#and i am not like saying it’s black and white cancel the franchise or say it’s perfect at all. but it just feels like

[futurecentury]

UC Gundam is just kind of strange sometimes bc it’s this weird mixture of like…is this character’s questionable behavior a product of the writers’ weird takes about women and society and other shit, or a result of it being a series from the 80’s and some things just not aging well, or an intentional writing decision that this character is just supposed to be a creep? and then it feels like that conundrum just hovers over the entire franchise and stresses me out lol

[mybrainproblems]

Cancellation of Resident Evil (2022) truly my villain origin story

[juvenilefrogg]

HOT TAKE!!

I don't expect everyone to understand me or relate to this but just because someone likes Harry Potter doesn't mean they're not allies. It's not a facade if someone is a Potterhead and still claims to be an ally.

A lot of people believe in "separate art from the artist". The famous painter Pablo Picasso was such a great artist, widely known for the cubist movement. You may also know about his blue period and might pity him. But then again Picasso as a person has done very questionable things. He is known to have treated women poorly and had many affairs throughout his life.

Now just because he was a great artist doesn't mean he is not accountable for his poor actions and choices but his actions surely do not make him a bad artist. I can accept that he is a bad person and yet still admit that he was a great artist.

Legendary singer, songwriter and lyrical genius John Lennon is well known in the music industry. Surely we all have listened to his songs at least once. The legendary rock band The Beatles gave us so many bangers.

Beautiful Boy by John Lennon is one of the songs that I adore so much. I just love the showcase of the fraternal love in that song. But when you dig up the history of that song you find that it was written for Sean Lennon (child of John Lennon and Yoko Ono). It is not about Julian Lennon (child of John Lennon from his first wife, Cynthia Lennon). Now it just breaks my heart to think about this from Julian's pov. To have a dad who left your mom and then goes ahead to write a song about his other child with his 2nd wife. Don't get me wrong I'd be furious I'd be going crazy.

But oh to have a dad who'd love me enough to write such a song for me ahhhh I'd give up anything just to have that experience. From Sean's pov I'd be so in love with this song.

Now I am not justifying and romanticising what he did but how do I close my ears, shut my eyes, and turn my back on such a beautiful art? To say that there are plenty of other and far better songs and things to admire why do I have to stick to this particular song or thing is not fair. It is not fair to me as an admirer. You can't quantify my love. I can't transfer my love from one thing to another in an instant. Though it may die or fade away with time until then you'd just have to let me be. The heart wants what it wants.

Recently, Ariana Grande released her latest album, Eternal Sunshine, I am sure most of you already know about it and have listened to it. It's a hit you can't deny that. But when you get to know the story behind that album, the songs and whom they're written about and what they mean, you might want to cancel Ariana. And sure if you want to do that go ahead you're free to do that. But that doesn't mean everyone will. One can still like her songs and not be a supporter of cheating in a marriage. Fans who literally grew up listening to her songs can't just one day stop listening to her songs and thinking about her (at least not in my view). They might start to feel conflicted about her as a person tho but I am sure they'll still have some love left for her old hit songs.

We talk about not being judgemental, being liberal, and being open-minded so why are we still so constricted at the same time? Life and its choices aren't black and white most often you find yourself in the grey areas. Who are we to judge so easily? We as a queer community would get offended if someone judged us just for putting a pride flag on our profiles. So why are we judging just because someone has their Hogwarts house mentioned in their profile? One might say the first is homophobic but isn't the latter prejudice?

Mind you I am talking about the people, the allies who have nothing to do with the writer, who just enjoy the books, and the movies, who find comfort in that story, relate to characters and have loved them for years. What's their fault? All this hate just because they fell in love with the wrong franchise? Which had nothing to do with the trans community when they were created and enjoyed by the fans. One can take a stand and still love Harry Potter.

I am sure many people from the queer community itself are part of the fandom. Wolfstar shippers flood Tumblr with love and how most of them are queer. You can't say that they're transphobic.

Criticism is necessary I am not saying don't criticise the wrongs. If there's no criticism one might never know what they did wrong. Wrongs should never go unchecked.

Criticise the artist for their choices and actions. Don't hate someone who just fell in love with the art.

Don't turn a blind eye to the wrongs. Don't follow the artist blindly. Be mindful of your own choices. That's all you could do.

I don't have Hogwarts house mentioned in my profile. I dont even own the books. Sure I've read the books and watched the movies. But I sure as am not even gonna judge someone blindly if they've mentioned their Hogwarts house.

I respect all your views you might not agree with me and you don't even have to but I believe that you'd at least be respectful of my views. I most often don't even comment on controversial things out of fear of judgement and rejection but this is something that I need to get off my chest. I am not transphobic, I have never been. I respect everyone regardless of who they love. So here I am just keeping my views and hoping that you guys would at least be respectful enough and correct me if I said something wrong.

At the end of the day, I am just trying to find a place in this world.

[digitalgate02]

Hi! I hope your month has been proceeding well. About your Xros Wars Legends AU, I find it ironic and hilarious that Daisuke, who's super sus about shady people, became a shady person himself in it, like, he just became what he is wary of. Also, I'd like to know your personal thoughts on Gulusgammamon, his role in the GG series, his relationship with Hiro and Gammamon too. Based on his angry disgusted look directed at Canoweissmon after they separated, I don't think he thinks highly of his white counterpart before the latter turned his philosophy against him. After that, it was a different tune. Do you think the Endbringer thread will be picked up in some future GG continuation? Was there even any foreshadowing for that plot drop? Eat fruits and sleep early!

Oh boy there's multiple questions there... I'll do my best to answer them all (^・ω・^ )

"I find it ironic and hilarious that Daisuke, who's super sus about shady people, became a shady person himself in it, like, he just became what he is wary of."

Well, that's something I didn't think of before, lol

Though in this AU setting he's being forced to be shady and sus. It's not something he enjoys or is proud of. Because he’s being hunted by the villains and mean spirited digimon who might want to sell him in the black market… And The Watchmaker kinda forced him to pull this shady role (except he only did that because he couldn’t turn his back on Taiki-Tagiru-Yuu at all)

About Gulus & my opinion on him and his role in GG:

I think I’ve talked about it before? Possibly in my post trying to explain what I got from the final episode. I don’t think Gulus was entirely vile, but more rather a creature who gained a twisted view of the world thanks to a traumatic experience. He lost his home planet and this set him into this idea of the world being a dog eat dog scenario. And then you have the sweet side of Gammamon, which is so naive and gentle… I prefer to not treat Gulus and Gammamon as a separate being – the episode showed a duality between both personalities in a more visual style, but might remind you that all of that battle and talk of “inner universes” are mostly in poetic and figurative way to express an inner battle happening inside Gammamon’s mind. In which yes, the kids and BloomLordmon managed to get inside Gammamon for a moment – and this is why you get Canowissmon and Regulusmon getting separated: it’s because it happens inside Gammamon’s mind.

Gulus in general was one of the things I was waiting for the Digimon franchise to do a long time ago: A kid with a villainous digimon. And no, by that I meant something different from Tailmon’s case in both classic & reboot Digimon Adventure – I mean one where the kid is basically a human Wormmon and the digimon a Kaiser-mon. Well, I guess this is what we got~ But at the same time, you can notice there’s times that showed maybe Gulus wasn’t entirely evil. Because in his debut episode he screams to Hiro to get out of the way when trying to attack Angoramon and Jellymon, but since Hiro stayed there he just canceled his attack and reverted back to Gammamon. And every time the enemy had some evil behavior that could end with the trio and the mons dead, Gulus would butt in and save them all. So for a villain – or rather, anti-villain – he was showing signals of him starting to change for a little.

Or this is what I thought until ep 66, lol.

Note that I’m not saying he didn’t do anything wrong, because he did and oh he did. It’s times that maybe he was slowly getting changed by Hiro & co., hence the good Gamma’s personality.

By the way, I'm still keeping my stance on the finale and how relieved I am that Gulus wasn't destroyed and yes was shown that he's still Gammamon despite everything -- More like "accept your flaws instead of getting rid of them" message, I think.

Now I think this Endbringer thing could be an open opportunity for a sequel in format of a drama CD or manga, or a standalone movie idk. But I’d rather prefer none of those (I have personal reasons, please do not ask for details) and that they could just move on and work on something brand new with no ties to GG or any other series at all. I’d rather prefer to make my own particular and delusional sequel, without demanding or asking Bandai & Toei to make it real.

[eldritchsurveys]

1203.

Do you ever just feel like you need to be alone for some reason? >> I feel like that often. Being around people is exhausting. If you got paid $5 per survey you made, could you make a living just doing that? >> No, because I rarely make surveys. When was the last time you wore something totally inappropriate for the weather? Does this happen often? >> The last time I remember being underdressed for the weather was the night of Aïda, because it was freezing by the time it was over and my little cloak was not enough (I forget what outfit I was wearing underneath but I was cold as hell in it).

The last time you went out of the house, where were you going and what did you do? >> I went to check out the new community garden, then (after some downtime sitting on the stoop and slurping a margarita slushie thing) went to see Furiosa, and stopped at Target on the way home. This was yesterday.

When was the last time someone cancelled plans on you? Were you annoyed? >> The meetup at the Stray was postponed because of an unforeseen hiccup, which was fine with me because I just took the "going out" energy I'd saved up for that and used it to see Furiosa instead.

Do you have a friend that has a tendency to “dump” you whenever they get a new partner? >> Of course not. Would you ever want to go on vacation with just one of your parents? .

In summer, do you prefer to wear dresses or shorts and tops? Or maybe something else? >> I wear both and other things besides.

If you could dye your hair any colour (and have it look good/professional), what colour would you pick? >> I am not interested in dyeing my hair. Has someone ever tried to start an argument with you over Facebook? What happened? >> Way back in the day, yeah. For some reason, I've been in two Facebook back-and-forths regarding the same topic -- why Black people don't appreciate white people wearing their wack ass excuse for dreadlocks. Exhausting.

Have you ever had an unusual type of milk (eg. oat, rice, almond)? >> I've had all of the above and also macadamia nut milk. Milkadamia, is what it's called. Because of course it is.

How many cans of soda would you say you drink in a week, if any at all? >> Zero, I drink fizzy water. When you’re at home, do you spend most of your time in your room? >> I do.

If you like to sleep in late, have your parents ever told you off for doing so? . How much stuff do you take with you when you go on vacation for a week? >> I am a pretty light traveller. One average-sized suitcase and a backpack is the standard for me, provided I don't bring my weighted blanket (which I only bring on trips that involve the car and not some other more complicated form of transportation where I have to do things with my baggage).

How old is your oldest living relative? .

Do you know anyone who is an alcoholic? How has that affected you? >> I currently do not, although I have my suspicions about Sparrow's mother.

Could you willingly live on a vegan diet? >> Health-wise, I assume I could since that's basically how I spent the first 13 years of my life (although I am also aware that bodies change over time and maybe there'd be complications nowadays). I have zero interest in doing it now, though. If you’re a fan of Harry Potter, are you sad that there’ll never be another book or movie? >> I find it difficult to believe that JKR won't run that franchise completely into the ground for as long as she can squeeze money out of its putrefying corpse. At this point, I'd be willing to bet that even many longtime HP fans are over it.

If you’re an only child, do you wish you had siblings? If you have siblings, do you get along? . How long have you had the shirt you’re wearing? >> I don't know, a year, two years.

Are you a slut? >> I sure am. What happened last time you got drunk? >> I have no idea, that was a long ass time ago.

When’s the last time you straightened your hair? .

Your mood? >> Eh. Fine. Did you sleep alone last night? >> I did.

Do you plan on sleeping in tomorrow? >> I don't plan how much I sleep.

How many cigarettes have you smoked today? >> Zero. Do you like potato chips? >> I like them with sandwiches. Do you give out second chances way too easily? .

What are you excited for? >> Hmm... nothing, I guess. There's nothing major going on any time soon.

[hellolimitless]

First Kill and Heartstopper comparisons in wake of its cancellation are baseless

Even before the confirmation of First Kill cancellation after one season, Heartstopper was used by some in an attempt to elevate First Kill. The fact that heartstopper was once again « a cis white gay men » storyline while First Kill was sapphic and also had a black female lead when both shows are more than that. Now that First Kill was cancelled, an image is going around social media to prove that First Kill was discriminated against as they did better numbers than heartstopper.

This image has been used to say that First Kill did twice as much hours watched than Heartstopper and so they should never had been cancelled when heartstopper was renewed for two more seasons. An important detail was not taken in consideration.

First Kill run time in hours : 6.53 hours

Heartstopper run time in hours : 3.9 hours

First kill average views : 14.9 hours

Heartstopper average views : 13.7 hours

So it’s not double the views, First Kill is still higher in average views but not too far ahead of Heartstopper. While I don’t mean to downgrade First Kill success, I know a lot of people were excited for it for multiple reasons, the biggest one being that it was a sapphic supernatural teen drama which is unusual as LGBTQ contents tend to be set in our world in a realistic tone, centering around their identity as queer people and after Young Royals and Heartstopper success and the cancellation of multiple wlw shows, it was their occasion to have a new sapphic show. The latter led people to promote First Kill on Social Media massively to prompt people to watch as they absolutely did not want First Kill to have the same fate as others wlw centric shows and Netflix was also doing nothing to promote it. Heartstopper had a following due to the graphic novels and excitement as usual to have a new lgbtq representation, however Heartstopper did not receive an immediate explosive response just after it was released on Netflix, a lot were sceptical at first to watch it as they thought it was going to be too childish and not age-appropriate for them. The word of mouths, the show going viral on social media and most importantly the critically acclaimed reviews made people watch the show. Heartstopper success can not be judged out of his first couple of weeks, it goes beyond and unfortunately and for reasons I am going to discuss after, First Kill didn’t have the same results.

The completion of episodes for First Kill, meaning the people who started to watch and ended the whole season was only 43% so more than half of people who started have quit. It’s a data that is important because it shows if people were interested and liked the show, and if we also add the reviews for First Kill that is from mixed to negative, the show was not well received. Now what should be discussed is the reason why First Kill had this response. It’s over the fact they got set for failure since the beginning, the project was not taken seriously by Netflix who gave them an abysmal budget that made the special effects look like a CW shows, there wasn’t any big name attached which of course is not that important as in contrary it can make unknown actors blow up but adding a big name, notably as a supporting or guest character prove that some effort were made to push the show also the bad reviews don’t help. It’s not an excuse as we can all say a lot of garbage shows got renewed over and over again and that awful 365 days that is becoming a franchise. Yes it’s been well confirmed that lesbians/wlw shows do not stand a chance and there is a discrepancy in representation. However nobody should have used others lgbt or mlm shows/movies to prove this point. Sapphics show being cancelled and not produced at a higher rate could have been pointed out without naming any mlm shows. I have watched a tons of wlw and mlm productions and yes in history there has been way more gay representation than lesbians, it’s true yes, but don’t forget that for decades and still up to very recently, gay representation was used as a scapegoat to push hom*phobic rhetoric, it was full of b*ry your gays, t*auma p*rn, the constant use of falling in love with your b*lly and centering everything around the coming out and the acceptance of the straight and now finally they can have some positive representation. I am not saying that lesbian representation were perfect and there wasn’t also problematic tones and that nobody can complain over wlw misrepresentation. Some people don’t seem to understand that there has been some sort of pitting against each other’s for wlw and mlm as well as trans fem and trans masc over the excuse one group is more privileged than the other and the other is transparent in the media. The articles could have used any (straight/non-queer) shows in the wake of First kill cancellation, they went for Heartstopper. It’s something I have noticed for quite some time now. Yes trans masc deserve to have their Pose, yes wlw deserve to have their Heartstopper but the actual shows should not get downplayed because of that.

Unfortunately having a lgbt centric show is still a huge thing especially during the current time because of the anti legislation and the growing rate of hate crime and discrimination and every single one being produced should be welcome but now I see on social media a hate campaign going for red white and royal blue movie because the lead actor starred in Purple Hearts as a « conservative military guy » and he is problematic for that. I am sorry but have people lost their mind ? We often say that you should think twice before talking well the same should be said before typing.

[punkcalf]

TDC Facebook Update

This post is to educate and warn people only, not to cause or start or renew any drama.

I was upset when I made my other post yesterday, and still am. Thank you for everyone who signal boosted and gave me some insight on 'why' this may be happening. This franchise has meant a lot for me, kickstarting my art and having so many fun, positive experiences in a fandom. So, this is a really bitter pill to swallow.

The Facebook page I've mentioned is called 'The Dark Crystal Age of Resistance' [and there are some emojis next to it.]

[Image ID: A banner image of The Dark Crystal Age of Resistance Show showing Rian wearing his helmet and Deet in an image of The Dark Crystal against a purple fading to black background. Below the image is text reading; The Dark Crystal age of Resistance. End image ID]

They have gone private, so that's at least a relief but if you were in the group like me before it turned the way it did, here is a warning;

Trigger warnings for; war, racism, anti-semitism and fascism beyond this point.

This page has become a very far right, anti-Semitic, racist, and fascist and the admins don't care. I've send some reports and after a send like three there was a sudden new update to the page that 'no one was allowed to report posts.'

They post racist and other horrible rhetoric plastered over TDC characters. Make comparisons to real life wars and invasions to the ones in the show and laugh about it in the comments. One person commented that they 'couldn't wait for the liberal snowflakes to find this post and get upset about it'

There are endless distasteful comments about real life wars. Making posts that 'skeksis are quicker than xxx-army' or comparing people from invaded countries to podlings but then backtracking because 'at least podlings had an enough spine to fight back and resist.'

There have been made pictures of people photoshopping garthim over tanks. Tanks that were invading countries and caused real life deaths.

And a few of their members compared BIPOC to animals so... yeah. Disgusting shit all around.

There are also a lot of anti-vaxx posts, with the whole brainwashing, money grabbing schtick. Adding vaccine logo's or text over the draining scenes and comparing skeksis to the government.

Like @shitposts-by-thuban said in response to my other post;

"I remember seeing some posts a while ago talking about how conspiracy theorists were saying the show was literally showing what’s going on behind the scenes and the reason it got cancelled was the gov’t was trying to hide it"

This is literally how a lot of active members in that group think. Also I hope you don't mind I added your tags;

[Image ID: Grey text against a white back ground saying: tbh nazis try to hijack literally anything to recruit people and create dog whistles and coded language. End Image ID].

I feel this is becoming more and more true, sadly. And I know a lot of fans of this show are younger, and I hate to see them fall for these tricks. These 'memes' aren't jokes. They are cruel and disgusting.

Also @skekheck thank you as always for spreading the information! And to reply to your tags:

[Image ID: Grey text against a white background saying: I thought nazis fell off after the first few months of the show coming out. End image ID]

It sadly has seem to be gotten worse. At least on Facebook. I also know some were active on Twitter but I've got those blocked before I saw anything.

I know a lot of people have their art / cosplays posted in that group. So my advice is to remove those. It has become private so that may become harder now. Just be careful out there, don't go into this weird fucked up rabbit hole people in that group are trying to dig.

Thank you for reading so far, I'm a bit more clearer minded now, thank you both for your reblogs and responses.

[sage-nebula]

could u explain what u dont like about the new ppg show ? i always like hearing ur thoughts on things

Where to begin?

I haven't liked the premise since the get-go. To begin with, the idea that "superheroes but jaded and cynical" isn't revolutionary anymore, it's overdone. It would subvert expectations more to tell a story that's not like that. The days when all superhero stories were bright, colorful, and hopeful stories is long since done. Between Nolan's Batman trilogy, Watchmen, and The Umbrella Academy, we have enough of "superheroes once had hope but now are jaded and messed up adults" to last us a lifetime. Side note, but The Umbrella Academy also did "former child superheroes are now messed up adults" too, so even that aspect isn't unique to this Powerpuff Girls live-action show. If anything, it's like The CW saw the success of The Umbrella Academy and wanted to take their own shot at it, and they just decided to mess up an existing franchise rather than a.) find a comic series already doing something like that, or b.) create something entirely original and actually take a risk. Riverdale just isn't cutting it for them anymore, I guess.

To that end, the entire idea of taking Powerpuff Girls and making it cynical, jaded, and making the Girls complete messes as adults is the complete antithesis of everything the original show was. I'm not saying that you can't ever stray away from the source material when making an adaptation, nor am I saying that they can't handle mature themes with the Girls as adults (or teenagers if they had decided to go that route). Given the difficulties with finding good child actors, plus the difficulties with those actors aging even if the characters themselves don't, I completely understand why they wanted to age the characters up (especially since the primary audience for The CW is teenagers, so giving them older characters to relate to is probably for the best). But you can do that without ruining the central ideas that the original show had, which were that these Girls are superheroines who love being superheroines, whose town loves them back, who have a loving father who does everything for them, who sometimes make mistakes and need to find their own way through things but ultimately are positive figures and role models for girls everywhere. These Girls loved each other, loved their family, their town, loved their roles as superheroes, loved their friends, and that love was always what saved the day. And sure, sometimes the show could be campy and cheesy, but this was a superhero show with anthropomorphic creatures as villains and, well, kindergarten aged superheroines. It didn't need to be realistic and gritty, that's not ever what it was about.

So to know that the show was always going to mangle these characters and the themes of the original for something that is honestly trite and overdone left a bad taste in my mouth even before I saw the bits of the pilot script that were leaked. But seeing what was leaked, what do I hate about it? Well:

I hate that only Buttercup was cast as black when she is known as being "the toughest fighter" and therefore the most aggressive and violent of the three, since that's a racist stereotype of black women (see: the angry black woman). I also hate that she's not only queer, but also hyper-sexualized in her queerness as well, since that goes into more racist and also homophobic stereotypes (both in that she's hypersexual and also that she's the least feminine and most aggressive, so CLEARLY she's a lesbian, am I right?)

I hate that Buttercup threatens sexual assault against Blossom (leaking her nudes) to wake her up.

I hate that Bubbles is apparently a cocaine addict, or was one at some point.

I hate that Buttercup uses "triggered" with air quotes and is apparently some kind of anti-SJW caricature.

I hate that Professor Utonium is portrayed as an abusive father when he loved those Girls more than his own life in the original and, as stated, did EVERYTHING for them.

I hate that there's a whole scene where the Girls talk about his sex life.

I hate that Ms. Bellum is reduced to just being the Professor's abused girlfriend.

I hate everything that was done with Mojo Jojo, both in how he was split into two human characters and how apparently he created Chemical X but the Professor took credit for his work.

I hate that this adaptation made Professor Utonium into an abusive father, abusive boyfriend, and hack scientist who steals the work of others and then cast a black man to play him.

I hate that Blossom apparently killed Mojo and that's why the Girls are exiled from Townsville (or at least not able to use their powers there or something).

I hate that the Rowdyruffs are apparently in this mess somehow (Butch is mentioned at one point in the script as hating Bubbles).

I hate that they belittle the cartoon as being something terrible in this pilot by having Bubbles say that the Professor "sold their rights" to make the cartoon that "whitewashed" them (I get that she's trying to say it made their image look more pure, but considering the actress is literally white, her claiming to be "whitewashed" is fucking hysterical and just goes to show that the writers are trying to use social justice language without having a single idea of what it means). Basically, "the cartoon sucks, our show is better" when that couldn't be FARTHER from the truth.

I could go on. I always knew I was going to hate this show but the racism, the homophobia, and the complete degradation of everything the original show stood for is so much worse than I could have imagined. I thought we couldn't sink lower than the rebooted cartoon on Cartoon Network, but boy, was I wrong. Apparently they are retooling the pilot, but given that they said their reason for doing so was that it was "too campy and not grounded in reality" my hopes still remain in Hell (where they were originally but yet somehow it still ended up worse than I could have thought). All I can say is that I hope this trainwreck gets canceled before it ever airs. I doubt that will happen, but that's what I'm hoping for anyway.

[popculturebuffet]

Justice League: In Blackest Night Review: A Case Study in Why John Stewart is  Awesome

Hello my Green Lantern Corps and happy black history month! And happy 40th Anniversary Year to John Stewart. And let’s get this out of the way now not the one replaced by trevor noah who handed Tucker Carlson his ass on television and got his show canceled, please do it again John i’d be greatful, and has a weird obession with how Pizza should be. No i’m of course talking about the Green Lantern, the third from earth and the second to headline the book itself, John Stewart.  But to me.. he was my first Green Lantern and one that gave me a deep and abiding love of the Corps since all thanks to this very episode. It’s thanks to John I’m the green lantern loving nerd I am today and without him I probably wouldn’t of found Guy, Jessica, Simon, Alan, and Kyle not to mention got into the varoius other corps. It’s thanks to this episode I wanted to seek out these wonderful characters eventaully and in part why I got into JLI, one of my faviorite teams, among many ohter great things and books. 

So quite obviously both this episode, which I haven’t seen in probably a decade, and John have a great place in my heart. And thus it warms said heart to FINALLY see John getting the recogntion he deserves: he’s going to be one of the starring roles in the upcoming HBO Max series, he was on Scott Snyder’s justice league, and he’s now going to be headlniing the main Green Lantern book going forward under writer Geoffry Throne, who like me was VERY sick of the Hal Jordan show the Green Lantern franchise could become at times, and also like me gave out about it a LOT. The fact DC hired him despite a very public and easily accesable record of him slagging of their use of Hal instead of him ESPECAILLY in the new 52 reboot aka why Cyborg is in the Justice League movie as Geoff kinda shoved hal in there despite John being a more sensible pick and doing so not only shoving the Martain Manhunter, who this show also gave me a deep lasting love for, out of the team but forcing Cyborg onto the team despite fitting with the titans better and, AGAIN there being a black green lantern and given the New 52 kept the history of there being multiple lanterns, no reason Hal could’ve been SECOND instead other than DanDiDio’s bitchy habit of EVERYTHING WAS BETTER ON MY EARTH that poisoined the company for a good decade before recently. 

And yes I felt the need to rant about that, yes Green Lantern the animated series is still good mind you, I just got tired of bland white guy over “Really awesome, really layred especailly thanks to this series black guy”, “stubborn asshole white guy whose hilarious and has a heart underneath the layers of douchebag”, “creative and imaginative white guy who has as personality and really uses the ring in fun ways”, and more recently “A muslim superhero struggling with his past who’se also really energetic and fun and has an intresting family life” and “Latnix superheroine who struggles with anxiety and actually struggles with constructs and once she gets past that has very unique ones”. In other words, yeah I’m bitter because everyone else was more intresting than Hal, and it’s only in recent years with Jessica gaining promience and John regaining it that DC’s finally broke out of that and is actually using the intresting ones, and again without John I wouldn’t be a fan, so they had no real excuse to barely use him outside of the comics if at at all after a while. 

So yeah as you can tell by that rant and by how specific it got for each lantern, this is one of my faviorite franchises, as said this episode is responsible and so for Black History Month I felt i’d be a huge mistake on my part if I DIDN’T cover my boy John and this episode and see how it held up. The fact it’s his 40th anniversary wasn’t something I was aware of, but now I am, expect more Johncentric episodes from Justice League sprinkled throughout the year to celebrate one of my first and possibly best GL. 

Naturally before we get to the episode we have to get to the series itself. The series was launched as Batman Beyond was winding down. Bruce Timm wanted to keep the crew together, something I could empathize with since Owen Dennis and JG Quintel have ran into that same problem lately, with most of their crews drifting off during the gaps in production and Owen desperate to get the show renewed  before he lost everybody. A good crew isn’t had to find in animation but KEEPING them for multiple shows or seasons can be. And there was one project the fans wanted more than anything: The Justice League. After all BOTH Batman and Superman had had tons of guest stars, especailly the latter, with Batman having Zantana show up and Superman having the Flash (Wally West), Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner) and Aquaman all show up. There were seeds there.. but Timm was relcutant as he had trouble ballancing 2 or 3 heroes in a fight scene, wanting to keep them al lin focus so fans didn’t wonder where they were and they didnt’ have to cut back and forth, the idea of juggling 7 was daunting.  So as Beyond was finishing production a few things happened: The first is that they did the episode The Call, focusing on a future version of the League, and while only a two parter, it showed Timm his crew might be able to juggle a team of heroes after all, and second was the pitches Timm made BEFORE justice league. Since Kids WB had been hteir partner for a while now they tried pitching both a batman anime, he did not provide many details, and in his own words a “Kidified” justice league, basically the justice leagued mashed with the titans including a female version of cyborg. It was the latter pitch, which was rejected by Kids WB, that finally convinced Timm they could do this, but if they did it couldn’t be half assed or having compromises. it had to be what it SHOULD be. So they went to somewhere new, if in the same family and asked cartoon network, who said...

And here we are. They took their time to work out the characters, apparently taking a lot of delbiration, mostly on which GL to go with, and if they were going to do a hawk wether to go for hawkman or hawkgirl. In the end the roster was the iconic big 7 one, in large part thanks to Grant Morrison taking that concept and reviving it in his run on the team, but shaking it up slightly: Barry was naturally replaced with Wally West flash as he was THE flash in the comics, gave a slightly younger member for the others to play off of, and was more popular.. something Dan DiDio plugged his ears and went LALALALALALAL about for a decade before FINALLY leaving the company so he could stop screwing with a character he hated for reasons that can be summed up as ‘MY FLASH IS BETTER. YOU’LL LIKE MY FLASH.. YOU’LL SEE I JUST HAVE TO MAKE THE OTHER ONE A MASS MURDERER.. THAT’LL SHOW YOU FOR NOT LIKING WHAT I LIKE”... I still have maybe a smidge of lingering issues over how wally was treated the last few years after his return. I do not apologize for htem or for doing a little dance when I found out Didio was gone. 

Point is it wasn’t the only subsitution as Hal Jordan was replaced by John, obviously and rather than use Aquaman, they went with Hawkgirl, though Arthur still got an episode focusing on him fairly early into the series which has the iconic moment of him cutting his hand off to save his son. I dare you to find something more badass. Bruce both liked her deisgn better and felt it helped with the gender ballance. 

So with all that set and with some growing pains to get through they had their show so join me under the cut to see how it turned out. Spoilers: It good. 

We open INNNNNN SPACCCEEEEEEE, as a coaltion of neat looking aliens wants justice and has gone to a space court lead by three weird alien faces, likely inspiried by the kryptoian tribunal in the donnerverse superman movies, with their prosecutor sending a group of mysterious robots known as the Manhunters to go fetch the accused for a trial: John Stewart. Given he’s voiced by Kurtwood “Red Forman” Smith, i’m very surpised he didn’t order them to also put their foots up his ass. Maybe he’s saving it for the trial.

After the titles we cut to John himself whose in shades and trenchant for reasons.. I mean it looks neat, but he’s in his old neighborhood not hunting down his exes killer or trying to hide the fact he’s a ninja turtle. Why is he all disguised. I mean sure WE know people are coming from him and given what he thinks he did he knows.. but he has no intention of running from what he did. It’s just a weird stylistic choice. That said we do get a cool sequence when while casually walking he notices a robbery, and stops it simply by first stopping the wheel then levitating the car.. and while he does get a little showy shaking the guy upside down to return the money.. it’s all very controlled. It shows off how John works. While we’ve seen him at work as Green Lantern before this this small sequence says volumes about john in the span of a few minutes, showing that shilw he HAS immense power, he only uses the amount he needs, knows when to hold back, and only shows off a tiny bit, and even then he’s likely still keeping the theif absolutely safe. It also provides excellent foreshadowing for later as to why the League takes his side even when he refuses to defend himself, as it shows that John really is a professional true and true.

He runs by a basketball court and fails to make a basket when throwing a ball back to a kid before meeting his old gym teacher, who turns out to be the kids uncle or something like that, and invites John to join them as they go to the barber shop. The kid wants John’s haircut, his granpa says the usual and i’m wondering why as John’s haircut isn’t that radical: it’s a miltiary style cut, belying the fact that for this series, while it dosen’t come up in the plot here, John was a former marine instead of an architect. Honestly.. this wasn’t a bad change, giving us the deciated and measured john we know, to the point the comics gladly retconned it in. Not that it’s really a huge deal given it meelrly adds shades to the guy and dosen’t prevent him from being an architect. It just adds lairs by giving a reaosn he’s so focused and driven. He had it drilled into him and carried it with him. 

Meanwhile on the watchtower The Flash clumisly tries to get to know Hawkgirl better and maunver into asking her out, though it’s clear sh’es not intrested. Still even if he can’t help flirting, and it sometimes gets creepily obnoxious, it’s still better than I expected remembering this running subplot, as he DOES try to get to know her and what she does in her off time, even if it’s to set up asking her out, and is trying to ask her out instead of just hitting on her or doing anything far more creeptacular. It’s still not great mind you and hasn’t aged well at all.. but for the time it’s not TERRIBLE and again it goes away pretty quickly in favor of the much more intresting John and Shierya relationship. 

Flash accidently shoots himself in the foot.. conversationally though given how Wally is at this point in the series I wouldn’t be suprised, by asking the Martian Manhunter, who gives Hakwgirl an easy exit if he’s ever felt alone.. you know the guy whose entire race including his wife and child died horribly. He quickly apologizes though and John understands he just stuck his foot in his mouth at lighting speed. And it’s not the MOST insensitive he’s been about Jonn’s dead wife. 

But things are soon interupted as Jonn notes “We have an incursion!” 

But the Avengers are dealing with all of that so they can instead focus on the Manhunters shooting toward earth. I really like this as the primary reason Batman set up this station was to monitor for alien threats, it just because the Leagues base because superman had the idea to stay as a team and it was a good un, and given earth JUST had an invasion, as this likely isn’t too long after that given it’s only the second set of episodes, it’s understandable they’d  be on high alert. 

So our heroes move to intercept. As the first episode after the pilot this one also sets up a recurring part of the show and a necessary one: only a handful of Leaguers would feature in each two-parter, as the episodes for the first two seasons were essentially one hourlong story split into two episodes. The only exceptions were the three part premire, the three part finales for each season, and the sole solo episode comfort and joy which is fucking awesome and my faviorite christmas episode period. But even with the extended run time the crew simply felt i’td be unwiedly to juggle 7 characters eveyr episode, feeling it’d eventually get to original series star trek leevels of having one just manning a console or something. So rather than try and cram them all into every episode, they choose who they needed and gave valid excuses for the rest when necessary. In this case Batman and Wonder Woman have solo missions their busy with , as does Superman whose adressing an earthquake.  Our heroes try talking to the Manhunters.. who refuse to talk to them and then also say their coming for John, and aren’t explaning why. So naturally a brawl breaks out as the League SHOCKINGLY dosen’t want their friend who as far as they know has done nothing wrong taken by a brutish paramilitary force who won’t actual talk to the citzens their policing or try and be coporative. More on this in a second. The fight itself is pretty awesome as our heroes fight as evenly as they can.. but it’s clear their outgunned outplanned outnumbered and outmanned, as while their you know the justice league and do their best and Jonn is in Superman’s weight class the battle makes it VERY clear their barely holding in there and that the blast from the manhunters rods are just too potent for them to stand up against. 

But help and hope arrives and things get a bit less lopsided when Superman shows up! Unfortunately it’s season 1 superman, and something a lot of fans noticed but I as a kid didn’t and the crew themslves did not until it was too late to course correct for the season, was that Superman came off as a bit of a wimp in this series. See they had the good intention of having him struck down to show a threat’s serious, something TV Tropes calls the “The Worf effect” after the fact that Worf on Star Trek TNG would get knocked on his ass a lot for the same reason, but it has the side effect of making a character look like their made of paper mache if done too often. To the crew’s credit they realized this and not only made sure this didn’t happen as much in season 2, but dedicated the first episode of Season 2, twilight, to showing Superman as a badass by having him try and cave Darkseid’s skull in. Granted they overcompensated in places in that episode, but that’s a story for another day. Point is he had a habit of getting knocked around and it varied between really effective and overselling it. Here it works as the manhunters had already knocked Jonn around a bit, knocking him into some poor kid’s apartment whose really wondering what the fuck just happened too much to enjoy meeting the martian manhunter, so him  not being too on top of them simply sells this threat is equal, and possibly past the League. 

Meanwhile John is talking to his former teacher who says the kid reminds him of John... it’s not only a nice bit of depth to show the restrained John used to be a bit of a hellraiser before the Marines.. but also shows John’s guilt as he hopes not.. but before he can unload, he notices the fight and suits up to his old mentors shock and the kids joy, I mean I would too if a guy suddenly because a green lantern in front of me, and dashes off.. to surrender and break up the fight, handing over his ring and going with them and telling the League not to interfere. Their response can be summed up thusly. 

To John, he’s peacefully surrendering for a crime he comitted to a bruitsh and unfair police force but one who is duly deputized and as an officer himself, for the unaware the Green Lanterns are space cops and given the reason rightfuly reconing on the police I will certainly be discussing this as we go, is trying to coparate and prevent any collateral. While LIKELY Bruce pays for any that happens, as beneath his batdick demanour at times he’s a very good man and if he has the pockets for a space station, space craft, commuincators and all the good stuff a superhero team has on hand, he probably has a dedicated fund set up to paying for collateral since insurance might not cover it, and not only that would likely give any impacted extra to do any upgrades they coudln’t before because he’s a philanorphist .. one who dresses up like a bat to punch people in the face, but that itself is still philathophy in a way. 

But to the League? Their friend was taken by a bunch of shady paramilitary robots who didn’t bother talking to them, is trying to keep them out of it and for all they know only surrendered to prevent a fight, and even if he had valid reasons, as his friends-ish and teammates, they have a right to answers. So while John sits in his cell completlating his apparent crimes.. the JL have taken off in the Javelin, the spaceship I mentioned batman funding. And of course Batman has both spaceship money and had a design for one so ready it likely took a month at most for him to get it up and running, if not less, and only didn’t have one in the batcave because he hadn’t neededed it yet and likely didn’t want to embezle more money than he has to from his company. Jonn uses the stars John saw, say that three times fast I dare you, to find a location and our heroes head there.  Our heroes arrive.. and are attacked by the local security despite Superman geninely trying to hail them, the Javelin not firing back and our heros only going out to intercpet personally so they don’t die, and even then making careful certainty not to attack. So we get another thrilling battle, with our three flying heroes all pitching in, and the flash realizing he dosen’t know how to fly the thing and me cursing out bruce in my head for you know, not either forcing flash to learn the stuff, or having the forsight to put a manual on board for any members who forgot something, aka so when Wally inteivibly goofs off and eats candy instead of reading it the first time, he can speed read it and at least retain it long enough to land the thing in a crisis. If it were anyone else i’d be understanding but this is the guy who again, either had spaceship plans lying around or could get one together in the span of a month or so and while not thinking of the ship in terms of a team, still also paid for and likely created the commuincators they used, so he’d know his team well enough to know he needs this. 

My nitpicking aside, our heroes land, make quick work of the locals, and then crash in on John’s trial after he’s escorted in, passing his fellow lanterns who rightfully treat him with disdain.. but for the wrong reasons as we’ll see. John gives  groaning “oh no” , like he’s embarassed. When REALLY..

Seriously John, again you were as far as they knew kidnapped, and the way the manhunters acted, they had no reason to think they were legitamate, and you didn’t take five minutes to tell them, “They have every reason to be takning me” or “I blew up a planet I deserve this” . They still would’ve came mind you, they just might of realized this wasn’t a traditional rescue mission and actually tried to use some subtly. You also COULD have told the manhunters they might show up so the security wouldn’t attack them. They probably woudln’t o LISTEND or attacked themselves, so i’ts a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation, but you still did absolutely nothing. It’s the one mistep with John here and even then it has the justification of his self loathing at the moment being so high, he assumed they’d rightfully write him off without question.. not to mention given the team is mostly white guys, two aliens and a princess who woudln’t know better, he probably assumed like most white dumbasses they’d assume the police were correct and not give him the benifit of a doubt. To their credit, especially since you know one of them’s superman and the other one’s a professional dumbass, they didn’t think that for a second. Some would not be such a good person. 

But Prosecutor Forman and the big giant heads aren’t much better than the manhunters, so Prosecutor Forman sends some orange guys to put foots up their asses.. and since unlike the manhunters their just... some ambigiously gendered aliens with no powers, they go down quick and before the manhunters enter, superman RIGHTFULLY calls them out, as he points out they just wanted to know what the hell was going on, didn’t throw the first punch, and have been under attack since, and the heads admit this IS a public trial, and they kinda overreacted so as long as the superfriends don’t do any other antics and watch like anyone else, their good. Superman has his team play it safe for now as they really don’t know what’s going on and given they could only stalemate the manhunters on even footing, they know they can’t take them on their home turf.  

The trial is soon underway, and Prosecutor Forman calls the witnsees.. Kanjar Ro, also voiced by Smith. This is neat little bit as Ro was one of the first foes the League fought in the comics, a space pirate, and while he originally was just going to be some random asshole, someone brought up the idea of him being Ro and the crew really loved it. It’s a nice nod to the comics and honestly if you have a vast superhero universe with decades of continuity to draw from for your show, why NOT make the secondary villian of the episode be someone from the comics. 

Ro is, like the comics, a pirate and seemingly came forward because what John did was so bad even he can’t stomach it and has to say something. So we FINALLY find out what John did.. well okay the audience as a whole does I remember this from being a kid. He and Ro had a routine cop and robber interaction, Ro was smuggling shit, and John was doing his job as GL of Sector 2814 and stopping him and cut out his engine.. but seemingly said engine drifted off, and destroyed a planet as  result via chain reaction, and thus the debris right outside the planet John’s being tried on are apparently thsoe of the planet he accidently killed. The court takes a break and while the League, understandably, assume that the obviously shady man was lying John ends part one by confirming that no he did it. And this is why I put a pin in things... because the episode being about a space cop being arrested by worse space cops and dealing with his friends in the badge turning on him while some of his other friends try to prove he’s innocent, and the man in question being an african american... tackles some very loaded issues that, givent he writer and most of the staff, Dwayne McDuffie accepted, were very much white, i’m thinking they just kind of fell backward into and it only came out as good as it did either do to McDuffie or just blind luck that it didn’t turn out entirely awful in hindsight.

And if anyone is complaning: “Wait you dont’ need to get political leave politics out of this”.. please leave my fucking blog. For one, the recknoing with the police was long overdue, I feel ashamed for not having it sink in how fundementally broken the police were and not realizing it for my whole fucking life, I knew some cops were bad but I hadn’t realized the institution was inherently racist and bad  and feel so much deep and lasting shame for that, and for another again it’s a story that at it’s core is a black police officer being arrested for doing something wrong, taking full responsiblity for his actions like a police officer SHOULD, and having friends of his try and prove he didn’t really do it, while his fellow officers, rather than find the act itself abohhrent, come out as either being loyal to john no matter what (kilowog) because fellow officer, or assholes who ONLY are upset because it makes them look bad, and are ONLY distancing themselves because of that, and not because you know JOHN MAY OF CAUSED A GENOCIDE BY INCOMPETNECE. So yeah, i’m not ignoring the real world implications, I couldn’t and wouldn’t if I wanted to, and i feel if done right ANY medium, animation, comics, what have you, for kids or not, can tackle such issues and should be able to. 

So i’m not ignoring the elephant in the room, and as we get into part 2 we get the good and bad of this in full: Superman feels something’s off about this whole thing, a hunch admitely but given an engine falling in a crater seems a bit too convinent, he has a right to investigate and takes MM to do so, while he leaves Flash and Hakwgirl to stall. Both take diffrent approaches: Flash signs on as GL’s lawyer.. and it’s an awesome scene as we find out, in your standard evil lawyer joke, that the tribunal of faces solved this by simply having the lawyer share the punishment.. but it also shows Flash’s loyalty and faith that his friend did not do this and something worse is at work, as he still agrees after learning he’ll probably die if his other friends don’t fix this. 

And now we have full context i can get into where this episode really does the issue justice for the most part: John is presented as the model of both what the GL Corps and what police should be: He’s professional, uses minimal force despite having a weapon that can do anything, and when he THINKS he did something horrible, he dosen’t run from his crime: the most he does is go back home to see it once last time, simply waiting for someone to come and get him for what it did wether it be his own brothers in arms or as we saw the manhunters and he doesn’t defend himself because he dosen’t feel he should as he screwed up, got an entire planet killed, and rightly thinks he should pay for it. He’s likely, as a black man in the early 2000′s, been falsely accused, pulueld over and fucked over by police and seen people in his community he knewe and care about die because of shit like this so when given the chance to take responsibility, even from a clearly broken system, he does. Because in the same situation a lot of officers back at home would not and would walk away clean and that’s not who John Stewart is, how he was raised, or what he or the corps stands for. 

But the episode gets to have it’s cake and eat it too, as the League does belivie John didn’t do this on purpose.. and the blind faith they especially superman did come off as wince inducing.. until I realized it’s not because of some “brotherhood of the badge” bullshit.. but because it’s Superman. He belivies in the good of most people. In this very series despite Lex Luthor having tried to kill him dozens of times at this point, he STILL shows the guy empathy when he finds out Lex is dying of cancer. Lex spits at the notion of course and dosen’t take it seroiusly.. but Superman is just that good a person, so if he has a hunch somethings’ wrong.. it probably is. And even if he and Jonn found nothing... it’s the right thing to do. A crime should ALWAYS be properly investigated to make sure someone dosen’t hang for something they did not do. This is what I meant by have it’s cake and eat it too: the episode tackles police brutality.. but the accused is also the victim, and it thus tackles the unfairness in the us courts, how black people are often assumed guilty when that’s horribly racist and biased as fuck and how Police are assumed correct. Our heroes are assuming john is right based on optisim but are not wrong for wanting him to at LEAST get a fair trial and full investigation that clearly was not done. It also covers, again probably intetioanlly, how some are often not able to get proper representatin, with this court outright getting rid of it, which is wrong and bad, and the flash being the best John can do and not very good at it, mostly stalling for time. It shows the system’s brokena nd soemtimes you have to directly fight iht and can’t just take it , and even if your convinced your guilty and want to rightfuly take the blame for something your sure you did... you still deserve a fair trial and a compitent one. 

It’s not all good: as said the gl’s are portrayed as bad for not wanting anything to do with john, and in order to make them unsympathetic they care more about their rep than the fact a friend may of comited genocide and kilowog showing up and providing character witness is seen as a good thing, even if he provides no actual character evidence other than “Johnny’s a good guy” and that’s not ideal. It’s not perfect and again it was writtne by an old white guy so of course it isn’t but the fact it gets so much right the more you dig in despitei t’s awwkardness and being written and aired 20 years ago... that is nothing to sneeze at. 

We have more to dig into here too with the manhunters but first moreof the plot: While the other stuff mentioned happens, Superman and Jonn investigate as said.. and we find out WHY superman was supscious: while it was part hunch.. he did in fact have valid reason to suspect something was off, and as we saw actually heard the case against his friend first, and only went against it because the evidence was off.. in that the MOON of the planet is still there and should’ve flown off. He and Jonn soon find a MASSIVE device that John identifies as a bigger version of a toy he had as a kid, something that created images... and again shows whya  PROPER investigation was needed. Had the court actually looked into it instead of presuming John guilty, they would’ve found this thing too. Naturally though Kanjar Ro has followed them and wants to kill them.. but with her subplot wrapped up Hawkgirl went to seei f they needed backup, stealing one of the guard ships which given they attacked people on ap lanet iwth a PUBLIC TRIAL going on without haling them yeah don’t blame her, and kicks his ass. Our heroes find out the truth as I mentioned earlier: Ro was paid to lie and be in on things for an assload of money.. byt he Manhutners.. who at the moment are plotting to strike while Oa, the home of the green lanterns is weak, as the Guardians who created them and monitor them mostly left to go to the trial.

As we catch up with them, THe guardians speak on each lantern being trusted with the ring and given little oversight.. because they pick wisely. The prosecutor just wants John to hang, calls for a sentence, which is death and John and Flash nearly die, in case you thought I was pulling those parallels out of my ass. But Superman rushes in, and in a small, subtle gag he and Jonn do so thorugh a small pain of glass put over where they enterted last time, fight off security and save them, and before prosecutor foot in the ass can harumph about it more.. Superman claims jonn’s innocent..a nd has Shiera smash the generator, showing he indeed is, getting John aquitted. John also attacks Ro, who they brought along as a witness, rightfully so, but the League get him to stop as they don’t have time for that: the Guardians are strangely leaving after that, the manhunters are clearly doing something given their asbent, so John retakes his ring, restored to who he was now knowing he truly WAS innocent and was simply set up.. and he wants to find out why. 

We soon get the why as the Guardians explain the manhunters after the League won’t let them just.. brush by after they aburbtly tried to leave. They AREN’T behind the current attack.. but did create them, feeling robots would be better policeman. They were wrong, with the manhunters lacking empathy, being far too military in their job, and generally not being up for it so they simply gave them smaller jobs as bounty hunters, court balifs that sort of thing ans assumed they were fine because they didn’t say anything. As John puts it perfectly “Not outloud. “ And this itself is the other thing that makes the episode work as an allegory, if a very unteitonal one: The Manhunters are the police as they are now, violent brutes with way too much power, no restraint in using it and no ounce of mercy or sympathy for those they protect. And the Guardians rightfully removed this system, and replaced it with the corps. And while the Corps STILL have a lot of leway and power, being free to investigate on their own provided OA dosen’t call them to do someting specific, and given a ring that can do anything within corps guidelines, which basically means “don’t kill” and “don’t be a dick with it”, the guardians still watch them, do not interfere in trials and choose very wisely. not only that ther’es only one officer per sector, each sector being galaxies wide.. but that’s because that’s only what’s NEEDED. One Lantern with the power to take on entire fleets if needed, which is a fair amount of power given the scope of the job, and come in as requested by the people themselves, honestly isn’t a bad system. Granted the corps is wonky from time to time in the comics as are the guaridans depending on the writer, but at it’s core the corps really sounds like a more responsible versoin of the police: given just the gear necessary, the men necessary, and only called in when truly needed or if they spot a crime in process. THat’s what the people protecting us should be like and that’s why this episode still works. 

Obviously though I was aware of none of this as a kid, and the real reason I loved this episode is this climax. The League arrives on Oa just in time to provide backup. Presumibly the guardians there and incoming with the league simply dont have the power to spare to call for reinforcments. Which is weird but fair enough drama wise and our heroes storm the planet , with the corpsmen from before all showing up to pitch in. But John gets there too late as the head manhunter drains the central power battery, the source of the lantern’s powers, and declares I AM THE POWER, refusing to accept he’s out of date.

 And this, folks is the moment that made me love the lanterns for life. John is outgunned, the wise old wrinkled blue men who gave him his powers drained of there, starring down a massive monster planning to subjigate the universe... and he does not blink. See lanterns are picked for their willpower, their abliity to stare down things like this, and fight anyway, their very rings controlled by this, by their own force of personhood. It’s another reason besides logistics why theires only one per sector: it’s that hard to find one. Earth is so remarkable because , even if it’s simply so we could have more stars in the books over time in real world, we produced not ONE person capable of this.. but 7.. Alan Scott whose not in the corps but whose powers stll work on will and could probably use a regular corps ring very much included. John was chosen because he simply won’t give up. He gave up before.. but it was the right thing to do and ultimately biding his timea nd accepting his trial.. gave his friends time to aquit him and prove he was framed. 

But now is not the time to back down.. now’s the time to stand.. so how does John win? By USING his will, by using the reason he was chosen coupled with ihs own personal dedication and concentration, he grabs his ring as it floats toward the guy, takes it back.. and starts reciting the lantern oath. And since the Manhunter is indeed “The power”.. it means he too can be controlled like any lantern energy. and thus with every bit of willpower he has, struggling all the while but not moving a damn inch, John recites his oath and shoves the monster that framed him, and the power he stole, back into the battery, all while saying an oath so badass it has been etched into my head since thanks to this episode. Say it with me now..

In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night No Evil Shall Escape My Sight Let Those Who Worship Evil’s Might BEWARE MY POWER, GREEN LANTERN’S LIGHT!

And the credit goes to phil lamarr, who delivers the oath with all the gravitas and awesomeness it’s first delivery in this continuty it deserves. It was this that made me a lifelong fan: one man with the power of anytihng using PURE MENTAL STRENGTH AND DETERMiINATION TO SHOVE AN EVIL ENERGY BEING IN A GIANT LANTERN WHILE RECITING A BADASS AND AWE INSPIRING OATH. And if that dosen’t sell you on the Green Lantern’s being awesome I can’t help you and don’t know why your here. 

So wrapup time: The Guardians genuinely thank john, saying they choose well, and John brushes off his fellows corpspersons as they should’ve belivied him and thanks the League for having faith in him even when he didn’t. And while the former part has some.. bad implications we’ve gotten into already, I also can’t entirely blame him given they did it not because he might’ve killed someone but again, because 

Precisley. So our heroes prepare to head home, cue the credits. 

Final Thoughts:

So how does this episode hold up 20 years later? As should be obvious, damn well. It’s a good introduction for the corps, if showing them to be kinda assholes in places, and a good spotlight episdoe for John showing who he is what he stands for and again how TRULY MONUMENTALLY BADASS the man is. And lest you think the comics versoin is any LESS badass, he once got into a sniper duel in with Bedovian, a member of the Sinestro Corps and a crab person.. who was as I forgot till looking it up, THREE SECTORS, which i’ll remind you can comprise entire galaxies, away, with a ring made sniper rifle. In one shot no less. Point is even with some.. wonkier aspects, and ones that aren’t intetnional, it still works and is a shockingly relevant episode 19 years later and the fight scenes, as are standard for the series, are overwhelmingly awesome. Check this one out, and the series as a whole. With its great animation, character work and general badassery this one’s worth a few watches. And obviously given my love of this seires, and it’s 20th anniversay next year, and my love of John, check back here for more John-centric episodes throughout the year as we celebrate the guy. And I will also celebrate the green lantern NAMED guy eventually too, and jessica.. and all of them ebcause I love them all. Yes.. even Hal.  As for which John episode i’m doing next? Easy, one that intorduces me to a character I love who dosen’t get used near enough, Metamorphisis. The when I can’t say QUITE yet as my March schedule is full and most of my ongoing projects are on the backburner so I can tackle two arcs of ducktales, which coincidentally happened to be in time for the finale. That wasn’t planned AT ALL mind you, it just ended up working out really well that way.  For now though tommorow I begin my coverage of the final 4 episodes of ducktales with “Beaks in the Shell” and later this week finish up black history month with blacksad, continue my Lena retrospective with a money shark and some pr work, cover the second season of close enough, celebrate Tex Avery’s birthday and also celebrate the new Tom and Jerry movie.. with the OLD tom and jerry movie. Until then, see you next rainbow. 

[akkalafuru]

Let’s talk about today.

Today I was involved in drama. Yes. I know. Surprisingly, that’s not a common thing in my life (at least not that I’m aware of—unless I’m the subject matter of a conversation that I never heard of or participated in. Does that count?) All this situation made me reflect a little bit on how I've been approached in today's discussion and I think it deserves to be addressed.

I honestly don't even know where to start... Anyway. 

Yes. I agree that harassments, bullying, threats to an author are absolutely inexcusable and unjustifiable. It many countries they're considered a crime and the offender must deal with legal consequences. So Yes! It’s wrong and not supported by me. PERIOD.

It is also true the fact that authors should get criticisms/audience feedback in order to sense where their next steps should be, especially in a serialized franchise (which yeah, it can be a curse but also an opportunity). Even if your favorite author may not change their story main plot, it's quite naive to believe they wouldn't consider the audience response at all; like never ever.

With that out of the way, the story is that someone wanted to call me out because I replied to Suetsugu's post telling I was upset because of her tweet. Other fans weren't happy either, but I was the only one who mentioned "taichihaya", so I guess i became an easy target. (Also, it's worth comment that the fan-police scrutiny is much harsher and aggressive when it comes to Taichi fans and taichihaya shippers. That’s a fact.) 

My post was not positive, but it can't be considered offensive either. And of course, the same way I was able to express my opinion, others have the same right to do so. I don't think, though, that singling me out, comparing me to actual harassers and bullies, and insulting me, are smart ways to address my or any other situation. The level of response I got was disproportional and extremely rude.

I was also accused of being a repeating offender and infamous for doing that, which puzzled me. I'm curious to know the sources and past proofs because those are very serious accusations. I honestly haven't been aware of this kind of behavior of mine, but if they're true, I need to understand what's going on so I can work on that on myself. As an advice, though, making plain false or baseless accusations only weakens one’s argument, so when accusing someone, they better be true.

And with this out of the way, I want to address some other points that I cannot let go of. 

I understand that we're all behind screens. All we see are profile pictures, nicknames and a bunch of text. But behind each account ( I’m not counting bots and fakes here) there's a person with actual feelings and their own circumstances. Unfortunately, the internet allows for the dehumanization of the "others", resulting in situations where the lack of respect is too evident. 

Going back to the drama part, as soon as I started the conversation, I was said "if you can't see your mistake, I won't waste my time with you" and then I was blocked after a couple of exchanges. What's the reason of calling someone out if they want to immediately cut off the communication? If this person was face to face to me, would they talk to me like that? If I am that waste of a time, why summon me to this situation to begin with? 

The words used were very rude and if I was in a vulnerable mental state, I would definitely take them more than personally and start questioning my self-worth. That’s a personal attack and a very destructive one. If anyone receives a response like that, please (PLEASE!) understand that it’s not about you! That’s a defense mechanism people use to mask their own weak arguments! Not only that, it also sounds entitled af.

I also understand that many people want to take action and show service for their causes and beliefs, and I'm very admired by that pro-activeness. There's definitely value when it comes to bringing change in the world to move our society to a better path. However, the ability to discern the actual threat/harm and make a proper judgement are as important as acting on it. That’s why actions should be taken with purpose and reason after proper evaluation and reflection about a situation.

In theory, it’s easy to tell the difference between what’s right or wrong as we get a lot of black-and-white examples; in reality, there are a lot more grays than one expects. This person was absolutely convinced they were right, and that’s fine. Again... it’s their right to believe so. It’s a shame they weren’t open for dialogue and basically treated me as the unredeemable, unforgivable perpetrator for something I didn’t do (?), throwing unfounded accusations after accusations at me; in addition to pointing fingers exclusively at me because I mentioned my preference, which seems to offend them.

At the end of the day, I believe that I at least have the right to express my take on this mess and my view on this person. I thought their judgement was poor and their action was extremely offensive. They lacked maturity, reason and critical sense. This situation was embarrassing, humiliating and completely unnecessary. Calling someone out just for the sake of calling them out without expecting or foreseeing a counter-argument is naive, plain stupid and immature. Giving a “last” word before blocking someone doesn’t automatically grant any victories to any arguments. So... I’m sorry if your attempt to “own” me failed.

I don’t care if people are frustrated or has a lot of time in their hands, but if it’s the latter, at least go find something useful to do instead of wasting everyone’s time by trying to give hot takes online in exchange of likes. All these attempts to make justice with your own hands—by exposing others and bringing them involuntarily to your mess—feels like you’re massaging your own ego, especially if you’re not open to communicate, nor educate, nor talk about this in a non-confrontational and rational manner. I was gonna mention cancel culture and online lynching (maybe online inquisition! that sounds pretty fitting!), but let’s not go there. 

I know that I should’ve let that go and not incite drama. However, I had to stop someone from trying to look good in front of their friends (tell more me about virtue-signaling. Ok let’s not go there.) at my expense by exploiting a situation that barely applies to their argument. The more they get away with it, the more they believe it’s right to repeat the same action. The more we become silent, the more they step on us.

Lastly, I don’t want to accuse this person for targeting specifically me for petty reasons. I want to quote this, though:  “tell me who your friends are and I will tell who you are.”

There’s a reason why this saying exists. Let’s leave at that.

Cheers!

[qsdblogging]

Top 10 TV Shows You Need To Watch Right Now

Now, I watch a lot of television. I always have and frankly, I’m much more of a binge watcher than a wait-around-for-a-week-for-the-next-episode kind of watcher. 

And with everything the past few months, there wasn’t all that much to do other than start rewatching some of my favorite shows and some that I’ve never seen or haven’t seen in a while.

So, that’s what I did and here I am giving you some recommendations for shows to add to your own watching lists. 

Warning, though, some of these don’t end the best way and may end up more as a disappointment. I’ll leave that up to you to decide.

I. Fringe.

I cannot recommend this show enough to people. It’s got five full seasons (although the last could’ve been a little better, but it’s honestly not that bad of a final season) of high-risk scenarios revolving around almost unexplainable phenomena regarding a tear in the fabric of reality. It deals with experiments that gives superpowers (basically), advanced technology, and a parallel universe. 

Plus, there’s a cow.

What more could you want from a show?

Some familiar faces that are in the main cast or show up at some point include John Noble, who you may recognize from Sleepy Hollow and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Lance Reddick, who was in The Wire, White House Down, American Horror Story, and played Charon in the John Wick franchise, Leonard Nimoy, who you should know from the original Star Trek series, and Anna Torv from Mindhunter. 

II. Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector.

Now, if you know crime books, you may know exactly what this is based off of. If not, fear not, I am here to tell. This series (which, like a lot of the others down the list, unfortunately, got cancelled and won’t get to see a second season) was based off of The Bone Collector, a first in a series of novels by Jeffery Deaver. 

If you like crime shows, you should definitely give this a shot. Don’t let the fact that it’s only one season stop you.

Things get pretty wild in just one season as it revolved around a retired forensic criminologist, who had been trying to catch the Bone Collector only to get injured, that gets back into the game three years later when an ambitious young detective is determined to help solve the case when a new body shows up.

You might even recognize a face or two, like Arielle Kebbel (the ambitious young detective) from her role as Lexi in The Vampire Diaries and Olivia Charity in Midnight, Texas, and Russell Hornsby (the retired forensic criminologist) from Grimm, The Hate U Give, Proven Innocent, and The Affair.

III. Manifest.

Luckily, this show is said to be getting a third season and so far, isn’t going to get cancelled. It focuses on passengers from Flight 828, who show up five years after their plane went missing. Some passengers start experiencing what they call ‘callings’ and try to figure out if they were chosen for some sort of duty that the callings led them too, but things get a little confusing when someone who wasn’t on a flight seems to have a year missing of their own life after being deemed missing.

Things get a little weird and dangerous along the way, and not everyone is happy about how things turn out.

It’s pretty interesting and I’m really looking forward to what else they come up with. There’s a few familiar faces that play a part in the show that includes Daryl Edwards, who you may recognize from the first season of Daredevil, Ellen Tamaki who is also in the reboot of Charmed, Athena Karkanis, who’s been in The Expanse and Lost Girl, and Josh Dallas, who one may recall playing Prince Charming in Once Upon a Time, and Fandral in Thor.

It’s a rather good show to get lost in and I definitely recommend giving it a go.

IV. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

If you don’t have an idea as to what this show is, I don’t know what to say. The title kind of gives it away. It’s the only Marvel Show (as of now since none of the shows in production have come out as of yet) to technically be connected to the MCU itself.

That’s found in one of the main characters, Phil Coulson, who you’d recognize from Captain Marvel, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, and The Avengers. Plus, Cobie Smulders (Maria Hill) and Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury) both give a cameo in the show. 

The show was rumored to have been set in a different, but similar, timeline to that of the MCU movies, but I don’t know for sure if it’s true or not. 

It follows its own set of issues, including a deeper dive into the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., issues with HYDRA, and so on and so forth. The last season, which I honestly cried during, gives such good twists and callbacks to previous seasons and the MCU movies that you can’t help but enjoy how it’s handled.

As a show, it probably has one of the best final seasons possible and I highly recommend giving the full seven seasons a watch if you haven’t already.

V. Primeval.

Now, if you like dinosaurs, this is a show for you. It’s BBC, so obviously everyone has an accent. It gave a run of five seasons (which is kind of funny because I didn’t realize that until just now writing this as the show is listed as number five on the list) with different episode amounts. 

The show centers around anomalies that seem to open up a window to the very distant past of Earth when dinosaurs still roamed the land. It causes a lot of issues, especially if one person has anything to do with it.

It’s pretty interesting and honestly has got some great characters (my personal favorite is Captain Becker, played by Ben Mansfield) and while it can get pretty serious, it’s also pretty entertaining. It’s one of the three shows on this list to get to end on a good-ish note. (AKA, no cliffhangers!)

Obviously, I highly recommend giving it a shot. It’s kind of the point of this list.

VI. Terra Nova.

Now, like Primeval, this show technically has to do with dinosaurs. Dinosaurs aren’t the main focus, but they do play a part in this one season (because cancellations) story. 

Terra Nova is focused on both the future and the past. In the distant future (2149), the Earth is dying. A group of people, researchers, and military as well as some of their family members, are sent to the past (85 million years) to inhabit Terra Nova, a colony of humans given a second chance to build civilization. 

So, obviously, dinosaurs are going to make an appearance now and then. And unfortunately, the show only got one season and ends on a cliffhanger. Which I hate, because I really enjoy this show and wish it had been able to at least get a second season.

Plus, there are some familiar faces amongst the cast. Jason O’Mara, who plays one of the main cast members, played Jeffrey Mace in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Christine Adams, who plays Lynn Pierce in Black Lightning. Allison Miller, who played Sonya in 13 Reasons Why. And Naomi Scott, who is known for her roles in Lemonade Mouth (one of my all-time favorite DCOMs) and Aladdin. And this was just to name a few of the cast members. 

Shame it got cancelled, truly, but I recommend giving it a shot.

VII. MTV’s Scream.

I think you can figure out the basis of this show. While it doesn’t have anything to do directly with the movie franchise, it is kind of similar and a lot of the characters reflect those from the show. Neve Campbell even said that if the show did well, she would be willing to do a cameo.

It revolves (at least the first two seasons as season three is an entirely different set of cast and premise that I refuse to watch because of that) around Emma Duval and her group of friends as they’re picked off one by one by a serial killer going around town. Things get bloody and suspicions arise amongst the crew when things are revealed as the show continues, but things eventually work out in the end.

And personally, I really enjoyed the show even when the second season ended on a cliffhanger. I have theories about that cliffhanger, however, so watch out for a possible post regarding it. 

I highly recommend giving it a chance if you haven’t seen it. 

VIII. The Society.

Now, the title doesn’t give you much. A group of teenagers, who were sent off on a trip, suddenly are dropped back off in their town to find it completely empty aside from themselves. They have to form their own society to survive and figure things out.

Once you know that, it makes a little more sense.

It seems really similar to the Pied Piper tale, but it doesn’t seem like we’re going to really know for sure. Season 2 had been given a go-ahead, but not too long ago Netflix announced the cancellation of the show.

That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the first season like I do. Plus, if you’re a fan of Supernatural and the character of Claire Novak, Kathryn Newton plays one of the main roles in this show.

It’s a shame the show got cancelled, especially on a cliffhanger, but what can we do?

IX. The Mysteries of Laura.

Laura Diamond, a Homicide Detective, cracks case after case while trying to raise twin boys and locking horns with her less than helpful Police Detective ex-husband. At least, this is according to IMBD and frankly, it’s not really wrong. 

For two seasons, it’s packed with comedy and crime. It’s more of the former, but it still gets pretty serious every now and then, and unfortunately ends on a cliffhanger. 

However, some cast members may be familiar. Like Josh Lucas, who voices Home Depot commercials (and trust me, it made my family laugh when we first heard one after watching the show), Laz Alonso who plays MM in The Boys, and Debby Ryan, from Disney Channel. 

If you like light-hearted crime shows (like Brooklyn-Nine-Nine) you should definitely give this a watch.

X. Warrior Nun.

As far as I know, this show has been renewed for a season two. I’m really hoping for it because it’s honestly kind of interesting. You can kind of tell by the title what it may be, but I’ll dive a little deeper.

After waking up in a morgue, Ava, an orphaned teen, discovered she now possesses superpowers as the chosen Halo Bearer for a secret sect of demon-hunting nuns. (Taken from IMDB). Interesting, right?

With characters like Shotgun Mary, Sister Beatrice, and Sister Lilith, you know the show’s going to be interesting. But the premise is pretty interesting on it’s own too.

There’s even a character called JC, who apparently has nothing to do with Jesus Christ, but I still like referring to him as such because it’d be pretty funny if that’s how it turns out. Also, someone gets beat up with a whole chicken at some point.

It’s only got the one season so far, but it’s pretty funny and action packed. Like everything on this list, I definitely think you should watch it and find out for yourself if you want to add it to your list if you haven’t already.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #332

i’m even more tired than before to try and think up song lyrics, i’m pasting from Word and then fucking off to bed lmao.

What was the last video message you received on your phone? I think it was a clip of Doris (Sara's beardie) eating and just being her perfect self? Was your last birthday cake homemade or store bought? Store-bought. One thing you miss about middle school? Shit, nothing. Middle school was the worst. Do you have any shirts signed by famous people? No. Have you ever entered an art competition? Yes. Would you ever pierce yourself? No. I am very much about having a professional do your body mods/art. Plus, I have tremors in my hands. Do you live in a safe neighbourhood? Supposedly. We haven't lived here nearly long enough to know. What is the last thing you did that shocked someone? /shrug Do you often find yourself questioning your future? Only always. Have you ever been for a ride in the back of a truck? Yeah. Do you like your license photo? I hate my permit picture. Are you into superheroes? Who’s your favorite? Not very, but I like 'em enough. I always say my favorite is Deadpool, but I know he's technically an anti-hero, but whatever. If you don't include him, uhhhh... maybe Spiderman. Have you started watching any new TV shows recently? No. Have you ever been able pet a normally wild animal, like a tiger or dolphin? No. :( At least, not to my recollection. Have you ever eaten snow? Yeah. There's actually a winter treat 'round here that you make with snow and sugar called snow cream. Good stuff. What is the messiest area in your home? Right now, the spare room/my wanna-be "office." What’s your favorite computer game genre? Still horror, like video games. Do you have any exes your parents never liked? No. Have you received financial help from your parents in the past 5 years? I'm completely financially dependent on them still. Are you a fast or a slow eater? I eat like, stupid fast, but without being messy. People *cough*Mom*cough* will absolutely point it out, but I seriously can't help it. Making a conscious effort to eat slow feels way too weird. What was the last thing you purchased from a small local business? I don't know. Is there anyone in your family/household whom you frequently argue with? No. Have you ever used chewing tobacco? Ew, no. Tell me what's on your mind? I've been considering yet again reaching out to some tattoo parlors and asking if they're open to hiring someone to handle the front desk and take care of business besides actually performing piercing and tattooing, given my tremors. My group therapy has kinda been encouraging me to use the possibility for social exposure, and besides, I'm very comfortable in the environment and just general aura of tat parlors. I'm sure I'd have to answer the phone, handle money, and obviously talk to costumers, but I know and accept that. I've been at such a stagnant point with my social anxiety in particular that I have to start pushing back harder, and doing this I feel would be one of the most relaxed, social job positions I can hopefully handle. I don't dare to even try this though until I get vaccinated to protect my immunocompromised mom. Writing this all out has actually been pretty encouraging about this idea... Do you wish you never dated someone you dated? Yeah, Tyler. It was such a "I'm lonely and he was nice in high school, so we'll try it" situation. I got nothing from it. Are you scared of growing old alone? Pretty badly. What are you listening to right now? I'm listening to/semi-watching John Wolfe play the remaster of Resident Evil 2. What breed was the last dog you saw? He was a German shepherd. Would you ever go swimming during a thunderstorm? No. Any time a thunderstorm was brewing and I was in the pool, I'd always get out. What is the next concert you will attend? Mom and I plan to see Ozzy when/if he reschedules his tour after he had to cancel with his Parkinson's diagnosis. What was the name of the last pet of yours that died? Teddy. :/ What's the highest science class you have taken? I don't know, actually. What makes you squeal like a school girl? No shame, seeing Mark and Amy do something cute together actually does this, lmao. What’s your favorite symbol? (i.e. the pentagram, the cross, etc.) Do fictional ones count? Because in that case, the Halo of the Sun from the Silent Hill franchise. I'm getting it tattooed somewhere at some point, I'm thinking the left side of my neck. I'm either gonna fashion it in a way where it looks branded on or carved into me. Have you ever been on anti depressants? For all of my pre-teen, teen, and some of my adult life. Apparently, I've only had one truly educated psychiatrist out of no less than a dozen I'd seen, because he fixed me right up. He taught me that those who suffer from bipolarity should avoid anti-depressants; they ramp up your bipolar symptoms. Instead, mood stabilizers are favorable. And what do you know, after I was prescribed a stabilizer and a catalyst for that medication, my depression decreased dramatically and became handleable. Have you ever starved yourself? Kinda. What’s the stupidest name you’ve ever given a pet? I had a guinea pig named Harry Potter. For no particular reason lmao. I'm not even a Harry Potter fan. Do you have nice legs? God no. Do you like fedoras? Okay so I know I am in the strong minority, but I actually do, haha. What is your favorite food group? Carbs. @_@ Have you ever got told that you should be a model? No, but one of the most flattering indirect compliments I've ever gotten was being mistaken for one. Jason's phone wallpaper was one of my favorite pictures of myself with my first snake, and someone asked him if I was a model. ;v;' What song is in a language you don’t speak, but you love it anyway? "Donaukinder" by Rammstein is one of my faves. Who’s a villain you sympathize with and why? SOBS Darkiplier bc his origins are so damn tragic and unfair. What book do you think should be directed as a film? Was The Giver ever made into one? I don't remember that book well, but I do recall it being absolutely beautiful. Have you ever found a stranger’s note somewhere? If so, what did it say? No. Have you ever edited Wikipedia? No. Have you ever edited any other wiki? Yeah. I have thousands on the Silent Hill wiki, where I'm one of the admins. I'm also a content moderator at the Team Ico (Shadow of the Colossus devs) one. Every now and again I used to go on the meerkats wiki as well, where I mainly fixed the fucking nightmarish grammar. Very briefly, I edited at the Dragons of Atlantis wiki as well. Do you get scared when you know some virus or sickness is being passed? Not very, but of course I still acknowledge the risk and am more conscious of hand washing and stuff. What popular social media platforms AREN’T you on? Snapchat, I don't actually use my Twitter, I don't have a personal Instagram... There may be more, idk. Is TikTok a "social media platform?" Because I don't have that, either. What was the name of the first porcelien doll you got? Never had one, given I was afraid of dolls as a kid. What’s your favorite Paramore song? "Decode." Would you be happy with a life without romance? To be entirely honest, I'd feel like I was missing something. Was your childhood happy? Mostly. What fundamentally matters do you? Love, kindness, peace, all that gooey stuff. Is true world peace ever possible? As much as I hate to admit it, I don't think so. The human population is far too big to come to a unanimous agreement on anything. Do you hold yourself to higher standards than you hold others? Yeah. Would you ever own a pet black widow spider? No. I'm getting more into the idea of owning invertebrates (I jabber enough about wanting tarantulas, and there are others, like mantises, I'm interested in as pets), but black widows, I'm not into the idea of having. Too venomous for me to be comfortable risking. If you have a job, what is the longest shift that you've worked? N/A Do you know all of the words to "Bohemian Rhapsody?" FUCK YES I DO. ^ Do you sing it with all of the different voices? sho nuff Do you own more than one copy of a certain book? No. Do you like interpreting poetry or just reading it for fun? Both. I love symbolism, so I get joy out of digging for subtle meanings in poems. Do you have a favorite Dr. Suess book? Yeah, it was always Green Eggs and Ham. Do you watch The Walking Dead? If so, favorite character? Not the show, but I've watched let's plays of the games, haha. In which case Clementine is inarguably one of the best female characters in a video game universe. Who has/had the most mature romantic relationship you’ve seen with your own eyes? Uhhh. I mean I never saw them much, but probably my late grandmother and her last husband. He was fucking incredible to her, and Grammy adored him as well. They helped each other so much and just obviously had the purest love between them. When was the last time you got something for free (legally)? What was it & have you enjoyed it so far? Lmao do balls in Pokemon GO count? Their occasional free boxes are the reason I can play the game because PokeStops are essentially non-existent here, so yes. What is the one fruit you can’t stand to eat? How about vegetable? The first one that came to me were oranges. I enjoy orange juice, but I just caaaaannot with the white veiny shit that you can't totally get off when peeling it. Without that, I might actually enjoy them, but idk. As for vegetable, asparagus is absolutely abhorrent. When’s the last time you actually recited the pledge? If you aren’t American, do/did you have anything similar in your country that you do during a time at school? Probably not since high school. Last person you shared food with? Ummm I have no idea. It's really just Mom and me here and we eat our own stuff. What was the last song you heard for the first time and enjoyed? I believe it waaas... "Down In The Park" by Marilyn Manson, maybe. If your life was a TV show, what would be the theme song? My inner high school emo just screamed "All Signs Point to Lauderdale" by AD2R. Who are some of your favorite female fictional characters, and why? Gahdamn, there's a lot. I don't feel like going through a mental list in my head and then describing why. A character (in anything) you wish hadn’t been killed off? Vol'jin; I think the entire WoW fanbase will forever be pissed about it. It was THE most "lul we dunno what 2 do w/ him anymore, let's let a totally random, unnamed, unimportant demon kill him" like what the fuck, Blizz. Most of his "oomph" was in the book, and I just really wish they'd done so much more with him in the game. Has anything “cute” happened in the past week? Off the top of me noggin, no. When did you last say “I love you”? Did you mean it? Yesterday to Sara. OF course I did. Is there someone who pops into your mind at random times? Hi, PTSD, how are ya. Have you ever slept all day? Essentially. When I was on a larger dose of my anxiety med, I physically couldn't stay up for barely even five minutes, and when I'd lie back down, boom, I was OUT. I stayed on that dosage for I think just that one day, it was so bad. Can you have kids? Well, I have a functioning menstrual cycle, so I would assume so. Doesn't mean I will, though. What colors of mascara have you worn on your lashes? Only black. Do you like eating sour things? Hell yeah, I love sour stuff, candy in particular. Do you like pickles? fuuuuck yeah Did you ever have a really close friend move away? Yeah, in elementary school. I feel bad I can't remember her name at the moment... What's the most creative thing you've ever done? I mean, I guess the things I've written in RP. What's the most creative thing someone has done for you? For me? I don't really know. Do you like to watch ghost-hunting shows? Sure, they're some of my favorites. What’s something you’d like to be better at? Social interaction. Have you ever stayed up to talk to someone who was sad? Yeah. Do you think you would make a good parent? No. I know I wouldn't. The only time I ever wanted kids was with Jason, and honestly, I really hope I don't end up with a man because I never want to deal with that urge again and make a mistake. I'm just in no way emotionally fit to be a mother. How many best friends do you have? Just one. What do you cry over the most? My PTSD, honestly. I never sob about it anymore, just shed some tears. What language did/do you take in high school? Latin for one semester, then all four available for German. Which sports do you follow? None. Who was the last person you talked about marriage or having kids with? About marriage, Sara. Kids, the subject was lightly touched upon with Girt, though "with" was never a part of it, but obviously implied seeing as we were dating with long-term in mind. Have you ever been in a house fire? No, thankfully. Have you ever made out for one straight hour? them is rookie numbers Are you any good at remembering phone numbers? No. I literally don't even know my own, nor my mother's. I need to fix that. Who is your best friend of the opposite sex? Girt. Do you have a bookshelf? If so, just one or how many? No. If I gave you twenty bucks what would you do with it? Save it to go towards Venus' terrarium. Is there a movie from your childhood that you still watch today? Well of course! I'm unashamed to watch any "kids" movie I enjoy, like Disney ones. Most "kids" movies tend to be better than those intended for adults, it seems... Are you afraid of mice? Oh no, I adore mice and I think had a pair as pets before I got rats. What type of souvenir do you usually purchase when on vacation? I can't really answer this; I haven't gone on nearly enough vacations to develop a theme. I can say confidently though it'd probably be something small. If you could see any musical on Broadway right now, what would it be? I don't enjoy musicals. Have you ever watched Doctor Who? One or two with Sara, yes. I know we at least watched the weeping angels episode. If you read, which book or series did you enjoy most as a child? Warriors by S.E. Hinton. Sometimes I wanna get back into them, but I am YEARS behind and more into Wings of Fire anyway, so. I don't read nearly enough for both. How do you get rid of your hiccups? Literally no trick seems to work for me. I just suffer lmao.

[maknaesdancersrappers]

on the sixth day of kinkmas, my lover did to me:

[ g a g s ]

>>DOYOUNG

>>warning/s: blindfold, light bondage, quick fellatio, cheating, dirty talking, vulgar language, uhh implied creampie??? and breeding kink bc idk its growing on me im probably having existential crisis

a/n: rj gets carried away pt 2 ft doyoung

-

Kim Doyoung was a powerful man; the CEO of his own company at the age of 26, had multi-million franchises across the globe. He had everything; a mansion on an acre land he owned, vacation houses in each province of the country, the latest models of sportscars parked in his garage, a beautiful wife of 5 years—you would include “loving,” but that was only used for publicity.

When Doyoung had married his wife, he had no say in the matter. It was pre-arranged by their families, a contract made by their grandfathers. He didn’t care at first, it’s not like he was in a former relationship or even wanted one. For the first few months after their wedding, they did try to work things out; actually try to fall in love with one another, but in the end, as he had come to find out, she was only in it for the sake of making her family happy.

They had sex, plenty of it. All vanilla and boring—Doyoung wanted more, but she wouldn’t even let him hold her wrists down for a few goddamn seconds. The sex stopped when he found out about her lover: a high school sweetheart she was forced to leave because she had to marry him. And since that day, they’ve established that their relationship was purely just a piece of paper, that their status of husband and wife is nothing but a title to the public and their families.

You only came to the picture when Doyoung had made a surprise visit to one of his hotels in Busan. He parked his matte black Audi s8 beside a white Jeep Wrangler.

He steps out of his car to stretch his limbs and hears squeaking from behind him. As he turns, he sees you through the rolled down window of the Jeep; panting and sweaty, hair disheveled.

It doesn’t take long for him to realize you were riding someone—and from the look of disdain and annoyance on your face, it wasn’t going to knock your socks off. You notice him and he doesn’t move a muscle, unashamed of being caught watching you. You didn’t even care that he had seen you because the man beneath you was coming—quite loudly and finished with a smile on his face and a scowl on yours.

When you look back up to the man that had been watching you, he was gone. You almost felt embarrassed, only because he had to watch such a pathetic excuse for sex.

“You didn’t have to walk me to the elevator.” You quipped, clicking your heels against the polished floors.

“If I didn’t have to go to this emergency meeting, I’d walk you all the way up to your room.”

You spare him a sarcastic smile, “If it really was an emergency, you would have just dropped me off.” You turn the corner to where the elevators were and found the man from earlier. He has his hands in his pockets and gaze to the floor.

“Can I see you later tonight?”

“Nope.” You snapped, “Beauty rest for the wedding.”

The elevator doors open after a ‘ding’ and you briskly walk inside after the man.

“How about after—”

“I’m driving back to Seoul next morning. I’d rather not.” You swipe your keycard on the sensor and press your floor number.

The man you were with frowns, “Oh, well, then I guess I’ll see you at the wedding.”

You forced a smile at him before the elevator doors close and once they do, you groan, rolling your eyes until they land to the male who had witnessed everything. “Sorry you just had to watch the worst free live porn ever.”

He smirks, shrugging “I can’t say I’ve seen worse. I was wondering why a Seoul city girl like you would be with a Busan boy like him, he must be your partner for this wedding you’ve mentioned.”

“Oh, you know how it goes, single bridesmaids and groomsmen, yada yada, getting lucky and all that—well, he did. I did not, I definitely did not.” You’re reminded of the ache between your legs that you had to deal with back in your suite.

The elevator dings again and it opens to the lobby; no one gets in and you raise a brow at the man. “Aren’t you gonna get off?”

He looks at you, contemplatively.

The doors close and the elevator starts making its way up to bring you to your floor.

“I work for this hotel. I think it’s only right I escort a customer to their floor, especially after such a traumatic encounter that happened within the building, and make sure you have everything you need.”

“To say you work for this hotel is an understatement, Mr. Kim.” You laugh, finally recognizing his face under proper lighting.

“So you know who I am.”

“That handsome face of yours has been on the news a few times, so yes, I do know you.” You hum, warily eyeing him, “Your wife and I went to the same high school. She’s my junior.”

Doyoung scoffs, “Then you must know her lover, they were high school sweethearts.”

You look up at him, wide-eyed. “I-I do… I’m sorry.”

“My wife and I have come to terms that we’re only binded by a marriage contract. We’re just waiting for the right time to file for divorce. There’s no need to appologize.” The elevator doors open and he places a finger against the button to keep it that way, politely smiling at you. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay, Miss…”

You say your name and begin to step out of the lift.

He repeats your name with a slight purr. “If there’s anything else you need, let me know.”

Everything began there; and six months later you don’t regret the encounter. You can still remember how you came undone once from his fingers, another with his mouth, and three consecutive orgasms with his cock. Even though you were completely spent, sensitive and overstimulated, you wanted more.

Doyoung gave you more and more every time you meet. You didn’t need an exchange of words to know what your bodies wanted; he wants complete control while you wanted to be used.

“I don’t understand how the men before me let you go to waste. They’re idiots.” He grumbles, taking off his wristwatch.

You chuckled, the little vibrations from your throat stimulating his cock as you sucked it. He had called you over to his house in Anyang when he found out you had a meeting nearby; that had been cancelled due clashing schedules so here you were, on your knees before him.

“They didn’t let me go. I let them go. They’re idiots for not knowing how to pleasure me even though it’s the simple concept of ‘give and take,’ hmph.” You quietly say after pulling away from his shaft, pumping it with both your hands. “What about your wife? Didn’t she find pleasure in this?”

“I guess it’s different if you’re in love with someone else.” Doyoung tosses the accessory aside as if it didn’t cost a hundred thousand dollars and starts working on untying his tie. “Also, can you stop calling her my wife?”

“She still is, though, until you file for divorce and until then, I’m still technically your mistress.” You push his cock closer to his stomach and lean forward to kiss his balls. “I thought you two had the papers already?”

“Our parents want a grandchild—and while both our grandfathers are still alive, they’re more than eager to hold their great grandchildren before they die.” He groans and you don’t know if it’s because of his dilemma or your mouth playfully nipping at his testes. “And of course they had to mention that when we were about to announce our divorce.”

You kiss his cock one more time before rising to your feet, “I’d offer you help, but I don’t know how aside from letting you use my body as a stress reliever.”

“It’s enough, trust me.” He smiles, tipping your chin with his finger and kissing your forehead, “Open your mouth.”

You look at him incredulously at his request, hesitantly parting your lips.

He jams his rolled up necktie in your mouth, holding you steady by your nape. The sweet smile on his face was now replaced with the expression of what you can only describe as the face of a predator, which meant you were his prey. “Enough talking. Do what you do best, sweetheart, and be a good slut for me.”

He pushes you over the bed and pulls your tight shirt up your body, leaving it around your eyes and kept your arms by your head. You feel him palm your breasts for a moment before the strapless bra you wore came off.

There was a soft sigh before you felt his mouth closing on your left nipple while fingers tweaked the other. You arch yourself towards him when it ended so quickly, his mouth leaving your skin with a pop before you feel him working to get your pants off.

After your slacks came off with your panties, you lay there; waiting with a necktie in your mouth and a shirt above your eyes. You knew what he was doing. He was standing there by the bed, shedding the remainder of his clothing and watching you; daring you to do something he wouldn’t like so he could punish you for it. But tonight you wanted to be rewarded.

He probably hoped you’d grow impatient and shrug your shirt completely off, but instead he watched you spread your legs apart and invited him to stare at your pussy, pink and sopping with anticipation.

You feel a lone finger quickly trail from your entrance to your clit, eliciting a gasp muffled by your gag and your hips lifting upwards to chase the contact.

“If I had you like this everyday, with that tight pussy of yours just waiting to be pounded by my cock, I’d be a father in no time.” He scoffs and you hear an appreciative hum that tells you he brought his finger to his lips.

The mattress by your feet dips down and you feel his hands run along your inner thighs, teasing you as he avoids contact where you wanted it the most.

You whine through your gag but he seems to ignore it, moving your legs so they would be draped over his thighs.

“I’ve always been one to use protection, but I remember the first time we met. You were just begging to be fucked by me, crying about not caring if I had a condom on or not.” His weight shifts on the bed again and then you feel the tip of his member pushing into you. You’re moaning through his necktie, jaw already aching at being jammed open for so long. “I came twice in you that day and you know what, sweetheart?”

He starts to thrust all of a sudden, pounding into you so quickly that your walls struggle to adjust to his girth and are rubbed raw. You feel his fingers digging into your hipbone with a bruising grip as he surges himself into you repeatedly. “It. felt. so. fucking. good.”

You cry as loud as you can through your gag, wanting to move your own hips to meet his thrusts.

“I’ve never thought about kids, [Y/N]. Have you?” He hisses, switching the angle of how his cock enters you and causing you to moan again. With your lack of response, he shakes your hips against him, “Answer me.”

You vehemently shake your head, tempted to take your shirt off so you could look at him, but you kept them overhead and held your forearms. He resumes his actions, letting go of your hips to fondle your chest.

“God, I love your pussy, sweetheart. Always so tight, no matter how much I fuck you. So fucking delicious—always so wet when I see it, always eager to take my cock. Your pussy is just perfect for my cock, don’t you agree, sweetheart?”

You’re breathing heavily through your nose now, almost choking on your saliva when you tried to breathe through your mouth. You shake your head.

“No?”

You mumbled back something, but obviously it was obstructed by the makeshift gag. You do your best to swallow the saliva that’s accumulated in your mouth despite the necktie and repeat yourself. “Yours.”

“Mine?” Doyoung repeats, and in your head you can see the confused expression he tends to make, “Are you trying to say this pussy is mine, sweetheart?”

You nod, writhing under his hold and finally able to meet his thrusts with your own fervent movements.

“Really? This pussy is mine, sweetheart?”

You nod once more and he stills, length halfway inside of you. His hands are no longer on your boobs, but resting back on your hips. Before you can complain about his inactivity, he drives himself back into you with a force strong enough to send your body further up the bed. It’s creaking this time with the headboard hitting the wall and creating the softest thud.

Doyoung brings his thumb over your clit, rubbing furious circles upon it, relentlessly, until you’re crying out loud and struggling.

Unable to keep still, you try to remove your shirt but he catches you, pushing your arms back down above your head.

“If this pussy is mine, sweetheart, I would want nothing more than fill it up with my cum. Is that okay with you?”

You shake your head in agreement.

He groans, continuously thrusting. “And if I get you pregnant, sweetheart? What will you do, huh? Will you keep it?”

You don’t know how but you were able to scream out a discernible and resounding “Yes!”

Without ceasing his movements, he tears your shirt off from your face and limbs, and your eyes adjust to the sudden brightness. When you finally focus on him; with his eyes lustfully glaring down at you, jaw strained, and his entire body tense as he brings you closer to your climax, he asks through gritted teeth, “Do you want me to get you pregnant, [Y/N]?”

He fishes his necktie out of your mouth, disposing the damp thing on the floor, and cluthes your jaw to pull you in for a kiss.

You break off the kiss, placing your hands on his hot skin, “I want you to fuck me until I do.”

Doyoung growls, rolling your bodies until you were on top. “Then go get it for yourself, sweetheart. Chase that chance to have my children.”

Like a maniac, you ride him; gyrating your hips, clenching around him. The beautiful sound of his moans is music to your ears and merely fuels you to move faster. You reach your climax first, throwing your head backwards and jerking erratically above him; which triggers his own, ejaculating deep within you.

Your lower abdomen feels hot as you calm down from your high, still gently moving your hips despite being sensitive to ride his orgasm out, each sporadic squirt of his seed making you flinch.

With his cock still seated comfortably inside of you, you feel yourself fall backwards, making him sit up and guide you gently down the bed and lay between his legs.

“Aren’t you on birth control?” He asks, voice completely raspy and out of breath.

“No.” You confessed, “They make my boobs too sensitive. I just take ‘morning after’ pills after we fuck.”

“Do you plan to take them tomorrow?”

“Do you really want kids?”

He shrugs and you snort, “Doyoung, will you even take responsibility if I get pregnant?”

“Of course I will! What do you take me for?” He exclaims, obviously offended. He smooths his hands over your thighs, “I just don’t have experiences with kids to know how I’ll fare with them. But I do know I’d like an heir to my company.”

You gesture for him to help you sit up, both of you wincing when he does as your bodies are still connected. “I’ll take the pill, only because it feels wrong to try and make a baby when your parents want you to have one with your wife.”

“Again, can you stop calling her that? She doesn’t even call me her husband anymore. Also, I never said they wanted me to have a kid with her. Technically, they never specified who the mother of their grandkids can be—they’re only assuming her because they don’t know what’s really going on between us.”

“So no pill?”

“It’s up to you, really.” He chuckles, nuzzling his nose against your cheek.

“Is that why you’re still hard?” You lick your lips at how his dick is throbbing inside of you.

“I’m telling you,” Doyoung sniggers into your ear, “There’s just something about your pussy that makes me want to fill it up.”

[aberaspberry]

To jump on that other anons ask. Well I am glad it's the poc on the show who are making waves in the industry. You can tell the useless white male cast members of this show are fine sitting on their bags of money and taking everything for granted. Andy, Norman and Jeff will die with the AMC ship. It's a shame Andy is so keen on wasting his talent. Good luck driving your career into the ground I guess 💩. Anyway stan Danai for good health and clear skin. Can't wait to see what she does next.

Lol yep I totally love that. Like I’m so happy for Sonequa leading Star Trek as a black woman and the show is still going strong. Steven is making waves here and in Korean films, getting awards. And of course Danai being the queen she is with that here writing and Marvel franchise now. POC making in big

The main whites can just stay on that show forever for all I care lol. Kinda feel bad for Lauren since her show got canceled. I mean it looked like crap but I like to see people who were given the shaft on TWD prosper elsewhere. Idk about JDM tho since he’s been on other shows and movies. He’ll leave eventually and still be known for like Grey’s, SPN, or Watchmen. Cant say the same for Norman and Andy tho. Looks like TWD will be the main thing to their name and that’s it. Such a shame for Andy, it’s like he forgot what it takes to be an actor. Whatever tho maybe he’ll do some amazing movie in 5 years.

[rdmfavcpls]

July 14 - Seasons

July 14th - Seasons

Category: Pokemon

Pairing: Lonashipping (Moon x Gladion)

Rating: T

Summary: A new year is upon the Alola region and as the seasons' pass, Moon and Gladion get closer. The days may be blended together, but it is the moments that make memories

Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to the franchise.

Author’s Note: 1. I am so sorry that I am so late with getting these uploaded. I tried to get everything done so I would be able to work on these as fast as I could. Please enjoy!

~~Story Begins~~

Spring - New Beginnings

Gladion hated spring, and it wasn’t because of the weather or because of his allergies. It was because of all those sayings that stuck itself to spring.

‘It’s a new season of life’

‘All the plants will live another live’

He’s not quite sure about them, but the one he is sure about is ‘Love is always in the air during spring’. That one makes him sick, especially since it is true and that he’s seen it first hand.

He watched as Lillie left to challenge another region with Hau following behind her heels. Hau was in love with Lillie and you could see it everywhere. Gladion had no intentions of falling in love, it wasn’t in his ‘Things to do in 5 years’ list.

However, as he saw Moon battle against a Beauty, it was Moon who kept Gladion’s attention. So many details that he never knew or paid attention to where his focus on Moon during this battle.

The way her blue eyes shined with fierce determination, the way her voice held power, letting all those around the battle know that the Champion wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

How did he not notice any of these little details when he was challenging her? Did he notice them because Hau wasn’t by Moon’s side or was he a victim of spring love now?

Summer - Crazy Adventures

Gladion barely got out of the ocean’s water, when he did, he noticed that Moon wasn’t as close to him as he originally thought. He turned around and saw that no one was in the water.

“Moon!” he said out loud, listening to any sound of her voice over the crying babies, disgruntled tourists, and the hustle and bustle of those who wanted to know what happened.

“Moon!” he yelled when no one answered. He got up on his legs as adrenaline kicked in once more. He scanned the ground and no one resembled his friend.

He looked back at the ocean, his gut told him that she was still in the ocean, his heart hoped it was wrong.

He watched as the two wild Gyarados fought each other. They both used Whirlpool which started the people to evacuate the ocean. Moon told Gladion to go ahead as she swam back into the ocean to save a man. The man is saved on the beach, but Moon wasn’t in sight.

“Sunburn be banned,” Gladion said as he gathered his energy to go back out there for the second time to find her. He had planned on asking her as to why she only carried five pokemon and if she would be willing to join him for tea one day.

The tea part of the plan was going to happen when he showed Moon an island, but that plan went out of commissioned thanks to the Gyarados fighting.

Gladion, along with the rest of the beachgoers, stared in shock as the two Gyarados were frozen. Then a white seal jumped out of the water and dived back in. On its back was Moon who was unconscious and there was a Pokeball around the Pokemon’s collar.

When the seal Pokemon - Dewgong - reached the shore, medical examiners were on the scene doing CPR on Moon.

“Why can’t a day be uneventful with you,” Gladion said with a sigh of relief. Moon’s eyes opened and she gasped for breath before and after Dewgong pounced on her stomach.

Fall - Colorful

Fall was Gladion’s favorite season and he usually spent it in Aether, but this year was different.

“You want me to go to Kanto with you?” Gladion said just to make sure he heard Moon correctly over her Dewgong barking with the Luvdisc.

“Yes. Fall is your favorite season and it is beautiful in Kanto. Plus, I really need you to go with me,” Moon said.

“Why?”

“My cousin is showing off that she’s getting married and it’s been like that for two years now. I want someone to bail me out. I mean you could stay here and bail me out, but my family may not believe that you need me at Aether when I am regions away.”

Gladion sighed. “Fine, I’ll go,” he said. “However, you owe me!”

Her arms wrapped around him in a flash and she had him in a hug. “Thank you, thank you so much!” she said.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t mention it,” Gladion said. “Get off of me.”

~~

Kanto was quite beautiful, leaves of red, orange, and yellow-covered the ground and trees. It was chilly enough that Gladion had to wear a warmer sweatshirt and Moon was wearing a light jacket.

Gladion didn’t mean to get lost on the day of Moon’s family reunion. It was an accident. He was running away from a swarm of Beedrill and get lost in Viridian Forest. So he called her and asked her to find him. He wanted to get out of the forest.

“I no longer have a reason to make fun of her when she calls me because she got lost in Aether,” Gladion said with a chuckle.

It felt like forever, but it was only a few minutes later, Gladion heard the crunch songs of leaves being stepped on. He opened his eyes and stared ahead.

Moon was walking towards him and while he already knew she was beautiful since spring, the image before him left him catching his breath at her.

The evening sun’s rays filtered between the trees and leaves, skimmed along her pale skin, the light breeze picked up the hem of her green dress to blow against her legs. The leaves would be the foreground to bring attention to the young woman if this scene was a painting or a photo.

Gladion sighed as he pushed himself off of the tree to walk towards her. He fell for her and has only fallen deeper in love with her.

Winter - Warm Moments

A blizzard appeared out of nowhere on the day Moon and Gladion were supposed to leave. All of the planes were either delayed or canceled and Gladion wasn’t happy.

He was freezing.

“I’m never coming to Kanto again,” Gladion said through his chattering teeth. He hasn’t heard Moon in a while and last he knew was that her father had called and she went to the kitchen.

He tensed when something was draped over his shoulder, but his back was suddenly warmer and he cuddled into that warmth. He grabbed the warm material and wrapped it closer to his front.

“This should help,” Moon said. She held out a black mug to him and steam was rising out of it. When he took the mug from her, not letting the blanket go. He looked at it. “It’s hot chocolate. A Kanto specialty. It should help warm you up.”

Moon sat down next to him as he took a couple of drinks. She stretched her legs out with a sigh.

“Aren’t you cold?” Gladion asked.

“A little, but I’m more used to this weather than you are,” Moon said. “So, I’ll be fine.”

Gladion glared at her. She hasn’t had any time to rest since she came back to Kanto. Her engaged cousin hasn’t helped with that.

“Get over here,” Gladion said stretching his own legs out.

“Why?” Moon asked as she held back a yawn. Fatigue finally catching up to her.

“Just do it.”

Moon stood up and sat in front of Gladion as he directed. Her face had a blush on it as he wrapped his arms around her midsection, partially draping the blanket around her, and rested his head on top of hers. Gladion thankful that she couldn’t see his blush right now that he would blame on the sudden heat.

“Gladion! What are you doing?” Moon asked.

“I’m keeping you warm. This blanket wouldn’t help me stay warm if every time I looked at you, I would freeze,” Gladion said,

Within minutes, Moon had fallen asleep which left Gladion in the company of his hot chocolate and the winter wind blowing against the hotel’s windows.

No one would know about this little moment between them, especially since Gladion knows Moon’s pride would keep her from speaking about it to the others.

[denise-alwaysuselove]

When choice is not a choice

I had a lively discussion with a friend last night about Caitriona Balfe and her recent behavior. We touched on the “engagement,” of course, but also on Cait’s support -- or apparent lack thereof -- of the Times Up movement. 

As my followers know, I am a steadfast supporter of both Caitriona and Sam. Despite their mixed messages since the IFH, I still believe them to be the kind, good, and humble people everyone who has met them says they are. 

Do I like their behavior when they’re playing their respective roles in the narrative? That would be a big, fat NO. Rather than direct my upset at them, however, I look to what I believe is the source of narrative: Lionsgate. Being angry at Sam and Cait is akin to shooting the messenger. 

My friend was adamant that Cait had a choice in all of it. She could just say no and suffer the consequences. I agree to a point. I don’t know what threats LG made to Sam and Cait to get them to agree to the narrative, but they did agree. However, following the letter of the agreement is not the same as following the essence. Hence you have Sam and Cait both following orders, but looking miserable while doing it. Their hearts are, quite literally, not in it. 

When does choice become so untenable that it is no longer a choice? I’ve said since the “engagement” news that I feel like LG has given SC an ultimatum. Perhaps they were told to sell it or they’d cancel Outlander. SC might be able to get by, but what about all the people involved in the production? 

I read several posts today by @tpquill on PR vs private relationships. This part is particularly pertinent: “Many believe that you have a choice, fans seem to think you can March right into the board of directors, demand they allow you to live your life, that they cannot tell you want to do with your private life as it belongs to you - wrong, so very wrong. Everything about an actor belongs to a studio. Your public life is a performance, your private life should never be seen. You are a piece of clothing, to be promoted, advertised, displayed and sold to the highest bidder…as long as your agent and manager get as much money as you are worth out of it, of course.

“This is unfortunately the black and white, you need to earn money, they need to earn money, the studio or network of studios need money and financial investors need the money they put into the project they invested heavily in, in order to create a profit and success. Romantising in a different light does not work, simply because it’s not reality. Your 'private’ relationship is the difference between success and failure. Off screen romances are a huge no no, your agent, manager, studio want nothing more than it to remain hidden from the public. Studio bosses will be sweating with clauses you many have broken, NDAs are scrutinised and checked to make sure no leaking to the media happens…it’s a financial noose around a studios neck, particularly a very young TV show or the beginning of a movie franchise with the hope of more movies to come. So…this is why a couple, who no fault of their own, but human nature, fall in love on set, off set - in the privacy of their own private bubble…find themselves in a situation were they cannot disclose what really is going on. Instead play the dumb 'we are best friends, best buddies, supportive and deeply fond of each other’ card. Except body language tells a different story.”

I see two clear choices for myself: 1) Continue to support SC because I don’t think they have a viable choice in continuing the narrative, or 2) Play into LG’s hands by being outraged at SC and jumping ship. This is exactly what they want, especially with recent talks of mergers (interesting timing, isn’t it?). 

Unlike Sam and Cait, I have complete control over my actions, and I’m going to follow the dictates of my mind, heart, and intuition. I will continue to support and believe in Sam and Cait. That is my way of saying to TPTB: Times Up.