#i am so fucking annoying about this show mostly on Tumblr

[ilovelickingrocks]

Also LITERALLY HOLY FUCK WORKAHOLICS IS THE MOST HOMOEROTIC SHOW IVE EVER SEEN WHAT THE FUCK WAS WITH THE BONER BATTLE BETWEEN KARL AND DERS???? AND ADAM LITERALLY BEGGING DERS TO LET HIM GIVE HIM A HICKEY UHHHHH YALL GAY

[worstcharacterpoll]

[Image description: A tournament bracket of 32 contenders, labeled "Tumblr's most hated." The matchups on the left are Vriska vs. Pearl from SU; Rex from Victorious vs. Rick Sanchez; Ansem the Wise vs. Gul Dukat; Kylo Ren vs. Kokichi Ouma; Scrappy Doo vs. Sheldon Cooper; Pierre from Stardew vs. Mort from Madagascar; Seraphine from League vs. Heimskr; and Jurgen Leitner vs. Andre Glacier. The matchups on the right are Walter White vs. Light Yagami; Buck Cluck vs. Ross Geller; Bramblestar vs. Starlight Glimmer; Goro Akechi vs. Pariston Hill; Katsuki Bakugo vs. Berdly; Angel Dust vs. the Impostor; Olaf from Frozen vs. Hooty; and Zenos viator Galvus vs. Tony Stark. The bracket is red on a black background. End ID]

Here is the official bracket for the most Hated Character on Tumblr! Each round will last 24 hours, with a 12 hour break in between. Round 1 should start Feb 9, 2023 at 9:00 AM CST.

As a reminder, this tournament is for the characters that you hate the most, so always vote for your least favorite of the two options. The winner will be publicly executed.

FAQ under cut:

Q: Why did you put in x character and not y character? Aren't there more hateable characters from that franchise?

A: I wanted to keep the competition light-hearted, funny, and interesting. I intentionally avoided most shitty parent characters, dictators, characters who were meant to be hated, etc., as well as characters heavily associated with bigotry and sexual assault, and gravitated towards characters that were more divisive in fandom. Exceptions were only made for characters I am familiar enough with and can use my own judgement for. Using Zenos as an example: He is a villain who is very evil and meant to be hated, which I mostly avoided when taking suggestions for things I wasn't familiar with myself. However, he's very divisive between people who think he's a good interesting villain, people who don't think he's a good villain and don't like him in the story at all, and people who want him carnally. Walter White is also meant to be hated, but he has a meme status, and as a villain protagonist I think he's more interesting than most "meant to be hated" characters. Also, there are certain franchises that I simply didn't want to include. If JK Rowling wasn't such a real and horrible political presence, owing all her influence to Harry Potter, I would've definitely put Snape on the poll. As it stands, I don't really want to give HP any attention. TL;DR answer: Because it's funnier that way

Q: But I LIKE that character :(

A: As mentioned before, I specifically gravitated more towards characters who are more divisive rather than universally hated. They are usually more interesting, and there is more variety with those types of characters - you don't have shitty dad character #1 vs. shitty dad character #2. I actually looked for "anti-(character)" tags and discourse about that character when making decisions about who to include. lol If you actually like some of these characters (uh, my condolences), vote against them in their respective matchups.

Q: Is it too late to suggest a replacement?

A: Yes.

Q: Why are you doing this?

A: I feed off of hatred and violence. I want to see who tumblr users REALLY hate.

Q: Why Pearl?

A: It was quite a while ago now so I get it if people don't remember, but Pearl discourse used to be a big thing and people argued that she was irredeemable for many of the things she did early on in the show. If you remember the "Pearl hates the Irish" meme, that was a parody of how much people hated her

Q: Why Hooty?

A: I haven't seen the Owl House but I'm told many people think he's annoying. Also he's voiced by Alex Hirsch and fuck that guy he did my boy Ford so dirty I'm still mad about this

Q: Why Starlight Glimmer?

A: MLP:FiM is another show I didn't really watch but she was a villain who got redeemed and became a main character and a lot of people think her redemption arc was rushed and botched and she actually made a lot of people quit watching the show. One of my close friends really really really hates her and I don't think that's an isolated incident

Q: Why Berdly?

A: Annoying. Personally I think his arc of becoming less annoying was pretty fun but a lot of people still hate him.

Q: Why Bakugo (instead of Mineta)?

A: I actually debated this a lot and held a preliminary poll which Mineta actually won. But then I decided democracy is dead because Mineta really wouldn't be as interesting as Bakugo in this tournament because he's basically universally hated. Bakugo is more interesting because people who hate him REALLY hate him, while people who love him REALLY love him. Kind of like Vriska. I think. I never read Homestuck and I don't plan on ever doing so.

Q: Why Tony Stark?

A: He's a heavily divisive character because he's a war profiteer billionaire with a superiority complex, but the narrative treats him as a morally pure hero. Also, he's MCU Spider-Man's mentor and most of MCU Spider-Man is basically defined by Tony Stark and he's not allowed to be his own character. There's a bunch of other stuff but I didn't watch and I don't care about most of the MCU. Personally I'm a really big Spider-Man fan and I despise him for what he did to Peter Parker but I shall refrain from making this a long rant.

Q: Why did you include characters that you're not familiar with?

A: I didn't want to exclusively have characters from my interests. I wanted a bit of variety. Before the poll started, I accepted submissions for candidates, and basically trusted submitters to send in decent characters. Some of the characters I ended up with may go against the vague guidelines I set for myself, which kind of sucks, but that's how it is now.

Q: This bracket sucks.

A: Make your own tournament then. I'm just some guy making a tournament on tumblr dot com for free. Don't take it too seriously.

[sailorblossoms-rankane]

(Posting my threads on tumblr so I can talk to fellow Akane/Rankane enjoyers, part 2) (manga exclusive, I haven't seen the 80s anime)

Love, attraction and image with Ranma and Akane:

Akane wants to feel beautiful and wanted. She dresses very cute and feminine, but she doesn’t necessarily believe she’s beautiful as she is. She's sensitive to this but she's mostly just going to punch you and move on if you insult her. Her world doesn't end there.

A key experience for Akane is feeling like she needs to stop being herself to get the love she wants. I think this is part of why she can be clueless and/or has no fucks to give about male attention. It’s not "validating"…. but she cares if it comes from the boy she likes.

Akane is not looking for validation or to be aspirational, she's looking to be loved/wanted by the one she wants. Ranma helps her develop ticker skin as he constantly teases her (because he doesn’t know how else to get her attention) it’s pigtail pulling, but she has limits.

Ranma wants to be handsome/beautiful too. He’s as sensitive as Akane (maybe even more) but for him, attention is as validating as fighting and winning (being aspirational = winning). It's all he’s ever known, so he’s terrible with feelings: everything must be a challenge

This has nothing to do with Ranma being interested in anyone but with his confidence and image.

He deeply cares about his girl form being pretty.

Feeling pretty is tied to getting male attention (and using it to his advantage) even if he doesn’t want them. Even if he likes girls, it’s the same with them: having attractive girls fighting over you is a huge ego boost, even if he feels uncomfortable or annoyed by them.

Female attention is tied to Ranma feeling “manly” and “aspirational,” it’s not just a simple ego-boost, it affects his general confidence too. This is very clear when Shampoo “rejects him.” Her wanting him? other boys envy him (manly, aspirational). Her rejection is tied to public judgment.

Ranma knows he can be a jerk, but caring about his image is also caring about being likable. Also, Shampoo is very forward, which flusters him, but he’s not truly tempted as he only cares about being interrupted and/or tries to initiate or go further with any contact when it's Akane.

Ranma is ambushed or put into situations against his will a lot. Even if the naked female body (outside his own) gets him all blushy and shaken (and if the following is also part of A Plot) the only person he shows that he wants and cares about seeing naked is Akane.

(Much to say here with this two pages. Akane walks a fine line between being perceptive/getting clouded by her insecurities. She does and doesn’t let Ranma’s taunts really get to her. Ranma is on his knees, crushed by not seeing her naked – similarly to how he's also all pouty and sulks because he didn't kiss Akane for real when Akane uses tape in whatever the fuck that school play was– while she’s like “damn maybe I AM uncute”… but then she’s goofy lol)

It says a lot that he doesn’t care about Shampoo’s cute bridal look (he does when it’s Akane in both European and Japanese styles).

When Shampoo shows him her interest/feelings, Ranma is put-off and pulls away. When it’s Akane, he pulls closer. now he's the one ~staring~

It’s a shock when Shampoo is suddenly hateful (tbf it shocks Akane too) but the focus for Ranma is on his image. "Am I not attractive? Am I a bad guy?" but when it’s Akane, Ranma is in shambles and it’s all about Akane’s feelings. He's in love with her... but does she love someone else?

Akane figures his shit out, but when paired with her insecurities (and Ranma going too far cuz he isn’t thinking of anything but wining) it pisses her off. On the other hand, I think part of why Akane likes him is that he can be strong and confident where she isn’t.

Part of Ranma being a jerk is that all his functioning braincells are dedicated to martial arts and winning no matter what. He starts to learn as Akane gets through to him, but having such strong feelings is difficult to manage. The more he likes her the harder it gets.

Even then, when Ranma crosses a line and really hurts Akane, he can’t about anything but how to fix things with her, even if he doesn’t fully get what he did wrong or how to make it better. He tries anyway.

It's easy to say words with no feelings attached to it, but when the person he’s in love with hears it’s too difficult because it matters too much, it’s too vulnerable (which can feel like the opposite of the manly strength he’s been taught he needs to have). The stakes are too high.

Same with calling her cute. It's *hard* because of all the feelings attached to it. telling her she's not cute (even though she very obviously is) is not just pigtail pulling, it's also armor. Look at him "taking it back" with her rejection (though it's his own fault)

Still, Ranma shows he’s in love constantly. He gets into fights for Akane, not just when it’s serious (Herb throwing her, Shinnosuke because he's jealous) but even because she lost a non-consequential volleyball match… because it made her cry (challenging the girl he sees as responsible for Akane's tears to a cheerleading match).

It’s the type of thing that made Akane fall for Ranma, even if he puts his foot in his mouth a lot. she can count on him/trust him when it matters the most. alas he’s a teenage dumbass so she can’t trust him on the little day to day details that would reassure her (tumblr has a limit on how many images per post I can post lol maybe I should link them).

Part of it are her own insecurities clouding her judgement (worsened by Ranma being an idiot) cuz what if ranma prefers the “cuter” girls? she’s the “uncute” one after all. What if it’s not just a taunt, what if he means it. What if he’s just trying to win some stupid fight again... (worse example of this would be Ranma "trying to steal her heart" so the suit that boosts her strenght would get jealous/leave her, and in the middle of it regrets it, thinking "I'm such a pathetic loser for doing this," etc, and then he's the one being charmed/having his heart stolen by Akane's cuteness/sincerity and wants to hug her because he wants to, not because of the plot... but then she finds out about the plot and thinks Ranma didn't mean any of what was happening between them)

I think that's why she’s so quick to agree to marriage at the end (even though it's still too soon) after his tearful love confession. She’s his ride or die, ready to do anything for him (just see how far she goes in that final arc) she just needs the reassurance that he really does want her (same goes for ranma with her).

Love this moment because Akane doesn’t play about Ranma. he might be an idiot but he’s her idiot. It also says so much about the characters: it’s not that Akane has a problem with Ranma getting into challenges for the sake of his image in general.

Her problem is when he jumps into challenges (that could be taken as romance) without checking with her first, to agree and honor her terms/limits. the times it ends with her sending his ass flying is when he gets carried away without thinking shit through, crossing her lines.

As much as Ranma cares about his image, he will make a fool of himself for the sake of winning a challenge... and akane. He doesn’t play about her either. He keeps running headfirst into situations he’s not crazy about just so Ryoga can’t make a move on her.

A running gag is that every time Ryoga tries to touch Akane, Ranma gets between them in female form, even though he's no fan of being ~romantically held~ by other guys. Watching her hug another guy is the bigger torture for him (he gets just as pissed as Akane when she's jealous)

Ranma cares about his image, but even if validation can come from others, the one person he cares about impressing is Akane. He gets the most angry when he feels humiliated in front of her (and in turn cares about nobody disrespecting her just as much)

He deeply cares about how Akane sees him. She's the one he cares about impressing the most (he doesn't say this shit to his rival Ryoga or to Ukyo who's also seeing him in that weakened state etc)

Also about image: no one in the circus after them sees the full picture of who they are, they idealize them. Akane and Ranma see each other's true selves, not just at their best but also at their very worst/most pathetic/embarrassing... and they still love each other

[foervraengd]

Like, i am mostly pretty chill w ppl being really into a show and post and talk a lot about it. If it makes them happy then thats good. My only requirements are the following:

- tag your posts especially when you are mass reblogging

- don’t repeatedly tell me to watch the show. Even if you know i would like it. even if it is good. If i said no, then that is a no.

There are shows and media that have for a very long time been repeatedly suggested to me in one way or another. Those shows end up in my “This is almost annoying me” list. On the top of that list is One Piece. (Second place used to be homestuck but fortunately that actually ended so it is no longer everywhere i go)

The “luffy” tab that is apparently just an ad that netflix paid tumblr to force on users. They couldnt just buy normal ad space in the dashboard feed like normal. No. They really want to force me to look at a One Piece character tag against my will.

For you who dont use mobile; there is this feature/glitch where you are randomly moved to the “for you/your tags” tabs whenever you go to the home section after checking your notifications or profile. So you have to occasionally swipe two or three times to get back to your regular dashboard.

Now imagine this scenario but you are constantly moved to the “luffy” tab.

You cannot just ignore it on the ios app. You are literally forced to have it shown to you whenever you wanna go back to your dashboard. See how this is making me quite uhm… angry? :) this is legit hell for me. This is the last straw on the monkey d luffy’s hat. One piece has moved from “wow this is annoying me” to the “yeah okay i genuinely do not like this”.

This is not going to make non-op fans wanna watch your shitty ass netflix show. Fuck one piece. I wished it would end already. I used to not care but now i actually cannot stand it. This ip wont leave me the fuck alone.

[turnwashingtonsbaddies]

it's called TURN: Washington's Spies not TURN: Washington :/ (only mostly joking)

in any case i do find it amusing how hard the propagandists are going at it, as far as i'm aware i think he's winning by a landslide anyway! again not salty at all just amused.

anyway my real purpose is Benedict Arnold propaganda. i think it's not the man who makes the whole name hot but the legend! he's honestly why i stuck around a lot of the time, they do very well in making him live up to the legend his whole historical adventures demand. he's such an Interesting Individual you could watch a show all about him on his own

also he's very stinkyyyy and annoying and tumblr usually loves unbearable fucking men. i hate him too and this is why he deserves to win

🚨ALERT🚨 NEW BENEDICT ARNOLD PROPAGANDA JUST DROPPED!!!

honestly so real and true about unbearable men. i'll admit, i for one am not above having a problematic fav 🤭

[fraudulent-cheese]

So i watched episodes 3 to 8 of Pahkitew Island

Again, watched these with my buddy @rockin-it-rusty! And, holy shit these episodes have got me genuinly wondering why Pahkitew's so hated.

I'll go over the negatives first; the challenges are kinda eh. The Truth or Scare one is great, and the cave one is interesting due to it's hints at the Fake Island reveal (as heavy handed as they were), but most of these were just pretty out there to me? They mostly felt like an excuse to put the characters in situations mostly. Just have Topher make a narration joke, give Max and Scarlett an interaction, have Sky and Dave dance around eachother all due to a thing the challenge made them do. I don't mind the first two much, but the last one gets super repetitive man. Glad they mixed it up a bit by making Shawn try to wingman Dave though, i like their friendship! im a bigger dashawn shipper now oops

ANYWAYS IMA TALK ABOUT THE CHARACTERS NOW BECAUSE LET'S BE HONEST, THE CHARACTERS CARRY THE SHOW!

Amy... Ok im very mixed on her. On one hand, she serves her role as the mean twin relatively well. But on the other, that's all she really is! Her one trait is being mean and hating her sister, and that's all she really does! Granted she has a thing? Where she gets sayings (?) wrong, or just gets words wrong (she says parfait is german. it's french. i would know) which! could hint at something! (maybe less smart than her sister?) but they don't do shit with her outside of her swimming back to the island in episode 5. god i wanna rewrite this season so badly now to give her a bigger role. idk shoutouts to Twinning with a Twist for redeeming her while still giving her some edge ig.

Rodney. i uh

I haven't thought about him since his elimination honestly. I just doooooon't care about him it's crazy. Most forgettable guy in the entire series.

Sammy! Ok back to the siblings rambles! I wish the show leaned into her scheming more. Girl in five episodes pulled identity theft and did nothing else. Why. Her relationship with Jasmine is adorable, and i wish she got Jasmine to call her by her actual name, and a personality too! It's really a shame man :(

Sidenote, but like her team fucking hated her for some reason??? Like what. I know it's because of that one scene, but really?

Ella!! My sweet girl Ella!!! She didn't do anything wrong man she just likes singing leave her alone!!! Chris really fucking hates her and it's pretty entertaining at least, but i'd say his beef with Topher's funnier. She has a nice singing voice, and i love how passionate she is about fairytales and stuff. You could do so much with the Prince thing and the show... didn't. Like what even was that. Conflict that wasn't one that lasts an episode. what

Gotta say though, her elimination was fucking ass, Max 100% should've been kicked instead of her.

Topher. Ah the opher. He's a special case, even in the context of Pahkitew Island itself! Because the dude's not here for the game. He's here to meet his idol, Chris Mclean (he really knows how to pick em, huh). I like the progression he's got, from wanting his approval to straight up wanting to host the game instead of him. I'll admit, my opinion's a little skewed since i am mutuals with the Topher guy on Tumblr, but i like him regardless!

His relationship with Chris is easily one of the more interesting parts of the season, mostly because a 30-something year old dude having beef with a teenage fan is hilarious, and you could definitely spin it in a sad way from Topher's perspective.

It also helps that he's genuinely funny! His few interactions with the other campers are also pretty fun, he dgaf about them it's great.

Im kind of mixed on Dave, i'll be real. On one hand, im glad they ditched the whole "he doesn't like anyone on this Island" trait three episodes in because that would've gotten. SO ANNOYING. SO FAST. (hell i'd argue it was already annoying), and him being a hopeless romantic could be a fun trait, if done right. It also helps that he's really pathetic and i find that funny. His friendship with Shawn's fun too!

But on the other hand... Yeah, even before the finale the Skave plotline's really boringgg. They just dance around eachother for half the season for like! No reason! Please just have a conversation, even if it takes other people to sit them down to have it! I know why they didn't because the finale needed them to not actually talk about it but at least have Sky tell him she'll explain later or have him not be a coward and ask her about it himself!!! ack!!

Also the thing with him and Ella went literally nowhere. I have 0 feelings about it because it's just there for some reason. Idk they just really wanted to shoehorn in romance for every girl this season huh.

Scarlett's a really underutilized character pre-Island reveal. The bulk of her interactions with the other campers are with Max, who has a ton of screentime for some reason (which i don't personally really mind but i'll explain later) which honestly sucks because she's a fun character! I want to compare her to Twilight Sparkle at the very start of MLP. She's smart, she knows it, she can communicate with her teammates just fine and just chooses not to usually. I like her alot! Im just... really disapointed that she's so in the background usually; if anyone's a wasted character in tdpi, outside of the Twins i'd say it's her.

Her legit wanting to kill Max is great though. That's how i'd react to him irl. Don't get the Max saying she had a crush on him three episodes in, or the quip Chris made during the team switching tho.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, MAX! I swear, i was convinced i'd find this guy annoying pre-watch but uh... I like this guy! No really, i do! He's like Mal, only the narrative doesn't take him seriously in the slightest and it's hilarious to watch! Im like Sugar in that one clip, i am laughing at this buffoon's intelligence, and his stupid catchphrase, and his "evil" plans, and his general delivery! Max is funny!

Even when the Scarlett "minion" thing kicked in i still found him funny! Don't get me wrong, i wish he'd gotten out earlier (ESPECIALLY when he was supposed to get kicked in the episode Ella got eliminated into) or just gotten less screentime in general, but in the season proper, yeah he's a funny guy! Big gimmick, but i like him! Please don't add nuance to him, i don't care

Jasmine... certaintly exists! I'd call her the Season's rock, the one character that's emotionally intelligent on the show. She's fun in general, and also the only one noticing things going wrong with the robotic island. As said before, her relationship with Sammy is great to see, and i wished we'd see more of her and Sky's friendship and uh. For there to be more between her and Shawn? Because the only things i've retained is that they blushed at eachother once and then trust issues party because he hit her once during a challenge and that completely broke her trust in him - which, could be an interesting aspect of her character to explore since if that's all it took for her to pull a 180 on Shawn, the girl must have a complicated relationship with trust. That's an interesting flaw! It also shows up with her rapport in Sky in the later episodes of this batch, and. GOD. I wish it was developped man!

The issue? Yeah it's dragged on so longggg man! It's frustating to watch frankly because i really wish they'd resolve this conflict quicker since it's like. The same thing every episode :( to my knowledge it's solved in episode 9, but it did NOT need to be dragged out for 4 episodes.

Unrelated to her charater, but her height difference with the other campers is kind of ridiculous. In some shots the characters look so small compared to her it's crazyyy

Ok, now. Sugar. I'll be honest? She's great! She's just a menace and doing her own thing and it's fun to watch! She's also interesting in terms of backstory since she's canonically a pageant queen; her relationship with Ella is greatly impacted by this, since she heavily suspects her of lying to her face when it's just. Ella being Ella. Similar thing to her opinion on Topher; she doesn't like him for his sucking up to Chris, the host (something that Rusty probably agrees with). I fucking wish she was more popular because then people would look into her more, but alas. She's a female, plus sized character in Pahkitew Island, so considering the Fandom's biases, it was never going to happen. U_U

OK TIME FOR ZOMBIE BOY. So, Shawn. He's definitely more present in these episodes than he was before, and, again, i think he's fun! He's a weird little guy. He's got interesting skills (his camouflage, legit parkour, general athleticism) and his personality's interesting as well compared to the other guys. The zombie thing is fine, actually, because they do different things with it over the course of these episodes. Not much to say about him, he's a solid character to me and i wish he had more interactions with the cast outside of Dave and his pining for Jasmine. Who he's talked to like, five times at this point? Again, they probably should've talked stuff out faster than this for me to actually enjoy it. Oh well.

And finally, Sky. She's an interesting case for me? She's fine, mostly. She's the Normal Person™️ of the cast to me, and that means she really struggles to grab me. It's made worse by her main plot being a basic romance plot where the gimmick is that she's a reasonable human being and Dave isn't. And neither are able to have a normal fucking conversation about it either. The mixed signals thing could've been interesting, but this is Fresh TV writters, so of course it didn't end up that way. I assume the episodes without Dave are the ones where her personality shines more? Because so far she's just been really reserved and calm. And said she'd "focus on the competition only" And then. Doesn't. Really. God i wish this season treated it's female characters better :(

OK SO OVERALL THOUGHTS:

Im mixed on alot of the character decisions

god i wished these people talked more

the screentime is not well split among the cast

the romance plots and pacing of the Island plot are the weakest parts of this season

the challenges are fine

Why does Chef have 5 lines total.

Pahkitew Island does NOT deserve the overly negative rep it gets in this Fandom, at least based on the first 8 episodes.

[aprillikesthings]

I have the house to myself because people are at a sportsball party

So what else would I do but keep watching spop amiright

s1 ep8 lez go

YES IT'S PRINCESS PROM AHAHAHAH

Oh, that explains why (in a muuuuuuch later episode) there's that little ideal future and they're at Scorpia's ball (iirc)

Catra: I NEED TO BE IN CHARGE Scorpia: party!

Poor Scorpia

Catra: giving a passionate-if-faked pep talk to Scorpia (like I get she's manipulating Scorpia here into going to the party, but it's still the kind of thing Scorpia should hear!) Also Catra: still real mad about Adora!!!

I cackled, y'all. CACKLED.

I mean she's...not wrong...

Okay I know it's just how this kind of show works and isn't important but it implies the Ball is known about for years in advance, but the invites only actually go out like a day or two before?? IRL that would be such a disaster because they don't even know the theme until they get the invite. The sheer amount of logistics/planning attending something like this, including the outfits...

This was intended to be Lolita fashion and you can't convince me otherwise

Also CATRA. They intentionally made her look so, so gay and hot.

Same, Catra. Same.

Adora (to the weapons-check person): be careful with it, don't lean it on something with the other swords or it might get confused!!!

Poor Adora. I suppose if I had an object that made me both popular and nearly invincible I'd be upset and worried to be separated from it, too.

It's Molly and Nate!!!

🎶Just like the viiiiine🎵

I love that we know these characters enough that they can just say a couple of lines here and imply a ton more. Anyway Mermista's outfit is great.

This is literally their entire dynamic. They're clearly together, Sea Hawk is loud about it, Mermista is (mostly) pretending to hate it.

Sorry this is shot is just great

Glimmer's jealousy (over Bow coming to the ball with Perfuma) is SO ANNOYING and I know that's on purpose but boy do I hate most "jealousy makes them obnoxious" plots

ANYWAY one small note: you can tell their budget for this episode is just not very high, because the characters in the background are so often not moving or only moving like one thing.

Oh hey, Netossa and Spinerella! (...and Molly again lol)

"Bow isn't the type to just leave his old friends behind, and neither am--" *Scorpia and Catra walk in*

DIDN'T THINK YOU'D SEE HER HERE, HUH, DIDJA

I can't screenshot this bit but it's so good:

Catra, in her most fake-gentleman voice: I love rules and obey them all the time Adora in the most high-pitched voice possible: YOU DO NOOOOT

🎶Every move you make And every vow you break Every smile you fake Every claim you stake I'll be watching you🎵

...I'm showing my age again. But also I'm looking at the lyrics and ngl they nearly all fit. If I knew how to make fanvids, I could make a vid that like ten people would watch.

Instead I'm working on a fic like ten people will read, heyoooo

*cries*

BACK TO THE GAYS PRINCESS PROM

is there crack-y pwp of this please say yes

Once again reminded of that fanvid of every time they say each other's names in the first two seasons

Literally cannot see Adora opening that without the "bah-dm tsh!" sound affect in my head from watching that video so many fucking times

Bow is so delightfully emotionally intelligent

Entrapta: have you met my new assistant? She brought snacks.

When Entrapta said "assistant" Catra's ears literally did a wiggle. Oh my gooooood

"she stole my food and asked me to spy on people with her,

lolol

once again whether the sword is actually sharp-edged or not is entirely dependent on plot

Scorpia is unreasonably hot sometimes

im gonna chew my fingers off ghgha;lksdhka;

I remember the screenshots/gifs of this scene hitting tumblr--that moment when every hopeful sapphic fan watching the show when it released went OKAY WAIT we're not making shit up this time are we??? ARE WE???

Also at least one person working on this show likes period dramas where tons of emotional plot happens during extremely formal dances where everyone is barely touching

there's nearly a billion gifs of that scene from one of the versions of Pride and Prejudice, but also:

once again proving my advanced age, this movie came out when I was 17 and side note I'm the same age as Claire Danes, anyhoodle

Has Adora been dancing Lead this whole time

HNNNNGNGHGHGHHHHHH IT'S SO GOOD

EXTREMELY UNDIGNIFIED NOISES Adora literally has one thigh between Catra's gghngng

i want to EAT IT

I'VE HIT THE IMAGE LIMIT FOR THIS POST LOLOL i don't wanna cut any out imma post this and then reblog it

[astarionposting]

Hi, so, um, this question is going to be really weird, but like, is there a way to join the exclusive club of people who reblog each other's hot OCs? Because I feel like I'm watching from the side bench but I want to participate too 😭 How do I find people who are interested in OCs? Anyway, I love yours, they all look super cool & hot

Hello anon!

I wouldn’t say it is exclusive, I mostly reblog my mutuals and any ocs that pop up on my “your tags” that I think look cool. I was worried no one would be interested in my ocs at all, so I tried not to share them too much at first, but then I said “fuck it” and just started to share them lol. Honestly, just start sharing them as much as you want! Do some cool edits of them, fill out those oc templates, and if you are good at writing, start doing those Tav/oc question games!

I try my best to look through my followers once in a while as well to see if any are fellow virtual photographers, oc makers or artists so I can kind of build more of a “community of mutuals I think are cool” and just reblog their stuff cause I like it :) so I guess if you start sharing your stuff, following and interacting with other oc creators as well and start building your “community of mutuals I think are cool”, you’ll start to get your stuff reblogged too! Also try to participate in those tag games! It helps people get to know more about your oc as well :) I usually tag a few people that I think won’t get annoyed at me mentioning them, but I technically am tagging ANYONE who sees the post and wants to do it! So if you see me share one, feel free to join in on it!

ALSO, for me personally, I like it when I see a pinned post showing what a blog is about, especially with links to featured tags. So like if you have some OCs, try to create a pinned post where you link their tags, so it’s easier for people to look through and find your content amongst any reblogs. Otherwise I find it difficult to find out what someone’s blog is about and might miss out on their content!

Hopefully this was helpful advice 😊 I also don’t mind people tagging me in anything they make and sharing, it helps me not miss it since tumblr’s algorithm can be pretty shitty 🙄🙄

[amanita-the-spore-druid]

Computer is broken so moving one of my fics to tumblr

Deare Diary

A 2010s AU Post Mortum Fanfic from soda's perspective

Agust 15:

Deare Diary, a cuple weeks ago Darry talked with Pony's school and got us set up with a shrink and she got us to start jornal's after todays visit. Nothing much today, but Pony's been asking about going to the libary recently.

Agust 17:

After Darry left for work me and Pony walked to the libary. I wound up spending 30 minuts arguing with the guy (oh wait pony's not gonna read this). I spent about 30 minuts arguning with the fucker at the desk while trying to set up a card for pony. He mostly just checked out books on computures, which i guess makes sense because im pretty sure he spent all of yesterday just messing with the computure. But weirdly enough, he also got like two books about brains i think? i think one of them was like 'something something nurology'.

Agust 20:

Pony's spent the past few days just reading in his room, i went to check up on him and it looks like he has tons of notebooks full of stuff written down, but he fell asleep at his desk so i just put a blanket over him and left him alone. I invited a couple freind's over for a bit, and it turns Johnny's parents didn't pay for cremation or a coffen, and some of them said hes still at the mortuarry morticen murt the place with the corner man where they preserve the bodies. After they left it was getting close to the end of darry's shift so i made him and pony some sandwhichs. Of course pony refused to eat the bolone, he just fucking took it out. No clue why he's been so Weird about it since he got Back.

Agust 21

Today pony showd me what's he's been working on for the past week. its this weird program that converts code into like words, but does it without needing to like tell it how to say things, it just creates this weird voice. he showed it off by making it sing this old song, aparently some other computure nerds made soemthing lik it and made that same song. think it was called daisy bell. pony's also been asking to start going to church on sunday's again but darry got this new weekend security gaurd job, i hate to break it to the kid.

Agust 22

Darry and Pony got into a fight today. pony had skipped school today, And had apparently one of shepard's boys saw him and called darry immediately. Pony also had one of those notebooks on him, which darry Tried to look through. i told him to just drop it and they both stormed off to there rooms. pony refused to let me in to talk, poor kid. And then I walked in on darry smoking outside.

"You know ponyboy wouldnt like that." I told him,

"Yeah yeah, who gives a shit?" he said, before tossing his smoker on the concret patio and crushin' it.

"Hes been real fussy about smokes since he got ba-" "HE WAS GONE FOR A FUCKING WEEK, HE ACTS SCARED AND DIFFRENT!"

after shouting darry just crumbled against the door. "And he wont tell us what happened..."

Agust 23:

I got up extra early, really early, to be up in time to make him breakfast. he well, sounded confused when he saw me in the kitchen with a plate of pancakes, burnt eggs, and a black cofe coffee (thanks darry:).) He laughed a bit and offered to clean the mess befor he left but I told him id clean it after pony left for school. i decided to cheer the kid up with some french toast, so I walked to a convince store to pick up some cinoman like Mom used to make it.

Now, I have no fucking clue how they recognized me but some fucking soc fucks decided to open their fucking bitchass mouths when they realized I was pony's brother. "Hey Your the brother of that KILLER right?" some blonde said. "My brother's a fuckin' hero, prep school." the girl with him started laughing her pre- pretens- annoying rich girl ass off, "Atleast he stayed in school grease. And that Ponyboy's no he-" now, misses therapist lady, God, and officers if fate have it, I promise I am not a violent man. HOWEVER, she was going to insult my brother.

The cashear turned around the exact second I decked her. Now, he was greaser too, but he also had rent to pay. "Soda, what the hell are you doing?" he asked me, sounded like darry if 'm honest. Meanwhile blondie was yelling at me but got interrupted by the cashear, "Here's a ziplock bag, soda machine has ice, and Sodey-Pop here is going to pay for a bottle of Advil for the lovly lady." he said, "I am?" "You wanna shop here again?

So after that TOTALY FAIR accident, I walked home and made ponyboy some hero's french toast. ever wonder why its called french toast? i mean we put maple syrup on it I don't think the french got that, well maybe the Canadians are french. holy shit french toast is Canadian? anyways, I surprised the kid with french Canadian toast like mom used to make and told him to make sure he goes to school ill be walking with him.

turns out, that shit at the convince store wasn't the only place people were calling pony a killer. Now, Mrs Beth I new what I did was not aproprate but I have no regret. because when that silver spoon lickn daddy's boy called my brother a killed in my face, and spat on pony's, I had no regret or dobt pushing that little fuck against a locker, nd holding my switch to his neck.

agust 25

I know it was a bit, unkempt I think is the word? to scrible an enetery in your office but the cops held my jornal while I spent a day in the cooler. it was, decent I think. refused to take a shit though, that camera wouldve seen. darry didn't say a word while we drove here, so I know he's gonna be pissed. just, be easy on him. first pony gets detention for skippin' after a fight, and now this.

update;

darry didn't say anything to me, just gave me the keys and told me to drive pony home and pick up dinner. Ponyboy went to the bathroom and I over heard you two, sorry.

"Darrel I know your frustrated but theres very little I can do."

"Im not just frustrated! Im pissed off! i want Ponyboy to be able to head to college, and I want to atleast make sure sodapop is comfterbal. I'm asking, is there any of that welfair shit I can apply for? i don't think I can manage two jobs, and afford everything."

"Of course Mr. Curtis, do you want the papers imedatly or should I find a good few for you?"

"Mr Curtis..."

"My mist-"

"No, its fine. just look for a few you think we can apply for. and please, do something about these socs."

That was all I heard before pony was outta the bathroom and we left. we picked up mcdonalds, and I bought a six pack for darry. lite, I didn't want him getting pickled.

agust 26:

after school, darry offered to watch over pony while I 'saw a frend'. I think they were watching ben 10 while darry looked through the papers since he picked pony up. little did they know, I was going back to the school. i asked about job openings and it turns out theres a security gaurd gig with basicly no requirements. i signed up, and asked for a few extra days this weekend so darry didn't worry.

he was excited to say the least, and pony was shocked I wasn't thrown out when I went to apply. Darry quite his weekend job, and we made plans to go to church since I worked a night shift. after that we just had dinner and all went to bed.

agust 27:

darry was excited just to have time alone with pony, and took him to the library to return his books and get some new ones. i even checked out a cookbook so I could make something for the two before I left for work.

...mom and dad would be proud...

after that we just walked around town for a while, and finally went home for dinner. i tried to make fancy pork chops with the frozen ones we had in the back of the freezer. they came out, well it was a month old so no clue what we expected. darry and pony went to bed, I put on my uniform and headed to work. it was weird, seein the high school after dark like that.

it was mostly boring, until I heard something. a loud crash in the new computure lab. i ran over and I think something was stolen, no clue the whole thing was a mess. i signaled the cops and ran after the prick I saw running out of the lab. I didn't catch the fucker, checked the paper and you'd've known that. i was expecting to get yelled at, but turns out I was supposed to call the cops. lucky me.

agust 27:

darry turned on the news while I made everyone breakfast, turns out the mortuary (thanks pony) got broken into as well. and you know what? I'm telling you Beth, it was them fucking socs. Because Dally and Johnny got their FUCKING BODIES CUT UP. its a goddamn disgrace. when we went to church, the preiest was shocked to see us to say the least. pony promised i'd behave and darry asked if he could make a special prayer for dally and johnny, 'course his holyness did like a true gent.

after church we met with two-bit, steve, and their girlfriends at a greaser bar for dinner. we had a moment of silence for dally and johnny, god bless. when we went home darry took a seat on the couch and said he was going to watch a few movies on the black n' white chanel before he goes to sleep. I decided to check on pony and say goodnight, turns out he was taking a shower before bed (fair enough, the joint reeked like a barbeque pit if you know what I mean)

I noticed that the computer, which darry let him move to his bedroom, had one of the box doo-hickies opened up. i walked over to close it, and saw ...

look, don't call me loony? alright? I'm not, fuck I don't even belive me and I don't needa be sent off to booby-land but I swear to God I saw blood and some pink meaty thing twitching in the box. i closed it. and i swear the computre didn't get turned on, but i heard that bing and heard a voice. Johnny's voice. But it had like the weird robot accent like that daisy bell song robot. i left the room, and just went to work.

it wasn't pony. it wasn't pony last night. Pony would never do that to our fellow greasers.

Maybe i am crazy, if it makes you ask ponyboy less questions.

[aspecpplarebeautiful]

I used to engage a lot with shipping. Though frequently I got bored with the ship after a while and became more interested in their platonic relationship. I also often "multishipped" the same ship, i.e. I had fun exploring a relationship both platonically and romantically/sexually.

But since I realized I'm aroace, the way I engage with shipping has changed a lot. I have quite adversial feelings about romance, so romantic relationships mostly put me off. What I love is exploring ambiguous relationships, where there is a lot of tension, a lot of things unsaid, but that remains unresolved. When I am actually interested in exploring a relationship non-platonically, it's largely about a very fucked-up relationship, anything that antis would call "problematic" because in these kind of relationships it's not about romance. Once in a blue moon I don't mind shipping something the traditional way, even if it's not fucked up, but this is a fanon only thing. I may think it's fun to explore this in fanon but I would absolutely hate for it to go canon (which is why I absolutely hate the kiss in certain show tumblr has been going crazy about, it felt so wrong to me - not saying more because of spoilers).

This means that sometimes fandom culture can be frustrating to me because of its obsession with romance. It really sucks constantly seeing stuff like "oh there is no platonic relationship for this" or "the lady doth protest too much". Or that when I want to read about an interesting dynamic 90% of fics are coffee shop AUs. I really hate how people just rob characters of their personality in order to stick them into their bland romantic cutsey world. Like - you can just write original romantic stories. And often I will feel annoyed about people shipping something. But also - I am firmly against censorship, and SALS and Kinktomato are hugely important to me. In times like this where we're backsliding so much, it's very important for me to take a stand against purity culture. So I'm in a weird position where I'm personally annoyed people ship something, but also defend it against people who want to sanitize fandom spaces. I just wish it was easier to find fandom spaces where I can explore interesting platonic relationships with like-minded people that are also free from the influences of purity culture.

(Sorry this got so long 🥺)

.

[all-seeing-ifer]

so it turns out you dunno as much about star trek as i assumed you did (i seen you reblog a few posts about it and thought you were a bigger fan). and tho star trek is like a big ol' franchise, for that osmosis meme, i'm sending you star trek and you can do with that what you will <3

You know what Sapphire I'm going to really try and flex my brain muscles for this one! I'm gonna see if I can do the whole franchise! Welcome to A Complete History of Star Trek, as told by someone who's seen the new films, like three of the old films, and a couple episodes of the original series, and is otherwise getting all of this from their friends and people they follow on tumblr!

We start with the original star trek! It's the one everyone thinks of when they think of star trek, with kirk, spock, bones, and all them lot! It's about the crew of a spaceship in the far future who go around exploring different planets and meeting new alien species. This also appears to be the premise of every other star trek show.

Kirk is the captain of the spaceship. I have it on good authority that despite what fans and the newer installments will try to make you think, he is in fact not an annoying womanising guy but is a very nice young man who respects women (and is maybe bisexual???) good for him!

The crew also includes his second in command, Spock, who is very logical except when him and Kirk are having gay moments. Then there's Bones, who is a doctor and talks a lot about being a doctor. There's Uhura, who seems to be kind of a girlboss and is in charge of... I want to say communications? I think she was part of the first interracial kiss ever shown on tv or something like that, which is pretty cool! good on you star trek! There's also a delightful russian man named Chekov, who was my favourite part of the bits and pieces I've seen, and a guy called Sulu, who is. there. I know nothing about this man.

The show is an episodic monster of the week show, where there's a new alien/threat of some kind in each episode. These threats include alien warriors called klingons, fluffy aliens called tribbles that can multiply infinitely, and a hive mind called the borg. dear god I am really hoping the borg is a star trek thing and not like battlestar galactica. A lot of the episodes are very horny, like the one where spock has to fuck someone or he'll literally die. This is despite it being made in the 60s when being horny wasn't allowed on tv, so good on you again star trek!

They also made some films based on star trek. The first one isn't very good, the second is about a villain called khan and is great! Spock dies in it, but don't worry, he comes back in the next movie! How? Great question, don't ask me. I think kirk's son also dies in one of these movies? Does kirk have a son? Did I fever dream that?

The most important film is the one where they go back in time to the 80s to save the whales. This was my favourite of the ones I saw, but I feel like nerds might hate it. It seems too fun.

After the original series they made star trek the next generation, which is all about patrick stewart as a new ship captain called picard. Much like kirk, he also has a second in command, but his second command is very impulsive and hot headed instead of being logical, so they have kind of the opposite dynamic. At one point, picard and kirk got to meet each other in one of the films.

Picard's crew includes a robot called data, who everyone loves!! Even I love him, and I've never met this man! He's a robot, and apparently he often comes across very autistic and/or aroace, so he's really racking up points with me! Other crew members include geordi laforge, who is besties with data and is blind and wears a visor that is presumably a seeing aid of some kind, and a klingon who's not evil like the other klingons!

After the next generation came voyager! This was the first star trek show with a lady captain, which was very exciting! Her name is Janeway and Voyager is mostly about straightbaiting the audience with her and her boy best friend (and also maybe time travel?)

Voyager was followed by Deep Space Nine, which was different to the previous star treks because it was set on a space station instead of a ship. It had many characters, one of whom was an alien called Odo!

Then they made Enterprise, which was also different to all the previous star treks because it was a prequel (presumably about the original crew of the enterprise) I don't think people liked it.

Speaking of things people don't like, they made a bunch of reboot films in the 2000s and 2010s! From what I remember of them I liked them quite a bit, but this seems to be a pretty unpopular opinion. They are very different from the original series that they're based on and don't characterise Kirk correctly and also benedict cumberbatch is playing a character who was originally played by an indian guy which is pretty weird, but at least they have a banging score courtesy of michael giacchino! What happened to that guy anyway, I feel like he hasn't had a memorable score in years. Come back michael. we miss you.

In the years since the reboots they have also made a few more shows, such as a prequel about a young picard, an animated series called lower decks which is more comedic than the live action shows, and a show called brave new worlds, which is the current series! They had a trans character for a bit but they got killed off, which people were very upset about.

and that's it. that's what star trek is!

[reachermori]

I continue to break my tumblr hiatus for this show because I'm so annoyed with this stupidity and feel the need to put my thoughts into words.

Apologies for the rant. It's a little all over the place, but I tried to put it in a coherent order. It mostly focuses on hating James and on how I think Ted and Jamie's relationship and arcs were wasted, especially in relation to one another.

If the ending scene is indeed Ted's dream, I think it's even worse in regards to Jamie and Beard. Essentially Ted's "happy" versions of them have them close to their abusers, who have done nothing to deserve it.

The idea that Ted's happy ending for Jamie is him reconnecting with his father, who seems proud of him, is pure projection. That's what Ted wants for himself, but he's also inserting his own good relationship with his father. (Which, if we were getting more episodes I might be okay with as it would be interesting to explore.)

The first two seasons really built up Jamie and Ted to have a good relationship, or at least be important to one another, and I still think they could have had a really powerful impact on one another.

While Jamie has grown a lot and that had a lot to do with Ted's influence, I think he could have had that talk with Ted instead of Roy about how having a positive male influence is important to his continued growth. Ted however, could have learned through Jamie and his struggles with his father's toxicity that it's okay to let go.

I have always been happy with the idea of the show ending with Ted returning to Kansas, because I thought it was important for Ted to learn that it's okay to leave and move on. Ted's biggest internal conflict is his inability to quit things, and I really wanted him to accept that quitting isn't inherently bad. Maybe even have an arc with Henry in a toxic situation that he's sticking with because he knows his dad never quits anything to reinforce to Ted how problematic that mindset is, and decide that it's okay to quit Richmond to be with Henry where he clearly wants to be. (Also I disagree with the idea that Ted has nothing in Kansas besides Henry. I doubt Ted Lasso of all people has no one. He built a community in Richmond in only three years. He'd been in Kansas the entirety of his life up until then, there's no way he has no one. Also, even if he didn't, his relationship with his son is more important and I don't fault him for prioritizing that)

This is where I think Jamie could have helped Ted's arc. They could have had parallel journeys in deciding their father's actions do not have to define them, and I think Jamie could have reached this point first and be the one to impart wisdom on Ted for once. You could even keep the "forgiveness" talk Ted gave to Jamie, and then have Jamie come back after the game and say something that conveys "fuck forgiveness, he doesn't deserve that. But I do need to let go of the pain or I'll just hold myself back from growing. Because I'm done letting him have any influence on who I am."

Instead of getting anything with any nuance or something different than every other abuse plot in any show ever, we just had the ghost of Ted all season. He was barely in this season! Especially with relation to the players. We only had one scene of Ted and Jamie talking as people (instead of talking about football strategies or Zava when the coaches just assumed Jamie was jealous instead of concerned about the team dynamics) and connecting, and it was for Ted to tell Jamie about the importance of forgiveness.

Sorry but abuse isn't something you should just forgive, especially since James isn't making amends. He's getting sober, and we don't know if it was his choice, it could have been court mandated for all we know. Also I said this in my previous post, but addiction doesn't just make you abusive, and it especially doesn't make you facilitate your child being sexually assaulted. So I don't see any world where just getting clean makes James worthy of forgiveness. More importantly is that Ted and Jamie don't know that James is even in rehab when they have this conversation!

It's bad enough that we had to deal with the cliche "forgive him for you" perspective, but now we know it either leads to reconciliation, or at least Ted hopes/thinks it should. I'm not sure which is worse, but Ted thinking they should reconcile when he lacks a lot of knowledge about the depth of abuse Jamie endured is just insane.

I really wonder if Ted knowing about Amsterdam would have changed how he handled everything, since that is - in my opinion - the worst thing we know James has done to Jamie canonically. (Or if he knew about him trying to murder Beard...) Though knowing this show and how this season was written, if there was any discussion about this they would mess it up even more. Like I can just imagine a tangent about how many sex workers are disadvantaged, and how they may not have had a choice either, and diminishing Jamie's trauma AGAIN!

However it shouldn't matter what he knows, it's not like Ted is ignorant to the abuse, he's witnessed it twice. The first time he just walked away, something else I wish the show addressed at any point. Ted only saw what James was willing to do in public, and doesn't seem to have ever considered it being worse in private or when Jamie was younger. Bringing up the first Man City match would have been a good way for Jamie and Ted to fully open up to one another and relate to each other regarding their trauma and how they've let it hold them back.

For a show that emphasizes the relationship between father and sons, they really decided to abandon all the father figure relationships they had, especially Ted with Jamie & Nate.

I actually think it works with Nate, since it's clear Nate and his father's biggest problem was that they just could never be on the same wavelength, and while they can't fix the past, they can now create the bond they always should have had. His father actually acknowledged his wrong doings and apologized, and that level of accountability is missing from James' "redemption". Also Nate's father had a good relationship with his wife and daughter, so it makes it more obvious that his and Nate's issues are due to a disconnect and not out of malice. James never had a single good character trait until they decided to redeem him out of nowhere in the last two episodes. If we at least had Jamie say something like "my dad was great before drinking" it would have at least made the rehab stuff seem a little more like redemption. But we only have Jamie and his mother talking about how James has always been like this, and will never change.

Just changing a few things to make Ted and Jamie's relationship pay off in this season for both of them, would have done a world of good.

Anyways this has been a little all over so I'll leave it here, but suffice to say, I disliked the finale...

[purpleturtle9000]

TUMBLR KEEPS CRASHING EVERY TIME I TRY TO SEND AN ASK SO I HOPE THIS WORKS

Little Leo and Tello how do interact I’m dying to know if shenanigans happen I am on my knees pls I love ur turtles so much

TUMBLR WE'RE GONNA FIGHT

okay are you ready for obnoxiously long ramblings about ninja turtles

Having finished this, I feel like it needs a TLDR so - Tello claims that Little Leo just annoys him, but they're bonded and nobody believes them. Also their D&D characters constantly bother each other and Leo goes to Tello for advice (and Tello goes to Leo when they need a reminder the world never ended after all).

Little Leo tends to drive Tello nuts. Partly because he's sixteen and therefore obnoxious, and partly because Tello's used to dealing with a mature and grown-up Leonardo who takes things seriously. Like, yes, they remember also being an obnoxious teenager, but they always thought Leo was worse, 'cause that's how twins work.

Also it's impossible to separate twins for long (excluding traumatic death and/or disappearance, oops). So whenever Donnie and Tello get into a nerd spiral and spend seven hours straight in the lab, Leo and Leonardo always show up eventually.

Leonardo chills quietly on a couch in the back and just makes sure they remember food and water exist. Leo has no chill whatsoever and constantly asks questions about what they're doing, and will that explode if he touches it, and will that set him on fire if he touches it, and when are they gonna get back to that Lou Jitsu marathon they started last night?

Tello hates being bothered when they're working on Science, so often as not, Little Leo gets unceremoniously shoved out of the door with one of Tello's metal arms. He's always very dramatic about it, but that never keeps them from getting rid of him. (If they find one of Leo's blue silly bandz on their metal arm that shoved him out, they're only soft about it for two seconds. But they also keep all the bandz, and talk to the squishmallow Leo gifted them when they need to figure out problems, so they're not fooling anyone.)

Unfortunately, blue and purple turtles have unshakeable twin instincts, which means that Tello and Leo have bonded in much the same way as Donnie and Leo. (This does not exactly work for Donnie and Leonardo, however, as they have their own problems, aka Donnie still holds a grudge about Leonardo bitching out Leo).

So Tello's two moods regarding Leo are "if you don't get out of my lab Right The Fuck Now you're going to get stabbed" and "if anyone bothers you, let me know and I will maul them".

Leo loves bothering Tello as much as he loves bothering Donnie. No matter how old the twins are, bothering each other is a requirement, and Leo is happy to indulge in being bothersome. Also no matter how many times Tello threatens to stab him, they never follow through on it, so he's pretty confident that he's in their good graces. Tello is far less of a cuddler than Donnie is (something something trauma) but Leo's okay with that.

Tello has even more advanced tech than Donnie, and Leo thinks that's pretty cool, because he knows how much advancing tech means to his twin. It's at a way higher level than he can understand, but he sees how excited Donnie and Tello get over it, which is enough to convince him to fake being excited about it too.

He also thinks that Tello's prosthetics are cool, even if he's not entirely sure what to think about Tello having hair. Mostly because why would any turtle have hair? But he can tease Tello about sometimes having blue hair ties, because of course he does. Gotta give your twin shit about liking you, after all.

Fortunately all four twins have something in common: a love for tabletop games. Put four gay nerds together and you will have D&D going in no time. If Tello stabs the table once because they constantly rolled poorly in that one session, that's the table's problem. Everyone else knows to stay out of the blood circle by now.

They also all love Jupiter Jim movies, but that creates a problem. See, Leonado and Tello are what you might call "traumatised from spending two-thirds of their lives fighting aliens", and sometimes the creatures in the JJ-verse remind them of the Krang. Over time, they've figured out their triggers, and Leo is now their guinea pig: he watches all the movies and takes notes on the scenes that he thinks will bother them, so they can figure out which ones to avoid.

When Leo's worried about something, but he doesn't want to bother Donnie, he will bother Tello! Cause they have the experience to give advice, and Leo doesn't feel like he's as much of a bother, given what Tello dealt with in the future. After fighting the end of the world, it's no problem to deal with a teenager's insecurity and crushes.

A lot of Tello's advice sounds remarkably like "I don't know, just stab them". Leo does not take this advice, but he does appreciate that Tello always comes up with some kind of answer to what he's dealing with. They don't have to be helpful, he just wants to know they were listening.

Tello does not need advice from Leo (or anyone else, to hear them tell it). But after so long fighting a war, sometimes they're not sure that it's actually over. When they're having a hard time adjusting, they look for Leo. The little one, who's an impetuous goofball, who plays jokes, who keeps trying to find ways to dye Tello's hair even though there's no dye in the world that will change black hair to neon blue. The one who's not like he was at fifteen, before the Krang came - but the one who proves to Tello that innocence is still in this world, even if it's not in them. The one who gives Tello hope.

[beevean]

What annoys you about the Netflix version of Castlevania? 👀

Mostly the fact that it has become the face of the series. I pointed out already that on AO3, 2/3rds of Castlevania fics are based on the cartoon - at best, some fics aren't even tagged.

Tumblr is even worse. Search for "Castlevania" and notice how many posts are about the cartoon.

For more specific things... I may have become a fan of the series relatively recently, but to me the whole show feels like the showrunners really wanted to make a Berserk anime, and slapped on it the Castlevania aesthetic. And I'm a big Berserk fan! But not when you mix concepts this way. Just because both series deal with monsters and are set in the middle ages doesn't mean that they have quite the same vibe.

Then there is the questionable treatment of characters. Grant was adapted out of what was supposed to be a C3 adaptation because Ellis decided that his name was stupid and that his pirate-like appearance didn't fit the setting, even though Grant isn't a pirate, he's a thief. Trevor is pigeonholed in the character archetype of "drunkard asshole", even though he already had a fairly interesting personality in Curse of Darkness that could have been elaborated on, honorable but arrogant and hotheaded. Carmilla hasn't appeared much in the series, but the few times she did, she sure wasn't a radfem girlboss who dismissed Dracula as yet another "stupid old man". And boy help you if you like Hector, Isaac and/or St. Germain, because they bothered to bring them back, but the former is... well, I don't know what other term to use but he was pretty much ukeified, with how his main trait seems to be naiveté and how he gets imprisoned, beaten up and enslaved (did we really need to see his dick flap around as Lenore is beating the shit out of him? Now you're just humiliating him); and the other two have nothing in common with their game counterparts other than their names and somewhat their powers. You know why I reblog Isaac fanart from 10 years ago? Because now the tag is full of posts about the Netflix character (even "Isaac Laforeze", even though by logic it makes no sense that Netflix!Isaac would be called that way, Julia Laforeze doesn't exist in the cartoon), with some fans even saying things like "sometimes wildly deviating from the source material is the best idea" :') also, how can you even write Death as not being the biggest Dracula simp? C'mon.

(yes I'm particularly bitter about Isaac. I would have accepted if they just replaced him with an OC, and I'm sure that Netflix!Isaac is a great character too so I understand why he's so popular. Replacing the original version with an OC but keeping the same name is just sleazy, like you want credit for "fixing" the "bad" character but not putting any thought in salvaging what could be salvageable, it's lazy)

Another thing that I find sus is the overabundance of OCs. I'm biased because I watched in real time IDW Sonic shift focus from the canon characters to the new characters to the point that the cover of #50 didn't even feature the titular character, but it says something that big bad Dracula dies halfway through, and then the series is about a council of 4 new villains. And yes, I'm biased because of scenes like this:

Tell me if it doesn't look like the show really wants to show how #girlboss Carmilla is compared to dumb Dracula. He can't even command a room.

Then there are... dubious writing moments. The series makes the common mistake of thinking that swearwords are witty, to the point that even Alucard says "fuck you" to Trevor and shows him the middle finger (because haha he's becoming like trevor). St. Germain is just embarassing, going from a refined yet quirky 19th century dandy man to someone who says "I am immortal and glorious, and all these other people smell of piss" or "God is now standing right in front of you. And soon, very, very, soon... he's going to have sex again". And Death... oh, Death, what happened to you...

I'm also baffled when they try to apply logic to vampire lore? It feels like the writers felt too smart for their own good. I can't find it on YT but at one point the character just stop in their tracks to argue the validity of the conception that vampires can't cross running water, just because. And the explanation to why every vampire hates crosses is just ridiculous, sorry.

And then there's the offensive stuff. Hector sticks his dick in Lenore, she tricks him into becoming her sex slave/pet, and yet in the next season they basically develop feelings for each other? And she's painted in a tragic light? She's basically Dahlia Hawthorne with a dom fetish (which I'm not even opposed to, she seems to be an interesting villain at first) and I'm supposed to feel sorry for her? In the same episode there's a random threesome between Alucard and two people he welcomed into the castle, but it was all a ruse to try to kill him, and he's traumatized for... a few episodes? Then he gets better? Just enough to show him pissing on their corpses. Thanks.

(and I'm not even getting into the fact that Ellis himself has been accused of sexual misconduct, which makes these scenes even more uncomfortable)

So yeah. I don't personally resent Netflixvania, and I know that there are some good moments in it ("Lisa, I'm killing our boy..."), but from what I've seen so far, the series simply doesn't deserve to massively overshadow the game series - not even because of quality issues, but because at the end of the day it doesn't have much to do with the games beyond some superficial references.

[revenantghost]

HI sorry to dm you out of the blue but i tried posting my post on WEDNESDAY MORNING and the first time i deleted it after 12 hours of it being up and still not in the tag, my second attempt is still on my blog because i sent support a ticket about it (i deleted the book club tag off it tho), my third attempt, which is what's in the tag, was literally me copypasting the html into notepad, making a mostly blank post, adding the og post piecemeal, and seeing if it disappeared from the tag or not. it seems there were a few specific images that were the problem, two of which i deleted and the third of which i just used a different crop of the page and it worked. i don't know WHY those images were a problem but hopefully support will shed some light on it if they get back to me?? i saw you had trouble with your vashwood post so i wonder if other bookclubbers are having the same issue and i'm afraid i'm missing posts because of it v_v

also re: your other tags YEA i agree abt the DID rep, i'm familiar with it bc i used to be close to someone who has it, i dont see it a lot in media to begin with but i've DEF seen worse from media that's much more recent than trigun lmao. also- yes razlo is there in the scene but my question is more abt his /degree/ of involvement like. did he convince livio to join eom/plant the idea in his head/tell him ww was there/etc... because "wanting to follow ww" as a motivation def comes from livio not razlo.. IF that even makes sense sorry i am half asleep rn. ALSOOO PLEASE DONT APOLOGIZE FOR THE RAMBLING OMG.. i love your tags sm and look forward to seeing them on my posts!! i love the rambling it's delightful.. i should be the one apologizing for sending a wall of text in your askbox LOL

Oh man, no worries! Yeah I had the same thing happen with this post, to the point that I had to eventually remake it without any images (which were kinda core to the post, thanks Tumblr!!!) and for some reason that worked??? I even reworded the whole thing multiple times, but nothing! So I'm gonna tag this as bookclub so it shows up and folks know that the tag is being stupid from time to time. This is also happening to posts in the "Trigun" tag and search function, and someone I know had an issue with blocking the other day, so I think Tumblr's probably fucking with the code

Seriously, kudos to Nightow for writing this in the early 2000's (when I assume this volume was probably initially published as chapters in its magazine) and doing better rep than every single horror movie out there. Even if it's magical fantasy grow-a-third-arm DID, it's so much better than most rep :')

OHHHHH I see what you mean!!! That's definitely the angle that Tristamp seems to be leaning toward, but it would be VERY interesting if Trimax Razlo hunted down big brother Nico and wanted Livio to join him. That's obviously pure headcanon, but I think I'll tuck that nicely into my own personal headcanons

ASKJNALSKJ OH THANK GOD, I don't always have the spoons for rambling BUT WHEN I DO... BOY I GO OFF. So it's nice to hear it's not annoying :'D And you're totally fine yourself, no worries!!! <3

[florrickandassociates]

TGF Thoughts: 6x04 -- The End of Eli Gold

FINALLY I HAVE FINISHED WRITING THIS. I'm hoping the other episodes don't take me nearly as long to write about.

What an episode name. What an episode. This is probably one of my favorite episodes TGF has done! It’s amazing what actually focusing on the long histories between characters and using them to elevate the themes of the show can do!  

OK TUMBLR IS BEING SO FUCKING ANNOYING RIGHT NOW AND NOT LETTING ME MAKE A BULLETED LIST. Apologies for formatting.

We start off with a warning that the episode includes content that “may be sensitive to some viewers... especially viewers who are disturbed by exploding brain matter.” I have so many questions about how this came to be. It’s cheeky and gives off strong BrainDead vibes, but it’s also a serious content warning. So was it required but the Kings got to be silly about it? I never see content warnings other than, like, TV-MA SLV on streaming shows, there was no warning when Will died, and there were no warnings for the (frequent) head explosions in BrainDead, so why now? The tone of this warning feels very “we were forced to have this here but we compromised with the network and we at least get to be silly about it” (like the playful “Skip Intro” button on Evil). But part of me wonders if it was a creative choice to raise the stakes? I can’t imagine why you’d want to? But it obviously tells us that someone’s brain is getting blown out (or that we’re getting a BrainDead crossover), so the writers had to know that this warning would also be a spoiler... I just have a lot of questions okay! 

I don’t love credits at the beginning because they deny me the feeling of, “wait, how are we getting to the credits NOW?” that I somehow get every episode even though I know the credits are always going to come after the 15 minute mark. I’ll forgive this episode.  

We pick up where we left off—in the aftermath of the explosion in Dr. Bettencourt’s office. I know they’re mostly headed there eventually, but I am so glad this scene didn’t end with a kiss.  

I did not pick up on it myself, but whoever noted that the explosion of the credits spills over into the scene (and that’s why the credits roll over the footage) is very right.  

James Whitmore Jr. directed this one. His name isn’t a guarantee an episode is going to be eventful, but he IS one of the ones the writers trust with their eventful episodes. He directed Hitting the Fan.  

The people in the elevator bickering about Fox News has me thinking of BrainDead, specifically the subplot with the actress who is now best known for playing Kendall’s ex-wife on Succession. (She’ll always be Stern’s daughter to me though.)  

There’s more bickering about whether the protests are far left or far right, which is a premise I do not think the writers can sustain for very long. I get it, it’s thematic, but groups of people don’t just stay angry without (1) expressing why they are angry or (2) losing steam. We’ve gotta get somewhere with this. (I’d say the end of this episode gives a pretty definitive answer about who’s doing the protesting, unless it’s an endless cycle of protests and counterprotests.)  

I think Eli’s presence makes the stakes feel a little higher in this episode. The evolution of The Good Wife into The Good Fight happened so gradually that I can accept that this bizarre surreal universe is Diane’s and Elsbeth’s... but there’s something truly eerie about seeing Eli, who had previously been untouched by all of this surreal stuff and in my mind still lives in the pre-Trump world, in the middle of it all, too.  

I can believe the firm being close to the courthouse – that's just smart – but I don’t understand why Bettencourt’s office and the courthouse are so close together the car bomb would be felt in both places. Whatever. Connective tissue holding the episode together. 

This episode jumps right in to Eli being on the stand, which is our first sign that this isn’t going to be yet another “let’s watch our faves be clever and maneuver their way out of bogus charges” episode.  

Eli’s being accused of being the mastermind behind the “Democratic Watergate,” a fake thing that we’d never heard of before this moment. Based on everything that happens in this episode, seems like he’s guilty. Maybe not legally, since he’s too smart and shady for that, but he totally did it.  

I love Eli lol  

I also love Marissa’s “my dad is a lot and I love him so much” look when Eli makes a melodramatic scene on the stand 

Opposing counsel does not take Marissa seriously and knows she’s only there so she can’t testify.  

Hi Frank Landau. 

Marissa instantly knows that Landau walking in is NOT good for Eli. I was going to give the lead lawyer the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe he didn’t see Landau, but, no, he seems to just have bad instincts.  

I love Eli and Marissa saying “fuck” in unison.  

I’ll say this again (and again, and again) in this recap, but something this episode did that TGF has been missing is ACTUALLY LEAN INTO THE CHARACTERS. I’m already getting so much about Eli and Marissa’s dynamic (how they’re similar, different, where there are points of tension, how much they care about each other) and that’s making all of this land much better. I’ve seen the secret surprise witness plot a million times, but this episode makes it feel like I’m always watching Eli and Marissa first and the trial second.  

Marissa corners her dad in the elevator because Marissa knows that Eli did it... and that she inadvertently helped. Marissa’s mostly mad because this was stupid and sloppy.  

“I didn’t do this! Because there’s no proof I did this! So this argument is a massive waste of time.” So what I’m hearing is he totally did it.  

Diane gets in the elevator with flowers and gives one to Eli and one to Marissa. Marissa notices a piece of glass in Diane’s hair; Diane calmly explains that a window exploded on her. She says she’s surprisingly well... I think she’s just drugged up and in shock. Eli and Marissa do too. 

There’s a democratic fundraiser the following night and Ri’Chard wants to invite the associates. VIP Treatment vibes.  

Diane, who is totally okay and not acting at all weird, is sitting in a partners’ meeting cradling a bouquet of flowers. Liz notices.  

Ri’Chard can’t help himself: Liz tries to move on to the next agenda item, and this man hops out of his chair to ask why they’re attending a DEMOCRATIC fundraiser. Liz notes the DNC is a big client. Ri’Chard counters by suggesting they should support local black churches instead. One, religion at work is never going to go over easy. Two, why not both?  

Ri’Chard is also moving across the whole room, forcing everyone to swivel their chairs (since he’s taken away the conference table) so they can’t focus on him and Liz at the same time. 

Ri’Chard also then promises to do something that will mean more money for the equity partners (so, obviously, this goes over well with the audience of... equity partners). Liz wants this too, but doesn’t think it’s practical. Diane spins around on her chair and gives Liz a conspiratorial look.  

All the partners start applauding Ri’Chard, except Diane, who continues silently communicating with her friend Liz. (See! Another little character moment in the middle of a larger plot!)  

After the meeting, Ri’Chard accuses Liz of not liking his ideas and Liz is like, I actually just don’t like you making promises you can’t keep. Apparently the money’s not all there, even now that they’re doing super amazingly well. Ri’Chard thinks it is.  

(Apparently people are quitting left and right. I’d note this for context on the firm’s status but we all know this won’t be mentioned again.) 

Liz asks Ri’Chard to show her his plan before he announces it. He looks at her like he’s never considered that before. Wild. He blames this on his extroversion and says he can get a little carried away in front of people. Yes. That is what happened. That is why he announced his researched and highly appealing plan while commandeering the room: he just got carried away but didn’t intend to do any of that.  

Ri’Chard ends this conversation with “Jesus is Lord,” to which Liz just says, “Oh, yes he is.” I love Liz. 

“But you are not,” Liz whispers after Ri’Chard leaves. I love Liz even more.  

Liz finally – FINALLY – asks Jay to look into Ri’Chard. You would think that (1) Liz would’ve asked Jay to do this on day one and (2) Jay would’ve been curious enough on his own to look into it. I mean, Jay is trying to figure out what happened with the car bomb, which doesn’t seem to have anything at all to do with him or his job. He’s just naturally curious... so wouldn’t he be curious about this random new name partner who just showed up one day? 

Jay also suggests more security. I suggest, once again, that the firm allow people to work remotely.  

Marissa is in maximum snark mode during the next legal strategy session.  

Eli continues to say things that make it obvious he’s guilty, like that you talk about a lot of hypotheticals (“standard rat-fucking") and never do them... or you do, but through intermediaries.  

Between being dragged into an actual crime and being mocked in court, Marissa is fed up. She storms out to go do her actual job (hey, remember when my recaps used to be like 75% complaining about how Maia didn’t ever do work?)  

Eli goes after Marissa and asks what she wants. “You want me to take you on a father/daughter picnic, is that it? You want to go to Disneyland and get photos taken with mouse ears? This is who we are. If you’re in trouble, I help you. If I’m in trouble, you help me.” Harsh.  

“We’re transactional,” Marissa rephrases his words. “Exactly. Always have been, always will,” Eli agrees. I think they both think they mean it right now. There’s obviously a component of this in their relationship, but it’s clear that they actually do care about each other and get along... but they’re so similar that they clash like this often. 

Anyway, Marissa asks to be the one to cross-examine Landau in exchange for her not quitting the legal team/testifying against Eli.  

Diane watches Dr. Bettencourt’s videos while drinking a glass of wine in bed. Seems like she really feels just fine after the explosion. 

This quickly turns into Diane fantasizing about Dr. Bettencourt being in her bed. We all knew it was headed here.  

Absolutely unfair that we are getting a Diane scene about masturbation and anxiety when my Alicia OTPs were Alicia + therapy and Alicia + vibrator.  

The Diane/Kurt banter in this scene kind of makes me cringe but that also makes it feel a lot more real; I do not think most people are very profound when they’re horny  

I have not recapped what is actually going on in this scene because it’s... bizarre!  

Kurt gets a call from work. We know this because his phone says that “Work” is calling.  

��We had nothing to do with that car bomb,” Kurt says, to Diane’s alarm. What’s he involved with that he even has to say that sentence!? (Answer: the NRA.)  

Diane wakes Kurt up to tell him about her latest drug adventure. She says it’s for anxiety and he’s like, what anxiety? Diane references the world around her. What does he mean, what anxiety?! Though in his defense, I’m not sure “Diane struggles with anxiety” is the conclusion I would’ve come to from her actions, either – but it makes sense when I hear it. Also is he aware Diane had to dodge shattered glass when the car bomb went off? I truly can’t tell what the day to day of Diane and Kurt’s relationship is like, which makes it quite hard to have an opinion on if I think it’s a good thing (companionship when they need it, but otherwise they can be very independent) or a bad thing (what kind of relationship is this??) 

Kurt is like, uh, have you considered finding a real doctor? Diane wonders why they’re even having this conversation. Kurt points out that she brought it up. This almost feels like Diane has already moved on without realizing it.  

I think I’ve said this before, maybe even in the part of this recap I wrote a week ago, but my investment in Diane and Kurt plummeted after the whole Holly thing at the end of TGW. Not only does it ask me to believe that Kurt cheated (????), but the entire thing makes no sense and the resolution/reconciliation was hard to follow. At worst, Diane/Kurt’s relationship is confusing, and at best it’s sweet and lets me forget about all the weirdness. That’s still pretty shaky ground, even for someone who generally likes them together.  

Liz at the gym! Liz is at the gym! She’s listening to a law podcast when she hears that Ri’Chard is doing some self-promotion. She inelegantly slips off the treadmill and heads up to work (this seems to be an office gym?). Two cops with riot gear and assault rifles join her in the elevator and their presence does not put her at ease. Their silence doesn’t, either. 

Still in her workout clothes, she barges in on Ri’Chard’s prayer circle and glares at him. He introduces her as “Liz Reddick, daughter of Carl” and I would just love to know... is Carl Reddick’s name ruined or not? This remains unclear to me. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Liz confronts Ri’Chard once they’re alone.  

Ri’Chard apparently accidentally ended up on NPR. Doubtful.  

Worse – he’s not talking about his own clients on this podcast. He's talking about the firm’s clients. He’s secured permission from everyone involved... except Liz. He’s also using his name instead of crediting the team, which he calls “good branding.” They are both right. And he’d have a lot more ground to stand on if he had, like, actually touched any of these cases. (I don’t understand why he is using the firm’s cases; surely he has his own?) 

Ri’Chard starts telling Liz about how the firm has to update itself and Liz is just not impressed. And why would she be? Ri’Chard might be right about branding and needing an identity and a refresh – this is certainly not the first time it’s come up – but Ri’Chard doesn’t need to lecture Liz on this point like she’s too dumb to get it. Liz gets his point... he simply doesn’t want to understand hers. She’s asking for him to treat her like a partner and he’s responding with garbage about brands.  

Liz raises her voice (though just a little bit, she’s letting her anger show but she’s very far from losing control here, which is a nice touch from Audra) and reminds Ri’Chard that the law firm is a “we” and not an “I” (there ain’t no I in team but you know there is a me!) (Sorry, I’m on a liiiiiittle bit of a TSwift kick right now...)  

THE STARE LIZ GIVES RI’CHARD WHEN HE STARTS MAKING REFERENCES TO SHOW HE GETS IT.  

“You have an idea, any idea. You want to scratch your ass? We talk, we discuss, we agree. And then you can move forward. Not before. You need to stop with this “better to ask forgiveness than permission” bullshit. Do you understand?” Ri’Chard nods. He might understand, but I’m not so sure he cares.  

How much does this man spend on glasses? Somewhat relatedly, Ri’Chard’s extensive eyewear collection is really making me want to have more than one pair of glasses.  

Ri’Chard invites Liz over for dinner so they can get to know each other. It’s not a bad idea. 

To have dinner, they’re going to skip the DNC fundraiser.  

Landau takes the stand.  

“How the fuck would you know that?” Marissa snaps in court when her legal skills are called into question. Great line reading from Sarah here.  

When Liz arrives at dinner, she ends up holding the gate open for a woman carrying a tray of pastries.  

Ri’Chard’s house is chaotic and full of children. Also women. It is a little weird. Sorry, did I say a little? I meant extremely.  

Liz ends up holding the tray of pastries, and a bunch of kids take sweets. All the adults tell Liz she shouldn’t be giving the kids so much sugar. She tries to stop the kids from taking more pastries, then gives up and is like, “you’re not my kids.” Hah.  

One of the women refers to Liz as Ri’Chard’s “work wife” which is a phrase I fucking loathe. Liz seems to hate it – or at least this application of it – as much as I do.  

“Is your house always this confusing?” Liz asks. Ri’Chard calls that phrasing diplomatic, and it really is.  

Ri’Chard saying he has trouble ending things and would never divorce in a house full of children and at least three non-Liz adult women is EXTREMELY weird and it is not made any less weird by them greeting each other with “Jesus is Lord.”  

I know it’s, like, obvious to say that Audra McDonald is really good at acting but I do need to stress that Audra McDonald is really good at acting. She’s playing the discomfort, shock, awkwardness, and growing comfort of being in someone else’s home really well. 

Those Moral Matters posters at this DNC event might be the most GOP looking stock art I have ever seen??? Also this is the same ballroom where the fundraiser in VIP Treatment was.  

Carmen gets to go to the DNC event because Carmen needs something to do so she can appear in the episode. Also, she seems to make the firm a fuckload of money so it makes sense she’d get an invite.  

Julius (why is he even at a DNC event?) tries to snark to Carmen about how silly Dems are and Carmen just looks at him like she’s considering what he’s said but also surprised by it... and like she has no intention of responding. This immediately makes him feel awkward and he turns away from her. 

Marissa’s there too, which doesn’t make sense in terms of her level at the firm but absolutely makes sense in terms of (1) all the partners love her and (2) her dad is Eli. 

Carmen and Marissa exchange a glance that shows there’s still tension there. This is the exact kind of moment this show too often forgets to include between episodes with major plot development. This episode nails the little character moments. This episode feels lived-in and complete.  

This “Hamilton Swings” act is an updated version of the stuff they parodied in 2x05 (of Wife!) and I fucking love it. Not so much the parody. I love the callback. I love that the writers almost certainly were like, that was so fun when we did it in 2010. Let’s do it again.  

Bettencourt is also at the DNC fundraiser. Small world. Diane spills her drink when she sees him. 

Diane’s dress in this episode looks a bit like her 2x05 dress, which I am sure was an intentional choice.  

At the bar, where Diane is cleaning off her dress, Bettencourt appears. He’s spotted Diane, too. She’s worried he’ll judge her for drinking. He doesn’t. 

She seems surprised when he remarks that he should’ve expected to run into her. Hmmm, now what about Diane Lockhart gives off rich liberal vibes? I wonder.  

Marissa appears at the bar next to Diane. “God, is this boring!” she exclaims, not at all concerned that Diane, who is her boss, is in the middle of a conversation. 

Marissa might be a little drunk. She greets Bettencourt, “Hello! Except I don’t know you, do I?” 

“Diane and I bumped into each other on a trip,” Bettencourt says to explain how they met. I bet he’s used this line before, given his line of work. Diane spits out her drink at that. 

Marissa leaves the bar to “stop my dad from killing someone,” a choice of words I’m sure she won’t regret.  

Diane asks Bettencourt if he takes his own treatment since he’s always so calm. Then his wife – I assume, he puts his hand on her back – arrives and ruins the moment for Diane.  

Eli and Landau argue at a DNC fundraiser, which is definitely a great look. But it won’t matter soon. Marissa tries to get Eli to stop, but Eli instead moves the conversation to the men’s room so Marissa won’t follow. Tbh I’m a little surprised she’d listen; Marissa does not seem like she’d give a shit about walking into the men’s room. 

On my first watch, I thought this scene felt like 4x18, where Peter punches Kresteva in the bathroom. What happens here is much less fun. 

And then someone enters the room and SHOOTS LANDAU IN THE HEAD THINKING HE IS ELI. He also says something anti-Semitic while he’s at it. I don’t remember what because I muted the scene looked away on rewatch because I found it quite upsetting. 

Three things here. First, I’ve seen a few theories that Eli ordered the hit on Landau and it was staged to look like Eli was the target. To that, I say... y’all are watching a different show. The assassin says Eli’s name and something anti-Semitic to let the rest of the episode unfold as it does. It's not necessarily illogical like some are saying -- this guy very easily could have an accomplice who said “Eli just went into the bathroom” and pointed and the guy with the gun didn’t recognize Eli, and they both could’ve been too stupid to have him study photos beforehand. Also, very hard to watch the emotional fallout and consequences this has for Eli through the rest of the episode and then go back to this hunting for the biggest twist.  

Second thing. It has taken me a while to get back to writing about this episode. Initially it was because I was busy, but now I’m avoiding it because it’s just TOUGH. When this aired, it felt a little too unsettling but like it belonged to a universe that was like ours but heightened... and now, with anti-Semitism in the news thanks to a certain rapper and the anniversary of the Tree of Life shooting tomorrow (I write this on 10/26), it’s just far too much for me to grapple with.  

Final thing. I am so glad the writers chose to kill Landau instead of Eli. Killing Eli would’ve been upsetting, but honestly not that much more upsetting than the introduction of violence into a universe where violence doesn’t tend to hit close to home (even considering the protest stuff this season, the number of horrifyingly traumatic moments over the course of both serieses is, like, three? Will, Adrian in season 2, this?). Plus, seeing Eli covered in blood and brains is horribly upsetting. Not only that, but killing Eli would’ve made the point and then... what? Made the rest of the show about Marissa’s grief? Felt like a decision made for shock value? I don’t see what the writers would’ve gained after the initial shock. This way, Landau is familiar enough it feels unsettling – the man’s been a frequent presence in this universe for over a decade – but not so beloved (not at all beloved tbh) that it’s impossible to do other things with the plot from here. The Eli and Marissa scenes that follow after this point are some of the best material I’ve seen from this show in ages – maybe some of the best material this show’s ever done.  

Liz and Ri’Chard are wrapping up their dinner when they get an active shooter alert. A very specific active shooter alert that says who the victim is? Weird. There’s a lockdown now, so Liz gets trapped at Ri’Chard’s. Shouldn’t they be calling all their employees and partners who are at the fundraiser!?  

Ok made about 4 mins of progress on this then saw Eli covered in blood and now I have to stop again. I’m not generally squeamish about TV violence (I simply look away if I don’t want to see it) but I can’t handle this. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I’d been writing these during season five of TGW. 

Now I’m thinking about Will.  

Fuck, I’m not sure I'm ever going to find another show I care this much about. I don’t know that I want to. But let me tell you: nothing has even come close.  

AND NOW I’M HAVING FEELINGS ABOUT THE SHOW ENDING.  

Ok lol now it’s 10/30 and I’m trying to power through.  

Marissa finds Eli sitting alone, in shock, covered in blood and brains. “Oh, it was so weird. I was right beside him. And this guy just came up behind us and said, ‘Die, you filthy Jew, Eli Gold.’ Eli Gold. He thought he was killing me.” “The world has gone crazy, Dad,” Marissa replies. “But Frank’s dead because of me. He’s not even Jewish. He's got three kids. And he’s, like, Presbyterian, something or other.” “I’m glad you’re alive, Dad,” is all Marissa can say to that.  

“What am I doing with my life?” Eli starts to wonder. He’s on this train of thought because he’s realized people hate him to the point where they want to kill him. This may be true but that man doesn’t want to kill Eli for anything Eli’s done. Which is what Marissa tells him.  

Eli doesn’t believe that, not fully. He’s thinking about all the bad things he’s done. I’ll come back to this when he talks to Diane, no use in saying the same thing twice.  

“I’ve got to change my life. I’ve got to stop,” Eli frets. “I’ve got to... confess.” Marissa does not like that. And then the cops interrupt to get Eli’s statement. I’m a little surprised Eli was able to get away. Isn’t every attendee being forced to stay where they are?  

Liz and Ri’Chard are now sitting on the floor drinking. I get that this conveys that the vibe is now relaxed and casual, but also, floors are not comfortable to sit on and sofas are. Liz finally works up the confidence to ask Ri’Chard which of the women floating around the house is his wife. Turns out he’s not married to any of them; his wife is dead. The women are her sister, her friend, his friend, and a college dropout.  

He says he “collects female energy” which is maybe the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard. But for those of us who lived through the days of “male energy” and how we had to have Finn Polmar on the show to fill the void of “male energy” left by Will... it’s pretty nice to hear that “female energy” also exists.  

“Watch out. Women have dinner here and never leave,” he jokes to Liz. Uh.  

Liz turns the conversation to work; asks why Ri’Chard is in this. He wants “power, respect, and independence.” This is where my being several episodes ahead changes my take, because you KNOW the first time through this episode, I was like, “how can you be independent when STR Laurie owns you?!” 

He flips the question around to Liz, but doesn’t let her answer, instead guessing that she’s in it for her father’s legacy. Liz says no; she always wanted to be the opposite of her father (and it was here I started to realize there’s a father-daughter throughline in this episode; again, this episode is very well done). This does not explain how Liz came to be running her father’s firm, but of course we know how that happened – she was pushed out at the DOJ and needed a place to land, and then inertia took over.  

“That’s what makes you hot!” Ri’Chard says, and Liz just laughs and points to this as an example of Ri’Chard having no idea when to stop. It is a very good example of Ri’Chard not knowing when to stop; that’s not the vibe here and so it feels weird when he makes it the vibe.  

Ri’Chard then segues into a story about when he was just starting out and a firm made a laughing stock out of him for being dressed the wrong way. And then Ri’Chard remade his image and got stronger.  

$900 on wine. Still amazes me that people actually drink $900 wine. I had a bottle of $25 wine last night and felt fancy. 

The all-clear goes out and Liz heads home. I hope she’s not driving...? They’ve been drinking a lot.  

Diane’s home, still in her party clothes. Kurt’s comforting her. “Nothing seems real right now,” she remarks as she watches the news. Diane starts talking about the “connection between love and death” inspired by a conversation with Bettencourt (which we annoyingly have to get silent flashbacks of). This leads to Diane making a reference to a piece of art and Kurt not getting it, and then Diane realizing he doesn’t get her references. Kurt handles this well: “Diane, I think you’re asking me questions that you know I don’t know the answer to. And I’m not sure why. I’m not here for a literature test. I’m here because I love you. You know who I am. You know what I’m good at. What I care about.” Very fair. If Diane wants someone who understands all her references, Kurt will never be that person, and it’s not fair to Kurt for Diane to hold that against him. She can say his political beliefs are too much or that she’s realized she wants something different, but she can’t just wish Kurt was a different person and expect him to change. 

She then asks Kurt if he loves her, which is so weird??? He says yes, she smiles, they kiss.  

“Have I passed the test?” he asks. Diane says yes, but it seems like this is going to keep coming back.  

In court the next day, opposing counsel is quick to suggest Eli had Landau killed to get himself off the hook. Yeah, no. “Excuse me, what the fuck?!” is Marissa’s response. Despite her passions, the judge rules that she has to testify.  

Ri’Chard and Liz solve the problem of the equity partners not getting the money they’re entitled to by giving up some of their bonuses. HANG ON. THIS IS THE MOST OBVIOUS SOLUTION. WHY WAS LIZ COLLECTING A BONUS WHEN HER PARTNERS WEREN’T GETTING THEIR MONEY? And why is Ri’Chard getting a bonus he’s been there like 2 seconds where did the money for that come from?  

Also, am I meant to believe Liz had any hand in this idea or not? If I am supposed to believe Liz as a manager I do need to see that she’s making progress on this front, because it feels to me like Ri’Chard came in, was correct, won Liz over, and won the battle but gave her credit. I’m missing the “teamwork” scene from this narrative. 

If there are burning cars and massive protests in the street, and the lobby is blocked off, WHY HAS THIS OFFICE NOT YET SENT EVERYONE HOME?  

Turns out that the lawyer who humiliated Ri’Chard is Liz’s dad. Obviously. So are we in Do Revenge now?  

Liz is looking at a picture of her dad when Marissa knocks on her door and asks if she has a minute. You know it’s serious because this is the first time Marissa’s ever asked for permission for anything. Liz tries to push it off til tomorrow; Marissa explains the urgency.  

What Marissa wants from Liz isn’t really advice – it's to know about her relationship with her dad. I fucking love that they’re drawing this parallel and exploring this topic. Even though what Liz’s dad did and what Eli did are very different types of crimes, the situations Liz and Marissa are in because of their fathers’ actions are similar, and I love that the show acknowledges this and gives it a moment. They very easily could’ve had Marissa’s plot exist in a vacuum; instead, they tie it to a loose end from season 3. Really smart, character-focused writing.  

Marissa specifically wants to know if Liz ever opened the folder of evidence against her father that Marissa compiled back in s3. Liz is hesitant to answer at first, wondering how this will help Marissa. Marissa isn’t sure, and that’s enough for Liz to decide to open up: she did not ever look at the file. Marissa takes that in.  

At the office, Eli stares out the window watching the protests. “You look lost,” Diane comments when she sees him. 

Diane asks if Eli has any protection. He does, for a few days. “It feels weird. I’m a mechanic. I’m not a public figure,” Eli notes. “We’re all public figures now,” Diane says. I’m not sure what’s making her say this oh wait actually yes she has plenty of evidence to say this now I’m remembering Mr. Elk and the Diane/Liz love affair rumors from last season. 

Diane pours Eli a drink. “Was there a better time, or has it always been like this?” Eli asks. “I don’t know. Whenever I’m smack-dab in the middle of the time, I always think it’s the worst time, and then five years later, I think, ‘huh, that was a pretty good time.’” Eek.  

“I fell apart today,” Eli confesses. “Well, that makes sense. A person was murdered right beside you,” Diane responds. “And they thought they were murdering me,” Eli continues. “Yeah, so how could you not fall apart?” 

“I’ve been wondering how much I’ve been contributing to all this. Turning the opposition into the enemy, turning the enemy into psychopaths...” Eli wonders. I would say maybe he’s played some role, but I don’t think he’s the problem here. Neither does Diane.  

“How do we get out of this? They’re shouting, so do we just shout louder?” Eli wonders. “I don’t know, but if we don’t shout back, they’ll win,” says Diane, who’s been blissfully walking through protests carrying flowers all season.  

Diane suggests that Eli finish his drink, pull himself together, and “go out there and kick some ass.” She does not seem at all concerned by the fact he’s done something illegal, which to me is the most interesting part about this scene. But before I get there... 

“This country is worth fighting for; it always was. And our enemies want to stop voting from happening. That’s not just galling, that’s the end of America. And we can’t let that happen.” okay that’s all well and good Diane but do you not remember when you yourself tried to rig an election, or the time when you yourself defended Eli for rigging an election? 

“Where do you find your optimism?” Eli wonders. “In a hallucinogenic drug called PT-108,” Diane responds. I love it. Eli thinks she’s joking. 

“Eli, I need you to fight the good fight,” Diane says, SAYING THE SHOW TITLE ON THE SHOW!!!!! 

“I need to know that there is someone out there who can quarterback the game. Because I know our politicians aren’t up to it. It has to be you. The person behind the scene. I’m sorry, if you want me to contribute to your bodyguards, I will, but you have to get back in the fight.” This is a very good pep talk for someone like Eli. It’s also fascinating to me. No one is talking about the illegal thing Eli did. No one seems to care. It was in the pursuit of a goal they all shared and so it’s understandable; everyone’s only furious that it got discovered or that it implicated them personally. No one is really mad about what happened. Eli almost certainly arranged the hacking of a major media outlet, and everyone’s just cool with it. What does that say about our times, about good, about morality, and about how deep this conflict runs?  

Marissa listens in on this conversation and decides that Diane’s right. 

Dr. Bettencourt isn’t at his office the next day; the woman he was with is Diane’s doctor for the day instead. She is not happy about it. The way she says “no” when she’s offered cucumber water has so much sadness and pettiness in it. 

Marissa dances around the truth on the stand. She makes Eli out to be a bumbling old man, unable to figure out the internet. Eli, who knew how to find Becca-the-Twitter-Troll in early 2010. Sure. I feel like you could very easily poke a hole in Marissa’s testimony. (She says she hasn’t helped Eli “use” the software in question, which is true. She just got him a copy.)  

Marissa takes a little bit of a victory lap on the stand, drawing a parallel between Landau jumping to conclusions about Marissa colluding with Eli for the hack and opposing counsel jumping to conclusions about Marissa’s spot on the legal team. Marissa is only on the legal team because of a failed attempt to keep her from testifying, but that doesn’t really matter. 

So if these protesters are just chanting anti-Semitic shit... can we stop pretending that there are protesters on both sides? Like, I suppose they could still want me to believe this is like a war of protesters, but this is preeeeeeetty clearly coming from one side. 

Eli decides to head to DC right away and jump back into work. Marissa asks him to stay another night and have dinner; he says no and jokes they might shoot her, thinking she’s Eli. LOL, dark. 

Gotta say, watching this scene slowly play out the first time with the chanting in the background sent my stress levels through the roof. I was like, THERE’S STILL TIME TO KILL OFF ELI YET.  

Eli says that Marissa’s mom had to talk him into having a kid. Marissa already knew that. “I’m glad she did,” Eli says. “You’re my greatest achievement,” he adds.  

Eli never really got an ending on TGW, so to see him getting one that feels so final – all this talk about goodbye, the car driving away – makes me really emotional.  

Speaking of emotional, watching Marissa recite a prayer as Eli drives away REALLY got to me. After so many years, I feel so connected to these characters. Even in this heightened, surreal universe, this moment felt real. It made me feel how far we’ve come from the biggest problem in Marissa’s life being that her dad wants to date a grad student to here. It made the stakes feel higher for the whole rest of the season while also giving some finality (for the viewers, hopefully not for Marissa!) to the Eli/Marissa relationship. There weren’t many TGW cameos I needed on TGW (depending on how it goes, I might be actively mad if the last two episodes have Alicia – my friends who have had the misfortune of reminding me about Ghost Will on TGW know that I’m still mad enough about that I will send them a 30-message long rant about that choice) but Eli was one of the few that I hoped to see eventually because of his ties to Marissa. Having Eli back for 2 episodes – 1 for fun and 1 for something serious – really, really worked for the show.