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leafykat · 7 months

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ATLA LIVE ACTION RANT/MANIFESTO

After watching it I started typing and couldn't stop. Sorry it's really really long and probably not very coherent.

(Since I wrote this, Big Joel put up a vid on his side channel talking about his thoughts on the first episode and he had a lot of points I agree with so watch that too if you’re interested) <- eta: ok jk sorry it already got taken off youtube it's only on his patreon now

I really dislike starting the story with the beginning of the war. It's like they don’t trust the audience enough to care about the protagonists without laying out all the Big Important World Context out right at the start, or they don’t trust us enough to understand non-linear storytelling. I’m trying really hard not to just hate on changes simply for being different than the show I grew up with, because god knows I have my own issues with it. There are scenes that are nearly shot-for-shot, line-for-line remakes of the original, which makes the parts they change really jarring and frustrating. I don't mind the way they combined some episodes or storylines or changed some details, like, June being the one who hits on Iroh instead of the other way around, but other changes just feel like they either miss something fundamental (to me) about the characters or the story or are just… arbitrary, which is almost worse.

One thing that REALLY frustrated me right from the start was that Aang wasn’t actually trying to run away. He goes flying to “clear his head” and gets caught in a storm coincidentally right as he says “ok Appa let’s head home”. Why? Everyone treats him like a coward anyway. Everyone is way meaner to him than in the cartoon about something that, in this version of the story, objectively was not his fault. Why? In the cartoon, he feels intense shame that he wasn’t there for everyone, even though he was twelve and about to be taken from the only person that wanted him to have a childhood, and he got so overwhelmed and scared by what the world expected from him that he tried to run away from it. In the live action, he gets to reunite with the spirit of Gyatso, who says, “you couldn’t have done anything if you had stayed. You just would have died,” (paraphrasing bc I can’t be bothered to give it more views just to get exact quotes) which is fine, I don’t think he needed a spirit world reunion with Gyatso but I can accept it. But if that’s what that gives Aang closure, what is the point of changing him to be less responsible for disappearing? In the cartoon Katara is the one who reassures Aang and helps him process his guilt, representing the people of the present who he can still help. The live action has the voice of the past, the people that he’s ‘failed’, reaching forward in time to absolve him of any sins. And remember that in this version he literally was trying to go home. It just feels like they’re trying to remove moral complexity from his character.

Less importantly (except to me maybe) I think that showing us the Air Temple pre-genocide removes impact of seeing it for the first time in the cartoon. I loved Aang hyping it up to Katara and Sokka, unwilling to believe that it could have fallen. It almost makes the viewer think maybe some of them could have survived in secret. Then, the contrast between his idyllic memories and reality start to sink in. It was an incredibly hard-hitting moment, dulled in live action by the audience having seen exactly what happened to the temple already (including an incredibly hamfisted “you can’t beat us while we have the power of the comet!” line from who I think was Sozin.) I think Momo is pretty cute though.

Another thing that pissed me off was the way they handled the Agni Kai: They combine Zuko's duels with Zhao and Ozai into one, where Zuko not only fights back against his father but gets an opportunity to deliver (presumably) a winning blow and hesitates. This choice weakens important aspects of his backstory and, to me, flattens his relationship with Ozai: 1) That he was never a prodigy firebender like Azula, feeding the inferiority complex that Ozai fostered 2) The Agni Kai was meant to be public humiliation, meant to teach Zuko ‘respect’. It was in front of hundreds of people, and it was a thirteen-year-old child against a full grown firebending master. Zuko prostrates himself and begs his father for mercy. His refusal to even fight embarrasses Ozai by exemplifying the 'weakness' Zuko's mother 'instilled' in him. In his duel with Zhao, Zuko makes a conscious choice to be merciful despite Zhao telling him to “do it” and kill him. Despite knowing how the fire nation views it as weakness, as cowardice, especially in this specific setting. It foreshadows his later choices, and shows his innate kindness. Combining the two duels doesn't allow us to see that parallel nor that growth. Reducing his act of mercy to a mere hesitation in the moment of victory, furthermore, reduces his agency.

In fact, the adaptation softens a lot of Zuko's role as an antagonist, giving most of his actually villainous actions from the cartoon to other characters. They keep him capturing Aang in the South Pole, but Zhao leads the attack on Kyoshi village, they remove the episode with the pirates (s1e9), combine aspects of episode s1e15 ‘Bato of the Water Tribe’ with ‘the Blue Spirit’ (s1e13) and ‘the winter solstice’ (s1e7/8) removing three instances of Zuko capturing or attacking Aang in favor of one with Zhao capturing and Zuko rescuing him. But I guess they add a fight in Omashu. Look, this is inevitable as a result of combining 20 episodes into 8. I don’t really mind streamlining a lot of these episodes, nor removing others (having episodes like ‘the great divide’ and ‘the fortuneteller’ only referenced as rumors Zuko hears in a bar is cute, to be honest), though the change to the Bato episode where Sokka merely has a flashback of his father implying he thinks Sokka is an incompetent warrior is a really unnecessary and bad change, to me. But they took out almost every instance of Zuko posing an actual threat to Aang and replaced it with one fight scene in Omashu. To me, what it feels like is the show runners know Zuko is going to become a Good Guy and thus they don’t want to make him act too Bad.

On the topic of Kyoshi island: giving Aang a reason to go there aside from wanting to ride the giant Koi, whatever. Removing Sokka’s chauvinism, okay, I guess. But it ends up replaced with extremely awkward flirting between him and Suki that feels motivated by nothing beyond each being the first non-relative young adult of their preferred gender either one has ever met. Whether or not you want to have Sokka start off sexist, and that could be a whole conversation on its own, him humbling himself enough to ask Suki for instruction was an important moment of growth for him that he doesn’t really have in this version. And they don’t even put Sokka in the dress and makeup!!! BOO! Also minor moment but I think it’s also sus for the show to have Suki remove her makeup as soon as it’s time for her to be a love interest and then just not wear it again. BOO!! She looked really cool though. It’s not like I think her first appearance in the cartoon is full of depth or whatever, and I think the cartoon turned her into a cardboard cutout as soon as she became a love interest, but it’s like the live action clipped through a wall straight to my least favorite parts of s3 Suki. It’s just disappointing. I also don’t like Aang being able to just talk to Kyoshi and his other past lives so easily but that might just be my cartoon-purist talking.

I didn’t mind putting Jet and Teo into Omashu, even though I think Danny Pudi’s ‘I had no choice’ justification for working for the Fire Nation holds up less well when he’s in a position of privilege in an Earth Kingdom stronghold as opposed to protecting a community of refugees in an isolated air temple. I don’t think they needed to add the Cave of Lovers plot from season 2 into the mix though. Not only that, but to rework that plotline so that 1) Aang isn’t even there, 2) it’s Sokka’s idea to put out their lights and follow the crystals, 3) that’s not actually The Solution 4) badgermoles can sense…. Emotions???????? Sorry that’s so fucking stupid it makes me angry. They include the legend where Oma and Shu learned earthbending from the badgermoles, so why would these giant creatures have learned to sense human emotion instead of the pre-existing explanation from the cartoon: sensing the world through the earth. You know, the thing that connects them to Toph’s earthbending. I guess setting up stuff as far away as… next season… isn’t important. They used the stuff from the season 2 episode “the swamp” for aspects of the winter solstice plot anyway, which is where Aang originally had a vision of Toph and thus was able to identify her as an earthbender in spite of her appearance. I guess they can come up with something else, but it’s just a decision that feels arbitrary. Sokka could have had his flashback without the spirit vision, but since this is before he meets and loses Yue they needed something, I guess. At this point I’m describing these changes not necessarily because I think they’re inherently bad but because I want to describe how fragile this jenga tower is getting, and how unnecessary they feel.

Ultimately it’s like… the things they’re the most faithful to are all the most surface-level easter egg references, while missing or changing the actual soul of the source material. Gran Gran gives the opening monologue word-for-word because Fans Will Get It. They include Bumi’s rock candy trick and lettuce leaf joke but make him resentful and angry at Aang for no reason I can understand. Sokka isn’t sexist anymore, he just has issues where his dad apparently thinks he ‘shouldn’t have lives in his hands’. Ozai is… wait- is he tearing up while he scars Zuko’s face?

I know we all love Daniel Dae Kim but we did not need Ozai so much this season, let alone Azula, let alone Mai and Ty Lee. We especially didn’t need a scene where Ozai praises Zuko to Azula while belittling her. For the record, because people defending this scene seem to think the issue is that the rest of us fail to understand that Ozai is playing his children against each other: That is not the issue. It’s that he did not play his children against each other in this specific way. He uses Azula to show Zuko how much he fails to measure up and threaten his position as heir, and he uses the example of Zuko’s failure to keep Azula in line. If she’s good enough and Zuko is bad enough maybe she’ll become heir. After all, that’s what happened to Ozai and Iroh. They are allowed to change this dynamic in adaptation but personally I think it’s a change for the worse, and the shot of tears in his eyes as he abuses his son lends credibility to an interpretation that maybe he does want Zuko to succeed. Lol. The cartoon focuses on Iroh’s reaction, his inability to watch, instead of Ozai’s… emotional conflict? Or whatever.

Katara and Sokka getting stuck in the spirit world as a replacement for their fever in The Blue Spirit is fine, I think condensing that plot and the winter solstice works decently. It’s fine that they changed Aang’s motivation for finding Roku to be getting info on how to save his friends instead of getting crucial info about Sozin’s Comet. After all, they clumsily introduced that in episode 1. It’s honestly fine (Read with as much cope in my voice as you want.) Combining that with Zuko’s half of The Storm is also…. Okay, even if I’ve already described why I don’t like how they adapted Zuko’s backstory. What frustrates me is that The Storm parallels Aang and Zuko’s backstories in a way that works really well with the events in The Blue Spirit. In fact, they’re back-to-back episodes. But the live action has moved Aang’s backstory to the beginning of the first episode. So instead of getting to see how they’re both constrained by the roles and times they were born into, and how heavily others’ expectations weigh on both of them, we have to have Aang explicitly spell it out for us. Rewatching these two episodes of the cartoon I was just really struck by how efficient the storytelling is. All Aang has to say after he’s saved Zuko is that he misses his friend from the Fire Nation, and that he wonders if he and Zuko could have been friends if they’d been born into a different time. All Zuko has to do is attack him in response. Because we’ve just seen why they can’t be friends in this time, in this world. The live action has to create some plot point about Aang having stolen Zuko’s diary, and Zuko having researched Airbender culture or something. They bond a little bit over brushes before Aang goes like ‘why don’t you turn against your family?’ The conversation (before that part) is cute, just like, not a good replacement for trusting the audience.

I guess once we’ve gotten this far it doesn’t matter much that Katara and Sokka have been captured by Koh, because of course they were. Yeah, they changed how it works, yeah, now he steals your face once you’ve succumbed to despair or something. Whatever. At this point it feels like nitpicking to point out that what made Koh so scary was that he would steal your face if you showed him any emotion at all. Who cares anymore.

^ok I wrote most of that before having seen the last two episodes, which cover the last three episodes of the first season of the cartoon. Dude it got even worse somehow. It’s been a couple days and my friends and I rewatched all of s1 of the original show in the meantime.

First of all, the changes to the dynamic between Hahn, Sokka, and Yue were completely inexplicable to me. Yue gets nominally ‘empowered’ in the sense that she’s no longer trapped in an arranged marriage to a total shithead, but at the same time they made Hahn seem like a… genuinely good guy? He’s humble, asks Sokka for his expertise, and nobly accepts that Yue broke up with him. When asked about it, Yue says ‘he’s great, he’s just not the guy of my dreams’, before kissing Sokka. (They also reveal that she was the sexy fox spirit that flirted with Sokka in the spirit world —I didn’t mention it before because I didn’t think it mattered at the time— so I guess we are meant to believe that Sokka is the boy of her dreams. Which we know from these two and a half conversations that manage to be way less cute than the awkward/shy flirting from the original show.) Even if they wanted to completely change Hahn’s character, Yue’s conflict in the original show was between her heart and what she saw as her responsibility to her people. They could just as easily have kept that element: that she isn’t in love with Hahn, but that for Political Reasons can’t just break things off. That’s way more interesting! But I do love a forbidden romance, so maybe that’s just me. The adaptation does say that they were at one point betrothed, which raises more questions than it answers. If both of their parents were anticipating this marriage so much that they set it up years in advance, why were they okay with her just breaking things off because she didn’t like him like that? Are arranged marriages in the Northern Water Tribe (I’m so sorry I forgot the name they gave it in this adaptation) purely meant to be love matches? There’s no financial or political element at all? Even for a princess? Whatever. Hahn still dies, this time it’s just offscreen. This time I’m actually a little sad for him, if just for his wasted potential.

They actually take out the engagement necklace stuff altogether, including the history between Pakku and Katara’s grandma, and the story of how and why she fled. I don’t really know why but maybe they thought “you lost the so-called love of your life to backward practices” was a weak reason to change his mind. So instead they have it that he doesn’t change his mind but it turns out Katara doesn’t need a master anyway because she’s already good enough to be a master! Despite not having been able to waterbend ‘more than a thimbleful’ before meeting Aang, and us not really getting to see her train at all. Gran Gran gave her the waterbending scroll she stole from the pirates in the cartoon, so I guess we can assume that contained everything you’d ever need to know. She loses the fight but wins the hearts and minds of the people. The women of the tribe support her when she goes against Pakku and go “we want to fight too!” Oh, did I mention this is all after they realize the Fire Navy is at their doorstep, so it’s less a fight about the right to learn waterbending than about the right to fight in war. And then again the issue of Katara needing to learn from Pakku is sidestepped by her magically being good enough now on her own. I don’t actually mind the change to include other women from the North standing up against sexism but to be honest I don’t understand taking out the betrothal stuff. It was a deliberate parallel in the cartoon- women trapped in loveless arranged marriages and also forbidden from learning any waterbending aside from healing. But whatever, it’s a choice. I can live with it.

What I don’t like is the way they’ve undermined Katara’s journey in season 1. Aang teaches Katara how to waterbend at first, and she also doesn’t learn to heal on her own before an elder shows her how to do it. In the cartoon, she’s been trying and figuring things out on her own all her life. Her hunger to find someone to teach her is a major motivator for why she wants to go to the North Pole. We see her struggle, get intensely frustrated and jealous that Aang picks up waterbending more naturally than she does, and work really hard at it. Her dedication and hard work are what Pakku eventually praises about her when he teaches her. He compares her to Aang, who is naturally talented but distracted. This is after an indeterminate amount of time, but whatever, condensed timeline, 8 episodes, whatever. We don’t even see Aang waterbend at all this season, which is kind of wild to me. I guess if you take out the Summer Solstice Comet deadline to master all four elements (which they did) Aang doesn’t really need to rush. Instead they kind of just have Aang have a thing of like “I have my friends to help me” which is….. ok….. Oh wait, is this why they don’t care that much about foreshadowing Toph? Are they just not gonna bother having Aang learn the elements and just have her show up and join them for whatever reason? Is that why they just totally removed ‘The Deserter’? Wait sorry, I’m assuming they’re planning that far in advance at all, my bad.

Okay also like I have to talk about this because it bothers me so much. Zhao was handled so badly. Whatever, have a Fire sage just give him the moon/ocean spirit exposition in a flashback instead of the way it unfolded in the cartoon (I guess we’re already not bothering to set up the great library since the gaang already met wan shi tong, I guess that’s… fine… Appa can get captured a different way, if they’re even going to bother with that plotline in season 2. If they’re even going to do a season 2.) Sure, the moon and ocean spirits are only in the physical realm and vulnerable for ‘only one night’ now as opposed to permanently. Zhao knows this but not that they’re fish. Okay. Whatever. Blah blah blah. Those are personal nitpicks. But what really gets me is that in the end, Iroh and Zuko kill Zhao. Or rather, Zuko doesn’t finish him off, Zhao tries to attack when his back is turned, and Iroh finishes him off (similar to the way their Agni Kai in the cartoon plays out.) In the cartoon, Zhao and Zuko are fighting, Aang-as-Ocean-Spirit grabs Zhao, and Zuko reaches out to try and help Zhao, which Zhao refuses. He chooses to meet his fate at the hands of the spirits he provoked rather than swallow his pride. This is such a good conclusion to Zhao’s character! The live action also fails to set Zhao up as a formidable firebender, which is also not strictly necessary but I think complements other elements of his character well. His first episode in the cartoon includes the Agni Kai between him and Zuko, establishing Zhao both as a firebending master and as someone who values his ambition and pride above all else. In s1e16, ‘the deserter’ we see him as the embodiment of fire’s destructive hunger: he is baited into destroying his own ships in his desire to “win” his fight with Aang. He gloats of how his siege of the North Pole will earn him a place in the history books, and to win he is willing to kill the moon, against Iroh’s exhortations. In the live action, we get a weird revelation that he was working with Azula, and she was the mastermind behind a lot of his plans? Huh? He also “reveals” that Ozai was only ever using Zuko to “motivate his sister”, which is both incredibly heavy-handed and completely redundant. I guess I should mention that the finale has a couple scenes thrown in where Azula is doing firebending training to pass some kind of arbitrary Test Ozai has set for her, while Mai and Ty Lee watch and tell her that her dad is like, being way too hard on her and she knows he’s manipulating her right? Thanks girls!

Anyway, I guess since the live-action completely removed the golden child/failure dynamic between Azula and Zuko we needed something to replace it. The “my father always said Azula was born lucky. He said I was lucky to be born” line summed up that relationship dynamic nicely. Oh well, who needs it. Instead Zuko is good enough to have beaten Ozai in a duel at 13, but Ozai decided he was weak for hesitating. Meanwhile Azula is struggling to meet his expectations. He banished his heir on a mission that, for the last hundred years, was considered a complete dead-end, so that he could, uhhhhh, Motivate her when he miraculously started succeeding. Masterful gambit, sir. Okay sorry to harp on that again. Back to Zhao. Actually, what else is there to say. He has a couple funny lines but he’s just not the same guy at all on either a superficial or deeper level. It’s so disappointing. It’s also just a really weak choice to make Iroh and Zuko responsible for his death. Maybe they couldn’t figure out how to make the special effects look good when the ocean spirit picked him up. It just misses the point of Zhao’s ultimate tragedy, to me. The man so lacking in self-control, so ambitious, so assured in his own superiority, that he saw the spirits themselves as his prey. To be destroyed by the forces he tried to destroy is so poetic! Instead let’s water down Zuko’s mercy and Iroh’s pacifism.

This is all I can remember at this point aside from nitpicks. Do I think the Koh vs Kuruk backstory needed to be spelled out like that? No. Did we need to almost have Momo DIE to get Sokka and Yue to the oasis? Not really. I don’t think the way Zhao “assassinated” Zuko in the live action made as much sense, but we took out the pirates so oh well.

When you get to a certain point I guess the question becomes ‘how much can you change in an adaptation and still call it an adaptation’. What do adaptations owe to their source material? Where does the spirit of a story reside? If the same plot beats happen, does it matter if characters are different? If the characters are faithful, does it matter if events are moved around? If the destination is the same, how much does it matter how you get there? What do I personally want to see in a ‘live-action’ adaptation of Avatar, this show that I loved so much growing up? Well, assuming that “don’t make one” isn’t a possibility, I would have preferred they follow more in One Piece’s footsteps. That adaptation wasn’t perfect either, and it condensed around 100 chapters of manga into 8 hours, but it really felt like it got the characters right. Avatar had a tough job too, but it condensed 7 hours 40 minutes of cartoon into 8 hours of- wait. No. Well at least we got the cabbage merchant.

#u guys dont even know how much the original shaped my adolescence....#for that reason i was probably the most annoying person possible to watch the remake with #thank u to my friends

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jovenshires · 10 months

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another quick note for the theater ep:

the 23:16 comment had me react in the exact same way as tommy bc like- oh my god 🙊

the lil fist bump after was really cute tho 🥹

also spencer later going "we are gonna give birth" were two mpregs not enough for our guy?! 😹 (sorry)

mild spoilers:

Angela is canonically Ian's daughter now ig 🙏

sadly the question of "Will Tommy and Spencer ever get paired up for a single one of these improv scenarios?" has once again been answered with "No" :/

nevermind I wrote this before spencer took matters into his own hands. truly the spommy nation king 🙏

also spencer's line at 32:23 + their interaction had me immeditaly go 👀😹

sorry this is getting long but like:

the fact that based on the comments being read out, we got lowkey moments for several of our fave ships??

like 2 shaynse comments; 1 for amangela and then the heavy hitter for spourtney?!

they were truly feeding us with this episode 🙏

no bc when i tell you i literally made this exact tommy face

hand over mouth, eyes glazed over, shocked. anyway the fistbump was everything to me but im sure we knew that

stella i hate to tell you this but this is actually his fourth instance of mpreg crimes (he and tommy did an implied mpreg ad for utm. no i am not kidding i wish that i was.) and he should be in jail for them. actually smosh in general should be jailed for mpreg crimes.

ian mpreg ending in angela birth is actually... i was gonna say a sentence i never thought i would type but honestly it checks out

well hey we got the 'he's actually a brilliantly talented comedian' line so i digress!

spencer, the og spommy nation founder, said, "my people are starving. i shall provide." and then he fucking did. florida boy to florida boy.

i DID NOT expect THE spourtney moment of all time holy shit. someone check on kit. ARE THEY OKAY. anyway yeah two comments about chanse read by shayne and one by amanda about angela? fucking crazy. we won today boys!!!

#spommy #shipping #smosh pit theater #spt #stella #ask #asks #wallpaper inside my heart

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erasermist · 1 year

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One Piece Live Action Season 1 Stream of Consciousness (Spoilers):

This will be a suuuuper long post and will literally be a random string of thoughts and will probably make no sense as a lot will be without context. Maybe just random lines that I enjoy and random gifs that just showcase the random points I like but enjoy

Episode 1

I love this. I love that they didn’t make it the exact same. And having watched the anime, it just makes the subtle hints amazing and when they mention something that wasn’t brought up till later *chefs kiss*. Like they showed Zoro being recruited by Baroque Works when they didn’t even mention that till they were in the grand line I think.

And all of the small hints to the characters like when you saw Cabaji in the scene before he was actually introduced. That’s one of my favorite types of foreshadowing.

Luffy supporting Koby’s dream will always be awesome. And Luffy comforting Koby after see the bad marines is so kind of him. I love him.

The casting is perfect. Luffy. Zoro. Nami.

Nami is me. Everything goes wrong “This is fine.”

OH MY GOD!! Buggy!!

Episode 2

Buggy is just a great performer!

This is gonna get repetitive I know, but they are all such amazing actors and actresses!!

“Cut you down to size.” 😂😂

SHANKS!!!

Episode 3

“Stupid clown” Zoro’s hate of Buggy is hilarious

Already the crew (“not a crew”) are supporting Luffy’s whims haha

“Fans have gotten so toxic” I love this characterization of Buggy

I’m liking how this is a little darker than the anime was. And I love how they are introducing bounty characters. It’s so cool!

Zoro gets thrown in the well 😂😂 And Koby popping up at the end like that was very cool. Love the music they play throughout everything. It’s really making the show better

Episode 4

Zoro is my favorite. He already was in the anime, but it’s definitely true for the live action as well 🥰

MURDER MANSION!!!

Zoro’s lack of direction sense has finally been shown!

The grandpa revel being much earlier in this version 😂😂😂

Episode 5

“You just call that guy grandpa?” Oh Zoro, just wait for it 😭😭 and then his “talk” with Luffy after the fight.

Luffy sniffing his way to the good!!

Omg! This Sanji has so much class and the immediate jokes the rest pull on Nami after he leaves 😂 I feel bad for those who haven’t watched the anime. They are gonna think Sanji is this slick cool character (and he is) but they are gonna realize he isn’t that… smooth. But look at him… I forgive him and support all his decisions

Mihawk is just so bored. “You woke me from my nap”

Koby is playing a much bigger part than I thought he was gonna. And standing up to Garp like that.

Mihawk “though I do like your hat” 😍 I love this man!

Episode 6

Luffy just wants Zoro to get better 😌

Poor baby Sanji screaming for the ship

And again with the foreshadowing with the story of Mont Blanc Noland

They really have changed the way this goes. Arming came to them and Don Krieg died by Mihawk earlier. Not too mad about it though. I think it flows better with the way they made the show. Like I said it’s a little darker and I’m liking it. It’s different but a good different.

Also yum! lookie! Very respectfully of course but still

And there Zoro is being a great first mate vowing to stand by Luffy’s side!!! Done differently but still so beautiful! Tears!!!

Zoro: “Why are we bringing the waiter?” Usopp: “Cause we can’t boil water” 😂😂 Zoro so much happened while you were asleep

Luffy just pulls out Buggy’s head for a bag!!

Episode 7

The chains in Nani’s map room… this is gonna be sad

Nami is trying so hard to mean all the mean things. I’m gonna cry just like when I watch the anime. I just know it.

Zoro’s constant side eye of Sanji is awesome and very in character

Oh lovely. I somehow didn’t realize I would have to watch all the sad things in another format. It didn’t really connect that

And Zoro being first mate again. That’s always gonna be my favorite thing. Even when it’s for sad moments

Nami’s screams… that was so real and heart wrenching and that “help me” scene was so on point. The one scene that was practically the same and it was the one that causes tears 🥲

Episode 8

The blood and chains and pain little Nami had to go through

“Finally I get to cut something” Zoro is so done with emotions 😂 he just wants to do what he does best

So I’ve thought this from the first time I watched Arlong, but why would he think a revolution started from the “weakest” sea have any traction. I get “plot” reasons, but still….

“Round Two, Arlong.” Yes Luffy! Go!

Buggy! That was so funny! I love this Buggy!!

And Zoro’s immediate response “Fucking clown” 😂😂😂😂 I love this so much y’all

Go Usopp!!! “No one’s around to see it. It’s okay. They’ll believe me” loved it the first time I saw it, love it now too.

Sanji gets kicked backwards and Zoro just casually walks out of the way and around him. I’m so glad they are still the same Zoro and Sanji as ever 😭

Sanji says that all the best fighters call out their finishing moves and Zoro immediately gets flashbacks to Luffy saying the exact same thing!!

The Garp and Luffy confrontation!!!

“Be a good Marine.” “Be a good Pirate.” Love them.

The barrel scene!!! Yes!!!

And the sneak peak at Smoker!!

I absolutely loved this!!! I need a full adaptation of the entire show and I need them to keep the same cast for them all!!

#one piece #one piece live action #one piece netflix #iñaki godoy #mackenyu #emily rudd #jacob romero gibson #taz skylar #jeff ward #steven john ward #peter gadiot #morgan davies #aidan scott #vincent regan #one piece live action spoilers #spoilers

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riondisease · 11 months

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analysis of the portrayal of female characters in Helluva Boss (it’s kind of a nothing burger but whatever)

i liked the new episode but Glitz & Glam continue the trend of female characters showing up for one episode to literally do nothing wrong and just be cunty and then are punished and treated as villains by the narrative

Verosika was the og and it was even more insulting because she literally WAS in the right. she was being an asshole to a guy who mistreated her, BUT because Blitzo is the main character and it’s funny when he does fucked up shit, she’s magically wrong and goes to fucking jail at the end of the episode

AND god help me every woman has the exact same body type. i think it does work for Glitz & Glam!! but atp literally every female character before them has looked like this so it just ends up looking boring. seriously i love the character designs in this show but they cannot keep getting away with this PLEASE

i feel like this is exactly what i mean when i say the people who viscerally hate this show and nitpick every little detail are weird but that still doesn’t mean i think the show is perfect. i’m not gonna pretend it is perfect and doesn’t have issues just to be contrarian. i love it and HB has been one of my favorite shows for a long time. but also it has very many issues and it’s better to acknowledge that than to not.

FREE THE CUNTY WOMEN THEY DID NOTHING WRONG-

~miscellaneous notes~

i’m not a Blitzo hater btw it’s just a little weird how the narrative contorts around him so he’s always right.

Stella is just actually abusive and i do not know why people defend her, however it is in line with the women in this show being antagonists

Millie is great honestly. no other notes.

Octavia and Loona are mostly okay. Loona is cunty sometimes but at least she’s not punished by the narrative for it. you did it show!!! 3 okay female characters!!!

like. everyone’s mom in this show is dead. that’s probably something.

#txt post #helluva boss #helluva boss analysis #glitz and glam #verosika mayday #misogyny

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helluvabossrewrite45 · 1 year

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A bit ago I made my own rewrite of Millie as a challenge and ended up loving her so much I put her into my own project (adjusted so there's no copyright infringement and she fits \w world-building)

I seriously think Viv doesn't want to put any effort into characterizing Millie. Like I don't think she's bad at it, I just think she doesn't want to.

Even outside of a text in a doc form of characterizing, there are ways in visual media to add depth to your character. Random scene to explain my thoughts, I.m.p. Having a meeting to plan things before a murder: Wanna characterize Millie as an overzealous maniac? Have her rocking back and forth in her chair, pumped up, ready to go the exact second they finish up. Wanna make her sweet and caring to contrast her fucked up job? Make her take notes, nod along, and when they head out have her check up with everyone. Is she better at her job than the others and knows it? Have her pay attention during the planning parts but more distance during unimportant pieces, weapons laid out on the table to pick the very best one for the job. JUST SOMETHING PUT SOMETHING THERE, PLEASE!!!

The way other characters are around her doesn't help.

Moxxie could be the one thing holding her back from trying to clear out every ring and so he intervenes anytime shes slightly annoyed, blitz could see her as a rival for murder or a scapegoat for everything, Sallie Mae could be by her side the entire time she's on screen, striker could respect her for her strength and loyalty but hate her for the fact she's a suck up to royalty or too energetic or because she's a wild card, Loona could have her as the only person she shares a hobby with and being a slightly protective cus of it, her parents could be overly doting and ask if she's been taking care of herself and acting less self-sacrificial, Chaz could avoid her the entire episode out of fear and then have his fear be justified during the wedding! These are the ideas I thought up in 20 minutes, and you don't have to change much for the antagonists or her family!

Like even her design shows literally nothing! Jack. Shit.

Wacky hairstyle, scars, more than 2 colors, any thought put into the outfit at all, accessories, Body type (to an extent), posing, anything!!! That's all I'm gonna say about design cus I could go all day with the hypotheticals because there's SO FUCKING LITTLE TO HER I CANT EVEN RUN WITH WHAT'S THERE!!! I have to make up things about her just to demonstrate how little Viv has tried with even the most BASIC characterization. There's nothing to Millie, not even poorly written things, just actually nothing!!! I've seen characters who can be summarized with a handful of words, don't have a single line of dialogue, and have a backstory that's a sentence long be characterized better than her!!!

It's actually a bit impressive how little Viv has tried! It's like she's actively avoided giving her even the slightest base-level character!

Millie is a plot device to clean up blitz and moxxies messes.

#I agree with this a lot anon #anon ask #helluva boss criticism #helluva boss critique #helluva criticism

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tarisilmarwen · 1 year

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Rebels Rewatch: "The Honorable Ones"

Kallus starts growing the nigglings of a conscience and also I never want to visit Bahryn ever.

Does this count as Friendship Fetch Quest episode? I mean... we do technically recruit an ally, albeit we make one out of a consistent former enemy, and he is important to things later...

Yeah, you know what, I'm counting it.

Geonosis looks gorgeous.

Oooooof SO many Death Star foreshadowings in this conversation. This is in fact where they started construction on the Mark I, as far back as the Clone Wars. Some time between now and then (Wookiepedia thinks it's between "Breaking Ranks" and now), the project was moved, the orbital stations scrapped, and the entire population of Geonosis genocided to conceal the project's existence.

Just, you know, your ordinary Tuesday for the Empire.

Hi Kallus!

Love Chopper getting to be an absolutely murderous psychopath again lolol.

Ohhhh hey, this cue is from back in "Droids In Distress" when they were about to blow up the ion disruptors. How fitting, lol.

Ezra is still Not Fond of leaving people behind.

He looks so worried. :(

Love how Kallus and Zeb stop fighting for a second when they realize they're about to crash. Matching Oh Crap expressions and everything.

Ngl, I felt that cry of agony deep in the recesses of my childhood.

(I fell off some parallel bars once in gym, didn't break anything, but my first scream? Sounded not too unlike that.)

Lol Ezra banging on Chopper. "Yes, we want him back! Don't be a sleemo!"

Jeez, how terrified Kallus must have been, stuck in the exact scenario that traumatized him so in the past. Lucky for our favorite asshole Zeb is the honorable type.

Yup, yeah, pissing his pants terrified. David does a really good job with Kallus this episode, it's one of the first times they let him show a bit more range and he does shrill and hysterical very nicely, if I may say so.

Kallus is so assured of the Empire's fairness and nobility, aww let's shatter that to pieces this episode. :D

Worried Ezra continues to be worried. <3

He is already shivering, nice little animation here. Also lol @ Zeb pettily pulling the heater closer towards him.

Ahhh the glowing rock of friendship. Love that Kallus keeps it after this.

"You're going to hurt yourself!" <3 See this mother hen behavior right here is why I stuck the Iron Squadron kids with him in my Mirrorverse series, Kallus being a fussy fretful Team Mom is hilarious.

Ah NOPE, nope, nah-uh. Nooooooo thank you.

The bonzami are actually really well-designed. They look like prehistoric dinosaurs of some kind. Definitely evocative of all my childhood nightmares about T-Rexes.

Kallus parroting the Might Makes Right and Social Darwinism of the Empire, leading to Zeb beginning to ask pointed questions.

Oh man there was a really good analysis on here someone did about Kallus's fighting style, how he's better at close quarters than distance/ranged, I wish I remembered who wrote it.

Subtle animation appreciation detail: That pinched guilt in Kallus's expression.

Oooh yeah, that's the good stuff.

Kallus launches into his tragic backstory, possibly to try and remind himself why he personally hates Lasats, rejustify in his head how it was okay for him not to question orders when told to use the ion disruptors--("They deserve it, they're bad people, they kill the injured!")--and the connection to Saw is not a coincidence I think, the writers expand heavily on the whole "It's how we fight that matters." and "The ends justify the means." conflict later on down the line. Numerous characters on this show like Saw and Thrawn and Kallus to an extent represent what happens when you go too far to fight those you consider monsters. I've always loved how firmly Rebels comes down on the side of "The means do matter."

Probably one of the reasons I'm still kind of relucant to watch Andor, I know fandom loves that "I burn myself for a sunrise I'll never see." quote but eehhhhhhhhh.

The exchange right after Kallus's story is a bit clunky, I get what the intent was--that there are people in the Empire who aren't cold and bloodthirsty and evil and the Rebels shouldn't write them all off like they're the same--but it's clumsily executed.

PPFFFFTTTTTT LOLOLOL. KALLUS CANNOT BELIEVE THE SHEER PETTINESS IN ZEB HURLING THE BO-RIFLE OUT OF THE CAVE RATHER THAN LET HIM HOLD IT.

Hey remember when I said I love David Oyelowo's hysterical Kallus voice? Yeah.

Zeb's prehensile feet put to good use again.

Ohhhhh yeah no that's absolutely a terrifying concept for me. Nope.

"Hey we didn't get eaten! Are we friends now?"

There's some debate in the fandom about the inconsistency of the stories Kallus tells from "Droids In Distress" to here. Some parts of fandom point to how he almost gleefully bragged about giving the order to use the ion disruptors and others point out that he couldn't possibly have been high enough in the ranks at that point to actually have the authority to do that.

I tend to fall more towards the latter camp, that he wasn't actually THE one to give the order but he didn't question it and passed it right along due to his prejudice against the Lasat, and only said what he said to Zeb to rile him up. As much as he hated Lasats though, there has been some guilt severely weighing on him since then, and I'm pretty sure it's partly due to his confusion over the Honor Guardsman giving him his bo-rifle. There was a note of aggravated self-defense in Kallus's voice when he explains to Zeb how it was given to him, like he's dispensing with an act and being all, "All right look here's how it really happened."

This conversation is slightly less clear but to me reads like Kallus is detailing his thoughts from the moment he'd been given the order. Like it's mid-battle and it's going harder than they anticipated and the weapons are handed out and he's told to use them and he realizes, "Oh. The Empire is not playing around are they?" and he shoves down his own potential qualms about it and just passes on the order.

Zeb, having had his character development, is dismissive of Kallus's attempt to explain the massacre, saying that it doesn't affect him anymore, basically.

They're so happy to see him. <3

Awwwwwww.

Subtle animation appreciation moment: Zeb's little elbow bump to Ezra's arm as they climb up the ramp.

Ohhhhhh man the behind the scenes had a little plot bit that they should have kept, basically it was not the Empire that retrieved Kallus from Bahryn, it was a scavenger ship, the Empire spent a paltry two rotations looking for him and then wrote him off, he had to make his way back to them on his own.

Konstantine doesn't even look at him.

:((((((

Kallus's redemption is a bit of a polarizing topic in fandom. Personally I'm very fond of it, I like Kallus as an antagonist-turned-Rebel, I think he's a lot of fun post Heel Face Turn and the many myriad fanfics that bridge the gap between "Zero Hour" and Season 4 featuring Kallus slowly blending in to the Spectres are among some of my favorites.

But it's also one of my major nitpicks because it's a bit lacking in legwork. Show👏me👏the legwork!👏 Like 90% of all writing problems can be solved just by expending some effort. Don't just have Kallus as the new Fulcrum offscreen between seasons I need to SEE it.

That being said, this is a mostly tightly written Locked In A Room type episode, well-paced, decently animated. Fandom definitely loves it and I'll still give it fairly regular rewatches since it's another of the husband's favorites.

Next up, we return again to Lothal for Force Weirdness.

#star wars #star wars rebels #agent kallus #rebels rewatch #liveblog

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storiesofsvu · 8 months

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Happy Thursday hoes, let’s get to it!

Todays pros: citytv thinks im in TO so I’m getting it started at six!

Cons: no subtitles.

Alright, OG up first.

Love this new detective that’s a fanboy of everyone, makes me miss rollins lol

Pls let it be a female perp. We love a good female perp.

Okay seriously, this very subtle shaky cam is fucking terrible and hurts my head.

The GROAN I let out at the sight of Samantha in her well fitted pants suit sitting there like a fucking badass pissed off look on her face. Ma’am. Please. (yes, she is the only reason I watch this show)

Okay, the pedo may be the only eye witness, but they still have blood on the murderers pants, don’t they? Would that not tie it together enough? Or is it because the eye witness was the one who lead them to him? God I hate the legal system.

I REALLY wish this show would show more of the arguing between Nolan and Sam, like these two do NOT see eye to eye or have the same opinions on basically anything. And while I know major fighting would be called unprofessional, we at least used to see the lawyers get into it, or bantering. There’s so many times that you can tell just by the look of her face that Sam’s pissed, that she doesn’t think highly of him or his decisions on cases, like she hates him. I wanna see that play out on screen LOL

SVU time!

Let’s see if this week is any better than the last ones

Liv back in therapy, we love to see it.

A crumb of EO? Will that keep the crazies at bay? (like, I don’t even ship it but fuck am I sick of it now, the baiting is hella annoying and terrible, make it happen or not, don’t keep leading the actual ship fans on…)

Uhhh… is there not some kind of patient dr confidentiality? Like this bitch could have just lost her job (esp with someone like mcgrath involved… wtf..)

ITS THIS KIND OF SHIT THAT MAKES ME FERAL. In previous episodes they’ve had situations where shrinks couldn’t testify when they were the ONE witness, and like the entire case went into the trash because of it based off this exact type of situation… where TF is the continuity??

Okay… so she’s a minor so I can see the loophole here, BUT the therapist should have told her parents….

I knew it wasn’t the math tutor…

Ok… so mcgrath threatens to kill the math tutor, but when they’re picking up the son across the street he goes rage on benson?? And the iab captain? Shouldn’t you be attempting to punch the kid or something? God I really hope this ep is his last…

“can you drop that to me?” good thing Bruno’s there cause fin would have ZERO ideas on how to do that…

“until the age of 25 the male brain is about as useful as an electrified meatball” jfc… that wins for best line of the night.

Where the fuck is Velasco? Like.. man deserves his paycheques too..

Okay, mcgrath’s wife needs to shut the fuck up, liv’s trying to help her daughter and she accuses liv of gunning for mcgrath’s job.. jfc..

I was expecting mcgrath to throw hands not pull out his fucking GUN jfc… and like.. that was infront of two cars, that’s gonna be on a dash cam somewhere…

This is one of those one case turns into 4 but there’s only 5 mins left of the episode… cmon…

“I guess I didn’t see it in myself…” THANK YOU I was just gonna bring up the whole half assed back plot of mcgrath being abusive… (which is on par for cops, and ironic that the woman playing his wife was the wife of a cop who abused/raped her in 1.o)

This very much seems like a good bye. Pls let it be a good bye. Petition to bring back Garland!

Okay… im confused, I looked at my phone for 5 seconds and lost track of what was happening. Is the iab captain joining svu, cause that doesn’t work…theyre both captains. Or is she saying she’ll be filling in for mcgrath in the meantime??

Onto OC!

Okay, I am incredibly thankful for carisi on oc, but he’s the *sex crimes* ada.. not the only Manhattan ada, he wouldn’t be prosecuting this case… lol

Me: “wait I thought he was an officer.”

Reyes: “detective?” *side eye*

Me: ah yes, okay he was promoted the writers didn’t forget between weeks.

God this entitled pos teenager… wtf… its not *your* house bitch.

Ah, thank god, here’s the arguing that was missing in OG, not surprised its Elliot. Lol.

Oh god..the bratty teen overheard that didn’t she? Fuck..

God… this girl is gonna blow the entire thing, isn’t she? Like, in todays day and age with all the social media and how teenagers (and some adults) don’t know how to go without it, there’s no way they’d cut contact with everyone and delete socials and keep things quiet.

Aaaaaannd here we go. 5 seconds in and she’s blown their new location. (also WHY would the cops even tell them the location? That seems like something they wouldn’t do until they were halfway there…)

Okay… we’re missing a daughter.. I don’t know if this is supposed to be Maureen or elizabeth but I’m assuming liz as it looks like her kids are twins and she was the twin… Also where’s dickie? (I know the brother said something about someone not being able to get a flight? Im just deaf and without subtitles I couldn’t tell ya what exactly was said lol)

How old is this younger brother supposed to be? The only info online I can find is the actor is 50 which im not sure I believe.

Okay there’s dickie he’s in the background!

These guys KNEW they were in a high risk situation and none of them have a vest anywhere near them? ARE WE DUMB?! IS IT OUR FIRST DAY ON THE JOB?

Okay, there’s the other kid.

Maureen and Kathleen giving side eye while sipping their drinks while the tea is being spilt is the highlight of this moment.

This is SOOO awkward for everyone else at the table jfc… ESPECIALLY Eli’s poor girlfriend.. like. Welcome to the family drama, don’t worry we never have to come back…

Why the fuck did jet not grab the other gun?!

Me: unfazed at Elliot body slamming a teenager.

Bell: *casually* “I’m shot”

Me: ARE YOU FUCKING FOR REAL RIGHT NOW

THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING IF WE FUCKING LOSE HER I WILL ACTUALLY RIOT.

(BUT ALSO MAY WE STEP BACK TO 8 LINES EARLIER WHERE I WAS YELLING ABOUT THEM NOT HAVING VESTS ON?!)

I knew this other captain was going to be coming more into play, but im pissed its cause bell’s out with a gunshot wound.

Christ.

Okay well, another week and OC is continuing it’s reign as superior of the three!

Some pics for context/hilarity

#law and order svu #svu #law and order #law and order special victims unit #law and order organized crime

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glasskey · 1 year

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Justice THT Style - Part 1

When is Justice not actually justice? When it’s the wrong type. There are several types of justice: Procedural, Distributive, Retributive and Restorative. Each one of these will feel reasonable and justified depending solely on their context. Characters also by their nature will tend to have a taste per se for one or the other and it takes a definitive catalyst to change it. Over the next week I'll be taking a look at which ones our favorites prefer and what that means for them. I'm doing this in parts - Today its June and Luke, but coming up we have Nick, Serena and Tuello. Stay tuned. First up June.

JUNE

Vengeance, thy name is June. “Before embarking on the journey of revenge, first dig two graves”- Confucius. Season 4 and 5 made me think that either June hadn’t read a lot of Confucius or by that point just didn’t give a fuck about his wise, ancient musings. I’d like to think that it had taken quite some time before June turned into someone capable of the brutal salvaging of Fred, but then I remember that she did exactly that in Season 1 when she learnt of Moira’s supposed demise. At the end of season 4 June chased Fred down and tore him apart and in season 5 we saw her kneeling before a grave like mound. Laurence had tempted her with the offer of Nick and Hannah and in response she’d furiously ripped up the garden that symbolized the burgeoning home she was trying to nurture. 5 10 is drenched in an aura of darkness and horror, something has died but as June lies wounded, ironically she only gathers more power. She is becoming a leader and Nick even FINALLY crosses the border to pledge his allegiance (and didn’t we all cheer our brains out over that one?). It struck me that as she lay in that hospital bed, she was metaphorically buried until Nick came to kiss her forehead handsome prince style, figuratively raising her from the dead. Like the phoenix she is reborn just in time for season 6 to rain down the pain.... It’s worth remembering that June chose to ignore a blatant warning about the nature of retributive justice, but honestly who could blame her? “It will never be enough for you” Lawrence says when she bargains Fred for a group of female POWs. Love him or hate him, Lawrence seems to be able to make observations of her character with pinpoint accuracy.

I find it interesting that this bloody act of retribution comes the episode directly after she meets with Nick, she’s absolutely devastated that their family is being separated and someone is going to pay. Fred’s more than earnt her vengeance by now and Canada has failed to deliver. She’s fucking angry and no one except Nick and a bunch of fellow handmaids will ever understand why the only fit ending for him is a brutal salvaging. At the end of the day the scales of justice in this scenario were never going to be fully balanced by Fred enduring some sort comparatively cushy Canadian procedural justice. However it’s still necessary in the majority of story lines that conventional justice avenues be cut off to allow the protagonist to “take the law into their own hands” and exact old fashioned retribution. Writers were so clever ultimately giving Fred a double dose, he was involved in an official prisoner exchange for women no less (an act of procedural justice), and hand delivered to June to pay for his crimes Gilead style. Luke is horrified when she gleefully boasts about her murderous act of retribution. Dear me what possessed his sweet loving wife to do such a thing? Time to wake up Lukey, June pre Gilead is gone, welcome to June 2.0.

LUKE

Luke wants to believe in a procedural sense of justice but nothing’s ever that simple or fair. When societal systems begin to crumble we see June’s access to money and freedom slowly stripped but Luke feels somewhat empowered as it means he now holds the reins. Luke believes in the system so long as it serves him, but later when he actually loses something valuable and attempts to seek justice for June and Hannah, he can’t believe it actually fails him. Fred’s a wealthy, powerful, educated, white man. He’s just who the justice system is designed for and he gives Luke a small taste of utter helplessness in the face of a prejudiced system, much like what June endured. When first given the opportunity to get some answers out of Fred and some well-deserved vengeance, Luke chooses to show up with a binder expecting reason and logic from an extremist. When Fred manipulates Canada’s justice system, he is naïve enough to believe that Fred will be given a trial and then jailed in Gilead. I’m still not quite sure how Luke would have come to this conclusion, having witnessed an entire church full of hanging bodies. As of season 5 Luke seems somewhat ignorant to the brutality of the Gilead justice system and the savagery of what his wife was subjected to at its hands, even after witnessing her testimony. He can’t believe his wife would tear apart a man with her bare hands and cut his finger off as a trophy, meanwhile Nick didn’t bat an eyelid and Tuello wished her well. Goes to show there’s a difference between actually witnessing Gilead and hearing about it 2nd hand. S5 Ep10 shows us Luke's finally about to get a taste. Luke can be emotional when things don’t quite go his way, he screams at his ex, he punches Fred in the face, he shoves Nick when he approaches him with news about June and he yells at June when he learns about Fred. He’s a guy who wants to make rational decisions, he wants to follow the system but quickly bottoms out and becomes erratic when he doesn’t get his way. He’s a character study in casual misogyny and part of this is the undercurrent for the potential for violence in even the “nicest guy”. Luke is often dismissed as “boring” but this deeply underestimates how skillfully he’s been crafted and the amount of subtext his character contains. Throughout season 5 I witnessed Luke becoming increasing violent. Baited by Serena he warns her “next time I see you I’ll fucking kill you myself” his eyes filling with tears, his hands trembling with barely contained rage. In ep 10 he beats a man to death and is shown carrying a gun in their home, dismissing Junes concerns about having a gun near Nicole. In S 5 we also saw Luke attempting to secure his wife’s love with an act of ill-conceived vengeance: arranging for Serena’s baby to be taken from her, gloating with satisfaction while instead his wife looks on in horror. Throughout the seasons we’ve seen him be fairly even tempered, but in S5 there seemed to be increasing incidences of overt alpha physical violence that spoke loudly of outdated societal expectations of male roles and his personal insecurities. I believe Luke has had enough of procedural justice, he’s now blatantly dabbling in retribution and all these incidences are revving up to create a much more vengeful Luke.

Stay tuned. Tomorrow we have Nick Blaine....

#literature #nick x june #june x nick #june osborne #luke bankole #hulu #hulu streaming #osblaine #the handmaids tale hulu #bruce miller #vengeance is mine #hulu series #hulu tv #the handmaid's tale #handmaid's tale #handmaid's on hulu #elisabeth moss

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yannig · 6 months

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I watched Bed Friend

And I loved it!

Ngl, the premise of them starting as friends with benefits made me a bit hesitant to start it. I'm ace, and generally not a big fan of sex scenes on screen. I put up with them when they're relevant to the story, but getting into a show whose whole starting point was that the main couple were having sex together - yeah, I wasn't too hot. But I heard that the show dealt with Uea's trauma pretty well, so I decided to give it a shot.

And boy am I happy I did! First of all, there isn't that much sex. Like, we got more intense and developed scenes in Kinnporsche. Second of all, it was great!

This is one of my favorite BL so far!

Bed friend is a pretty good term for FWB, actually. I don't know if the show came up with it or not, but it's the first time I heard it and it's great!

I have a type! Apparently the cold-and-dismissive-because-traumatised meets cocky-but-caring-who-will-give-anything-to-take-care-of-them dynamic really does it for me. This is the exact same dynamic than between Sky and Prapai, who are one of my favorite BL couples. x) I guess I just like black cat x golden retriever uh.

Though I will say, I think Bed Friend handled the trauma better. By quite a large margin. My boy Uea is actually going to therapy! And taking medication for his mental health! And takes time to recover.

Yeay for STD awareness! Going to get tested after a night where no one was sober enough to remember to use a condom is a great idea! Especially when you've just learned your boyfriend was cheating on you. Get tested friends!

What's up with King's interior design, seriously? Listen, you wanna put copies of classical paintings in your condo, sure, have fun. It screams "I'm rich", but it can work. But what the fuck is up with the painting in his bedroom???

I'm pretty sure it's The Coronation of Napoleon. And I do. not. understand. why anyone would put that in a bedroom. If you want to flex about it, put it in your living room or something, but the bedroom?? I - I don't get it. Of all the classical paintings to chose from. Why this one?

Mind you, it's a detail, and one that has no impact on the story whatsoever. But it bugged me every time it was on screen.

King's reaction at the end of episode 7 was bad enough I almost didn't forgive him.

This is one of the tropes I hate the most ; the love interest getting jealous over what was clearly sexual assault. I hate it with a passion.

Especially when the love interest already has reasons to suspect it wasn't consensual. And King very much did. He spent the entire episode protection Uea from Krit, and now he's accusing Uea of asking for it?! I was waiting the whole scene for him to bash the door in or something, and instead he goes victim blaming?!?!

Listen. I know the context. Uea was pulling away full stop, and King was getting angsty and insecure. But to the point of getting jealous of what he knew was sexual harassment?! Fuck you King.

Props to Uea for telling King they couldn't even be friends if that was how he talked to him! Good job! Don't let the man be an asshole just because you like him!

So, why did I forgive him?

I frankly would have liked it better if we got an actual apology scene. He should have had to hear exactly how he made Uea feel that night.

But. Except for that, he did pretty good to fix his fuck up. Beginning with making sure Krit faced consequences and would never bother Uea again. Even if it meant putting his own job on the line. As far as grand gestures of apology go, this one is pretty good.

And then, because grand gestures are good but what matters is how you behave on the daily, he consistently showed Uea he respected his boundaries. Including asking if he could go after the step-father instead of just doing it, and later respecting Uea's need for time before acting on the info they obtained.

Also yes, a man who can make the system work to actually punish rapists and abusers is hot. The mafia way of murder and torture is great, but not very applicable for most of us. Having actual examples of the system working once in a while is good for the soul okay.

I would have liked for him to grovel a bit more, because I love grovel, but overall he's doing pretty well. So I forgive him. But I'm not forgetting!

#bed friend the series #king x uea #spoilers #bed friend spoilers #tw sex assault #it comes with the show but still #if anyone has recommendations for black cat x golden retriever in QL #I'd happily hear them #tw rape

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piglii · 1 year

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btw I have not finished Umineko (I’m literally on the last leg of Episode 8, shortly after an important jump happens) but I’m so gushing with things to say about that I feel like I need to type this all out now (will start with impressions that are non-spoilery and go into impressions that are big spoilers. there will be a dividing line which I earnestly recommend you do not cross if you have any interest reading it yourself.)

anyways

Non-Spoiler Section

Absolutely 10/10 for me. Can feel like a climb at times but that feeling increasingly goes away as you get used to the pacing. Any fumbles Umineko has for me personally are so small in the grander scope of what it’s doing that it doesn’t even feel worth acknowledging them. Literally a story that is going to affect my view on life. I really fell for the charm of Ryukishi’s goofy ass old sprites too after a while, it’s really compelling to me that Ryukishi was able to make such a good, earnest story while having kind of limited drawing ability. I’m dead ass serious, it’s really inspirational. The quality of the writing and voice acting especially is so good that after a short while you kind of don’t even process that the sprites look kind of silly-goofy at all. I highly recommend playing with the original sprites and voice acting if you can.

And the music! holy shit I can’t imagine getting through this story without the music! The fucking 1800′s pipe organ songs one minute, intense trance the next, distorted choir singing, a mellow beat that’s sampling that fucking ambulance siren! Probably my top faves are Infant Queen Bee, Golden Nocturne, far, Rain, Daydream’s End, Fall, Miragecoordinator, Melting Away, Dead Angle, Hope and probably like 15 more I’m forgetting. Absolute banger of a soundtrack. Virtually no misses and the ones that hit, HIT. I think I have spent nearly as much time listening to the soundtrack in between sessions as I have just playing the game itself.

I won’t go into detail about what the central messages of Umineko are because they could ostensibly be spoilers but they are pretty fucking hard to miss. If you have two eyeballs and a brain you will probably figure them out as you go because Ryukishi is NOT subtle about what he wants to say. He will smash you with a hammer making sure you get it. But it’s less of a giant metal warhammer and more of a little wooden mallet that he’s just hitting on your knee every 20 minutes to make sure you’re awake and following along.

The writing honestly can be very... it straddles the line between very straightforward descriptions and waxing very poetic about a particular topic. I won’t even say it’s particularly the best prose ever or anything - I think Ryukishi’s biggest talent is simply in how he’s able to convey the characters by always having a really solid understanding of how they react to things. Maybe his worst flaw is that sometimes he includes a scene or concept where I’m like “oh Ryukishi just thought this would be super fucking cool” but I can’t even hate because most of the time it is super fucking cool actually. Umineko is so dripping with earnest cheesiness in a lot of its delivery and character interactions that I can’t help but like it most of the time. Granted I am biased because I do enjoy stuff that is earnestly cheesy like 90% of the time. The goofy ass anime interactions characters sometimes have are used just sparingly enough and contrasted with the serious scenes that I found pretty much all of it enjoyable for what it was.

Be warned it is 150+ hours (faster if you are just reading but seriously those voice actors are top tier, big recommend) but it really needs... at least most of that time. I struggle to find a single exact point that I would shorten any part of Umineko because so much of it really is required to understand what the story’s going for but at the same time sometimes Ryukishi does love to sit you down and talk about the process of liquidating gold into cash money for 30 minutes. A lot of the worst of that is in the first episode to be honest so if you can get past that you’re probably golden. It’s got a hell of a hook by the end of episode 1. Go in as blind as possible and enjoy yourself.

And now, for the spoilers.

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Spoiler Section

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Don’t Go Beyond This Point If You Haven’t Read It, Seriously Holy Fuck!!!

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Seriously, The Author Wants You To Go In Blind!

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Alright.

All the losers are gone let’s partay.

Heads up I’m a little blasted so this might be a bit scrambled and all around the place so sorry, just writing stuff as I think about it.

I really adore the way that Beatrice is in literally every layer of this story. Like the concept of the masses being in such a rush to figure out what the truth of the Rokkenjima Massacre is that they end up literally trampling over the deeply embedded and sad story of Beatrice really gets to me. Like, the people who are looking at the Massacre from the angle that she even “exists” at all literally only see Beatrice as a piece in their own constructed games, an explanation that’s just one step to figuring out what was really important. But of course, Beatrice IS the heart of the story. The whole family is arranged around her like a web and she’s right at the center. She’s in every possible layer of this story that she can be, she’s the connecting fabric of everything important.

Also I really adored Battler and Ange as characters. It’s rare that a main character feels so relatable but I ended up really enjoying his personality by around episode 2 or 3. He’s just so stupid but also earnest and flustered. Try to give him a slight pass on episode 1 because he is supposed to be kind of dumb and immature on purpose... even if it probably could’ve been toned down maybe just a bit. He gets better, I promise.

(btw literally been here. so relatable.)

anyways moving on. Ange. absolutely enjoyed the hell out of her story in episode 4 and was so glad to see that she’s basically the conclusion to the whole Ushiromiya family story in the final episode as well. also, her being the focus of this really inspirational message of what it means to move forward with your life was really well done. it’s insane to me that people are still out there trying to “figure out” the mystery when Umineko tells you as bluntly as it possibly can that it doesn’t really matter - finding out what “really” happened can’t bring closure no matter what and holding and walking this tenuous tightrope between belief and non-belief is a better way to live. her goodbye with the family and battler was about where it got me pretty good I could not fucking hold back crying at that.

and speaking of the family at large, I really like pretty much all of them! even the stinkers are fun to make fun of. also, Eva in particular is the milf of all time for me, personally. in fact thinking on it the only character I can really think that still rubs me badly (even though it is of course entirely intentional that the reader feels this way) is Rosa. good fucking lord the moments of episode 4 with Maria and Rosa’s relationship being explored (or rather, the complete lack of it except for the spouts of child abuse) really hit me. that... is probably the most I’ve ever been emotionally effected by a piece of media in a long ass time, it was a rough chapter to get through. that said ryukishi’s understanding of domestic abuse is fucking incredible, does not surprise me that he was a social worker before working on VNs. beyond even just that dynamic he clearly has an understanding of the kind of broken adults that come out of highly abusive households. the final game of episode 8 with ange getting to see this world that could theoretically have been real had kinzo chosen love in the future versus love in the past was so sincerely sweet to me. sorry I am a sucker for sappy shit, it got me.

anyways let’s talk about the illusions. loved them all too. feels obvious to say but Beatrice is one of the characters of all time. also really liked Ronove, his and battler’s occasional moments of being bros out of nowhere were really enjoyable to me. also sorry gamers Virgilia is another milf of all time. loved her tender and sweet personality. but as for beatrice and co as a whole - I do enjoy what Ryukishi has to say about fiction. Indulging too much of your life in fiction is ultimately harmful but it can be a valuable crutch to people who are dealing with life or even just people who could stand to learn and grow more. it’s also such a loving letter to mystery as a genre, you can really tell Ryukishi was going hog for mystery at the time. and it does work as a completely conventional mystery too - figuring out stuff as you go and putting the pieces slowly together is a huge blast! I loved the scenes where he’s clearly celebrating that with the readers who tried their best to understand the story.

I managed to avoid most spoilers - the ones I saw beforehand were really minor and didn’t really help me in putting the mystery together - that said, I really only figured out that Shannon and Kanon were being performed by the same person not terribly long before the game revealed it pretty directly - I think only a few hours ahead of time. that said, I really did give it my all, I’m just not super good at mysteries. I did pick up on some hints early on, like being able to figure out some of the early closed rooms but I didn’t have enough context to join them all together and realize the Truth before the game spelled it out for me. and tbh, that’s fine! I loved how the game congratulated people who simply try to figure it out for themselves, regardless of if they’re successful.

btw it also took me so fucking long to read because I was reading it side by side with a friend (who had read the manga but not the VN) and we basically set it up to auto play (with japanese voice acting + the original sprites of course.) we’d play intermittently roughly every few months in leaps and progress little by little. I can’t fucking believe I wasn’t spoiled on any of the major elements playing like that, it’s a fucking miracle. we started reading it on and off like that nearly two years ago now but honestly it was worth.

god I have so many thing I could spend rambling on about this manga but it genuinely is up there with, like, War and Peace and Crime and Punishment and I’m not even joking. there’s some of what I would call “Goofy Anime Bullshit” that happens (and it’s especially coated in that layer of stuff you only really got in the late aughts anime communities) but even that I found pretty enjoyably silly after a short period of time and just ended up rolling with it. if you know someone who can see past that layer of Goofy Anime Bullshit and enjoys reading 150+ hour long visual novels, this is the thing for them.

and speaking of the length boy fucking howdy. it’s worth it. the amount of time dedicated to fleshing out every character and making me understand what kind of person they are underneath everything else really makes me appreciate everybody in this fucked up family unit. it’s not something you could replicate in a movie or any reasonably lengthy manga. the magic of getting to know the whole family, flaws and all, really sells you on what a tragedy it is regardless of what happened. there are so many early scenes where I was like, “okay what’s the point of this” that I look back in hindsight and I’m either like "oh that was actually super fucking important and I just didn’t realize it” or “oh this was giving me time to become familiar with this character.” fuck man, I even liked Hideyoshi and he almost didn’t do shit!

btw I got the culprits in bernkastel’s game figured out in one try (with the help of my friend bouncing ideas off of eachother)

feels good, feels organic, thank you, etc

anyways... I think that about wraps it up for me... honestly just a stellar game. It feels like one of those things where I’m going to catch myself thinking about the themes and what it was trying to say, just like Disco Elysium or a lot of Wildbow’s works or EEAAO. It almost makes me wish this story was in a more conventional book form because I think you could tell the core of what’s there but at the same time I don’t think it’d be worth losing all the other aspects that make it so memorable. It’s going to have probably 1/100th the readers it could have just for being a long VN rather than a long book series but I’d honestly rather have it this way. It’s such a weirdly specific gem of that era of internet-anime culture that I think the time has already passed that anything quite like it could come out. What a special little piece of media. If I have more to say after finishing out the ending proper I‘ll probably just edit my impressions on to this post and reblog again at a later date.

EDIT: It is now two days later and I have finished everything, including the last “????” segment. My thoughts on the ending - I liked it. It’s very sweet and depending on how you want to interpret certain facets of what you see, it can be read several different ways. Of course the way the narrative is set up, it very much wants you to pick the most optimistic interpretation but I like that there’s always room to explore just a bit. The point of whether Beatrice as a witch is real or not is entirely beside the point almost - there was a woman named Beatrice who brought happiness to her family (at least, in one world) as well as she could given her fucked up circumstances. That’s honestly all there really is to say on it. I can very much vibe with that message.

I was also earnestly expecting the last scene of Umineko to be even more bittersweet than it ended up being - I was really waiting for the very last scene to be Ange literally throwing away the key to Eva’s diary into the ocean. That is kind of what happens in a way, and the scenes in which they do explore Ange opening the diary and reading it are left deliberately obscure (as they should be) but I was really expecting it to be even more poignant than that. I was thinking Ange would literally never see the diary in any part of the story the reader saw at any point. It would’ve been very Titanic-esque in a way - Ange throwing away the only way for her to even possibly know what happened on Rokkenjima. The story does effectively do this, kind of, anyways, it’s just a lot more roundabout.

But yeah. Supremely sweet story. I will probably be thinking about it for much of my life.

#my posts #umineko #umineko spoilers #spoilers: I liked it #I'm thinking I'll have the last little bit finished literally sometime this week or maybe the weekend

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