#kim's bad mom character arc

[thekimspoblog]

One-Shot "I'm really starting to hate the Simpsons"

She felt like a monster, her shadow looming large over the sleeping cherub. Kim’s daughter was five years old now. The mop of auburn curls, the ruby red lips, the dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks; the last thing Kim wanted to do was disturb this peace. But she had to. She perched herself on the edge of the twin bed and, gently as possible, started to rouse her.

“Iris?” she whispered, “Iris, baby, wake up”

Reluctantly, the dark blue eyes opened. Already, a bewildered scowl was on her face.

“Sweetheart, we need to leave home. I…”

“Again?”

“... Yes.” Kim replied flatly. Iris only sounded moderately frustrated, but it was still a knife in Kim’s heart. “Take some time to wake up, but in thirty minutes, I need you downstairs with your suitcase. Dad and I will worry about your clothes and toothbrush, but pick out four toys you want to take with you. No more than four, okay? The rest have to stay here”

“I want daddy,” she whined.

“He’s downstairs. Come on, get dressed”

Iris pouted and Kim couldn’t help but feel judged. Sometimes it felt like it was written in the stars, that things between them always had to be just that little bit difficult. And it wasn’t for lack of understanding one another.

She jogged back downstairs, almost out of breath; the day had already been long enough and now night seemed insurmountable.

“How many changes of clothes do you have?” she shouted to Jimmy from across the kitchen.

“Four. Two pairs of jeans and two pairs of sweatpants”

“Do you think you could get by with only two outfits? We can buy more once we figure out where we’re going”

“No, we can’t”

“What?!” Kim hollered back while sweeping the contents of the downstairs medicine cabinet into a plastic bag.

“We’ve been frozen out of our accounts!”

“Son of a bitch!” she slammed the cabinet door closed.

“It’s fine. This is what the rainy day fund is for'' The three year old had already fallen back asleep on Jimmy’s shoulder. He passed Fille to his wife, then scurried down to the basement. He pulled back the fiberglass insulation to reveal bundles of cash stacked like bricks.

Kim anxiously bounced the toddler on her shoulder while trying to rifle through the fridge with her free hand. Where were the snacks? There were never any snacks in this house! She went shopping constantly and still whenever she was hungry, the fridge was empty. All she could find was a large glass jar of applesauce, a jar of peanut butter, a bag of shredded three-cheese, and the leftover pepperoni from a pizza kit; it would have to do.

“How much is there?” she interrogated her husband when he returned to the kitchen.

“A little over five thousand? I didn’t have time to count it”

“Then we’re better off than I thought. Ok: Your clothes? Check. My clothes? Check. Iris’s clothes?”

“They’re in my suitcase” Jimmy shot back.

“Fille’s clothes?”

“They’re in your suitcase”

“Ok. Meds? Check. Cash? Check. Jewelry? Electronics?”

“If the FBI is involved, I’m probably going to have to throw my laptop in the next river we drive past”

“We’ll worry about that later,” Kim yelled up the stairs, “Iris! Ten minutes!”

“What about IDs? We don’t even have any paperwork for Fille yet”

“Good thing she doesn’t make much noise then”

Still no reply from upstairs.

“I’ll go check on her,” Jimmy offered.

“No. I’ll do it. Please finish loading things into the car,” Kim said, taking off before he could answer.

Iris was pathetically fishing her stubby arm down the crevice between her bed and the wall.

“What’s the hold up?” her mother asked.

“Chirin fell down and I can’t reach him,” she explained.

Without skipping a beat, Kim dropped to the floor and crawled under the bed. She fumbled around in the dark until her fingers found something fluffy. She shoved the stuffed lamb in Iris’s hands and exasperatedly asked, “There. You have your lamb. Anything else? Think hard; once we leave this house, we can’t come back”

Iris shook her head. Clearly, the level of worry her parents were showing was not lost on her.

“Good. Then we need to go”

When the two came outside into the driveway, Jimmy was strapping Fille into the back seat of the sedan. Kim hoisted Iris into the car, the five year old still clutching her toy with both hands. Kim heard the trunk slam closed and as Jimmy buckled himself into the passenger’s seat, she heard him mutter something under his breath.

“If this ends with us singing B-I-N-G-O in the woods, I’m going to blow my brains out”

“What was that?” she asked her husband.

“Nothing”

They were a mile down the road. The clock on the dashboard read 2:13 am. Kim stole a glance in the rearview mirror into the passengers seats. The sisters had already fallen asleep again, their heads slumped together. That ratty little lamb. If Kim had lost any childhood toys in this way, she must have been too young to remember. But she remembered the one science project that she had been forced to abandon during a move. It was on solar power; it would have been an A! But on the morning it was time to throw everything in a cardboard box and flee the landlord, she couldn’t find it in time. Kim’s mother never would have dropped everything to help look for it. If Kim had even been stupid enough to ask, she knew her mother would have told her to leave it; it didn’t matter. It did though! That stupid little stuffed sheep mattered. Kim would just have to take some meager reassurance in the fact that she had gotten down on her knees to look for it.

“Iris, you know that I love you, right?” she confessed, waking the girl up.

Iris didn’t respond. She just glared back into the mirror skeptically.

“And I’m sorry, if stability isn’t something I can give you. But you know, a lot of kids’ parents have to move around for work. It’s the hand they’ve been dealt, and they just have to deal with it”

Still no reply.

“But I tried. We both tried. Your father and I have both tried so many times to be people other than ourselves. But we can’t. The masks always slip eventually. And I don’t know if it’s exactly a bright side, but look at it this way: if I was any good at pretending, you wouldn’t be here. I wish I could give you the perfect life. But I have to trust that this is still better than nothing”

Another awkward pause.

“I’m rambling. I guess my point is… sometimes, being yourself comes at the expense of other people. And I want you to know that wherever you go in life, all I want is for you to be yourself. And if it hurts me? Fair’s fair; I’ll owe you that much”

Jimmy put his hand on her leg. The squeeze he gave her was enough to communicate, “Kim, that’s enough. Please stop”

@richeeduvie @2entangledworms @mcwexlerscigarette @chainsawsangel

[maxwell-grant]

There's a trend people have pointed out in superhero stories over the past 20 or so years that is the death of "regular" supporting casts, an increasing absence of un-powered sidekicks or people involved who aren't in the thick of the action or in the hero's secret. Everyone who interacts with superheroes is a couple issues away from becoming one, every story involves a supervillain encounter or several dozen, every hero's gotta have a lunchbox-ready "superhero family" made from these characters, and every side character that doesn't join them is either going to die or become a supervillain.

The defining example people use for this is Spider-Man's supporting cast, with every Spider-Man cast member short of Aunt May and J Jonah Jameson getting some kind of powered upgrade or symbiote, and I'm gonna say Amanda Waller is an excellent case study of how this kind of thing happens, and I think it helps to explain why Amanda Waller has been, Like That, for the past 30 years.

She’s wearing a grey shirt underneath a blue blazer and it’s tucked into a similarly blue skirt that stops at mid calf. She reminds me of the neighbourhood aunties I used to see leaving for church every Sunday morning.

My mom used to say that you are the company you keep. So what kind of person does it take to keep a variety of bruised, battered, and dangerous personalities in check? - Amanda Waller: DC's Most Terrifying Woman

To those of you who haven't read John Ostrander and Kim Yale's Suicide Squad, there once was a time where Amanda Waller was something more than a powerful antagonistic force able to butt heads with the biggest superheroes, and something other than a heartless establishment face out to make superheroes miserable for ill-defined reasons. Structurally speaking, Suicide Squad is a comic about marginal DCU characters forced to deal with actual real life problems, and it's central character is a marginalized person forced to deal with DCU problems and characters. The members of the Squad are a rolling parade of costumed misfits and maniacs assigned to go around the globe to fight and kill and die on dirty missions to deal with dirty laundry and stop war zones from erupting, while Amanda Waller is forced to shuffle around her cadre of D-list supervillains and disgraced superheroes and get into stand-offs with secret spy societies, living nukes, voodoo cartels, and Batman.

Amanda Waller neither looks nor acts like the kind of character that stars in a superhero comic, and she is the central character throughout the 66 issues of the run and we follow her character arc from beginning to end as she's forced to spin plates to accomplish her goals and prevent bad situations from getting worse. She is the most fully realized character in the run and everything rests on her shoulders. We spend a lot of time inside her head, her team, her associates, she is the center holding together an extremely chaotic book with no two characters on the same page. She is, and has to be, an extremely powerful person, someone who stands her ground no matter what, an unbeatable force of will because that is the only way she's going to survive the situations she's in, the only way she can be "The Wall", the kind of person who can repel Batman, command a platoon of monsters, talk her way out of Deadshot's contract, someone who can stare at Darkseid and credibly threaten the President into letting her live.

That's the part that everyone is more or less familiar. But there is, or at least used to be, much more to Amanda Waller than just being The Wall, not in the least because being The Wall is also hampering her effectiveness as well as straight up killing her.

"Amanda's toughness has taken her a long way" "It's taken her as far as it can. But it can't take her no further. It's actually starting to drag her down. I'm scared for my baby sister, rev - scared that the anger in her is congealing into hate." - Suicide Squad #31

We get to know her backstory, her plans, her points of contention with the system, her relationships with people around her, and how deeply she cares about things and people even as she sends them to the meatgrinder. From the start we learn that Waller staffs her team with people she's prone to getting into disagreements with, like Simon LaGrieve and Rick Flag, specifically so they can cover her moral blind spots and pick up the slack in emotional intelligence she's lacking, be the heroes that she can't afford to be. It is unspeakably crucial that the Squad is led by Rick Flag as well as Bronze Tiger, a fallen hero who owes Waller for his recovery who eventually takes Flag's baton. Waller stands up for her team, gets into fights with her superiors when they decide to terminate them, and takes the fall for them when necessary. Waller is a person who does Bad Things - but she is not a Bad Person.

The book in no uncertain terms frames the Suicide Squad's existence as monstrous in a scale Waller doesn't understand until the very end, and it digs deep into the unethical things Waller has to allow for and perpetrate in order to keep it running no matter how many lives it saves, and she spends the first half of the book on a downward spiral. But then there's the 2nd half of the book:

In the first 39 issues, Amanda’s flaws are her undoing. As she pushes away the people she hired to act as a balance, she grasped tighter and tighter to her uncompromised vision of the Suicide Squad despite the constant changes and derailment. Her choices had consequences: the death of Rick Flag, her demotion, employees quitting, and finally, the disbandment of the team.

The last 27 issues have Amanda rising up from the ashes after a year in jail. She’s less in her own way – she communicates, her anger isn’t driving her, she’s more receptive of alternative perspective and recognizes when she’s wrong in real time – but she’s still just as scary.

Waller rebuilds her relationships with the people she drove away, takes a different tack to how the team works, and starts going out into the frontlines with the Squad. She brings Oracle (who actually made her debut in this comic) into the fold, saves her life and plays a big role in Barbara making progress in overcoming her Joker trauma. She genuinely puts in the work to improve as a person and do things a better way than before, even if there is an inescapable immorality to the very existence of the Squad and what they do. That immorality never goes away, and it only further horrifies her when learning how badly her project has gone. In fact, it's that very inescapable immorality that ends her arc.

She learns that the CIA has started using a new Suicide Squad to support a brutal regime in South America, and when faced with the full extent of her complicity in Western imperialism? She decides right then and there to end the Suicide Squad for good after they liberate the population of said regime from said Squad. She is the only person who gives a shit about the country enough to start the assignment for free once she knows about it, force the Squad along, lead the mission in field, and personally (and even gently) usher the villain to his death at the end, to end what began with her.

She does bad things, and she does good things. She cares about people, and she uses people. Her decisions ruin as well as save the world. She spins a million plates to match wills and wits with the strongest, wickedest, most cunning humans and superhumans alike, and she still has superiors to answer to and people close to her she hires to judge her for what she does. She endured racism and misogyny and poverty for decades and rode whatever she could to attain as much power over her own life as someone like her could possibly attain, and to have it, she must be a willing tool of the state and bend the knee to Ronald Reagan, the man she derides for what he did to her community, hating every minute of it.

She lost her family to sexual and racial violence, and now she wrangles a penal battalion comprised of some of the worst people on the planet to inflict violence on her orders. She has saved and redeemed people, and she's haunted by the corpses she's left in her wake. She is oppressed and oppressor, someone who could only escape the ravages of American imperialism by becoming one of it's chief enforcers, and still she rebuilds herself into a better person from it upon confronting and challenging her role in it. She is not a bad person, she is not a good person either, she is just afforded a degree of agency and complexity unpowered characters in superhero books simply don't get.

Okay cool, now what is she up to these days?

That, I guess. That is what a strong but unpowered person who does not allow themselves to be bossed around by superheroes or supervillains looks like now. Everytime there's a call for a military bad guy, Waller gets tagged in to be DC's Henry Gyrich. There was a point where Waller was made to contrast the likes of Sarge Steel and Wade Eiling, someone who butted heads with them because she was a well-meaning person working for and committing evil as often as she attempted to stop it. These days, the most consistent beat with her is that she is the most dangerous person alive and worse than the villains she wrangles into working for her. She is a thing to be overcome, a hypocrite to be exposed, a challenge to the natural order of the universe, and she is too terrific at it to be shuffled off quietly. She is a Bad Person and so everything she says and does is Bad (and thus can be ignored).

Integral to Suicide Squad's structure was the fact that Waller was the center holding everything together, the ultimate third party: spinning plates working with, for and against all of the others so she can bend rules and be bent by them. Bent, but never broken, because The Wall doesn't break, others break first. Waller was a one-of-a-kind character, and that broke her, because beating Sarge Steel and Wade Eiling at their own game means replacing Sarge Steel and Wade Eiling. Waller doesn't look like them, she doesn't look like the superheroes either, and so she can't be one of them. She can't even look like herself a lot of the time, they try to slim her up everytime they think they can get away with it.

Suicide Squad was preoccupied with exploring a perspective from a world outside the superhero worldview, but we no longer have her perspective or that of people around her, we only know her through the superheroes she inherently defies and has had an adversarial relationship against from day one. She is someone with a viewpoint that is charitable to neither superheroes nor institutions, and thus, the universe is increasingly less sympathetic to her, the less utility she has to the grander narrative where everyone has to pick between one of two options. If she wasn't powerful and assertive, she'd be another Leslie Thompkins, another Jiminy Cricket the heroes passively ignore. But because she is powerful and doing morally compromised things without asking Batman's permission, she must have a personal grudge. She must be a government monster. She must attack the superheroes for no reason, no ideology, no motive.

So now she's just The Wall 24/7, the mean icy establishment boot who is strong and clever and cruel and hates superheroes and wants to destroy superheroes and rule the world from the shadows. Everything she does is a fuck-up she refuses to take responsability for, everyone is right to hate and distrust mean old Waller, and now everyone gets to look good by dunking on her. They couldn't make her a superhero, so they made her a generic supervillain instead. And now that she's a bad guy, she no longer has to believe anything, she doesn't really have to mean anything, they don't have to write stories about something other than superheroes and supervillains, and they don't have to let a fat woman of color take up space and screentime they could be giving to Harley Quinn and Slade Wilson instead.

Even by the time of Waller's debut on the tail end of the 80s, her career opportunities were on their way to extinction

Days Of Future Past marks the triumph of the superhero comic that's pretty much concerned with no-one but superheroes. Where Ditko and Lee's Spider-Man featured a single costumed crimefighter in the context of a commonplace existence, the X-Men of the 80s focused on a huge cast of mutants who had little if any lasting involvement in the everyday world.

By the 21st century, the corporate superhero comic would largely - if not exclusively - concern itself with little beyond a large class of superhumans and their fantastical existence. I suspect there's a significant correlation between that and the continuing cultural  peripherilisation of the superhero comic - Colin Smith

Amanda Waller is one of the strongest characters in all of comics, she was as powerful as an non-superpowered character given center stage could possibly be, a perfectly designed character from which an entire corner of a shared universe was developed out of with her as the center making it work, but as the room for civilian casts and unpowered protagonists got smaller and smaller, so did Waller's options. If she was a Spider-Man character and somehow didn't get killed or made into a villain, they would have slimmed her up and given her a symbiote, because you're nobody unless you're web-swinging. Characters didn't look or act like Amanda Waller, and unfortunately, they still don't. It's just instead of making more characters like her, they gutted Waller to be more like the rest. If she couldn't make it, who else even could.

Keep your eyes peeled for this summer when she'll team up with two meaningless robot baddies to burn down the Justice League and I guess the universe for the next reboot or something.

[andavs]

do you have any ideas for how you want eddie's arc to play out? this crazy spec is making me nervous too and i need some reassurance lol

Lol you're in luck because my ideal version I've come up with is the super boring one that no one I follow wants to see!

For me, the absolute best case scenario is that he’s seen Kim once or twice since they had dinner but he feels guilty about it and he’s acting cagey because he knows this is objectively weird and bad, so Buck clocks something’s going on.

If Buck and Kim have a scene, then maybe Buck sees them out together and approaches them so Eddie knows he’s caught and he can’t keep avoiding it. They talk about it and Ryan does some amazing face acting.

I have no idea how much Eddie we'll see in this next episode, but Step Nine is about making amends so Eddie comes clean to Kim and she’s obviously like what the actual fuck, but maybe there’s a moment before they part where she says “say to me what you’d say to her” and Eddie does get some kind of closure because Shannon died with so much left unsaid between them.

I would love to see Eddie break the fuck down about it when he's not alone on a beach, in a way we never saw him do with Shannon. He felt like he had to be the strong and stoic husband with her who never showed weakness, but now he's not that person anymore.

Then the next episode would be the Diazes in town for Chris’ eighth grade graduation or something and they’re all excited to meet Marisol but Eddie’s still all messed up and feeling so guilty. I could see his mom or someone really sincerely telling him how much happier he seems to really drive home that he wasn’t happy with Shannon and everyone around him could tell—and he's currently miserable so what the hell did it look like back then?

He does end things with Marisol, either by telling her what happened with Kim or just explaining that he’s still working through Shannon’s death and he’s not being fair to her. I'd try to come up with a scenario where Marisol gets to be angry and lay into him about this, but they haven't developed her character enough for me to really care how she feels about it. She's a lamp in a habit.

And then Eddie's free and available for whatever they're going to do to us in the finale!

I know this is ignoring whatever bombshells Ryan talked about, but if it gets much more twisted and weird than that, I honestly have no idea how they’d fit it into their usual three episode structure without ignoring a massive pile of very concerning mental health issues that exploded very suddenly.

[likeshipsonthesea]

i had feelings and wrote this post about shannon and i didn't wanna confuse it w eddie stuff but as she is ultimately a character in eddie's story i also wanted to go into the implications of this for eddie

do i think eddie was a bad husband? yes. does this make him a horrible irredeemable man who should take a vow of celibacy to protect the world from the burden of his romantic love? no.

but i think it's important that eddie actually deals with the reality of his relationship with shannon. i think we've got a start with this arc, and all the things he said to kim, but even then he starts out saying shannon was "the love of [his] life" when bestie, you didn't even know her.

they met in high school. they got pregnant unexpectedly and married just as fast. and then eddie left and they didn't know each other outside of a screen and brief visits for five years, then eddie was full of trauma and shannon's mother was dying, and then another two years apart, and then they were back together but didn't really talk outside of christopher.

by the time eddie re-proposed, he knew shannon as christopher's mother. that's it. he had no idea she wouldn't want another proposal. he heard "pregnant" and immediately went back to his 18-21ish self who knew nothing more than Responsibility. he didn't know shannon wouldn't want that. he didn't know anything about her--or at least, the audience didn't. where did she live? what did she do for work? what were her interests? from the beginning, the narrative--and eddie--treated shannon like a mother-shaped ghost to flit into and out of eddie's life.

and right as eddie was forced to look the truth of his and shannon's relationship in the eye, she died. how is he meant to consider all the nitty gritty rough edges and centers of their relationship through the rose-colored veil of grief?

i get why eddie hasn't tried to de-tangle all these feelings. it feels like he's shitting on shannon's memory. but i don't think eddie will ever be able to give himself to anyone until he realizes how formative his relationship with shannon was in all the wrong ways.

i'mma be bold here and claim: eddie didn't love shannon towards the end. he didn't KNOW her. he was happy to play family with her until she thought she might be pregnant again and then he immediately thought Pregnancy=Propose=Responsibility. it wasn't out of love for who shannon was as a person, it was out of responsibility.

and the shannon eddie married would've said yes, as she presumably did when they got married the first time. but the shannon of s2 didn't want that, a marriage of necessity. she knew herself enough to know she couldn't devote herself to eddie as a husband and christopher as a mom at the same time, and she chose christopher. i think eddie loves her for being christopher's mother, the way michael loves athena even though he isn't In love with her, but i don't think eddie knows the difference.

eddie thinks romantic love is responsibility and tradition and expectation and christopher's mother. he's learned how to live for himself and be better for himself but he hasn't learned how to LOVE for himself.

this doesn't keep him from making incredibly selfish decisions, like leading kim on or treating his love-interests like sex-giving mother machines, but i digress. eddie has learned how to break out of the roles he's played--perfect son, army hero, self-sacrificing single dad--but he's never stopped to think about the role he plays in a romantic relationship and the feelings that come along with it.

the kim arc is forcing him to look all of this straight-on and i love it. i hope they take it further. i need eddie to reckon with the fact that he and shannon failed each other, and that she wasn't the great love of his life because he didn't actually know her well enough to be in love with her at the end. i need eddie to look at how he acts as a husband/boyfriend and realize he's fucked up, to acknowledge how he's made bad choices and decide to make better ones.

eddie has so much to give, and i think he can make someone really happy if he manages to break out of the Husband role he's learned and really give himself truly to someone. and hopefully, it'll make him really happy too.

[aphverse-confessions]

things i want from ms s7:

- michi returns and crashes the aarmau wedding

- vylad has his main character era where he has to play detective and figure out what's wrong with his family and what exactly went down on starlight because everybody is too traumatized to say what happened (dante & laurance are the watson to his sherlock)

- the shadow knights return for one last slay

- jenny returns and oddly enough becomes besties with aphmau (jennymau toxic yuri ftw. come on, aphmau literally saved the world, she should be allowed to cheat on her fiancee with women as a treat)

- MORE TRAVIS AND AARON INTERACTIONS. the parallels are there! they could bond over being cursed souls and their messy relationships with their (deceased) fathers.

- kimcinda becomes canon. fight me. lucinda and kim are gfs. also emmalyn leaves kim's body and moves onto the afterlife with kenmur and mcd aphmau.

- nana reveals her past and her real name to the rest of the cast. she finally leaves behind her "kawaii~chan" persona, and searches for who she truly is, possibly going on a quest to track down her family with zane.

- make garrance at least implied or give garroth any boyfriend. we deserve one genuine mlm relationship that isn't just played for laughs.

- teony and ivy also return bc i said so.

- zack has a redemption arc and reconnects with aphmau ofc.

- ein's mom shows up as a villain, seeking revenge for her son's death. but when she sees how hurt and sad everybody is, she feels bad and doesn't have the heart to hurt them any further. she also finds out how much pain and suffering her son has caused to everybody, and begins to feel guilty because of how she raised ein.

- ein's ghost haunts the cast and possesses several characters. they eventually have to appease his spirit because it's the only way to get him to leave them alone and put his soul to rest. ein's spirit has very long conversations with all of his enemies — aphmau (they find out they're half-siblings which makes them both feel a mixture of disgust and sadness), aaron (they finally find one thing they can agree on, they both hate their dads, and put their rivalry to rest), blaze, daniel, dottie, rylan, kacey, katelyn, kai, gene, zack and his own mother. [+possibly an ein backstory in flashbacks/animation to finally explain his motivation in detail]. ein finally moves on to the afterlife (HELL ofc).

- elizabeth starts off as the main villain of the season. you think she's gonna do evil stuff and kill people like michael and ein did, and then BAM — halfway through the season she has a reluctant change of heart and semi-redemption arc (with zack's support) and ends up an anti-hero instead. she reunites with her family. katelyn is not happy to see her at all and is still very angry at her. but kacey warms up to her much quicker surprisingly and they spend quality mother-son time together.

- all in all pretty peaceful season with depressing undertones. it's like early, slice-of-life mystreet and late, dark mystreet fused together. there are a lot of red herring villains (michi, ein's mom, elizabeth), but none of them actually do anything evil and all of them have a change of heart. nobody dies.

- the void consumes everything. but the cast ends up creating a new dimension (with the help of the void paradox cast!) and uses the realm breaker to transport themselves into it just before the mystreet dimension is consumed and dies off. the series ends with aphmau and co swearing to build a better world in the new dimension they have created.

.

[westofessos]

So I just finished Gilmore Girls for the first time and boy, do I have some thoughts:

First of all, I love this show so much. More than I ever thought I would. It’s just so comforting. I totally get it now.

Now, for specifics.

Lorelai:

I love Lorelai. She does make some dumb choices, but in the end, she’s just so loveable and fun, I can’t help but adore her.

Rory:

I do not get the hate I’ve seen for Rory! Yes, like her mom, she makes stupid decisions, but she’s so wonderful. Maybe it’s just because I relate to her so closely, but I love Rory so much.

Luke:

Ughhhh I love love love Luke. He’s so unexpectedly hilarious sometimes?? I did not foresee that when I started. Scott Patterson is also strangely one of the best actors on the show, which I also did not expect. Luke is a gem, we love him.

Luke & Lorelai:

How could you not love these two together? They’re absolutely perfect for each other and the pining, especially on Luke’s part, makes for incredible television. I do think their dynamic kind of lost the really special ‘will they, won’t they’ tension after season 1/2, but I still ship them. So glad they ended up together. When she was still with Christopher near the end of season 7, I got a little worried.

Paris:

PARIS IS GAY. I will accept nothing less. She is queer in some way, whether she’s a lesbian or bi. She had absolutely no chemistry with any of her love interests but so much with Rory. Also she’s just amazing all around. I fucking love Paris. Make her queer, cowards.

Lane:

How could you not love Lane? She’s the absolute shit. Cool, supportive, loyal, and a fucking rockstar. I didn’t mind her with Zach to begin with (even though I thought it was a bit strange how they all of a sudden liked each other), but when they got married and had kids, that was a big nope for me. Lane Kim deserved to be a famous rockstar.

Emily & Richard:

I went back and forth on these two. On one hand, they’re very entertaining characters and I do believe they’re trying to do what they think is best, but on the other, I think in the end they do more harm than good. The way they dismiss Lorelai’s trauma, and completely disregard everyone else’s opinion because they assume they automatically know what’s best, just rubs me the wrong way. Not to mention the manipulation and the going behind people’s backs. I think there should’ve been an arc at the end where they finally listened to Lorelai and acknowledged what they’d done and tried to change for the better.

Sookie:

Melissa McCarthy is great in everything, and this is no exception. She’s so sweet and lovable, and such a good friend to Lorelai. I love her. Plus her relationship with Jackson is just lovely.

Michel:

He’s such a sarcastic bitch and I love him. I think that’s all there is to say.

The Townies and Side Characters:

Kirk - Kirk is maybe the funniest part of the show and such a little sweetheart, I love him so much.

Babette - aka the best neighbour ever. We deserved even more of her and Morey than we got.

Miss Patty - same goes for Patty! We need more Patty!

Taylor - annoying and obnoxious but the show wouldn’t be the same without him. Irreplaceable.

Gypsy - again, we needed more!! Gypsy was so funny and I just wanted more!

April - I love April! She’s so sweet. I don’t, however, like what her arrival did to Luke and Lorelai’s relationship, and I fucking hate Anna.

Christopher - I don’t hate him, but he’s definitely not one of my favourites. I think it would’ve been a lot better if he and Lorelai had just been really close friends, or if he had just been fully out of the picture.

And finally, the boys:

Dean:

FUCK. DEAN. Do I need to say more? He’s a toxic, possessive, asshole and I hate him. He was okay in the beginning, but the ‘50s episode really clinched my hatred for him. Huge nope from me. What a dick.

Logan:

Man, do I hate Logan. Obviously not as bad as Dean, but he’s such a douchebag!! I genuinely cannot stand him or put up with any of his bullshit. I thought he would grow on me as the show went on but no, I only hated him more.

Jess:

Best for last. My love for this man knows no bounds. Obviously the best fit for Rory, I love them together, but also his relationship with Luke is so great. Also, justice for his and Rory’s relationship while they were dating!! Why did we only get to see it when shit hit the fan? They kept mentioning how they were going to hang out, that they were meeting up later on, so why didn’t we get to see any of it? Why did we only get to see them when Jess fucked up? I hate that. I also hate that they didn’t end up together, even when Jess grew and changed and bettered himself. Anyway, I just love him. I could talk about him forever.

A Year in the Life:

They tried to fit 22 episodes worth of Gilmore Girls into 4 episodes, and it didn’t work. The first episode did an okay job, and I did kind of love the last episode (the wedding!), but the middle two were. . . yikes. No theme song/opening titles? No transitions? NO SOOKIE EXCEPT FOR ONE SCENE AT THE END? Michel thinking about leaving the inn and Lorelai being abandoned by both of her friends? No Jackson? Rory being with an engaged Logan? Basically no Jess except for a few scenes, one of which broke my heart? I could go on forever.

That being said, they should make more after the cliffhanger they left us on. I’ll take whatever I can get, even if it’s subpar.

Anyway those are just a few of my many thoughts about this show. I can’t believe I waited until now to watch it. I need someone to talk about this show with so if you see this and want to talk, DM me.

[homestuck-fanauthor-coalition]

The Good, The Bad, and The Alternative (515450 words) by Madam_Melon_Meow, sarcasticcelery

Chapters: 39/? Fandom: Homestuck Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Nepeta Leijon/Equius Zahhak, Sollux Captor/Aradia Megido, Eridan Ampora & Feferi Peixes, Kanaya Maryam & Dave Strider, Rose Lalonde & Rose's Mom | Beta Roxy Lalonde, Dave's Bro | Beta Dirk Strider & Dave Strider, Beta Kids & Beta Trolls, Jade Harley & Rose's Mom | Beta Roxy Lalonde, Dad Egbert & John Egbert, Kanaya Maryam/Vriska Serket, Eridan Ampora/Dave Strider Characters: John Egbert, Rose Lalonde, Dave Strider, Jade Harley, Becquerel (Homestuck), Kanaya Maryam, Vriska Serket, Karkat Vantas, Terezi Pyrope, Aradia Megido, Tavros Nitram, Sollux Captor, Gamzee Makara, Eridan Ampora, Feferi Peixes, Nepeta Leijon, Equius Zahhak, Virgin Mother Grub (Homestuck), Vriska's Lusus, Gl'bgolyb (Homestuck), Dad Egbert, Rose's Mom | Beta Roxy Lalonde, Dave's Bro | Beta Dirk Strider, Aurthour (Homestuck), The Condesce (Homestuck), Serenity (Homestuck) Additional Tags: inspired by Kim Harrison’s The Hollows, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Humanstuck, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Human Lusii (Homestuck), Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Demigods, Vampires, multi POV: all beta trolls & humans, The Horrorterrors (Homestuck), Non-Abusive Dave's Bro | Beta Dirk Strider, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, Violence, Magic, Aged-Up Character(s), the kids and trolls range between 16 and 20, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Vriska Serket has PTSD, Memory Loss, Scars, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Plot Twists, Unreliable Narrator, Rose Lalonde and Dave Strider Are Not Related, Skaianet Laboratories, beta guardians are not alpha kids and troll parents are not ancestors, monsterstuck, Break Up, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Ship Tags Will Update As They Become Relevant, Good Person Gamzee Makara, Suicide Attempt by Proxy, Dissociation, Victim Blaming, Abusive Parents, sexually active teenagers, Underage Drinking Series: Part 1 of Monsterstuck: Suburban Catastrophe Summary: Three years ago, on John Egbert's birthday, the world ended. Three years ago, Jade Harley and Vriska Serket vanished alongside billions of others. Three years ago, the apocalypse arrived, transforming everything and revealing much that was hidden to those who remained. Three years ago, the meteors (mostly!) missed Houston, and that's where John's headed today. In Houston, Rose Lalonde searches for washed-up traces of magic, warily overseen by Kanaya and her old friend Dave. In Texas, the newly dubbed "alternatives" maintain a newfound alliance with the humans they saved--and a wary truce with the Hunter forces that once kept all these creatures of fable and fairytale a secret from the world of man. And here, in Houston, the world is about to change once again. An urban fantasy monsterstuck AU featuring the beta kids, beta trolls, and their guardians. Updates every other Weekend!

~~~~

Written by the founder and her fiance (aka our other admin), we are once again boosting this fic to you all! If you are a fan of fantasy stories, if you think rosemary deserves a divorce arc, or if you're a big fan of Vriska being handled with nuance, you should check this out! their blog is @thegoodthebadthealternative

[excaliburofficial]

Thoughts on the anime being better than the manga?

maybe this is a hot take but I dont really think one is better than the other tbh.

The anime overall has less character development (we get like none of Soul's backstory, Black*Star's arc feels really short in comparison to me, and Kid gets literally none of his arc at all) and the whole thing ending with Maka punching Asura in the face is a major L. The anime also doesn't resolve anything with the witches and it ends with the witches still just being like... evil. the status quo is still being completely upheld by the end of it. Like yeah they defeat the Kishin, but other than that everything in the world remains unchanged with no major impact other than everyone was just a little more crazy for a little bit.

I have a lot of things to say also about a couple of specific things that happen in the Soul Eater anime that don't in the manga beyond just that, but I think all of that is for a separate time because it's... a lot and ties more in with the kind of story I wish Soul Eater- anime and manga both- could have been instead of actually like comparing the anime and the manga and I'll get way out of hand if I go on about it lol

But there's things that I like in the anime better than the manga. Tbh I think the anime handled Crona way better and I actually really like what they had for them in the anime! I also really like Stein's whole thing in the anime (I don't know if I like it better than the manga though because it's been a while since I've read the manga and I don't remember Stein's arc in it that well). I also think overall, with all things considered, the anime does a pretty good job of working with what it had to wrap things up neatly even if I have issues with it, and if it didn't end with Maka just punching Asura in the face I think it would be more satisfying overall even if I think it could be better.

The manga has some really cool stuff in it, and I like the developments that we get. I really like Black*Star's arc in the manga, we get to see more things with Kim and Ox and Kilik and that whole gang which I really enjoy, and Kid's arc is like my favorite thing in the manga. I also like that we get to see that Asura is also Lord Death's son, I think it adds a lot of stakes. and I especially also like the treaty with the witches, and also Lord Death's uh... death. it really changes the story from being about upholding the status quo to being one where the world changes because of this conflict in major ways and leaves the world open ended to a lot of change and progression instead of just going back to a normal where an entire group of people (witches) are being hunted.

But with that being said, the more I think about it the more the manga leaves me just... wanting. Like I want it to be better. Liz, Patty, and Tsubaki don't get half the development I think they should have, and I think Crona's arc in the manga is garbage. I really would have preferred a more empowering arc of Crona doing the hard work of overcoming their trauma with Medusa and righting all of the wrongs of not just themself but their own mom in a way more similar to the anime and I think the story would have been stronger for it.

I also hate that the manga ends with a boob joke and it irritates me the more I think about it. Like, yeah, Soul Eater was always a shounen with fan service, but for that to be the note that it decides to end on just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Like, Hey! We know we dialed down the horniness a lot in this story, so here's a really stupid bit about boobs to make up for it! Ugh it's exhausting

Very minor note also but the progression of the art style in Soul Eater like... idk if it disappoints me necessarily but I feel like it lost a lot of its edge. I still enjoy a lot of the art in the later chapters (its nothing like the art on the perfect editions don't even get me started on that) but in general it feels to me like Ohkubo's art went in a much more marketable direction and took a lot less risks in terms of style. But that's really here nor there and I'm not sure why I brought it up because it's not really a point of comparison for the anime because obviously any anime is going to have more consistent art direction than a manga but I brought it up so here's a whole paragraph about it i guess

TLDR: I think both have their merits and there's things that I like better in both that I wish the other did also Ohkubo should give me the rights to Soul Eater so I can remake it

[vyvesvi]

boys planet initial pick list

supporting blindly:

uehara ichika

he's just a good guy (and a bit of a gag character tbh) but he's a good singer and a good entertainer. i actually really wanted him to transition to rapping based on this clip - the sing rap style really suits him (he wrote a short rap about being compared to his younger brother, jun, who's a member of the jpop group orbit). do i think he fits kpop or this group at this point? no, but i hope he can grow a fanbase and then transition into acting. fun fact: he's now been the oldest contestant on two survival shows (b. 1992, chuang 2021 & now boys planet). on chuang he often took on the father/caretaker/translator role, and i suspect that if he gets screentime boys planet will be similar.

zhang shuaibo

he's hu yetao coded. iykyk. through him yetao will be avenged 🙏 he's '02 line which is the youngest i will actually support tbh. linked here is his cover of somi's dumb dumb, which he ate in my humble opinion.

probably a pick:

kim jiwoong

b 1998. great singer, serving face, popular. was in a bl??? idk but ill be keeping track of him for sure. ex-inx i think? apparently he was in the drama onlyoneof made an ost for. i have no idea what he's singing here but it's a serve.

chen jianyu

he's attractive, and not a child (b. 1998). the only rapper i expect to be supporting. my new rule is no rappers unless theyre also visuals or actually good enough to carry a whole solo career a la woodz/cho seungyoun. we'll see.

hui

hui needs no introduction. but i will say based on current response im not expecting him to have a yujin arc. they picked the most terrible photo of him ive ever seen in my life. good luck and godspeed cousin. (b 1993)

will pay attention to:

hiroto

he was on chuang (and pd101 japan which i havent watched). tbh i didnt really care for him on chuang but i actually dont mind him now. he's a good dancer, decent singer, and he'll bring lots of mom fans from china lmfao. im hoping that he's grown a bit in the past year and a half. i'd really like to see him more comfortable socializing and showing his personality. (b 2002)

wumuti

my friend liked him on under19. he's not a bad singer or dancer, plus he was about to be in u19 debut group until he had to leave the show, so im curious about him. (b 1999)

sung hanbin

he's the theme song center, although i still havent watched tbh. he's decent looking, a good singer, and he has a lot of stans already lmfao. apparently his actual strength is dance, which is a plus (this time around im also anti dancers whos only position is dancer. u need to sing and/or be attractive. no dozens in 2023). (b 2001)

seo won

idk. he has a good face, and isnt a child (b 2000). a member of nine.i. i saw some videos of him performing and he seems solid!

lee seunghwan

b 2000. beat the ugly profile photo curse and i love that for him. pretty good vocalist, but from the little i've observed (u19 and 1the9 clips) he makes a lil stank face when performing that doesn't help him. we'll see!

wen yechen

b. 2000. a singer who SINGS!!! he sounds veryy good here but he feels veryyy marked for flopdom tbh. ex jyp trainee, ex-ywy

xuanhao

b 1995. we love hags perfectly reasonably aged young people pursuing their dreams!! (tentatively trying to cut hag out of my speech we'll see if it sticks). idk i just liked him face. not like he's hot more like i like his vibe. seems to be a dancer.........if he's useless at singing i might have to drop him 😭 lso seems destined for flopdom.

min

b 2000. another one who just has good vibes. was on u19 as well.

assorted pics:

l → r: seowon, seunghwan, yechen, and xuanhao

two pics of min. la dualidad de ser

[bcbdrums]

What are your thoughts on Gill? Do you think he could've been an better enemy for Ron then Monkey Fist if he appeared in more episodes? And lastly, would you have liked to see a teamup of those two against Ron?

i feel like they finished his story as far as character development went. they established he wasn't reformed, enjoyed being a mutant... and they finished the story as far as how he assisted in ron's development too. what else would they do with it that grows either character?

the more notable impact i think is the continued establishment of the KP world as a place where genetic manipulation is common. gill and ron mutated by the lake... kim turning into a monkey... amy mutating animals and humans things with the flip of a switch... camille leon's shapeshifting abilities... and of course, monkey fist as a hybrid human/chimp or whatever he is (and later amy herself as a gorilla). aaaaand drakken getting fused with semi(?)-sentient plants of his own creation.

it's not an aspect i enjoy, personally. i don't like human genetics being messed with. however for the fanfic writer there are endless possibilities here. you can imagine anything at all... such as aviarius really being part bird or something. or come up with new villain OC's, maybe an escapee from amy's lab or something... give ron some sort of PTSD after his transformation incident if one wants to go that route.

but no, i think MF was the much better character to suit ron's arc because with gill, it was just summer camp horror. and we were stuck there at wannaweep, and it was the only venue for the story to take place. meanwhile with MF... world travel... japan for ron since he has the powers... meeting yori, sensei... having his own villain in fukushima... and ron's fear of monkeys is something that can come out more in more settings, and the overcoming of that fear, than the bad summer camp experience.

now the summer camp thing itself, not even talking about gill, can lead into more of ron's development. why was he sent to a camp at all? why'd his mom really stop accepting his calls? you can draw a LOT of ron development from that childhood background incident than from the incident with gill.

all that said... far more creative writers than me have taken gill to new heights, and i am absolutely here for it!

[consumeronionbulletin]

Moving (2023)

Take seven episodes of Korean X-Men fanfic, add four episodes of spy stuff, a pinch of Korean gangster nonsense, mix well, and you have recipe for a pretty good superhero show.

The final three episodes of janky CGI fight scenes let me down at the end, though.

What Worked

The high school story that made up the first half of the show was delightful. Just a fun mix of YA tropes and the good kind of mutant superhero nonsense. I also liked the whole secret agent assassin thing playing out in the background as well.

And every single character actor was fun and interesting, this was a show that made sure to treat its secondary characters well.

What Didn't Work

And then the secret agent nonsense started taking over the entire show, and the plot got pushed to the side in favor of five episodes of backstory for every single grownup on the show, and then it got frustrating. I still liked alot of it, especially the meet cute between Bong-soek's parents, but we needed half as many episodes of it.

Also, that gang war plotline was just completely drawn out and gory and unnecessary. It made me dislike Hui-soo's father quite a bit. At least the past version of him.

The show's worst fault, though, was that dang three episode long fight sequence at the end (intercut with backstories on every single person in the fight). This series only had about 12-14 episodes worth of story, and they squeezed out 20 of them.

The series just gradually gets worse after episode seven, to the point where I was skipping scenes by episode 10, and even most of episodes 13-14. It's a case of not enough story and also too much backstory. That kind of thing works better in comics and/or webtoons, but does not work for a TV show.

The Performances

There's too many characters here to cover all of them, but they did a good job of making them (mostly) interesting.

Han Hyo-joo as ("secret agent mom") Lee Mi-hyun. I loved her. The character was well written and the superhero abilities were at the level where they could do creative and interesting things with Mi-hyun. Han Hyo-joo gave a good performance, but she was given a darn good character to play.

Ryoo Seung-bum as ("super hero assassin") Frank. Another interesting character played very well. He somehow managed to feel dangerous even when his only real superpower was not dying. The action scenes with him just worked, which made the big janky stuff at the end of the series look even worse.

Lee Jung-ha as ("super hero / boy next door") Kim Bong-seok. For this series to work, you had to really like this kid, and the actor did a good job making me cheer for him. Which made all the episodes where he was missing harder to get through.

Youn-jung as ("strong girl") Jang Hui-soo. Another likeable actor with a great character. It's too bad they kind of pushed her to the side in the final episodes. And it wasn't a knock on the actor. Her character arc just finished early and then they made 6 more episodes and the writers didn't really give her anything. The bullying stuff she had to deal with at the beginning of the series was gripping to watch.

Zo In-sung as ("the amazing, flying") Kim Doo-sik. All of the scenes he played opposite Han Hyo-joo were great. The rest of his backstory was pretty good, but a little uneven.

Ryu Seung-ryong as ("human punching bag") Jang Ju-won. I liked all the stuff he did in the early episodes, and I disliked most of what he did during and after his backstory arc. His stuff with Hui-soo's mom was okay in execution though a little unoriginal.

Kwak Sun-young as ("Hui-soo's mom") Hwang Ji-hee. I've seen this actor before (notably in Hospital Playlist) and she did a good job here, especially some of the early romance arc with Jang Ju-won. But the plot itself was cliche, and they just kind of killed her off to make people sad rather than having it make too much sense. (Was the NIS behind it, or not? Does that really change anything?).

The Lightning Man / Bus Driver. Some of this was engaging in that "everyone has a story" kind of thing, but that guy should have been fired the first time he hijacked the bus to go on a rogue mission. For every cool thing they let him do, we had to slog through 4-5 uncool / depressing things, which is not a good ratio.

The High School Kids. They were mostly okay, though there was really no reason for the future youtuber and the grumpy bully to be hanging around those last few episodes. And they built up Class President kid in the start only to just have him be mostly useless. Even his dad's backstory was completely superfluous to the plot.

The High School Teachers. They should have just made them all straight up villains. It was kind of okay to make the one teacher somewhat redeemable, but we really didn't need as much of his story as we got. And what was up with that security guard?

The Gangster Crew. No thank you. Did not like. Completely useless and a little depressing, especially for all the episodes we got of them.

The South Korean Spy People. They were all pretty hate-able, and meant to be hate-able. There was some good material but they drew this whole plotline out so much that I stopped caring about them.

The North Korean Spy People. The writers did a good job of making them both creepy villains and somewhat sympathetic as well. But we got way too much backstory for what ended up being very little payoff.

TL; DR:

This is not a bad series overall, but if you feel like skipping episodes, or just leaving after episode 7, that's okay. If you go into the show expecting a webtoon / comic type story, and you actually liked that kind of thing, then you should be in good shape to finish it.

[satelitis]

SINCE I FINISHED COBRA KAI IM RANKING ALL THE CHARACTERS!!

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

Miguel Diaz — ♾️/10 i love him so much he is actually my boyfriend!!! <333 HE IS SO <3333 I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM

Johnny Lawrence— 9/10 he carried the show tbh, truely iconic

Daniel Larusso — 4/10 he was not it in this show, very judgy and annoying tbh…

Samantha LaRusso — 4.5/10 I had mixed feelings though the whole show…her and miguel were cute but she was not my favorite like Miguel just wanted prom to be about them but she just HAD to make it about her and Tory… also the fact she was the only girl on miyagi do and lowkey made it her whole personality was not it…

Eli “Hawk” Moskowitz — 7.5/10 I actually enjoyed his character and loved how he didn’t let kyler and the others get to him and found himself. DIDNT LIKE HOW HE WAS A BULLY TO DEMITRI AT ALL but then he had a redemption arc and actually came back and was a good person again and i respect him so much for it (also he was really funny ngl)

Robby Keene— 6.5/10 I loved Robbys character development throughout the show and how he grew with himself and learned to forgive Johnny throughout the series. HOWEVER there we quite a few moments that i was like DAMN how could he do that, like shaving off Hawks mohawk and legit screwing everything up for him and pushing the literal loml off a balcony when he was giving you mercy and didn’t want to fight anymore 😐 so there’s that. Nonetheless Robby still gets a 6.5

Tory Nichols — 9/10 i loved her way more than sam tbh. like she had way more character development and a reason behind her actions. payton list did a wonderful job with tory, and i feel like she will have such a big impact in season 6. i honestly loved her so much and can’t wait to see more of her

Kenny— 6/10 okay kenny i get you were bullied and shit and good for you for standing up to your bullies but he really thought he was all that and frankly he was quite annoying in my opinion.

Kyler , Terry , Kim — -27277228282828/10 I hate them i hate them i hate them i hate them no explanation needed.

John Kreese— 3.5/10 you see i have major on the fence syndrome with him cause i see what he was doing and he kinda had a redemption arc ig ig ig but like he was a bitch in the movies and like like like idk terry is WAY WORSE THAN HIM like IDK HOW TO FEEL ABT KREASE LIKE HE CARED ABOUT JOHNNY AND STUFF ANF WE FOUFNBTHAT OUT W/ THE FLASHBACKS HELP I FEEL IMA GET ATTACKED FOR RHIS 😭😭

Demitri — 8/10 he was very annoying at first and judgy but then he joined karate and found his confidence and then became a bad bitch so i personally love like s 3/4/5 demitri

Anthony Larusso — same with anthony he was a little annoying brat in the first 4 seasons and then hr pulled through in season 5 soooo 4/10 bc he can’t make up for it that much ykwim?

Moon— Marry me moon ilysm you’re the sweetest <33 9.5/10

Aisha — 10/10 she was a bad bitch i loved her so much she legit broke some kids nose and her , hawk and miguel are my fav friend group trio ever. she gave yas a front wedgie like she DESERVED enough said i love aisha <3

Rose— Yaya I love her so much she is such a funny character 10/10 i loved her so much she cared for Miguel so so much <33

Carmen — 11/10 she is so so so so amazing and a wonderful mom and i’m so happy for her and and Johnny !! she also cared for Miguel and is such a wonderful mother <33

Stingray — legit comic relief , legit annoying ass bitch 5/10 no words needed

Shannon Keene — 2/10 she abandoned robby BUT she is trying to better herself and take care of herself and try and be a good mother figure for robby

Yasmine — 1/10 is she dating Demitri , yes , was she a fat shaming bully who legit was a horrible friend also yes.

Amanda LaRusso — she isn’t Kumiko , but she was funny and is like one of the only characters with common sense 7.5/10.

Devon Lee— idk i don’t really have a big opinion on her?? so i’m just gonna give her a 6/10 cause she joined the Eagle Fang and kicked ass buttt she also kinda gave me off vibes when she was in Cobra Kai.

Chosen — Absolute bad bitch 9/10 , we stan chosen in this household. he dragged Terry and we’re here for it!!! I loved his character so much and boy can he dance.

@mictodii @juneberrie

[thescrapbookingscientist]

Biweekly Media Roundup

- Wednesday (TV) - I’m enjoying this so far. I’m pretty much always down for any premise revolving around a monster school, the mystery is pretty interesting, I like the overall aesthetics and costume design, and I do think the writers did a pretty good job with most of the central cast’s characterization. I have some complaints on the overall monster design and on Wednesday herself, who I think is fine as far as entertaining characters go but is callous to the point where I genuinely don’t understand why any of her peers would ever want to spend time with her, but as far as first seasons go it was solid, and there's always room for improvement later. It definitely stands on its own as a little murder mystery drama mini-series, though I do desperately want to watch the movies again now.

- Defunctland (Youtube Channel) - I don’t normally include Youtube videos here as I watch too many to count but Defunctlands latest documentary on the Disney Channel theme somehow made my cold heart feel things so here it is. 

- Chainsaw Man (Anime) - Finally caught up with the anime and uh. Holy shit. Makima was already a stand-out in a great cast of likable weirdos with her soft spoken voice and androgynous drip but seeing her full abilities in action was really something. Horrifying, well executed, adds so much mystery and intrigue to the show, an excellent addition all around. I am seeing why this series was so hyped up, as while it wasn’t quite what I was expecting it to be I’m definitely having a lot of fun with it. Excellent animation, a little bit of introspection, and some very cool monster concepts, I can definitely see this becoming one of my faves in the future, though it’s raunchy/occasionally gory nature makes it a show I wouldn’t recommend to everyone withought knowing their tolerance for those things first.

- Spy X Family (Anime) - Glad the tennis arc is over, I don’t hate this new love rival character but her and her schemes are far less interesting than Anya’s school issues and everything Yors got going on so I’m excited to get back to that.

- Mob Psycho 100 (Anime) - Not much Mob left, gotta savor it while I can.

- Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-Kun (Anime) - While I adore these characters, I’m not really liking this season as much as the last ones, I hope we get to a new arc soon and maybe get more background on the adult cast or get to see the kids just hanging out more. For this series I want more wholesome comedy not prolonged action tactics- there's nothing wrong with the latter but it’s just so much better at the former.

- The S Classes That I Raised (Webcomic) - Too bad this has such a small Western fandom, as I’ve been thinking about these little guys quite a lot this week. Han Yoojin’s mom energy is just incredibly endearing and the webcomic designs of Moon and Riette are very ...woman yes good musclular  strong arm woman I love mhhmm. I think I’ll make a compilation of Peace photos to put over on my monster blog as the artist really captures the adorable + chaotic little gremlin energy well with the little flareon-thing. This series has now joined my ‘constantly checking for updates’ list for the near future.

- Pokemon Scarlet and Violet (Video Game) - I haven't played this game, but I have been enjoying the character designs. Rika in particular has great casual butch energy. 

- Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint (Webnovel) - This has been here for a good chunk of the year but thanks to an audionovel version I’ve been catching up on it a lot. Just got a bit past the “Incarnation Kim Dokja will be killed by the one he loves the most” arc which sure made me feel things oh boy. I plan to binge read the whole novel over the holidays and let it break me like I know it will.

Listening to: Red Flags by Tom Cardy, Tot Musica by Ado, Shout Out to My Ex by Little Mix, Stay by Reinaeiry, People Watching by Conan Gray, Happy by P!nk, Comatose by Skillet, Fallout by Marinas Trench, All the Boys by Panic! at the Disco, Lent by Autoheart, A Good Song Never Dies by Saint Motel

[sirbarnb]

Jackpot Review

In the near future, a 'Grand Lottery' has been newly established in California -- the catch: kill the winner before sundown to legally claim their multi-billion dollar jackpot. When Katie Kim (Awkwafina) moves to Los Angeles, she mistakenly finds herself with the winning ticket. Desperate to survive the hordes of jackpot hunters, she reluctantly joins forces with amateur lottery protection agent Noel Cassidy (John Cena) who will do everything in his power to get her to sundown in exchange for a piece of her prize. However, Noel must face off with his slick rival Louis Lewis (Simu Liu), who also seeks to collect Katie's commission at all costs.

(Context: Last week, me and few of my favourite people were planning to travel the beautiful countryside of Yorkshire. But got lazy and watched some movies at my Best Friends house instead)

My friend reommended this movie after about 8 minutes of searching through movies to watch. It was difficult to find the right movie for the FIVE of us. But one of our friends, that none of us trust to take us the right way around her childhood home town nevermind trust her to pick a good movie. Said "My Dad was watching this and it looked good". Oh how wrong she was

Anyway, now to the actual serious review. It wasn't as bad as I'm making it out to be (I'm being fr, this isn't sarcasm. Or is it?????). Jackpot was a very mid movie. It's the kind of movie you watch with your friends in Primary School during a sleepover. Your Batman and Robin, your Disaster movie. For the more younger audience, they probably watch Madame Web and Morbius nowadays and tell everyone how skibidi the villain is and how Baby Gronk rizzed up Sydney Sweeney (god help us all)

John Cena was one of the highlights of the movie. His acting is consistant throughout his movies, he's not reeling in the energy for the paycheck. He genuinely seems to enjoy these kinds of movies and I'm all for it.

The action is the true highlight of the movie. I wanna know how much they paid the choreographer for this movie because they were genuinely really creative with the fight scenes. And it really helped move the story along from one predicament to the next that you would expect from a movie like this. The pacing was only so good because the action was good. Simu Liu, I wanna see more of in terms of a villain. He kind of somehow brought this calm creepiness to his role I think he could translate to a well scripted, doesn't take itself too serious horror movie and excel at it. This may be the bias talking because I have liked a lot of the projects he's been a part of.

Now, the negatives. There is a lot.

First of all. The concept was fucking stupid; *plot is about to be explained* You buy a ticket to a jackpot that is worth billions because the economy is fucked for the working class. But the twist is that if you kill the winner of the draw you can win the money yourself. Why not have it where at the end of 24 hours, whoever has the winning card, wins? You can have all the rules of the game and everything. It just then makes it much more interesting, cos it's longer, more difficult and it makes more sense in terms of the universe you have actually set up originally. Rather than just to help the plot?

Katie just screams the entire time. She's a modern day Kirsten Dunst. She has no arc, she's goes from being scared and terrified. To bold and brave, straight back to scared and terrified. What was the point of her other than to tell Noel (an actually interesting character)'s story. I feel like she could have had more of a part to play in the entire thing than what she actually had. What if her mother was the previous winner we saw at the beginning? And was hunting her own daughter to win the bigger prize? Or what if her mom is the one running the competition in the first place. So she has to wrestle with accepting her mom as a fucking psycho. Whilst also partially benfitting from all of this in the first place. Her mom just dying at the start of the movie doesn't do anything, doesn't help, at all.

*spoilers for the ending* How long does the competition last? Is it 24 hours, 2 hours? 8 hours? The plot states "the randomly selected winner must survive until sundown" but at no point of the entire movie, is it going dark!! It's noon, the entire movie. Also the final 2 minutes last about 6 minutes. Katie falling of the rocket takes about 2 minutes, even tho the fall is about 30 feet, at the least.

The final act is just messy. The comedy doesn't land most of the time. Katie's 'roommates' are just stupid and fucking insane for the sake of being insane. They could have explained that, but they didn't. Literally one piece of dialogue would have been fucking nice.

Overall, the movie is a messy comedy, that sometimes isn't really comedy. But it is fun and the action pays off for the bad writing. I would recommend this at a sleepover or movie night with friends.

5/10

[literatikoo]

Lane Kim deserved better

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I would only write Lane Kim meta when I am very very angry because I need to be powered by spite and petty energy to unravel exactly how much of a disservice this show was to Lane and by extension any Asian kid with a similar life. And, well, it's happening now, so buckle up kids, this is going to be a loooong ride because I have a lot to say.

Before we start on the negative aspects, the show got a lot of things about Lane right, which is why I care so much about her character. Yes, ASP obviously didn't know how to write a POC experience and it's seen in the way some very harmful stereotypes were propagated (the tiger mom trope, Mrs Kim's religious beliefs, the depiction of the Kim extended family etc) but at the same time Lane was beautifully written as a character, unlike her plot which left much to be desired. Lane Kim was an Asian girl with rock n roll dreams who had an extremely fraught relationship with her mother and had to fight for even a semblance of independence. And I hate to say it but a lot of daughters of Asian households are forced to hide a part of themselves from their families, so Lane's story was authentic.

Not only was Lane amazing as an individual, she was also a great friend. She was the only one who was really in Rory's corner; she never judged her and supported all of Rory's relationships (my favourite example of this is when she barely tolerated Jess in S2/3 and then did a complete 180 like 5 episodes later, all because Rory decided to finally accept she liked him). Lane never pointed out what Rory was doing wrong not because she was afraid of doing so but because the two of them had been friends for years and Lane believed that Rory would figure it out one day. Lane shows this unconditional kindness not only to Rory but to everyone. She takes in her Korean cousin and teaches her to have fun even when she's afraid that Mrs Kim has replaced her, she lets Gil be in the band because she empathises with him, she takes care of the band and prevents it from breaking up multiple times. And these are only a few examples of Lane being the kindest character on GG.

One of the best things in Gilmore Girls is that the most unproblematic, amazing guy is given to Lane. Dave Rygalski is the best love interest on the show hands down (Sorry to my boy Jess but Dave was LEAGUES ahead of him at 17) and Lane definitely deserved someone like that. Their story was adorable and I would have loved for them to be endgame. However, what grates me is that when I see people talking about Lane "deserving better," it's usually about Dave vs Zach. When Lane actually deserved better as a WHOLE and not only in terms of love interests. I always thought it made more sense for her to end up alone at the end of the og series. Because Lane was a person who craved independence and she was not going to get that while tied to some guy (even if that guy is boyfriend extraordinaire, Dave Rygalski). It's even worse when we see that Lane is the only female character on the show to be treated this way. Rory rejects marriage for her career while Lane ends up with marriage as her storyline. Lorelai and Luke get back together but their relationship is still left open ended, though arguably it would've made more sense if they got married when Lane and Zach did. Paris gets into Harvard Medical school and gets a great relationship, similarly Sookie gets the family she wanted and continues to be amazing at her job. But Lane... god Lane is the only one without an open ending, without any space for speculation of where her life might lead her. Not only did they marry her off, they also gave her a terrible first time and twins, effectively locking her to Stars Hollow. The show even cut down all hope of her being a rock n roll mom as one of her S7 storylines is choosing the kids over going on tour with Zach. She doesn't get to be her own person for more than ONE season; she's stuck with being a daughter and then a wife and then a mother.

Something else that angers me about Lane's storyline is that we never really get to see how badly her relationship with her mom affects her. Don't get me wrong, I adore Mrs Kim's redemption arc and I think it was beautifully juxtaposed to Lorelai and Rory's crumbling relationship, but having a mother like that is hard. Not only did Lane have to hide 90% of her personality from Mrs Kim but she also lived with the fact that one day she might have to choose between her dreams and her mother. In the end, Mrs Kim makes that choice for her and deals with it by kicking Lane out in S4, and yet we never really see how that negatively affects Lane. Hell, Jess acts like a broody teen for two seasons, Rory wastes six months of her life away at the DAR and they both come out of it successfully. Lane gets kicked out, figures out her own living conditions, gets a job, works insanely hard for her band and... ends up having to give her dreams up completely.

Lane and Paris shared a lot of similarities too, even if they both had different friendships with Rory. They both came from terrible families and looked to Lorelai as a mother figure, they both cared deeply for Rory, and they were both incredibly passionate about their careers. Paris made calendars and flashcards and went crazy studying for both pre med and pre law. Lane was a walking, talking music encyclopaedia, she bought CDs obsessively and organised them by genre under her floorboards, she taught herself to play the drums and then found a band to play for. And yet... only Paris becomes successful in the end, whereas Lane takes over Kim's antiques. Lane was still a musician in AYITL and she can be rock n roll even with kids but this is all hypothetical and we never see it on the show.

There is a lot of terrible, lazy writing on the show and a lot of characters get ruined because of it but with Lane, her character stays the same, they just ruin everything else for her. I think she'll be an amazing mom and will probably make her best out of doing music casually. But the writers also took something so special and destroyed it just because Lane stopped being as important to the plot as she was in seasons 1-3. Lane and Rory drifting a little after Rory leaves for Yale makes perfect sense, that's just how relationships are, always changing. And yet as Lane's importance to Rory decreased so did her importance to the writers.

Lane wasn't the kind of character that needed character development or a redeeming character arc- she was never a bad person and nothing about her had to be fixed, unlike Jess or even Paris. All she really needed was for her dreams to come true because for the first 4 seasons her dreams were the biggest fixture of her personality. Like how Jess needed to overcome his trauma and Rory needed to figure out where she fit in and Paris needed to become a girlboss, Lane needed to realise her dreams because that's where her arc was leading her. But it just didn't happen. Instead, Lane becomes 2-dimensional; a large part of her screentime is taken up by Zach problems, her dreams fall flat and she becomes tied to Stars Hollow for the rest of her life. Not to mention we see less of Lane in favour of Logan and the dickhead posse.

This is not me hating on all the other characters I've mentioned in this meta, I'm just pointing out the lack of respect the writers have for Lane in comparison to all these other people who fulfilled the role they were made for. Why would you write Lane to have all these dreams and make her struggle so hard for 4 seasons just to smash them to pieces? And why is it that one of the only POC characters on this show is treated like this?

And you can't tell me the writers didn't know what they were doing, not when this is a direct quote from Lane in S7:

"It was such a small window -- a peephole, really. For years, I was this repressed kid, and then there was the briefest of windows. And then -- slam. All of a sudden, I'm this overburdened mother. I barely got to do it, Zach. I barely got the chance to be a person."

[itsmelb]

Welcome to my thoughts about KP Finale/ KP the Series

(Bare with me it's going to be quite long bc you can expect, I felt fucking everything!!!)🤭🥵❤️😭 SPOILERS ahead!

The Storyline

So everything came to an end. Somehow there are many open questions though (more later on that point). But I think they did it so perfect. It was heartbreaking, sexy, funny, murderous and a bit crazy. We feel everything at once.

Porsche gets his mother back (who seems sus to me???? What is up with her man? Aaah), Gun is dead (I don't know how to feel about that - mixed I guess.) Korn is soo sus I don't trust hin with everything. And I wanna slap his face for all of his lies.

I loved the 3 Brothers in one room, I loved VegasPeteMacau Hospital Hug thingy, I love Porsches struggle (heartbreaking!!!) bc we all can relate with situations that threw us out of our life, I love Kim/Jeff singing "Why don't you stay" to Chay, and he not deleting the video, I love the fight scenes, and I love that we got Mafia Kinn (holy shit hot!) and Kinnporsche Marriage (I call it that way don't come at me haha) and don't get me started on Vegas emotional damage and his redemption (kinda??) Arc... wow. What an episode 👏

Now diving in deeper..

2. The characters/relationships

- the bodyguards: damn those guys, I love them. I wanna see more of them. I wanna see ArmPol lovestory, I wanna get the dead ones back (Big redemption!!! Spinoff pls!!!) Arm and Thankuns blow ups were so fucking great in the ep, and oh lord Pete..

- the friends: I love Yok! I want more of her. Mama slay!!! And then there is TimeTay. I wanna see their story. (Tay deserves the world!!) I love them teasing Kinn and make KinnPorsche cringing haha. 😬

- the parents: you all suck man! Gun is an asset to Vegas. And okay we don't know why he is like that (ok his dad was also an ass and the Mafia is like crazy and he lost a lot of dearest people..) but it doesn't give you the right to do sth like he did to his kids. And Korn is not better either. Is acting all nice and friendly but is a fucking liar. "I wanna protect you" hahah funny. Darn u mf! And the Mom. Sth so off. I don't now yet but I (hope) we will soon!

-Chay: oh baby Boi! I am so lost with him. I want to see more of him and his music and happy and not suffering and I love and turned on for the first time ever and feeling everything.

- Kim: I fucking love him. And hate him. I wanna see him happy. I don't understand him sometimes.he is mysterious and hot and the fight scene damn. And his voice. Killed it. Literally. I want more of him and Chay. I want kisses, I want songs. All. (And what are his motives? He wants power obv and I am a little bit scared but sooo eager to find out!!)

#kimchay: so in the future when they hopefully get back together I wanna see more of them together. They were a little short. And I miss their sweetness btw all the Mafia sexyness haha. Chay makes Kim soft. And I love that. Also more songs! And maybe some kisses. :D

- Pete: damn. The scene were he resigns wow. My heart shattered. And all the scenes with Vegas....I uh. Cry again forever. He Is such a deep character and we haven't seen all of him I am so sure. I wanna see more of badass Pete (together with badass Vegas haha obv) man when he shot that man wow. I got goosebumps, and all the scenes in the previous eps. Wow. This man suffers and is so fucking wise I aaah!

- Vegas: I never thought he would be one of my favorite ones ever. But his Arc is so heart breaking and raging and full of Angst and sorrow. He deserves everything and I love the way he is free now (obv not really but objectively) I loved his scenes with Pete obv and with Porsche too.. I am excited to see how it will turn out that P is now Minor Fam King and he is not (although he wanted it so bad or had to do every for it..)

#Vegaspete: the ship that stole the show! Man their scenes are sexy, heartbreaking and hurting. I love their dynamic. And their full on fight mode, love that kills. It hurts and it's beautiful. I want to see more. Also with the fam now. Some soft scenes some new way for Vegas. So light (and ofc the darkness and sexyness always lingering around the corner)

-Porsche: he has a soft spot in my heart. I would forgive him nearly everything. And his look damn. I am glad he is getting in the near of the truth, and that his family is back. And that he has Kinn on his side. Forever. I wanna see more of Porsche badass Mafia boss vibes (I mean the suit entrance in the hallway man mf looks intimidating) give him all! Also his sweet side. Damn Heartbreaker! A true family man in the core. And a fucking sexy mf!

- (my beloved) Kinn: he is my favorite character. I love how powerful it was, when Korn "died" and he had to keep it together and be the boss, he was so cold there when he shot those guys. How hot was he sir. Wow. And then we sees his other soft side of him, when sb he loves is in danger or hurt. Man this breaks my heart. Also he is always so sexy. And horny ahha. With Porsche haha. Man I love his funny and little dump jokes. Wow. Could write more...

#KinnPorsche: the ones I fell so hard for at first, the ones that brought me to the show. Their everything is so good. I love the fights, the laughs the teasing, the love making, the power they hold (especially now. What a scene it was (see photo)) how beautiful they are. What a fucking mess they are. And how they fix each other every time. I am crying bc it hurts me to let them go (for now) bc I really love them sm. Mafia Family forever!

3. The Actors

The cast: I am in love with this cast. Never seen such a funny, heartwarming cast and how they are together. I love this mafia kindergarten. And how they are there for eo! We stan!

Tong: I love him sm. His character is so crazy and I love that. So thx! It was so fun!

Barcode: he is so cute and he can sing! I see some sassy moments in interviews. I know he will be a great actor. I am so excited when we see him with more emotions (the crying man killed me sm!) And action with everyone.

Jeff: I really fell for him and his music. How can sb be so sexy. (This fight scenes in the bar lord have mercy) I wanna see how he acts soft and love dovey with Barcode/Chay. I want more songs. I love his smile.

Build: how is he so good at his job. The emotions everything I cried so much with him. He deserves the world. He stole so many scenes. Bc he is so talented oh lord. I want to see more of him!!

Bible: my huge respect for him. All was new for him and even the language! I love his English! I love his effort. His perfection his look. I cant say more bc he makes me speechless. Wow.

#Biblebuild: those friends (or what they are) their scenes together kill me every time. I wish them all the best. Nobody deserves them. They are so golden! Scene stealers! For ever in love with them!

Apo: the greatest there is. His eyes. Wow. How he acts. How he is as a person after all he went through. Man he deserves only good things. I love how he is a force if energy and smiles but is like very deep with thinking and explaining. That is sth I do too. And I love to see sb is like that too. Miss his presence from now on!

Mile: puh. Do I have to say sth anymore? He is smart, kind and how he looks. And he made it all possible. And he is so shy and funny and also so open to the world. We all should praise him. All he is doing. Man. I will forever love him. He is the perfect Kinn.

#MileApo: there is sth so addictive about them together I can't even explain... I just love everything they give us. And their trust in eo. ❤️😭

The producers/crew: thx for everything! Without you it would not be possible! I love Ponds Ideas of water and pools ahah and all his mind is so good! Thank you!!!

4. What the future may holds...

I hope we get a season 2. I think they can't break our hearts don't doing one (or infinite) more season(s) (pls 🤭🤭) I know the expectations will be high. So fucking high. But I will take all. Everything! Just give them back to me!

What is with the parents? What is the truth? We have the bad version, the half good version and a version from a Boi who doesn't remember well. So...and what will that do to KinnPorsche? What is with VegasPete family moments? Give it to me!! And Kimchay obv. All!!

The world tour is there and I am excited to see content from everywhere.

5. My personal conclusion

I never thought I would fall head over heels fora BL series. I never watched one before (see some snippets ofc but not much) and then KP the series came and the rest is history. It was the best show ever. And I read all the time that they did so good and everyone who loves BLs are agreeing that this is a huge milestone for the genre. So. Thank you KP Family for everything! Edits, gifts, trending all over the world. It was fun. And it will always be. No legacy is as rich as honesty!🖤

Kinnporsche Family forever ❤️

(When you read this all! Your a real gem! Thx! Sry for mistakes, english is not my first language) ❤️