#even though its literally shown in the comics .

[sonknuxadow]

kind of want to make a poll thats like whos the worst parent in the sonic franchise because theres so many awful ones and i think it would be funny but also it would probably start an actual war in my notes

[augustjustice]

Chemistry, History, and Shared Trauma

AO3 Link

The day Eddie’s released from the hospital, he’s packed up into Steve’s BMW and driven straight to the Harrington mansion.

The government agents are still in the process of doing the whole song-and-dance routine required to clear Eddie’s name, so laying low is ideal. There hasn’t been time to relocate Wayne to a new trailer–something Owen promises is happening, though Eddie will believe it when he sees it–and a hotel room isn’t really a great place to recover, especially considering the state Eddie finds himself in. 

When the question of where exactly he was going to go had come up, Steve had volunteered all too quickly.

“You can stay with me,” he had said, easy as pie, like it was nothing. “My parents aren’t home, and, besides…it’s not like anybody’s going to be looking for you there.”

Though Eddie had tried to protest, quick to say that he didn’t want to put Steve out, his jock savior wouldn’t hear a word of it.

So, the next day, Steve had shown up to the hospital early, signed all the appropriate paperwork, and then wheeled Eddie out into the parking lot whistling some upbeat, poppy tune Eddie didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of recognizing–but still found oddly endearing, in spite of himself. 

And that had been that, Steve hauling Eddie’s cane out for him under one arm and his bag of meds in the other once they pull up in front of the Harringtons’ house, ready to put Eddie up in the guest room next to his like he’d belonged there all along.

Eddie’s mobility is still pretty limited–hence the cane and the wheelchair now sitting in the Harrington’s den–but that doesn’t mean he isn’t bold (and stupid) enough to try to make his way up the stairs on his own.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Steve scolds, catching Eddie around the waist as he wavers on his feet a little, clearly being careful of the open wounds on his stomach and torso. “Hold on, just…hold on, man.” 

“You got me, big boy?” Eddie teases.

The flirtatious call back is a diversion, an attempt to cover up the embarrassment of having to be this damn reliant on…well, literally everyone around him, but Steve in particular from here on out. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I got you,” Steve says, tone nothing less than perfectly sincere. 

Eddie deliberately ignores the way his stomach gives a little swoop in response. 

So he leans on Steve heavily as they make their way to the next story of the house, close enough to get a faint whiff of Steve’s cologne, a surprisingly sweet mix of amber, vanilla, and something a little fruity tickling his nose. Once they’re finally inside, though, Eddie does manage to hold himself upright long enough for a quick look around, taking in the digs he’s going to be sleeping in.

The room itself is almost sterile in its cleanliness–neat military precious corners on the bed, devoid of the usual clutter Eddie associates with home. The blue floral pattern that covers the walls is bizarrely identical to the fabric of the curtains, the repetition almost comical, when he thinks about the uniformity of all the houses that line the street. It’s the kind of detail that would be called too ‘on the nose,’ if written into a book. 

Eddie’s surprised to find a few exceptions to the cold tidiness, however, and even more surprised those exceptions come in the form of a stack of fantasy novels stashed inside the bedside table and a couple of action figures tossed in one corner.

Following his gaze, Steve turns from where he’s ‘tidying up’ what can only be an imaginary mess perceptible to the eyes of babysitting monster hunters and babysitting monster hunters alone, Eddie guesses. He gives Eddie a wry look. 

“Dustin stays over sometimes,” he explains, “the other rugrats, too, but it’s still mostly his stuff that winds up here. Leaves his shit all over the place.” 

There’s a fondness to Steve’s smile that undercuts the annoyance in his words. 

Eddie thinks back to the months and months Dustin spent talking Steve up to him. How even then it never really occurred to him just how close they might be. It’s strange to think, now, that though Eddie’s spent nearly a whole school year as DM for Steve’s nerdy band of babysitting charges, their paths had rarely ever crossed, beyond glimpses and a handful of long forgotten words exchanged, before that nightmare of a Spring Break. Almost like their lives have been running in some kind of strange parallel, fated to collide, without either of them even noticing it.

Eddie’s not exactly sure how to phrase the feeling that comes over him at the thought, so instead he says, “I can’t believe we’re best friends with a fourteen year old, man.”

“God, tell me about it.” 

Eddie takes a few stumbling steps forward and sits down on the bed, honestly a bit proud of himself he manages it with as much grace as he does. As he settles in, he catches sight of a small stack of photos splayed out on the bedside, sitting atop what looks to be a photo album. 

Though it’s only a brief glimpse, the two visible pictures alone hint at the whole life story no doubt tucked away between glossy pages. 

Theres’s Dustin, several years younger than he is now, in a suit shooting the camera his gummy smile and with a hairdo that looks suspiciously like Steve’s own. And a polaroid shows Robin sprawled out on the counter at Scoops Ahoy, company policy be damned and a book in her hand, Steve’s head just in frame as she flips off the camera.  

While Steve fusses over him, fluffing his pillows and insisting he go get Eddie something to drink, Eddie can’t help but think he'd sorta like to hear it sometime–Steve Harrington’s life story. Be regaled with tales, from the photos and beyond, now that they’re here together, after the almost end of the world.

He hopes that, maybe, if he’s lucky, Steve will want to tell him some day. 

---

The bloodcurdling scream wakes Steve. 

He’s out of his room and down the hall in a flash, nail bat quickly snatched out of its hiding place underneath his bed with ease after years of practice. 

Even with his heart racing, he’s quiet when he opens the guest bedroom door, not wanting to scare Eddie or alert…anything else that might be lurking inside. 

“Eddie,” Steve calls out, whisper soft as he approaches the bed. When he repeats it, it’s a little harsher, more of a hiss, trying to get Eddie’s attention. “Eddie!” 

As he draws closer, Steve can see that Eddie is sweating, large droplets visible where they’ve beaded on his forehead, and he’s writhing hard enough in the sheets Steve’s worried he’s going to pop a stitch if he doesn’t stop him soon.

There’s really only one option ahead Steve sees for himself. 

So he gets a knee on the mattress and climbs into the bed, wrapping his arms around Eddie to still him. Even as he does it, Steve worries his bottom lip between his teeth, anxious Eddie might fight against the restriction and inadvertently make the situation worse. 

But then huge brown eyes fly open, Eddie’s terror reflected plainly as he stares up at Steve. 

“Jeez–Christ!” Eddie manages to get out, stuttered and slurred, cutting off when Steve makes a soft shushing sound. 

“Hey, man,” Steve murmurs, trying to keep his tone soothing as he gives him a tentative smile, “it’s me. It’s just me. You’re okay, you’re safe.” 

He brushes Eddie’s sweaty bangs back from his forehead, a gesture that would be too intimate in any other circumstances, and then just keeps trying to murmur reassuring shit to him, voice low and gentle. 

“I’m here, Eds. I’m here.” 

Eddie is shaking against him, but he isn’t squirming or trying to buck him off, which Steve takes as a good sign–as ideal, really, as Steve could hope for in this situation. One of Eddie’s hands comes up to run down his face, his curls shifting against the pillow as he shakes his head fervently. 

“Shit, Harrington, I thought–I mean, what I saw–” he trails off, lip trembling. 

“I get it, man. Trust me, I get it.”

Though Eddie had squeezed his eyes firmly shut through the come down, he blinks them open again, looking at Steve through the darkness.

“Yeah, uh. Guess you would, wouldn’t you? Probably better than anybody.” 

Steve can only nod his agreement.

“I mean, not just me. All of us get them,” he whispers, compelled to say it quietly, as he’s not sure if that truth is a comfort or a burden. “The nightmares, you know? Nance, Dustin, Robin–me.” 

“Well, can I just say, they truly and royally suck.”

“Yeah…can’t really argue with you there, man.”

Eddie seems to register, then, that Steve has curled his body around him. His steadily loosening posture goes stiff again, much to Steve’s disappointment, and his eyes dart over nervously to catch Steve’s as he sucks in his bottom lip. 

“Fuck, I-I’m sorry, dude. I totally didn’t mean to wake you up with my–terror-filled screams.”

The smile he shoots Steve is self-deprecating, tentative. 

Steve’s grip slackens, but he doesn’t pull away, still pressed against Eddie’s side. 

“Hey,” Steve coaxed, “you don’t need to do that, Eds. Like I said, we all fucking get them. That’s what I’m here for, okay? I–just wanna help when I can.”

The quirk of Eddie’s lips looks more genuine, now, some of the tension draining away. 

“You know, Harrington, it’s kinda annoying how much I know you mean that.”

“Better get used to it, Munson. Cuz I’m not going anywhere.”

Steve gives Eddie one final quick squeeze around his shoulders, wondering if the gesture somehow crosses the line of casual, friendly touch Steve has gotten used to doling out to Eddie since all the Upside Down shit started, the jocular back pats and hair ruffling he’d justified as just typical guy stuff. 

With that thought firmly at the front of his mind, Steve pulls away, albeit reluctantly. That said, he really doesn’t want to go back immediately on his word by slinking off to his bedroom, abandoning Eddie to fight off whatever images linger alone in the dark.

Especially not when he hears the almost imperceptible noise Eddie lets out as he stands. 

Steve eyes the floor speculatively, an idea already taking root in his head. 

“Speaking of, why don’t I just–stay here tonight. Yeah?” he suggests, already tossing the pillow and throw from the chair in the corner on the ground, making himself a pallet.

Sure, it’s not the most comfortable sleeping position ever, but between chairs in the Wheelers’ basement and the cold, hard floor of a Russian elevator, Steve’s done a lot worse. 

“C’mon, man–you don’t have to do that,” Eddie tries to protest. 

Like Steve can’t clearly see how haggard he looks, peering down at Steve through the curtain of his hair, the end of one strand damp where he’s pulled it up to his mouth and chewed on it.

Steve waves him off. “It’s not a problem. I already told you, dude, Henderson stays over all the time–you think I’ve never had to have a floor sleepover when he was around? Get real.”

Eddie quirks an eyebrow at him. 

“...Something tells me you’re not going anywhere even if I pull out my magnificent rhetorical skills from years of DMing  and try to argue with you, huh?”

Steve thinks that really Eddie’s just proved his point, the fact that, since Steve mentioned staying, he’s recovered himself enough to be teasing all the more reason sticking around is clearly a good thing. 

“Nope,” he answers, voice chipper as he shoots a finger gun at Eddie.

Eddie shakes his head ruefully. “Alright, didn’t think so.” 

Without further ado, Steve flops himself gracelessly onto his makeshift bed for the night, the thick carpet beneath softening his landing. 

“Night, Eddie.”

“Yeah. Yeah, night, Steve.”

Several long moments pass, and Steve listens, waiting to hear Eddie’s breathing evening out. It’s a sound he has become well acquainted with after many nights spent at the hospital, fitfully trying to sleep in the uncomfortable chair at Eddie’s bedside. When he fails to hear that telltale signal, Steve can’t help but stay tensed, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice.

He doesn’t have to wait long before Eddie breaks the silence.

“Steve?” Eddie calls out, voice wavering. “Could you–fuck, man, I just need…”

He trails off, becoming muffled as he probably buries his face in his hands again. Even in the darkness, as Steve sits up, he can see the way Eddie’s shoulders hitch with his uneven breathing. 

Without a word, he abandons the pillow and blanket on the floor to climb back onto the bed. Eddie doesn’t even look up when Steve’s weight dips the mattress.

“Hey, man,” Steve hipchecks him, nudging him over gently, “move over.”

“Harrington…” Eddie drawls slowly, looking completely lost even as he does as requested. His eyes widen further when Steve climbs into the empty space he left behind. “What’re you doing?”

“What does it look like?” Steve asks, raising an eyebrow as he leans back onto the pillows, getting comfortable. 

“I know what it looks like, I just need some reassurance I’m not just hallucinating from blood loss or something here, man. Maybe you didn’t actually pull me, barely alive, out of that hellhole, and everything since then has all just been a really, really elaborate dream.” 

Steve laughs, jostling his shoulder slightly.

“You’re not hallucinating.”

Eddie continues to stare at him in silent disbelief, causing Steve to sigh and sit up.

“Look, man, I–I get it, okay? All this, afterwards…sometimes it helps, just…being together. Close by, you know?”

Steve had had Nancy and the pretense of normalcy after the first go around, though that had all quickly gone to hell. 

And the second time, when the kids truly were still kids, not the tiny adults they were fast becoming, there had been Dustin. The night after their second showdown, they’d slept side-by-side on their own makeshift palate on Joyce Byers’ living room floor, the other munchkins all scattered around them and Steve’s hand ruffled in Dustin’s hair, just the reassurance that he was there safe and comforting.

It was the best Steve had slept in almost a year. 

And then, after the third time, there had been Robin. Filling up his parents’ empty house with laughter, movie marathons and impromptu sleepovers. Robin crawling into his bed in the middle of the night because she didn’t want to sleep alone in the echoing walls of Casa de Harrington, the two of them kicking each other like two giggling preteens until they fell asleep. 

So, yeah. Together, in Steve’s many years of experience, was undeniably better.

“Besides, this way I can check and make sure you don’t actually bleed out in the middle of the night.” 

“...If you say so,” Eddie says dubiously, but he doesn’t argue any further, which Steve counts as a win. He’s learned to take them where he can get them, these days. 

But even after his agreement, Eddie’s restlessness is transparent. He fidgets beside Steve–drumming his fingers, squirming in the sheets as though trying to get comfortable, and eventually rolling half onto his side so that he’s facing away from Steve entirely. As Steve peers curiously at the outline of his shoulders, he realizes Eddie is still trembling, just a little.

His heart gives a painful kick in his chest. 

“Here, just–” Steve turns until he’s lined up along Eddie’s back and then wraps a hand around his waist, pulling him back against him.

Eddie’s fidgeting stops immediately as he freezes in Steve’s arms. 

“How’s that?” he asks into the waves of Eddie’s hair brushing against his face. “Better?” 

“Uh.” 

The hesitation in Eddie’s voice makes Steve really wish he could see his face, get a better read on the situation. Eddie’s so damn expressive, he might as well be the poster boy for “heart on his sleeve” as a phrase. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”

“Are you totally weirded out?” Steve asks, trying to keep his voice casual. “If you want me to, like, stop, you can just…tell me, you know.” 

“No,” Eddie laughs, his head dipping downwards, “no, man, it’s…it’s definitely not that. I’m just trying to reconcile several shifting pieces of my world outlook into place all at once.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

Eddie turns, then, tipping over onto his back again so he can stare at Steve in disbelief. Steve doesn’t loosen his hold on his waist. 

“Steve Harrington. Is in my bed. Spooning me,” Eddie raises his eyebrows at him. “None of that strikes you as weird?”

“I’m not spooning you now,” Steve points out. “You turned around.”

“Dude!” Eddie smacks his shoulder, shaking his head, laughter in his voice. They’re close enough his hair tickles Steve’s face as it whips around them.

“And, no, not really,” Steve shrugs. “Probably doesn’t even rank in the top ten weirdest things I’ve done in the past three years.” 

“I mean…after the shit I’ve seen? I don’t doubt that, dude.”

But Eddie stares at him for a long beat after he admits it, eyes bright and brows drawn. There’s an expression, on his face, like he’d like to crack Steve open and see how his gears work, understand him from the inside out. 

Plenty of people have looked at Steve like they wanted him. Steve’s not sure anyone has ever looked at him like this before, though. 

The comforter has fallen down around Eddie’s waist, the shirt Steve had lent him riding up, exposing the pale line of his stomach. The worst of the wounds are still covered in bandages, the stitching hidden underneath them, but a patch of fresh, purple scarring spills out from the stark white gauze.

That’s the only real explanation that Steve has, for what he decides to break the sudden, loaded silence with.

(Plus maybe, just maybe, it’s one way of giving Eddie a part of himself, one jigsaw piece in the puzzle those bright brown eyes seem eager to solve.)

“You know, Nancy has a scar on her palm.”

When Eddie’s face turns towards his on the pillow, shooting him a puzzled look, he keeps going. 

“Here, like this,” Steve tries to sound nonchalant as he takes Eddie’s hand, drags a finger gently across it. He’s not sure how much he’s succeeded, seeing the way the furrow of Eddie’s brow deepens in the low light. “And it’s…from the first time, with the demogorgon? Nancy and Jonathan, they–they lured it out together, and they’ve got the matching scars to prove it. She explained it to me, later, what happened.”

“I mean…that sounds like a gnarly war wound,” Eddie observes hesitantly. Then, his lips tug into a lopsided smile. “Not as impressive as a missing nipple, of course, but, you know–not everybody can be as badass as me.”

“Shut up, dude,” Steve scoffs, trying to bite back his own smile as he very gently jostles Eddie’s arm. 

“What I’m trying to say, Harrington, is–I’m not really sure why you’re telling me this now?”

“I was getting to it, Eds. Sheesh, when it comes to patience, you're as bad as the munchkins.”

Eddie inclines his head for Steve to continue, not even bothering to hide his amusement. “You have my sincerest apologies for interrupting, Stevie. Please–carry on, my liege.”

“Thank you,” Steve says snippily, partially out of habit, and partially because returning to the topic at hand is making him a little nervous. “So, like I was saying–Jonathan and Nance, they’ve got these matching marks on their hands, right? And, after they got back together–not to sound like a stalker, or anything, for the record this was when we would hang out sometimes–but more than once I would…I would catch them, just. Doing this thing where they pressed their palms together, like this.”

He demonstrates, spreading his hand out so his and Eddie’s hands line up together perfectly, Steve’s own longer fingers inching out over the tips of Eddie’s own.

“I don’t think they ever realized I noticed. But I always knew, when they did it, they were comparing their–what did you call them?–their matching war wounds. Like they carried this secret little thing that would always tie them together, no matter what happened. And I’m not gonna pretend I wasn’t jealous, at first, but even then, I always thought it was…nice. The thought of having somebody who would always be connected to you, that way, where you could never really erase what you’d been through together.” 

A long beat of silence passes between them, him and Eddie staring at each other in the moonlight. Steve hopes, desperately, that maybe some part of what he’s trying to work up to saying is getting through. 

“That is…incredibly morbid. Especially for you, Harrington,” Eddie notes finally, a corner of his mouth ticking up in amusement. 

Steve huffs out a breath, beginning to pull his hand away, “Whatever, man, if you’re just gonna make fun, forget I said any–”

“Shit, no no no, dude!” Eddie’s arm flies out, gripping Steve tightly around the wrist, not letting him slink away. “I’m sorry, Stevie, I–that’s not what I meant. I do, I do get what you’re saying. Like you said, scars like that–they work like a symbol, that you’ve been through some tough shit together, side by side, and made it out the other end alive. I totally fucking get it, dude. And against all instincts, I do think it’s pretty romantic, in an absolutely metal sorta way. That’s why I said it like that. Just didn’t expect your romantic side to come with so much edge, Stevie boy.”

“Yeah, well,” Steve lets out a dry huff, “almost dying about a hundred times will do that to a person.” 

“Yeah, I guess it will. I’m, uh. Still not completely clear about what Wheeler and Byers’ big epic love story has to do with us, though?” Eddie’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows hard. “Unless…you’re here to wallow? In which case–I mean, fair enough. Wallow away, my good sir. You’ve more than earned it.”

“It’s not that,” Steve insists, even as he shrugs his shoulders, slightly conceding the point. “I mean, sure, with Nancy…I really thought she was it for me, once upon a time. And so when I saw what she had, with Jonathan–it hurt. Because it was her, of course, but also…because I wanted that with someone, as twisted as it maybe sounds. I’d gone through hell and back, too, and all I got was that nail bat and a bunch of mouthy kids to look out for.”

Eddie lets out a bark of laughter, and Steve grins back at him.  

“Not that I’m complaining, or anything. I mean, I got Robin, too, and I don’t know what I’d do without her, or the hellions, for that matter. But, I–”

Deliberately, he tugs up his own shirt, shifting until he’s pressing carefully against Eddie’s side. Their matching bandages brush, an identical swath of white in the darkness, tangled scars seeming to almost curl together. It’s hard, in that moment, to tell where one of them ends and the other begins. 

“I just–never thought I’d have anybody else to match with. That’s all.” 

“But–now you do?” Eddie says slowly, something cautious in his voice.

“Well, yeah,” Steve shrugs, the corner of his mouth curving upwards in a tentative half-smile. “Now I’ve got you.”

“...You got me,” Eddie agrees quietly, almost like he’s afraid to speak that part out loud. “Dragged me out of hell and everything, Harrington. No return receipt after all that so…don’t really think there’s any getting rid of me now, even if you wanted to.”

“Good,” Steve says curtly, with a sharp, certain nod of his head, leaving no room for any creeping doubts. “Like I said, Munson, I’ve been waiting on this for a while, so you don’t get to run out on me now.”

Eddie shakes his head again, lips curling in bemusement. 

“You are something else entirely, Steve Harrington,” he admits. “Full of surprises.”

“Good ones?” Steve asks, suddenly self-conscious.

Eddie tilts his head back and forth, as though he’s considering.

(Later, he will tease Steve about it mercilessly.

“Was that the infamous Harrington charm at work? Bet you tell that one to all the boys you lure into your bed, seduce them with tales of matching battle wounds connecting you like a pair of fated lovers.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Eds,” Steve will counter with that same sincerity that always sends Eddie blushing, “cuz I’ve never said anything like that before. Not to anybody. Not before you.”)

But, for now, it takes only a moment for Eddie’s face to dissolve into a warm smile. Reaching over, he tangles his fingers with Steve’s again, tugging their interlaced hands up to rest against one of the scarred patches stretching across his belly. 

The skin feels smooth under Steve’s hand. For a moment, he wonders how it would feel, to press his lips there. 

“Yeah,” Eddie answers, eyes sparkling with so many promises of the future, for now left unsaid. “Yeah, I’d say pretty good so far.”

[melodyglow-blog]

Why i think Dabi / Touya is still alive after chapter 430

#spoilers ahead

Ok first of all,this shit was so ass, i dont even wanna think about how the final chapter looks like it was set in a dark AU ending where nothing changes and rei looks older than ever, still pushing enjis wheelchair for the past 8 years🤮, shoto being a workaholic (and soon being num ONE). Shouldnt he be more focused on his friendships??

Plus, no mention of his siblings that his arc has been working on reconnecting him with. 🤮 So like...Enji won? Shoto will be number one after all wtff..

But id rather think about the fact that touya could still be alive after the timeskip. Here are a few reasons why..

No gravestone shown, no image of a shrine or a burial, hell..no mention of his death AT ALL unlike with toga or shigaraki, erasers friend and midnight...hell, deku even hallucinates shiggy. If touya was truly dead i feel like we wouldve seen a panel of his shrine or ANY indication if his death.

Society and tech have improved so much that quirkless deku can be a hero, so theres no way that touya, with a partial healing ice quirk isnt kept alive.

He was last shown to be 'slowly marching towards death' like BITCH thats literally what being alive is, we are all slowly marching towards death😭

This man is allergic to dying and i do believe that hori left his outcome ambiguous for a reason, if hori wanted to show touya dead he 100% would.

Shoto smiling..like bro would be smiling like that after his oldest brother passed away, like i said, intentionally hori is avoiding any mention of Touya, even natuso is not shown or mentioned, just that shoto has become a workaholic and on his way to being number one...

Plus the panel text is from Deku's pov. So its not todoroki's internal monolouge thats revealed, only his expression and hopefully thats an indicator that his siblings are ok.

Hori has 100% lost the plot lmao, the ending is so convoluted and out of character that theres simply no in universe reason why Touya would be straight up dead. Making shoto mention his father instead of his brothers or sister or MOTHER was certainly a choice🤮🤮🤮.

Old rei pushing enjis wheelchair is sickening and i dont wanna believe that shes still his maid if she has had to mourn touya a second time, its gross and literally a dark au cause wtf.

Since none of shotos siblings were mentioned, this empty space of detail lets us assume that shoto isnt stressing about them. If touya was dead we would see him visiting his shrine, in japanese culture, visiting gravestones and praying to shrines of the dead is symbollic.

I firmly believe that hori either got seriously sick (he said his ears were leaking fluid) or got pressured by his team (he said he cried when his management made him scrap an extra comic page he drew of dabi and sceptic on the past) , i believe that at this point, he didnt have a lot of creative control over his work and wasnt allowed to dedicate more panels to the LOV. HE HAD to prioritise enji and the characters at the top of the poll. When touya came 4th on the final poll, it was too late, his story became enji's story even though hori confessed that he had initially written enji to be killed off in the high end nomu fight.

The story is such a retconned mess, theres no way he wasnt planning shiggy and touya to be SAVED physically, literally touyas last panel is of him crying alone lmaoo.

IN BOTH of Horikoshi's previous serialized series the villains lived and got to reform and atone at the end..

But yeah, my end verdict is that hori intentionally didnt mention touya for the fans to theorise about him living💀

BONUS ~ i saw a post mentioning this, There is also a throwaway panel of the Doctor "curing the uncurable" - which could refer to Touya

[g5mlp]

The future of MLP Generation 5

An MLP marketing video published by the Mexican company Panadería Licensing has been circulating. This video claims that in 2025, the MLP brand is to be rebooted with a "Ponyverse" show featuring "our most iconic characters", possibly both G4 and G5.

However, we also were told by a reliable source that this plan may already have been cancelled, and that "G5 is dead". Apparently, there might not be any MLP content in 2025, and it may not be long before My Little Pony: Tell Your Tale ends.

What's been going on with G5?

Last June, a different source provided us with the 2024 Franchise Overview presentation. As it envisaged, Tell Your Tale became the only pony show in 2024, and its second season began with a weekly schedule. A few of the toys that were shown have been released. There was even a statement that content had been greenlit for 2025.

However, at the end of February 2024, Hasbro abruptly changed course. After multiple unexplained delays and scheduling mishaps, Tell Your Tale settled on a bi-weekly schedule instead. Hasbro hasn't promoted G5 on social media at all, and has instead posted about G1/G4 brand collabs. Hasbro also hasn't licensed either of the G5 shows to TV networks or ad-supported streaming services, as they had originally planned to.

What new information do we now have?

The "Ponyverse" presentation tells us:

A "Ponyverse" series would have replaced Tell Your Tale as the main MLP show.

Hasbro wanted G4 to be a bigger part of the brand. G5 is still nowhere near as popular as G4, and its media hasn't been received as well. It seems like "Ponyverse" would have literally combined the "most iconic characters" of G4 and G5 into one show, somehow.

The new show might have been rushed if it had actually been made. It would only have been in development for around 18 months before the first episode was released, which is roughly what Make Your Mark got, and we all know how Chapter 1 turned out.

After the presentation was posted in our Discord server, our source clarified to us:

The "Ponyverse" project has already been cancelled. It was probably briefly real, though.

G5's ending soon, and there's not much Tell Your Tale content left to be released. In fact, they said we'd be "lucky" for the second Tell Your Tale special to be published (four were planned). Hasbro, therefore, must have chosen to prematurely end production of the show.

There won't be any major new content until 2026. This would give Hasbro and the animation studio a bit more time to develop a new show.

Our source has previously provided accurate information about upcoming MLP content, and we have no reason to believe that they are making this up. However, we have no way to independently confirm this information; it may be incorrect, and it may become outdated if Hasbro changes their plans again.

What's going to happen now?

As our source stated, there's no reason to expect that there will be any more Tell Your Tale specials.

It's not clear when Tell Your Tale season 2 will end, but here are some possibilities:

Episode 23. This is likely the last episode that has been added to the season 2 YouTube playlist. The videos are in pairs: one for the Tell Your Tale channel and one for the My Little Pony Official channel. (Click the ⋮ button and then "Show unavailable videos" to see private videos.)

Episode 35. This is the last episode for which we have actual evidence of its existence. In March, the Lil Critter Workshop artist Vian Teow uploaded a bunch of Tell Your Tale backgrounds to his portfolio. Two of the files' names indicate that they are for this episode ("mlp235"), and that they were finished on February 5 and February 7, 2024.

Episode 48. If all of the planned episodes (according to the "328 minutes" number from 2023) were actually released, then this would be the final episode. This now seems increasingly unlikely to happen.

There are several comics left to be released in the Maretime Mysteries and The Storm of Zephyr Heights miniseries, and the Bridlewood RP game on Roblox is still in beta. Other than that, though, there doesn't seem to be much left for G5. I imagine people are already drafting their video essays about how it all went wrong.

[orionsangel86]

Hob Gadling - A Queer Romantic?

I have been listening to The World's End chapters of The Sandman on Audible lately and just finished Hob's Leviathan. I didn't pay this story much attention when I first read the comic, as I tended to read through the stories quickly and put more focus into the stories where Dream had a larger role. But one of the reasons I like listening to the Audible book is because it allows me to absorb each story more thoroughly and take my time thinking about each one and the (usually multiple) meanings behind them.

Hob Gadling is a character that fandom has fallen in love with. I think this is clear to anyone that takes even a partial glance at Sandman fandom. This isn't a criticism - Ferdie's performance as Hob in the Netflix show has done wonders for Hob's character. He has made his version of Hob very easy to fall in love with!

But the truth is that in The Sandman comics, Hob is a minor character who we only get to know very little about. The story Hob's Leviathan appears in The Worlds End Sandman book. We only meet him twice before this, once in The Doll's House, where we are introduced to him in Men of Good Fortune, and again in Season of Mists when Dream comes to let him know that he may miss their next meeting. In both these issues, Hob is introduced via the narrator, and therefore I like to think that we are given a fairly honest representation of the kind of person he is. We watch him grow and learn throughout the centuries in MoGF, but one of the major takeaways from this I believe is that he tends to always be on the wrong side of history. He makes bad choices and can be a bit narrow minded. He is rude and selfish and also rather self-absorbed. I actually think that the performance of the voice actor who plays Hob in the Audible book emphasises these character flaws making him even more unlikeable in many ways, though I am aware that this could just be my own experience and opinion.

But Hob's Leviathan takes a different view of Hob. Literally. The narrator of this story is a young boy of 16 called Jim. Jim met Hob on a ship travelling from Bombay to Liverpool in 1914. Jim was working on the ship as a cabin boy and Hob had bought his passage back to England - though it is revealled at the end of the story that Hob actually owned the ship they were travelling on. It is clear that at this point in time, Hob is extremely wealthy.

Jim attends to Hob throughout the journey, and grows very fond of him. In Jim's tale, Hob is a good man, who is kind and thoughtful and cares about others. He saves the life of a stowaway (who turns out to be another immortal). He is shown to be patient, and funny, and very intelligent. Jim waxes poetic about how smart Hob is, and how much he impressed him. It is particularly clear in the Audible book that Jim is taken with Hob, to the point that it could arguably be a crush.

It is fascinating how much more likeable Hob is when narrated from the viewpoint of someone with a crush on him, whether this story is exaggerated through rose tinted glasses is of course something to consider. All the tales in World's End are just that, tales. There is a constant undercurrent of exaggeration and make believe to them where even the other patrons of the inn question elements to each of the stories. We are not supposed to take these stories as absolute fact, rather they are supposed to reveal to us more about the narrators as well as their own experiences existing in this magical and strange world.

When it is revealled that Jim is actually a girl called Peggy in disguise so they can get work on the ships, the quite obvious crush makes more sense to a heteronormative audience, but what I particularly like about this story is its queer potential. See in the comic, it isn't really clarified if Jim goes by Jim because they feel more themselves as a boy, rather than a girl, or if they are disguising themself as a boy just to get work as a means to an end. I would argue that the latter is the more obvious interpretation. Jim tells the other World's End patrons that they are getting too old to keep up the disguise and will eventually have to stop working in shipping, and that when that happens, they will take on a new name, a new identity and do something else, but that for now, the patrons can keep calling them Jim.

*for a lack of clarity around the point in the comic, I am going to use gender neutral pronouns for Jim going forward*

Now from Hob's POV, he figured out that Jim was a girl, and they talk about it briefly along with the sea serpent they saw. I think that at this point, Hob is impressively progressive compared to the previous times we have met him. Now whether or not this is biased storytelling from someone who has a crush on him remains to be seen, but if we take Jim's word as truth, not only is 1914 Hob a fair and honest man who is willing to pay the way of a stowaway and fully respect the secrets of a young girl disguised as a boy so they can work on ships, but he's also totally comfortable flirting with them.

I like that he calls Jim the "handsome cabin boy". I like that this version of Hob, whether real or an exaggeration skewed by Jim's feelings for him, respects Jim's identity. Jim may be a girl in disguise, but Hob doesnt call her pretty, he calls him handsome.

It's all just a bit subtly queer and I like that for Hob (But then I would do, I'm a Dreamling shipper HA)

When Jim finishes their story, they state that they didn't see Hob again after that, but the comics later do give us a possible outcome to Jim's story...

We next see Hob in The Kindly Ones where he is mourning the death of his girlfriend Audrey. He briefly reveals that Audrey was the first person he had loved since Peggy, who was his lover until her death during the Blitz. Whilst it isn't made clear that Hob's lover Peggy is the same Jim that we meet in World's End, it is a bit too much of a coincidence. The timing adds up. If Jim was 16 in 1914, they'd be in their early 40s during the Blitz. Hob remains forever in his early 30s so I'd say its a safe bet that Jim eventually found Hob again and they were together. Hob loved them enough that he wasn't with anyone again until Audrey in the 80s. That's 50 years worth of mourning. A long time not to be with anyone, even for an immortal.

It's funny because we know so little about Hob, but one thing that I have seen commented on here a lot is that comic Hob is deemed to be as Straight as an arrow. Now I admit that the voice actor in the Audible book plays him very straight, but that is still only one interpretation.

All this is to say that I am fascinated with how the Netflix show will adapt this, since Hob in the show already comes across much kinder and more selfless than his comic counterpart. He already has an entire fandom viewing him as queer, and the comics certainly don't outright shut down such interpretations. There are moments in the comics that you have to wonder on. He does call Jim handsome rather than pretty, and when he talks to Audrey's grave he mentions his wives and loves as separate groups. He talks about finding it easy to get sex if you want it, and he talks about it in generally gender neutral terms. In Sunday Mourning Gwen reveals that she thought he was gay when she first met him, though her reasonings were that he knew so many dead people (a dark reminder that these comics were published at the height of the Aids epidemic). He reacts very badly to the news of Morpheus' death. He states on several occassions just how much he liked Morpheus, and he is one of the few people to wake up from the Wake with tears running down his cheeks. I would arguably state that its between Hob and Matthew as to who had the worst reaction to Morpheus' death, showing just how much both Hob and Matthew cared about him, and placing Hob on par with Matthew in the comics is a big deal. He seriously considers accepting Death's gift when she offers it, simply because Morpheus is dead. He doesn't, because at the end of the day, its just not in his nature to do so, and given he then dreams of Morpheus, I like to think that it was a test, that he passed.

When it comes to how the show will adapt all this, I genuinely think it will take a new approach with Jim/Peggy. I think they will be either a trans man, or at least non binary. But I think having Jim be a trans man is the better option. In the comics, Jim's tale is only very subtly queer, Jim clearly likes being Jim, but it seems like its a means to an end, a convenience in order to get work on the ships, rather than being something that is core to Jim's feelings on their gender. Besides, if we assume that Jim is indeed the Peggy Hob talks about in The Kindly Ones, then we know that Jim goes back to being Peggy when they get older and apparently continues living as a woman whilst they are with Hob, otherwise I doubt Hob would have referred to one of his greatest loves by a name they themselves rejected and only used she/her pronouns when talking about them. Nevertheless there is no reason for the show to take this approach, and if they DO decide that Jim should be a trans man, then their relationship with Hob is canonically a queer one. Trans men are men and if one of Hob's greatest loves is a trans man, then Hob is a queer man himself. I genuinely believe the show will take this route and I can't wait to see it.

Going back to my point about narrators bias, if MoGF, SoM, tKO, and TW are all narrated by a neutral third party, then this must be the true Hob. A not overly likeable rather selfish man. He has his good points, and he has certainly grown and changed over the centuries, and carries a lot of guilt for his past mistakes, but he is still quite self absorbed. Jim paints a picture of a rose tinted Hob that is far more the dreamy romantic older gentleman that took a young person under his wing. Which is fair enough.

The show is of course its own adaptation, with changes from the comics as it sees fit, but I do feel it's my duty to remind you that the show also has a narrator guiding the audience through its many stories. Dream of the Endless, Lord Morpheus, King of Nightmares and Prince of Stories himself. Take from that whatever you will.

;-)

[genericpuff]

saw this pop up on /r/UnpopularLoreOlympus and I-

Full analysis post that inspired this post can be read here, it's a good read, go check it out!

Now my natural reaction to not assume the worst (shocking, I know) is that what Rachel's actual intention behind making Leto a sun god was due to her being Apollo's mother and her clearly having a stronger relationship with him rather than Artemis. I'm abiding by Occam's Razor here, it's the simplest answer and it keeps my brain from getting too riled up right off the bat LMAO

There's a lot of emphasis put on Apollo being the god of the sun in LO, despite the fact that Apollo is one of the MOST prolific gods in the Greek pantheon, Rachel only ever really focuses on him being god of the sun with some loose references to him also being the god of music (as we see with him playing his lyre). There's really no real referencing to him being the god of medicine though (aside from that scene of him condom-bandaging Persephone's hand in Episode 22 ?? which is silly now in hindsight because she's a fertility goddess who can heal herself but ok lmao and the fact that Rachel established him as a LITERAL DAD with his doctor son Asclepius which ... just feels weird to have in LO tbh) and there's absolutely no referencing (from what I can find or recall) of him being a protector of the young, god of prophecy (for some reason he just magically gives Kassandra the ability to read prophecies... just so she can read his prophecy ??) or archery. Like, he's shown doing a lot of these things but they come across more as just side hobbies or extensions of him being Artemis' brother (like his archery) rather than aspects of his godliness or domains that he presides over. It's just like yeah, Apollo can shoot arrows and bandage people's hands I guess LMAO

All that said, I can see Rachel deciding to make him primarily the god of the sun and then going "oh! let's make his mom a sun god! then she could be a common enemy for both Persephone and Hades!" because Hades doesn't like sun gods yadda yadda.

But... we know Rachel has used front page Google sourcing in her comic before.

(literally the 'source' was copy pasted from a 2004 study guide for Princeton.edu. And we KNOW this was taken right from the first result because it just says 'www.princeton.edu' with no slug attached, which is what showed up back when we first looked into this, the princeton version was deadass the first result with this definition word for word. She didn't even remove the typo where there's no space between Xenios:"Zeus !!!).

And while a bit more into sus territory rather than outright confirmed like the xenia thing above, there's the whole Metis / Métis theory, that has us wondering if Rachel seriously googled "Metis" on its own and accidentally used Indigenous Métis cultural depictions in her version of Metis, the Greek God.

The fringe in her outfit, finger wings, and dark orange/red color really got my attention the first time I saw her design years ago, because she set off so many, "Wait a minute, is that an Indigenous woman???" bells in my Mi'kmaq/Cree brain LMAO And not even in a bad way, but now it feels a little :/ because of how much her character has been assassinated and how clearly accidental it was for her to look like that.

Of course, there's still a more likely explanation that her design was based on this vase:

But IDK y'all. That vase is very distinctly orange while the character itself is depicted in dark garbs and with light skin, so Metis being distinctly red-toned with finger wings and fringe?

While the Xenia thing is definitively copy pasted from the first search result on Google (literally there's no denying that at this point, Rachel's REALLY bad at doing research and then pretending like she was being smart by sourcing it from a university website... completely ignoring the fact that that website literally hasn't been updated since Rachel was working on The Doctor Pepper Show) the Metis and Leto depictions are definitely a lot more up for debate as to what 'research' Rachel did and whether or not they got confused with something else during her searching.

And really, the whole thing with Leto being a "sun god" doesn't make sense really when you think about it. Why is Leto a sun god? It's not even like you could argue there are "some versions" of the myths where she's a god of the sun, or other translations out there, or whatever vague source that could be used like what has been used for other gods like Hades and Persephone. Leto is not affiliated with the sun in any shape or form. Remove Apollo, her eventual son, who didn't exist when she was born and given the title of 'sun god', and it quickly falls apart as to why she would be a sun god in the first place.

She is a goddess of motherhood though, and that's NEVER mentioned in LO. If anything, Rachel makes her a terrible mom on purpose. Because god knows we can't have anyone in this comic be a good mom except for Persephone and Rhea (who are literally just carbon copies of one another). Basically the only thing Rachel gets right with Leto is the fact that she's a Titan and that she had Apollo and Artemis after sleeping with Zeus. That's it.

Unfortunately, unlike the xenia thing, there's no outright proof of what Rachel's reasoning was behind these designs or sources. So I'm not gonna accuse or outright state it as fact that Rachel confused Metis for Métis or ripped the idea for Leto being a sun god from an anime, because the odds of that being true in any way are fairly low.

But they're never zero.

[quasi-normalcy]

So I made a resource for TNG-era fanfic writers and/or people who didn’t see them in release order: A chronology showing when the seasons and movies are set relative to one another. (*UPDATED*)

Notes: I’ve included the Voyager finale “Endgame” as being set in 2377 in accordance with its stardate, even though Memory Alpha for some reason claims it’s set in 2378. There’s some behind-the scenes dispute dispute about whether Lower Decks season 2 is set in 2380 or 2381, but I opted for the latter because the stardates imply it, and also because there’s a New Year’s Eve Party for 2381 in Rutherford’s memories in “First First Contact.” I’ve even shown Picard season 3 as being set in the same year as the framing story for Picard season 2, even though this makes literally no sense. The IDW comics aren’t canon but I’ve included them anyways. Prodigy season 2 overlaps 2384 and 2385 (as well as several other decades and timelines), but I can’t find a good resource on what episodes are set in which year.

[relaxxattack]

Hi i want to thank you for the QPR vs Moirail venn diagram. Its a rly excellent way of showing the difference. My gripe is about human romance, and how people will either 1- conflate it in a 1:1 ratio with Matesprit, or 2- claim it is “all the quadrants”. I personally feel both are false equivalency, and that the human romance is similar to both pale and red rom* and SO i was wondering if you agreed w that assessment, or if not, if you have the time to explain your thoughts on human traditional romance vs the quadrants (perhaps w another nifty graph)?

* which is why Rose’s destructive tendencies during sburb & her descent into addiction on the meteor were not addressed by kanaya, who feared palezoning herself like she did with vriska

OH MY GOD! YES!!!! why am i getting such great asks today?!

no, you're EXACTLY right. people are constantly conflating matespritship in those two ways; "all of the quadrants" being especially irritating (since Some humans occasionally argue, Occasionally in a kinky way, and i guess that means that they totally have all of kismesissitude covered?? :/).

matespritship is its very own thing. of the two interpretations above, i feel the idea that it's 1:1 to human romance is the closest to true. i mean, that's what they literally say in the comic, for gog's sake.

humans do not truly incorporate moirallegiance, kismesissitude, or auspisticism into their lives in any meaningful way. while it's possible for humans to sometimes have romances that might seem more like one of those than matespritship, they're considered abnormal or toxic-- and they often ARE, because humans do not have the same sort of biological drives or social understanding of these things that trolls do. humans do not understand the true needs and ramifications, or even the ROMANCE of moirallegiance. humans would be hard pressed to understand a kismesissitude in a 'healthy' way. i don't even need to mention how auspisticism flies over people's heads.

so, yes, humans only have the one quadrant. (and karkat vantas, i am sorry to say, is not going to "human date" anyone as the "solution to his quadrant problems". this would literally be the same as him trying to stick only to matespritship, and we all know exactly how that turned out.)

however! matespritship is not an exact 1:1 on human romance either. the direct quote from the comic is;

"[It's] the closest parallel to the human concept of romance trolls have." [x]

this is not really expanded on much in the text, honestly-- the intricacies of the social and biological traits of matespritship aren't shown enough for us to draw clear distinctions between them and human romance.

however, i think you're right that rose and kanaya are the best example we have of that-- despite them both aiming for matespritship, they have cultural misunderstanding quite often from some of rose's flirting, or even just her needs, crossing wires into a pale threshold that kanaya is weary of.

it's entirely possible that the differences between troll and human "hearts" might have made it difficult for kanaya to really connect with rose's problems and discuss them with her.

which might explain why when things go "better" for them in the retcon, they're portrayed reading a book on troll romance together:

it could be implied here that searching for a more in-depth understanding of quadrants actually helped rose with her ability to connect to kanaya-- and maybe, reading into it a little too hard here, this also could have been an opportunity for kanaya to work through her vriska-based hangups with the pale quadrant. that's entirely speculation on my part, though.

at the end of the day, we don't really KNOW enough about the details of quadrants for me to paint a clear picture of how matespritship differs from human romance. i mean, i could try, but it would certainly be more of a headcanon post than an analysis one!

[kaijuparfait]

I saw ur tags about indulging in the body horror aspect of the Symbiote/Host dynamic and im just here to say: do it >:3

YES.

GOD. ok so. I've always enjoyed the concept of body horror, not all the way, but it looked cool in art! But! Recently Symbrock (and Venom as a whole) has turned that up to 100- both in a "Wow! Cool alien creature biting people's heads off! >:D" way, but also in a "The goo is in his organs, his tissue, his cells... how romantic!" way.

And, if you'll excuse me, I'll only be talking about my (limited) knowledge/headcanons with Symbrock because I haven't read all the comics yet so this is all with Eddie and the Venom Symbiote in mind-

Firstly, I don't think I've ever seen anyone mention how the Symbiote can enter/exit it's Host's body through their skin, without damaging the Host. There's no wounds, just the easy slide in between layers of cells, Venom can be as solid as they want but can also come together so seamlessly, its like watching someone fold a deck of cards.

Even on a psychological standpoint, the idea of actually being "Venom". Singular. Not "We" are Venom. But the idea of two beings, from different sides of the universe, coming together perfectly as one being, one mind, one consciousness. A bit of an OC ramble, I have this OC that goes into this idea of acting as one being and I'll talk about them later but WOAH is it fun. The sheer intimacy of it.. not losing your own self, but simply combing it with another to create something- someone new.

Ok onto the actual body horror-

I am not normal about the Symbiote literally being in Eddie's blood. Blood is everywhere in the body, anywhere you poke, blood will come out- and in that, the Symbiote, ready to heal the wound.

Speaking of healing wounds, and also this post because I keep rereading it, it makes me ill, the Venom Symbiote truly sees it's Host as it's home. and that does something to me. The way it keeps the body healthy, like how you would clean your house, no longer having to worry about illnesses or infections; how it heals any injuries, like fixing a broken wall, repainting it, like there was no damage in the first place.

Knowing it's home so well, able to know what's wrong and how to make it right. Complete and utter devotion to it's beloved home, the one that keeps it safe, willingly, lovingly let's it- wants it inside to keep it safe. To know that something that could tear apart planets if it so wanted to, something that bares it's rows of teeth as a natural expression, something that has destroyed countless lives- to know something like that gently rests in the space between your organs because it wants to. And how much you want it to too.

And this goes both ways too! When they're Venom and get hurt, they way the Symbiote peels away from the body is.. its amazing that the Symbiote can be torn away from it's Host. When Eddie gets hurt, the Symbiote comes out, from inside- When Venom gets hurt, instead of blood or organs, it's Eddie at the center, but he acts as the same anyways. Eddie is the Symbiote's life, he is it's heart, carefully tucked away and protected.

Even though Eddie doesn't particularly enjoy eating people's brains, he comes up with a compromise for the 2 of them anyways, he buys tons of chocolate for it to eat too, and that adds up for a guy that is living in a one room flat. and AND AND I will never get over how, in LTBC, Venom leaves all the red m&m's, because the red dye is said to be harmful to humans in large amounts, so even though it's one of the few things it needs to live, it refuses it to keep Eddie- it's Host- it's home safe.

and, I mean, Venom totally could eat Eddie if it so wanted to, in the first movie, Eddie's literally going through.. several organ failures- but Venom puts him back together, back better! and i am suddenly ill-

excuse my weird ideas but hhhhhh Eddie being torn apart and put back together..... yeah. how much trust is needed for that? how much love is shown from letting it consume his flesh and bones, from it eating the thing it loves the most, from it knowing every ridge and curve of every organ and cell to put everything back where it was?

how much love is needed to destroy something, to be destroyed, and come back together?

also Trust Exercise is a dang good fic, i need more of this. please. or i'll start making it myself (i'll do it anyways)

This, too, can go both ways, I am a big fan of swapping how Eddie and Venom and portrayed, both in canon and in fanon, just for the fun of it- and I'm just saying... let Eddie tear apart the Symbiote! maybe Eddie wants to rip it apart with his teeth and bare hands! Let them fight and rip each other apart, but with love <3 (oh fight/sparring scenes between friends/lovers, how i love you so)

you can't really see it well, and i'll make a better show of it later, but my design for (movie) Eddie has sharp teeth and that isn't for no reason. I.... ADORE the idea that, after being Venom for so long, Eddie starts adapting parts of them into his "normal" body- sharper teeth, clouded eyes, maybe even some of his skin is pitch black too, just because it makes him feel like Venom in his everyday life, even a little bit.

ough i need to lay down after that but- THANK YOU so much for asking me this, this was such a treat to let out, it's like a weight has been lifted off me lmao

i'll probably have more on this topic later on, but i'll probably use those ideas for art/writing, i love thinking about them :3

EDIT: ALSO ALSO ALSO the way the Venom Symbiote literally goes against it's very nature to love Eddie, it goes against what every other Symbiote does, it betrays it's entire race and planet- JUST TO BE VENOM WITH EDDIE <3

[bestworstcase]

So, I recently read your post regarding the Adam short, the WF and Remnants broad sweep of treating children more like tiny adults ETC and found a lot of it deeply insightful and interesting!

However, I feel its worth noting that even before killing that guy Adam was already building a splinter cell/personality cult in Ghira's White Fang with Sienna no where in sight. One rooted in making Faunus resemble monsters to create terror.

Also the comics definitely make it clear Adam was specifically targeting and grooming Blake from day one I feel. Kali & Blakes interactions on that front were really good as well.

i haven’t read the comics myself so i don’t have an opinion on how they handle the characters or the specific dynamic between adam and blake.

wrt to adam and the grimm masks, though: while adam was definitely the one who started it, it’s shown to be something that was not a secret (except for ghira and sienna, all the WF characters are masked in the next scene) and it’s also strategically a good idea to hide your face while engaging in direct action. & the reasoning blake recounts to sun in V2 (“humans wanted to make monsters of us, so we chose to don the faces of monsters”) is an echo of what oobleck says of the WF in v1 (that bigotry and persecution is what pushes people subjected to it to resort to violence).

the point of the grimm masks isn’t to cause terror but rather to demand attention and make a statement without sacrificing the anonymity that keeps the members of the white fang safe: it’s “if fighting back makes us monsters, then monsters we will be.”

(there are also perhaps deeper underlying cultural narratives about grimm and faunus being tapped into��“among beasts and monsters” and all, the dehumanization of faunus is intertwined with the cultural belief that grimm prey upon humans specifically with faunus being at best caught in the crossfires; so i’d argue the grimm masks are motivated in part by reclaiming that narrative and turning it into a weapon for the faunus)

all of which is especially salient to adam because a human literally branded his face. his choice to cover the scar with a grimm-like mask carries a lot of emotional weight; he is taking what humans did to him and turning it into a symbol of the faunus cause that will make it impossible for humans to look the other way—as humans no doubt looked the other way when he was attacked.

that’s why i think narratively it’s important that adam came up with the grimm masks before the turning point that incited his gradual corruption into someone driven by spite and hatred; ghira accepted the adoption of grimm masks by rank-and-file members because because they served the narrative and the strategic ends his white fang was trying to advance. it’s only after ghira leaves and adam increasingly loses that strategic focus and becomes consumed by spiteful vengeance that the red detailing begins to appear on the masks as a visual symbol for the corruption of his original purpose. bc there’s a difference between saying “if you’re going to treat me like a monster for defending myself, i will proudly continue to defend myself because you are wrong” and “anything i do to you is justified by what i suffered.” and adam’s arc is about the slow corruption of the first thing into the second.

[jedi-enthusiast]

Ok, I know that I already reblogged @antianakin's post about why Anakin didn't need to murder an entire Tusken village because 2-3 of them killed his mom (original post here), but I just feel the need to talk about one of the most damning examples of why Anakin has no excuse for that response.

Post Order 66 Jedi/Clone interactions.

Let's just say, for the sake of the argument, that the entirety of the Tusken village--including the literal babies and children--all took part in the torture/murder of Shimi Skywalker. No exceptions.

Anakin's response to his mother's death is to murder everyone with no remorse or a second thought. Even when he confesses what he did to Padme, the RotS novel clearly shows that he doesn't actually feel bad about what he did. Most of his worry is about what others will think of him and, ironically, about how he's a "good Jedi" that should be better than this.

Now let's move on...

Every clone took part in Order 66 in some way.*

The clones murdered every single Jedi they could in cold blood (albeit without a choice), including the children, with only a miniscule few survivors. How many do we canonically have right now that didn't get captured and become Inquisitors? Obi-Wan, Quinlan, Cal, Caleb/Kanan, and Gungi are all I can think of at the moment.** That's 5 Jedi, out of thousands, that survived--and that's not even mentioning the destruction of their places of worship/cultural artifacts and the shitty propaganda spread about their culture.

* I'm not including the Bad Batch because, my own opinions about the show/characters/writing/etc. aside, we can all agree that the only reason their chips didn't activate was because they're Filoni's beloved OCs and he has a habit of trying to make his OCs "special" in some way.

** I'm not including Ahsoka in this because, like she says repeatedly as of Season 7 of TCW onward, she isn't a Jedi and doesn't see herself as such--and for the same reason I'm not including Grogu, since he's like...a Mandalorian apprentice now and not technically a Jedi. I'm also not including Luminara because she eventually gets captured and killed pretty early on and I'm trying to only include Jedi that are alive for a significant amount of time in the Imperial Era.

So, how do the Jedi treat the clones after they murder their entire family and destroy their culture? Let's look!

-----

Example One:

Obi-Wan Kenobi never learns about the inhibitor chips, as of current canon. He is 100% under the impression that Cody and the 212th (as well as all of the other clones) just up and betrayed him and the Order for no reason. He also watched the security tapes that, yes, showed Anakin killing children, but also would have shown the clones killing Jedi as well.

In the Kenobi show he runs into a clone veteran of the 501st--a veteran who, in all likelihood, probably stormed the Temple and was a part of its destruction.

Does he spit in the clone's face? Call him a murderer? Kill or harm him in any way?

Nope!

He gives the veteran some of his credits, even though it's made a point in the show that Obi-Wan is now working with limited funds and is very poor at this point in time. He doesn't have credits to spare and he is supposed to be looking for Leia, but he takes a moment to give some to someone who took part in the genocide of his people.

He also routinely thinks about Cody and the 212th in the comics! He remembers them fondly and still connects Cody to the feeling of hope, even though they tried to kill him! Even though he has no idea that they never wanted to!

-----

Example Two:

Kanan Jarrus/Caleb Dume knows about the inhibitor chips, but in Rebels it's made very clear that he thinks that it's just something the clones made up so that they didn't have to take responsibility for their actions.

In Rebels, Ahsoka makes the (objectively bad) decision to send Kanan out to find her "old friends" to help the rebellion.*** Kanan then finds out that her "old friends" are three clones, only after he gets there and sees them. He reacts in a panic and ignites his saber, clearly freaking out a bit.

*** I'll probably expand on this later, because I have a lot of opinions on this particular decision of hers, but anyway-

Does he try to hurt and/or kill them? Do they have to fight him off? Does he even lunge in their direction or deflect Wolffe's blaster bolt at him?

Again, nope!

He steps in front of Ezra in a defensive position and, when shot at by Wolffe, deflects the bolt into their ship. Then, when Ezra steps in and says that Ahsoka said to trust them, Kanan de-ignites his saber and they all have a conversation about them helping in the rebellion--even though Kanan clearly doesn't trust them at all and is dealing with his PTSD while being there. Eventually he even comes to get along with/trust Rex, albeit in later episodes.

-----

Example Three:

Gungi, in the Bad Batch, meets up with the Batch and immediately recognizes them as clones. Now, we don't know his opinion on them and their betrayal because it's never really expressed, but it's safe to assume that he has no idea about the chips (at least, until Tech tells him) and it's clear that he's very scared at that point in time.

What does he do?

He hides in the corner of the ship and is wary about the food they offer to him.

That's literally it.

And then later in the episode he works together with TBB and trusts them enough to let them help defend his village.

-----

So, even with most of the Jedi either having no idea about the chips or likely doubting that story, we're shown over and over again that the Jedi never seek revenge against the clones or try to kill them after Order 66. Even though their lives were ruined by what the clones did/took part in, they're never shown to be actively trying to cause them harm.

So there is literally no way you could possibly justify Anakin killing an entire village of Tuskens because of his mother's death, when--in arguably the same/a worse situation--the Jedi are actively shown not doing that.

[gamerdog1]

Deadpool and Wolverine Review

If third time's the charm, Deadpool is the whole goddamn bracelet. I kinda grew up alongside the Deadpool movies. I saw the first one at overnight camp at 16, then saw the second in theaters at 18. Now, at 23, I feel like I've grown as a person, which means I can actually articulate how I feel about these films (though specifically, the newest one). I guess that whole 'wisdom comes with age' thing was right after all.

For starters, Ryan Reynolds absolutely kills it. I know the phrase 'born to play this character' is thrown around a lot, but it really fits here with him. Reynolds once again is a delight as Deadpool, with all his usual snark, pizazz, and heartfelt moments. He's always on point, either with a quick jab at another character, comical reactions, or his character's usual fourth-wall breaks.

He isn't always all happy-go lucky, though. The film, like the previous 2, has a story beyond gratuitous violence, one that centers on Wade Wilson's sense of inadequacy in comparison to other famous heroes. We see how his life has changed since the previous film (go watch that before this, it will not make sense otherwise), both for better and for worse, and watch him continue to grow as a person in a satisfying way. That, I believe, is what separates these movies from other ultra-violent movies of its type: that there is an emotionally-driven story, and it remains important beyond getting characters from setpiece to setpiece.

Though, that's not to say that this is some deep philosophical mediation on the character. Fear not, there's still as much, if not more, violent fight scenes and action here like the previous movies. After all, what would a Deadpool movie be without a few dozen (read: thousand) bad guys to kill, in creative and gorey ways? This film ups the ante, by giving more interesting fight scenes that revolve around different set ups (tower defense, 1v1 in a car, etc) to keep everything visually fresh.

There's never a dull moment in this film. Heart-to-hearts are full of little sneaky one-liners that take a minute to register. Tension between the two leads is thick enough to see, let alone cut with a knife. And all the while, the film keeps bringing in new reveals, fully using the 20th Century Fox backlog of C-listers to call back to this franchise's history, and keep them from fully being forgotten. Add that, with an army of multiverse Deadpools, and you've got yourself a film that even non-comic book nerds like me gush over.

Above all this, beyond the not-quite-irritating-like-most use of the multiverse, or the hundreds of liters of CGI blood shed, this movie did something so profound, I'm still reeling. It made me love Wolverine.

Growing up, Logan always felt like a gross old man type of character. The kind who pressures you to drink at a young age, and owns at least 20 guns that he refuses to part with. Any portrayal of his animal-ness always felt like lip service. But here... its like I've met him for the first time, and now I'm obsessed.

Hugh Jackman has practically been playing this character since I was born, but only here do I really feel like we get to meet Wolverine in full. No longer is he that hunched-over, stoic gruff weirdo that X-Men have around, now he's a deeply emotional character with valid reasoning behind it, and strong motivations. We are finally in an era where tough guy characters are being done justice and allowed to have emotions, and it is glorious.

X-Men Apocalypse gave us a taste of what he could do, but putting Wolverine in an R-Rated movie was the best decision anyone could have ever made. His animal fury is on full display here, and with a higher age rating, ever stab and slice is shown in bloody, glorious detail. Pairing him with another character who can take hits and survive, like Deadpool, was a match made in heaven.

The two are perfect foils, playing off each other in such a satisfying way that had me disappointed when it was all over. Deadpool has worked with bigger, tougher guys in the past, but Wolverine's short temper and guardedness go well with Deadpool's silly, jokester persona. Platonically, romantically, sexually, I don't care. They're meant for each other.

Above all, Deadpool and Wolverine is a loving send off to the studio that made the X-Men film franchise. Its a culmination of all the passion and hard work that went into those movies, and stands as a testament to how far we've come since the first X-Men hit theaters over 2 decades ago. With a film like this as a sample of what's in the future, we won't have anything to fear.

[princesssarisa]

Autism (and possible ADHD) headcanon: Alice (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking-Glass)

This analysis is based on the books, but most of it applies to Disney's Alice too.

Now of course she wasn't written with either autism or ADHD in mind: no concept of either existed when the books were written. Some people might argue that all the "evidence" below is just her being a seven-year-old child. But all these qualities make her relatable to neurodivergent people, and whose to say that she wouldn't be diagnosed as neurodivergent if she were a real person and lived today?

Autism evidence

*Alice is a very inward little girl. Not only do both books literally take place mostly in her mind, but even within her dreams she's constantly thinking, daydreaming, analyzing, and imagining things. She sometimes gets so lost in her thoughts and fantasies that she forgets all about what's currently happening, or about the other characters, and they sometimes notice this (e.g. "You're thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk.").

*She constantly talks to herself and pretends to be two people.

*In what little we see of her life in the real world, she's never shown playing with children her own age. She's content to play by herself, talking to her kittens, creating elaborate fantasies, or even playing a game of croquet against herself.

*She's precocious and smart, with a good (though imperfect) memory for facts she's learned in school, and she likes to show off her knowledge, both to others and to herself. She knows many "grand words" that other children her age don't know (e.g. "latitude," "longitude," "jurors"), and she enjoys saying them out loud, even when she doesn't know what they mean. In Wonderland, when she tries to recite the lessons and poems she's memorized and finds herself comically mangling them, her core sense of self is shaken.

*Despite being sane and sensible compared to the fantasy characters she meets, Alice is more than a little eccentric herself. She constantly daydreams and talks to herself, as mentioned. She comes up with outlandish fantasies, like mailing Christmas presents to her own feet, or that different foods change people's temperaments, or that people in New Zealand and Australia walk upside-down. Her confusing experiences in Wonderland make her wonder if she's still Alice or if she's become a different person. The fact that her adventures in Wonderland and Looking-Glass Land are dreams make her seem all the more eccentric in hindsight: those two fantasy worlds and all the strange things in them are creations of Alice's own mind.

*Even though she tries to always be proper and polite, she sometimes makes offensive remarks without meaning to. For example, when she praises her cat Dinah's skill at catching mice and birds in front of a mouse and group of birds, or when she calls three inches "a wretched height" while talking to a three-inch caterpillar. She also throws manners aside and talks back to adults whenever she thinks they're being especially rude or unreasonable.

*She often seems to imitate the adults in her life. When she remembers to check the "Drink Me" bottle and make sure it's not marked "poison," or when she scolds herself for crying or for lolling on the grass, she's clearly parroting what she's heard from adults. Likewise, when she scolds the pig-baby for grunting, or her kitten for all its mischief and "bad manners," she's obviously affecting a tone that adults have taken with her. All the scolding and correcting she does, especially to herself, might also imply that she's a child who's been scolded and corrected especially often.

*She's often described as speaking "shyly" or "timidly" – though as mentioned, she can be bold to the point of impertinence when she's pushed far enough.

*She dislikes books without pictures, and she can make no sense of the poem Jabberwocky – even though its plot is easy for most real-world readers to follow – because there are too many made-up words in it. Now, these don't necessarily imply that she has trouble with reading comprehension, but they might.

*One throw-away line in Through the Looking-Glass implies that she's a picky eater. When she brings up the subject of having to go without meals as punishment, she says she would rather go without them than eat them anyway.

*She's particularly annoyed by certain small noises and sensations – like Bill the Lizard's pencil squeaking at the trial in the first book, or the Gnat's tiny sigh that tickles her ear in the second.

*Both stories consist of her wandering through nonsense worlds, being baffled by their strange rules and customs, and being ordered around, corrected, and judged negatively by the strange creatures she meets, just because her logic is different from theirs. For those of us on the autism spectrum, this is a relatable experience.

ADHD evidence

*She tends to be impulsive, particularly in the first book. For example, she goes down the rabbit hole without thinking of how she'll ever get out again, and later drinks the potion in the White Rabbit's house without knowing if it will make her grow or shrink just because she's anxious for some change in her size. This isn't a matter of not knowing better – she sometimes tells herself what she should do, only to act on her impulses anyway. Or, in other words, she gives herself very good advice, but she very seldom follows it.

*She can be verbally impulsive too: for example, her careless remarks about Dinah catching mice and birds.

*She's prone to daydreaming, as mentioned above.

*She sometimes has trouble controlling her emotions, most memorably when she cries a big pool of tears after growing to the size of a giant. She tells herself she should be ashamed for crying so much, but she can't stop.

*She can be easily distracted, especially by her own imagination, and in the first chapter of Through the Looking-Glass, she flits from subject to subject while talking to her kitten.

*She's easily bored and always in search (literally or figuratively) of some new adventure or amusement. One of the things she most dislikes is "having nothing to do."

[vermillion-limerence]

More,Laito Sakamaki

Headcanons/thoughts

Tw:child abuse/sexual abuse/trauma/laito sakamaki/assault

So I wanted to talk about Laito sakamaki in a bit more depth,specifically when he's a child/his childhood growing up

So we know that with the sakamaki brothers they all kinda grew up together,in the same house I'm pretty sure

We see this in the flashback in the anime of their childhood (I haven't played the game or read the comics)

It looks like to some extent they bonded,at least until a certain age

But in present day their relationship is strained,and I can guess it happened around their actual teenage years(before going into the hundreds)

Laito's relationship with his brothers is even more rifted when he started being molested by cordelia

Because his view of love was so tainted,mistaking lust and abuse for love he isn't exactly sure how to properly bond with his brothers now that cordelia has ruined his perception of what love is supposed to be and look like

I also read somewhere (and headcanon) that his brothers found out that he was in an incestuous relationship with their mother when they were still kids and feel guilty about

In present day its obvious the brothers don't bond and don't ever plan to,but even with all their trauma and misconceptions in life they can still feel horrified learning that cordelia was molesting and grooming their brother

As kids the rest of the brothers couldn't exactly do anything about the situation

I read that ayato found out by hearing laito sneak off to cordelias room late at night and feels tremendous guilt about it

Despite the abuse the brothers already endured I imagine it would still be extremely traumatic to acquire that information

I think that being sexually abused by his mother has (obviously) never felt truly good

In the comics,he says that love is something that feels good (referring to sleeping with cordelia,concluding that this is his perception of love)

Yet I think that it never truly felt because because it isn't natural nor okay

Of course his body responded naturally to sexual pleasure and adding on that he doesn't exactly know it's wrong,your brain still knows deep down is wrong

I think when he got older he realised it wasn't a normal thing to do but he refuses to acknowledge it because of how uncomfortable it is to think about

He isn't really in touch with his emotions

He just feels something and goes with it

But he hates being vulnerable

Which is why he chooses to make others vulnerable unstead (I'm in no way excusing this behaviour,simply bringing it to light in order to explain my thoughts on his abuse)

I also believe that cordelia physically forced sexual in counters on him multiple times,which could also explain his violent controlling,impulsive behaviour,because it was shown to him (I know he didnt have a choice as a child and was coerced,just saying that maybe he didn't comply at first so he was possibly literally dragged or hit/restrained)

He was also surrounded by adults who knew about it (karlheinz I'm convinced he knows everything that goes on at all times,richter),but didn't nothing,which was probably extremely suffocating

Knowing that you could be helped,but weren't

I don't like them (all sakamakis) though because of their history as notorious abusers,torturers,assaulters and most likely rapists,not to mention killing the brides

Remember that just because you were abused,it is not an excuse to abuse other,break the cycle

[thottybrucewayne]

Hi, new follower who asked about Talia a few days ago here. I don't know if you want to talk about dc, so feel free to ignore this. But can I say just how blatantly racist it is that Damian being trained at all, even in the runs where he isn't abused/tortured, is so bad from the Al Ghul's, but Batman does the same shit.

Bruce took in a traumatized child and taught him how to fight, then had him fighting grown ass adults and murderers and the literal Joker. They're regularly shot at as Robins by people who fully intend to kill them, but the Al Ghuls are the ones going too far.

I definitely think you're onto something here. Like, Damian being trained at such a young age is out of character for Talia IMO. The Talia who lied to Bruce about miscarrying to stop him from putting his life on the line to protect her and the baby, then sent that baby to a safe place to protect him is not the same Talia who had Damian trained to fight at like 6. (racist ass character assassination and its consequences) and him being trained to fight at such a young age is meant to show us the "brutality of the Al Ghuls" in contrast to Robin training which is "safer" because...reasons, there a lot to unpack there that I feel like certain writers and editors would rather not address... Like on the very surface level we know the answer is "These are Batman books, Robin is a popular Batman character, we're meant to suspend our disbelief because it's comics and kid superheroes are fun for kids to read." But on a "These comics are written, drawn, colored, and edited by very real people with clear racist/xenophobic tendencies" level, I feel like there was an unconscious push to write these very...white man's burden-esque comparisons between the Al Ghuls and Bruce to show Bruce in a better light because, in any other context, Bruce would be the bad guy. Just thinking of the way earlier comics paint Damian's behavior as "feral" and "bloodthirsty" even when he and Tim were shown to be pretty much going back and forth with bullying each other in a way I would describe as an extreme depiction of sibling rivalry, there was always this unspoken feeling of "Damian is a wild child because he was raised by his backward, wrongminded mother and grandfather" which we don't get with Tim. After all, Tim is white so none of his behavior carries the same weight (which is why I think the fandom defaulted to painting Tim as some sort of poor wilting flower who can't defend himself against a 10-year-old even though we literally saw him going tit for tat with said 10 year old, just petty as he wanna be but I digress) TLDL; While I personally love Robin as a concept and like Damian as a character, until the very weird and racist double standard that exists in how his time with his mother is depicted and the time with his father is depicted is addressed (I don't mean in that weak ass Damian tells his parents they're equally fucked up way either because to me that feels like a cop-out that doesn't fully address why people have an issue with Damian's upbringing and how it paints Talia), Damian's time as Robin will always make me feel some type of way. Idk if any of that made sense, I'm still really tired. Thanks for the question tho <3

[aragarna]

Zorro Vive

And vive bien!

So, I've finished Season 1 of the new Zorro show (available through Amazon in the US and most Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries), and I really enjoyed it!

Without spoilers, I'd say that its main qualities are that it's fun and earnest and more cosmopolite in its retailing of the old story. It doesn't take itself too seriously, there's plenty of little homages to previous adaptations. There's many interesting and well-developed characters - of all genders and ethnicities.

It's (literally) colorful, with a comic/pulp feel that suits it well. There's been a true care brought to the action scenes, and OMG the night scenes are damn well lit. It's rare enough nowadays so points for that. Generally, the show is quite beautiful.

More spoilery thoughts under the cut.

I honestly wasn't sure what to expect from a new show. It's always hard to bring new canon to something so established and so iconic. And even though the Disney show is *not* the original canon, for a lot of people, it is.

But as a principle, same as for book adaptations or remakes, I'm not opposed to variations or changes. As long as they're good changes.

And I have to say, the vast majority of the changes in the new Zorro show, to me, were actually good changes, or necessary improvements for today's audience.

The most obvious is giving back a real voice to the Natives and not sugarcoating the colonization aspect. There's tension there. Natives are angry. But as years passed, people born there consider themselves "true Californians". Natives aren't just background characters or peons anymore. They're a driving plot force. They're shown in their own environment, with their own rites (I don't know enough about Natives of this area to know how accurate it is, but it felt a lot more authentic and respectful to me than other versions).

I do like the idea that the Zorro character comes from the Native culture, and that it's been passed on from one person to the next. Though it also brings my one big issue with the show: Diego becoming Zorro reads a lot like "a white dude steals a Native heritage." And yes, it's symbolic, and yes the fox spirit chose him, Diego didn't pick him, but still. Given that the audience is meant to support Diego (who really is a sweet guy!), that the narrative keeps showing us that Nah-Lin is wrong and should accept it, given the colonization context of that story, it's sitting a bit wrong with me.

This aside, I do like the exploration of revenge vs. justice, violence vs. a more measured response, in the face of adversity. When a few months back, the tagline "revenge is personal, justice is for all" appeared on the first poster, I wasn't sure what to think. I don't like revenge-driven characters. It's cliché and wrong. But the fact that the show precisely explored that, both with Diego and Nah-Lin, was actually quite interesting.

Diego, as I said, is a decent guy. A sweet boy really, vaguely immature originally but having to mature really fast, as the death of his father, the business of the rancho, the Zorro thing and Lolita's wedding are all dropping on him at once. Miguel Bernardeau is a clear departure from most of the previous Zorros, who were played by older actors, giving a more "adult" vibe to the character, but given he's supposed to be fresh out of college and out of his element, Bernardeau's more juvenile features fit the character well.

Nah-Lin is a lot angrier, and while in the context of the story, she's shown to be going at it the wrong way, all that anger *is* justified, and not something that can just be brushed off. Peace can't come easy when you anger people that way.

And you know who else I really liked? That damn Capitan Monasterio! Who would have thought LOL No, but seriously. Not sure why they named him that way. He was actually more of a Sergeant Garcia (or Mendoza from the 1990 show) than a Monastario. Obviously without the comic relief and cutely incompetent side of the character, but as the character who is a decent guy stuck between a rock and a hard place, serving a tyrannic boss and chasing a heroic outlaw that he may not hate that much.

I also really liked what they did with Lolita. An opinionated young lady that throws away all the corseting conventions of her time is always very relatable to me. Also, I just love her fashion sense. I wasn't sure what they were going to do with that impossible love triangle (I thought for a long time the wedding wouldn't actually happen). I wouldn't have thought they'd have Lolita figure it out, but I'm glad she did.

I'm glad they kept Bernardo, the mute confident. And I love Mei, too. The dynamic between the three of them (with Diego) is great!

Also, it's great to finally have a Spanish-speaking production, and have the characters speaking in Spanish, instead of having American actors put on fake accents.

I may have a couple of minor complains: namely that I didn't care about Samael nor Alejandro's first love. Not sure planting so early something that they're keeping for S2 is a right move. Feels like a waste of screentime. Also, I'm not particularly found of secret societies trying to rule the world, but it seems to be mandatory to any Zorro story... And the finale episode didn't actually wrap up that many plotlines - every major villain escaped! So that kinda made it look like Zorro didn't accomplish much, apart from breaking Lolita's heart, and his. But none of this prevented me from having a good time watching the show. I just really hope there'll be a S2 cause it'd be a shame to leave things there!

How about you guys? What did you think of it?