#hot topic from the early 2000s was a whole thing

[femmedefandom]

one thing I love is that PJO fans pretty much seem to agree upon is that of our Greek Big Three trio, Thalia is punk (spikes, chunky hair, loud music, rebellion), Nico is emo (black clothing, skull decoration, perpetual seriousness, feels deeply) and Percy is skater (devil may care attitude, can’t stay still, shaggy hair, literally has a skateboard). considering the original release date of the books, they have all probably gotten something (paid or otherwise) from hot topic at least once like can you imagine?

[mizukagami-takamagahara]

Sorry to bring up the topic but your tags on the Litchi('s boobs) versus Bullet('s ass) post are so true. What ass. If they didn't have her screwing up her entire back in her "battle pose" just to stick it up it'd look basically the same as anyone else's. (Also yeah her boobs are way more noticeable). I don't find that any Blazblue girl actually has much of an ass but I think that's both due to cultural difference on my part and to Mori only knowing the Japanese/anime body type.

So, can I ask for more of your thoughts regarding the Blazblue girls' body types? (And if you want to elaborate on those cultural beauty standards I'd love to read that too!)

Don’t apologize for asking the question, lol. We’re adults here, we can talk about ass an’ titty.

But really! We know that Mori’s mentioned that Litchi’s boobs are his cap for how big he’ll design a woman’s tits, though characters like Nine and Bullet look bigger in some art. I think Bullet’s boobs seem bigger in part because of her usual posture since she’s depicted bending over so much. I remember them being more prominent, but looking at her story sprite alongside Litchi’s, they really are the same. Hell, Litchi may actually still be bigger, given what looks like some serious gobbing out of her bra going on up top there.

As for the cultural beauty standards I mentioned in the earlier tags; the layman’s rundown of it all is that a society’s ideas about the ideal, most attractive body types change as time goes on. Currently, in the west (primarily the USA) we’re in an era of Big Ass, Big Thigh supremacy. I would theorize that this really kicked off with celebrities like the Kardashians, gaining more traction in the late 20-teens as women both within and outside of the celebrity spotlight pushed back against the bodyshaming tied to the “thigh gap” trend that was popular there for a while.

But in the era before that, it was flat asses that everyone was all about. And as I understand it, that’s still the case in Japan! At the very least, it was definitely still the case during BlazBlue’s lifetime.

To really be able to discuss this, I reached out to a good friend of mine who’s been studying the art, culture, and theory behind Japanese animation for a couple of years. I shared this ask with her, and it actually inspired her to start working on a whole essay on the women of BlazBlue and the JP pop culture beauty standards that apply to their designs! Which is, in part, why this reply has taken so long. We’re having fun with it!

For the meantime, here’s an exert from her post, discussing why Bullet qualifies as “the ass character” in a way that doesn’t quite click for a 2020s Western audience:

"Like you said, none of the Blazblue girls really have any (big) butt. In Japan (and in the early 2000s of America! trends…) they tend to prefer flatter butts.

In the opening of Cutie Honey, an anime created in 1970s by Go Nagai that was known for (and was actually at one point canceled for) sexy content, one of the lyrics is “Hey there girl, with the slender behind”. So it’s been in vogue for a hot minute too!

It’s interesting because I think Bullet is supposed to be the butt character, not because it’s particularly round or big, instead it’s her hot pants and the fact she is very fit. This butt is nice, toned but not “”too much”” , and available for viewing!!!

(...) I think it has a little to do with the fact that (typically) Japanese women don’t really have bubble butts, it’s more “normal” to have a flatter butt, but I’m not Japanese so. Grain of salt for this part!!"

Interesting, huh???

This post is already getting pretty long, so I think I'll wrap things up here! Though I do think we'll return to this ask in the future. As mentioned, my friend's working on a whole essay for the BlazBlue girls that we might end up posting on here.

As for myself, I still haven't answered the root question of your post; what I think about the BB girls' bodies. It's something I haven't really thought of a lot... I'm not even sure what angle I would want to take my answer in- do I focus on personal taste, attraction/sex appeal, do I focus on a more cultural or character design angle... how do I account for the way different art styles, even among the games, change the how the character looks...

I think, when I return to this topic, I'll break it apart into separate posts, grouping the girls by debut game. So, if you're interested in silly bloggers' takes on cartoon girls, stay tuned!

And thanks for asking!

[lente-ment]

Sorry if this is too personal, but I read on your AO3 that you went from being a fujo to a lesbian. I've heard of that happening before, and I just don't get how someone goes from being into media all about the attractiveness of males and males alone to realizing they are only attracted to females and females alone. Would you mind offering any insight into that process?

See, I'm a cis bi guy who started off straight, but women have remained just as attractive to me as I became more interested in men. I can't imagine being no longer attracted to women because they're hot for different reasons than men and vice versa.

I hope this doesn't come off weird! I just find gender/orientation stuff like this really interesting.

Oh hey, this isn't weird at all! Thank you for asking about a genuinely interesting topic, at least for me. (And sorry for the late reply, what little time I had last week I focused on editing ch13 and getting it ready for publishing... almost there...)

Relating to your question, I'm not even sure where to start, except by acknowledging that, yes, it probably is weird to go from being super into m/m and the whole culture that focuses on men, to being a lesbian who cares little for men (as objects of romantic or sexual desire, I didn't turn into a misandrist, just to clarify). It didn't happen over night, of course. And I do have to say that I had always been a little bit queer to begin with.

Fujoshi, or perhaps simply "readers of yaoi" (since fujoshi is a really derogatory term from what I gathered), are usually women. It is safe to assume that most of those women are straight, or at least attracted to real men in some way. However, men portrayed in yaoi works are rarely reflections of how real men look and behave. That's further supported by the fact that very little gay men read regular yaoi. Some read bara. In regular yaoi, male characters are very "sanitized" versions of men, made for women who only want the emotional side of the whole affair. They want to see the men show their feelings and be vulnerable. But not with them (they want strong men IRL), or other women (jealousy). But with other men? That's okay. Because those stories are always under their control (unlike real life is, for a lot of women). Most of these women also like real men (actors, guys in their school/workplace), and end up dating them/married. I'd like to point out that I haven't read any scientific research, or psychology papers. These are my personal observations and things I discussed with friends in the past regarding this topic.

Anyhow, to get back to my experience, I got into yaoi because these stories were fun. I gotta admit, I'm not sure how I found out about yaoi to begin with. I don't remember anyone around me being particularly vocal about it. I dug that stuff out from the depths of the late 2000s/early 2010s internet all by myself. Anyway, IRL, I was never particularly interested in men. Or anyone, until high school. Shows like Junjou Romantica or Ai no Kusabi were just interesting stories to me. And when I think back on yaoi anime and doujinshis that I consumed religiously in my teenage years, I mostly remember liking the themes they worked with, such as non-con sex, power play, bondage, humiliation etc. I cared little for the physical side of things. What little arousal I felt I connected with my own physiology, not with male genitalia. Meanwhile, yuri never had the same appeal. Those girls were always soft and gentle and shy. I think you know by now that that's not how I roll with my (vamp) lesbians.

After high school, during college, my love for m/m stuff waned. I guess my worldview expanded, and I mulled over being bi so I started considering women as well. The fact that I also never managed to have a relationship with a man longer than a week should've spoken louder volumes to me. As I grew as a person, I realized a lot of yaoi that I was reading was really immature, too. There are still a few works I'd recommend, but everything else doesn't do it for me anymore. Unfortunately, the same thing could be said about f/f stuff. Not just yuri (that is to say, works coming from Japan), but fanfics as well. There aren't really any f/f ships, even today, that I'd root for as hard as I did for some m/m ships. Because of that, I didn't know where I stood for the longest time.

At the end of college/beginning of my adult life, I finally started accepting some things about myself. One of them was that calling myself a lesbian was a completely valid thing to do. It felt a bit weird at the beginning. I come from a somewhat traditional surrounding so I didn't know too many queer people during that process. There was nobody to validate my feelings externally. That extended the self-realization process. Yet, slowly, I understood that I was finally doing myself a proper service by focusing on women.

To be honest, I still find some men attractive, but that's more of an exception than a rule. And it's pretty random. And I never act on it because I'm not interested in them sexually, and only like... 5% romantically. So, uh, maybe that's just like seeing someone outside on the street and thinking "huh, this guy looks cool, hope he has a nice day".

Uhh, okay, that's a wall of text. Hope it illuminates some things for you, anon? If you're comfortable sharing, I wouldn't mind hearing about your own self-discovery process. Thank you for checking out my fic and hopping into this inbox. Have a nice day! 💙

[stuckonvenus]

Love In the Time of Calderas, Vol. II

Ginny Scott was the most beautiful girl in the world. For Ridley, that went without saying. Even though it was obvious she tried too hard for others to find her mysterious and an enigma that begged brokenness, he loved that whenever he did get close enough to her, she was more authentic than anyone else he’d met in his entire life. All you needed was the courage to tear down the walls painted in black nail polish and lipstick at the tender age of thirteen, and you’d discover there was a girl who never stopped talking, adored video games and death metal music, and ironically enough lived in a devoutly religious household wherein she was forced to darn church clothes every week in exchange for her Hot Topic garbs. She would have never admitted it, but she was lucky that her avó was lenient enough to allow her to have a style of her own — except for when it concerned her bedroom.

The first time Ridley visited her house, it didn’t seem like Ginny actually lived there. Her room was imbued with pastel yellows, pinks, and blues that contrasted everything else about her. All that remained of her personality was a single Legend of Zelda poster that was taped behind her metal bedframe, like a sort of trophy, and a Wii that was connected to her early 2000s television set. Rather than play spin the bottle or twenty questions or do anything normal thirteen-year-olds would entertain, they took turns on Twilight Princess, playing through the whole game in an afternoon with no regard for the time that had passed. By the time he returned home at 10 P.M., he’d been grounded for two straight months.

Rather than avoid Ginny out of embarrassment, he pursued more unconventional means — or rather, archaic means — of communicating with her. During their shared classes he would pass notes her way; love notes, anecdotes about their teachers and peers, stupid doodles of the trees outside the window, and four letter rants about his next period. One day, while he was trying to initiate the cycle of passing notes, their teacher turned on the TV mounted in the corner of their classroom after answering a phone call at her desk. As Ginny opened the letter teasingly slow, she read the words: GONNA DIE IN HERE, and while chuckling she glanced up at the sizzling screen to see live footage of Yellowstone being engulfed by lava flow. 

They all watched in awe, twenty-five or so students in a Kansas City classroom witnessing the defining moment of the rest of their lives. It seemed as if time had stopped then and there, because nobody moved, nobody said anything, Ridley was beginning to wonder if they’d held their breaths all at once. They were released three hours early, but no one knew what was to come whenever they returned home.

He walked home from his bus stop with more vigor than usual, as he typically dreaded going home since it meant pestering from his mother about what kind of clothes he wore, or how short his beautiful, curly hair was cut, or any other minor flaw she could find with her son that she only ever saw as a daughter. He had a feeling, though, that day would be different. He entered in through the front door and glanced around. “Mom? Dad?” he called out, a lump developing in his throat where he always wished he’d grow an Adam’s Apple. 

Adam came running down the stairs first, a box in his arms. “Riley, good, I’m glad you’re home,” he tried to give a reassuring smile. “We’re just packing up in case things get too close here.” It was most certainly an order given to him by his wife, but Ridley couldn’t exactly blame his father for following them. 

“Can I help?” he asked as he dropped his backpack at his feet. “I can get some clothes from my room.”

“Go do that, buddy,” Adam nodded along, moving toward the garage where Ridley presumed that the car was being loaded up. He couldn’t help but feel his heart skip a beat at the endearing term, knowing if his mother around it would’ve been swiftly corrected. He trotted upstairs and hurried into his father’s office, moving to unlock his desk drawer and take out the cell phone that was repossessed upon being grounded.

He walked across the hall to his bedroom, locking the door behind him so that he could safely contact Ginny without worrying about being interrupted. Shakily, his hands found the keypad and he typed in her number, hoping and praying she would pick up. He hadn’t even realized how much adrenaline was flushing through his veins, igniting his nerves which jumpstarted tremors in his fingers as the phone kept ringing. The second time he dialed the number, he heard noise coming from the other line and stood up straight — as if she could see him.

“Ginny?” he spoke up.

“Riley?” she returned, sounding much less confident than normal. “My avó is freaking out right now. She thinks it’s, like, Revelation or something. She wants us to go to Florida. Are you home?”

Ridley let out a sigh of relief just from hearing her voice, leaning back against his bedroom door. “I am. I don’t know where my parents want us to go. They’re packing up the car now. Maybe — maybe you could come with us.”

“... Or maybe we could just go together.” Ginny said after a pause passed between them. “Y’know? Me and you against the world. We’re more tech savvy than our parents. They’d probably just drag us down.”

He thought about it for longer than he should have, admittedly. It wasn’t that he necessarily thought his parents would bring him down, but... What if he brought them down? He remained silent as he percolated on the idea of running away with Ginny to God knows where, living off of what was left of the earth, being alone but together. As he listened to his parents argue about what to keep at home and what to bring with them, he could hear Ginny’s voice breaking through his thoughts. Riley! Riley! ... Ridley!

“Huh?” he said, furrowing his brows at the name.

“Sorry, that just slipped out,” she apologized. “I just... Always thought that name fit you more. I dunno. Did you wanna? I can — I can meet you at the park and we can drive out east from there. Maybe slum it in the Ozarks for a while, that’s like a shoreline, right?”

Ridley swallowed dryly, slowly nodding to himself. “We can,” he said as he held his cell phone up with an elevated shoulder, moving around his room quickly to shove everything he needed into his old backpack from sixth grade. It still had his initials on the front: R.A.A. He tossed in tee shirts, a sweater, two pairs of jeans, and managed to squeeze in an extra pair of shoes and his sketchbook along with his charcoal in the front pocket before heading downstairs. He hid around a corner while his parents continued arguing, very carefully reaching out to grab the keys to his father’s vintage car that they hardly ever used, but he’d learned how to drive over the summer without his mother.

He slid out the front door and shut it quietly behind him before dashing toward the parked car, unlocking it and climbing into the driver’s seat. His hands kept shaking until he took a firm hold of the steering wheel after jamming the keys into the ignition. As he tuned the keys, he looked up and watched as his parents began running after him, but before they could catch him he’d forced the gear shift into reverse and peeled out of the driveway, barely clipping his mother’s car as he started to speed down the street; as he watched the other houses pass by in a blur, he saw entire families loading up their lives, one suitcase or box at a time, he saw tears and anguish and confusion, and eventually he had to look away so he could focus on the road ahead. 

“Are you almost here?” Ginny asked on speaker phone while Ridley was narrowly avoiding the red lights that kept flashing at intersections. Thankfully, it seemed like everyone was too preoccupied with their own escape to notice the thirteen-year-old driving a car around Kansas City. 

“I am. I just — I just have to turn this corner—” A sudden jolt sent him half a foot above his seat, the wheels having rolled over a gutter as he miscalculated the turn. He yelped as he grasped onto the seatbelt tightly and lowered his foot from the gas, the car slipping a bit until he finally thought to pull it into park again. “I’m here. I’m here.”

After a few minutes, Ginny emerged from the tree line in her white, ironed church clothes, looking entirely unlike herself but still as beautiful as the first time he ever saw her. She was almost like an angel, until she opened her mouth. “Fucking drive, Ridley!” 

And so he fucking drove.

They made it about fifty miles on empty backroads before they needed gas, which Ginny fished out all her money for out of her pocket just so they could fill up the tank for the rest of the drive. He hardly knew how to operate the pump, but eventually he figured it out and secured it back in its place before hurrying out of the gas station parking lot, lest someone notice the two young strangers. He kept driving until the sun set and he had to use his brights to see the world around them; the GPS had lulled Ginny to sleep with its soothing voice, guiding them throughout the Missourian wilderness. He didn’t dare turn on the radio or try and distract himself with anything except his own thoughts, not wanting to disturb her. At the very least, she deserved rest. Maybe he did, too, but he wasn’t going to get it before he got them where they needed to be. 

After a three hour long drive total, he pulled into an abandoned parking structure for the Lake of the Ozarks and reached out to nudge Ginny. 

“Gin,” he whispered. “Ginny. We’re here. We made it.”

Waking up slowly, Ginny rubbed her eyes and glanced around, unable to see the lakes ahead of them with the ash that had begun cluttering the night sky above. “Really?” she asked hoarsely. He reached out and grabbed her hand, lacing their fingers together and giving her a terrified smile. “... We really made it.”

And if you were to tell that Ridley, right then and there, that within five years they would have braved the unending winter in the Ozarks for half a year before moving further across America in his father’s car until it inevitably shit out on them, survived extreme circumstances crossing into the Appalachians, adopted a pet wolf that would vigilantly watch them at every rest stop they took in the mountains, lost their virginities to each other in a freezing cold cave with almost all their clothes on, found a ship that was taking civilians across the ocean for a hefty price and snuck on board, stepped on European soil only for Ginny to come down with a nasty cough their first week and a worse case of blisters the week after that, if you’d have told him that he had to let someone else kill the most beautiful girl in the world — he wouldn’t have believed you, because how could things go so wrong when they were so right together? 

So, in that moment, as they sat holding hands in the warmth of his father’s car, he smiled at her. And after waking up more, she smiled back.

[zoinkshag]

norville ‘shaggy’ rogers is a 25 year old from coolsville ; a detective , shaggy is bisexual . his favorite song is scar tissue , red hot chili peppers . born on april 27th , 1997 , he is a taurus sun , capricorn moon , capricorn rising !

a rebel without a cause, nothing shaggy has ever done was to strictly go against his parents’ wishes. but here he is, growing his hair out, smoking, staying up too late, not working, not in college. the black sheep of the whole family. it isn’t for spite. it’s just the life the rogers lead is not the life that appeals to him.

he just wants to be happy and stress-free, that’s all.

while his anxiety has gotten better over the years, if it wasn’t for weed and scoob jr. (and og scoob before him) some days, he really couldn’t function. he struggles mostly with social anxiety, but now he can just get stoned and deal with it instead of crying in the bathroom at parties.

his nerves were not coddled when he was younger. his mother forced him to try to make friends with kids his age, he was brought along to fancy dinner parties in suits with slicked back hair and he hated it. it was almost as bad as coming face to face with monsters.

shaggy’s favorite food is pizza, classic (vegan) pepperoni, but he’ll eat anything.

no, literally. you should see some of his food combos. he loves cooking, but a lot of the things he comes up with, a normal person wouldn’t touch.

he’s also a bottomless pit. his average calorie intake is... concerning. all you can eat buffets lose money when he walks in. where does the food go??

while on the food topic, he’s a... practicing vegetarian. aka a vegetarian that sometimes forgets he’s trying to be vegetarian and eats a hotdog. but he’s trying.

also forgets his name isn’t actually shaggy from time to time. the only people that call him norville anymore are his parents, and even his dad has pretty much given up on getting him to answer to his birth name.

still sleeps with a night light.

he loves video games, but doesn’t play many shooter cames. he prefers tony hawk and overcooked. the loud noises and the gore are a no-go.

shag’s never had much luck with dating. mostly because he doesn’t care that much, he’s fine just hanging out with his friends. but he does wish from time to time he could just suck it up and ask someone out instead of getting tongue tied talking to anyone remotely cute.

his playlist is 90s rock with the occasional early 2000s or 80s song. spin doctors, nirvana, green day. 

he actually really enjoys detective work. he likes looking into paranormal activity. but... from afar.

doesn’t matter, he’ll do anything for his friends. you can’t find anyone more loyal than shaggy. whatever it is, mildly uncomfortable or life threatening all the gang has to do is say please and he’ll be right there shaking in his boots with a smile on his face.

almost always smiling. even if he’s mid-panic attack, he’s the one to crack a joke.

as scooby gets older, he starts to worry about losing him, too. it was hard enough to lose his first dog. he’s not cut out for doing it again.

grows his own weed. should probably make a savings account from that in case his parents cut him off, but he won’t.

[rufus-thedog]

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4WMTnaShqmnJQkarBp2PdX?si=2YZMmYAsScqBQ-6AKA4BDA&pt=632933eab0e2e7f665ac0ce2deb10946

Nina my beloved<3

She gives me early 2000’s scene vibes

She’s super fun to be around

And she’s always blasting music

I can really see her and Jeff (who’s definitely got that 2010’s emo vibe) having really similar music tastes because in my eyes they’re best friends

Like how can you hang out with someone and not have similar music tastes

You’ll almost always see them together but not in a romantic sense

*cough cough* cus he’s gay *cough cough*

Anyways she’s got a whole drawer of candi bracelets and stuff

And if you ask her she’ll totally help you dye your hair

Pansexual queen✨

She was definitely a myspace middle schooler

She was also the kid that probably hung out in hot topic and Spencer’s

Or she was a clairs kid

Her friend group consists of Ben (the greasy gamer boy) Jeff (the E-boy) and her

Shes also got like three boxes of nail polish

She has every color known to man kind but only uses like 10 of them

She has a mini fridge that’s mostly empty but she has like two cherry sodas in it

The best at eyeliner

She can’t cook whatsoever

Do not let her cook

As much as I love her she’s not aloud in any kitchen

Also I think she likes to do cool little makeup things with her mouth cut

Because obviously it scared over, it’s been years

She probably used to post makeup tutorials for her fellow scene kids on YouTube.

She’s kinda got a buzzy kinda vibe, not like toby’s buzzy more like a blown out speaker buzzy yk? Like these

Most of the songs I wanted to put in this playlist weren’t on Spotify so-

Also this was gonna be really really really long if they where tho

Anyways I can and will do even the most obscure creepypastas no body has ever heard of if you guys want it, I’ll also do characters from other horror based fandoms if you want:)

[davidmann95]

Sooo… Superman and the Authority?

magnus-king123 asked: Your thoughts on Superman & the authority Give it to me...lol

Anonymous asked: Seeing Bezos take his little trip into space the same day Morrison puts out a Superman comic that touches on how far we’ve fallen from the days when we dreamed of utopian futures where everyone explored the stars was a big gut punch. Not used to Superman being topical in that way.

Anonymous asked: What'd you think of Superman and the Authority#1?

This is far beyond what I can fit in the normal weekly reviews, so taking this as my notes on the first six pages, with this and this as my major lead-in thoughts:

* Janin's such a perfect fit for Morrison - the scale, the power, the facial expressions selling the character work, the screwing around with the panel formatting as necessary to sell the effect, the numinous sense of things going on larger than you can fully perceive amidst the beauty and chaos. It's a shame he wasn't around 25 years ago to draw JLA, but I'll take him going with Morrison onto other future projects.

* His intro action sequence is such a great demonstration of why Black actually does have something to offer, and also how he's such a dumbass desperately needing Superman to save him from himself.

* While Jordie Bellaire didn't legit go with an entirely monochromatic palate the way early previews suggested, it's still an effect frequently and excellently deployed here. And glad to see Steve Wands carry into this from Blackstars since there's such an obvious carryover from its work with Superman.

* "Gentlemen. Ladies. Others." Great both because of the obvious - hey, Superman's nodding at me! - and because it's a phrasing that reinforces that this take on him (and let's be real Morrison) is old as hell.

* I'm mostly past caring about whether this is an alt-Earth Superman until it becomes indisputable one way or another, this and Action both rule so what does it really matter? But while there are still a couple signs in play suggesting some kind of division (the Action Comics #1036 cover, Midnighter up to time-travel shenanigans) the "lost in time" quote clearly thrown in after the fact to explain how he could have met Kennedy outside of 5G that wouldn't be necessary for an Elseworlds, the assorted gestures towards Superman's current status quo, the Kingdom Come symbol appearing in Action, and that Morrison would have had to completely rewrite the ending if this wasn't supposed to be 'the' version of Clark Kent going forward as was the intent when they first planned it all say to me that no, no fooling around, this is our guy going forward one way or another.

* Janin and Bellaire making the first version of the crystal Fortress ever that actually looks as cool as you want it to.

Anonymous asked: I like that Superman and The Authority is basically the anti-All-Star; instead of the laid back, immortal Superman who is supercharged, we have a stressed, ageing Superman whose tremendous powers are fading. The former will always be there to save us, but the latter is running out of time and needs to pull off a Hail Mary. Also, he mentions in his monologue to Black that he was "lost in time" when he met JFK, so maybe he is the main continuity Clark. Or he's the t-shirt Supes from Sideways.

* You're absolutely right - the power reversal is obvious and the ticking clock in play seemingly isn't for his own survival but everyone around him as he wakes up and realizes all the old icons grew complacent with the gains they'd made and he's not leaving behind the world he meant to. Both, however, are built on the idea of preparing the world to not need them anymore - it'll still have a Superman in his son, but that'll only work because of the others he empowers and inspires. The question is what happens to Clark if he's not going to live in the sun for 83000 years.

* Clark's 'exercise' here does more to sell me on the idea of Old Man Superman as a cool idea than however many decades of Earth 2 stuff.

* Intergang being noted alongside Darkseid and Doomsday speaks to how much Kirby informed Morrison's conception of Superman.

* This isn't exactly the most progressive in its disability politics but at least it makes clear Black's being a piece of shit about it.

* It's startling how much Clark can get away with saying stuff in here you'd never expect to come out of Superman's mouth. "I made an executive decision" "Privacy, really...?" "You have nowhere to go, Black. Nothing to live for." "There are few people in my life who I instinctively and viscerally dislike, and you've always been one of them." It only works because there's zero aggression behind it, he's just past the point of niceties and being totally frank while making clear none of these assessments preclude that he cares and is going to unconditionally do the right thing every time. He is absolutely, per Morrison, humanity's dad picking us up when we're too drunk to drive ourselves home.

* The story doesn't put a big flashing light over it, but it's not even a little bit subtle having the material threat of the issue be a ticking timebomb left by the carelessness and hubris of generations past.

* Manchester keeps trying to poke the bear and prove his hot takes about Superman and it's just not working. The front he put up under Kelley is gone after decades of defeats, and as Morrison understands what actually conceptually works about him as a rival to Superman underneath the aging nerd paranoia he's exposed as what he absolutely would be in 2021: a dude with a horrific terminal case of Twitter brainworms. I was PANICKED when I heard there was an 'offensive term' joke in this, I was braced for Morrison at their well-meaning worst, but it's such a goddamn perfect encapsulation of a very specific breed of Twitter leftist who uses their politics first and foremost as a cudgel and justification to label their abrasive, judgmental shittiness as self-righteousness (plus it's a killer payoff to a joke from way back in his original appearance). Cannot believe they pulled that off when they're so very, very open about basically not knowing how the internet works.

* @charlottefinn: Manchester Black using his telekinetic powers to force someone he hates to fave a problematic tweet so that he can screenshot it and start a dogpile

@intergalactic-zoo: “Once they cancel Bibbo, Superman won’t be *anyone’s* fav’rit anymore!”

* Friend noted this issue had to be fully the conversation because the whole premise stands on the house of cards of these two somehow working together, and with three 'silent' inset panels the creative team pulls off that turning point.

* So much of this feels on the surface like Morrison bringing back the All-Star vibes with Clark, but when he drops a "That's all you got?" in a brawl you realize what's underlining that bluntness and confidence in the face of failure is that deep down this is still the Action guy too. This dude ain't gonna get wrecked in his Fortress while the other guy chuckles about him being A SOFT WEE SCIENTIST'S SON!

* Bringing up Jor-El made me realize that Morrison already spelled out that this is the final threat to Superman, what he faces at the end of the road:

"Now it's your turn, Superman."

* A l'il Superman 2000/All-Star reference with the Phantom Zone map!

* There's so much intertextuality going on here even by Morrison standards - Change or Die with the old hero putting together a team of morally nebulous folks out to 'fix' everything, Flex Mentallo with the muscleman trying to redeem the punk, Doomsday Clock with the fate of the world hinging on whether Superman can get through to a meta stand-in for an idea of 'modern' comics cynicism, DKR and New Frontier and Kingdom Come and Multiversity and Seven Soldiers and What's So Funny and All-Star and Action and the last 5 years of monthly Superman comics and Authority and probably Jupiter's Legacy and Tom Strong - but none of that's needed. You could go in with the baseline pop cultural understanding of the character and not care about any of the inside baseball shit and get that this is a story about a leader of a generation that let down the people they made all their grand promises to as inertia and day-to-day demands and complacency let him be satisfied with the accomplishments they'd made long ago, looking at a new era and seeing the ways its own activists are dropping the ball. The only thing that fundamentally matters in a "you have to accept you're reading a superhero story" sense is that because he's Superman he's willing to own up to it and listen to people who might know better about some things and try to set things right while he and those who'll take his place still have a chance. And yes, the oldster looking back on their legacy with a skeptical eye and hoping for better from the next generation, hoping most of all that their little heir apparent can fulfill the promise inside of him instead of being a provocating little shitkicker, is obviously also autobiographical.

* The overlaying Kennedy reprisal is such a great visual of a sudden intrusive thought.

* The Kryptonite secret is the obvious "This is going to matter!" moment, but "He lied about his son" is a bit that doesn't connect to anything going on right now so maybe that's important here too? More significantly, the Justice League can't actually be the villains here but that Ultra-Humanite's crew are in an Earth-orbiting satellite makes pretty clear what's up.

* I've said before that between Superman, OMAC, and a New Gods-affiliated speedster this was going to use all of Morrison's favorite things. King Arthur playing a role isn't exactly dissuading me.

* Love the idea that all the antiheroes have their own community in the same way as the capes and tights crew. They definitely all privately think the rest are posers though and that they alone are Garth Ennis Punisher in a mob of Garth Ennis Wolverines.

* Manchester's fallen so far he's gone from trying to convince Superman to kill to convince him to dunk on people for their bad takes and Clark just doesn't get it. Official prediction of dialogue for upcoming issues:

"According to these bloody Fortress scans, the only thing that can restore your powers is an unfiltered hit of dopamine. Don't worry, Doctor Black has a few ideas."

"Hmm. Maybe I'll plant a nice tree?"

"...fuck you."

* Ok I already talked about how great the Fortress looks in here but LOVE this library.

* A pair of pages this seems like the right spot to discuss from Black's original appearance that underlines both his and Superman's inadequacies up to this point:

Responding to the problem of "the government and penal system are hopelessly corrupt" neither of them has any actual notion of what to do about it in spite of their respective posturing beyond how to handle individual outside actors - each is in their own way every bit as small-minded and reactionary as the other. Clark's coming around though, and he's holding out hope for the other guy.

* Superman: Have a lovely mineral water :) proper hydration is important :)

Manchester Black: *Is a dude who can get so mad he vomits and passes out. At water.*

* That last page is the one to beat for the year, and does more to put over the idea of this as an Authority book than that Midnighter and Apollo are literally going to show up. It also feels like Morrison tacitly acknowledging all the ways the premise could go or at least be received wrong - from Superman saying 'enough is enough' to who he's bringing into the fold to go about it - in the most beautifully on-the-nose fashion imaginable. Maybe they'll save us all! Or maybe they'll drown us in their vomit.

[josiebelladonna]

dear gen z,

seeing as you guys are bringing back the early 2000s, allow me to oblige. it wasn’t all nu metal, chains, saw, and mall rats. there was far more to this decade than you realize.

you had all the manga type hair with the weird, often bright colors, but you also had strange hairlines like the crisscross look that avril and christina had, squiggly lines, whatever the hell that was that evolved out of “the rachel”. real experimental type stuff. you also had lots of flat hair, too. flat hair that often got crimped or “bumped up” in the back. you had this weird, multicolored dread look that shakira had for a little bit: long dreadlocks down to the waist that were black and white with a touch of color.

three words: low rider jeans. don’t whine, these were a rite of passage when you were a teenage girl back then. if you wore these, you were a badass. i often wore a few cool looking tie belts and belts with studs on them—kinda miss my belts, too.

yeah, we were way more shameless with our fashion than you realize, even those of us who were still kids then. we were baggy (billie eilish doesn’t know shit) but we showed our hips and our bellies. we all shopped at hot topic but also claire’s. we all wanted to be fergie, beyonce, or nelly furtado.

things weren’t all dark back then, either: in fact, the way that decade sits in my memory is one of bright colors. bright neons and the advent of the metallic color scheme. i just think of all the hip hop videos from back then. we were all about how many licks and putting a ring on it, too—get your gross w.a.p outta here.

the whole “post grunge” thing when it was still brand new and not over saturated to death like what happened in 2010, like the notorious nickelback, but you also had 3 doors down, collective soul, and godsmack when they were actually cool. emo wasn’t just mcr, either: really, read up on pop punk and the emo subculture, it’s genuinely fascinating.

you also had these weird little outlier acts like queens of the stone age and the strokes—before they became tumblrcore, too! there was a little renaissance happening with amy winehouse and classical music at the helm, but it was in the background here in the states, though: it took place more so in europe and the uk.

you know what else was big back then? songwriters: jewel, sheryl crow, michelle branch, gwen stefani, and a lot of one hit wonders, but i remember them filling my mom’s stereo on rides home from school (really, look up some of the pop music from back then, it brings back memories for me).

snl was at its most hilarious—at least for me. this was when dubya was in office so the whole thing was ripe for parody (don’t believe me? look up some of the skits following 9/11, you will not be disappointed). sorry, the trump era was pathetic and kind of irritating: i could probably count on one hand how many times i laughed over those four seasons. humor was edgy, and sometimes overly so, but we all laughed because it was just funny to us. one of my favorite movies ever is scary movie.

british comedy was excellent this time, too: two of my favorite shows ever, peep show and skins, came out this era.

(full offense, but your meme humor SUCKS. a lot of it has to do with delivery but it also has to do with subversion. it’s why i like to write bait-and-switch in my more comedic writings. memes are so predictable that they’re boring; or they’re just one note and you wind up feeling sad instead).

cartoons were huge back then, especially of the adult caliber: family guy, south park, futurama, aqua teen hunger force, it was all edgy and awesome—as much as i love bojack, i always go back to the griffins. cartoon network and pixar were at their pinnacles back then, too, so was dreamworks: disney, not so much. i didn’t see the appeal of it, but the fact luca did so good tells me that pixar might be coming back—”might be”, anyway. i saw soul last year and wasn’t impressed. studio ghibli were the underdogs of this decade, too, but everyone loved them.

this is the last decade where the internet was still a luxury, social media didn’t exist—and when it did, it was cumbersome—and the iphone hadn’t been invented yet, so we all had gameboys, nintendo ds, xboxes, this was when playstation was at its height. hell, i remember still playing outside in 2002.

no one got their feelings hurt. even those of us who were struggling, we were still friends and stuff to each other. bullies were genuinely reviled because of this: none of this stupid ass “ew, you said something i don’t agree with”/”ew, you have an opinion” *blocked* bullshit.

yeah, fanfiction was a hellscape (oof, talk about drama—from what i’ve seen from people who were in those circles back then, what happened to me last year was child’s play), but people wrote it anyway because it’s fun. we were all genuinely supportive of one another—and none of this sissy “sorry to bother you” nonsense, either.

horror was big—by the way, it wasn’t just slasher movies, either; i remember seeing so many commercials for those supernatural type movies like the ring and remakes of the fog and one of my favorite horror movies, the exorcist—so was fantasy: the harry potter movies come to mind, and you also had narnia, pirates of the caribbean, van helsing, star wars before it turned strictly into a nostalgia fest, one of my favorite keanu reeves movies constantine, and this was when the first twilight book came out, too. romance was everywhere, too, like everyone did romcoms, and even though they were ubiquitous, they came in different flavors. hell, even dramas and crime shows back then were fun as hell: i have so many memories of going to school on tuesday and  friday mornings and talking to my friends about last might’s episode of csi and csi: miami, or house, or burn notice.

that decade was so diverse when i think about it. it was diverse and fun and indulgent and no one gave a shit because we all felt like we were all friends.

so, i don’t know what you guys are thinking that the 2000s were dark and depressing because… they actually weren’t. it was after columbine, y2k, and 9/11, and the overly serious 90s: we looked dark but we were all about having a good time, though. we weren’t at each other’s throats for stupid petty reasons all the time, either. we didn’t act like babies, either: i was 6 years old january 1, 2000, and i was 13 years old january 1, 2007. i was a kid, for sure, but i acted mature because it felt necessary to me. it was such a unique decade that you guys literally have your work cut out for you—i say this to anyone nostalgic for a time bygone, too.

all i can say is: don’t make the same mistake geriatric millennials did over the 2010s (i’m sorry, but they deserve to be called that for dressing like old people) and make it just another lame tiktok trend.

thank you,

someone who lived through that era and enjoyed every minute of it.

[xinyuehui]

Hello as a factory worker I would really like to know about Yifu since i haven't seen as much? I read a passing comment that he was a lawyer and when you see his first drama he really did start quite late?? But I miss a lot of info bc I dont understand Chinese. I am curious about our overlord since hes having so much fun being shipped and i wonder if its his first time in a cp? If you dont know the answers no obligation to answer! thanks for reading

Good day fellow foster sibling!! I'm not sure if Yifu ever became a lawyer, but he did graduate with a law degree from China University of Political Science and Law, and Master of International Economics Law at City University of Hong Kong. Then he went to The Central Academy of Drama and did drama performance.

There's a joke among fans saying he's not afraid to say shit because he understands the law so he can flaunt around lol

According to his Baidu profile, in 2000, he won 2nd place in a hot model contest. He did a load of stuff in between for anchoring and hosting, which landed him a place as a news anchor for Phoenix Media in 2006. (Phoenix is a state-owned company, it's a big deal to be an anchor for them)

News anchor yifu 👀👀

He acted in his first drama in 2013, and since then he's been on variety shows, dramas etc...

He was in Lost Love In Times (醉玲珑) with Gong Jun, their characters were brothers in the drama.

Not sure if you've seen the hit Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms (三生三世十里桃花)

It literally went over my head when I watched this one ^

A more recent drama he was in is Monarch Industry; The Rebel Princess (上阳赋)

This yifu with Xie'er omg???!?!? Wheres my minority au?????

As far as I'm concerned, this is the first time he got churned in CP shenanigans, Wang laoshi mentioned in an interview that he didn't even know how any of this CP shipping thing works, he accidentally stumbled upon the LLD (Wenzhou) topic and was having fights with people on there that said Zhao Jing was trash lmao classic Yifu

Obviously he wasn't suddenly this hilarious and brilliant after Word of Honor happened, his early Weibos are equally as wack. He once called a Didi (Chinese uber) and a whole ass bus turned up 😂😂😂

His weibo dates back many many pages, full of pictures and videos, including his mom hugging a goat and him rolling in the snow half naked:

[writerchic6]

What would you want to see in American malls today?

Hey y’all my local mall is up for sale and my county commissioner is working to find ideas for what they can do to reinvigorate the complex.  It’s been dying for years and only the movie theatre there is really worth going to, if that.  I’ve said for a while that I wish that malls would be really cool again like you see in 80s and early 2000s movies.

The Starcourt Mall scene in Stranger Things was like the greatest thing I’ve ever seen and the irony is that mall isn’t too far from me and it’s absolutely deserted in irl and was sold as county offices for only a few million dollars cuz thats all it was worth.  And I went to that mall once as a kid.

As a 20 something I do remember when my local malls were a place to be, and while some malls are still more active than others I think overall the mall scape as a whole could do with a an overhaul and actually be a place to be again.

I know that people say online shopping killed malls, but they’ve been on the decline much longer than this recent amazon boom.  With the popularity of retro things, Mallcore and and dying mall aesthetics, I think theres a real market to appeal to more young people and give communities a better place to hang out than just the sad dregs that are left with just a few junk stores.

My mom has often talked about how malls in the 80s and 90s were almost an all day experience.  There were movie theaters, hair salons etc (in more upscale malls those still exist) but there other things like bookstores, music/record stores, and arcades.

I also know theres a big difference between American suburban malls and shopping centers in Europe etc.  Theres plenty of shops along side larger department stores.

What are malls like in Europe as well??

My Mall Ideas

I think malls should try to compete with online retailers like amazon but do what they were originally designed to do: be a central community pedestrian space for the suburbs with shopping but can also have resources for the community the same way libraries etc provide just on a much larger scale.

Have recreational centers/areas in place of department stores that have left

internet cafes/study spaces

bookstores (like Walden books use to be in malls)

ARCADES (not just game stop but actual arcades/gaming stores like tabletop games)

Pop/sub culture stores (not just hot topic and box lunch, but definitely have both of those and other like it with even a wider array of stuff)

RECORD/MUSIC STORES!!

technology co-op or radio shack like store where you can get basic device help or purchase a new/second hand one (side eyes apple and its genius bar)

thrift stores

independent stores or boutiques

80s mall aesthetics

I think the appeal of malls is both their central accessibility and the experience of going out to the place. I think this is best exhibited by Target. I think i saw an article or post of the internet that said that the draw of buying something from Target is literally do the experience of shopping there. You go because of the feeling of experience as well as getting the things you need. Almost like a miniature mall, with books, an entertainment section, groceries and starbucks/pizza right at the door. Malls could be like this or more.

TL:DR

Malls are dead and i have a chance to help improve the one in my area. What would you want to see in a mall today? 80s mall culture? arcades?

If you know of malls that have been turned into different things (like it think there's this giant bookstore in texas that use to be a mall) please let me know in the replies

Please reblog and reply, and spread as you can

Thank you! 😊

[jazy3]

Thoughts on Grey’s Anatomy: 17X16

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

I really liked this episode! I loved the scenes between Meredith and Bailey and Meredith with her kids. So precious! I think Meredith is the perfect person to take over the residency program now that Richard has too many jobs as Bailey says! I think she is really going to shine in this new role. In the past I thought her and Alex might wind up running the hospital with him as Chief of Surgery and her as Residency Director. While that won't happen because Justin Chambers' exit, I think it will be great to see Meredith step up and take on the role. Ultimately, I want to see her operate again and be a badass, but since she’s still recovering, I think having Meredith take this on while she recovers from COVID is a great idea.  

I’m glad that we got to see Maggie and Winston disagree on something and work through it in this episode. While I think Winston did overreact a bit when Maggie was upset and a bit reluctant about the wedding planning and said that everything felt like a compromise I'm glad that they showed the two of them disagreeing and working through it because up until now they've been portrayed as the perfect couple. I loved the scene where Maggie and Winston talked about the wedding and then it was revealed that Maggie had arranged for her Dad and Winston’s Grandmother to fly in for the wedding. That was very sweet and they got the actor that previously played her Dad back!

I also really liked the patient that Maggie, Helm, and Richard treated. I felt so bad for her when she told them that her husband had died and her dog had ran away and that she wasn’t good with people. I suspected she was pretending early on because of her loneliness. I was so sad about the missing dog for the whole episode and I was ecstatic when they found him! I’m more of a cat than a dog person, but pets are family. I am also glad that we got to learn more about Helm in this episode and that she appears to have left her Meredith obsession behind. That was funny the first few times they brought it up, but then it just got weird and annoying.

Especially after both CeCe the matchmaker and Carina talked to Helm about it and told her she needed to move on and find someone that could love her back and then she went right back to being obsessed with her. That’s been her whole personality for the past three seasons. Now in this episode we learn that she likes to cook, that she makes a mess when she cooks, and that she likes to watch the news. I think Helm moving in with Levi and Jo is a good thing, but he definitely should have cleared it with Jo first and they for sure need a bigger place.

I really liked the scene with Link and Jo. I like that he called her out on the fact that she obviously wanted to adopt Luna and told her she should stop doubting herself. I was surprised and disappointed that Jo’s adoption application was denied. She's clearly formed a bond with Luna and she was ready to have kids with Alex prior to his departure and she was close to Val prior to her death. I’m curious as to why her application was denied and why she failed the background check. I hope we get a follow up to that because she would be a great Mom to Luna and I want to know what happened there.

When we found that out my first thought was, “That’s illegal!” because here in Canada and in Ontario specifically to the best of my knowledge you can’t discriminate against someone and reject their adoption or foster application because they are a single parent, have had mental health issues in the past, stole a car while homeless or lived under an assumed name while fleeing domestic violence provided they meet the other criteria such as being able to provide a safe loving home and can prove that they are financially stable and have a good support network in place.

I was confused as first, but then my friend Amy and I were talking about it and I realized that I was applying my own context to another situation. Having the right to adopt and not be discriminated against is something that the women’s, gay rights, and disability rights movements here in Canada have fought very hard for. A lot of changes were enacted in the 2000’s and 2010’s to make it easier for people from all walks of life to adopt and foster. In fact, in many cases social services will look for prospective parents who share a child’s background or history because they will be able to relate to the child in a way that a parent without that experience might not be able to.

That’s not to say that everything is perfect and that discrimination and unfair treatment doesn’t happen. It does. People can be sneaky about it. But you do have recourse here. You would be able to contest the discrimination. I’m not familiar with adoption laws and policies for Washington State where the show is set so it’s possible that this kind of discrimination may still be legal there or there may not be specific policies addressing it. If anyone does know I would love to know more as what I’m saying is based on the experiences of people that I know here in Ontario. I do think that Jo will eventually get custody of Luna. They've spent a bunch of time setting this up and dropping hints about this storyline so it would feel hollow to have it end like this. It would also put Jo back in a dark place which she just got out of for the umpteenth time.

I’m interested to see where they go with Amelia and Link’s storyline around him wanting more children and Amelia not wanting anymore. Couples getting together and then realizing at a later point that they feel differently about having children or having more children in this case is a real thing that happens. Amelia and Link started off as casual sex partners which progressed into something more serious when Amelia found out she was pregnant. They've become this beautiful family and it turns out they are a great match, but because they didn't start out with marriage and kids in mind there are bridges that they have to cross at some point. I'm glad that Link is voicing his desire to have more kids down the road now so that they can talk about it.

I totally get why Amelia doesn't want more kids. After what happened with Christopher and Ryan and then Owen, Betty, and Leo and then with Meredith's kids I get why Amelia doesn't want more children. It's a lot of work, she's been through a lot, and getting overwhelmed could impact her sobriety. Link is a good guy and way more sensitive around this topic that Owen ever was so my hope is that they'll talk it out, Amelia will share her concerns, Link will understand, and he'll fulfill that need for more kids by spending more time with Leo or Meredith's kids.

Also real talk, Owen was an absolute asshole to Cristina and Amelia when they didn’t want kids and straight up said that there was something wrong with them because they didn’t want to be with something who treated them poorly and kept trying to force them to have kids that they didn’t want. While it’s great that he gets it now and was able to offer some words of wisdom to Amelia in this episode and be supportive it doesn’t make up for or change the fact that he was god awful to both of his ex-wives because they didn’t want kids and he did. He knew Cristina didn’t want kids long before they got married and he married Amelia without ever talking about his desire to have children and just assumed she wanted that too.

He should really call Cristina and apologize because what the hell? I think it’s the difference between perception and experience. Before when he wanted kids but didn’t have any he was in love the idea and couldn’t understand someone not wanting that. Now that he has two kids he realizes how much work that is and why someone might not want that especially if they are dealing with other issues that could be impacted by having more children. I really enjoyed the patient storylines this week. I had previously read a study about what Amelia is working on and how doctors and scientists have now determined that there are two types of patients who appear brain dead. 

The kind that actually are where their body is still alive but no one’s home and the kind we see in this episode where their body is still alive and they are still in there, but can’t communicate in traditional ways, but can communicate through thinking about different things to answer yes or no questions. There is a special kind of machine that is needed to scan for this and they are expensive but they’ve proven that hospitals make the costs back within a year because the machines allow them to determine which patients are actually brain dead and which can still make decisions and answer questions about their care.

Something I didn’t like about this episode was that Levi chose Nico over Dr. Mason Post the hot Vaccine Doctor. I was really rooting for them to get together and for him to start something new with someone who might actually treat him well and I was so freaking disappointed wand pissed off when Levi showed up at Nico’s place and got back together with him instead of going over to Mason’s. I’m Team Mason all the way! He's a gem. He's attractive, funny, smart, direct, and kind. He's everything Levi deserves in a partner after the nonsense Nico has put him through.

I liked Nico and Levi when they first got together, but after Nico revealed that he lied about being out to his parents their relationship went downhill fast. He's treated Levi like crap ever since and his one-time apology doesn't fix that or do anything to address the way he's acted or fix his and Levi's relationship problems. I hope Mason returns next season, Levi winds up with him, and Nico goes off to work for the Mariners as he was supposed to originally.

My only other complaint is that Meredith and Hayes didn't have any scenes together this week, but it looks like they'll have scenes in the finale so I'm happy about that. My favourite moment of the episode was when Amelia told Owen that Tom had moved to Boston to help Jackson with the changes he wanted to make and Owen thinking that he had been fired said that he hated that there was one more thing he had to like and respect about the guy. I'm not an Owen fan in general, but that line cracked me up! I’m really looking forward to the finale! I’m excited that based on next week’s promo Meredith and Hayes will have scenes together and hopefully we’ll be getting some movement on the world's slowest moving slow burn storyline!

I swear to god glaciers move faster! People have gotten engaged, broken up, gotten back together, and moved to Boston in the time that Meredith was on that beach while Hayes worried about her from afar. So, I'm excited for that. I'm also excited for Maggie and Winston's wedding and to know why her Dad and his Grandmother are objecting. I hope to see Jo adopt Luna and I'd love to see some father-daughter scenes with Richard and Meredith.

Until next time!

[adultswim2021]

Ephemera Week (2002)

In which I review stuff in a non-specific way, covering the shows that Adult Swim merely acquired but did not produce themselves:

The Oblongs (originally aired on WB, 2001)

How many different ways can I say a show mostly sucked? Honestly, I railed against this show hard when it came on Adult Swim. I caught a few minutes of an episode on the WB and didn’t really care to keep watching it. I think it was the first episode?

In the early 2000s, there was a lot of embarrassing attempts to be “weird” and “tWiStEd” in the media landscape, and most of it I judged harshly. If I could smell that a TV Network was attempting to court the Hot Topic demographic I would reject and pounce on anyone who liked it. I remember pompously dressing down a friend of a friend who liked this show, which is also really embarrassing. Honestly I’m at the point in my life now where if I accidentally make fun of a show or movie to the face of somebody who likes those things I feel terrible and feel the need to apologize profusely. Please don’t not like the Oblongs on my account. The show was about the lower-class have-not Oblong Family who lived under the sewer drains of the elite upper-class. Their side of the tracks is so polluted by the rich citizen’s waste that they are all mutated, presumably from toxic waste-induced birth-defects. The dad is voiced by Will Ferrell and he doesn’t have any arms or legs. He has a Charles and Mambo style son voiced by the Sklars. Everything is grotesque, but in a cutesy marketable way. Even today as an avowed MARXIST (as far as you know) I probably could come up with some revisionist argument about how this show is good, actually, but my heart simply wouldn’t be in it. Nobody needed the Chapo Trap House dicks telling the world to rewatch Avatar and nobody needs me telling them to do the same with The Oblongs.

Listen, I didn’t rewatch any of this and I’m sorry, but I literally watched every episode on Adult Swim despite not enjoying it all that much. The whole thing seemed like it was meant for teens who dress in all black and have too many zippers on their pants. Go to Denny’s drink freaking COFFEE, and talk about the latest ep of Oblongs. Damn. Dark shit. Here’s your goddamn Adult Swim schedule. All of them aired Sunday Night at 10:30PM. Shows that were previously unaired are in bold. 

August 4: Misfit Love (Pilot) August 11: Disfigured Debbie August 18: Narcoleptic Scottie August 25: Pickles' Li'l Amazons September 1: Flush, Flush, Sweet Helga September 8: Get off My Back September 15: Please Be Genital September 22: The Golden Child September 29: Milo Interrupted October 6: My Name Is Robbie October 13: Bucketheads October 20: Father of the Bribe October 27: Heroine Addict

MAIL BAG

Lotta anons in my mentions today... typical

Dont worry about these blue baby likers, i know wer'e both true hill-heads, Don't Let The Bastards Grind You Down (Toasters, Mission Hill e101)

It is because we are cool that we like Mission Hill and detest Baby Blues. Any show about being cool is good: It’s true

Kind of crazy to see Bill Oakley go from The Simpson to Mission Hill to reviewing fast food in his car.

I think he does other stuff like make his own soda and drink his own soda. I think that’s it, though.

What's your favorite adult swim piece of merch you own. PLEASE DON"t SAY THE MASTER SHAKE AIR FRESHNER I DON"T CARE ABOUT THAT!

That was it :( Do I count the DVDs? ATHF volume 2 DVD is maybe my favorite of the DVDs it has a lot of fun extras and stuff. volume 3 is also really good. Somewhere in my archives I Have a Sealab 2021 shirt, which was mailed out vaccu-formed into a hockey puck shape, and I have never actually unwrapped it. The wrinkles must be UNREAL. I wonder if it’s worth anything.

Richard Branson makes you an offer you can't refuse: A chance to go into space with him on his next big flight OR an all expense paid All-Night Adult Swim Themed Dance Party for you and your closest four friends. Which do you take? Oh, per "Branson's Rules" you are officially a virgin again by taking one of these prizes so you will have to have sex at least one more time in your life for that not to be the case. Sorry.

I would not take either prize though the prospect of regaining my virginity is tantalizing. I need it

Did Smash Mouth ever do anything with Adult Swim? For some reason I can imagine the fat lead singer pointing to a picture of Brak and smiling. Could it all just be simply a dream?

You are thinking of Guy Fieri, who famously goes to every Red Robin in North America searching for Brak merch on the wall. This was caused by him finding a big old Cartoon Planet bus-stop ad framed on the wall of the Red Robin in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He was so happy he made the hostess take a photo of him smiling next to it. As far as I know his search has yielded no other results. But the search is what’s important.

What do you think Eric Andre's deal is. Retarded or just straight up weird?

I saw somebody on twitter call him a hack and it was ponderous. His stand-up is nowhere near as brilliant as his show, and I’ve heard mixed reviews regarding that motion picture he did. It’s too racist to call him either of the things you wrote so I’ll abstain from weighing in

[imperiuswrecked]

Diamond Distribution is Dying

And why that’s a good thing. 

I’m sure by now most comic fans have heard of Marvel breaking their ties to Diamond Distribution. A  lot of fans are happy about this and other fans probably aren’t aware of just what this means in the comic world. So a short comic history lesson to help everyone, this is generalization by me from my time in comic fandom because I love reading up about comic history, so if anyone else has more specific sources or wants to add on then go ahead.

Back in the 1980′s there was different smaller distributors for comic companies however they all started getting bought up by one distributor, Diamond. 

What is a comic distributor? They are the company that gets comics into the shelves of stores. Think of it like this: 

Creative Team gets paid for their work and complete comic > Comic Company prints comics with their preferred printer company based on orders from Diamond > Diamond gets their order information from Comic Shops who get their pre-order information from customers interest >  Comic Company ships comics to Diamond warehouse > Diamond ships comics to shop > Shop places comics on shelves or in pull list boxes and wait for costumer to come in and pay for comics > Comic Shops pay their Diamond invoice bills > Diamond is paid and also pays Comic Company for comics > if comic is a hit then it goes to second printing > if comic flops then Comic Shop still owes Diamond their money because Diamond does not accept returns on comics and Diamond needs to get paid and to pay Comic Company. This is all done in bulk orders.

This is the direct to market approach that was great for comic companies but not so great for comic stores. This is why pre-ordering comics is so important, because realtors (comic shops) and Diamond would then try to guess what the customers demand was and would buy more of that comic to sell. This is why IP’s like Spider-Man, Batman, Super Man, X-Men, always get more comics made rather than less mainstream characters. The more popular the character the less the risk of comic shops losing money.

Diamond had a near monopoly on this whole operation, which means everyone is stuck using their outdated and old model of sales which hasn’t been updated since the 90s, (the 90s comic crash had many contributing factors that also aided in Diamond becoming a monopoly*). Everyone was stuck only looking at what Diamond reported in sales, which means online comics being bought were never really disclosed (this is still unsure of bc no one ever says what online digital comics sales are). Physical comics took longer to get overseas in international markets. And this meant that when in the early 2000′s, Diamond raised the pre-order minimum price from around $1,000 to over $2,000 then smaller independent comic creators were screwed. This is also why independent or smaller creators/comic companies have to fight like hell to get their comics even MENTIONED in Diamond Distributor’s preview order catalog so stores can pre-order.

In the past Diamond has faced accusations of censorship, and bullying smaller companies. 

Due to the 2020 Pandemic, Diamond stopped distribution last year for three months, DC cut out early and left to another company but Marvel stuck it out until 2021 where they just announced that they were joining with Penguin Random House to distribute comics. This is a huge deal, without their two biggest buyers then Diamond will die, maybe they can struggle along but there are no guarantees. Unlike DC completely cutting and running, Marvel is giving realtors the option to stay and order through Diamond or to order through Penguin. 

What does this mean for comic fans? Penguin will probably be able to get marvel comics into an international marker better than Diamond. Penguin might be able to distribute comics in places other than comic shops which could bring in new fans, they might be able to get comics into places that could go before because in order for Diamond to ship the buyers had to have an account through that one company, which is why most book stores only have a limited comic section, if one at all.

Do you recall all those old pictures of comics being on racks in general stores and pharmacies and stuff? I’m not saying that would come back but there is a possibility that you could see comics in more places like that. The comic model of sales of today has changed a lot since the 90s and Diamond never got that. I’m personally glad comics are not going to be held by only one huge distributor any more.

* If you don’t know what the comic crash of the 90s was then its pretty simple: In that era there was a huge boom of people suddenly buying up comics because of their perceived value, when stuff like Batman’s first comic selling for so much money was a hot topic and more people were suddenly getting rich off their old comic collections, as well as hard core comic collectors looking to increase their collections, spectators jumped in and began buying up like 10 or more issues, and keeping them for a later nest egg sale. 

Creators were becoming celebrities overnight thanks to new characters, stories that shifted from the classic ongoing tales to ‘YOU WILL NEVER BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED IN THIS ISSUE. THIS IS THE COMIC THAT CHANGES IT ALL.” shake up stories and less restrictions on comics. Things like the Death of Superman was flying off the shelves because people thought it would be worth money, it was not. In addition to this huge boom of sales, people who knew nothing about comics or selling were opening up shops left and right, over ordering and not selling, and very shortly places became bankrupt and closed down. Comic companies were literally raking in the cash and thinking that things were going to stay as they were but then the quality of comics had deteriorated, older fans were turned off by this, the bubble burst, people lost interest, and things went downhill.

Marvel bought Heroes World, to distribute their own comics on the idea that their X-Men Reprints were going to make them mad money but uhhh it did not and their terrible distribution pissed people off so they all went to Diamond and thus the reason for Marvel’s bankruptcy in the late 90s where they sold off movie rights to their biggest characters for literal pennies to stay afloat.

[mrskurono]

Suna absolutely loves meme culture. Things like the whole surgery on a grape thing (super old I know lol) are comedy gold to him.

SUNA FUCKING LIVED FOR THE RABID AMOUNT OF ASPIRING ANIMATORS ON YOUTUBE IN THE EARLY 2000′S

This dude could recite all the asdf movie quotes. Charlie the Unicorn shirt he bought from Hot Topic. He’ll act like he was “cultured” and didn’t watch the annoying orange but bitch totally did

[princealigorna]

Thinking about doing a video about scenecore. What bands should I talk about?

So, I'm thinking of doing video talking about the whole scenecore/mallcore/myspacecore/Hot Topic-core movement, largely because I think it's time that we can start re-evaluating some of these bands and just start listening to them unironically again (hey, it's happening with nu-metal! Scenecore ain't too far removed from that!). My question is, what bands should I include in that list?

Also, I think I should give a definition for scenecore to help us out. Scenecore, for my purposes, denotes a style of heavy rock music that became popular in the mid-2000's thru the mid-20teens (though some bands still persist and are making some of their best music into today). It sits adjacent to the metalcore, deathcore, and hardcore boom of the same period, as well as kinda dovetails with the emo and screamo boom of the early-2000's. The bands in this "style" (it's really not a style or genre in terms of sound, but more a period in time or a shared aesthetic) vary a lot stylistically, but in general, it is a sound that has it's base in emo/post-hardcore (textured guitars and usually higher, more head-voice or nasally vocals with bursts of raw screaming over a punk backbeat), but with elements of metal (usually big, beefy breakdowns but sometimes fleet-fingered soloing), huge anthemic pop choruses, and sometimes elements of electronica..

So far, the list I want to talk about is

Asking Alexandria A Day to Remember Escape the Fate Falling in Reverse The Fall of Troy Blood on the Dance Floor Chiodos Sleeping With Sirens Attack Attack Enter Shikari

But what about these whole Risecore thing with Woe, Is Me, Of Mice and Men, and especially Crown the Empire? What about We Came as Romans? Coheed and Cambria? Saosin? From Autumn to Ashes? From a Second Story Window (I feel they have too much grind and old-school screamo to count, but I'd love an excuse to talk about them because Not One Word Has Been Omitted is one of the best eps ever made)? How about Motionless in White and Black Veil Brides? As much as it makes me want to vomit, what about Brokencyde? I know most people think Design the Skyline are a canonical scenecore band, but did they really have more to offer than just one really big, weird beast of a song? Would we consider From First to Last scenecore, or are they too early? They have a lot of the elements (a base in screamo, some heavier elements from metalcore, huge sing-along choruses, etc. They had the visual aesthetic. And the title of their debut, Dear Diary, My Teen Angst Has a Body Count, is both maybe the best album title ever and also the most scene title you could ever imagine, but I feel 2004 sits a bit too early. To me, scenecore really begins around 2006 with Escape the Fate and their album Dying is Your Latest Fashion-again with the ridiculously silly but ass kicking album titles!)

[365days365movies]

April 9, 2021: Some Like it Hot (1959) (Recap: Part One)

If there was ever a movie more hyped than this one...

Ever heard of the American Film Institute? Well, according to them in 2000 (recent, I know), this is the funniest comedy...period. At the time, anyway. That beats Tootsie (getting there), Dr. Strangelove (love it), Annie Hall (also loved it), Duck Soup (classic), Blazing Saddles (classic, topical, and fantastic), M*A*S*H (maybe later this year), It Happened One Night (maybe next year), The Graduate (later this WEEK), and...THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN Airplane! IS NUMBER 10? You CANNOT be seri...yeah, OK, you know where I’m going.

Anyway. Yeah, so, maybe AFI has Oscar syndrome, because that’s a little bullshit. So, uh...how about the BBC? In 2017, they asked 253 film critics ACROSS THE GLOBE what the best comedy of all time was, and number ONE was Some Like it Hot. Other than beating Airplane! again, it also beat Groundhog Day, Monty Python’s Life of Brian and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, This is Spinal Tap, The Big Lebowski, and His Girl Friday, and...well, every comedy you can think of. This movie CANNOT be that funny.

...Can it?

But there’s more to this film than that. Apparently, it was made without the approval of the MPPDA, which means that it wasn’t Hays Code adherent! Damn! In fact, this film was partially responsible for its collapse about 6 years later! But what is the Hays Code? Well, briefly covered, it was a set of standards laid out by Will Hays and his Motion Picture Produces and Distributors of America, or the MPPDA. It was enforced in the mid 1930s, and stood firmly in place until 1968, when it basically disappeared.

So, what are these standards? Well, there are a lot, but in a nutshell:

No cursing or taking the Lord’s name in vain in any way.

No nudity, real or suggested. And sex is kind of OK, if consensual and between a man and a woman ONLY. But, they can’t be in bed together, and they can only kiss one time, IF one of them isn’t a villain.

No weddings, no wedding nights, and barely any reference to marriage.

No prostitution, or what was called “white slavery”. Yes. Really.

Oh, also, no weird race-mixing stuff. What’s a “civil rights”?

Buuuuuuut...don’t insult any races either. Of course, considering the time period, “insult” or “offense” is probably subjective, so...fuck that, I guess.

PRIESTS ARE HOLY AND CANNOT BE MOCKED

No guns, fire, American flags, murder, smuggling, drugs, hanging, electrocution, or...law enforcement?

No childbirth, seen or inferred, and no naked kids. I mean...that’s common sense, to be completely fair.

NO RACE-MIXI-oh. Oh, I said that already, didn’t I? Well, OK, I’ll pare it down a little. They can’t have sex, but I guess...looking at each other is OK? Yeah, yeah, we’ll go with that. I’m progressive!

That about covers it. And this movie wasn’t adherent to it? Oh...well, I am excited! Let’s jump right in! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap (1/2)

The whole thing starts with a bang; literally. It's Chicago in 1929, smack dab in the middle of the Prohibition Era, and a group of gangsters are smuggling some alcohol inside of a coffin, while riding in a hearse. The cops aren't fooled, ad a shootout takes place between the gangsters and the cops, but they eventually drop off as the group takes the coffin into a funeral home. At the funeral home, a man named “Toothpick” Charlie (George E. Stone) meets with Mulligan (Pat O’Brien) a detective who’s got Charlie as his informant. With his help, he makes his way into the funeral home, actually a speakeasy in disguise.

Said speakeasy is run by “Spats” Colombo (George Raft), and within the speakeasy is a massive party, which the partygoers call a funeral. Spats arrives there shortly afterwards, and Mulligan watches all the while. Also at this party is a group of dancers accompanied by a band, which contains two partners, ladies’ man and sax player Joe (Tony Curtis) and anxious double bassist Jerry (Jack Lemmon).

The two talk about what they’re going to do with their upcoming paycheck, with Joe planning on using it for gambling on dog races. Jerry is understandably worried about this, as they owe rent, but Joe rattles off other things that he might was well worry about.

Suppose you got hit by a truck. Suppose the stock market crashes. Suppose Mary Pickford divorces Douglas Fairbanks. Suppose the Dodgers leave Brooklyn! Suppose Lake Michigan overflows.

Fun fact, though: the stock market’s about to crash in a year, Pickford and Fairbanks divorce in 1936, and the Dodgers left Brooklyn in 1957, famously. Lake Michigan has not overflowed...YET. It’s actually at record high water levels, and could cause flooding around it in the next few years. So, although those middle three were DEFINITELY part of the joke...that last one wasn’t at the time. Of course, it’s actually there as a line to set Jerry up with a way to tell him that the streets are “about to flood”, as he spots Mulligan and makes him. He tells Joe, and they both quietly pack up their instruments and leave, BEFORE the ruckus is about to begin.

And begin it does, and the cops raid the place almost immediately afterwards. As the party’s broken up and people are loaded into the paddywagon (Spats included), Joe and Jerry take their chance to escape behind the cops’ backs. However, this also means that the two musicians aren’t getting paid after all. Joe’s still set on betting money on the dog the next day, and get the money for the bet by selling their coats. However, while they do sell their coats, they instead end up looking for jobs at a local music agency, run by Sig Poliakoff (Billy Gray). 

The agency is recruited by band owner Sweet Sue (Joan Shawlee) and her nebbish band manager Bienstock (Dave Barry), as they need a bass and a sax player to replace two of their own, in their band in Florida. On hearing this from Poliakoff’s secretary Nellie (Barbara Drew), the two barge into the office. However, much to their dismay, the only ones they’re looking for are women. While Jerry tries to weasel their way in, it doesn’t quite work, and they instead take a job up north for a Valentine’s Day dance. The two go to a garage to borrow a car from Nellie in order to get to the job. There, playing cards, is Toothpick Charlie with a group of men. But then...somebody else arrives.

Spats and his men arrive at the garage, and tell all of the men to stand with their hands on the wall. Joe and Jerry, however, manage to hide in the garage. And if you know anything about Valentine’s Day during Prohibition Era Chicago...then you know exactly what’s about to happen to Toothpick and the guys.

After the massacre (based upon the real St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Jerry makes a noise and alerts the gang to their presence. This is a problem, because Spats isn’t keen on the idea of witnesses, and immediately orders the musicians killed.With a distraction caused by the still-alive-but-dying Charlie, the two manage to escape Spats’ wrath. Now needing a fast way out of town, Joe figures out a plan. See, that job, the one from Sweet Sue, is in Florida, which is far enough away that they should be able to escape. But, uh...the band is only looking for women. And so...

This is the second most famous thing about the film. Meet Josephine and Daphne, the female aliases of Joe and Jerry respectively. As Jerry realizes the difficulties of the female wardrobe (namely skirts and heels), the two walk up to the band of women, known as “Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopators.” But they aren’t the only arrivals, and the other is the MOST famous thing about this movie...

This is Sugar “Kane” Kowalczyk, the lead singer, ukelele player, and...OK, look, it’s Marilyn Monroe, and I think I need to acknowledge this now. Marilyn Monroe is an underrated talent today, but she had a hell of a lot of potential as an actress and as an individual. She had a lot of troubles, and her early death by suicide is an absolute tragedy, no matter how you slice it. She’s a talented actress and singer, and she deserves recognition for that.

SHE IS ALSO INSANELY HOT I’M SORRY I’M WEAK

Look...it’s Marilyn fucking Monroe, OK? I know, I’m a straight cissexual man, but I wanted to make a point to acknowledge the fact that Marilyn Monroe is a talent far outside of her beauty and physicality. She (and all women) deserve that much, and deserve not to be objectified by the male gaze. I genuinely agree with this, and I do understand that concept. I’ll never personally understand the female experience, but it’s my responsibility and duty as an individual to understand experiences foreign to my own, including this one.

But DEAR LORD, her physicality is not easy to ignore, now and then! I mean COME ON! The woman’s considered a standard of classic beauty to this day by many (not by all, and not by herself), and it’s unfortunately her most famous feature to nearly everybody. But, of course, Monroe got a lot of grief for her looks as well (which is bullshit), and the stress of her life sadly led to her terrible suicide. But that doesn’t mean that her beauty inside and out shouldn’t be appreciated for what it is: beauty.

ALSO SHE IS DROP DEAD GORGEOUS I’M WEAK I KNOW

See, the train agrees with me! Oh...OH RIGHT, THE MOVIE! OK, where was I. Well, Joe and Jerry agree with me about Sugar Kane, but it is the 1950′s when the film is made, so of course they do. They watch her get on, and they follow suit, meeting the women of the band, and Sugar Kane. Sugar, see, has a teensy bit of an alcohol problem. That’s not necessarily to say she’s an alcoholic, but she is admonished for it by Sweet Sue and Bienstock, also being a repeat offender of drinking during working hours. That (and men) is something that Sweet Sue doesn’t tolerate.

She’s almost in trouble that night, when her flask falls from her stocking during a performance. However, Jerry covers for her, much to her appreciation. As they settle in for the night, all of the girls (including Joe and Jerry) sleep in the same cabin, much to the, uh, frustration of Jerry, despite Josephine’s urgings to keep it together. As Jerry continually reminds himself that he’s posing as a girl, he’s surprised that night with the appearance of Sugar, who comes to thank her for her help that night. Sugar tells “Daphne” that she owes her one, and also climbs into the cot with him to hide from Sweet Sue. Jerry...that poor mother fucker.

Well, Jerry tries to ease the tension by offering some of Joe’s whisky. But more of the girls overhear this, and eventually, a massive party erupts, with all the girls mixing drinks and sharing the single space of Jerry’s bed. Joe wakes up from all of this, and tries to help end the party, only for Sugar to climb out of it, and ask Joe for help with a block of ice for the drinks.

It’s here that she reveals that she used to work with men’s bands, but joined this band to get away from men. This is especially to get away from her weakness: tenor sax players. This intrigues Joe, the tenor sax player. However, she’s essentially sworn off of tenor sax players because of multiple bad relationships, and is instead hoping to find a millionaire in Florida, preferably one with a yacht. Meanwhile, Jerry’s bed is getting a little too full, and the girls are getting a little TOO familiar. They start to tickle him, and to prevent his cover being blown, Jerry pulls the train’s emergency brake. All of the girls scatter as the train stops, and they manage to get away with the party as Sweet Sue and Bienstock wake up only then.

The train gets to Florida, and the girls make their way into a hotel. As they check in, Jerry (as Daphne) is spotted by Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown), a millionaire, and a man with eclectic tastes in women. And those tastes apparently include Daphne, as he unsubtly (and unwantedly) hits on her. And Jerry’s having none of it. After Osgood pinches him in the elevator, he gets off after slapping him. Unfortunately, that makes Osgood only want Daphne THAT MUCH MORE. This man...this man may just be the legendary alpha simp of which the stories tell.

Meanwhile, Joe manages to get ahold of Beinstock’s luggage and glasses. He steals his clothes (after fending off an overeager bellboy), and uses them to dress as a millionaire. Why? Why, to seduce Sugar, of course!

This is right at the halfway point, so we’ll pick this up in Part Two! See you there!