#and all of the other episodes and casts look fucking fantastic i can’t wait

[supergraphicultramoderngirl]

one day. i will see aabria iyengar on game changer. but alas today is not that day

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - The Stand-in Stands Up (all puns intended)

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

June 2024 Week 1

Ongoing Series - Thai

My Stand-In (Fri iQIYI) ep 7 of 12 eps - I do enjoy that the other Joe’s past is now coming back to haunt the present. For our Joe, the hits just keep on coming. Meanwhile, I know my heartstrings are being intentionally tugged, but I did feel sorry for Ming in this episode (at the last). And I think Up is doing a great job with this frankly difficult role if he can make me feel anything approaching sympathy for Ming. Ming's breakdown was excellent. Very dramatic.

Wandee Goodday (Sat YT) ep 6 of 12 - These two are entirely boyfriends who just don’t happen to be dating. It’s Schrödinger’s relationship. It's crazy that these two are already sleeping together and I still can’t wait for them to kiss. Very nicely done. Good tension point. This was a really cute episode but nothing much happened.

In other news, the sound effects REALLY bother me in this show. It might have been in the running as a 10/10, except for those fucking sound effects.

We Are (Weds iQIYI) ep 10 of 16 - I like how the majority of this show is just basically struggling with first love. It’s strangely sweet and innocent as a result. Frankly, right now, I need that - it’s comforting. It’s not exciting, but I can’t deny that thi is the highlight of the middle of my week.

Peem to Phum = use your words. Phum = SMOOCH. 

Bet you all heard this one coming: NO SINGING. 

Note: Satang (Toey) is a fantastic actor. I love the way he changes the physicality of his body for his roles. In this part, he’s kind of loose-limbed and floppy. He doesn't look younger but the way he inhabits his body does.

My Love Mix-Up Th (Fri YT) ep 1 of 12 - GeminiForth (AKA G4) are back and glory-be they showed up on YouTube. Still I’m worried it won’t stay there after the Cherry Magic debacle. So I stayed up late that night to gank it. 

Back to the show.

One of the things I’ve always loved about this IP, is how genuine and decent and earnest all of the kids are. They’re all trying so hard not to hurt each other's feelings. It’s all just a terrible case of miscommunication. G4 are perfect casting for these roles. That said, I have the same challenges with this version as I did with the JBL - it’s a bit frenetic and can be clownishly too MUCH for me. 

Meanwhile, the he feeds strays trope has popped up again. 

Love Sea (Sun iQIYI) ep 1 of 10 - Trash watch here. MAME warning! I found it rather lacklustre and inoffensive but still managed to invent dildo smores.

Knock Knock Boys (Thurs Gaga) eps 3 of 12 - Honestly? I’m kind of enjoying watching the friendships develop between the housemates. Of course I know they’re probably gonna all end up sleeping together, but right now the communal easy-going companionship and teasing is the most fun. Other than that, this is an unremarkable Thai BL pulp with better than normal acting and consistency (for a pulp).

Only Boo! (Sun YT) ep 9 of 12 - Moo is the clinginess boyfriend in the entire universe. The thing I think I love best about this couple, and the show, is what great communicators they are. That said they are not great actors. I don’t mean to be rude, and I don’t expect great acting from my Thai BL, but it’s a little rough going sometimes with this pair.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

At 25:00 in Akasaka AKA 25 Ji Akasaka de (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 8 of 10 - It’s taken me a long time, but I finally realized what I dislike about this show. It’s the pacing. Or rather, the lack of it. And I’m not saying that the pacing is necessarily off, in fact this is a typical JBL thing. But for some reason, in this show, I find it particularly annoying.

Blossom Campus (Korea Thurs Gaga & iQIYI) ep 5-6fin - Honestly, this was a perfectly fine little friends to lovers BL, with better than average kissing from Korea. But for some reason it never really hit for me. The very end was extremely odd. A bit of a disappointment for a longer piece from Strongberry. I think they tried to be too classically BL and that is just not their strength-berry. Strongberry is better when they explore something a little edgy, or a little outside the box. 7/10

It's airing but...

The Last Time (Fri YT?) - Convoluted story of loss and possible reincarnation or something. Can't find it.

OMG Vampire (Thai Sun ???) 10 eps - also I can't find it. Comments from last week suggest this is not my thing anyway, but Lee Long Shi very much IS my thing, so... maybe I'll put it on hold for a bit and y'all can let me know.

In case you missed it

The Time of Fever AKA Unintentional Love Story 2 (Korea movie) trailer released to Korean theaters 5/25. HoTae & DongHee, side couple from Unintentional Love Story are back! Same actors, same character names. I love them. I NEED TO SEE THIS. How?

You Made My Day (Thai YT) - mini series staring the I Will Knock You couple Tar & Bom, started but I couldn't find it. I also didn't try very hard. Apparently it's cute but basically a 10 min advert.

KWill To Reunite With Seo In Guk, Ahn Jae Hyun in Comeback! For those who don't know the MV for his song Please Don't is a heavy hitting shock tactic BL adjacent piece featuring major Korean actors. (The closest we are likely to ever get.) Look it was a BIG DEAL at the time. Kinda like Kpop's Broke Back Mountain moment. More here:

I don't often report on the Kpop scene but this is very interesting.

Next Week Looks Like This:

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

June Releases

6/14 Let's Eat Together Aki and Haru 2 AKA Aki wa Haru to Gohan wo Tabetai 2 Haime! (Japan movie Gaga?) - Continues the (frankly) lackadaisical story from part 1.

6/15 Sunset Vibes AKA SunsetXVibes (Thailand Sat iQIYI) 12 eps - Star Hunter + MosBank on iQIYI for 12 weeks? If nothing else it's gonna be a wild and sexy ride. A one night stand but "uh-oh he’s my boss," adapted from a web series. I’m game. Maybe it’ll have a better story than Big Dragon? Maybe it will have a plot? We can but hope.

6/26 The Rebound (Thai Weds VIU?) - MeenPing are back in their 3rd BL together, a basketball based romance (Meen was a national basketball player, so yay for that). I like this pair better than most (I still do miss Meen with Est but Est has a fantastic looking new BL coming from GMMTV so yeah...) Anyway I'm up for a sports romance starring a man who, yah know, actually played that sport so... I'm game (pun intended).

(Speaking of, why can't Est be a merman? This... I ask you?.)

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

Flipping stellar side couple Wandee, thank you.

Love the mains too of course.

This is that funny little unnamed (muli-named) BL/GL something from Korea that's happening on YouTube right now. It's cute! I guess it's falling under the moniker Fake Buddies.

(Last week)

Streaming services are listed by how I (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are a pain.

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @sunflower-positiiivity

@rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly @renafire @mestizashinrin @bl-bam-beyond @small-dark-and-delicious @saezurumurmurs

Sigh, Tumblr in it's infinite wisdom doesn't like too many tags.

There's these tricks, remember.

[go-to-the-mirror]

i think it's absolutely rigged that this episode falls on april fools day actually. APRIL FOOLS! everything is still awful actually

Hi howdy this episode is so sad :( I'm so sad constantly about this episode. this episode. :( can't wait until the FUN season 5 bits where it's like they're GAY and there are so many ANALOGIES! instead we just have to wallow in sadness for a bit. so upset!! aa!!

Anyway yeah, lets go. I think when I listened to it at first I was really upset that I was at the end, like I was thinking "oh no I'm nearly at the end" back with 151. I still haven't listened to goodbye for now because it just makes me really sad that my favourite podded cast is over. I mean, good thing it's not now, but I still don't think I can make myself listen to it. I did put off MAG 200 for a while, and then when I actually did listen to it I immediately read Citrus' (CirrusGrey) fics about it.

Which, speaking of, it's season 5 time!!! Fuck dude it sure is! Not only a relisten, but a reread of all Citrus' fantastic fics!! YEAH!!! Ok, ok, ok, getting on with it now.

@a-mag-a-day

MARTIN You had- rum and raisin, and taught us all about emulsifiers.

He has the ice cream taste of a grandmother. Oh, also, funny story. So, we were getting ice cream, right, and I saw rum and raisin, and I got really upset, because Jon Sims had rum and raisin ice cream, and also the world ended. I don't- everything is a TMA reference with me, once someone asked me to open the door and I started laughing, because Jon Sims opened a door.

It's... very... odd.

JONAH MAGNUS (AS ELIAS) Knock knock.

Killing and maiming. I hate him so much. Die. Fucking die.

JONAH He didn’t have to. Nothing escapes my notice, and I like to keep an eye out for this sort of thing.

This guy is COMICALLY evil. like, not only does he end the world, but he ruins a cake surprise? why is he such a bastard?

ARCHIVIST Uh- thirty-eight.

HE JUST ADDED TEN YEARS ONTO HIS AGE HE'S SO FUCKING STUPID <3

TIM, SASHA, MARTIN (Crosstalk) -Jon. JONAH (Crosstalk) -Archivist.

WHY??? Literally, like, why, why, why is he like this, why, why??? Why did he do that? Why is he such an asshole? Why.

Why.

why.

ARCHIVIST If I wish for you all to go away, do you think it’ll work?

WHY ARE WE GETTING HIT WITH THE DRAMATIC IRONY BUS? WHY? "If I wish for you all to go away, do you think it'll work" STOP NO, WHY, WHYYYY...

it just makes me really sad.

ARCHIVIST I can’t tell you.

Your honour I am holding him gently.

JONAH He wished for a little bit of peace and quiet.

It's one thing to manipulate someone into ending the world, it's quite another to SHARE THEIR WISH? Dude. Why is he like this? This does nothing for him? He has taken one of Jon's only happy memories from working at the hell that's called an archive and twisted it into "oh boy, look at all that pain." For no fucking reason except to be evil. Killing and murder.

MARTIN Oh! Uh, (slight laugh) I mean- I don’t- normally- drink wine, you know- t-tannins are a proven headache trigger, and so-

Ooh! Fun fact! Rooibos tea has low tannin compared to other tea, therefore, Martin drinks rooibos tea, I make the rules.

TIM Oh! Yeah! I- just thought it might be nice, you know, something to look back on when we’re all old and sick of each other.

WHY. WHY. WHY.

"When we're all old and sick of each other" THEYRE NEVER GONNA GET OLD AND SICK OF EACH OTHER THEYRE ALL GOING TO DIE. THEYRE ALREADY DEAD AND THEY DONT EVEN KNOW IT. IM GOING TO CRY NOW.

ARCHIVIST (Crosstalk) (Under his breath) Oh, hypocrite.

I hate that it sounds friendly, like they're getting annoyed at each other in a friendly way, that Jon is friends with Tim and Sasha. Hate it. So much. Headinhands.

TIM (Crosstalk) Alright, alright, fine, look. I’m turning it off. Any last words for your future selves? ARCHIVIST Yes. Fire Tim!

ARHRRHGGGHGH </3

[Pause with clothing rustles]

CLOTHING RUSTLES!!!!! 🏳️‍🌈

ARCHIVIST It’s not- (struggling) you’re not the one who ended the world. (Archivist breath shows he’s close to tears)

Oh my god leave me alone. Stop it! Stop it!! It's just. Like. Christ. Oh my god. Oh my god. I can't even word properly, I just want to give him a hug, I just want him to be okay. Fuck, dude.

Why's jonny such a good voice actorrrr :(

MARTIN Are we still safe? ARCHIVIST Y-Yes. It- It doesn’t want to harm me. MARTIN And me? ARCHIVIST I won’t let it.

I like the way Jon's voice is in the "it doesn't want to harm me." Like it's sort of vaguely hysterical.

ARCHIVIST I’m just- I’m mourning a world I killed- MARTIN (Placating) I know- ARCHIVIST (Increasingly fervent) and we’re all trapped in its rotting corpse!-

I like this bit a lot. I think it's neat. I'm gay and I like rot. I need to read... what was it, thirteen stories I think? That's got the rot. I like the rot. 10/10 on the rot. Like hnmmn what Jane Prentiss says about the dead god, a world that was alive, was sentient, now dead, rotting with maggots and flies all over it, flesh squishy and yielding but also firm at the same time like a bruised apple, trapped on an actually dead corpse of a world.

That would be neat!!

ARCHIVIST Can you imagine? If we’d had this? MARTIN But we didn’t though, did we. ARCHIVIST No— MARTIN So there’s no point in dwelling.

ooOOOoooh title drop

but also... </3 like he could have kept them. he could have not done that. he could have not put the fucking solution to everything right after it becomes moot.

stabbing.

ARCHIVIST Healthy? I am an Avatar of voyeuristic terror, who unquestioned craving for knowledge has condemned the entire world to an eternity of torment; healthy i-isn’t- i,it’s not

I've written this so much on like every test, it lives in my mind rent free, it's hhnrnhrnnh holding it gently <3 like i don't even know what to say, this is a far cry from the whole mag 160 thing where it lived in my head rent free and so does a lot of words about it, here it's just... a lot of reaction images.

ARCHIVIST Why not? It- It’s quiet, here, and I have you.

ARHGHHGHHH

<333

ARCHIVIST No, it’s- I love you, I just— I need more time.

headinhands (good)

AND ALRIGHT CITRUS' FIC FOR TODAY IS SEVEN SLEEPS! WHICH I REALLY LIKE IT AND ITS JUST LIKE ITS JUST LIKE I KNEW WHAT I WAS SIGNING UP FOR, I KNEW WHAT THE OUTCOME WOULD BE, I KNEW WHAT WOULD HAPPEN. and like the whole bloody season it's just like it's just :( CITRUS ::::(((

read it. it's so good.

[thirdwifeofriversong]

going back through some old notes on my phone and found my unfiltered original reactions to volumes 1 & 2 of stranger things 4… (spoilers below the break)

VOL 1

- HOLY FUCK EPISODE SEVEN

- did NOT see that reveal coming

- The ends of eps 4 and 7 are fucking amazing

- NANCY!!! Not sure how she’ll fare, not looking good obvs, (and I did originally think she’d die, but I hope not ofc) but I love the callback to the pool and Barb

- This is Dustin’s season lol

- Joyce Hop and Murray better fucking get out of that prison- their reunion was heartbreaking, but I also was like RUN don’t do another bob

- About Vecna/001/Creel son… so his powers/the killings weren’t related to the upside down until El imprisoned him there… so the upside down existed already but El opened the gate to put 001 through and that was the beginning of the contact with our world?… also how did Brenner try to replicate 001? Heard some disturbing theories about sperm donation but that’s super fucked up so I’m not sure how but I hope they explain? Also how did he get his powers in the first place? Finally what amazing casting

- Never thought I’d be rooting for Steve and Nancy lol but I guess maturity happens

- Erica is the fucking best

- The 001 reveal was fantastic. Jaw on the floor.

- Why does 001 care for 011 more than the others? Seen theories that she’s his kid but???

- Relationship between 001 and the mind flayer?

- MAX omg that scene was AMAZING on all levels and her ACTING

- Also why was Brenner using 001 as a guard?? Doesn’t make sense?

- Cool how they synced Nancy and El understanding 001’s story

- I only want good things for Hopper

- Also Murray’s karate is 10/10. Comic gold

- I’m a bit done with the torture. I like my characters problems to be fictional thanks.

- Look forward to seeing the CA gang appear again

- Also Joyce and Murray have no fucking idea what’s going on… and like Joyce just leaves her kids?

- Okay El needs nice things and WHAT THE FUCK OWENS WORKING WITH BRENNER REALLY?!! El didn’t need that. She needs so much love and friends and therapy and trauma informed everything bc OMG.

- Not a fan of Archie and the jock vigilantes

- Rude to prey on people with trauma. Guess Vecna is just a psychopath?

- AHHHHHH

- again how did the kids get their powers and how did they take it from 001 and how did 001 get it in the first place?

- Nice that 001 and the mind flayer got along so well

- Also can will get some fucking character development? Please? Like I know he has a crush on mike but more than that pls because it’s been since s2 that he had a true arc (except that great acting scene in s3)

- Suzie is everyone’s Queen. Bow before her

- Eddie and argyle are great new characters

- El needs so much love

- You can’t let anything happen to Hop or Joyce or Murray

- Wait also I forgot about the time travel thing

- WAIT A SECOND the painting Will’s painting it’s got to be of Mike because he LOVES HIM

VOL 2

- ALDHRKWHDLDHAKDHSJSJHSJAJAH

- My BABY EDDIE NOOOOO

- MAX?!?!?!!! No MAX !!!!!! Like I assume they would’ve just killed her if she wasn’t going to come back, but she seems brain dead and the duffers said she was? So? I hope they do bring her back bc it would’ve made sense to fully kill her if she wasn’t? Also El has fucking Lazarus powers too?! Damn girl

- My BABY GAY WILL you need a HUG and I’m so glad you got one but you also need to talk about shit and just say it out loud

- Good job Jonathan you aren’t completely useless

- WHAT A FUCKING ENDING

- EL AND HOP MY HEART

- DAMN that was a good ending- saw it coming but they did it really well

- And they really did seem like they’d just kill off everyone for a minute

- Murray, Yuri, and Antonov?? My bois? Where they at?

- Still gotta resolve Owens

- Also the fucking Russian and US governments are looking for them wtf

- Not looking good

- BUT AT LEAST THEYRE TOGETHER

- love the Hawkins at the center of it all

- FOUR GATES HOLY FUCK

- the vecna el max scene holy SHIT

- also did we not finish the Jason plot line?! Wtf happened after that? Somebody gotta keep this man in line bc he went full murder there (edit apparently he did die whoops I was distracted)

- And poor Lucas!! My baby is gonna have so much trauma!!

- And Dustin… sweet little confident dude gonna be so sad

- Fucking will ending the season touching the back of his neck I CAN FEEL HIM of course you fucking can will

- The LINE

- Hop and Joyce!!! Finally!!!

- Also like please let Karen be an actual character with agency she’s been here for four seasons on the sidelines but like please… my dude…. Please write her some character development… and fuck Ted

- The fucking love triangle with Nancy isn’t resolved

- We love Steve (in general)

- Robin and band girl seem nice…. Like a z plot but at least she might get a nice thing? Would be nice if we knew more about band girl

- Want to know if Henry/vecna is El’s father? More about that connection? Also how he got his powers to begin with? Is the upside down just an accidental bump into our universe bc El or is it related to the powers? Would it have kept going?

- Also fucking Odyssey with Henry

- the FUCKING METAL CONCERT WITH THE DEMOBATS THAT WAS THE BEST SHIT EVER

- and hop with the sword?!

- The soviets rlly did just go this seems like a good idea let’s BREED FUCKING DEMOGORGONS fuckers

- Glad they’re out of the ussr

- That ending shot wow

- I CRIED with Dustin and mr munson omg that was so fucking sad

- Also where was max’s mom in the hospital??

- Max omg baby needs nice things

- Aghhhhh

- The CAPTIONS

[pepsiwriteswords]

Favorite Tropes Tag!

And another one @emelkae tagged me in, but more recently this time. XP

Thanks for the tag!

Favorite Big Dramatic Fight Trope:

Wait, like . . . physical fight or verbal fight? If I even have an answer for this one. XP

I’m trying to think of fights I’ve read/seen on TV/in movies & got invested in/agreed with & that weren’t just . . . incredibly manufactured bc the characters had to have their third-act-break-up thing.

I think, like . . . when a character lashes out bc Trauma, or when the fight/argument mirrors something that has Happened Before, or the current dynamic is just so similar to one they’ve been in, so the character essentially flashes back without actually having a flashback? (Like the Jesper/Kaz argument in Crooked Kingdom, where Kaz calls Jesper by his brother’s name?)

It doesn’t always hit right, but when it does . . . oof.

Favorite Backstory Reveal Trope

I’m not sure I can choose just one. It might depend on just what the backstory is.

Scar reveal/question backstory reveals are great. Backstory revealed during an argument/after an argument is great. Any reveal happening just bc the characters are being good at communicating with one another are great. Backstory reveals where earlier in the piece the character said a thing real casually so it got brushed off just to reveal later it was actually hella serious is great. Accidentally getting pieces of someone’s backstory bc of mind-reading is great. Vague allusions to the Thing hurt a lot & I love it. (AKA, AFTG, pretty sure it’s the last book, Andrew telling Neil ‘I was six, I believed him’? Ouch, & I have read smaller allusions to different backstory things in other books, & I think I’ve seen it done well a few times in shows or movies I’ve watched, & most of my favorite fics have little one-line allusions to smth & have all but caused tears & it’s fantastic.)

Favorite Parent/Parenting/Child Interaction Trope

This will be the shortest answer, I think:

Character that is usually grumpy/rude/just a straight-up dickhead to the other adult characters is fucking great with kids.

& depending on the character, the ‘adopts every child they come across’ is usually great, too.

Favorite Romance Trope

Hmmm. Not the ‘because I love you!’ during an argument trope. XP

I think . . .  god, I dunno. Do I have to pick one? Can I just say like, ‘everything Aziraphale & Crowley have going on’? Bc like, I know I’ve seen & reblogged a post that’s like ‘they have just about every possible romance trope they could have‘ & just. Yes. Bc ultimately it’s all in how the trope is written & I’m probably pickier about romance tropes than anything, so I could love this trope in this book/movie/fic & absolutely despise it in this other thing & I really don’t know that I have a favorite.

Favorite Character Archetype

. . . Ummm . . . generally ‘the most traumatized bastard in the cast’. XD I am also very susceptible to fanon (for TV shows/movies tbh) bc roughly 50-90% of the time I don’t actually watch the source material & learn about a thing & get attached to it just bc a couple people on my dash are super into it.

(Like, I got into the Untamed very late & have never actually played or watched any LPs for undertale & am very attached to Klaus Hargreeves despite only watching like one episode of season one a couple years ago . . . etc.) XD

This should make it pretty obvious who of my OCs makes it onto my favorite list xP just look for the poor kid with 10x more trauma than anyone else. (Or watch me try to make it more equal between a couple bc I can’t pick in that given WIP)

Annd umm open tag bc it’s been a minute since I’ve done any of these tag games & I’m bad at interacting with y’all anyway lol. If you see this, assume you’re invited to play along! ^^

[veliseraptor]

Hi, Lise......I can't help but want to ask (if you don't mind), what are your favorite (that you personally like) books or movies/ tv series that contains lesbias and gays? Thanks if you want to answer.....

wow I completely forgot this ask was sitting in my inbox and has been for a long while. and uhhhh the thing is here that I actually...feel like I don't have a separate category in my head, so much, for "media that has queer people in it" and "media that doesn't"? which like. feels weird to say, but when I get questions like this, or requests for recommendations, I always...struggle to parse these things out. and also to parse out, for instance, "books that read as having queer elements" from "books with explicitly queer characters."

but I guess if I'm gonna try...most of these are going to be books, with a few exceptions.

BOOKS

Doctrine of Labyrinths is a four book series that comes stamped with a whole list of content warnings (rape and child abuse chief among them, probably) but is also one of my favorite series of all time, so, you know.

The Masquerade series by Seth Dickinson also comes with a big "IT'S SAD. IT'S SAD AND DARK" warning, along with content warnings for serious societal homophobia, but is another one of my favorite series of all time. it's not that I hate happy queer stories or anything, I just tend to like stories that aren't happy

The Locked Tomb Trilogy by Tasmyn Muir which you've probably heard about by now, but honestly I think the common tagline of "lesbian necromancers in space" really doesn't...cover it? It's funny, it's weird, it's unique in terms of setting, story, and magic system, it's doing some very interesting things and I can't wait to find out where Muir is going with it. it's very much stylistically not something that's going to work for everyone, but I would recommend giving it a go and finding out if it works for you.

I loved the series by Lara Elena Donnelly that starts with Amberlough, but that one's definitely Rise of a Fascist State and therefore might not be everyone's cuppa right at the moment.

Oh, Imperial Radch by Ann Leckie is very queer, not in terms of, like, "these characters are explicitly gay" but more in terms of what she's doing with gender. I don't know that I'd say it's a central part of the book but it's an important enough piece of the worldbuilding at least that I'd put it here. I don't actually remember, textually, but Machineries of Empire also feels very queer to me in a similar sort of way. A queer theory sort of way, maybe? idk.

this one's a sort of...not for me exactly but it was cool rec, but The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon was very classic fantasy in a lot of ways, but gay, and with some fresh twists on old tropes.

COMICS

The Wicked and the Divine by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie. look, it's just really good and not just for the queer. I need to do a reread from the top.

TV

I am really enjoying Motherland: Fort Salem actually, which I feel like people either aren't aware of or watch the first couple episodes and get turned off, but. one of the three main characters is lesbian, and sticks her hand down another girl's pants in like. the second episode? maybe even the first one, I don't remember.

Person of Interest doesn't introduce its gay until later in the series, but if you're anything like me as far as what you want in relationship dynamics you're in for a treat.

Yes, it is an animated children's show, but She-Ra and the Princesses of Power gave me such a gift it still makes me emotional because I'm going like. is this what it feels like to get what I want, canonically, in a piece of media? wow.

look, I'm putting The Untamed on here because (a) it is based on a gay webnovel and is pretty fucking gay considering the limits of censorship, everybody in the cast knows it and is playing it, and (b) some of the secondary relationships come off, I would argue, even gayer in the live action, probably because there are actor people putting them right in front of your face. (because the discourse is what it is: censorship isn't progressive, etc., but this is my list and I'm putting MDZS on here too.)

THOSE CHINESE WEBNOVELS I WON'T SHUT UP ABOUT

like, seriously. I mean, look, they take some work getting into because reading works in translation that come from a culture that you (general Anglophone you) may or may not be familiar with on one level or another actually does come with having to learn some shit and get used to some new things about genre and style, and reading webnovels maybe even more so, but as far as I'm concerned it's worth it.

so far the ones I've read are (titles in English, with common abbreviation, mostly from the Chinese) Heaven Official's Blessing (TGCF), Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS), Scum Villain's Self Saving System (SVSSS), The Husky and His White Cat Shizun (erha or 2HA), and (still finishing but at this point feel pretty comfy recommending) Clear and Muddy Loss of Love (JWQS).

there are several others on my list that I've had recommended and just haven't gotten to yet. my favorites personally are probably TGCF and 2HA, but I'm pending a reread of MDZS with a different translation to do my final assessment there and JWQS is giving me a lot of very good shit.

(I feel like I have to mention, because I'd be remiss if I didn't while I'm talking about ~personal preferences~, that the Coldfire Trilogy is astonishingly queer in my memory for one of the central relationships although it's been years since I read it, admittedly, and the Lymond Chronicles which is a series I love dearly is also incredibly queer, particularly for a series written in the 60s, and is like. juuuuust barely shy of having a canonically bisexual protagonist. and does have an explicitly lesbian secondary character, though fair warning, she, uh, does have it pretty rough.)

there's also some books that didn't make it on here even though they have queer characters because I felt like the queerness of those characters was not really key to the story, for instance the Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin, which is fantastic in its own right and I would recommend to everyone, but didn't quite feel like it fit this post.

I'm almost certainly forgetting stuff, but I did my best.

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Old (2021)

Oh you guys. You guyyyyyys. Buckle the fuck up, I am so pumped to tell you about this absolutely GONZO mummified deuce of a movie. Spoilers will be had in this one, because you need to know everything. 

Old is the latest from M. Night Shyamalan and like....I think we all know M. Night’s track record. For every Sixth Sense, we also get a Happening or a Village. In some ways, he’s the most exciting director working today because every new film is a 50/50 coin toss, and mama loves living on the edge. The gist of this latest roll of the dice is that a group of different families who have all come to stay at a remote luxury beach resort get invited to go to a secluded private beach for the day, and after they arrive they discover they can’t leave. That’s not great, but the bigger problem is that they seem to be aging rapidly - like 2 years older every hour or so. That’s a solid “how are we gonna get outta this one” bottle episode premise, and in the hands of a better writer, it could be a fun sci-fi romp. M. is NOT that writer. 

Some thoughts:

I should have known it would all go wrong from the terrible foreshadowing starting at the very beginning scene. The mom of our main family, Prisca (Vicky Krieps) says “You have such a beautiful voice, I can’t wait to hear it when you’re older.” The dad, Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal) says, “Don’t rush this moment, enjoy the present while you can.” BECAUSE THE CHARACTERS WON’T BE ABLE TO LATER, DO YOU GET IT? dO yOU GEt iT? Wife leaned over and said “look at all the ferns - the oldest plants!” That last one was probably her projecting, but the point stands: there is nothing subtle about Old. 

There’s a lot of just like, shouting out loud the things that are currently happening onscreen. “She’s having a seizure!” “People who go back the way we came black out!” “The rust has entered your bloodstream; it acts like poison!” That’s how you tell stories, right? Just having characters point out events that are occurring right in front of their stupid fucking faces with no other commentary or reflection? 

An additional element that feels woefully ignorant at best and malicious at worst is the inclusion of a black male character (Aaron Pierre) who 1) is a rapper 2) is named Mid-Sized Sedan [I’ll give you a moment to deal with that detail emotionally] 3) says the single line of dialogue “Damn.” at least 4 times and 4) suffers the bloodiest, most violent onscreen death at the hands of a racist white man who is revealed to have paranoid schizophrenia. There are other gruesome deaths onscreen, to be sure, but the worst are body horror nightmares that could never occur in the real world - a woman whose bones are breaking and setting in the wrong position nearly instantaneously until she resembles a horrifying spider creature, and the aforementioned rust-in-the-bloodstream trick that leads to a Jeff-Goldblum-in-The Fly-bubbling-skin infection kinda deal. But Mid-Sized Sedan just gets stabbed in the chest repeatedly, brutally, a bunch of times by a white guy who pleads fear for his life even though MSS posed no danger to him, and it all happens onscreen when so many other characters are offered the mercy of offscreen deaths. I’m not sure if M. is trying to throw some real-world horror in and he’s just shit at it, or if it really didn’t occur to him how malicious this inclusion feels in a fantasy narrative, and I don’t really care. If you have a black character in your story and they die, you better think really long and hard about how it happens and what it means and it’s clear no one did that here.

Nothing to do with the film itself, but it did tickle me that someone brought a tiny infant to my pretty packed screening. The baby was very chill, thank goodness, and as far as I know did not age up to a kindergartner during the course of the film.

There is a Very Good Dog, a Yorkie, present for the first part of the film, but unfortunately the dog dies. It occurs offscreen, and given the premise of what’s going on on this beach, it’s not a shock when it happens BUT STILL. 

The old age makeup, at least on Prisca is pretty great. Good job makeup department!

At one point, Guy gets attacked by another beachgoer, and his eyesight is failing so he has a hard time fighting back. But you are surrounded by sand, my dude, and you can still see blurry shapes. You’re not gonna throw some sand in the eyes until you’ve been stabbed like 10 times? Not gonna try to push him down, or sweep the fucking leg, or do anything but just keep raising your arms and getting stabbed while yelling “I’ll protect you!” I’ve seen stale tuna sandwiches with better defense mechanisms than you. 

Like most fantastical premises, there are only a certain number of ways this narrative can end that really make any sense. It reminds me quite a bit of 2019’s Brightburn which was like “what if Superman but evil?” Either everyone is gonna die, or someone is going to improbably survive and you better have a real neat explanation for how that’s possible. Oh M. Night, when will you realize that your explanations are never as clever as you think they are? There’s no “twist” here really, simply a reveal, and it’s the equivalent of eating one of those sugar-free, gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free snack cakes I broke down and ate out of desperation when I was on Weight Watchers. That shit is “food” in the same way that the climax is a “logical explanation for all this.” Big Pharma is luring sick people to the resort through targeted ads, then arranging these excursions to the wacky time beach in order to test how medicine they secretly slipped into the guests’ drinks works over decades of life. These sneaky medical breakthroughs are saving hundreds of thousands of people’s lives, we’re told, and the scientists offer a moment of silence for each fallen group of unwitting human lab rats after they inevitably die. Because if there’s one thing the world needs right now, it’s more distrust of pharmaceutical companies and the ethics of modern science! I can’t think of one possible reason we’d want to portray molecular biologists, immunologists, and virologists in a positive light right now, can you? When will those assholes get off their high horses and stop being universally trusted and beloved by everyone, am I right?? 

My saddest takeaway, tbh, is that this is a stacked international cast, with at least half the roles going to POC - this is the future liberals want, etc etc - and the result is THIS.

Did I Cry? Of course not.

Not all is terrible! It’s a beautiful movie to look at, because M. Night’s direction is never the problem, but combined with the script, the acting, and the absurd narrative leaps needed to make this story make even a little bit of sense, the whole thing turns into a mess. Unfortunately, getting Old with M. Night is less “leisurely retirement at a plush resort in Florida” and more “rancid can of Ensure and a poop-choked pair of Depends.”

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[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales Finale Review: The Last Adventure! or So Long and Thanks for All The Ducks

Hello all you happy people. The day we’ve all simultaneously waited for and dreaded is here. The grand finale to a five year journey.. and for me an almost one year journey of covering season 3 as it came out. It was thanks to this show i’ve been able to make money doing what I love. Without it I never would’ve found my patreon Kev, and I never woul’dve had the solid focus to keep going as long as I have. And I never would’ve had all you lovely people reading my work. Thank you for that. I hope you’ll stick around even though the series is gone, I love you all. But as the sun sets on this series I have one last episode of the season, and the series to cover. I won’t be doing it in my usual recap style due to it’s sheer length and scope, but I promise you if you join me under the cut I will break down eveyrthing I can about this final adventure, it’s huge, awe inspiring twists.. and it’s heartwarming conclusion. It’s everything you could want from a finale short of a Grandma Duck Cameo, and i’ts under the cut with full spoilers. Seriously if you do not want any spoilers TURN BACK NOW. I’m opening with probably the biggest spoiler of the finale. 

I Think She’s A Clone Now You were warned. So.. Webby is Scrooge’s Clone, made by FOWL as part of a decades long scheme to find the papyrus of binding, and raised by Beakly to keep this precious child out of their sinister clutches. I have hundreds of reaction images, several for what the fuck.. none of them seem sufficient.. ALL OF THEM together like some megazord of what the fuck are not sufficient for how much this reveal caught me off guard. It caught ALL of us off guard. I’m sure even those who called it still were suprised that’s the direction it took. I think we all expected her parents died by FOWL, or her parents were FOWl with Pepper being one of them, or anything else. So naturally it took around 14 drafts, and me going the fuck to sleep as I had stayed up to watch the finale and thought I could just smoothly transition into writing the review despite there being a LOTTTTT to unpack.

Even after the recharge though this took a bit of doing... so now i’ve done it... what’d I think? Whelp....

I liked it. I like it the more I think about it. Even the problems I had with it just kinda melted away as I thought about it. I understand if you do not. This twist will not be for everyone, it changes Webby’s character and story entirely, ruins tons of fan theories, and in general is batshit even for a series that in the same finale, turned Manny into a shout out to Gargoyles, complete with Keith “My Body is Ready” David. This series is genuinely batshit and loves it, but this is a LOT to ask dramatically, a lot to rewrite expectation wise and a lot to thinka bout. There’s a reason besides sleep deprevation it took me a whlie to fully grasp how I felt. So if you don’t like it fine, but i’m going to make my best case. 

Starting with something that made me realize I fully like it: It dosen’t invalidate Webby’s charcter. The one little problem I had left was “Well dosen’t Webby having the McDuck bloodline mean she couldn’t be specail if she wasn’t a McDuck? That sure the rest of the cast are specail but you can’t be really important without it?” Honestly.. no. Webby is who she is not because she’s a McDuck.. but because she’s Webby. She got her martial arts and mystery solving skills through Beakly and being raised. She had intate talent sure.. but as we’ve seen with the boys through the whole series, talent has to be honed. Skill has to be earned and learned.  Webby worked hard to research other civilizations, worked hard to hone herself into a deadly fighting machine with her mother’s help, worked hard to be every bit as cool as her idol who turned out to be her biological dad. She earned her badassery, her wisdom and her courage SQUARE. 

And more than that she’s her own person. Her adoptive parent and biological parent are both paranoiacs afraid of betryal, unwilling to trust, and slow to let anyone in. By all accounts Webby should be the same.. but she’s not. Oh sure she has some paranoia and is willing to slit some throats, she was raised by the world’s best spy and is the daughter of the world’s greatest hero, that was never going to be gone entirely. But at her core she just wants to trust people. She just wants to love them and be loved. And.. that’s why her family loves her. Because she’s the kindest, the warmest and the best of them. They love her because she’s Webby and that’s she’s family, they could care less who she’s related to. All it really changes is how Scrooge acts around her and that gives us fans tons to work with. 

It’s also expertly revealed, which helped ease us into it. Webby is just as shocked and confused as we are and is seriously hurt, which makes her vulnerable to the villains. Kate Miccui deserves a goddamn award for voice acting and if their isn’t an award show for that their should be. While she’s been fantastic with Webby all series long this is her finest performance, going from Webby’s usual self, to all the hurt she goes through.. to her quitter moments at the end, calling Scrooge dad and giving out a little noise that makes it clear as Beakly tries to leave, that no.. she’ still her family.. she’s still her mom and she’s not going anywhere. 

As for the concept being a bit ridiculous yes it is.. but so is this universe. This universe is entirely insane in the best fucking way possible: I mean.. look at this final group shot. 

We have an old man whose somehow still alive simply because he was too busy to die, an inventor whose cloned himself multiple times so clones are fesable and is probably a clone himself given how the last finale went, an awkward armored superhero and his biotech filled girlfriend, a small boy robot weapon of discretion who put his head on his brother’s body, a no longer headless manhorse former harbinger of the apocalypse with the silky voice of keith david as one big homage to gargoyles, a lesbian living shadow and her sister, a superhero who based himself on a fictional character and his boyfriend/sidekick who by all accounts should be dead by now, a lesbian military superheroine from the moon, STORKULES COCKBLOCKER OUT OF MYTH, his moong goddes sister, two adopted family stunt pilots, a bunch of super intelligent mice, an odd duck whose kinda sorta dating a giant shrimp, his cousin with super luck powers, my globetrotting boys, an immortal treasure hunter and in the family proper: a former spy turned adopted mom of a clone, a woman who lived on the moon for a good decade, a man who once trapped everyone in what would essentially be the plot of the mcu’s second best work by pure accident, a blue boy whose piloted a plain, captained pirates, and has his own talk show, a green boy whose ran a multi-trillion dollar company, nearly destroyed all of time and space and is under investigation for fraud, and a red boy who has a hulk-esque rage filled embodiment of all his suppressed emotions, whose fondest wish was tall legs, and who can easily take out a giant magica supermachine with some fancy wiring. So the richest duck in the world having a clone daughter, while divisvie and what not.. is far more plausable than we give it credit for. As are her new sisters who Id in’t forget but are part of the whole twist. 

So yeah, I like the twist and my nitpick is more that despite having a full season to set it up.. they saved it for the last episode. Instead of BUILDING on Webby’s desire to know more about her family and having the twins show up earlier.. it’s all shove into the finale. It’s a well done shoving but there’s so much that could be explored with Webby being Scrooge’s daughter, so much that futzes with the regular family dynamics and we don't’ get any of it. Sure it was probably saved for a possible season 4 but they treated this season as the last. Manny being an apocalyptic man horse voiced by the uber sexy keith david, and no I will not stop bringing that up even outside of it’s own section and why yes it is getting it’s own section, is the kind of revelation you can leave for one last episode. “One of the main cast is a clone” really isn’t and that’s disapointing. 

Especially since thinking back to life and times.. Webby IS a lot like Scrooge was before circumstance hardened him. She’s tough, resourceful.. but also has a peppy spirit to her. It adds interesting shades to her character, where she zigs where Scrooge zags, how much of it is her upbringing with Granny versus his with his parents, how much did Beakley play into it. There’s A lot to dig into and given I have most of the series left to review, I will get to dig into it, and there’s a lot to be explored in fanfic so if I wasn’t already planning a massive one before I sure as fuck am now. So it’s not a bad twist nor bad we get to write the future.. but I do wish the crew THEMSELVES had done more with it. Still my bar for “not fucking up the entire show” is pretty low after Star Vs ended with her committing implied genocide to stop a genocide and How I Met Your Mother ended “But the real journey was in how much I want to bang, bang bangity bang I said a bang bang bangity bang your aunt robin now your mother conveniently died”. I can handle “This twist is kind of weird but also really intresting.” If the twist isn’t for you, as I said i get it. This is my opinion. Now for the thing I won’t shut up about. 

I LIVE AGAIN:

Look i’ve made no secret how thirsty I am for Keith David nor how much of a national treasure I rightly believe him to be. He’s one of my faviorite voice actors, with a mind boggling number of awesome rolls, mostly recently as a fowl mouthed coffe cup encouraging a teacher to sabotage his rival teachers breaks on close enough. Even if I didn’t like Gargoyles, which I do, i’d have an entire section talking about that Manny reveal. 

Manny was already objectively one of the best parts of the show, a hilariously weird addition that was also relatable as he just wanted to fit in. I did not know you could make him better. Then they gave him Keith David’s voice and revealed he’s one of the four horseman of the apocalypse, but doesn’t want to end the world he just wants to be a normal dude, AND turned him into a shout out to the last part of the disney afternoon they hadn’t touched, my favorite part of it and a show i’ve been sitting on watching in full for far too long. Motherfucking Gargoyles. 

But given how unique it was for the Disney Afternoon and how much Disney had no desire to ever reference or use the franchise, still no fucking clue as to why they are sitting on money here, I expected it to be sadly but understandably left out. Instead they made Manny into an expy for them, gave him the voice of their leader Goliath, the voice of an angel, and had him say “I LIVE AGAIN” complete with the utterly transcendent theme song. Seriously give it a listen. 

So yeah I couldn’t not mark out at this. Amazing fucking stuff and almost as unexpected as the clone thing and easily my second faviorite part of the fiinale only NARROWLY topped by the curtain call. Which we’ll get to. Keith David took his time getting to this series but they saved the best guest voice for last. Utter tremendous. 

Huey Season?: I”ll save more of this for my breakdown as the season as a whole but yeah while the finale as a whole was good.. I do feel Huey got short changed. He got PLENTY of development this season, and some REALLY good scenes with Bradford.. but ultimately he got overshadowed by the Webby thing. it just never quite felt like Huey got a real resolution to his character arc the way his brothers did. He still got some REALLY good moments, his “Just cough up the information Bentina!” was one of his finest and Danny Pudi did his best. The BUILDUP was good but hte payoff was non existant and easily the weakest part of an otherwise triumphant finale. I feel the final plot was ultimately just a bit too jam packed to really have Huey feel vital to it the way Dewey was to the Della arc and Louie was to his own arc. Both tgot big emotional payoffs in his finale but the most I could gather here was he accepted adventure? I guess. It just really feels off, like I missed the payoff to everything when it’s probably just nonexistent and that bothers me a lot. In a finale that was almost all hit.. this was easily the biggest misstep. I don’t have as much to say here on it.. but that’s because it’s really that simple: they gave Huey’s arc a ton of build up in this last episode and some of his others, really made him into Bradford’s good counterpart.. then just sorta.. forgot it because “oh shit Webby’s scrooge’s daughter kinda need to pull focus here”. Had they given this arc at least one more episode, we might of had time for it. Granted i’m not sure how much they could get away with but we clearly needed at least one more episode and what they chose to jettision, the climax to Huey’s story.. was way more important than they clearly thought and i’m heavily disappointed. 

Bradford’s Big Hole Speaking of payoffs the missing mysteries payoff.. is a mixed bag. I expected all of them to combine some how into some elaborate plan I just wasn’t seeing. In hindsight it does make sense that wasn’t it: Bradford hates overcomplicated schemes, so his would be incredibly simple and require as few moving parts as possible. It still dosen’t stop the fact that the big plan to cap off the entire series built over a season... was to build a giant stygian hole of non existence to throw people into. 

Yes really. Instead of using the Payprus to write them out of existance, if carefully worded or try doing it all at once or anything practical.. Bradford just plans to shove everything he dosen’t want in the world anymore into a hole.  Look i’ts not like it ruins the episode, there’s still tons of tension from him holding Scrooge’s loved ones over his hole and threating to throw them into it’s gaping void. And it’s foiled by a 12 year old just.. shutting it off. Like I get him leaving an off switch on, that’s just common sense.. but why wouldn’t he have a remote or something to turn it back on? one with a password or something to lock it. There’s something inherently underwhelming about as series ending plan that can be summed up “hope no one shuts my unguarded hole. “

The finale does make for it by using the missing mysteries all in VERY clever ways. In fact every episode in the season had some sort of payoff here. It’s what makes up for how baffling the main plan is: every other thing, from the missing mysteries to the guest stars has lead up to this one moment, this one final adventure. Which leads me too

An Hurricane of Payoffs:

So from the top Challenge of the Senior Junior Woodchucks!: Isabella Finch herself ends up being VITAL to the story and to Bradford’s backstory, as does Junior Woodchucking as a whole. Quack Pack!: Gene is the fuel for Blot’s glove.. though he also fucks off right afterwords.. never to be seen again or help out at any point...

Double-O-Duck in You Only Crash Twice!: This was the most unexpected and elevated the episode in hindsight for me as what seemed like a waste of time.. wound up setting up the first part of the finale, and the final battle with Steelbeak, and in clever ways with Steelbeak using the intelliray on himself, Launchpad muttering the map in his sleep via his smart self and Dewey remembering the base layout. 

The Lost Harp of Mervana: Used as a lie detector for that heartbreaking interrogation scene. 

Louie’s Eleven: Introduced Daisy setting up Donald’s plot which i’ll get to. 

Astro BOYD: My baby boy comes back for this episode! He also gets one of the best lines of it “I’m a Head!”. That is the most ralph wiggum the boy has ever been. I’m so proud. 

Rumble For Ragnarok: Okay I was wrong nothing from this one comes back. Still a great episode. Same with the trickening. Both are VERY stellar episodes though, so I give it a pass. You can’t give a nod to EVERYTHING. 

The Phantom and the Sorceress: The Blot and Super Sayian God Super Sayian Lena, as well as Lena’s character development from said episode.  They Put a Moonlander on the Earth!: Launchpad helping Penny realize her purpose.  Forbidden Fountain: Jeeves is un-babied as a trap Let’s Get Dangerous!: Drake and Gosalyn Return, and Solageo’s Circut ends up being vital to the climax.. in the strangest and funnest way to say possible but still. It counts.  Escape from the Impossibin: Beakley’s near breakdown at the idea FOWL has come back. It was already heartbreaking and the first adventure had made it even more so.. but now it’s out and out DEVISTATING. The one thing after her daughter is not only back.. but SHE’S the reason he’s in Scrooge’s life and home and her giving up SHUSH has now left her wide open. 

The Split Sword: Probably the best out of all of these as it ends up directly playing into the climax in an awesome way i’m saving for Bradfords New Gods: Storkules shows up. Okay so that every episode claim bit me on the ass. Also when did these two meet? I mean probably at end of spear of selene but the more important question is WHY DID YOU ROB  ME OF THESE TWO MEETING AT ANY POINT IN THE SERIES. 

The First Adventure: Naturally the Payprus comes back as Does herons needling bradford to stop denying what he is. 

Fight For Castle McDuck: Suprisingly the blessed bagpipes ended up being VITALLY important. And giving us sexiest man alive infinity years running Keith David for an episode.  Last Christmas; Santa Cameo

Beaks in the Shell: Gandra being taken and the Lost Library being setup for this episode. 

Lost Cargo: The Stone of What Was. And Credit where its due what FELT like simply a filler episode with a tantengal connectoin.. ended up probably being one of the most important episodes. Fair play. 

Life and Crimes: Magica turning Bradford into a non sentient bird, like what happened to her brother.... proving once again this episode really REALLY needed as subplot attached to lead into the finale or something. 

Bonus Round: Pilot payoffs by the pound. Seriously Scrooge and Donald’s last lines to each other, the badass return of “I’m a Pilot”, more on that in a minute, and even other smaller call backs like “Keep Getting Up” and webby sucessfully getting some juice to Louie’s pride. All top notch stuff and it really makes the finale FEEL like one with all this coming back full circle. So i’ve hinted at it enough, let’s bring on the bad guy. 

The First Woodchuck

We’ve had some mixed payoffs so let’s get to one that’s just out and out excellent. Bradford Buzzard.. is the best villian the show ever had. Now I will give the caveat that my favorite forever and always will be

You know it, I know it. But Bradford is the best genuine threat of the series, with Marc Evan Jackson perfectly balancing his menace and genuine evil.. with his steadfast believe that he isn’t evil, and his calm, controlled business demeanor. It’s one of the best performances of the show and he deserves all the credit for it and after seeing him in supporting roles for his career, even if his role as Kevin on Brooklyn Nine-Nine is fucking awesome and I’m sad that show is ending, it’s nice to see him step into a big meaty role as the big bad and utterly nail it. 

And the finale.. pays eveyrthing off with him, apart from the plan itself perfectly. Starting off him being revealed as Isabella Finch’s grandson... was  a stroke of genius. I didn’t expect her to come back in play but it gives perfect reason both why he knew about the mysteries.. and why he’s like this. 

Like Scrooge did with his nephews, niece and daughter, Isabella dragged Bradford all around the world seeing the unseen, thinking it was fun. The problem was... Bradford HATED it. He hated every minute of it, like as one post pointed out Rusty Venture from the Venture bros, and felt he should be in school. He wanted a normal life and a normal world and not.. this waking nightmare. So to him, fixing the world, stopping this sort of thing is the only way and that doing so is a good thing. His problem is how he adapted to it.

We see that best in his mirror images, the people he’s in direct contrast with and the show knows it. Starting off with the one he’s not like at all is Scrooge. Part of what makes Bradford perfect is he’s Scrooge’s evil opposiite. The Luthor to His Superman, The Joker to his Batman, the Green Goblin to his Spider-Man, the Iron Monger to his Iron Man, the Sinestro to his Green Lantern. Both come from a long line of adventure but while Scrooge embraces that and loves it, Bradford hates it and wants to destroy it. One is energetic and always ready, the other’s calm, calculated. And one sees what he is.. and the other dosen’t. Simple as that.

But his other mirror’s are more like him, moving onto Huey. Their both woodchucks, both prefer caution and planning, and both want to make some sense of a nonsensical world. Both want to feel safe when they constnatly don’t. One’s prone to panic attack the other’s calm. But what makes Huey the better man... is that he accepts the world is the way he is. It goes all the way back to terror of the terrafirmains. While he was all for adventure he started his doubting things, not beliving things were real.. because the reality that there are some things you just can’t prepare for, just can’t know, and you can’t be always ready.. it shattered him. He nearly let himself die rather than live knowing what’s out there. Webby pulled him out of that, literally and figuratively.. and he never went back. Sure he still tries to have an order to things, still breaks when his structure’s broken.. but it’s gone from a paranoid fear of the unknown and weird to embracing it. To relishing in finding unsolved mysteries and new clues to unlock, to finding new things to explore. He went from seeing this chaotic world as something to run from, to embracing and studying it. To loving it the way it is the way his family loves him for who he is. Bradford.. denies reality belongs the way it is and wants to force it into what HIS idea of it is Superboy Prime Style. The world isn’t waht he thought it should be so he’ll MAKE it that way. Huey grew as a person.. while his arc didn’t have a full payoff.. it still pays off here by showing what he COULD’VE been. had he let his earlier fear and his always present neurosis drive him like Bradford has. Let his big brain make him think he knows what’s better for EVERYONE instead of using it to genuinely help people. Bradford lacks the boys heart and empathy and that’s why he fell. Huey had his family backing him, his best friends coming to get him, and his brothers ultimately rescue him. Bradford.. threw his only true ally down a styigan murder hole. 

Finally.. we have the one that’s not brought up directly.. but is very much there. Donald. While the two don’t interact hardly at all... it’s VERY fitting that Donald is the one Bradford picks to threaten Scrooge with. Like Bradford... Donald grew to hate adventure, he wanted to get as far away from it as possible and took it from his boys for as long as he could. Granted that was in part Bradford’s fault, and that was an INCREDIBLY clever twist: it dosen’t make him entirley responsible or anything that robs the moment of it’s imapct, Della still chose to take it out by herself, she still lied to Donald and she still got lost all by her own decision and impuslviness. But it fits perfectly into it: Bradford’s horrifying smile when Scrooge gets taken away from saving her is even WORSE now with full context, and it still fits that knowing about the project.. he’d want to set it up to screw up Scrooge’s life. I don’t think he sabotaged the rocket or anything, too obvious and something Della would’ve mentioned by now.. but he knew it was unfinished. 

Back to the parallel the diffrence is once again.. change. Donald let go of his hate of scrooge and his past and realized it wasn’t all bad. He let himself grow as a person after a decade of bitterness and anger. But most tellingly and poignantly is Quack Pack... both had a chance to make a world that was safe, normal and what they always wanted. Both out of terror of the danger of this world.  Thing is.. Donald’s was noble. He feared for his kids, his sister, his uncle.. loosing one again and any of them at all. He wanted a normal life to be safe, to hide from that.. but it’s not what THEY wanted or who they are. He accepted that’s not how the world works and how it does.. is still pretty great. And his growth shows: he’s ending the series planning to go off with his girlfriend globetrotting, KNOWING things might not be safe, but diving into adventure, having accepted it as part of him. He even finds some new family and takes in two girls who badly needed a home. He learned to accept things how they are... and Bradford refuses, not beliving in this world as it is and vowing to force it into the way he wants it to be. 

And it’s that inherent selfishness.. that makes Bradford the Cartoon Supervillian he desperatley claims he isn’t. Bradford dosen’t care how many lives it takes, how much worse it makes the world, or how many people he has to stab in the back... the world WILL be “normal”. Bradford cares for no one and nothing except his own ambition. He kills Heron despite her loyality, and his own clones who loyally served him.. simply because their chaos too. No one or nothing else matters, not how they feel, not their right to exist.. only HIS vision. If he wanted to keep the world safe he’d be more of a hero, if still throughly a bastard... but he dosen’t. He wants to make it “normal”. He wants the world the way he thinks it shoudl be and damn anyone else and perfectly represents all the old assholes like him today who refuse to accept something diffrent or against the norm because “that’s how it’s always been”.  Like those real world assholes.. Bradford is wrong. The Duckverse is beauitful how it is in it’s chaos and risk and love. And he just can’t see it because it’s not what he WANTS to see. 

And that’s why I also love the Sword giving him big, black and red classic villianous monster, slowly mutating him as he fights the duck family. Because that’s his inner strength: he may deny he’s a villian but he’s forcing his will on others, refuses to see the world as it is for selfish reasons, and is willing to kill his own friends and allies if it means getting it. He’s the bad guy. And while he denies it to those around him... it’s clear from the fact the sword is working for him that he KNOWS IT, he knows he’s a villian and this is just what he wants but is so up his own ass he can’t SAY it or admit it. And in the end he’s fully beaten by the fact that his forcing his will on everything’s what’s unnatural: While his plan was ingenious, have scrooge sign a contract agreeing never to adventure again, since he’s right Scrooge would solve nonexistance it’s the same reason “launch hulk into space” only resulted in a smarter, more skilled hulk coming back with a space army to get revenge. He just didn’t bank on the inherent rediclousness of the unvierse: family really is the greatest adventure of all.. and the papyrus accepted it. It was the one thing he coudln’t palnf or because he can’t see the woirld how it is.. and that’s why he lost. He was so confident how he saw the world and how he worked was the only way... another way beat him. 

His fate.. was also awesome and endleslly apporirate. Being mocked by the other villians who while less capable aside from Magica, at least admit what they are and what their doing.. and turned into a Vulture for Magica, left to be a mindless lackey in tons of chaotic schemes for the rest of his life. It couldn’t of happened to a nicer jackass. Okay three more sections to go. Let’s go.

Come Sail Away, Come Sail Away, Come Sail Away With Daissssyyyy

Donald’s leaving for a long, romantic adventure with Daisy is the perfect capper to Doanld’s character. Donald started the series hating adventure: blaming it for della being gone, his rough times during it, and wanted to escape it in the boat and keep from loosing his kids to it. He felt like a looser for not having reached his dreams or properly provided for his nephews, when really he did his best and still raised three wonderful kids. A bit overproective, god yes.. but despite his grief and anger he still got through ten years with them on his own merits, hard work and determination. 

As the series went he reconclied with his past, realized Scrooge lost something too and that blaming him soley when it was Della’s choice was just taking his anger out on the one person he had left to take it out on instead of embracing his only family left, accepted Storkules as his friend (JUST his friend), accepted adventure through quack pack realizing that while it may be weird, dangerous and sometimes stressful for him... it’s what his family love doing and they should be who they are instead of who he wants them to be, and finally.. accepted himself by finding Daisy, someone who loves him for who he is, and literally and metaphorically understands him and turned right back around from dumping him to save him from a giant monster she roared at. He’s finally at peace. 

And that’s why leaving. Not forever, He , Daisy, and his girls will be back in a few months or even a month. It’s very clear this is a vacation.. but it’s one  he’s earned.  He’ll always love his boys, his surrogate daughter/cousin, his sister, and his best buddy launchpad. But it’s okay for him to want to form his OWN family, to spend time with his future wife and show her the world. To make his own story for once instead of sharing it. To find his voice. 

I also find it very poetic that a story that started with Donald raising his nephews like their dad.. ends with him adopting two more children. Two kids whose lives had been misrable: rapidly aged in tubes, deemed failures, constantly bellittled by the closest things they have for parents, so desperate for answers they’d kidnap their own sister and betray her trust and do things they know are wrong, And all this.. for nothing as their  Dad kills their mom, bad as she was, and plans to kill them. And Donald’s first thought when given the chance to have a kid free time to himself, with no guilt having earned it? To take these girls in, start his own family, if Daisy’s cool with it mind he thankfully clearly called to talk this over first, and give them their own. Because that’s who Donald is, a good man whose finally earned his happy ending and the life he always wanted.. and accepted who he always was. An adventuerer, a loving fiance.. and  dad. 

The Real Hero: One last one before the bonus round and a quick one. The Launchpad Scene.. was one of the shows best. His arc in this episode of thinking he’s not a hero.. made sense. He’s been plenty heroic.. but his boyfriend is a martial arts and gymnastics savant and one of his three best friends has a giant suit of armor and is a genius. But the payoff made even more: He may not be the strongest, the most skilled or the smartest.. but he has the heart of a hero. He’s always been the kindest, most trusting, most friendly one of the main family, a guy who never gives up, even when he should, never surrenders and loves everybody. And that’s why he’s inspired so many people: Fenton to not give up after his firing and keep going, leading to his path as Gizmoduck. When Drake was lost, his fllm gone and his mentor seemingly dead (In fact skulking around the sewers like an evil ninja turtle), and his future unclear... TOLD HIM he could be Darkwing, that he could become the hero they both ihdolized and the inspiration to kids he wanted to be by his own bootstraps, and he gave Gosalyn faith in darkwing and hope at at time she had none. He also gave those mice their freedom. Not as poignant but you try creating the rescue rangers and see how far you get. I’ve lost a lot of chipmunks and mice that way. 

Launchpad’s last stand makes up for his lack of being in the season during the final  half. Launchpad realizing that despite his quirks he’s just as noble, valuable and wonderful as his families, both of them. And that he is a pilot. Sure he gets the gizmoduck armor.. but the armor isn’t what makes hi ma hero... i’ts being launchpad that makes him a hero. Loving adopted dad, wonderful partner, best friend... and a pilot

Bonus Round:

Okay this is just stray stuff from throughout the episode I didn’t have several paragraphs worth of material on before we get to the final thoughts. But it had so much good I can’t not talk about it. So...

Gyro calling Little Bulb BOYD’s brother. My heart wept. So sweet. As was him fixing his son at the end. BOYD has the two loving families he deserves.. and the brother he deserves.. and the brother he dosen’t deserve who will probably also is skulking around the sewers like an nafarious ninja turtle as the series ends. 

Gosalyn fixing up Darkwing’s outfit for him. Awwww. Adopt that child you coward. Also if they don’t base the reboot on frank’s work here, I will riot. 

“Just cough up the information Bentina!” that was just pure comedy gold especially the sheer fear radiating off him. Also right. 

Manny’s “I can explain” and , once he has silky smooth keith david voice going “Come on man I just want to live my life.” That man is a legend. 

Dewey and Louie just not talking the “you kids stay behind shit” pointing out both their stake in this and how they’ll just go anyway and him proudly accepting it. Given the kids turned the tied of things a lot, good call. 

Dewey and Don Karnage singing their own background music as they air joust. Hell yes. 

Pepper got a promotion! Goodf or her... it’s meaningless now but hey she has a partner in both senses. 

Speaking of pepper she had the best line of the episode “He’s a grown man who has the strength of a baby!”. Only Amy Sedaris could’ve given that delivery just the perfect way she did. 

The Funzo’s opening sequence was dynamite, from how well set up it was as an infilfration, to Webby having learned how to scam free drinks (Louie was so proud), to Lena cheating for her sister at DDR, to Scrooge paying full price.. it was wonderful> The payoff was also great as rather than be mad her special day was used as part of an elabroate spy operation.. she’s giddy. Because of course she is. Two specitic  bits that get their own items

The Cabs came back one last time! It dosen’t effect my now finished retrospective, but after spending all that time with them it was nice to see them for what will probably be the last time for some time. 

The whole scene where Della finds out about the trip. Just all of it. Her casually and accidentally choking daisy TWICE, Fethry, who sadly did not get an episode this season, being the one to blab about it and only realizing it .. after repeating that they told him not to, and Gladstone who not only was casually winning at Skeeball while his cousins both got pissed at it, relateable as hell, but then awkwardly escorting his baby cousin out of the situation. 

“Satstically with Hubert gone one of us should be pancking but WHO I ASK YOU WHO?” As if I needed more evidence they were perfect for each other. 

Lena just.. slumping over after Dewey finally has her drop the cloak. Comedy gold. BOYD scanning her later likewise so. 

The second best line and line read of the episode goes to Louie/Bobby Monihan. “That is not comforting, I do not want to die”. He couldn’t of summed up Louie in one line any better. 

Ludvwig was a national treasure.  Not only did I squeel internally when it turned out he was alive but the explination for it was hilarious as it was batshit, and him just causally revealing Webby’s origin was fucking amazing “Ill give you all a moment ot process” The acomplanying “bless me bagpipes” was also amazing. 

I do wish we found out where FOWL went but it was probably to leave the remains all free to come back as villians of the week. Frank outright said they had a tailspin sequel episode ready to go.

The Webby and June fight was a masterpiece and I REALLY need to do a top 12 fights list someday. 

Lena connecting with the new twins , having pretty much the same background of being created by a villian for shitty reasons. 

“one is silver and the other is “ “Flintheart glomgold!” they should consider a teamup. What’s a little brainwashing between friends?

“We’re sisters’. No you and violet are sisters, Webby is your girlfriend your both just in denial. I only say this because Webby also thinks Della and Penny are just friends and I feel she simply dosen’t know what being gay is or again is in denial. They’ll get there. Plus it feels like Lena just didn’t want to loose her and would say anything which is valid. 

Curtain Call and Final Thoughts:

The Curtain Call was the perfect way to end a spectacular finale. Each bit of it’s a masterpiece, and every character gets one last awesome, heartfelt and hilarous goodbye with the camera and ending how it should: on our five most important characters, in a circle, together, smiling, freefaling into the next adventure. I”d have it no other way and any other series finale credits and last moments will now pale in comparison. 

So the finale as a whole is messy, some bits aren’t resolved as good as they could’ve been, Huey go the shaft, and it REALLY needed another episode leading into it to help take the pressure off. While it needed 90 minutes for the plot it had to tell, it needed more to build up to that and while the season was tight with episodes they BADLY needed one more they didn’t get or even a subplto to help take the load off this episode. 

But even with that... it was an utterly awesome finale on par with other recent standouts like “Let’s Fight to the End”/ “Thank you For Watching the Show” (Both feel like finales to me but in diffrent ways), “The Future” and the whole arc leading up to it, both parts of “Heart” and “Nice While It Lasted” . It was heartstopping, heartrending and heartfelt and ended the show as it should be: with over the top insanity, big reveals, a hell of a final battle.. and a focus on family. It’s not the perfect finale, and I defintely need more ducktales.. but it’s still a classic one and one of the series finest hours.. literally in this case. 

I.. am going to miss this series. I went into it before but it’s thanks to this series I make a living. If you’d like to contribute to that, I have a patreon, patreon.com/popculturebuffet, my next stretch goal is a darkwing duck epsiode a month so  kick in a buck won’t you? and take comissions so if theres an episode from the first two seasons that’s not part of the season 1 arc (I’m almost done there) or Lena’s story (already being paid for that) feel free to shoot me a line to comissoin it for five bucks an episode. 

But more than that it was an excellent well crafted show that took a franchise I love and updated it for a new generation. My nieces love it, I love it, and I will always love it for that. Young or old, this show as phenominal, it was stupdendous.. it was a duckblur. It will remain in my heart for probaly the rest of my life among such shows as Steven Universe, Parks and Recreation, The Venture Bros, Letterkenny, DBZ Abriged, and so many more that have touched my life. It was simply the best. And i’m going to miss it. Thank you for reading this, i’ll see you at another rainbow, if not one quite like this.

Next on this Blog: Duck week continues after this review took two days to complete. Sorry about that. Our heroes head to castle McDuck and Dewey is forced to face the consequences of his actions, while Scrooge yells at his dad , his dad yells at him and his mom is the most precious thing tha’ts ever lived. Also Launchpad in Donald Cosplay. And it won’t stop there as till saturday the rest of the week is all dedicated to Ducktales as I finish up the Della and Lena arcs for season 1 and get started on Lena’s last three episodes. So if you liked some ducktales, stick around. And once again.. thank you. 

[rwbyconversations]

The Scarlet Letter: Let’s talk about RWBY’s male LGBT rep

I have been sitting on this post for nearly four weeks waiting until the 15th due to the Before the Dawn spoiler rules.

So let's start with a blunt statement: RWBY's male LGBT representation has not been good. If the series' handling of female LGBT rep is good (which... well there's worse shows) and the general standard for how you write LGBT characters in a show like this, its handling of male rep has been... how not to. And Before the Dawn kinda solidified the idea in my head that the show's handling of its male LGBT cast just isn't good enough, either by the standards of when RWBY began in 2013, or today in 2020 when compatively massive steps have been taken over the past decade to show a more diverse list of characters... or at least a more diverse list of female characters.

I don't wanna make this a pissing match over how over-or-under-represented male or female LGBT characters are, but I feel like it's safe to say that the majority of the trend-setters for modern romances, especially in western animation, have been between women. Korra and Asami from Korra, Chloe and Max from Life is Strange, Marceline and Bubblegum in Adventure Time, (insert the relevant Steven Universe characters here, never watched it), and more recently, Adora and Catra in She-Ra and Luz in Owl House.

Compatively, while studies have shown that in general male LGBT characters get more appearances on a purely numerical level, in general they're more one-off characters there to pad a roster, or played more for comedy (see Josh Gad in the Beauty and the Beast remake or the gay guy in Avengers Endgame that was more notable for how hard China and Russia snapped him out of existance). The only big male-LGBT focused media I can think of from the last decade would be Yuri On Ice, Moonlight, IDW's Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye (Chromedome/Rewind best pairing fuck you Roberts for issue 16) Love Simon, and the anime adaptation of Banana Fish.

So it's no surprise that RWBY basically follows these ideas. It's big romance is (unless the writers are very stupid) going to be between Blake and Yang, their first out character was Ilia, Coco got sent to the Book Dimension where she confirmed "I use my sunglasses to perv on women without their knowledge" which uh... yeah you can definitely tell RWBY is written by men... and Volume 6 had Saph and Terra being a good example of an LGBT couple without any real drama. In the last three years alone, the show has drastically increased its lesbian and bisexual characters, alongside even including its first out trans character in May Marigold (albeit only revealed on Twitter). In general, these depictions of sexuality have been pretty OK. Would have liked it if Ilia wasn't immediately written out of the show after Volume 5 as it made her feel a bit more disposable than intended but whatever, subject for another day.

RWBY's male rep though is a bit spottier. There's the plant bois in Volume 5's premiere, we nearly had Pilot Boi until some last-minute revisions, and... Scarlet.

Why Scarlet's a bad launchpad for male LGBT rep

I don't like Scarlet or how his sexuality has been handled. Scarlet's homosexuality wasn't revealed in the show, or by the writers, or even in anything that's actually canon. He's confirmed gay in his sole of dialogue in a non-canon fan anthology, where the manga's Twitter team had to say that Miles suggested the idea and approved of it.

In short, Scarlet is Dumbledore'd, where his sexuality is revealed in out-of-show material and in a way that doesn't make it supremely obvious (Miles himself never commented to confirm this so this news was limited in how far it could spread. I'm genuinely curious how many people still don't know Scarlet's gay), and Scarlet himself is a nothing character who was written out of the show after Volume 3 and only reappeared in Before The Dawn, half a decade after he vanished. Compared to Ilia, as this came out after Ilia's entire arc in Volume 5, it's not a great starting point for mlm rep. But things would have been forgiven if it had gotten better, if the show did have more male LGBT characters introduced, even just on the Saphron/Terra level of just being around for a few episodes before leaving. Then it would have been a misfire but then we could all say "Things got better."

It... didn't. Which is why when Before the Dawn released in 2020, a full two years after Scarlet was first confirmed gay, while the franchise had more than doubled its wlw rep, Scarlet remained the one male character in the entire franchise who had a name and liked men. I remember vividly a fake leak for After The Fall which claimed Yatsuhashi would come out to Velvet and admit to having a crush on Fox. And I remember as well how many people were disappointed when it was said to be false, because it would have been nice for Yatsuhashi's character, especially after the fleshing out he gets in the CFVY books. If Yatsu had come out as gay in the books I'd like his writing enough to say he's a good case for rep, albeit with the caveat of "This is all in side material." But in reality, the leak was fake and Coco was confirmed gay instead.

Unfortunately, Before the Dawn proceeded to ruin Scarlet and made me at times feel genuinely uncomfortable as a queer man! Let's talk about that.

Before The Dawn is crap and Scarlet's writing is borderline offensive

I hate Before the Dawn. It's... bad. I read it while on a vacation and the only solace I had about the entire thing was that I'd bought an M&M chocolate bar. The bar was finished before the book. That bummed me out. It's not a very well written book, the prose is very Early 2010s YA Writer, none of the characters are memorable and there's various Fun Incidents like "NGDO using children as bait for Grimm," and "Neptune's hydrophpobia being used as a threat to torture him and the scene is played for comedy."

Theo was cool. I can't wait to see him as written by good writers, he should be a highlight of the Vacuo arc.

I had two hopes for Before the Dawn- "Don't be bad," and "Let Scarlet and Sage be well written." I'd liked how After The Fall had handled some of its characters (barring, y'know, Coco perving on women), especially Fox and Yatsu who were surprising in how much I liked them. I was looking forward to seeing Myers give Sage and Scarlet similar treatment- two relatively nothing characters meant he'd have a blank slate to write them however he wanted, he could give them unique personalties and if nothing else it could be cool to see their Semblances.

And then I read the book. (Sage fans I am so sorry for you, you got baited harder than Johnlock fans)

Scarlet's a giant dickhead in the book. It's his sole character trait and his inner monologues go on, and on, and on about how much he hates Sun, how he revels in mocking him. Most of his dialogue is sarcastic put-downs about Sun and how lame he is, and Sun is never properly allowed to defend himself or point out how going with Blake meant he was able to help save Haven Academy.

(hey remember when Sun in Volume 6 expressly says to Blake "I was a bad leader for ditching Neptune and the others, and I need to work on that" only for Before the Dawn to have him staunchly refuse to accept that he let the team down? I don't think Myers did but I do)

Scarlet being a ratty bitch would be one thing if, again, the franchise had done more rep. He'd still be a badly written character, but it wouldn't sting as much. But because Scarlet is still the only expressly confirmed male LGBT character in canon (the book teases that Nolan is gay but there's never confirmation either way beyond him smiling at Scarlet), it means that he has to represent that entire ideal. So when the one gay man in Remnant is being an asshole and a snide loser, that means that by extension, this is how the franchise sees gay men. And that fucking sucks! I wanted to come out of Before The Dawn singing its praises, I wanted to like the book, but it was a massive letdown, especially coming off of the other big 2020 RWBY controversy involving gay characters.

Yeah. We're doing this.

Clover and Fair Game: Technically not queerbaiting. BUT:

Let's pre-empt this: Clover wasn't queerbaiting, and Fair Game, while cool and I dig it, kudos to them for becoming one of the top 5 RWBY pairings on AO3 in one year that's fucking impressive (I say with mild malice as an IronQrow main), never had a chance. The writing never seriously boosted it barring one interaction which was flirty (them talking in the lobby of the Schnee Manor), and everything else was out of show boosting through the social media teams and CRWBY hyping it themselves by saying they liked it. If you wanna blame people, blame the animators who went off-script with stuff like Kim Newman adding the wink as a deliberate nod to the Volume 4 waitress, or the social media team deliberately using the same policies for Fair Game as they do for Renora and Bumblebee.

It wasn't Eddy's fault that things escalated, and he himself has said that in retrospect, he should have warned people that this never had a shot.

But I can't blame the Fair Game fanbase. Because Fair Game took off like wildfire. It came right as the fanbase began seriously asking for more male rep, Qrow's pretty hot, and the Clover wink came right after the Great IronQrow Reawakening of November 9th, 2019. The rocket was primed, and they rode it to the moon. Finally, to these people, after seven years RWBY seemed to be doing something with mlm rep in show. People started getting into RWBY just for Clover and Qrow's interactions. And if heroes were boring, Watts and Tyrian also had a fantastic dynamic that made Nuts and Volts one of the more popular villain ships overnight. Things seemed to be turning around! RWBY was remembering that gay men existed! You could hear the choir sing!

... And for those people, that meant that episode 12 hit like Truck-Kun.

People got pissed. People were horrified. And it didn't help that some members of CRWBY had said in the build-up that episode 12 would have some shots that made them nauseous (probably the Tyrian thumb thing) Out of context, it looked to these fans like CRWBY were basically laughing at their suffering, like they were saying "Lol, you thought you had a chance, get fucked, I hope your vomit burns on the way up."

Yeah, Fair Game was never gonna be canon, and I think some people ran too far with it. But in the wider context of how desperate RWBY's mlm community had gotten for basic crumbs of content? I can see why they'd run with what they had. The writers aren't at fault for what happened, but CRWBY didn't help matters. And that desperate mix of what felt like official backing from the crew, jokes about how cute the ship was, and the hope that finally the show would have onscreen rep? I can see why people ran with it.

So why is the show more lackluster in depicting mlm characters?

Money. Let's be honest, most RWBY fans don't care if the show doesn't have good male rep. I'm willing to bet some of you reading this won't care and just dismiss it as not being that big a problem. I don't think the writers care if the show doesn't have good mlm rep because they're not poaching that market. They're after what they see as a bigger, more lucrative market, which in this case is female LGBT rep. That gets people buying games, watching shows, raising awareness and boosting awareness of your property, which means you make more money. In short: Two women kissing hits more markets and generates more attention than two men.

Am I saying that Miles, Monty and Kerry deliberately sat down seven years ago and said "We're not doing gay men because it won't generate enough ad revenue and traffic to be worth the loss in revenue from homophobes?" No, that's silly. But I'm saying that it's less important for them, and it shows in the things that are small and add up. Things like Miles not verifying Scarlet's sexuality or retweeting the manga account's confirmation to spread the message (compared to how he enthusiastically confirmed Ilia being a lesbian himself during the Reddit AMA). It shows in how Pilot Boi would have been the first mlm character only to die in his second full episode until M&K were told about the Bury Your Gays trope. It shows in how Shannon believes that Ozma is "megaqueer" and Miles jokingly laughs it off instead of confirming it, leaving it to just be Shannon's headcanon. It shows in how actor shipping is compared between the mlm and wlw ships, where Arryn and Barbara's frequent pushes for Bumblebee are seen as "official confirmation that it's endgame" while Michael and Kerry saying they enjoy Seamonkeys is treated as "well it would be cute if they did it, but they're never going to."

I'm not gonna say anything like "CRWBY are gonna have Qrow end up with a woman like Robyn out of spite against the bad apples of the Fair Game crowd." I'm not gonna say that I don't think CRWBY cares about male representation in the series. It is, however, definitely a low priority for them, and because that leads to gaffes like Scarlet's writing in Before The Dawn being offensive in his depiction, it only makes the contrast between the sexes all the more painfully apparent.

I'm kinda tired of waiting for Rooster Teeth to show that they do care about mlm. I'm kinda tired of RWBY's male rep being written like it came from a 1993 time capsule where I have to enhance the screen to see a guy holding a sign of Sun's abs or be content with the only onscreen rep still being the plant bois in Volume 5. I'm tired of how often the crew dances around answering basic questions about sexuality (and age, and birthdays, and heights, and so on) by treating it as a spoiler question, as if just wanting to know what way people swing would ever be a spoiler. I'm just... tired of all this. When the best mlm rep in Rooster Teeth's history remains the two dads in Camp Camp who show up in a few episodes, that should say something really bad about your company and your biases (To say nothing of the recent Red vs Blue seasons and their blatant queerbaiting for Grif and Simmons and the whole can of worms that is Donut).

I'd like to not feel like I'm borderline unwelcome because I'd like to see two men in this show kiss, and that the sole thing that represents people like me in this show is some British twat who complains about sand.

I'd just like to feel like my sexuality isn't a joke to Rooster Teeth (or at the very least, be like Donut and have it be a funny one). But at this point after the last few years? I feel like a very uncomfortable punchline to them. And it just sucks.

[angelmichelangelo]

i’m about five years too late and nobody asked for this except me and i need to just get this out of my brain because it’s 2am so here’s a list of things i wish happened on glee that didn’t HERE WE GO:

- new directions being actual teenagers. just them hanging out. going to group sleepovers. giant study sessions (because school exists in this universe?) like remember in tpp when they were eating lunch together ? that’s what i wanted MORE of. just them being actual friends. a sleepover episode is all i wanted imagine all the abba songs we could have gained from that episode

- a halloween themed episode. the closest to this that we got was the ‘thriller/heads will roll’ mashup which YES was iconic but im greedy and it’s not enough. my idea for a halloween episode is that the gang gets trapped inside the school after staying behind to idk rehearse? or something? and then things get progressively worse as they start to go a little mad, thinking the school is haunted and they split up into pairs trying to find an escape and they think they’re seeing ghosts/someone lurking around the school and they’re getting real spooked but it turns out it’s just sue fucking with them lmao

- kurt and finn being brothers. THE POTENTIAL WAS THERE and sadly after furt we are left with crumbs. why ?? WHY?? little moments like finn saying that he’s driving back home with kurt or them saying they can’t do something because they have a family thing would have been good enough. more scenes of them hanging out in their home with their parents would have been *chefs kiss* but alas. it never happened because glee writers are bastards

- based off my last point: sam actually living at the hudson-hummel house because he actually did live there? but nothing is ever said like what’s the dynamic there why weren’t kurt and sam and finn close if they all lived together for what? like a year? was sam living in the mf shed? did he ever get close to carole and burt?? where tf did he live when everyone went off to college did he just stay in their house lol who knows not me LMAO

- blaine dealing with his trauma ? mental health was never dealt with very well on this show. emma’s ocd was just ignored after she got married or whatever and blaine mentioned his trauma once and then it was ignored until it was mentioned in passing a few seasons later and even he just brushed it off and it was never brought up again like wtf. i have no idea how they wrote a whole episode about hate crime in bash and they never once thought to have blaine and kurt have a single conversation together, let alone a conversation about how they’d both been victims of a hate crime. AND THE ONLY TIME BLAINE DOES MENTION IT IS IN TESTED WHERE ITS JUST USED AS A REASON FOR THEM TO FIGHT AAAAAAAA no wait im calm it’s okay. i just would have liked to have seen kurt and blaine have an emotional moment together in that episode that didn’t include blaine singing and kurt being knocked tf out. just sayin.

- kurt dealing with HIS trauma !! again, glee gets bad points for talking about mental health and it just is crazy that they had so much potential with kurt, ie: depression, anxiety, ocd (kinda?) his bullying, being literally assaulted (i see u ryan murphy taking that whole plot line so loosely mmhm) and then shoehorning in the fact that he was suicidal AT THE SECOND TO LAST EPISODE when they had a whole episode about suicide and they could have mentioned it at any time but ofc they didn’t because the writers just wanted to shove in as much as they could in the flashback episode AYE AYE AYE the potential!!!! oof.

- literally just more tina. jenna ushkowitz is a fantastic actor/singer/preformer and she was criminally underused. i like the episode props because of two reasons: one. everyone switching characters was amazing. and two. some actual tina scenes. even if she.. technically was rachel but also herself or something? either way. i digress

- this is just in general but MORE ABBA AND ALSO THE CARPENTERS and also some sound of music songs would have worked GREAT but they already had like a million songs and as the show progressed they veered away from old songs and more towards popular songs at the time to help chart numbers blah blah blah whatever it’s cool. but also how did they only do a few abba songs that is criminal

- a more fleshed out ending that wasn’t so rushed. like rachel won a tony and everyone else is just? there? why is sam at mr shue’s house ??? how did artie get up the stairs? did quinn graduate from yale? and where tf was kurt and blaine’s child during ‘i lived’ because burt and carole are vibing in the audience and rachel isn’t pregnant so like? is the baby just?? alone somewhere in the wings?! lmao where are u bby girl!! but once again i know they didn’t have the time to do it so idk it’s fine what they did it just sucks we didn’t get more! but again. fanfic exists so yah im all good

- more of blaine’s mum. or mom, in this case i guess. why cast gina gershon and then give her ONE line like ? ik there was a whole deleted script that explained why she was there but i love that up until that point blaine seemed like he genuinely murdered his parents, lived in their big house all alone and when people got suspicious he just told them that they were “out of town” :) either way pam is great i love her and i wish she had more to do in the one episode she was ever in. not even a moment with blaine?? wasted.

- more of cooper anderson, matt boomer is so fucking funny everytime i think of the emotion tornado i bust a lung laughing like it’s so fucking stupid but oh my good i love it. (and if you haven’t watched the special feature of cooper’s transformers audition tape please please watch it because it’s just so funny.) ik he was just a special guest but i wish they got him back for at least the wedding ep but guess my mans was just busy. boo ;(

- going back a couple of points, i wish they’d done a whole episode like props. every actor here just shines when they’re impersonating each other. finn and puck as kurt and blaine is beautiful and quinn and sugar is incredible. also idk why they refused kevin the right to wear the cheerios skirt; they could have put a little more effort into some characters but that’s glee for ya lmao but yeah. a whole episode like that would have been so much fun

- they should have let chris colfer write more episodes. purely for the fact that he wrote with his own bare hands the whole scene where lea michelle’s character gets dragged down a road by dogs. this guy. it’s a shame he only got to write one since he actually did a really good job! i would have loved to have seen what other episode ideas he had :)

- glee in the summer! obviously it only was centred around the school year but after season 3 who honestly gave a shit about the glee club and mckinley lmao i wanna see them in SHORT SHORTS and POOL PARTIES but nope we just got september - june so like rip all my hopes and dreams

- WHAT HAPPENED TO DALTON? bitch just burst into flames ?? and for WHAT?? oh yeah plot convenience smh this is so sad i wish they’d either written something better than “we need the warblers to team up with new directions so uhhh the school burnt down” like. it’s a private school. if the school is gone and they’re just staying at mckinley what are the parents paying for? they’re just cool with sending their kids off to public school now? every adult in this universe has been murdered by these kids, haven’t they? they’re just doing whatever they want jfc

- a wedding was a good episode. ish. and yknow, huge kudos to them because gay marriage wasn’t legal in the us at the time so im less harsh on the fact that they definitely threw up the rainbow flags and made it less about the characters getting married and more so “we have gay characters and look they’re getting married what a concept” but i do wish we could have gotten some more married!klaine since they don’t really have much to do after this understandably but a little moment alone together after the wedding would have been nice :) IT WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE IM TELLING YOU

- get rid of the hummelberry friendship and send mercedes to new york instead. i have nothing else to add to this other than the fact that i mourn the fact that kurt and mercedes went from bffs to just. school mates. this is tragic this is traaaaagic !! and all for more of the rachel berry show smh

- every day i wonder what was going through carmen tibideaux mind when she watched the kurt hummel preform not the boy next door and was like :) and then watched rachel berry have a breakdown on stage and then proceeded to give rachel the spot at nyada and kurt gets payed literal dust. and THEN she had the nerve to tell him it was because his performance had no heart. AND HOW DID ADAM GET IN THIS BABY GOT BACK MOTHERFUCKER?! nyada is a circus school oh my god !!!!! kurt deserved better im telling yall he deserved so much better

there’s so much more i could rant about but im going insane im so tired and i need psychological help after watching glee so im gonna leave it here and say peace out homies it’s been fun but i need to sleep so bad

[tbhwhocaresanymore]

Nancy Drew 2x1

ONE OF YOU apparently ran to @kat--writes, or as my friend and I call her Tumblr Kat, and snitched that I had not yet posted my Nancy Drew premiere review. I promised to get it up by today and yes it is technically after midnight but the sun has not yet risen, so please find my thoughts under the cut.

Before I do anything else let me just say I will never stop appreciating the continuous book Easter eggs the show writers drop. Nancy mentioning how she learned that trick with the mirror in “a bungalow mystery” when she did in fact pull that exact same trick in The Bungalow Mystery? Iconic.

Now that’s out of the way, I’m going to do something I’ve never really done before and start off with the negatives. Guys, I was underwhelmed.

Not by the episode itself, the episode was great. It picked up right where we left off and continued into the mystery of the Aglaeca, the cast was engaging, the horror was chilling, the story kept unfolding. The problem is, it was great as any other regular episode, it was less great as a season premiere. I waited TEN MONTHS for this episode. And granted I understand that ND didn’t get to finish off its first season how they wanted, but they have had, I repeat, ten months to plan this. The season 1 premiere, for all its issues, did exactly what a season premiere is supposed to do. It established relationships, a season-long arc, character trajectories, and even a couple of smaller plots. We saw Nancy and her dad were on the rocks, she and George didn’t get along in high school, Bess is rich but living in a van, Tiffany Hudson was murdered and the crew are suspects, George is sleeping with Ryan, Ace is working for the police, and we found the bloody Lucy Sable dress in Nancy’s attic, to name but a few.

You guys, that is a lot of plot lines. And the writers explored and solved every single one of them over the course of the season.

Now we have the season 2 premiere. The crew tries to find a mirror to fight the Aglaeca, meets a mouthy dude, and takes a break from the Aglaeca to hide from the Gorham wraith. (Gorham is 100% a play on Gotham fight me.) Like yes there is more if you squint, but aside from that nothing all that major really happened. Mr. Hudson is setting up a defense, but we knew that already. Ryan wants a relationship with Nancy and is pissed at Carson for keeping her a secret, but we knew that already. The new head cop doesn’t trust Nancy or the crew at all, but, again, we knew that already.

But since this was still a good episode even if a lackluster premiere, I will still give you some positives.

The Gorham wraith you guys, oh my god the horror was fantastic. Nancy Drew is really looking every other magic show’s super special effects in the eye as it hits them over the the head with a folding chair made by their costuming and makeup department. The scarecrow coming to life, banging on the back of the bus, crawling in after Nancy? On point. I was on the edge of my seat.

Ryan I know you are an asshole and your character arc is a work in progress but kidnapping? Are you serious right now? “Your suicidal girlfriend begged us to hide and take care of her child right before jumping off a cliff. Also I didn’t even know you were the father.” “Omg how dare you. Time for BLACKMAIL.” It’ll be interesting to see how this whole Ryan v Carson thing plays out. I suspect maybe Carson will become like an example father figure to Ryan, teach him how to be good to Nancy. Something like “if you’re serious about being a father lesson number one is it’s not about you anymore, it’s about her. And you sending me to prison won’t just hurt me it’ll hurt Nancy.” I think that would be a nice parallel, Kate was Lucy’s guidance counselor, and now Carson will be Ryan’s parental counselor/therapist/whatever.

I’m going to be completely honest here, I totally forgot Nick and George had not actually told Nancy they are together. No idea how long this is going to go on for, I suspect not that long, but maybe up until like episode 5 or 6. I do think it would be fun if Nancy found out in like the absolute worst way possible. Like here is my worst/best case scenario. I know Nancy is supposed to have some kind of thing with Gil so let’s say they hook up a couple times and he burns her, as he probably will, and Nancy goes to Nick cause she’s upset and needs to talk, and when he opens the door thinking it’s the pizza guy he is shirtless and George is in the bed behind him. Unlikely, but fun to imagine. But however they do it, all the Nick and George fans will undoubtedly get some fun footage of them sneaking around, so enjoy guys.

All the Nancy and Ace shippers are also getting good material, even if I want to grab Ace by the shoulders and physically shake him.

Nancy: I can’t let you guys help me summon the Aglaeca, there could be really bad consequences.

Crew: Psh, consequences? What consequences? We have the power of FRIENDSHIP.

*Aglaeca sends them all death visions*

Ace: How dare you drag me into this Nancy I can’t believe we’re all going to die because of you.

LIKE BRUH. ACE. MY GUY. If you could maybe use your considerable brain power to pull your head out of your ass for TWO SECONDS I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks. But aside from that, their scene at the end? Poetic cinema. The slow burn is strong with this one. Even if I do have faith she will eventually find her way back to Nick aaaaaaaaah

Not sure how I feel about the twins yet. I know they were in some other ND-verse book series, but tbh I only ever read the Nancy Drew books. I never delved into the Hardy Boys or anything else, I was a Drew girl all the way. I do think the writers could maybe have done a better job introducing us to Gil and making us like him. Like they were definitely going for the Han Solo type I feel, and George being all “wow the Bobsey twins are hardcore” as he ups the price while literally dying. Um, George, no, the Bobsey twins are fucking morons, or at least Mr. Diabetic over here is. It says a lot that Amanda had only two lines of dialogue and I liked her considerably more than Gil. But who knows, maybe they’ll grow on me. And they did mention their family used to work for the Hudsons, I would bet good money they know about more than one skeleton that’s been stuffed in the closet.

This paragraph right here is for me and the like two other Drewson shippers in the fandom. Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhh the first meeting flashback oh my god. I was dying. I rewatched it ten times. I am in love. The way they both just sort of stared at each other, the way Nancy clearly feels a certain amount of nostalgia for him and what they had. I am deceased. Honest to god I don’t care how many Nick x George and Nancy x Ace moments the writers throw at us, just as long as I continue to get crumbs like that I am good. Have faith guys.

And finally, oh my dear, talented writers. I would like to know when exactly you are planning on pulling my three most favorite women out of whatever floorboard you have stuffed them under. I WOULD LIKE DEAD LUCY, VICTORIA, AND HANNAH GRUEN TO PLEASE STAND UP. Yes I know Hannah Gruen is in the next episode but the wait is excruciating. And if the last time we saw Dead Lucy was going to be in the courtroom scene, her standing in the doorway as Nancy read her suicide note? I am going to mcfreaking lose it.

Well that’s all for today. Sorry this took so long, I guess I just wasn’t all that inspired by this premiere episode. But hopefully I will get the next one finished much quicker. And with that, I leave you until Wednesday the 27th when Nancy Drew 2x2, The Reunion of Lost Souls airs. See ya

[thesvenqueen]

TO THE END

S&B Episode 8 (I get a bit rabmle-y at the end there but, it's a good end review I swear!!)

- l've loved the switch in title cards every episode, really great detail and so fun to see what they come up with - bowler hat gang UNITE - HOW DARE YOU FORGET MILO WTF - oop Zoya piecing the puzzle together, yes girl - AHHHH MATTHIAS AND NINA YEEEES. - >.> there's only ONE BED <.< - NO DON'T LEAVE - :( god damn it, y'all killing me here - can you at least share the bed before you go?? - YES TO KERCH, LETS GO - "I will keep you warm" ASKLFGKLASDGBASDFNKB - WE NEARLY HAD A KISS WHY YOU AHHHHHHHHDLKASGALSKDHGVLSDKVBLKS - omg they let them get waffles I COULD CRY - oh they were so happy god DAMN IT - Fedyor WHY WHY WHY WHYYYY THEY WERE HAPPY GDI - they dooo though they dooooooo - UGHHHH we got 3 mins of happiness ffs I hate it hereeee - "remember who's driving" bitch I know you did NOT - bro Inej realizing someone is below deck with them YES YES YES - "I'll ask again, who are you?" god Jesper intimidating is HOT AF HELLO??? - boy Kaz has no buisness looking that good too jesus - mhmmmm, you be right Alina. - yeaaaaaaaah this is bad, this is really bad - ohhhhhhhhh my GOD - bruh, the SCREAMS wtf - ffs Mal can you please listen for once - INEJ COME ON YOU TOO???? UGHHHH - ok book quote I see you, nicely done - "us" it's just you tf you mean - again, Mal, I know you said you're not smart but bruh what kind of plan was that - JESPER NOOO YOU DON'T GET IT YO - YEAHHH BEAT HIS ASS INEJ - HE CALLED HER WRAITH OHHHHH - Ivan jfc - NOOOOOO INEJ - ZOYA HELL YES LETS GO - JESPER, BOY, THAT WAS DOPE BUT THE CUT OH MY GOD OH MY GOD - KAZ COMING IN CLUTCH THANK FUCK - she kissed the knife before she threw it I am just...I am dying hello HELP?!? - INEJ GOT THE DARKLING BITCH I SEE YOU QUEEN - Kaz is literally laying on top of Jesper even with his phobia I can not right now - girl don't you waste all your knives!!! - KAZ. WITH THE CANE. PROTECTING HIS INVESTMENTS. FUCK YES. lmao - owowowwowowowow my hand owowowow - YAS QUEEN LETS GO - save???? YOU engulfed the whole fucking city into darkness because they pissed you off shut the actual fuck up - Mal. Sweetie. what are you doing?? you literally brought a butter knife to a cut fight - I V A N. BITCH. NO. - JESPER BABY LETS GOOOOO - god with every spin of his gun I fall more in love jfc - byeeeee Ivan!! - whyyyy you no aim for the head Mal?!?!? - lmao Kaz ready with his fucking cane to wack some mf monsters I'm here for it - thank you for showing Kaz hella struggling with his cane and walking, I appreciate this so much - Awwww Inej, sweet baby - SHE GAVE HER A DAGGER BLESS - aw :( Kaz realizing Inej really might leave, oh sweet boy - LISTEN, Kaz can't break a deal homie. there is a lot at risk here that he can't lose - ......that might fix the problem. - For Inej, he did it for Inej and that's it and Inej was over in the back fighting to not fucking hug him I can not - Kaz be right, from experience Zoya please. - lmao "I still don't like you" ZOYA girl come on - this entire Kaz & Inej conversation I have no words I'm crying - "I need you" the face & noise I just made were not human ahhhhh - I mean, we know you stay, BUT PLEASE INEJ STAY - MATTHIAS - YOU WAIT MATTHIAS CHILL WTF - IT WASN'T THOUGH - come ON Matthias how do you not believe her??? - that literally broke my heart oh my god - he ALWAYS has a plan - ayeeee I got one for you - oh you shit, I see you - yeahhhh bout that, he ain't dead - welp, that's definitely not good.. - "follow" nah I only follow Kaz Brekker thanks

Netlfix, seriously, just go ahead and announce season 2 because we ALL want it. I NEED it so badly just, do it do it do it.

In all seriousness, as for as YA book adaptation, this is top notch if not the best adaptation I've seen. The cast was A+, nailing the characters so beautifully and bringing life to some that I really didn't fully appreciate in the books. Specifically Archie with Mal, credits to him and the writers (and Leigh) for really working to make him a stronger, fully developed character. It was so well done and I am really rooting for them more so than I was in the books.

Crow wise. Brilliant. Absolutely fucking brilliant. Kit, Freddy, Amita, Danielle, Calahan; literally the most perfect casting. Period. I was so incredibly nervous when the show was announced how casting would go for the crows. They're my favorites, ones that I really treasured and when I tell you just the cast photo I had a feeling this was going to go well. Well was an understatement. I was absolutely blown away by how well they nailed the Crows. The humor, the small gestures, the teasing and comments; absolutely perfect. I have only one complaint, the same as Kit: GIVE ME WYLAN!!!

Also,Jessie as Alina, round of applause as well. I didn't mind her character in the book, but in the show I felt more connected and really was cheering for her and I have to give that to Jessie. Like Archie, she did a great job bringing the character to life and making her enjoyable, more fully developed tbh. I don't even need to go into Ben because I despise the Darkling as much as I did in the books so I'd say he was fucking brilliant.

The fact their budget was limited, they somehow was able to create a world so beautiful so incredibly well done and oddly inviting. The costumes, the sets, even the Fold looked nearly inviting. It all seemed so well done, so well put together and as I imagined it for the most part. The display of Grisha power was not corny but subtle and well created, not overdone like some like to do. It was believable and so cool to see displayed on tv.

Honest to god this is, to me at least, by far the best YA book adaptation in a long, LONG time. This coming from a HP, Twilight, Series of Unfortunate Events fan. I've seen YA books fail so badly (Euragon, ugh the heartbreak of that disaster) or just, be so flat it hurts...looking at you Twilight. Some having a cast that just, despises the entire book and movie all together, others so well connected and done so brilliantly only for the story to be torn to bits in some parts that you're left wondering if you read the same book at times (HP, never forgive you for that final battle scene, wtf was even that??). But for real, this had the perfect cast, perfect sets & editing, amazing music, fantastic writing to piece it all together and overall was just...absolutely amazing. Definitely going to be something I rewatch over and over and over again till the next season.

Thank you for not fucking it up <3

[ganymedesclock]

A Sincere Thought About Final Pam

So this thought just hit me like a ton of bricks while I was waking up this morning, so bear with me, folks.

Final Pam- and the monster factory episode where they create and start playing her- was actually I believe, my first in-depth exposure to the Mcelroy brothers. And I specifically recall being hesitant going in. “So three male comedy personalities... are going to deliberately set out to create an ugly woman character, and then play her, and the point of this is they are trying very hard to make her strange and ugly.”

I kind of had my teeth half-grit in this, wondering how mean the jokes would be, about halfway through the character creation.

And then something happened.

They fell in love with their character.

When the subject was Pam being weird and grotesque and breaking the sliders, they were very enthusiastic about that. But just that- they were enthusiastic in a largely positive sense. Some of the choices they made- maxing out the muscle slider- they were just plain stoked about! “She’s like a human punch!”

And the character that emerged from it, even though she was designed as a parody, is someone who has captivated people’s hearts, who has a genuinely wonderful amount of personality and flair. I find myself thinking about Final Pam a lot, especially her dolled-up later look with the sunglasses, dress, and axe.

And if I’m honest. I think that this is a very important skill of the Mcelroy brothers as character creators- they will start with something silly. Something ridiculous. A wizard named “taco taco” (not spelled that way, of course). But they will then sincerely emotionally commit to the experience of being this person.

Pam’s face and body are not curses laid against her to depict her as someone who can’t be loved, only funny to laugh at- they are acts of defiance that brought together her character in total rebellion of how the game whose system spawned her wanted her to look. So the experience of Pam is not to be a mockery-worthy pariah who’s either unaware of it or scorned by it- but of telling the gods themselves or as close to it, to fuck off, because you look fantastic.

This actually changed the way I play video games. No joke. Before this point, I don’t think I ever really had that much fun with character creation sliders. In the Sims, in Skyrim, I agonized over them- but didn’t enjoy it. My characters had to be pretty. If I accidentally chose an option that made them look bad, I got frustrated. And because they had to be the narrowest imaginable standard of pretty, I never had fun.

But Pam looked like fun. Being Pam looked like fun, and creating Pam looked like fun.

The next time I fired up skyrim and stared at that character creator? I made a decision.

I tried to make a zombie, in a character creator that is designed, well, for living people. Experimented with options and overlays, how to add a very pale, drawn, sickly appearance, to suggest a character who is in early stages of decay- or a stage of embalming- in which they can pass, walking around, for the flesh of the living. Jutting facial bones, cavernous sunken cheeks, a bald head.

She was not pretty. I loved her. I had a lot of fun being her.

Now, I am not quite on the level of the Mcelroy brothers, though I may strive to get there. My heart has been somewhat closed to loving my own creations. I yearn for them to be taken seriously- they must be. They are too close to myself, and on a level, I am terrified of seeming like a joke to people. This may be part of the particular path I’ve tread through experiencing the world as a neurodivergent person- being autistic and adhd, it has felt in the past like my hard-won badge of maturity will be revoked in any context where I do not viciously fight to defend it. I fear becoming merely a comic relief character in someone else’s lives.

But ‘prettiness’ haunted me, both in video games, and in my art. I am also someone who was raised as a girl, and unfortunately, to many people, “pretty” is the best thing a girl can be, and they might superficially decry “an obsession with beauty”- but if you’re not pretty, it becomes harder to be taken seriously. For someone like me, whose features and body are passable for societal norms, I had an advantage I felt afraid of losing. 

And as someone who tends to feel more like a guy than like a girl, that adds a whole other layer onto it: guys are also held to standards of looking good, but rather than just being assumed “vapid” if you’re too caught up in your looks, that’s a matter of suspect and scandal. Beautiful men- sparkle sparkle- are treated as suspect, more fragile, more stupid than others, or outrageous, scandalous, a joke. 

Taken as a girl, I can be seen as not really concerned with my looks enough (I’m sure the beauty industry would personally love to sell me concealer and foundation to wear everyday rather than a single thing of mascara I fiddle with on rare occasions when I think it might be fun, and even people who aren’t makeup salesmen, probably rightly, think I don’t moisturize enough); but taken as a guy, if I ever passed enough as a cis article to be seen by others at first glance as a man, I’d probably pass off as far too concerned on it.

The thing about Pam, though, is she is undeniable. Pam looks however well she damn pleases. She sets her own standards, and by her standards, she’s rocking it. The experience of being Pam is an impassioned rejection of the standards of beauty, the narrative she’s ostensibly positioned in as a character, and, in fact, the raw laws of her universe- that is, those of the game. HA HA, WRITERS, YOU DECIDE WHAT IS IMPORTANT? NO. PAM DECIDES WHAT IS IMPORTANT. ROACHIE AND METAL HUSBAND ARE IMPORTANT.

Pam is vivacious, enthusiastic, a sheer force of chaos- and she is not even sorry for the slightest second, about her face, about her body, about her volume, about anything. Pam will never be measured as a failure woman, because Pam only measures herself as Pam. And she is the only Pam. The ideal Pam. The Final Pam. There is no failure state for being Pam.

While total chaotic disregard of other people also has a dark side... I think I personally have lived most of my life on the other side of the problem: not really wanting to make a fuss.

So watching that episode of Monster Factory, and coming into contact with Final Pam as a character made me realize that my own anxieties, my assumption that there is a failure state for being me, was a shadow that I cast over my character creation process. I made characters who were inoffensive, pretty, desirable, even as I challenged the idea with them being gross, or intense, or fearsome- they could have eyeballs growing out of their throats, just not too large of a nose. When I was given the toy of a character creator, I didn’t truly play with it. I carefully arranged them into inoffensive model features, and then tried to make up for it by having them rampage with a sledgehammer (but even then, only so much rampaging)

But people who are truly beautiful have always pushed the envelope of what was acceptable. Facial moles are ugly and disfiguring- oh, wait, no they’re not, Marilyn Monroe has one and it’s all the rage. If someone has the charisma to push themselves out into the public eye despite all of the setbacks and barriers, we are forced to acknowledge them.

I needed Pam. I needed to make characters who were not apologetic for being themselves, an “I’m sorry” baked into the elevation of their cheekbones.

I haven’t broken a character creator yet. But I do know that nowadays I’m having a lot more fun.

[blackbatpurplecat]

What do you think of Catwoman in the video games (Arkham City & Knight, Tell Tale, Injustice)? Which are you favorites and do you think TPTB would ever come out with a solo game of her's?

Yay, finally I get to say something NICE! XD Short answer: They’re (almost) all great! My absolute favorite is Catwoman in the Telltale games!

Very long answer incoming:

Lemme rank them from the one I like the least to the one I love the most. That’s probably the easiest way to answer this. There are many more games Catwoman is appearing in but they’re not really worth mentioning here.

3) Catwoman in Injustice 1+2

Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of Catwoman in those two but that’s no big surprise when the cast is bigger than the one in Avengers: Endgame. She’s fantastic in the tie-in comics but I can’t count those here.

So in part 1, she’s Bruce’s ex who ratted him out to protect him and after everything, she still wants to redeem herself and get back together with him. I liked her purple-gray costume (the weird steampunk one with the tail... not so much), I liked her voice-actress who also voiced her in the Arkham games, Grey DeLisle. I liked her cunningness, how she quickly figured out that Cyclops was a different Cyclops and made him blow his cover.

I understand that Selina would do something more selfish to protect the man she loves. She wanted Supes to spare Bruce and for that, accepted that many other people would die - BUT I will never understand WHY they wrote her arc like that. Why not write her as Bruce’s loyal partner and girlfriend? Why couldn’t she be on his side in the fight against Superman and the Regime? Even Harley and Luthor were! At least, they didn’t make her entirely evil, she did have good intensions but was misguided. And her ending had a feeling of hope in it.

Years later, she’s apparently reached her goal of redemption, found her way back to Bruce, and is now working as a double agent for the Insurgency. This time, she has more than only two scenes but we don’t learn much more about her, her relationship with Bruce, or her arc. You gotta read the comics for that... And again, not a huge fan of her costumes in this one but it’s cool that you can modify them to your liking. 

Her ending is the worst in this however. After what she’s been through with Bruce, after fighting with him, against him, redeeming herself, earning his trust again, and getting back to his side, she... just leaves him because she got bored. Wow. What fucking idiot wrote that?!

All in all, she’s a minor character in both games, her arc happens mostly off-screen, they don’t do anything new or outstanding with her but I enjoyed seeing her. Too bad, you can’t play as her.

2) Catwoman in the Arkham games

Now THAT’s more like it! ❤️Back then, I only bought Arkham City because you could play as Catwoman in it. I didn’t know much more about the game, I had never played its predecessor, I only wanted to play as Catwoman - and boy oh boy what a glorious purchase that turned out to be!

To this day, I still adore Arkham City, so much so that I bought it three times (CD + Steam + PS4). I can play it in my sleep! And it made me buy Asylum, Origins, Blackgate, and Knight, half of them were good and some also had Catwoman!

City - Her part in the game is a short side quest that’s not really connected to the main story: Catwoman wants to steal from Hugo Strange’s vault, convinces Ivy to help her break into it, then she leaves her loot behind to save Batman’s life, then tracks down Two-Face to get her stolen loot back, and after finishing him, retrieves her loot. She then decides to stay in Arkham City because it’s still dangerous there a.k.a. fun!

While it’s a shame that Catwoman and Batman only meet twice, they do save each other’s lives. The banter and flirting could certainly be better in this though. Her story isn’t anything new BUT it’s perfectly executed and it’s exactly what Catwoman’s like. She’s playful and seductive (they could have turned down her horniness about a few points - but you gotta please the fanboys *sigh*), she’s looking after herself, she only does what she wants (so she won’t return the plant to Ivy who had treated her so badly), but in the end, she does the right thing by saving Batman because she has a good heart.

While her side story felt tagged on, I really enjoyed it! I just love playing as her, beating up thugs, using the whip, and crawling on the ceilings. Also you get to wear the BTAS suit AND the purple Long Halloween suit! YAY!

Blackgate - It starts with Batman chasing Catwoman across the rooftops for the very first time, that’s just a fantastic intro! And I really liked their fight towards the ending for its very interesting execution. This time, Catwoman is not playable but both a suspicious ally who helps Batman with information and an enemy Batman has to defeat. Which I get because they’ve basically just met and don’t know each other yet.

The lack of trust is also the reason why Catwoman’s playing him like she is in the game. She figures him out rather quickly and cleverly uses his urge to save and protect others against him to get access to what she had been told to get from Blackgate. Manipulating Batman into helping her completing her mission is a real Catwoman-y move so the Arkham games continue the trend of “getting” her character. Well, except for having Catwoman lick herself like a cat.

Knight - Selina’s third and last appearance in the Arkham games. She’s kinda playable and she’s no enemy BUT she’s a damsel in distress... ... ... Okay, Knight, what do have for us?

Riddler, of all people, has captured Catwoman and uses her to play with Batman. Well, at least it proves that everyone knows about the relationship between the Bat and the Cat (yet Catwoman keeps saying they’re not close - oh honey, no one believes you). Selina’s wearing an explosive collar and Batsy has to find Riddler trophies and complete riddles (and for some fucking reason drive races!) to unlock the keys to set her free.

Catwoman’s kinda playable since you can’t explore the city with her but you can switch to her while you’re solving Riddler’s contraptions or fight his robots. The dual team feature in the game was magnificent in general. I would have loved to play more as her but at least, she’s not just sitting around waiting for Bruce to save her but is partaking in her own rescue.

The chemistry between Bruce and Selina is the best part of this Riddler mission. Neither fears nor takes Eddie seriously and especially Selina drops so many awesomely annoyed comments and jabs against him, but gets increasingly more worried. While we saw BatCat meet in Blackgate, in Knight they’ve known each other for years and it shows. There’s no other character in the game Batman talks to in the way he talks to Catwoman. It’s... casual, funny, flirty. Additionally, you can clearly hear his worry for her in his voice. In the end, Selina even comes back to help Batman with Riddler even though she didn’t have to - she wanted to! And offers more of her help, it’s so obvious how much he means to her.

I love Batman and Catwoman working together and flirting and bantering while fighting other Rogues but the only thing that’s holding this back from being perfect is the series’ idiotic insistence that Bruce is still mourning the al Ghul chick which we all know is bullshit. And Selina doesn’t know Batman’s identity?! Come on.

To sum it up, I really liked Catwoman’s attitude and portrayal in Knight but would have loved to have more of her in the game. What we got was passable enough to have fun with. Bonus points for the 90s Balent suit you can put her in!!! If only there was an Arkham game in which both characters were playable and constantly working together, now THAT would be my dream!

1) Catwoman in the Telltale games

Where do I start? The voice? The charm? The complexity? 

She’s not playable but that doesn’t make this game and her in it less perfect. We again meet a clever, confident, I-mostly-care-about-myself Selina who’s great at fighting and stealing and manipulating. She’s caught Harvey in her trap to get close to his buddy, rich boy Bruce Wayne. She instantly finds out that he’s Batman (same way he finds out that she’s Catwoman) and they form a rocky alliance which either blooms into something deeper or not, depending on your decisions.

The makers of the game understand her the way Rocksteady did but add a softer layer to her. She’s playful, seductive, and doesn’t take no shit from anyone and in episode 3 of the first season, we see a vulnerable Selina for the first time. A woman who doubts she could ever be more than a cat burglar. She does take pride in her skills and doesn’t apologise for what she does (she even says “you shouldn’t trust me”) but you notice that she’s longing for a connection, for someone who trusts and relies on her without weighing her down. 

I personally had the impression that she felt a bit honored that Batman would support her and have faith in her the way he did in my playthrough. It gave her a chance to prove to herself that she could do more, be more. And that it felt good to have someone she in turn could rely on and trust which proved to her that the world maybe wasn’t as bad as she’d thought, that she could let her guard down once in a while. There was also another side we don’t see often on her: She didn’t want to face Harvey at the hospital. Maybe due to cowardice, shame, you decide.

Her last scene in season 1 wasn’t the best, it was just her going back to her old ways, seemingly leaving behind her character development from previous episodes but she probably wasn’t at the point of staying and saving people yet. It was the usual move to save herself and telling herself that she’s a bad person who doesn’t have feelings for Bruce. Changing yourself isn’t hard, it’s not changing back to your old self that is, and I think that’s what happened there, she simply fell back into her old self. 

In season 2, she returns as the thief we all know and love. They didn’t change her, her actions and dialogue lines fit the character we met in season 1. This time, we also see her vengeful side as she’s trying to get revenge for her dead friend, Riddler, and she won’t let anyone get in her way, not even Bruce.

Later, she wants Bruce to tell her that he needs her and he can’t take down Harley and the rest without her, proving she wants to be needed and trusted as I’d mentioned before. Same goes for admitting that it means a lot to her that he lets her into his secret life. Season 2 shows us that everything from season 1 did leave an impact on her and her development is slowly moving forward. One lovely example is her being surprised by a hug in S1 and in S2, she hugs Bruce first.

To put lots of rambling briefly I LOOOVE Telltale’s Catwoman! She’s not just a cunning thief but a woman with feelings, hopes, fears, layers. I really hope we will get a third season someday, especially since we didn’t get any closure scenes with Selina, no matter which Joker we fought in the last S2 episode.

---

Now regarding her own game... She had one already with a 1999 Game Boy Color game. Nothing huge but I count it. Especially since she’s wearing her 90s suit in it. 😉

I would very much welcome a Catwoman game with her as the lead! An Arkham like game: open world Gotham, you get to meet many Rogues, you have to flee from Batman and/or fight his kiddies. Maybe you need to team up with Harley and Ivy, or with Batgirl! OR make it like a Lara Croft game with lots of breaking and entering, and stealing valuable artefacts.

Alas, I think the chances of getting a Catwoman game are very slim! DC are so focused on Batman and Superman, they won’t spend millions of dollars on the production of a game that’s... not starring at least one of those two. I mean there’s not even a Wonder Woman game so why would they make one starring Catwoman? A shame really.

[skekheck]

30 Days of the Dark Crystal Challenge

Decided to do poultry-blocks Dark Crystal challenge because it looks like a lot of fun to do. However I’m cheating and I wrote all of this within a couple of days. Warning: fairly large post with pictures and fan ramblings. 

EDIT: I FORGOT TO INCLUDE DAY 16 WHOOP. It’s in there now. 

Day 1. Your favorite skeksis

Idiot, feral, wildman who stole my heart. How? Why? Who knows. *chef kisses* Beautiful stinky bastard.

Day 2: Your favorite gelfling

Bless her and her skeksis cosplay. What a queen.

Day 3: A character that you love that everyone seems to hate.

The tides are changing for her it seems. I think people are appreciating her more, but she still faces her fair share of controversies. Not that I don’t think it warrants discussion nor am I excusing her actions. But she’s way more complex than what a lot of people are making her out to be.

Day 4: A character that you hate that everyone seems to love. 

Hate is a strong word as I don’t hate him, but I don’t really care for Amri. He feels like a bootleg Deet mixed with a little bit of Kylan and Gurjin. Wasted potential and honestly shouldn’t have been the POV for Tides of the Dark Crystal. Seems I’m alone in this opinion, though. Maybe the book warrants rereading?

Day 5: Movie or TV Show? Why?

TV Show by miles! I think the series accomplishes way more than the movie does, like establishing lore,  better written characters, and a more engaging story. I actually cared about the gelfling and it really fleshed out the skeksis in an interesting way outside of “oh they do evil things because they’re evil!”. Doesn’t mean it does everything right, but I’ll get into that later.  

Day 6: Something you wish that happened in the series but didn’t.

Just a few things. I miss the gelfling intermingling with the mystics, particularly urVa. I love everything that happens with urGoh and skekGra, but some of the bonding moments Naia had with urVa are precious and I wish we had more of that. I also wished the gelfling got the message out to the other clans like they did in the book where Kylan dreametched their message onto the Santuary Tree’s blossoms and scattered them all throughout Thra. I also wished Tavra and Onica were an established couple, but maybe it’s not too late for that.

Day 7: Favorite gelfling clan

The Sifa! It was the Dousan at first, but the more I learned about the Sifa the more I grew to love the clan. If I were a gelfling I would probably be a sifa myself LOL. 

Day 8: You opinion on Aughra

She’s a fun and fascinating character! Aughra puts a unique spin on the whole beautiful, wise earth goddess trope by making her ugly, old, and cranky. She’s also a character with her own flaws, even having a mini arc about neglecting to take care of her planet and doing whatever she can to make amends. Not to mention she’s wildly entertaining. Much love for Aughra!

Day 9: Skeksis or Gelfling?

Both!

Day 10: Your opinion on podlings?

They’re just funky little potato people who just want to have fun, dance, and drink all day and I respect them for that. They’re great. Also Hup exists and he’s just an amazing character so there’s that.

Day 11: Your The Dark Crystal unpopular opinion

I think it’s okay to sympathize with the skeksis as long as one is not excusing their actions. I see a lot of people say you shouldn’t because they’re evil and they commit atrocities. Which, yes, it’s true, but I think both can co-exist. I mean, skekTek’s whole cycle of abuse is written very sympathetically yet the show doesn’t coddle him. It shows the ugliness of his character and what happens when someone isn’t capable of cutting off from said cycle. Also the writers consider the skeksis as tragic characters due to their broken nature so I don’t think it’s wrong to be a little sympathetic. But once again with great emphasis, sympathy is fine as long as their actions are judged. They are awful bastards and no amount of sympathy will change that. 

Day 12: Something you dislike about the series

I think the stuff I don’t like about the show is a result of its pacing and cluttered cast. There are so many stories going on and while I liked how they handled it for the most part, you can also see how the show rushes to get through all of them. A lot of important moments where a character should reflect or something that should simmer more is pushed aside for the next thing. Maybe if the show was given more episodes and time to breath it would have been better off. 

Day 13: Most disappointing thing about the series

SkekMal and urVa didn’t have enough screen time and we were honestly ROBBED. 

Day 14: Your OTP

Speaking of which... . Its a crack ship, but I’m all about that allegory for self love (and I just want these two to be alive). Day 15: Favorite quote

Listed plenty of my favorite quotes before, but I’ll pick this one:

“ Life is my paint. Death is my canvas”

Day 16: Rate the skeksis from least favorite to favorite OR rate the gelfling from lest favorite to favorite [or both!]

And if you want my gelfling hot takes, here’s this list (just backwards in context to this post)

Day 17: Opinion on Raunip?

Raunip is a fantastic character. I loved him in Creation Myths and I can’t wait to see what role he’d play in the resistance. And I absolutely love the parallels between him and the urskeks it’s great. 

Day 18: A character that is most similar to you.

I too am a dark-dwelling gremlin who constantly forgets where I put things and crack a few dark jokes at my expense. 

Day 19: Which character do you strongly dislike, why?

This is entirely based on the books, but I find Mera to be awful.  I think it’s because she’s so fake and condescending? When Naia arrived in Sami Thicket, she was acting nice and polite but when the Drenchen asked her why the skeksis never visited Sog Mera responded  “It’s only worth counting what’s valuable”. She continuously disrespects her by calling her pet names even when Naia became maudra. It doesn’t come off as cute, it’s gross. I don’t recall Mera ever apologizing for any of the shit she did to Naia... or Kylan for that matter. She was a pretty neglectful step-mother to him. She doesn’t have an excuse being busy with Maudra stuff because Laesid was a kickass mom to her kids. So in conclusion, fuck this bitch.

Day 20: What do you like so much about the Dark Crystal?

The better question what’s not to love about the Dark Crystal? It has amazing creature design, an expansive world that feels real and alien from our own, having complex and interesting characters as well as villains, the fact that it relies heavily on practical effects a.k.a puppetry... . There’s nothing like it and that’s what makes it so wonderful and unique. It needs to be appreciated more. 

Day 21: Favorite music piece from the soundtrack?

Can’t beat that opening theme. 

Day 22: Your opinion on the sequel comics [Power/Beneath the Dark Crystal]

They have cool concepts and ideas, but they’re not written well. Power is just the movie if it was put into a blender and shredded and ignoring a large portion of established lore for the sake of plot. And Beneath is just a generic fantasy story with the Dark Crystal logo slapped on it. 

Day 23: Which character from the YA novels/comics do you wish we would see more of?

There are plenty of characters that are a given to appear in the series at some point (skekSa, skekLi, urSan, etc). And of course I want to see them, but I really hope Periss shows up (and his brother too). He is one of my favorite characters from the book series and we could use some more Dousan rep!

Day 24: Your opinion on the Age of Resistance comic?

I have yet to read the comics. I’m waiting on them to be part of a collection so I don’t have to buy all of the volumes at once (I prefer owning physical copies). I’ve heard good things about them, especially the story with Hup and the current Mayrin arc. I’m excited to get my hands on them. 

Day 25: The best moment/scene in the series?

There are a lot of great moments, but Rian and Ordon’s fight with skekMal is still my favorite in the entire series. The "Speak For the Dead” scene is a close second.

Day 26: The death of a character that hurt you the most?

He did not deserve this. Fuck you, skekMal. 

Day 27: Your favorite episode from the series?

It’s got to be 4. Not just because a number of my favorite characters debut in this episode, but it’s an important one for the plot. Stakes are being raised, we’re seeing set ups to major story elements and character arcs, and events that impact the rest of the series. It also has a handful of my favorite character moments and interactions. 

Day 28: Your favorite non-skeksis and non-gelfling character? Why?

I’ve come to realize the reasons why I love urVa are the same as why I love skekMal (incredibly appropriate I might say). There’s enough information about him that we get a good understanding on who he is as a character, but still mysterious enough that there’s interest in wanting to know more. Much like his skeksis, he’s unique from the other mystics and thus giving him unique experiences that are fun to speculate. However, the YA novels are responsible for my current fondness of him. 

Day 29: Do you like the urru and skeksis apart or like them as urSkeks together?

A main theme of the Dark Crystal is unity and balance. The main conflict of the franchise are the skeksis, the broken fragments of their urskek self who, according to the writers, “...[have] a dire need for the qualities they lack”. Their only salvation is to become urskeks again and unfortunately many of the pairs never achieve this.  They’re basically a giant allegory for the self and self-love. While we don’t really know what they were like when they were an urskek (aside from SilSol perhaps), we can get some understanding when we look at their pairs and see what traits they share. Speculation is also fun! So as much as I love the skeksis and mystics as individuals, I prefer them to be whole again.

Day 30: What are your wishes for a possible season 2?

A whole bunch of things. I want to see them explore more about the mystics and their lifestyle, having Raunip play a big part in the plot, seeing more of skekSa’s fall from grace from her perspective, the beginning of the Garthim Wars, and more. 

[moviesrotbrains]

DANIEL ISN’T REAL... but I’m so very glad this film exists.

After dealing with increasing anxiety and fearing a grip on reality, a college freshman turns to his childhood imaginary friend for comfort and confidence boosting… only to realize that his much cooler and carefree pretend buddy has an unsettling violent darkness about him. Could Daniel possibly be something more than a figment of his imagination?

DANIEL ISN’T REAL is an utterly surreal fever dream, channeling the best in cosmic horror, body horror, and psychological horror while also taking a bold look at deeper issues. It comes from Elijah Wood’s SpectreVision imprint, the same company that gave us such gems as MANDY, A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT, and COLOR OUT OF SPACE...  and this one’s right up there with those modern classics. And you can watch it now on SHUDDER!

Full review and some seriously kickass poster art below:

Directed by Adam Egypt Mortimer (and based on Brian DeLeeuw’s book, In This Way I Was Saved), DANIEL ISN’T REAL is a wonderfully fantastical ride through fucked up subject matter. It tackles mental illness, trauma, dual nature, identity, male toxicity, and empathy… with a good amount of Lovecraftian madness and trippy, yet terrifically disgusting Cronenberg-esque visuals thrown in for good measure.

It’s an engaging story too, about a young man, Luke, overwhelmed with life as his mother’s mental health condition worsens. He’s dealing with that on top of everything else college kids go through, lack of confidence, anxiety, etc. There’s also a fear of his own sanity. He keeps hallucinating and blanking out. His therapist suggests that maybe he should try to tap into that creativity he had as a child, where he’d regularly play for hours on end with his imaginary friend, “Daniel”. Only things got very weird and unsettling the last time he played pretend with his fictional playmate.

Once Daniel re-enters his life, things start to change. Luke’s mother issues get better. Luke suddenly feels more confident in life. Luke is finally doing well with girls. Luke’s getting creative again with photography... and all of his problems seem to go away… Only Daniel seems to want more credit and recognition. And Daniel seems to be getting angrier. And that’s when things get really fucking messed up.

This film is wonderfully acted by a mix of up-and-comers and veterans of the scene. Luke is played by Miles Robbins (HALLOWEEN 2018) and gives that immediate likeable and kind, yet also meek, portrayal that perfectly conveys what kind of a person that Luke is. There’s a lot of range in emotion in this performance, from hurt and confused to confident, to something else entirely. I always get a kick at seeing an actor completely flip their performance and style midway and totally embody something else, and this film has that and more.

Contrasting that likability and meekness is Daniel (played by Patrick Schwarzenegger, SCREAM QUEENS), the titular imaginary friend who’s pure Freudian Id. He’s cool, slick, charismatic, and always knows the right thing that Luke should say, or do, to get ahead. He’s helpful… when he wants to be… but he also has a lot of darkness. A scary darkness that seems to stem from… something else. Patrick excels when he taps into this dark alias. He’s evil as fuck. There’s a sinister glee in his manner. Epitome of “Chaotic Evil”. He’s such a great asshole. He really kicks it into gear when the audience fully know what we’re dealing with… 

Yet even then, nothing is over explained. And that’s the beauty of this film. There is no expository dialogue or wasted scene. Everything is laid out there and the actors just bring it. This film lives in a world of it’s own and the audience is a passenger for the unholy ride. It’s a very slick flick full of world building and the kind of outstanding performances that really make everything shine.

Rounding out the supporting cast is Luke’s troubled mother (veteran Mary Stuart Masterson, who powerfully played a similar and memorable role in BENNY & JUNE), Sasha Lane (HELLBOY) as the love interest, artist, and really, the heart and soul of the film, and Hannah Marks (DIRK GENTLY) as the other girl faced with Luke’s dark side. again, all perfectly played and perfectly cast, giving a much needed balance in this heavy film.

And it’s a very heavy film. The story was a deeply personal one for Mortimer (as he explained to us in 2019, when he brought the film to the Montreal FANTASIA film fest). The director drew from his own experiences from his youth, when a friend was similarly dealing with mental health issues. Mortimer had to help him, because his friend was “falling off the rails”, with no one around really helping him out, “not friends or professionals”. He talked of his friend’s life being in ruins, and how it just “spiraled off into mania”. 

That experience deeply impacted Mortimer. It was from this that Mortimer wanted to make a film about empathy and compassion for people going through severe mental illness issues. While Luke’s troubles stem from something more, the parallels are still there to people in real life going through non-otherworldy issues. The overall sense of helplessness, and a desire to be understood and taken seriously, is still there, and still a universal theme. Especially right now.

This film also tackles a lot more than just matters of wellness. Mortimer also wanted the film to deal with the “increasing danger” young men are in these days. “The Dangers they face and the danger many are to themselves”. 

Mortimer talked about them, “Living in a world where men have been driven insane by society. A society where many men are both the product and the villain of it.” A lot of this is seen on film when Luke battles for control with Daniel. Daniel representing that alpha and that Id. Luke grasping for control and trying to be that voice of compassion and reason. It’s a wonderful character study that is only heightened by the horror elements that come into play.

And yes, it’s an absolute horror fan’s delight and it’s visually stunning to boot, mixing psychological & psychedelic horror together. It felt like I was watching HELLRAISER again for the first time, but if that film was shoved in a blender with FIGHT CLUB, JACOB’S LADDER, and copious amounts of mind altering drugs. But comparing it to anything else does no justice to the wholly original eye-gasmic feast set before us. I keep saying this, but it truly is an utterly wonderful surreal fever dream. It’s so very layered and out there. 

It’s refreshing to see new films like this come about with something to say and looking as great as it does. Yes, this film looks very different from most things that are currently out there, with it’s violet texture throughout, and otherworldly feel. Mortimer, who came from a music video background, wanted his second feature to have a distinct look to it, saying that the “violet hue throughout had a very futuristic and contemporary colour about it”. He wanted to create the feeling of a manic episode, and overwhelm the viewer with colours and density. 

And he totally does. It’s such a beautiful looking film, and one you’ll definitely go back to just to soak in the wonderful hypnotic visuals. Much like MANDY, from the year before, DANIEL is a cinematic treat for your eyeballs.

And there’s also some deeply messed up visuals that mix in with that beauty. The FX on a whole are amazingly bizarre. There are visuals that are so jaw-droppingly good that you’ll permanently have them etched in your brain. It’s the kind of film where you’re watching and you immediately want to rewind and see that scene again.

From faces being merged into each other in a pink tentacled mess of VIDEODROME-esque flesh, to other visages literally being mangled like putty! Pure body terror. People crawling into other people’s mouths– I could go on, but I don’t want to spoil it. It’s icky and wonderful all at once.

And I can’t go on about the FX without mentioning the nightmarish and hellish creature design by Martin Astles (who also worked on the brutal and classic nightmare fuel that is EVENT HORIZON). The creature FX are so fucking out there, each very distinct and very memorable. The kind of things that if you confronted them in real life you’d be quick to claw them out your own eyes. 

One beast looks like a hellish death beast with a fleshy castle for a head-- an absolute architectural artifice. Mortimer said they attempted to convey that a whole universe was in its face, and it existed outside space and time. Another Face looking like piercing bullets poking through the flesh and protruding from his cheeks, like a moment frozen in time. They’re all so freakishly creative and disturbing. I can’t even describe them right. I’m not sure I want to, but they’re seared into my mind. Body Horror and Cosmic Horror at their best.

In addition to the visuals, this film also brings it on the sound design and score front. It’s got an incredible score by Warp Records act Clark. It contains synthy goodness along with manipulations of actual orchestral pieces. And it was Clark’s first time working on a film score, something Mortimer preferred. 

He wanted someone that wasn’t used to working on horror films, or films in general, so they’d throw everything they had into it from the get go. Mortimer told Clark to make it sound like Bernard Herrmann got stuck in some horrible industrial accident. A relentless sonic assault that tries to capture that same feel that Clint Mansell did with REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. The results are a superb original work of music that completely enhances and already spectacular looking film.

I was a fan of Mortimer’s SOME KIND OF HATE when I caught it six years ago at FANTASIA FEST, but DANIEL is an entirely different beast and next level filmmaking. He’s easily grown as a filmmaker and I’m totally on board to see more. I can’t wait to see what he tackles next, because DANIEL was easily one of my top Fantasia picks for 2019.

DANIEL ISN’T REAL is one of those dark films that will most likely be seen as a cult classic in a few years, right up there with DONNIE DARKO and movies of a similar ilk. It’s full of so much imagination and gusto, all while tackling important issues and core themes. All that and it remains highly watchable and engaging. It’ll satisfy any horror junkie while also winning over fans of thought provoking art. Daniel isn’t real, but I’m glad it exists.

-Theo Radomski, Movies Rot Brains 

Seriously how fucking awesome are these posters?  Why can’t more horror films hire the people that made these posters? Why can’t film in general hire these people to make better promo art? 

This article was previously seen on Mobtreal.com