#do in the plot (and is offscreen for much of the second half)

[aihoshiino]

chapter 158 thoughts

i lied the hyperfixation took over and reanimated my body

Chapters Since The 143 Kiss Happened And Went Entirely Unacknowledged And Unaddressed Count: 15

Aqua Hoshigan Status: N/A

Usually when an OnK chapter ends on a bombshell like this one apparently does, I usually play a little coy as to my thoughts on it but I don't really see much point in doing that this time. This chapter basically is its final moment, with some swings taken at basically every other character on the way down so I don't see much point in separating it from the rest of the work. That said, my ultimate feelings on it will ultimately depend on how the story progresses past this moment so don't expect me to go too deeply into it for now. All I'll say at the top of the post is that I think this is deeply contrived and continues Akasaka's trend of seemingly beating every character with the dipshit stick in order to make a certain dramatic plot beat happen.

But it'll be pretty messy to follow if I get into the chapter's final scene right here and now, so let's rewind to the start and break down the rest of this chapter too. Don't worry, I have plenty of unpleasant things to say about it as well!!!!

Akane's here!! Actually in truth I had somehow forgotten that she'd cut her hair in the weeks since her last appearance so seeing her turn up with it so short kind of startled me for a second LOL

More AKKN yuribaiting… usually I eat up this kind of queerbait with a spoon because I am a simple creature but it doesn't really hit this time. I think it's because we're running through the Tokyo Blade arc in the anime right now and being reminded of how utterly electric their rivalry used to be makes the lack of meaningful follow-up and ultimate state of their relationship just kind of sad to me.

Seeing Akane and Ruby talking also feels kind of surreal given that it's almost 60 whole chapters since they've actually properly interacted onscreen… Like, obviously they were acting together in the Movie Arc and we can infer they had some offscreen chats then but… well, that's things we can infer, not something that's actually in the text of the story. Akane's involvement in the movie really was a total waste of potential, huh…

that said, wtf is akane even doing in miyazaki. girl who are you stalking this time.

Speaking of things that are weird, Ruby's hostile reaction to the idea of Akane getting a new boyfriend is… kind of bizarre, to the point where I literally have no idea where it's coming from?? Like, regardless of what this chapter tries to pretend, Ruby and Akane are absolutely not close enough for Ruby to feel upset at the prospect of Akane blowing her off in favour of boyfriend time. If anything, you'd think that having Aqua's ex-girlfriend definitively Out Of The Way would only be good on her eyes because it means one less obstacle between her and getting to shlonk her brother, but… apparently not???

The only way I can really make any sense of this is assuming this is the old and crusty "single girl getting jealous that her friend has a boyfriend at Christmas" joke, which I guess indirectly answers the question of whether or not anything AquRuby related has resolved in the Offscreen Dimension.

Anyway, Akane's chatter in this scene leads into something I've been kind of holding my tongue about in favour of waiting until it was addressed in the story and we're finally here - as previously predicted, this chapter starts on the note of attempting to assert that Ruby has 'become an idol who surpasses Ai' and you'll notice the way I phrased this because uh… no, she very much hasn't!

This idea of Ruby 'surpassing' Ai has been floating around in the story for a while now and as I've said before, unless OnK puts a huge amount of legwork into supporting that idea, I simply wouldn't believe it. It didn't, so I don't.

Not only is this assertion just half-heartedly plunked into the narrative - incredibly underwhelming for what should be a huge moment of triumph for Ruby - but the visual storytelling of the manga fails it as well. Like, compare this to similar moments from the very arc the anime is adapting this season - hell, in this very chapter, we see a panel of Kana's dazzling acting during Tokyo Blade. In comparison, the panels we see that supposedly show how Ruby has become an idol beyond compare… they just look like literally every other panel of any of the girls doing idol stuff. Hell, she looks distinctly less striking than some of Kana's performances as an idol and they certainly don't match or exceed the panels we've seen of Ai's spellbinding performances, which really undermines what the story is trying to say.

This is made even worse for the fact that the story has repeatedly pointed out that Ruby is the subject of incredible amounts of favoritism in the new B-Komachi - their boss is Literally Her Actual Mom who was explicitly called out by Ichigo for favoring work opportunities while leaving her fellow members out to dry. Members who, I feel the need to remind everyone, were scouted by her twin brother, not Ruby. Members whose careers as idols suffered during Ruby's clout chasing BH era because of her clout chasing and whose hurt feelings on this are framed as something Ruby is graciously forgiving about.

Like… I'm not saying it's impossible for Ruby to become an idol who outshines her mom, but this narrative as it's currently being presented in the manga falls flat for me because we never actually see Ruby face any kind of struggle on her road to doing this. Ai, Kana and Mem all face significant structural, social and industry-wide issues and toxicity that they must grapple with and overcome but Ruby just… does not?? Ever?? And given the way the narrative has framed Miyako's involvement in her career, the only conclusion I can draw is that Ruby is being shielded from all this by Miyako at the expense of the other girls. Especially because Ruby literally said so in 156!

Idk man. This whole chapter just sucks for basically every B-Komachi girl - that panel of the girls on stage where you literally can't even see Mem's face is so fucking miserable lmao. There was so much weight was placed on B-Komachi's togetherness as a trio of not just idols but friends who genuinely care for each other that seeing the story end up in this place of unironically indulging in all the same favoritism of Ruby and sidelining of her fellow members that Ichigo and Miyako did with the original B-Komachi is honestly just upsetting. Not only does it drag down Mem and Kana's stories, but it ends up making Ruby come off as a tremendously self-centered person in a way the narrative clearly does not understand and is uninterested in unpacking.

And like… bro, I don't want to be pissed off at Ruby!! Pre-BH Ruby is one of my favourite characters in the series!!! But the way she's been coddled by the narrative is deeply frustrating to read! It's frustrating to see everyone else's arcs compromised in favor of forcing this bizarre narrative about Ruby that doesn't even do any good for her either.

I can so easily see a better version of this story where Ruby surpasses Ai because she has so much support and faces none of the obstacles that Ai did, where the story is making a point of just how much further Ai could have gone and how much more she could've done if she hadn't been treated like such utter shit by everyone around her. But the point the story settles on seems to just be that Ruby is a better idol than Ai because she arbitrarily is not affected by societal and systemic oppression for no clearly articulated reason, I guess! You go, girl!

huffs. anyway.

Ruby's little monologue about the short-lived life of an idol also feels like the final nail in the coffin for the story being able to even pretend to do any meaningful industry commentary. Compared to how biting it was in the early arcs, it's a pretty standout representation with OnK's bizarre relationship with idol culture as of late, especially as pertains to Ruby's place in it. I can sort of get what I think Akasaka is going for here - it's part of the theme the story is leaning into lately of letting go of your past and moving towards a brighter future and this is how Ruby is coping with Kana's time in B-Komachi coming to an end. The point being made here is that change is inevitable no matter how you try to hold onto things and the only way to freeze yourself in stasis forever is to die.

But having this framed through the lens of Ruby talking so warmly about the impermanence of idols is just kind of… hello?? Ruby's framing here almost seems to treat the issue as some beautifully tragic but inevitable thing… and is very much is not! Idols age out of the industry because of its obsession with youth and beauty and the fetishization and commodification of virginial purity. Seeing Ruby frame it as this sad but natural thing when these fucked up purity standards literally killed her mom is just. What is going on here.

Speaking of baffling! Nino my girl, what are they doing to you…

I mentioned this in my chapter 155 thoughts that I felt extremely cold about the way the story was choosing to characterize Nino in the actual pages of the manga. I won't repeat myself too much but compared to the messed up but deeply human character we saw in 45510 and the RBKN conflict, this Nino honestly feels like a mean-spirited caricature, amped up to such dramatic extremes that she stops being a person and instead becomes a flat cartoon character used for moving the plot along. I loved Nino in 45510 and the Movie Arc so seeing her reduced to this psycho lesbian stereotype really stings.

also wtf is the manga trying to say with the 'since we killed ryosuke' bit. that was a whole ass suicide. this manga gives me such a headache sometimes.

Anyway. I can't talk around it anymore so. RIP Ruby, I guess. It was nice knowing you, but-

no but seriously, I'm holding my tongue on anything to do with this twist until next chapter because my actual thoughts will depend on how it plays out or if this is even really happening at all - which is NOT something i would even entertain as a possibility if oshi no ko was not the manga it currently is lol

But there's also the fact that, as others have pointed out, that panel of the stab is presented with faded colours and overly dramatic lighting in a way that is consistent with how OnK sometimes presents flashbacks or otherwise unreal visualizations. Given how incredibly dumb the entire cast - including Ruby - would have to be for this to actually, really happen, I'm withholding judgement until I see how this pans out.

That said. Man. I was really taken aback by how not just underwhelming but outright Not Good the actual panel of the stab is. The attempt to mine an emotional reaction out of the pre-existing iconic panel of Ai's murder just falls entirely flat because this version of it is worse in just about every regard. Ai's panel is composed beautifully, with the white petals and the motion of her body perfectly drawing the viewer's eye to the knife and the uncharacteristic expression of total shock on her face really hammers home the 'oh shit' moment. By contrast, Ruby's panel is flat with oceans of dead space despite being a much smaller panel and the actual stab has no weight to it, visually or otherwise. Ruby's body and face aren't reacting to it in the least - her expression is totally lifeless and she just looks like she's mid-stride, not that someone's just stabbed her in the gut. And to add insult to injury, the fucking layering on the killer's hand isn't even right. It's so obvious these two characters were drawn totally separately and pasted together afterwards and the entire moment falls flat as a result. Mengo, girl, what happened here!!!

and to add insult to injury. break next week. because why woudn't it be.

any of yall got ibuprofen

[qsycomplainsalot]

Masters of the Air is great, if you've ever thought "wow Band of Brothers is nice but it's weird that the plot is moving from setpiece engagement to setpiece engagement with the same characters, I wish we'd see more of the boring stuff with characters we don't know" then this is the show for you. And don't get me wrong this isn't about turning WW2 into a glorious ballet of death, but when your eight hours long series about US army bomber pilots has maybe half an hour of aerial combat, already that's a problem. The only time Masters of the Air puts you in the thick of it it's to kill as many recognizable characters as possible so that you can lose interest in the cast faster, you don't get to experience the important turning points of the war as seen from their point of view. Because they're dead or in PoW camps, sure, but also because the series doesn't care to show us. Episode 8 somehow encompasses most of 1944 and exactly five seconds of D Day are shown. I was down to get an in depth look at what bombing missions contributed to the war effort, but they never get in depth about it. We never go through boot camp, we never get a strategic sense of things, every episode is just "go there blow shit up" and we never hear about it again. This is, if anything, yet another exemple of screenwriters inexplicably not understanding that scenes must be related in tone or narrative, have a set up and a pay off, all that crazy smart stuff moviemakers figured out in the 1890's. Like at this point when I watch some movies I feel like seeing the work of someone who knows putting letters in a row makes words but doesn't actually know what writing is. Like shit, okay, so I get that this is based on his memoirs but was there any point in showing us that Crosby's fling was a spy in France ? Did we need to have a grand total of five minutes of Tuskegee Airmen over the last two episodes ? Did we need to see Crosby get told to take a vacation then take it offscreen ? Or maybe, just maybe you could have cut all that shit out and wrought a compelling narrative about those two assholes Buck and Bucky who are in every episode, forge a friendship together, get shot down over enemy territory, get captured by the Germans, put into camp, get involved in the Great Escape, go on a death march and finally escape separately, getting back to their home base in the end, 90% OF THESE PLOT BEATS NOT BEING INCLUDED IN THE FUCKING SHOW. This series is an unfocused mess and the only emotions it got out of me were linked to me knowing what World War 2 was, not any kind of cinematic skills. If I want combat footage with no characters I'll just watch a documentary at least that'd be good in its own way. At this rate making a show out of it is bordering on feeling gross and exploitative. "Well we made a series about the Army and a series about the Marines, now we gotta make a series about the pre-Air Force I guess." like "whatever the fuck we do it will sell cause WW2 is so moving and shit, and it's pretty much our version of brand recognition". In conclusion I can honestly say that Masters of the Air isn't only the worse out of the three big WW2 series, but it's also just a flop in general. No action, no tension, no emotion, no nothing. An expensive slideshow to serve as a demo reel for an amazing prop and costume team.

[ladyluscinia]

I think they were so worried about not getting a season 3 they ruined both the viewers expecting one and the viewers who would've liked it to end there. they've created an easily destroyable status quo because of course something needs to happen to get everyone back together for season 3. so it's not even a happy ending; it's so fragile, it's designed to fall apart the second that anyone learns that the show is back on. i get not wanting to bank on having a third season and wrapping it up but like. Galavant did that and did it better. WITH THE HEROES RETIRING AND THE TWO MINUTE MARRIAGE CEREMONY TO BOOT. But it gave an outline of where the plot might go from there and how the adventure will continue if it gets to. And it never got to, and season 2's ending is good because it's not /fragile/--it's not a cliffhanger, but you get the idea that they could keep going from there still. whereas this one didn't want to be a cliffhanger so much that they created the most breakable new status quo in history and if there is a season 3 it'll immediately be undone and I'll probably still watch it but like I'll /know/, y'know? They could fix everything in the first episode of season 3 and I'd still have to know that at one point, this was considered an acceptable outcome.

The thing that is driving me absolutely insane is they DID NOT HAVE TO DO THIS!

There's so many people looking at it like "well it's a shame that 2x08 clearly had to cram several episodes into one for budget reasons and it made the development weaker but that's the situation MAX put them in" and I cannot emphasize enough how much that is not true.

MAX did not break it to them after episodes 2x01 - 2x07 were written and half filmed that they would have to wrap up the whole plot in 30 minutes. Like absolute worst case scenario they had 10 eps mostly written and budget came back 20% over and they had to reduce to 8 total. More likely they knew they were getting 8 from the start.

It is absolutely nobody's fuck up except David Jenkins and his writers' room if they were unrealistic about what character beats were needed and would fit in the timeframe to reach a satisfying wrap up.

Worries about no S3 were on the table the moment it took until JUNE to get confirmation of S2. This wasn't sprung on them. If they wanted their story to have a "just in case" happy ending and then a "fully realized arc" happy ending, they should have fucking acted like it???

I was shocked when the first three episodes that dropped were so hardcore on destroying Edward's relationships and laying bare exactly how deep his issues went. It only made sense to me if they were going all in on getting a S3 and prepared to spend all of S2 focused on the implications of all that, and then the not-even two week in-universe timeline of the season reinforced my understanding that was happening.

"Shame we don't have time for our main couple to even start addressing their relationship or having moments of self-realization and sharing their issues," says guy who decided to make the first half of S2 about adding more problems on top of well established ones from S1 and the second half of S2 about throwing in a second breakup cycle instead of dealing with the fallout from the first.

Want Edward to end on a beat of feeling part of the found family? Well maybe adding a timeskip after 2x05 and then a crew chat in 2x06 where you make it clear he did an apology tour offscreen could help, but you also could have just not focused hard on him poisoning his relationship with every single one of them in the first place???

There's multiple different ways you can do Act 2 of a three act structure, and they did not have to choose one that ends on another dark cliffhanger beat or right at the open ended turning point toward growth? Like they didn't even do the one they picked in a way they could fit in their season. I feel like by the end of a struggles Act 2 both your protagonists need to have self-realized their issues and maybe had one conversation about it? Edward still wasn't talking about his guilt, and Stede wasn't talking about anything.

They aren't even at the turning point of growth and out of the backsliding / lessons learned era yet, that's why potential S3 will start on another backslide when status quo breaks and Stede starts "that's nice, dear"-ing Edward during the day and slipping out at night to vicariously listen to pirate stories or whatever (and they frame it like he's cheating).

We have two out of three seasons in a show that might only get two, and I feel like the characters have barely moved from their starting position.

Like idk maybe they are really good at coming up with character flaws - ex: Stede is repressed and bottles up his traumas until he mentally checks out / runs away - and just drawing blanks on how to believably "fix" them, but just going "well what if we just used this flaw to throw another miscommunication roadblock in their relationship?" is not getting them where they want to be.

The season was fundamentally designed against their stated goal and did not make what seem to be necessary writing concessions to the reduced screentime if they wanted their finale to land as an even plausibly happy ending. It's hollow.

And possibly not even salvageable in S3 since they aren't demonstrating the skills to salvage it.

[runespoor7]

Jiang Cheng brings back WWX to LP after his resurrection because LWJ wasn't around

Five Fun Facts About The Fic I Might Write About It, This Is A Slowburn(?) Version, For Other Versions Ask Again:

WWX insists that he's not himself far past the point of it being sensible. The thing is, it's not the first time JC decided some random demonic cultivator was WWX and dragged him home to demande apologies and play house? Last time was over half a decade ago, so not everyone in the sect knows, but those who remember are pretty wary about it, especially because of what it means about JC's mental state. Is Sect Leader getting worse again? They're also very wary of WWX, some of them openly contemptuous - WWX has the feeling that if it weren't for JC's protection he would be dead - and some of them almost pitying. I think he overhears them talk and that's how he pieces together the backstory, and also learns that the demonic cultivator whom JC is convinced are WWX and that he treats as such don't... end well. Sect Leader takes the "betrayal" badly.

WWX realizes that YMJ doesn't have a second in command. the sect has a person who performs the tasks associated with the job, but JC doesn't have a "second-in-command", never did. it just stuck that way. it sure doesn't mean anything. probably. how weird of JC though.

the Ghost General intrudes on Lotus Pier. There's a fight, JC tries to take down WN, WWX orders WN away from JC, JC freaks out. WWX keeps swearing up and down he's not WWX, honest!!! but... on the other hand... the Ghost General recognizes him as its his master... this is what breaks JC's hopes, finally, and also WWX's heart. You get JC crying as he asks WWX "are you really not him?" and WWX doing the equivalent of Cyrano's "No, my sweet love, I never loved you!" but for who he is, with less clear-cut emotional consequences than in the play (this is because WWX is not dying and thus more invested in keeping the lie up and JC is way less certain that WWX cares about him than Roxane did about Cyrano). They sort of compromise on the understanding that "MXY" is kinda-sorta WWX, but without most of WWX's memories. (WWX is telling himself that's not what he wanted but in fact he's much more comfortable/confident with himself and being in YMJ afterwards!) this is probably when WWX realizes that while his room may not exist anymore, his things are in JC's room.

JC struggles with this WWX being an innocent lamb who has no memory of doing anything wrong in his life ever. He should've expected it. How convenient. But, y'know, a WWX is a WWX, and this also extremely conveniently lets JC off the hook of this pesky "remember how he orphaned your nephew?" thing! It's mostly JC's own guilt now. Mostly. He's not going to do anything against WWX even if it wasn't anyway. Also it's. terrifying. Because WWX has no memory of him, but WWX is around, and also there isn't anyone to judge JC for wanting-- ANYWAY.

They end up having to leave Lotus Pier and catch up with the main plot when WWX gets a spider sense that WN is in trouble. There are no words to explain how little JC likes 1)that the Ghost General is still a thing, 2)that the Ghost General is still a thing when it comes to WWX, 3)that WWX is planning on leaving LP to help WN, so he comes with. WWX tries to convince him not to, but surprises himself by accepting JC's help when JC insists in a clipped tone. The trouble that WN got in also involves JL being in danger. This is my fic so it would turn out that WN tried to protect JL before WWX and JC caught up. Possibly JL and WN have been getting in plot-relevant shenanigans offscreen for a while now, and there's definitely a fic there, what with WN thinking A-Yuan is dead and projecting on JL and JL getting conflicted feelings about the person/thing that killed his father, but that's not the focus in this story. At some point - because by now he's pretty certain JC will not either kill him or reject him - WWX "admits" that his memory has been returning. Not all of it, but enough. If we're all very very lucky JL has been in sufficient danger that JC can lose his head a little and kiss WWX for saving JL's life, or something along these lines. If we're not lucky that part happens beyond the scope of these five things.

[quasi-normalcy]

So the thing about Star Trek: Picard is...

Say what you will about the first season, but it’s meaningful. In fact, Rios says explicitly what it’s about in the fourth episode: “the existential pain of living with the consciousness of death and how it defines us as human beings.” Pretty much all of the character arcs are about different reactions to this, and the supposed “grimdarkness” of the setting reinforces this point; the Federation has become reactionary and xenophobic because it was a utopia that experienced mass death right on its doorstep for the first time in living memory. The conflict with the Synths is ultimately rooted in the fact that we die; they don’t. The fact that the finale was called “Et in Arcadia ego” really just telegraphs this; “Even in Arcadia [utopia], I [Death] am.”

And the second season, for all its many flaws, carries this theme forward, proposing that love, togetherness, and companionship are the only meaningful candles in the dark. Q is dying; he awaits meaning, and he doesn’t find it. And so he opts instead to do one last favour for Jean-Luc so at least he can spare his favourite mortal from his own fate of dying alone. Jurati is able to connect with the Borg Queen because she recognises that her own motivation is something similar: the Queen can feel herself dying across infinite realities and she doesn’t want to be alone. Seven and Raffi find each other; Rios gives up his entire life for a shot at love. It’s an infernal mess, a budget-saving exercise in want of a plot, but I’m going to be honest: I kind of adore it. I think it’s beautiful for all its flaws.

Throughout the first two seasons, we have serious contemplations of transhumanism and identity in the face of death. Picard escapes death using technology, even as his friend, a living machine, embraces his end as a necessary part of being human. Soji loses her identity even as she gains knowledge of herself as an immortal android. Jurati too embraces transhumanism and, to some extent, loses her identity by so doing, but–in an interesting twist for Star Trek–this is not stigmatized; this is framed as what’s best for her. All of this is philosophically rich, high-octane fuel for thought, as speculative fiction should be.

The third season, meanwhile–for all that I have loved (some of) the nostalgia hits injected directly into my veins–bugs me because of how absolutely lightweight it feels. Death is gone. Not just as a theme, but gone from the narrative. Sure we kill off Ro, and T’Veen, and Vadic, and Shelby, and Shaw, but it feels like nothing. Death holds no dominion; Data is back; so’s the Enterprise-D; so’s Q (or maybe he’s come in from an earlier point in his timeline; it’s not clear). Kirk apparently is alive again, resurrected offscreen sometime after Generations and kept in a covert warehouse awaiting new adventures. Apparently Terry Matalas has already formulated plans for bringing Todd Stashwick back if when he gets his “Legacy” spinoff. I’m half-surprised that they didn’t reveal that Romulus magically popped back into existence in a background Okudagram somewhere. The Federation is as “grimdark” as it has ever been depicted, but unlike the first season (or Deep Space Nine, or even the first season of Discovery), this is never seriously interrogated or problematised. We go through the motions, cargo-cult-like, of moral debate in episode 7, but it’s not connected to anything. We hear that Vadic was the product of Section 31 war crimes; Picard looks shaken up by this, but then he and Beverly immediately decide to commit some war crimes of their own by executing her. This is never mentioned again. The whole exercise feels perfunctory, as I have said above: like ten-year-olds playing with action figures. It doesn’t feel like Picard, and frankly, for all of the surface detail it gets right, it feels even less like TNG.

So no; I’m not pleased that the first two seasons were ignored.

[themattress]

Hey look, I found and filled out an old school controversy meme template!

Favorite Character: Rei Hino and Minako Aino. Rei was my favorite ever since I was a kid because she had a fun personality and badass fire powers, but as I grew up and gained access to things like Codename Sailor V, I really began to develop a deep fondness and appreciation for Minako as well. I can't possibly choose between them; they're both great.

Despised Character: The Sailor Starlights, primarily the anime versions (the manga versions just seem kind of pointless to me). It's the final season of the show and yet so much time is being hogged by these newcomers, who are unlikable jackasses on top of that. Truthfully, I'd have much rather kept Chibiusa around, at least she's someone I know and care about.

Most Overrated Character: The anime's Haruka Tenoh and Michiru Kaioh. Now don't get me wrong, I love them too and I 100% get why they're so special to so many fans. But I feel that often blinds people to their less than stellar writing in the second half of S and throughout Sailor Stars. The writers took their status as "Darker and Edgier Sailor Senshi" way too far, to the point where they started coming off as unlikable strawmen of Magical Girl genre haters.

Most Underrated Character: Unazuki Furuhata. Why didn't she show up in Crystal!?

Favorite Couple: Usagi/Mamoru, primarily manga/Crystal and Junichi Sato-directed!anime.

Despised Couple: Usagi/Seiya. Toxic, inauthentic, just all-around bad. Burn it with fire.

Favorite Season: The original Sailor Moon. I don't even know how to describe it other than lightning that never quite struck twice. I think the franchise owes much of its success to it.

Despised Season: Sailor Stars. First we have an arc that butchers Queen Nehelenia, then Chibiusa is insultingly written out offscreen, then Mamoru dies without anyone knowing so that we can have the Breakup Plot 2.0, then a boy band that can transform into female Sailor Senshi start hogging the spotlight with one of them getting into a toxic relationship with Usagi, the villains are more incompetent than ever and still doing the same Monster of the Week formula with the monsters being utterly nonsensical in their origin (not to mention not in the manga at all), and we end with a six-part finale that tries so hard to cram in as much emotion and devastation as possible without doing it half as well as the original season's two-part finale. And this is the last season of the show! It's just such an insulting way for the show to go out, with its good points few and far between. Most of the staff from prior seasons weren't on this one and its director was actively sick of the franchise, and it really does feel like it.

Favorite Villain: Technically my favorite villains are the Dark Kingdom from the anime's original season, but across the whole franchise I have to go with the Black Moon Clan.

Despised Villain: Queen Nehelenia from Sailor Stars. An offensive, contradictory rewrite of what was previously among the anime's best villains. Let's pretend she never happened, 'K?

Favorite Episode: Episode 24 of the original season. The show taking an unrepentant villain and still allowing him to rediscover his humanity and find a measure of redemption by sacrificing his life for another blew me away when I first saw it as a kid. This episode and all the ones leading up to it marked the point where a really good show became a great one.

Despised Episode: Episode 22 of Sailor Stars. The Sailor Starlights reach the absolute pinnacle of unlikability in their hypocritical attitude toward discovering the Senshi's identities, and then Sailor Aluminum Seiren is killed off in a cruel, mean-spirited way that we end up with no emotional catharsis over later. At this point, it just didn't feel like Sailor Moon to me.

[homoquartz]

k now that it's over here's my thoughts. they're the negative ones so they're under readmore. i'll post my positive ones the way i normally do.

i want to start by saying of COURSE i love this show. like of course i do. so:

second seasons are almost always written kind of badly so i am trying to be fair here. i also know strikes and time constraints BADLY fucked the script.

but even so, some of the pacing is fucky in a way that feels confused. like some scenes were cut so short i thought there was an editing error. relationships seemed to develop offscreen, when it feels like those scenes should have been prioritized over some others if folks knew they were gonna have to make cuts. and for whatever reason, some scenes or concepts were held onto when there simply wasn't any room for them (ned being the most egregious imo).

i predicted that they would react to the fan obsession with izzy by giving him too much airtime and i was right. he had more time and character development (though i think his character was changed unrealistically at times) than anyone else by MILES. i am an izzy hater, but even if i wasn't at a certain point i would BEG him to give up the fucking mic.

ESPECIALLY because he has now overshadowed Jim (!!!!!!), who was groundbreaking as a queer nonbinary POC lead. season 1 Jim was practically co-lead and now had NO motivation outside kissing girls this season. AND we STILL don't know anything about olu, roach, or frenchie. our characters of color were badly neglected i think. yi sao may be the only exception, i think she was done well with the time given.

speaking of olu, his romance with the pirate queen was pivotal to the main plot of the season but we get like NO time with him! let alone his relationship with yi sao. imagine a few cut izzy scenes to flesh out olu's situationships. all of them.

i believe at least part of the reason they dropped olu/jim was because jim's actor advocated for jim to date women. That's fine. but it was handled SO disrespectfully given their romance arc in season 1!! not even a conversation?? and to shoehorn in archie when jackie and yi sao and mary/anne were right there?? Lazy imo, and poor streamlining

and speaking of other characters, there were too many. season 1 connected all the antagonists together nicely, with the main big bad being the british. now the big bad is ??? sometimes ned, sometimes yi sao, sometimes nose guy, sometimes jackie, sometimes ed.

season 1 had episode-long enemies, a la calico jack and the french party, but the episodes SAT with those enemies and made them meaningful. ned just kind of appeared and died. if stede needed a reason for his ego trip, or to show off his people management skills, it could have been like. literally one of a million other situations. if we needed ed's suicide attempt to be via ned, ned could have shown in episode 3.

no one's relationships had time to develop naturally like they did in season 1. you didn't have time to understand anyone's motivations. stede and ed were a "couple" for all of half of two episodes. for a show about their romance there was surprisingly little time dedicated to the beats of their relationship. though it would have been painful, i think this season would have deeply benefitted from ed and stede not getting together until the finale. their actions and motivations don't make sense unless you take the kissing out of it. I'm sure a good deal of that is due again to cuts made by HBO.

i'm very disappointed, but that doesn't mean i'm ungrateful. this show is still extremely important, i am praying for a third season renewal, and i hope that season turns the ship around.

[beyondblue2]

To the Dragon Ball Super Haters

So I still to this day see people making the same complaints about Dragon Ball Super, so let me just say this: I don't believe you can dislike Super for the vast majority of complaints made about it and still enjoy DBZ. Allow me to elaborate.

Most criticisms of Super, like inconsistent animation, or power of friendship shenanigans, or half-cooked plot, or powerups that have very little buildup, or hell, even powerups that really only change the user's hair color... are all present in DBZ. I think most people don't want to argue that DBZ doesn't deserve its legendary status because you'd be fighting alone against a horde. But it's much easier to proclaim your hatred of something new and cite a decline in quality.

These people either A) don't like DBZ either and therefore shouldn't be so entrenched in the franchise, B) don't dislike Super for the reasons they give but want to sound like they have good taste, or just dislike it for stupid reasons, or C) were tricked by people who come from points A or B into believing things are worse than they are, because they have the media literacy of a toddler.

It's like this. Say you run into someone while you're talking about how much you love Reese's Cups. And they tell you Reese's are a garbage treat and you're an idiot for liking it. And you get upset, obviously. And eventually you go "okay, explain it to me. Why do you hate them?" And they tell you that peanut butter is objectively terrible. Which, first off, it's not, that's your extremely subjective opinion. But second, didn't I see you eating a PB&J sandwich in the break room earlier? And they're like "yeah, PB&J is delicious, it's the best sandwich ever, nobody's disputing that." And you're just like... it has peanut butter though. And they're like "okay but you're taking it out of context." WHAT CONTEXT, BRO!? Either you think peanut butter is nasty or you don't! So you're either lying about hating Reese's to sound edgy and cool, or you're lying about loving PB&J because you don't want to be ostracized for being a freak.

That's basically what it boils down to. If you don't like Super, I'm not saying you're not valid. But be real. You probably don't like it because you were a kid when DBZ came out and your tastes have changed since then. I'm not going to sit here and act like Super isn't flawed, but let's not pretend that those same flaws didn't exist in Z, either. And don't give me that "Goku should be heroic" shit either, that was something the American dubbing crew did on their own. The same dub where Goku and Chichi had a weird offscreen kiss sound effect also told us Bardock was a brilliant scientist who invented the fake moon. Goku does heroic things from time to time, but he always does it with a kind of selfish basis of reasoning. He loves his friends, but he'll let Vegeta go to get a better fight later. He'll give Frieza some energy, but one more betrayal of trust and Goku will obliterate him.

You're either down with the main character being a flawed and interesting character and therefore will enjoy the Dragon Ball franchise, or you're not. In which case, stop clogging up the Tumblr tags and YouTube comments with your bitching and complaining. You don't see me infiltrating the Attack on Titan community to talk about how much it sucks. You know why? Because I fucking hate that series and I don't WANT to talk about it all the time. So if you watched some essayist trying to recreate the Nostalgia Critic or whatever and he told you Super sucks and you just parrot what he said without a sparking synapse in that smooth soap bar of a brain in your skull, then please, just shut the fuck up. For your own sake as well as mine.

[onekisstotakewithme]

🔥 TWW

I have many opinions on TWW and some of them are fairly unpopular so uhhhh here goes.

I'll get the biggest one out of the way first: for when it happened, I actually don't find the shuttle leak storyline out of character for Toby, nor do I hate it. If it had happened back in season 4, sure, and I'm mad at the post-Sorkin writing team for their slow destruction of Toby's character, but by end of s6, start of s7, it's not out of character for him. Could it have been better executed? Sure. But where he is as a character, unfortunately, it doesn't feel supremely terrible to me.

Second, the best Donna is season 1 Donna. A bit of an audience surrogate sometimes but in a not-overly-clumsy way, funny and spunky and just a bit quirky... and her dynamic with Josh is SO fun in season 1. I'm almost through s1 in my rewatch and I'd genuinely forgotten how much I enjoyed Donna. I feel like she really got flattened out once they really committed to the will they/won't they with Josh, and then was worse because of the whole season 6/7 disaster (that was a mess!), PLUS they had her make some very dumb decisions to advance the plot that did not feel realistic (the dumb shit with Cliff Calley, the accidentally voting for Ritchie).

(more under the cut because apparently I'm not done!)

I know season 5 was the weakest season overall, BUT season 4 was the weakest Sorkin season. I'm not saying season 4 needed to be all about re-election, but I feel like there was a better balance to strike between the "rush through all the election stuff by episode 8-ish" and "stretch it out into a season and a half long affair" (as in 6-7). It also just, despite everything it took to get to this point, felt INCREDIBLY rushed and unsatisfying. it didn't feel like there were any stakes! I wanted to see the whole debate, I wanted to see a genuine election night with stakes, dammit! And I think, much as I love Will, that dedicating so much time to THAT storyline was part of the problem. This also wasn't helped by the fact that Ritchie was a caricature and a Bush expy which worked when the episodes were airing but just makes him look cartoonish and one-dimensional now. Like Arnie Vinick may be a unicorn of a Republican and impossible to believe in now, but at least he's a person and not a cardboard cutout. Anyway! It feels like for all the build-up to the difficulty of getting re-elected post-MS scandal, it was just. they won, shuffle them offscreen again.

Okay, fuck, this is getting long.

I don't MIND Annabeth but I find the whole Leo-Annabeth flirtation thing REALLY weird and honestly out of left field. That scene in the elevator where she says they shouldn't be spending too much time together 'because of the tension', I was RIGHT THERE with Leo like 'what tension?' Like I'm sorry, I just don't see it!

Okay a few more bullet-point gripes just because

I got used to it eventually but I'm still not a fan that CJ got promoted to COS. Like yeah by the end she did a damn good job and she has one of the best relationships with Jed, but c'mon. she loved being press secretary, and she was a damn good one.

CJ's dark hair in season 7 is not a good look on her, I'm sorry CJ my love, but it doesn't look good. The only non-canon part of the flashfoward is that she definitely does NOT still have that hair.

Amy was fun when she first appeared, but in seasons 6 and 7 her character definitely got worse.

For the most part, I actually wanted less election plot in season 7 and more focus on the west wing (and I say this as loving both Matt and Arnie!)

Gina Toscano/CJ is a great ship also. I rewatched "six meetings before lunch" last night and remembered that I ship them.

Episode specific: the B-plot of Requiem makes absolutely no sense to me and I've watched the episode about 6 or 7 times now (the whole 'meddling in the speaker race' plot).

And finally: Danny should've been in every single season, as a regularly recurring character. I know that Tim Busfield was busy with other commitments but Mr. Busfield, I'm begging you.

TL;DR:

[caramelcoffeeaddict]

an ask game for writers to procrastinate working on your WIP(s)

Thanks for tagging me @forabeatofadrum!

1. 🦈Tell us the name of your/ one of your WIP(s):

Breaking Stereotypes

2. 🍄Describe your WIP/one of your WIP(s) in the format of “___ + ___ =___”

Rockstar!Blaine + Vogue/FashionStudent!Kurt = Happy Kiwi :)

3. 🌍What tags or warnings will one of your WIP(s) need if you intend to share it?

Explicit Smut, Mentions of Past Bullying & Assault, Mentions of Past Character Death

4. 🧭An alternative title to one of your WIP(s)?

I actually had the name "Breaking Stereotypes" since I started writing, so there wasn't an alternative title for it.

5. ⚠️Which WIP your most likely to finish or update next?

"Breaking Stereotypes" is the only one I'm currently working on, and I'm about 6-ish chapters away from completing/publishing it.

6. 💾What is your document of your WIP/ a WIP called? (not the stories actual title but what you’ve saved it as)

unfortunately, "Breaking Stereotypes" is both the name of the file and the name of the story. I do also have an additional file called "Breaking Stereotypes Calendar of Events" which is a calendar made in Word that I fill out with chapter numbers and brief plot points of that chapter, so I can keep track of when & where things happen in the story. I also add when & where "offscreen" details that get mentioned in the story happen to the calendar as well. it makes keeping track of the timeline so much easier!!

7. 🖍Post Any sentence(s) from your WIP.

here is the very first sentence from the fic:

Blaine had just received a series of texts from his manager, Candice, stating that the car that was supposed to pick him up had broken down.

8. ♻️A scrapped idea for your current WIP.

there was only one thing that I distinctly remember removing from the story. I didn't even save it because it was that pointless. but basically an OC that is in the story for only a few seconds of one scene (so far), went off on a long tangent about why she didn't like something that Kurt designed for Blaine. but I realized it was so unnecessary because her story didn't add anything to the story. so I deleted all of that and she ended up just saying it wasn't her style.

9. 🤔What’s a story you’d love to write but haven’t even started yet?

I have a fic Doc for a story called "The Escape Plan" that has a prompt/summary that I want to write. but I haven't gotten around to writing anything else for it. basically, Kurt and Blaine have never met before. but Blaine is on a really bad blind date with someone at a restaurant, and Kurt & Rachel are sitting at a nearby table Live Tweeting the whole thing for their own entertainment. and Blaine notices what's happening and finds a way to ask them for help ditching his date :)

10. 🤡How many WIPS are you actively working on?

just one. I have too much trouble focusing when I split my attention between more than one. (not that I haven't tried it before. I'm just not good at it, lol).

11. 🛠Is there a scene or anything in the WIP you are struggling with right now?

I was struggling with the second half of this chapter that I just finished, but I think most of that was due to not having time to sit and focus while I write. but thankfully, I am done with that chapter now, so hopefully the writing will go a little smoother now.

12. ❤️Not a question, just a second Kudos to send.

Kudos back! 😘

I don't know who has been tagged or who wants to play, so if you see this and you want to play, then consider yourself tagged by me! :)

[waterlilyvioletfog]

I didn’t dislike Alchemy of Souls season 2, but I definitely didn’t like it as much as season 1. I think that’s for a lot of reasons, but the root problem seems to be time? The second season is literally half the length of the first, so there aren’t real arcs and only a few plots. The first season, for example, spent a lot of time with Danggu and Cho-yeon, who were generally a cute couple I enjoyed seeing. We do see them in most of the episodes of season 2, but the re-kindling of affections is entirely offscreen. We don’t even realize they’re messing around until they say Cho-yeon might be pregnant. Idk, I just think that they could have made more use out of their supporting cast on this one. Also, the romance between Jang Uk and Jin Bu-yeon needs more time to breathe, and we needed more time with Cho Yeong before and after the main climax, perhaps reflecting on the differences between Naksu and Jin Bu-yeon. I missed a lot of the comedy of season 1, found several characters more flat and stale, and the villains less interesting. If this season had been 12-18 episodes rather than 10, I think it would’ve been better served.

[lunar-years]

the show never wants to explore Keeley’s flaws like cmon.. she isn’t there for Rebecca because she’s fucking her boss! She has sex with Roy after he says ‘I love you’ with no clear intention of getting back together with him! I think every other character gets a moment where they’re held accountable and told they’re being a dick to their face and Keeley never does. those scenes are fun!! & Keeley’s great bc she’s sort of a mess!! and they never want to dig into it bc they are lame

the thing is that Keeley's flaws are soooo juicy and they're very much there if you're willing to examine it for longer than five seconds and yet!! the audience and idk perhaps the show-writers themselves to an extent think it's more entertaining to pretend she's a perfect girlboss princess who can do no wrong like NO we should be EXPLORING THIS! "Keeley is great because she's sort of a mess." Exactly exactly!! u get it.

I feel like the writers half-tried to poke around in her flaws for a bit with the whole Shandy/KJPR plot but imo that was a major flop, so.

Side note: I don't really fault her for the ~not being there for rebecca~ thing because it was basically one evening where she was getting drunk and getting laid doing her own thing, her phone not on hand (and how was she supposed to know Rebecca would be going through a crisis at that exact moment. Even rebecca doesn't fault her for it the next time we see them); As for Roy, we do not know what she said to him before inviting him in. The audience were the ones to assume they were automatically back together after that episode, but it happens offscreen and Roy does know the next episode that they're at least technically "just friends"; I do think it's in character for him to have just read into it what he wanted to be there even if she straight up was like "I don't want to get back together right now but you're welcome to come in ;)" as she lead him through the door, so. Basically i can't judge it one way or another without further details. HOWEVER your point very much still stands with many other examples!!

[lauralot89]

so I saw Halloween Ends and what absolute shit

spoilers of course

so you’d think the final installment of the Halloween franchise would be about Laurie and Michael squaring off, right?  like that would make sense and be the driving force of the plot and not the last ten minutes of the movie?

if I were John Carpenter, I simply would not waste ninety percent of my screen time on Wannabe Michael Myers, who doesn’t even become the new Michael Myers to tease a new franchise with him and Allison or some shit, he just kills himself to fuck with Laurie in the most pointless way

so for some reason in this movie, everyone blames Laurie for the people Michael has killed, saying she “taunted” him or some shit, when a) she was a teenager doing absolutely nothing in Halloween 1978 and b) Halloween Kills established that Michael wasn’t even after her in the 2018 continuity, he only came near her because the doctor DROVE HIM THERE TO PROVOKE A CONFRONTATION

like, maybe if this were right after the events of Halloween Ends and Allison was still coping with her parents’ deaths having just happened, her being such a bitch to Laurie might have worked, but here it’s completely ridiculous.  like Allison has a scene where she screams at Laurie about being obsessed with death, when in the years since Halloween Kills, Laurie has moved out of her fortress house into a suburb and STARTED FUCKING CELEBRATING HALLOWEEN, SHE’S MOVED ON SO MUCH, WHAT THE FUCK

also Halloween Kills was completely pointless to this whole trilogy, the only thing it did that matters is kill Judy Greer, all that Evil Dies Tonight bullshit had no impact on anything and neither did the shit about Michael’s sister’s window, because the Myers house has been demolished offscreen between movies

so this guy accidentally kills a child he’s babysitting the year after Halloween Kills and becomes an outcast and Allison falls in love with him for some reason but then he, a grown adult man, gets beat up and pushed off a bridge by MARCHING BAND HIGH SCHOOLERS, THE LEAST THREATENING GROUP KNOWN TO HUMANITY, and ends up in a storm drain where Michael lives now I guess and Michael looks into his eyes and that transfers the Murderousness to him but I guess not the invulnerability, it’s so bad.  It’s SO BAD.

so then he somehow overpowers MICHAEL FUCKING MYERS and takes his mask and murders some people and it’s stupid and I don’t care, I came here for Michael, what is this shit

and Allison, who has been through numerous traumas, sees nothing at all off-putting about this guy who jumps to violence at the drop of a hat and keeps saying ominous shit, and plans to run away with him, and he shows up at Laurie’s house to kill Laurie because Jamie Lee Curtis has EVIL DETECTION POWERS, and then Allison is about to come in so he slits his own throat so Allison will think Laurie murdered him and hate her except that plot lasts for half a second and then Allison just gets over it and is like “you were right about him” with absolutely no proof

and like, Laurie slits Michael’s throat?  and then he starts to choke her while he’s bleeding out, and it’s played like they’re both going to die even though once he passes out/dies, he’d just let go, but no, Allison has to save her

and then they fucking STRAP MICHAEL’S CORPSE TO THE ROOF OF THEIR CAR AND LEAD A FUCKING PROCESSION THROUGH TOWN UNTIL THEY SHRED HIS BODY IN A JUNKYARD’S GIANT INDUSTRIAL GRINDER THING

IT’S SO BAD

IT’S SO BAD

also stop giving Jamie Lee Curtis atrocious fucking wigs, just let her have short hair like H20 did, I beg you

also also they didn’t even bother to give the lady playing the dead kid’s mom a new outfit for her scene that’s supposed to be years later, she still had finger waves in her hair and was clearly wearing her Halloween costume with a jacket over it, or are we supposed to believe she did a Miss Havisham and never took the costume off

[jemsboner]

I read chain of thorns btw, it was fine but I have a lot of a lot of little complaints that just add up lol

- i miss the earlier books that centered around just the heroine and were almost exclusively from her pov. Now the povs feel like they change every two seconds because the main casts are just way too huge and all always needed something to do.

- in a similar vein, i don’t care about side couples and I never have. I end up skipping like 50 or so pages a book because every. single. character. has to be in love and I have to hear about every single trial and tribulation and make out for some reason. I understand romance is a big aspect of these and don’t get me wrong, i LOVE romance, but these books are so bloated with every teenager having to have one on one moments constantly that I feel like the group dynamics take a hit and even big plot moments feel rushed to make more room for side stuff. Your 800 page book should not feel rushed.

-the family tree being not correct has been a mysterious detail since cp2 and the answer being some lady just did it wrong cause she felt like it is so stupid 😭

-James and Cordelia being in a fight based on a miscommunication for half the book just for drama is infuriating. The reason James does not tell Cordelia about Grace barely makes sense and is only there JUST so he won’t tell her and make the drama last longer.

-the reasons for the adults to be out of the picture just so the kids can be main characters are getting so unbelievable. I was actually interested in Tessa’s trial but too bad we didn’t get to see any of it, and then they all just go to Alicante for a quick trip as if the world isn’t literally ending 😭

-similarly, the lengths tlh goes through to make sure that the tid cast does not steal any spotlight really hurts it I think. Obviously I’m biased and I just want to see Tessa but I don’t think that’s a crazy ask? Like the plot revolves around the fact that her father is a powerful demon and how that affects her kids, but we don’t even get to hear from her after a whole mob accuses her of consorting with Belial. In tmi the adults were not the main focus, but they were *there* and they did things outside of giving vague life advice and then being offscreen for 95% of the books. It’s just feels weird, not even in a stan way, but in these kids’ parents are NEVER around way lmao. Will got to be the designated spokesperson for all of the tid characters and everyone else gets to say nothing ever.

- I’m tired of the demon realms. I never wanna go to a demon realm again.

-Christopher was my favorite of the side characters and I don’t feel like that much weight was given to his death to the point where I was actually surprised when he stayed dead lmao.

Wow I sound like such a hater but i promise im not trying to be 😭 i found it fun enough to still read it within a day, like it’s fine. I just don’t feel a lot of love in the books anymore, they’re very copy and paste and follow a very specific formula but I guess thats what happens when you write at such a rapid pace in the same universe for over a decade. I say all of this but I’m still gonna read the next one lol. Until next time 🫡✌️

[the-spoopy-ghost-of-raejin99]

Some actual g-witch spoilers and theories this time.

With the actual reveal of Eri being a part of Aerial and the implications that Prospera is using Quiet Zero for her sake, I'm beginning to believe that Prospera didn't actually like, physically stuff Eri into Aerial. My guess is, since Quiet Zero has something to do with datastorms, and Prospera says Eri is waiting "beyond the datastorms", it's possible that Gundam pilots who experience datastorms might leave digital imprints behind, and that's where Eri essentially comes from. Whether this was intentional on Prospera's part or simply something she took advantage of after something happened to Eri offscreen after the prologue is unclear, but I'm willing to bet the latter.

Part of me wonders if this means we'll see similar versions of others, like Elan 4 (there's some weird foreshadowing in the new OP where one half of Elan's reflection has 4's earrings, the other has 5's) or Eri's dad, maybe even Sophie. Some are more likely than others, but I wouldn't write it off. Exactly how they would still be around, we would have to see, but if Eri's consciousness was somehow saved, it's possible that at least Sophie (who was affected by Aerial's mini Quiet Zero) might have been saved too.

This is highly speculative so I'm not 100% about this idea, but given Prospera wants to use Quiet Zero to create a world where Eri can be happy, it's possible Prospera wants to pull a technological equivalent to Code Geass's Ragnarok Connection and turn all of humanity digital to have them join Eri. We'll have to see as the plot moves forward what she's actually planning, but given who's writing this, I wouldn't be surprised.

Also seen some folks say that Eri/Aerial was the one actually fighting and that Suletta wasn't doing anything, but I don't think this is true. While I think Aerial is capable of controlling itself, I think Eri's main function in combat is controlling the GUND bits and giving Suletta the benefits of the GUND format without her having to go through the issues with the datastorms. I believe Suletta is the one doing the primary piloting, but it's likely she wouldn't be as effective in another Gundam. My assumption is eventually she'll unlock the ability to use the GUND format the same way Eri does in the prologue, based on the ED foreshadowing.

Some things I'm not sure on:

-Why Eri was so intent on killing Sophie. It could be as simple as either she was trying to stop Sophie from killing Suletta or that in her current form she doesn't think the way a regular person would, but it seemed a bit extreme how far she went.

-Eri seemed a bit different. She's wearing the same exact space suit she did in the prologue, but perhaps it was just different animators working on this scene, but Eri looked slightly older than in the prologue. Like I said, it could just be the animation, or it might be a hint that whatever caused Eri to become like this happened perhaps a year or two after the prologue.

-Suletta's exact nature. There's three main possibilities: Suletta is legitimately Prospera's second daughter (unlikely, since I don't think after the proglogue she would have stopped to have a kid later down the line), she's a clone of Eri, or, most likely, she's an enhanced person made to resemble Eri like the Elans. The last one is the most probable but they really haven't delved too deeply into it yet.

-The number of GUND bits Aerial has. Belmeria seems to explicitly point out that Aerial has 11 bits, which is an odd thing to note if the specific number didn't indicate something important. I'm not sure if it was simply to imply that something with that many GUND bits should be impossible to use without datastorms, or if, like some people have theorized, each bit has its own "personality" implanted into it and she knows a little something about where they came from. Hard to tell, but I could just be reading too much into that.

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Rush Hour 2 (Ratner, 2001)

Having managed to enjoy the work of both Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan on the big screen within the past week, I knew it was time to see them reunite. Time to see them once again join forces for the greater good. Time to revisit... Rush Hour...2. Why not the first Rush Hour, a movie I actually enjoy? Two reasons. One, I've often wheeled out this one and the third in other reviews to illustrate the decline of the average level of filmmaking within the period of a few years, and there's no way in hell I'm willingly rewatching the third. Second, the first one seemed to have left Netflix, and there's no way in hell I'm willingly rewatching the third, so Rush Hour 2 it is.

I think Air gave me an appreciation of how Chris Tucker can be well used in a movie. For example, when he slows the fuck down, lowers his voice, speaks in a soothing tone and stays offscreen for large chunks of the movie, as in Air, he can be pretty enjoyable for the few minutes of well chosen screentime he actually appears, and also the many minutes during which he is nowhere to be seen. (Okay, I'm being a bit mean, he's actually quite good in the movie.) But even in the first Rush Hour, when he's given an actual arc and given some semblance of humility by the story, going from the biggest joke of his department to gaining the respect of his colleagues and himself, you can see how his motormouthed style can be amusing. Here, he's totally unleashed, refusing to shut the fuck up for even an instant, yammering his way with his high-pitched squeal through the movie with total indifference to the needs of the plot. I wanted to tear my head off and roll it away like a bowling ball.

If anything that came out of his mouth was funny, it would be one thing. But for the first half of the movie, his dialogue consists of nothing but relentless racism against the entire Hong Kong population, who somehow resist the urge to cast him off into the sea. And when we foolishly think he might have dialed things down, he comes roaring back during the climax, when he accuses Saul Rubinek of discriminating against him, and then in the spirit of reconciliation, gambles for racial unity, dedicating at least one throw of the dice to Nelson Mandela. Who is more racist, the man being racist to everyone he meets, or the man falsely accusing others of racism? Trick question: it's the same person. (I guess in most instances the first one would be more racist, although the second one is definitely craftier.)

But Tucker at least provides the movie with some noxious lowlights, because the comedy in this otherwise is nothing but tepid callbacks to the original, only played with much less conviction. (Once more without feeling.) There's also the skeevy scene where the boys spy on a scantily clad Roselyn Sanchez through a zoom lens, which anticipates the vile, strangely confessional humour in the third entry, where Tucker graduates to sexual harassment and Roman Polanski performs a cavity search on the heroes. (Apologies if I ruined Rush Hour 3 for anybody just now, but the movie kind of ruined itself by being total dogshit anyway.) I do think you can frame these movies interestingly in the context post-handover international context they came from. The original, aside from its optimism about America-China relations, offers a rebuke to colonial rule. The sequel, with its ugly American run amok, shows the condescension with which Hollywood met the Hong Kong stars who tried to cross over. It's a metaphor for itself.

On that note, I do want to spare a moment to lament John Lone's work in this movie. Imagine going from major roles in The Last Emperor and Year of the Dragon, two of the most acclaimed movies of the '80s, to getting only fifteen or so minutes of screentime in this, around half of which has him subject to anti-Asian racism from Chris Tucker. At least when that happened to him in Year of the Dragon, it was from Mickey Rourke, and he got to play a cool character to compensate. I will however say that Zhang Ziyi holds her own pretty well here. It is not a complex role, but she imbues her character with enough screen presence and ferocity that she's one of the few things in this movie that isn't embarrassing. Also, if you can keep a secret, I thought the part where she said she was gonna blow up Jackie's head was kinda hot.

Seeing this a day after I saw Rumble in the Bronx on the big screen, the action scenes felt as if they were playing at half speed. Sure, it's shot cleanly enough, and the performers are clearly very capable, but the framing is indifferent, the choreography uninspired and the cutting arhythmic. Jackie's talents for physical comedy are used much less than even the original, which at least gave him fun stuff like the bit where he climbs over the wall. Here, he mostly makes the same few funny faces while beating up bad guys. You look at the big climactic stunt, something which should knock your socks off, and instead of presenting it to you in a handful of clean, awe-struck shots, it cuts relentlessly, emphasizing the obvious greenscreen during the unnecessary closeups. But still, the fact that this is all coherent makes it play favourably compared to much of American studio action cinema in the years since. Time has been kind to anything shot on film and anything made before the mid-2000s, and I do think the Hong Kong scenes have some pretty handsome cinematography. And the scaffolding scene is pretty neat, even if the movie cuts too often. There's at least conceptual creativity there. Compared to the desaturated, greenscreened, cut-to-shreds, rubbery CGI hellscape of the third, this looks like a masterpiece.