly saw something in one of the windows when he went open it for a smoke but saw something that scared him causing a heart attack. allison and scott ask a few people if they’ve seen jackson then have to book it when sheriff stilinski shows up.  these two idiots duck down in her car. i think we see stiles and scott do this a few times in the show.

lydia calls allison freaked out that she hadn’t called her back yet and harkens back to the tell by saying “a....window?” when they tell her about the man having a heart attack and scott describes her as sounding odd. i appreciate that lydia's trauma isn't being ignored because that just happened to her in the tell.

all this use of the generic where’s my phone app and using conference calls to sneak around feels like an adaptation of the plot beat in wolf’s bane.

the sterek agenda continues. derek and stiles spend a significant portion of the coming chapters together much like they do in the back half of season 1. it starts with the possible origin of the derek being in stiles’s room trope. stiles muses over the text he’d received from scott about the incident at the motel and as if being summoned derek is just suddenly there in his room. look at this bullshit:

he texted back, muttering, “so, scott, saw what? saw derek?” “yes?” derek said from behind him. “yeaoww!” stiles shouted. he turned around to find derek leaning against the wall. he did that on an irritatingly frequent basis, both at scott’s house and casa stilinski. he was wearing his black leather jacket and he looked especially pouty and broody. “could you not do that anymore? it is so not cool.”

irritatingly frequent basis? how many times has derek randomly appeared in your room stiles? and i’m sorry “especially pouty and broody”? what a totally super casual observation that is.

it gets even better. derek questions what scott is doing and stiles deadass answers “doin’ stuff.” which naturally irritates derek and derek requests stiles tell scott he wants to meet him. they’re interrupted by the sheriff calling for stiles to which we get:

“gotta go get that.” Stiles pointedly shut down his desktop -- Derek actually growled -- and slid his phone into the pocket of his jeans. “don’t touch anything.”

derek why are you growling? weirdo.

stiles talks to his dad and probes for information about the motel guy and they discuss his homework. it's actually a pretty great conversation between the two and pretty much the only time it occurs in the book.

there’s a mention of stiles’s mother and the sheriff asks stiles if he’s taken his adderall that day. so again, clearly whatever notes holder received very much indicated stiles's ADHD.

back in stiles’s room we get derek pointedly having ignored stiles’s directive to not touch anything: “he zoomed back into his room to find derek clacking away on his computer keyboard.” and “hey,” he said. “keep your paws off.” derek gave him one of his trademark sour glares.” this just continues to confirm for me that holder received some kind of outline of character and plot beats. casa stilinski? sour glares? derek and stiles doing investigative work and going to a hospital? stiles having a low key bisexual crisis over derek? it’s all there. i mean bro look at this:

“look,” derek leaned toward him and the hairs on the back of stiles’s neck stood straight up.”

and the banter:

“but don’t do anything wolfy in my jeep,” he said, opening his door and peering into the hallway. the coast was clear. “like stick our head out the window to let your tongue hang out --” “shut up,” derek said. 

here's another werewolf moment i find rather intriguing. scott and allison have made it to the preserve by this point still hot on the trail of jackson who lydia had told them was somewhere in the preserve. scott has a moment where in his mind he hears the how of a wolf. it says “an echo inside an echo” and “one wolf calling to another. seeking the pack.” that's pretty cool and it's not something shows up in the show.

jackson has finally arrived. i miss this asshole. he's in the woods being pissy about meeting the private investigator that had left him a note and a picture of his supposed biological father.

jackson’s perspective on what happened in magic bullet is just [chef’s kiss]. he refers to derek as scott’s drug dealer.

“mccall’s creepy drug dealer had shown up at school. when jackson had stood up to him, he’d grabbed him by the neck, and, like, gouged him with his fingernails.”

in jackson’s narration something caught my eye. “things had been fine before the start of the school year. Then it was almost as if McCall had concocted some kind of scheme over the summer to ruin his life.” so not only is this book an AU of season 1, the time frame seems off. the show starts the first day after their winter break in january. wolf moon takes place during the episode. the book places this before wolf moon has occurred which comes up later in derek’s narration. 

 this is such a good line and is a window into jackson’s mentality: “everyone wanted something jackson had. it was usually money or popularity. the secret? they were exactly the same thing.”

allison and scott are still in the woods. they’ve been kissing for a while but then they run into a wolf. they are really so soppy in this book and it's both accurate and annoying. allison is awed and scott is quietly panicking. allison goes on about how she thought it was beautiful and scott’s mind wonders if he’ll ever turn into a wolf like how Laura did. which, lol, no baby because you never make peace fully with being a werewolf. 

annnnd we’re back to the stiles and derek plot line. they’re playing dress up. i kid you not. these two are pulling a dean and sam. 

“my new best friend and i are at the hospital.” stiles said, twirling the listening end of a stethoscope in a little circle. so far he’d been unable to hypnotize derek with it.

there’s another small dig about derek not being a real person in stiles’s narration. this book hates derek, okay but i have a lo more on that later. for now these two idiots infiltrated the hospital by pulling the old stand by of Looking Important. stiles has a conversation with scott which is invoking wolf’s bane so hard:

“and you’ll never guess what. you can get past hospital security if you steal a white coat out of the storage room and parade around with it and a clipboard.” derek grunted. he was the one holding the clipboard, but he had passed on wearing a lab coat.”

stiles continues his observations of derek like the freak4freak he is:

“stiles covered the phone, “he can’t talk about wolfie matters,” he reported back to derek.  “because he’s with her,” derek said, looking even more dour than usual. stiles had never realized there were so many degrees of the brood until derek hale came into their lives.”

there’s a bit of back and forth regarding scott reporting that he and allison saw an actual wolf. derek’s disbelieving and cranky to which stiles ponders this totally normal thought:

“maybe if he gave derek a sugar cube -- or threw him a piece of raw meat -- derek might cheer up. stiles would have to try that someday. but today wasn’t looking good for that.”

derek then snatches stiles’s phone to question scott’s whereabouts. he is still cranky. meanwhile stiles is reading derek’s body language and it’s way too detailed for a normal person. like, stiles no one cares derek’s hand is in his jacket pocket while he grumps at scott and emphasizes “like always”. stiles how hard have you been watching derek? he may have complained about derek showing up in his room unnaounced but he's like

before we get into derek’s narration which ooh boy guys you aren’t ready. stiles and derek have their classic bickering-bantering some more. 

derek’s insisting stiles take him to the preserve so he can scent scott out. stiles is appalled and is like “oh my god derek you weirdo there’s an app for that.” and gets a little red riding hood dig in.

derek refuses to admit stiles has a point but orders stiles to give him his phone. stiles all but says Fuck You No and derek brings out his oldie but goodie:

“tell me or i’ll rip your throat out.” 

stiles probably thinks “don’t threaten me with a good time” but instead he says that he knows derek’s not telling him everything and insists he’s going with derek to find scott. 

it ends on this exchange:

“all right,” he said, “but we’ll take your jeep.” stiles huffed. “why can’t we ever take your car?” 

alas the camero. we barely knew her.

now we switch to derek’s point of view to narrate and so begins a piece of characterization that i don’t like, isn’t actually accurate to the character at any point in the series and frankly chaps my ass. i’m just going to give you all the paragraph as a whole.

“hey, you have to take me with you.,” scott’s annoying little sidekick insisted as derek stalked out of the hospital. derek took a tiny bit of satisfaction in the way the human had to trot along to stay abreast. he was sick to death of taking the weakness of humans into account while formulating his plans. de respected power, and few humans had any.”

besties, this book may very well be the origin of Derek Thinks Humans Are Weak trope. now, i’m sure some of you are like heather aren’t you perhaps being a tad dramatic? 

no. no i’m not. at first i considered this might be because of derek’s experience with kate. it would make sense that perhaps based off the information holder had that derek might be wary but than this fucker drops this line:

“werewolves didn’t share information with humans, ever.”

but he follows this thought with this:

“except for him, derek hale. he had shared information with a human. he hadn’t meant to. and the results had been disastrous.”

i will definitely get into more detail about this attitude he has because it really comes out in some later chapters because ooooh boy y’all ain’t prepared for the nonsense ahead. in actual canon derek never behaves this way or express this kind of opinion about humans. it stands out starkly in contrast to the episode this moment is paralleling in wolf’s bane. derek thinks stiles is annoying but not because he’s human. 

we end this chapter on jackson’s point of view. de had met with the so-called private investigator and they tit-for-tatted and jackson bolted when he sensed danger in the woods. now he’s lost in the woods. he’s scared, doesn’t want to admit it and sends a text to lydia.

it's here in these chapters where i realized that the character of deaton is missing entirely. since all of season 1's plot past the tell is omitted deaton's significance went with it.

also the mystery of the alpha is present but she's unable to really do anything with it so peter's presence is still regulated to comatose burn victim.

[badass-queer-couples-battle]

Sword gays showdown, losers bracket (Round 1)

Propaganda:

For Leo: (Mod note: most submissions were for RTMNT but there was 1 for the character in general as well)

He's a badass, he's a loser, he's the coolest guy of all time, he's a pathetic little man, he's the greatest ninja the world has ever seen, hes an asshole, he has badass portal katanas, he's the fruitiest iteration of the charecter by far! Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you. The one, the only, RISE LEONARDO!

I mean just look at him!

He has these super cool swords and he’s a lil bit fruity

literally the gayest most flamboyant idiot teenager ever. he's a sassy overconfident bastard and we love him for it. he has a magic portal sword for most of the series. the kind of sword he wields (an ōdachi) was specifically picked because, AND I QUOTE, "he can't even hold that thing without looking like he was posing with it. we thought that was really fun for a kid who's got a giant sword and that kind of attitude." in previous tmnt iterations there was this guy, Usagi, who i guess those versions of Leo must have had some kind of chemistry with, idk. fun fact he's not even really a tmnt character, he's a crossover character who's just showed up in like three different iterations!! anyway, despite Usagi literally not existing in Rise canon, Rise!Leo gives off SUCH gay vibes that THE ENTIRE FANDOM HAS DECIDED THAT HE EXISTS ANYWAY AND IS LEO'S BOYFRIEND AND/OR MASSIVE CRUSH. THE ENTIRE FANDOM. I'M LITERALLY NOT EVEN EXAGGERATING. Leosagi is like, the biggest ship in the goddamn fandom and ONE OF THE CHARACTERS ISN'T EVEN CANON. this entire animatic. yeah.

Dual wields katanas like a boss. Has also used various other swords in different pieces of TMNT media. Regardless of which iteration of Turtles we're talking about, he's also almost always "close friends" with the katana-wielding samurai rabbit Usagi!

For Percy:

shes canonically ace :] and shes got a REAL ASS GOD DAMN SWORD!!!!!!

She wields a real ass goddamn sword and kicks ass with it! She can also channel her magic wizard tower powers into said sword which is also badass. She also has some really banger lines in the show.

She carries a real-ass-goddamned-sword ! Which is in genuine reference to when she's first introduced in the series! She also constantly carries said sword around and uses it in combat later in episode 7

[delta-queerdrant]

too much television watchin' got me chasin' dreams (Initiations, s2 e2)

I had a wild and extremely distracting August, but I am back, with no shortage of episodes in the hopper in need of my lovingly critical attention.

This time it's "Initiations"! Prior to now, we've only had two Chakotay episodes - "State of Flux," which introduces the Seska of it all, and "Cathexis," in which the poor guy spends the entire episode in a coma. So "Initiations" is a welcome, if flawed, opportunity to spend some more time with a generally underutilized and mishandled character.

There's a lot to like about this episode! It's not overly sentimental - instead, we get the kind of tense, understated cultural exchange that Star Trek is known for. Aron Eisenberg gives a sympathetic performance as the young Kazon-Ogla, and Chakotay brings a plausible mix of calculation and exasperation, as well as warmth, to their interactions.

While I have, ah, GRAVE issues with the Kazon, I was surprised and a bit pleased to see that their social structure is portrayed as culturally contingent and not biologically essential.

Buuuut yeah, let's talk about the racism of this show.

About halfway through Season 2, it became impossible to ignore that the STV co-creators were attempting a painfully on-the-nose race parable with the Kazon. I did some digging and, sure enough, the creators are on record explaining that the Kazon were inspired by "the Crips and the Bloods." To quote Jeri Taylor more fully, "We felt with the Kazon we needed to address the tenor of our times and what […] was happening in our cities and recognizing a source of danger and social unrest. We wanted to do that metaphorically."

👀

Even looking back from the rocky terrain of 2023, it's a bit baffling to contemplate how shameless white SF creators were in the nineties. They decided to use their goofy science fiction television show to exercise their white Boomer "war on crime" anxieties and they were proud of it! They wrote about their creative process in books. They used "Crips" and "Bloods" as stand-ins for the Kazon sects in their working notes. They gave them those goddamn wigs.

With all this in mind, it's hard not to watch this episode and hear "Gangsta's Paradise" in the background, a la Michelle Pfeiffer. Star Trek "races" have always been steeped in racist caricature, but it's egregious here, and as much as this episode attempts kindly, slightly condescending cultural relativism, it can't escape its own white gaze.

The result is shitty science fiction. We know, from US history and the history of other slave and colonizer states, that self-emancipated people do not uniformly descend into anarchic factionism as soon as they find freedom. The challenges of the postcolonial/post-emancipation state aren't the dangers of too! much! power!, but of material deprivation, cultural loss, generational trauma, and the reemergence of old forms of systemic oppression under new guises.

It's unfortunate, because we do need science fiction about post-emancipation and postcolonial futures. The Kazon's distaste toward "uniforms" is the one compelling aspect of their culture - I want more of that, and some acknowledgement of what their freedom means to them. Where are the Kazon philosophers? Where are the teachers and poets? Where are the visionary freedom fighters - they only revolted 26 years ago! Where the FUCK are the women? Voyager's creators had every opportunity to investigate these questions and, if nothing else, flesh out the story they wanted to tell. Are the Kazon rival polities (fighting over what?), organized criminals operating in some larger economic context, or something else entirely? Asking these extremely basic questions might have enabled them to decouple political questions from racial stereotypes.

It's notable that the Voyager casting director, perhaps losing their nerve, seems to have cast exclusively white actors for Kazon roles (compare to the at least somewhat multiracial Klingons). I wouldn't wish these roles on any Black actor, but the resulting character designs can't help but read as brownface.

My purpose in this cultural criticism is not just a takedown of a 30-year-old television show (though it's a satisfying takedown), but that (a) our culture is steeped in this stuff and (b) glaringly obvious anti-Black racism was treated as invisible by the white mainstream and (c) they could have done better. Most obviously, they could have had BIPOC writers in the writing room, but let's be clear, white writers should have known better. To my knowledge we still don't have antiracist Star Trek, but "less egregiously racist Star Trek" was within grasp in 1995 and these folks just couldn't be bothered.

Deeply flawed premise, decent execution. 2/5 uniforms that may yet decorate my walls.

[bucket-barnes]

Aki and Audrey breaking up with Max and then going back on their pact all for all or none for none infuriates me

Here’s the thing:

Max himself calls it out, “this is not a relationship! It’s the love story of Aki and Audrey and sometimes Max”. it was never “all for all or none for none”. Aki and Audrey treated Max the way children would a puppy, he’s cute and lovable when they want him, but when he actually needs attention they make it someone else’s problem. It wasn’t “all for all or none for none” it was “Aki, Audrey, and their pet boyfriend Max”

They weren’t ready for that kind of relationship and while I understand being scared to come out, they made Max hook up with other people and literally forced him into the closet (canonically he was in there so long he had time to color-code Aki’s entire wardrobe) when he’d bring up coming out, they’d agree and then back out last minute. They only loved Max on their terms

Aki and Audrey never loved Max, they loved the idea of him, they loved the dopamine rush he gave them so they wanted to keep him, not as a partner, but as a glorified sex toy they could just put in a drawer when they were done with it

Max however, genuinely loved Aki and Audrey, the one thing he wants most in the world is unconditional love, but with Aki and Audrey…their love was conditional. He bent over backwards to make them happy, setting aside his own feelings multiple times so he could appease them

To quote Max directly in season one, episode ten

“I’ve been your dealer, your sex toy, your therapist, your agent and lawyer, but one thing I’ve never been to you is your friend, because if I was you would notice…how much it goddamn hurts every time you use me to make yourselves seem, and feel, and look better”

[aenslem]

Ship asks, Bering and Wells edition!

what’s your favorite headcanon of them?

what’s your favorite canon moment of them?

rant about them

well, my headcanon for them is that they actually end up together, but nobody knows :D they suspect, but pretend they don't see, like I am pretty sure that they would not want their relationship be known to everyone, at least not in the beginning, maybe half or an year after asjkhajkhd so it would all lead to stupid situations, cos I love when they have fun and just laugh and nobody dies

I have 2 fav moments, actually more, but I can't choose all, the first would be 'we're forever destined to meet at gunpoint' the moment I realized I ship them, the quote that made me go insane, the entire scene, the entire episode is like the best thing ever, whenever I feel down I just go and rewatch for the team, instant boost, best thing ever.

and the second is from 'reset', I will just throw screenshots here, cos I have no ability to put emotions into words when I watch this scene

anybody expected me to not go insane over them after tHIS??? come on this is like all of my ships at its finest, this is such a doctor x master thing to do

but also Emily Lake scenes?????? this shit should come with a warning honestly

I knew I will fall for HG Wells before I even saw her, because let's be honest, you can't not fall for Jaime Murray, look at her, she is the best, but I definitely did not expect to fall for the ship so hard, like I did not know anything about this fandom before I started watching it, nobody told me there is tHIS! you have to give a fucking warning here for the newbies, look at me, years passed and I come back to gif every goddamn moment with them, I have not finished giffing it all yet, cos I can't gif some scenes in peace

how do you gif HG's sacrifice without 3 mental breakdowns in between????/ I giffed this part from reset and wanted to chew on my laptop cos you can't just gif it and not yell every second of the process

that's insane they are not canon, but who gives a fuck about canon, cos they are more than canon, they are literally the definition of angst and pain, I will forever hate the show for doing what they did and giving them straight lovers and making myka and... well, I never finished the show cos of that. cos how can I?? anyone remember this show for myka and pete being together? I don't for sure, and I don't really see anybody talking about it after so many years, we remember the good things - which are Bering and Wells lol. yeah, I know there were many great things in the show, stories were fun, characters great, etc, but I remember this show and still gif it and love it due to Helena Wells, and specifically this pairing, I don't think I would have loved it the way I do if there was not HG or this couple. They are WH13 for me. and while being canon is not important for me, just imagining what an impact they would have if the show let them be together, that would be fabulous.

anyway, they are the best thing in the show for me

[dropyourammo]

*Masters Of The Air Spoilers*

On another episode of I'm the best aunt to my nieces and nephews::

I watched Masters Of The Air with my sister (36) and her children (aged 20, 12, 8, 6, and 3) today. Here are some quotes from their watch:

"Where's Bubbles?" - from all of them, the ENTIRE first few episodes. Apparently, huge Bubbles fans.

"Marge." - 20 year old mocking Gale with Bucky during episode 7.

"What happened to Meatball? Who's watching him?" - 8 year old

"He really does look like Johnny Depp!" - my sister about Austin Butler, no one had suggested that he looked like Johnny Depp 🤷‍♀️

"His lips really are perfect!" - 20 year old about Austin Butler

"Rosie, get out of the goddamn plane!" - 8 year old as Rosie is trying to bail out in episode 9

"Yay! He's flying!" - 3 year old as Rosie falls to No-Mans land in Ep. 9

"And.... kiss!" - the 20 year old and 12 year old after Bucky and Buck spoke to each other in EVERY episode

"That's a room I'd like to sit in!" - about the Tuskeegee Airmen briefing room

"Ooh he felt that." - My sister after Curt punches Bucky in episode 2

"But.. what happened to Buck?" - During episode 5

"Where is Bucky?" - 6 year old actually looking for Buck.

"But which one is Buck and which one is Bucky?" - 8 year old while watching episode 9

All in all, they all thoroughly enjoyed the show, and we had a bunch of great conversations about World War 2 and the history surrounding it. ❤️

[nonbinarylocalcryptid]

MAG12 - First Aid, more review time

GERARD KEAY! HOW DARE YOU HANG OUT WITH THAT CULT! I AM ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED! YOUR ARCHIVIST IS NOW FACING AN INQUIRY AT WORK, AND IT'S ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT! IF YOU PUT ANOTHER TOE OUT OF LINE, WE'LL BRING YOU STRAIGHT HOME!

This episode may not be scary, but I must say that it's mysterious and it's hilarious. I'll explain in a minute.

Gerard Keay is the Batman of TMA, he would get along with Dean Winchester like a house on fire and he deserves his own movie, hell, a tv show. I mean, he lives in an action movie, what the fuck is he doing in this episode in Christmas Eve??? All he has was a suit, a zippo with an eye on it, a long black coat and was being basically a goddamn hero???

Dude's crazy and we love him for that

Quotes for this one:

Ms Saraki is not a poet nor she's dramatic, so I don't have much to comment from her. Every single paranormal bit had me like "sis, run" at every turn. Mad respect for her.

"There’s obviously a lot to unpack here, so let’s start with what is provable." - Jon "I hate my job" Sims, April 17th 2016

Sometimes I want to stranggle him, wtf you mean "provable" Jonathan???

“Veepalach” might also be a mishearing of the Polish word “wypalać”, according to Martin, which means to cauterize or brand. Admittedly, if Martin speaks Polish in the same way he “speaks Latin,” then he might be talking nonsense again, but I’ve looked it up and it appears to check out." - Jon "You must be proffessional at work" Sims

Emotional constipation strikes again!

"It has not escaped my notice that this is the second time Gerard Keay has turned up in this Archive." - Jon Sims, completely unaware of everything

"(...) and if we’re lucky maybe we already have a statement from him tucked away somewhere in these damn files." - Jon Sims about Gerard Keay

yeah, a statement from Gerry, i know how that would be:

JURGEN LEITNER? STUPID IDIOT MOTHERFUCKING JURGEN LEITENER GOD DAMN FOOL BOOK COLLECTING DUST EATING RAT OLD BASTARD SHITHEAD IDIOT AVATAR OF THE WHORE BIGGEST CLOWN IN THE CIRCUS LAUGHED OUT OF TOWN COWBOY MOTHERFUCKING JURGEIN LEITNER STOP PINNING ME WHEN I TALK ABOUT JURGEIN LEITENER I HATE HIM SO MUCH WHY DOES HE HAVE SO MANY FUCKED UP BOOKS WHY DID HE DECIDE TO FUCK AROUND AND FIND OUT---

"At 03:11:22, it shows everybody in that room, which I personally counted at twenty-eight people, standing up and calmly filing out of the doors. (...) The rest of the staff and patients do not return until 03:27:12, over fifteen minutes after they left, when they walk back in through the same doors. The footage does not contain any sound, and no alarm of any sort was recorded, so I cannot offer any guess as to why they left, or what they were doing in the intervening time." - Jon Sims, scared af

notice how he "personally counted all 28 people", woah, I liked this bit soooooo much.

"There is one other thing that Sasha highlighted, however. At 03:22:52, the feed cuts out for less than a second, and is replaced for a single frame by a close-up of a human eye, staring back through the video feed." - Also Jon

wtf wtf wtf wtf wtf

General overview:

Vibe: great, absolutely great, wtf gerry

Horror: spoooooooooky

Audio: pretty ASMR in general

Humour: just the facts, and Jon being neurodivergent

Score: 10/10

[cherrybeartoast]

entirely, completely, utterly and truly for @thevampywolf - i present: things the boys (some eshays) in my year have said at school

this will be part of my official star attends school (on crack) series featuring quotes from my teachers and friends and other random people i overheard and giggled at

"well let's have a gander then."

"i don't HATE WOMEN! women do stuff for us, it's pRETTY NICE!"

"MATE! where are your cuticles?"

*reads my drink bottle sticker* "i love namjooning too!"

"can you DON'T-"

"imagine if you kept drawing that one line up and down my arm and it just spLIT like a goddamn taco."

*talking about how to clean stains* "i heard bull semen can clean them."

"break your mates hand...assert dominance."

"i sat in the freezer once for like TEN MINUTES and it was so cold."

"the union of concerned scientists."

"i watch that channel! i binged their weekly episodes on which human right sudan is violating!"

"i said bless you twice. i'm not doing it again."

*doing covalent bonding in chem, points to nitrogen* "so what about n-dog over here?"

[pendraegon]

I’m sorry they ERASED HIS VULCAN GENETICS WTF???????

YEAH so basically he and chapel are in a shuttle and then they get into an accident by colliding into this alien species' space warp tunnel thing and anyways chapel's unharmed bc spock diverted all the shields to her and the alien species is like oh yeah his (and i AM quoting here) "genes had mixed instructions" and then made him totally human for the entire episode. gross implications especially when you consider the fact that spock has ALWAYS been human and has ALWAYS been vulcan this entire goddamn fucking time....as someone who is mixed myself it left me feeling sick to my stomach.

[mahoushoujotechsupport]

ok weeks later i am finally continuing my gwitch rewatch lolz. time for episode 12.... someone PLEASE tell tumblr to stop erasing my posts just as im about to hit post and not being able to undo it because i had the longest write up and now here i am.... rewriting again and trying to remember what i'd written. i'm gonna scream lmao

this part feels so awful now that the series is over and thinking back on ep 24. miorine just comes to, all to see the doors closed and hear suletta's screams and sophie's gunshots on the other side. no doubt in my mind this girl probably dealt with awful nightmares about suletta dying after quiet zero

i know prospera did use this as another XP level up for aerial, but jeez, imagine how much confidence she has in suletta and eri to be able to say something like this. like not just that suletta will go to aerial, but that together they can take on the attackers who at the time prospera didn't know shit about

lmao i dont think ive ever felt so confidently about something that id bet my whole life ln it

ad stella universe is crazy because i can only think the big liberatarian ancap society is some silicon valley fascist's wet dream because how else do you explain the business management girl knowing 1337 hacker skills

stupid asshole

sophie and norea are such tragic characters to me goddamn. like how often were they practicing their piloting to be able to be good enough to join on a mission like this? were they upping their permet score during practice too?

and why exactly is it them who pilot the lfriths instead of someone else from DoF? we never really get a clear answer on why it has to be the teenage girls when later on we see there's a ton of grown men around. i think given what else we know of ad stella, though, it doesn't matter much when we have asticassia as a school for the elite that basically serves for furthering earthian oppression be it by force (ie. see guel's original plans for joining dominicus) or just continuing to further the spoils of space capitalism

when you think of it that way, i don't see DoF any different than say palestinians fighting back against oppression from IDF forces. unless you're a racist fuck, you can't blame palestinian kids for throwing rocks at IDF soldiers, so i can't really blame norea and sophie for joining the fight

to quote fanon:

National liberation, national renaissance, the restoration of nationhood to the people, commonwealth: whatever may be the headings used or the new formulas introduced, decolonization is always a violent phenomenon.

- Frantz Fanon, "Concerning Violence," The Wretched of the Earth

i really do wish they hadn't just sidelined DoF entirely lol if you subscribe even a smidgen to anti-colonialism, its hard not to sympathize with them and shaddiq/grassley girls. and here theyre actually fighting for a just cause and are deserving of sympathy unlike 0079’s fakeout with zeon.

flipping the UC spacenoid/earth dichotomy so that earthians are the exploited class is just good shit when you consider what fuckers like musk want to do lol and its not as set in stone as exploitation only happens on earth either. mercury sounds like an abandoned appalachian mining town at this point with people lured out by jobs and then left to fend for themselves once permet was found elsewhere and their utility to the spacian capitalist class has run dry. and though i take this one with a grain of salt because we never get hard confirmation or denial, the elans were supposedly spacians (norea calls him a spacian even after finding out el5n’s not the real elan and he doesnt say one way or the other).

enough marxist ramblings, here's a cool shot of lfrith ur

whoever added this, i love them

as much as i don't trust bandai with sulemio unless they reverse the mess they've made for themselves.... i just want to fucking know more about notrette so bad!!!!!!!!!!!!

badass shot of lfrith thorn to go with the ur one earlier

snitch boy starts his snitch arc

the whole way guel killing vim plays out felt like it was gonna lead to something cool at the time... it makes me even more mad now knowing that it very likely is all an homage to zeta and kamille stealing the mk-ii and then later watching his mom die lol (ffs we even have the guel episode later on stealing its title from a zeta episode). guel's entire character just leaves such a bad taste in my mouth with everything thats happened recently

to think that 15 mins later she'd just be all ditzy over pancakeing a man after basically peeing her pants here

prospera shooting a gun at quiet zero >>> prospera shooting a gun at plant quetta

this show and this fucking pose, man lmao

AERIAL REBUILD is going to be stuck in my head all night because of this episode.... but look at how fucking cool she looks!!!

okouchi if this is a line you wrote, you, sir, are a troll... her face now is literally just :<

if you have the rebuild aerial and you don't have her posed like this, then what are you even doing?

i still feel like secelia and rouji for sure had no idea how powerful aerial's gund-bit gun was in episode 17. like norea is scared shitless here and tells sophie and olcott to get the fuck away. we have olcott telling us that even though it has school regulations on, it's strong as fuck

that said, i don't think guel was in mortal danger given that the school restrictions don't let them aim at cockpits or whatever, but it sure would've fucked up the darilbalde

oh this line hurts lol

i don't think i ever paused on this frame before lol i really hope peil hags master plan here wasn't just to have el5n get all rapey like he does later on. i mean, probably not and that was moreso el5n's desparate attempts to stay alive given he barely gets a chance to do anything before school shootings 1 and 2 bring everything to shit

comparing this frame versus suletta inside calibarn in ep 24 and suletta is still just a baby at this point in the show lmao she looks like a little teddy bear vs kakkoii ikemen suletta

paused on this frame and it honestly looks cool as hell lmao

and we made it to THE scene

you know, as i said in prior rewatch posts, i had been watching via GJM's fansubs at this point and was gonna wait for them to release their version of episode 12... however, that same suletta sunday i logged on to twitter and immediately got spoiled on this scene lmao so i needed to find out what the fuck happened and stopped waiting on fansubs (i did rewatch later on)

it really is such an amazingly well done scene though like goddamn lol

now that the show's over, i do kind of wonder if there could have been something other than this to become the spark of tension between suletta and miorine. with the exception of sophie (which arguably was more eri's victim than suletta's), suletta never kills anyone again in the show. her final fight ends up being against the gund nodes being commanded by eri lol so she just fights unmanned drones. it's an interesting decision considering the gundam franchise as a whole

i know it's meant to contrast against shaddiq's by any means necessary approach and prospera's willingness to do the same if someone tries to hinder her plans to help eri... but i really just can't get behind the whole violence is always bad no exceptions message behind the show. i do appreciate that shaddiq's plan basically still came to fruition and that it ends up being an in-world analogue to nationalization of industry. and it's really a cherry on top to have sabina call out whether that was for the best - not just that they nationalized industry but that nothing else was done to stop those who don't agree with what miorine did. history has given us countless examples of countries that nationalize various industries just for the united states military to come in and make some shit up and stage a coup and hand over said industry to whatever shithead capitalists were being piss babies about it at the time

lmao i know we're all mad about a lot of the yuri being left on the table because of bandai execs, but i wonder how much of the anti-capitalist message got left on there too. they really had a chance to make guel a real hero and he's just... not lol. episode 15 makes me mad not because it's a guel episode but because nothing ever actually came from DoF existing. like what was the point?

if they just wanted to humanize DoF a bit and introduce the kid that guel and kenanji run into later on, that could have taken half an episode given the insane pacing they chose to go by during the 2nd cour

regardless, i'll still savor little bits here and there

ok lmao i feel like my original post was way better than this and it took me double the time now to make this post but whatever. gonna try to get through some more eps this weekend

[ryttu3k]

Thoughts on Doctor Who - Dot and Bubble!

You know what, it's a bold new choice on Doctor Who to go, "Actually, this entire pastel-washed Celebration-meets-Tiktok society probably should die" but I can't say it's like. Entirely wrong in this case. Can't help someone who's so thoroughly wedged up their own arse (or stuck in their own bubble, ofc) they actively refuse help due to their own bigotry, y'know?

Actually, it's very much an 'offering mercy to the enemy' kind of thing. Which, historically, hasn't tended to go great either. It just hits a little different because we spent the entire episode focused on Lindy's storyline that we go, "Oh, she's the protagonist" and it's only at the end that we really get confirmation of, "Ah. She's the enemy." Although, in fairness, the endless microaggressions piling up culminating in killing Ricky was a pretty big hint, so…

Kind of refreshing that the first episode in which the Doctor's skin colour comes up is set in the future, which normally are pretty free of like. Racism and bullshit like that. Like Martha, Bill, Yaz, and Ryan all mention racism being an issue in historical episodes, Thirteen only gets talked down because of her apparent gender in a historical. You kind of make this assumption that even if there are still massive issues in the future, something like race isn't one of them. Only, it is. And Fifteen is the one to come up against the brunt of it. Any other Doctor, and the entitlement may have shown, but the racism may have stayed hidden (unless, again, Martha, Bill, or Yaz and Ryan as companion). Fifteen, however, gets them to show their asses just by virtue of existing. He was literally trying to save their lives!

Quote from RTD: "The moment we cast Ncuti, everyone said to me, "Oh my god, what's it going to be like when he goes into the past? Because a Black Doctor's going to face such racism." You sit there going, "What about now? Why do you think that racism's only in the past, when you look at what's happening to the world?""

Did come across as very nihilistic, ending-wise. RTD has said this episode was Black Mirror-influenced, and yeah, can definitely see that. You know what, that planet and the Finetime community are doomed. The planet's population is gone, a good chunk of Finetime's population is gone (or couldn't be led to safety, in which case it's only a matter of time), and lbr these kids only learned to walk a few hours ago. I would be amazed if they lasted a week playing Pioneers outside. And there's nothing that the Doctor can do, because they're so entrenched in their own racism that they refuse the literal lifeline he's throwing to them!

Conclusion: Fascinated how they went from, "Social media bad!" and "Killer AI!" to, "Actually, maybe social media isn't the problem and maybe, just maybe, it's people being so obsessed with staying within their literal bubbles that they begin to systematically dehumanise anyone who doesn't 'belong'" and also, "Actually yeah I'm kinda going for the AI deciding that the best way to deal with institutionalised and entrenched racism and bigotry is to kill them all with giant slugs."

(I mean, if the Dot AI could see how literally everyone was, I assume they realised they wouldn't accept a sapient AI as a new life form…)

Acting: Not quite as Doctor-lite as 73 Yards, this was more… Diet Doctor and Companion. That said, what we did get from Ncuti Gatwa was goddamn masterful. His reaction when he realises what's going on the end was heartwrenching - the disbelieving laughter, then the anger and frustration. So goddamn good. That said, Callie Cooke as Lindy was obnoxious and thus perfectly acted. Like at the beginning you were lowkey hoping she'd get her head out of her arse, and by the end you were hoping she'd get eaten :D Also enjoyed Tom Rhys Harries as someone who's been raised in the bubble but is at least trying to start just… slowly stepping out of it, only to be violently rejected by the rest of the bubble.

Continuity: Another Susan Twist! This time, actually called out! You know, there are two possibilities here, and both are extremely funny: 1) RTD intentionally cast an actor named Susan Twist to appear in every episode in order for her multiple appearances to foreshadow a twist revealing Susan Foreman, or 2) RTD intentionally cast an actor named Susan Twist to appear in every episode in order for her multiple appearances to have absolutely nothing to do with Susan Foreman and the repeated appearances are something else entirely. Either way, it's goddamn hilarious.

Nothing on Ruby's backstory this week, including a lack of snow. Ruby did feel somewhat unimportant here, she was only really there to make Lindy actually listen, because she's white and blonde and therefore Like Them and therefore worthy of listening to, and could have been replaced by any other young white companion, like Rose or Clara. If it had been the Doctor on his own, or Martha, Bill, or Yaz and Ryan as companions (or potentially even Donna, who might have got caught by ageism?), Lindy would have just kept blocking and blocking and never, ever listening.

The Big Bads of the season continue to oscillate between the possible Pantheon (the Toymaker, Maestro, possibly Mad Jack/the Fairies?) and just. Humanity. The humans who forced babies to be born then abandoned them, the military industrial complex, nuclear ambitions (the only one so far not set very far in the future), and now pastel-washed white supremicists. Very much a 'yeah, humanity definitely still hasn't solved these issues yet' kind of thing.

The 'stories being real' theme was handled kind of obliquely. Still definitely there, but it was a human consequence of being stuck in their own bubbles/narratives and being unable to see or accept anything outside it, and less a metatextual example like with other episodes.

Season ranking

As of s40e05:

73 Yards

The Devil's Chord

Dot and Bubble

The Church on Ruby Road

Space Babies

Boom