#like do not get me wrong i absolutely hate john but the nuances make it all the more delicious. he's not a cartoon villain

[angelsdean]

i love when canon dean talks back to john (because yea! he does that!) and tells it to him how it is and calls him out for never answering the goddamn phone and leaving them in the dark abt everything and when he proves he's not a 'yessir' mindless soldier and says "no sammy actually dad's full of crap" and when he acknowledges to himself in his own mind that john was a shit father and dean didn't deserve what was put on him and i love when complicated emotions pass over his face at the mention of john and his eyes dim a bit or he tries to smile but it doesn't quite reach his eyes and i also love that it's complicated and "he tried his best" but his best wasn't enough and dean knows it and he had to be a father and a mother and "i hate you. and i love you. because you're my [dad]" because yes that quote absolutely applies to john as much as mary bc dean is so full of love and he can and does both love and hate his parents. and i love when dean hugs john with tears in his eyes and looks like a little kid even at 26. even at nearly 40. and i love when he takes john's jacket and i love when he uses it as a blanket despite sleeping on a motel bed with blankets because despite everything that jacket was likely the closest thing to a comfort object dean had growing up and it always smelled like whiskey and leather and gunpowder but john draped it over them when they slept in the back seat of the impala and it wasn't enough, it was never enough, and it didn't really keep him all that warm, but it was something. and dean wears it years and years later thinking maybe he can find something of his father in the shape of that jacket. sometimes it feels like those hugs he rarely got after age four. and i love that when he's told john is right down the road, after drinking his shitty beer, he leaves to find a better version of his parents (and no doubt he's also looking for a certain angel) and i love that when he finds them, when he saves them, he looks at his 19 yr old father, who is not the man who hurt him, who may never become that man in this universe, and he smiles, and he wishes them well and he give his parents the tools to be better and write a better story. anyways, i love the complicated way dean both loves and hates his father

[hawkogurl]

in the genuine way possible, Why do you like Raimi verse MJ?

Would like a description of your thoughts.

So I just woke up (I know it’s 6PM I work night shifts) so this might not be as well verbalized as it could be. (Update: I put this in drafts and am now adding to it at midnight but I have had a day so prior warnings apply)

But for me, she’s a nuanced and flawed female character who isn’t given the credit for that she deserves and I think she kicks ass as a result. I don’t need characters I like to be good people, I need them to be interesting. She’s interesting.

But in terms of what people normally hate her for, I don’t really tend to agree for a variety of reasons. The main thing people get on her about is cheating, which is very much true, but that feels unfair when Peter also cheats! And he doesn’t see nearly the same amount of shit thrown at him that MJ does! (Wonder why that is?) Hell, he hits her while he has the symbiote but I barely see people bring it up. But on the note of her cheating, I don’t mind it because we’re given a reason as to why she’s got such bad commitment issues that I find interesting. She grew up in an extremely unstable home with a seemingly chronically ill mother and a verbally and likely physically abusive father. She’s a dysfunctional person for sure, but we as a community are more than willing to read into and analyze far worse behaviors in Peter, Harry, hell, people outright ignore Norman being an abusive father. It’s bs to me that she’s not given the same treatment. Shes someone who grew up in an unstable environment. Shes used to that. Her entire life in her formative years was that. As a result, the way I see it, she either gets into relationships with people who tend to continue not treating her well (Flash and to a degree Harry.) and when she’s in more stable relationships that hurt her less, (like John) I theorize that the reason she does so much to put them in jeopardy is that her, stability with men in her life is always something that has ended inevitably, but abruptly and probably violently. Being the one to destroy a relationship her trauma screams at her will inevitably end with her being hurt again gives her a sense of control.

And on top of that, I find her emotional responses to Peter’s behavior while he dates her extremely human! Sure, she definitely makes mistakes in how she handles it, but I personally absolutely hate the degree to which people ignore Peter’s own mistreatment of her. I’m not gonna claim she did nothing wrong, but people in this fandom have a tendency to remove responsibility or the ability to have done something wrong from Peter. At that point in the movies, Peter has everything going for him. His life is finally going well and as a result of his own inflated ego and the fact the world has revolved around him he sort of seems to forget that she has her own life and her own problems that she wants to be heard and understood and supported through. His ability to do that is one of the things that drew her to him in the first movie and she’s watching him as it becomes apparent he doesn’t really have that anymore. Everything in his life revolves around him and has for years, so when her life problems get brought up and he makes them about himself and remains somewhat unempathetic and so absorbed in his own joy he doesn’t notice how poorly she’s doing, I find it personally hard to deny that’s exactly how I would feel in that situation. I hate that people refuse to empathize with her, or when they do on a surface level they still refuse to acknowledge any blame Peter has there. Hell, I find it hard to deny that I’m irritated that it’s basically overlooked that Peter kissed another woman in front of her face but people will rip her to shreds for kissing another man one time. I’m not gonna say she didn’t fuck up, but I find the way she’s treated unfair and I frankly think the opinion wouldn’t skew the same if she was a man for both of these topics.

I also just like that she’s a person? She has emotions that feel real, she has a life and a career outside her relationship with Peter, she has compelling trauma that informs her decisions. I frankly find her to be a more nuanced and interesting character than MCU MJ or TASM Gwen simply because she feels more well rounded and flawed. They’re better and more likeable love interests, but I frankly think she’s a better character. Everything that people praise in them as something that makes them Better Than Raimi MJ either feels like rather shallow traits or things that feel somewhat misogynistic towards Raimi MJ, a character who they claim they don’t like due to misogynistic writing. No hate to those to ladies, I see the appeal to them and I think people should like them, but Raimi Mj has more depth to me.

In conclusion: To like a character I don’t need them to be a good person I need them to be interesting. Shes interesting. Also everyone in this trilogy, including Peter, is at least somewhat a bad person. So I don’t know why she specifically is being treated with so much less grace other than the obvious reason.

[gffa]

Oohh, you got a lock and loaded rant about Yellowstone that you would like to share? (Mine would be a simple note that it's hard to be interested when the writers can't stop jerking their main characters off and write some actual nuanced characters with different view point that leads to interesting conflict)

OH BOY DO I. I literally had to delete it from that previous post because I was going off on the same tangent as I've been going off on for the last week, but my basic problems with Yellowstone are: - With a handful of exceptions, the characters are all becoming the unfun kind of unlikeable and I’m not sure the show knows this - Characters standing around while others deliver zingers and don’t retort back can work occasionally to show when a character is overwhelmed, but too often it’s used just to jerk off the character of the scene and after five seasons of it I’m bored - And most severely: STOP MAKING ME WANT TO DEFEND JAMIE, I DO NOT WANT TO DEFEND JAMIE Do you know how hard a show has to fuck up for me to stop liking a character like Beth?  She is my JAM, a hot mess of a lady character who has all these hard, jagged edges, who is legitimately mean and cruel at times, but there’s such worth to her, in her soul, she has her massive internal world and motivations that drive her, she’s the kind you can peel back the layers on for days and still find more to talk about!  I loved Beth so very much. But then the show took this weird turn into making Jamie the villain and, like, yeah, he’s absolutely a shit, but the refusal of the narrative to recognize the things that I have seen the other characters do to him, is driving me batshit.  John fucked that boy up!!  John swings back and forth on whether or not he even really loved Jamie, like you don’t think Jamie felt that all his life?  Beth herself even says that John made Jamie into this and made him desperately want John’s approval and John hates him for it, and it’s like yeah!!! and then the show’s tone is like, “And that’s all Jamie’s fault.” because that’s the way Beth treats him. And it’s like.  Mr. Sheridan.  I’m begging you.  When Beth says to Jamie, “You hurt people and then blame them for being hurt, that’s evil, Jamie.” she’s 100% right and I get that the characters wouldn’t get the massive hypocrisy there, but YOU THE SHOW WRITER should be getting it, but it’s nowhere in there!   Or, like, Beth has repeatedly been wrong about Jamie (he wasn’t involved in the season 3 finale’s attacks on the family, but she was sure he was, etc.) but is still treated as being insightful and dead-on about seeing into how Jamie’s just a disloyal snake who was born evil or whatever. I loved the show back in the first couple of seasons, that moment when Jamie tells her, “If hating me keeps you from hating yourself, I can live with that.” like OHHHH that was some good, complicated, tasty stuff!  But this turn into not even acknowledging how deeply John fucked Jamie up and that Beth contributed to that (there used to be brief moments of Kayce commenting that Beth had gotten too twisted up about Jamie that made me think the show was still acknowledging it, but it’s been like 2+ seasons since then, it feels like) and I’m just. I DO NOT WANT TO DEFEND JAMIE, HE IS A SHIT, but I can’t stand how the writing has taken this turn into John and Beth being not at all responsible for this shitshow and it’s ruining even all their other scenes, because the show used to be pretty good at showing that, yeah, these characters were ALL fuckups, I am totally onboard for the show about characters who are all fucking awful and they all hurt each other!  But I think the show is trying to make Jamie evil in a way that’s not being earned and it’s driving me up the WALL because, like, now I have to spend time thinking about Jamie when I could have been doing anything else.

[dotthings]

For the lane comprehension challenged who thinks the entire prequel fan base is a groupthink, let me break out the complications on the prequel base's views on John Winchesters.

Yes this is so massively complicated I had to do a whole tumblr post about it. A complex situation keeps being simplified for cynical motives and concern trolling and I am tired of it.

Majority of the prequel base is anti-John, putting it bluntly. I’m saying that without salt, or hate. That's not an acrimonious statement. It’s a fact.

He doesn’t have a warmly passionate base to defend him (he does have a few intense apologists, which I'll get to in a second), and he wasn't written on the mothership series to be a protagonist hero easy to relate to like Sam, Dean, and Cas.

These are canon realities.

A lot of us didn’t like him during the main series run. Some of us liked him in early spn seasons, at first. I did. But even those who used to like him also recognized already he didn’t make the best decisions as a parent even then, and that he was a mixed bag, a complicated figure for Sam and Dean, and not "just doing his best." He did harm.

As a fuller portrait of John and the personal costs to his children emerged, many views of John hardened even further. That was a response to canon. There is a difference also between having JDM on screen showing John's heart alongside the bad things, vs later seasons that revealed things about John but without him being on screen.

John was never a whole character. And he was always, purposefully, used as a shadow on the show, a cautionary tale, the thing Sam and Dean both at times were in danger of turning into. Someone eaten by vengeance, whose desire to protect those they love became twisted until he lost his heart, despite still loving, and lost sight of his own goals. His reason for doing this in the first place. It's complicated.

Now, within the prequel base there are fans very critical of John who also recognize Young John is different than his older self. These are not “John apologists.”

I am tired of things that are not John apologism being slapped with a label just because we're capable of comprehending actual nuance and that a younger version of the character isn't the same as what he became.

There are some, on the destiel side, so bitter about the prequel's existence, they will say anything to try to shade the prequel base. If we respond well to Young John, see his goodness, like him, see the tragedy of how he could get so lost, we'll get slapped with the "John apologist" label. They're already doing this. And willfully conflate fans with a more nuanced view with the actual John apologists.

We know there will be darkness in John, as per actor comments. But he will be different. Maybe we'll see hints of what's to come, but Young John isn't designed to be the same thing as mothership adult John.

We have met Young John in the mothership in fact. Played not just by Matt Cohen, we even have seen him played by JDM, briefly. The softer John. Right before the fire. And people didn't hate those younger versions. Something the concern trolls conveniently forget.

Within the prequel base there are a few Jensen stans who take a stance of “unconditional agreement with Jensen or else no matter what or else” perspective and as part of that they do outright John apologism that is actually toxic, a wholesale denial of what canon depicted, and designed to silence the majority of the prequel base who understands the canon with a nuanced eye. Because they perceive criticism of John as an attack on Jensen, because Jensen has defended John. But Jensen's take is a more nuanced one than either the anti-prequel concern trolling, or the absolutism that insists John did no wrong.

So the anti-prequel people want to create a false narrative that the entire prequel base is a bunch of John apologists when reality is a majority dislikes him. And the prequel base has fought itself over John, with Dean fans pitted against the Jensen extremists/John apologists.

Meanwhile Jensen himself has repeatedly acknowledged John’s shortcomings as a father and the damage done, while he has also defended him. But if you listen to Jensen, I mean really listen carefully to what he's saying, not just glib takes to try to maneuver it into whatever extreme stance you want to validate, what Jensen's been doing is two-fold.

1. he's trying to prepare his own base (which predominantly finds John upsetting) for Young John. That he's not all evil, and The Winchesters is going to show us a younger version who was different. Jensen is also in fact pleading with a fanbase that Jensen knows hates John but loves Dean to understand Dean. Jensen's own Dean base is the one most upset by John. And that's also a big part of the prequel base. So now he has to thread the needle. And I think he's aware how hurt Dean fans are and is trying to bridge that. Asking us to understand how Dean could idolize someone who also did so much damage, and how Dean could eventually rebel against his father and understand he has to be his own person instead of the person his father tried to force him to be, and have both anger and love towards his father. As much as I think Jensen was also merely doing a courtesy to JDM, as well, I think Jensen is also trying to bridge the divides and is being mindful of his Dean base.

[ploppythespaceship]

Superman & Lois Season 2 - Thoughts & Review

If I had to pick one word to describe this season, it would be uneven. The overall plot is excellent and the story beats themselves work for the most part -- if you just read the Wikipedia summary of this season, it would sound absolutely incredible. It works on a macro level. But on a micro level, it’s something else entirely. There’s too much going on and not enough room to let things breathe, leading to quite a few characters and plotlines getting let down.

The season is not terrible. The show still has incredibly strong characters and good performances, with a lot of great plot twists to keep me engaged despite the mess. But it did wind up disappointing, because all the pieces were there to make something incredible, just assembled wrong.

So I want to talk about it all -- the good, the bad, the could have been better. I want to stress that I adore the show and these characters, which is why I find it so disappointing that this season was a bit of a mess. These criticisms are made with love.

This is a lot longer than my usual ones, so strap in. Heavy spoilers for all of season two under the cut.

What I Liked

The overall plot is just a lot of fun. There are great twists, nail-biting moments to keep you on your toes... despite my many complaints about this season, I was consistently engaged and never bored.

Tyler Hoechlin’s performance as Clark remains the single best part of the entire show. He’s just so refreshingly good, finding that balance of being a god-like alien with the weight of the world on his shoulders while also being just a guy trying to raise his kids. I also loved his little arc of losing his powers in the last few episodes, and having to deal with being helpless for once.

Jordan gets to become more of a hero this season, and it’s excellent. I love watching him come into his own with his powers, and try to take things on for himself. This was probably the strongest arc of the whole season, building up consistently and believably with plenty of good payoff. (My favorite scene of the entire season was Clark giving Jordan flying lessons up in the Arctic.)

Lana Lang is just a powerhouse this season, and Emmanuelle Chriqui may have surpassed Kristin Kreuk as my favorite version of the character. I saw a fair amount of hate for her, but I just could not disagree more. Watching her handle learning that Kyle had cheated on her, then turn that pain into triumph to become mayor, and then finally entering into the world of secrets that the rest of the characters have been dealing with... hers is one of the few arcs this season that rarely wavered.

Sarah is also great this season. Again, I saw a lot of hate for her, which I have to assume largely stems from her being a bisexual latina teenage girl who isn’t afraid to speak her mind. Apart from a small goof at the start of the season (more on that later) I thought Sarah was another character whose arc rarely wavered. She’s a girl figuring out her place in the world while everything she knows and love shifts around her, and she’s just doing her best. Inde Navarrette did an excellent job with some tough scenes, too.

John Henry and Natalie are just so good. John is the unsung hero of the series, and I loved him briefly settling into more of a co-parent role with Clark and Lois at the start of the season. And Natalie is such a badass. She brings a breath of fresh air to every scene that she’s in.

I adored the direction that they took Tal, even if it happened so quickly that it gave me whiplash. Transitioning him from powerful villain to weird uncle is the best possible choice. I also like that he’s used sparingly, helping out but not taking over the story.

I really liked Anderson at the start of the season. I love the idea of Clark coming into conflict with this soldier who just has a very different ideology. Neither of them is wrong, exactly, they just have different priorities and can’t see eye to eye because of it. It was a much more interesting and nuanced take on an antagonist role, and excellent while it lasted.

Jon-El, my beloved. Whoever decided that the Bizarro version of Jonathan should be an emo mess of a villain is a genius. He’s just so fun, and such a fascinating parallel to the original Jonathan. Jordan Elsass absolutely killed it.

I liked Jordan and Sarah’s relationship drama... eventually. The stuff at the start of the season didn’t work at all (again, more on that later). But after that it transitioned to them struggling as a natural result of the characters and their roles in the story -- Jordan is always off doing things with his family, which he can’t tell Sarah about, but Sarah can tell that he’s lying to her and feels like he’s not trusting or supporting her while she’s struggling with her own stuff. Like everything else in the season this was extremely rushed, basically only happening over the course of one episode, but it was still a great development for the relationship.

I love that the Bizarro world is just stupid fun. The concept is inherently ridiculous and I’m glad that they leaned into the camp rather than trying to play it completely straight. It’s a parallel world where the earth is square, everything is tinted red, things are backwards, and everyone’s emo -- it doesn’t have to be serious.

I love the creation of a new Fortress, with Clark stressing that it’s for all of them. It gives me hope that Jonathan’s character arc isn’t entirely lost.

And lastly, my hot take -- I am completely fine with the show not taking place on Earth-Prime with the rest of the Arrowverse shows. I actually think it’s for the best. Trying to slot this into the rest of the canon, especially with Supergirl, was getting very confusing. Unshackling the series from anything pre-established gives them more room to just focus on these characters and these storylines, and I genuinely believe this can only be a good thing moving forward. (Also, the Arrowverse is basically dead at this point. The only series still standing is The Flash, and most people think it will end soon. I’m glad that this show won’t be sinking with the rest of the ship.)

What I Didn’t Like

By far the worst aspect of this season is simply the sheer amount of plotlines the writers tried to tackle in only fifteen episodes. There’s so much happening, all the time, that everything is overcrowded and plots don’t have room to breathe. So things wind up rushed, or dropped entirely when there just isn’t space for them. They desperately needed to either extend the season to give everything more time to develop, or just trimmed a few plotlines -- possibly both.

If there is any one plot that I wish I could remove from the season entirely, it’s the Sarah/Aubrey plotline. Right off the bat, it’s kinda gross to introduce your only bi character as bi by having her cheat on her boyfriend with a girl. And then the aftermath is handled so strangely, putting the impetus on Jordan to fix things rather than Sarah, the one who actually did something wrong. Besides that, there was more than enough cause for them to be struggling in their relationship without this arc, with Jordan starting to become a hero more naturally leading to him being unable to balance things with Sarah. Frankly, that’s a far more interesting way to introduce relationship drama that feels real and understandable for both characters, and doesn’t rely on biphobic tropes. The few scenes with Aubrey could have been easily reworked for Natalie instead, as Sarah and Nat had a great friendship developing that I would have loved to see more of.

Lois feels like a bit of an afterthought this season, like she’s just supporting everyone else’s storylines rather than having her own. I thought her driving force for the season was going to be investigating the Inverse Society and taking down Ally’s cult, but once the Bizarro world was introduced, that pretty much disappeared. Her behavior in the first episode was also very pointless and strange. I feel like they only included it to get some convenient out of context clips for the trailers.

Ally is a fairly meh villain. It’s an interesting concept, and I think the actress did a fairly good job, but she doesn’t have that personal connection with the characters or quite the presence to pull it off.

I said I liked Anderson at first, and I did. But the end of his character was very strange. His abrupt turn to join Ally felt unclear and unmotivated, and he became much less interesting as a result. Then he has an equally abrupt turn back to Clark’s side. I think they were trying to say that he pretended to join Ally to learn her plan, or something, but this was extremely unclear and didn’t make much sense. His heroic sacrifice lacked a lot of punch as a result of that, and the character ultimately wound up being sort of incomprehensible.

I adore the decision to have Clark finally tell Lana his secret. But it desperately needed more buildup. Clark comes back from the Bizarro world, and everyone suddenly acts like his secret is the worst thing that’s ever happened and actively ruining their lives -- some of them have good points, but it still feels incredibly forced. Then Clark decides that Lana deserves to know the truth because she’s in danger, and he owes it to her. I think the season just needed more moments where Clark’s secret was actually affecting Lana, such as him needing to dash off suddenly when she needs him for something, and it was genuinely putting a strain on their friendship. Then the decision would feel more satisfying and like more of a payoff.

Also, while most of Lana’s reaction was understandable and well-handled, her choice to blame Lois was just strange, especially when Lana was the one primarily pushing for their friendship in season one. I could have accepted it as Lana lashing out and not really thinking clearly because she’s hurt, but then having Lois apologize and say that Lana was right? No. Lois is not a terrible person for being a friend, and it’s ridiculous for the show to claim otherwise.

The decision to tell Chrissy was very odd, too. I think the idea was to show her relationship with Lois struggling because Lois couldn’t confide in her, with the reveal being the payoff. But Chrissy’s presence was so inconsistent that it just wasn’t established enough. I’m honestly not sure why Chrissy got promoted to the main cast when her role feels even smaller than last season’s.

While I adore the Irons, I do think they were handled inconsistently. They would often just disappear for episodes at a time. It was set up that Lois and Natalie getting to know each other would be a big part of the season, but that arc basically disappeared after a few episodes. And the small arc of Natalie learning to trust Clark despite him looking like the man who killed her mom happened way too late in the story -- why is this only coming up now? Months after you’ve been living with the man with zero issue?

Not to mention that Natalie becoming a hero was incredibly rushed. She builds a suit and tells Jonathan he can use it, but it’s clearly custom built for her and the idea of him wearing it never comes up again. She then gets to work as a hero alongside her dad and is immediately the coolest badass of the entire show. Don’t get me wrong, I adore this development for her, but it felt very strange watching Jordan have to train and work to become a hero and get his ass handed to him repeatedly, while Natalie just puts on a suit and is suddenly amazing in a fight despite having no experience. They should have either introduced the suit sooner and let her start training for most of the season, or just put this plot off until next season.

Tal had a very steady arc that gradually turned him from enemy to reluctant ally -- and then suddenly in the finale it was like he was Clark’s best friend, with him even claiming that the Kents are the only people on this planet he cares about. Sorry, but that development happened way too fast for me. I can buy him showing up to help, but statements of that level need at least another season to be believable.

There were quite a few scenes were people with powers beat the shit out of someone, and the other characters just stand around staring and occasionally yelling. And while it’s probably realistic -- if you don’t have powers you’re not gonna get between two Kryptonians -- it’s not very engaging to watch. And I refuse to believe that Lois would watch someone beating the shit out of her son and not do something.

It also felt odd to me that at no point did any of the characters arm themselves with weapons to fight Jon-El and Bizarro!Lana. They have an arsenal of Kryptonite weapons, and some of them can probably be reworked to use X-K instead. When you know that superpowered villains might show up at any time to try and kill you, would you not arm yourself? Jonathan especially, who has shown no hesitation to arm himself before now and whose arc revolves around feeling unsafe and unspecial... why the hell would he not have taken one of John Henry’s weapons again?

But speaking of Jonathan... he definitely got the short end of the stick this season, with his character getting the worst of the rushed and overcrowded storylines. There was so much potential for him to have a truly phenomenal arc, but the writers completely dropped the ball every single time. I have a lot to say here (no really it’s a lot), which is why I’ve left him for last.

Let’s start with the X-K arc. The development of Jon taking X-K is very good and well-motivated. But then the writers decide to overcomplicate things -- instead of simply being caught for taking the drugs, which is the most straightforward, Jon is caught trying to cover for the seller, his girlfriend Candice, and is briefly believed to be selling the drugs. The setup for this is so bad that I actually laughed out loud when I first saw it. Cops are in the school with drug-sniffing dogs, and when Candice freaks out that she’ll be caught, Jon says he’ll get rid of them for her and that no one will check him because he’s a good kid. All of this happens while the cops are in clear view, maybe fifteen feet away down the hall -- and literally seconds later one of the dogs catches Jon. When this happens, no one suspects Candice, despite her being directly in front of him looking extremely worried. I swear everyone involved in this scene had to drop twenty IQ points.

Then we get to the real crux of the plot, which is Jon refusing to name his supplier because he wants to protect Candice, prompting his parents to get very, very upset with him. Again, this makes no sense. We as the audience don’t know Candice nearly well enough to buy that Jon cares about her this much -- she has no development outside of being Jon’s drug-dealing girlfriend. On top of that, Jon was not the only person buying from her, as it’s established that several other team members were as well, including several that were also caught. Are you really telling me that no one ratted her out? The entire plot falls apart under the lightest bit of scrutiny.

The worst part is that very little of it winds up mattering. Sam gives Candice full immunity, so she escapes all consequences -- and hilariously disappears from the show almost entirely once this happens, all but confirming that she only existed for this one plotline. And Jon gets back into school, negating most of his consequences as well. The only real lasting consequence is Jonathan’s strained relationship with his parents, primarily Clark, and his feelings of inadequacy and helplessness being brought to the forefront.

But then the season refuses to actually resolve either of these. Ever. I’m still kind of in shock that none of this ever got conclusively wrapped up. While Lois takes the time to sit with Jon and listen to why he did this, Clark never gets to have that same moment. When Jon acted out in season one, Clark decided against punishing him and instead focused on why he was struggling, addressing that instead -- where the hell did that empathy go? I wouldn’t go so far to say Clark is a terrible parent, as others have done, but it definitely feels odd that we never got a clear moment of Clark just hearing his son out.

Clark does get one heart-to-heart with him, which takes the form of “you’re gonna recover from this and I’ll always be there for you.” That’s only half of the conversation they need to have, though. No one ever address Jonathan’s feelings. Not to mention that Clark immediately ditches him to go fly around with Jordan. Jon does call him out on this, but the plot intervenes before they can talk about it, and it doesn’t come up again. Jon spends most of the finale not doing much of anything, just sort of standing around being sad and scared while the story happens around him.

It’s like they just forgot to finish his storyline. Jon’s arc this season is about feeling inadequate and helpless -- and this is resolved by making him inadequate and helpless. Literally, what the fuck? Did the writers actually think they’d addressed this in a satisfying way? Cause they weren’t remotely close. Ideally I would have loved to see Jon face off with Jon-El to really explore the parallels and differences between them. But barring that, they still could have done something with him. Given him some role in the finale that plays to his strengths as a character, like the season one finale did.

For resolving his conflict with Clark, the answer is painfully obvious. Clark loses his powers during the finale and has to deal with feeling helpless -- which is how Jonathan feels every day. This would naturally lead to Clark having a better understanding of what Jonathan’s going through, and realizing why he feels so unsafe and unheard. This is so obvious to me that I genuinely thought this was how the finale would go.

It’s just such a shame. Jonathan was such a standout character in season one that watching the writers completely drop the ball with him hurts a bit more than the rest.

And very lastly, I know this isn’t really anyone’s fault. But the constant hiatuses made this season feel strange to watch. They’ve said it shouldn’t be as much of an issue going forward, but I can’t deny that having so many big breaks soured my enjoyment somewhat.

[mousieta]

reveal your watch and rewatch drama list

Was tagged for this by @dangermousie like a billion years ago but I’ve been so busy but here we go.

Rewatches

Hometown Cha Cha Cha The hubs loves him a good romcom and so I suggested this as our watch together show both because it contains our eternal fav Shin Min Ah and because its just a sweet, smart, well-written show full of tropes we love. It’s so, so good on rewatch because you already know and love the characters and spending more time with this neighborhood is a treat. [og review]

Love and Redemption This is still a perfection of a drama I love it so much. Again, re-watching this with hubs because I couldn’t stop talking about it (and because I knew he’d love it just as much). From the John Chriton/Aeryn Sun book of equally matched badasses romantic couples, to the adorable cast of side characters, to the sheer glee you can feel in hating the Big Bad (gods he is legitimately the worst) to just the absolute treat that is whumping Cheng Yi... this show is everything and if you’re contemplating a rewatch - do it. [og review]

Currently Watching

KinnPorsche Per.fec.tion of a drama. Legitimate crack and literally everything I want in a drama. I love every little thing about it. It is so rare to find a show that gets my writer brain to shut up because we dont care about its little niggling quibbles. I just want to sit back and enjoy Maximum Ghey.

Again My Life This is reminding me of why Lee Jun Ki is almost always the right bet when deciding what to watch. No lies, I’ve been in a bit of a slump so I put this on just because I enjoy him so much and have been happily rewarded. This isn’t quite as heavy as his last few dramas, the ‘drama’ feels less intense and the stakes firmly settled in drama-land fantasy (the villains definitely feel more like caricatures). It reminds me a bit of Switch: Change the World or The Guardians in tone. It isn’t revolutionary or ground breaking but it *is* special in just how fun it is to watch. The action scenes are absolutely fantastic. Lee Jun Ki’s fighting training definitely being put to maximum use.

The Wind Blows from Longxi I’m taking more time with this one, not because there is anything wrong with it but because I have to be in just the right mood. It is tense and plotty, wrought with subterfuge and nuanced performances from its amazing actors. The intrigues and characters almost feel overwhelming at the beginning - which isn’t something I mind, just something I need brainpower for.

Pachinko Not technically a drama but it has Lee Min Ho and Youn Yu Jung so I’m counting it. I remember reading reviews for the novel years ago and its been on my to-read list for forever so definitely leaped at the chance to watch this. It is so, so good. The writing, the acting, the directing is all so on point. What’s killing me, however, and what I did not expect, was how powerfully the narrative of Being The Other within a society with one dominant culture would resonate. The story of what a family, a group, individuals have to endure, have to give up in order to survive a society that will exploit them or eradicate them without remorse is hitting me hard. Gripping and moving are cliches but I find myself a little changed after each episode.

About to start

Bloody Heart Finding this one has been A Pain so I’m saving up a bunch of episodes and plan to binge when its nearly done. I just… so have a thing for Jang Hyuk.

Heroes Baron Chen makes me feral. Absolutely feral. I know no chill and @dangermousie has sent me too many clips of Gay to know that I need to see this as soon as possible.

I need more drama watching friends on here so if you follow me and want to do this consider yourself tagged and tag me back! so I can see it.

[zalrb]

Hi. I was just curious if you ever finished Yellowstone? If so, what were your thoughts on Beth/Rip? Or Beth in general? I was not a fan of her outside of Rip. And did you ever get Jax/Tara vibes from Kayce and Monica?

Ooh a Yellowstone ask! Haha, watching that was one of the most bizarre viewing experiences I've had. I complained to initiumseries the entire time. No, I never finished it. I only watched the seasons that were available on Prime and I was like I'm never going to go out of my way to stream the show. I started out being like Beth is cool but then she never developed or grew or was allowed to be wrong and if anything became increasingly nasty and became virtually indestructible, I rolled my eyes so hard that she survived an explosion and had nothing more than a scar on her cheek and the more she hated Jamie the more cartoonish I found her because that was a relationship that had the chance to be complex it just became no she straight up hates him and wants to destroy him and Kelly Reilly doesn't play Beth with the same kind of nuance Wes Bentley plays Jamie (and it's not even that he's great and I don't even like Jamie) so I was just like I mean I guess. It became me finally wanting someone to put her in her place or at least give her a run for her money and I wanted it to be, like, Angela or something but then it turned out to be that vegan woman who started sleeping with John and I found her just as insufferable so I was just like ugh, OK.

In terms of her and Rip, I think they're cute. I don't really care about them but out of all of the couples on the show, I like them the most and I had to admit I did chuckle at Beth smashing a bottle over that woman's head when she told Beth she was going to go home with Rip and Rip being like *sigh* then Beth in jail with the other woman and going, "It's always some bitch from California."

Kayce and Monica frustrate me so much because they should be Jax and Tara and I don't think they work at all

they had no chemistry, they were just both young and attractive (I mean I don't find him attractive but he's clearly supposed to be attractive), and this dynamic absolutely needed chemistry and they didn't even say anything or do anything for these grand declarations to make sense and then the dialogue itself made me roll my eyes because I can handle Jax being like "You're a part of what I am" but "You're a part of my soul" had me like IS HE THO? LIKE IS HE?

And then the actress isn't even Indigenous.

I hated them so much.

[thimbil]

Having some thoughts about the references and inspirations used for the Bad Batch’s designs.

So Boba Fett is my absolute favorite character and Temeura Morrison was perfect casting. I went to see the 2008 TCW movie in theaters because I was so excited to see him again, even if he was animated. You can imagine my disappointment. Whoever was on screen was not Temeura Morrison. You could sort of see a resemblance if you squinted and didn’t think too hard about it. They replaced Temeura with Racially Ambiguous G.I. Joe. If I didn’t know better and someone told me the animated clones are space Italians from the moon of New Jersey I would buy it. One Million Brothers Pizzeria and Italian Bistro. Not that there’s something wrong with being space Italian, I just don’t think it’s the right choice for the Fetts. The design got slightly improved by season 7 but it still bugs the hell out of me.

I did eventually get into the show later and (of course) got invested in the clones. Unfortunately, they were largely sidelined by the Jedi storylines. Out of the two new main characters created for TCW, Ahsoka definitely got more development and focus than Rex. When they announced The Bad Batch, I was excited to see a show specifically devoted to the clones… at least that’s what it said on the tin. We have all seen what lurks beneath those stylish helmets.

Jango Fett, you are NOT the father.

So who is?

Based on interviews with Filoni, it sounds like the Bad Batch was a George Lucas idea. And like all his ideas, it’s super derivative. The original trilogy directly lifted elements from sci fi serials, westerns, and samurai movies, more specifically Kurosawa films like The Hidden Fortress. For The Bad Batch character designs, the influence is obviously American action and adventure movies.

Now let’s get specific. Bad Batch, who’s your daddy?

Hunter

Sylvester Stallone as Rambo in First Blood 1982. That bandana has become an integral part of the iconic action hero look. You see a character wearing one and it’s a visual shorthand for either “this character is a tough guy” like Billy played by Sonny Landham in Predator 1987, or “this character thinks he is/wants to be a tough guy” like Brand played by Josh Brolin in The Goonies 1985 or Edward Frog played by Corey Feldman in The Lost Boys 1987.

Hunter’s model is closest to the original clone base. If you look closely you will see the eyebrows are straighter with a much lower angle to the arch. His nose is also not the same shape as a standard clone like Rex, including a narrower bridge. It’s certainly not Temeura Morrison’s nose. Remember what I said about space Italians? It didn’t take much to push the existing clone design to resemble an specific Italian man instead of a specific Māori man. The 23&Me came back, and Hunter inherited more than the bandana from Sylvester.

Crosshair

The long narrow nose, the sharp cheekbones, the scowl. That’s no clone, that’s just animated Clint Eastwood. Not even Young and Hot Clint Eastwood from Rawhide 1959-1965. With that hair, I’m talking Gran Torino 2008. The man of few words schtick and family friendly toothpick in lieu of cigar are pure Eastwood as The Man With No Name from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns A Fist Full of Dollars 1964, For a Few Dollars More 1965, and The Good the Bad and the Ugly 1966.

In a way, this is full circle because the actor Jeremy Bulloch took inspiration from Clint Eastwood for his performance as Boba Fett in ESB.

Wrecker

In an interview Filoni lists the Hulk as an (obvious) inspiration for Wrecker. Ever seen the old Hulk tv show from 1978? Well take a look at the actor who played him, Lou Ferrigno. Would you look at that. Even has his papa’s nose.

You could make the argument that Wrecker was influenced by The Rock, an appropriately buff ‘n bald Polynesian (Samoan, not Maori) man. But look at him next his Fast and Furious costar Vin Diesel and tell me which one resembles Wrecker’s character model more.

Tech

Tech is a little trickier for me to place. If he has a more direct inspiration it must be something I haven’t seen. That said, his hairline is very Bruce Willis as John McClane in Die Hard 1988. His quippiness and large glasses remind me of Shane Black as Hawkins from Predator 1987. In terms of his face, he looks a but like the result of McClane and Hawkins deciding to settle down and start a family. Although, Tech’s biggest contributors are probably just everyone on TV Trope’s list for Smart People Wear Glasses.

And finally,

Echo

Oh Echo. Considering he wasn’t created for the Bad Batch, he probably wasn’t based on a particular character or movie. But if I had to guess, his situation and appearance remind me a lot of Alex Murphy played by Peter Weller in Robocop 1987. However, Robocop explored the Man or Machine Identity Crisis with more nuance, depth, and dignity. Yikes.

The exact tropes and references used in The Bad Batch have been done successfully with characters who aren’t even human. Gizmo from Gremlins 2: The New Batch 1990 had a brief stint with the Rambo bandana. I could have picked any number of characters for Defining Feature Is Glasses but here is the most cursed version of Simon of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Suffer as I have. Marc Antony with his beloved Pussyfoot from Looney Tunes has the same tough guy with a soft center vibe as Wrecker and his Lula (also a kind of cat). Hell, in the same show we have Cad Bane sharing Cowboy Clint Eastwood with Crosshair. I actually think Bane makes a better Eastwood which is wild considering Crosshair has Eastwood’s entire face and Bane is blue.

So we’ve established you don’t need your characters to look exactly like their inspirations to match their vibe. So why go through the trouble and cost of creating completely new character designs instead of recycling and altering assets they already had on hand? Just slap on a bandana, toothpick, goggles, and make Wrecker bigger than the others while he does a Hulk pose and you’re done. Based on the general reaction to Howzer it would have been a low effort slam dunk crowd pleaser.

But they didn’t do that.

So here’s the thing. I like the tropes used in The Bad Batch. I am a fan of action adventure movies from the 80s-90s, the sillier the better. I am part of the Bad Batch’s target audience. Considering what I know about Disney and Lucasfilm, I went in with low expectations. I genuinely don’t hate the idea of seeing references to these actors and media in The Bad Batch. I don’t think basing these characters on tropes was a bad idea. If anything it’s a solid starting point for building the characters.

The trouble is nothing got built on the foundation. The plot is directionless, the pacing is wacky, and the characters have nearly no emotional depth or defining character arcs. They just sort of exist without reacting much while the story happens around them. But I can excuse all of that. You don’t stay a fan of Star Wars as long as I have not being able to cherrypick and fill in the gaps. This show has a deeper issue that shouldn’t be ignored.

Why do the animated clones bear at best only a passing resemblance to their live action actor? In interviews, Filoni wouldn’t shut up but the technological advancements in the animation for season 7. So if they are updating things, why not try to make the clones a closer match to their source material? Why did they have to look like completely different people in The Bad Batch to be “unique”? Looking like Temeura Morrison would have no bearing on their special abilities and TCW proved you can have identical looking characters and still have them be distinct. In fact, that’s a powerful theme and the source of tragedy for the clones’ narrative overall.

Here’s Filoni’s early concept art of Crosshair, Wrecker, Tech, and Hunter. (Interesting but irrelevant: Wrecker seems to have a cog tattoo similar to Jesse’s instead of a scar. Wouldn’t it have been funny if they kept that so when they met in season 7 one if them could say something like “Hey we’re twins!” That’s a little clone humor. Just for you guys 😘)

None of these drawings look like the clones in TCW, much less Temeura Morrison. Let’s be generous. Maybe Filoni struggles with drawing a real person’s likeness, as many people do. But he had to hand this off to other artists down the line whose job specifically involves making a stylized character resemble their actor. Yet the final designs missed the mark almost as much as this initial concept. Starting to seem as if the clones looking more like Temeura Morrison was never even on the table. It wasn’t a lack of creativity, skill or technical limitations on the part of the creative team. I don’t think there is an innocent explanation. They went out of their way to make the final product exactly how we got it.

This goes beyond homage. They could have made the same pop culture references and character tropes without completely stripping Temeura Morrison from the role he originated. It was a very purposeful choice to replace him with more immediately familiar actors from established franchises and films. It wouldn’t shock me if Filoni, Lucas, and anyone else calling the shots didn’t even think hard or care enough about the decision to immediately recognize a problem. And I don’t think they believed anyone else would either. At least no one whose opinion they cared about. Those faces are comfortingly familiar and proven bankable. They are what we’re all used to seeing after all. They’re white.

Lack of imagination, bad intentions, or simple ignorance doesn’t really matter in the end. The result is the same. Call it what it is. They replaced a man of color with a bunch of white guys. That’s by the book garden variety run of the mill whitewashing. There’s no debate worth having about it. For a fanbase that loves to nitpick things like whether or not it’s in character for Han to shoot first or Jeans Guy in the Mandalorian, we sure are quick to find excuses for clones who look nothing like their template. Why is that? If you don’t see the problem, congratulations. Your ass is showing. Pull your jeans up.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

we are our family, even if we don’t want to be.

Titans 3.07

a bit over halfway through the season, and we still don’t have all of our main characters on the board! i love this show.

as always, typing this up as i watch. live reaction, baby! *shadowboxes*

SPOILERS AHEAD

1. i don’t think i’ve mentioned this before, but i kinda miss the old ‘dc universe’ intro. it was cool! the whole idea of it was wild and waaaaay over-ambitious, but also very very on-brand because of it.

2. this is... the third time we’ve seen dick sleeping this season? that’s a record! checking another thing off my s3 wishlist...

2.5. i guess i rag on titans all the time for its wafer-thin plotting and bad pacing, but i have to admit that this season has been a step-up from the last one in this regard. titans has very reactive rather than proactive protagonists, and a lot of the last season seemed to be: x happened, the team reacted badly, then y happened, they reacted badly, etc. this time around, it’s not a huge leap up by any means, but at least they’re doing something about it. 

i do appreciate the focus on character arcs over everything else. and when i say everything else, i mean it: arcs that started two seasons ago with no big cathartic moments, intermittent payoff and multiple relapses. big bads have ranged from interdimensional demons to superpowered assassins to whatever in the world scarecrow is, but trigon’s big weapon against the titans was to... use their worst fears against them. slade’s was to... use their fears to break them up. crane’s is to... use red hood to use their fears to break them up. even the threat of gotham’s citizens being in danger doesn’t feel real: gotham is mythologised into an entity of its own, infecting our heroes like a parasite. like. this is not to say that most other superhero media aren’t big character arcs intertwined with the main plot, but titans doesn’t even make pretend that it’s anything but.

anyway. that’s my entry #2345 to ‘give a grand unifying theory for titans’. thanks. i’ll be back with more.

3. “anger is just fear in a little black dress.” god I HATE HIM

(what’s he doing with barbara’s likeness? oh... oh god. a terrible thought just occurred to me. what if they introduce hush at the very last minute for plastic surgery shenanigans? would you put it past this show?)

3.5. jason, nooooooooo

3.75. i mean, they’re making it very clear here that scarecrow is the one in control--the one who’s always been in control--and is manipulating jason and literally poisoning him, but i hope it doesn’t end up erasing nuance or jason’s autonomy. if jason’s to reckon with the issues that brought him here, then the lines of responsibility will need to be set somewhere. 

(this applies to dick as well but more on that later, i guess.)

4. just--the phrase “40% loss of income” is so funny to me. like, gotham is full of these larger-than-life characters who are idiosyncratic beyond belief, colourful and dramatic and creating chaos just for the sake of chaos, and then there’s the regular criminals and their henchmen who just want to make a quick buck sitting down with pie charts and graphs, griping about the joker reducing their returns or debating high risk investments in, i don’t know, two-face’s next scheme.

“yyyyeeeeeaaah, my financial advisor is telling me that going all-in with a guy who literally makes decisions on the flip of a coin is probably not the greatest idea.”

4.5. god i hate smug!smarmy!scarecrow so much

4.85. as big plans to “control” gotham go, it’s pretty bog-standard. clearly scarecrow has some bigger plan in mind but it really feels like we’ve got no clear insight into him and he’s this generic creepy mystery-man who knows more than he lets on and springs a twist/cliffhanger every now and then. i liked the scenes with him and dick in 3.04 where it seemed like he was genuinely on the backfoot and things weren’t going as he predicted. for all of his faults, dick is at least familiar with scarecrow’s bullshit and knows not to give what he wants.

5. i mean... i see where dick is coming from with the “he’s not jason anymore; he’s red hood” because his immediate glaring concern is scarecrow’s drug and the damage it could potentially cause gotham? i do not doubt that it’s something batman drilled into him, too, but when you’re expected to take point on a situation where the lives of an entire city weigh down on your shoulders, it’s better to simplify things and prioritise. i’m not saying it’s great or healthy! gar is absolutely right to consider this facet of the situation. it’s just dick can’t.

6. hmmmmmmm. HMMMMMMMMMMM. 

i don’t know that i’m super fond of this iteration of oracle???? it looks like a cross between cerebro from x-men and jarvis from iron man. it’s giving me second-hand embarrassment. somebody help me.

(at least they remembered dick’s middle name is actually “john”. i like to think bruce printed D in that contract because for a while he genuinely thought richard “dick” grayson was his full name. duck duck goose, dick dick grayson, i don’t know alfred, the kid was in a circus, maybe they thought it was funny. or maybe it was a test in anger control, who knows.)

6.5 “maybe you two would like some time alone?” even AI can’t help hitting on dick grayson in this universe.

“oh mr grayson, if i only had another eye to see you better...”

6.8. on one hand, it’s a bit disconcerting that the title of ‘oracle’ has gone from barbara herself to this gigantic machine; from my impression of the comics-verse, barbara had an extensive computing and surveillance system, true, but she was very clearly the brains behind the operation. on the other hand, i’m kind of glad that the ethical boundaries that this kind of surveillance violates is a sticking point for barbara. (tho let’s be real, the nsa would kill to have this in their arsenal).

6.9. also it’s now obvious that scarecrow’s big plan is to take control of oracle itself. it’s why he had lady vic take that picture of her eyes, or why he’s meddling around with it on his computer.

6.95. if only i could ‘command sleep’ anybody overstepping their boundaries re: personal information...

7. “you can just sit back and watch as the titans destroy themselves.” i mean... he’s not wrong

8. “dick’s parents were killed by a criminal mob; he won’t work with them.” it’s wonderful that you have this insight into dick, kory, i just wish we could’ve watched some of these conversations actually happen on-screen.

8.5. i’m glad that kom’s being treated with such nuance and understanding, though it’s obvious that she definitely has a Plan of her own. (and did i entirely imagine her ability to mimic other people flawlessly at the end of s2? or is that going to come into play at some point?) i think her story has the potential to be genuinely poignant, and in a universe where being Different, either because of mental health or physical differences or whatever else, leads a straight line to Evil, it’s important to acknowledge and then emphasise that the mere fact of your existence as a Different Person doesn’t predispose you to evil. maybe your act of destroying a system that has destroyed you and not scrambling to “fit in” is only evil as defined by that system. 

8.8. “you’re trespassing, i should call the authorities, i feel unsafe.” now this is a villain lady who’s definitely aware of her privilege.

8.85. kom smirking knowingly at her sister is everything.

“oooh that’s the kory i remember”

9. conner and dick working together woo!

9.25. god i hate a villain who’s always just a step ahead, no matter what. so crane anticipated dick using oracle to track his personal communications and set him up? how did he know when exactly dick would get to do this? how long did he have that poor man tied up in that van?

(the “save me, grayson” is a nice touch, tho. send dick spiralling even further! because if there’s one thing dick will do, it’s take responsibility for every goddamn thing that goes wrong.)

9.5. ahem. i’m going to need a million gifs of conner yeeting dick across that yard, fandom, thankyouverymuch.

(i understand conner is invulnerable to explosions, but how do his clothes survive??)

9.8. oooh crane is already in oracle! i’m just sitting here laughing helplessly because they’re overpowering this goddamned guy so much. he can build a lab in arkham’s basement! he has access to lazarus puddles! he has minions working across gotham, including a fully functional chemical laboratory staffed by chemists who only answer to him! he has the crime families of gotham quailing in his very presence! he has assassins at his beck and call! he’s enough of a manipulative bastard to have red hood under his thumb! and now he has enough of a tech know-how to not only be aware of oracle, but know how to hack into it! i’m sick of exclamation marks! i’ll shut up now!

9.95. dick leaving behind that smouldering grave for a person he failed to save without taking a second to process how he feels about it and running towards his next plan to corner scarecrow: a microcosm of where his head’s at right now.

10. really hammering in the themes of this season, aren’t we. 

10.25. the interesting thing is the titans repeatedly call themselves a family this season (none more so than dick) and while that found family has helped encapsulate and put away their traumatic experiences with their ‘original’ families, it’s meant that they’ve not really dealt with those issues. and dick and gar and jason come from ‘found families’ of their own: they are twice removed, traumatised two times over. they still cling to this identity however, and because of it they’re losing each other. a family isn’t static. it’s an ever-evolving dynamic and you have to put in work constantly to keep it healthy.

10.5. anyway, that’s entry #2346. i’m here aaaalll night.

11. lookit gar the detective! half-transforming and using his powers to deduce things! what a hero! i’ve said this for a long time, but gar is the bedrock of this team, and an unsung one at that.

11.25. i’m confused about him calling this room jason’s though. it seems to me that this is dick’s room that jason later used, and one that dick’s using now. so the unmade bed isn’t really jason’s fault; dick was woken by barbara that morning, and in his hurry, he left without making his bed.

(it still confounds me that bruce didn’t find jason another bedroom in that gigantic mansion of his. you really didn’t give this kid a chance, did you?)

12. oh well. so much for the oracle.

13. ... sorry, wait. you didn’t think i wasn’t going to address the bit with dick right now, did you?

12.5. i honestly don’t think it’s very complicated: dick’s been reeling from one traumatic thing to the next, and just when it seemed like at the beginning of the season, he felt happy and secure with his team and his place in the world, bruce ups and leaves gotham to him, specifically naming him a successor and calling him a ‘better batman’. he’s lost garth and jericho and donna and jason and now hank and dawn. he’s not even sure where rachel is or what she’s doing. after being told that batman was a psychopath for moulding him into a weapon, he’s also been told that his failure to be a ‘better batman’ lead to further disaster. of course he’s going to get batman-goggles. of course he’s going to be a prick. 

12.8. i don’t know what to say. i feel his frustration acutely. i don’t think he should’ve said what he said to barbara (can people stop pushing her around this season????) but that pressure to step in where your parent fails? to clean up their messes and try to think like them? to fall into habits drilled into you when you developed them as coping mechanisms growing up? I FEEL THAT. 

every step he’s taking he’s putting 110% of himself in it and scarecrow’s still playing mindgames with all of them: i absolutely feel his desperation to take control of that game and turn it on scarecrow, no matter what it takes.

and he did apologise almost immediately, and finally--finally--actually works with barbara. 

12.9. again, not excusing him! but i get it. and i think that’s a sign of great character writing.

“did you know i just reminded emmram of all of her daddy issues? what the fuck????”

12.95. i love that dick&barbara, kory&kom, and gar are all approaching solving this mystery from different angles, each as valid as the other. also, conner is there as... emergency bomb defuser man?

13. it’s like all fancy rich people in fancy rich houses do is pour fancy rich alcohol into fancy rich glasses on pristine, untouched tabletops. i wonder what it’s like to live like that.

13.25. I KNEW IT! poor michael. it was nice knowing you.

13.5. man, kory is contending with a lot of issues that she’s successfully bottled up and compartmentalised until now. the cold reality that a child can seek out their parents as refuge and they can view the child as a piece to be moved in a greater game (never out of cruelty, though, never, and somehow that makes it worse), that truth of blackfire’s treatment on tamaran because she’s different, and her own culpability in what happened. she exchanged one family for another, after all, and left that family to die and her sister to suffer. like dick, like gar, kory’s being forced to reckon with what the titans are meant to be, the larger implications of creating their found family in their own space.

14. it’s probably because it’s one in the morning and i’ve had two glasses of wine but i did not follow that bit of exposition at all and victor freeze??? what? 

anyway. look at them solving things! together! go team!

“you made a deal with the mob?” oh the sense of betrayal on his face! fuck off, dick, your issues aren’t kory’s. 

15. conner is really sweet and a bit of an awestruck crush on kom is to be expected. especially after that power rangers-esque transformation (i say this as a former huge power rangers fangirl. i’ve seen every series until 2007 including the original japanese versions and written fanfic for all of them. so i love a cool costume transformation, is what i’m saying.)

also?

FUCK YEAH

16. i love the gotham crime families just chillin’ around eating ice cream. I LOVE THEM

16.5. that was a fun fight sequence, if marred slightly by that bit of awkward flirting between conner and kom. i wonder if she’s really planning to use him in a larger scheme to get kory back to tamaran, or maybe something else. 

16.75. so i’m assuming that scarecrow has jason either so paralysed by fear that he can barely move, or jason’s withdrawing from the drug that he’s been sucking in every few minutes. 

17. it’s nice to see them chill after a successful mission! and it can be awkward, but conner’s crush on kom and him striving to impress her is also, well, uh... cute.

17.5. i guess the dick/barbara scene was inevitable, especially given the... unresolved nature of their relationship in the flashbacks? and they’ve been through a rollercoaster together this episode, discovering and then destroying an incredible tool within a matter of hours, re-discovering just how well they work together as a team. dick’s swimming in the nostalgia. i don’t expect it to last as a long-term relationship, but i totally get why this is happening now. and hey, they’re cute!

i have a weeeirrrrd feeling that kory is going to leave to tamaran at the end of the season and that dick and kory will rekindle--or rather realise--their relationship just before that. it’s going to be devastating and beautiful and painful and i will be writing essays about it which would be me just wailing into the screen.

18. gar found molly!!!!!!! MOLLY’S BACK! \o/ gar is the BEST

19. that was a fun episode! i love this silly show, even if it does destroy me sometimes <3

[monkberries]

So here goes: Personally I find Paul to be hot with a beard. But it annoys me because there’s always some Paul stan who’s like “he was super depressed during that time you know” anytime someone says how hot he looks with a beard. Like first of all, I don’t think we should go around diagnosing people and assuming how he felt 24/7 just based on a couple of quotes when we don’t know him, and second of all I was just saying he looks good. Also idk why Paul stans want to pretend like Paul is STILL a victim when he’s definitely not. He’s a super successful billionaire musician. He’s fine.

I'm going to assume all four of these were from the same anon; I received another along these same lines that seems to be from someone else:

OKAY. There's a lot here.

As I've said before, I think the concept you are both talking about - that Paul is the favourite, that people will attack you if you criticize him, that people are vilifying John more now - is true, but is also a matter of perspective. I think sometimes we perceive the whole fandom as just the people we're surrounded by; that can be true in smaller fandoms, like for obscure shows or whatever, but for the Beatles, the fandom is so much bigger and more spread out across generations, social media platforms, and works of literature than almost any other fandom. There are literally thousands upon thousands of books either about or tangentially about the Beatles; there are pockets on every platform from tumblr to twitter to podcasts to instagram to facebook etc., and it branches off even more niche within those to like, facebook groups specifically for podcasts about the Beatles, or discord servers, or livejournal threads, or music forums, or fics on ao3. There are fansites with thoughtful speculative articles like heydullblog and blogs specifically reviewing Beatle books like beatlebioreview and sites cataloging every bit of minutiae like the Beatles Bible, all with their own flavor of comment sections. And not only that, the Beatles fandom spans generations and cultures in a way that almost nothing else ever has or ever will.

And this is not even going into the shifting narratives that have been in play over the years surrounding Paul specifically, and the huge, huge difference between the perceptions of him by the authors and the Counterculture People, the perceptions of him by regular ass Wings fans who have only idly flipped through Rolling Stone while waiting in line at the local bodega, and the perceptions of him by everyone in between, who may or may not have been unconsciously influenced by the wider narratives about him.

All that is to make the case that the fandom that you are experiencing on tumblr/twitter is an extremely small fraction of The Fandom at large. For every Paul stan on twitter that yells at people for not believing that Paul literally invented music, there is a John stan in a facebook group going on about John's supposedly tireless peace efforts. For every nuanced, well sourced post on amoralto's blog, there is someone in the Beatles Bible comment section saying that John and Paul hated each other. For every fan who's read the major Beatles bios with a critical eye towards bias, there are plenty more fans who just absorbed them as straight fact. This is not to say that your experiences are not real or valid! They absolutely are! What I am saying is that there are infinite permutations of infinite Beatles fandoms out there, and the people you see who insist that Paul is still treated worse than John, I would imagine, are occupying various permutations of the fandom where that is more true, alongside the one they share with you. It's not for me to say whether the Paul or John people have the upper hand on the whole - truly, I don't think anyone has enough perspective on the whole fandom to make any judgment on that, no matter what general Grand Pronouncements anyone may make about The Fandom.

As I've said before, any overly defensive "stan" behavior, whether it's for John or Paul or George or anyone, is exhausting to me, so I definitely understand where you're coming from re: him being supposedly underrated. He is literally one of the most successful musicians of all time; as of the beginning of this year, he is worth 1.2 billion dollars; and, thanks to his own efforts and the efforts of quite a few fans and writers out there over the decades, he now enjoys an incredibly positive "granddude" reputation. There are ways in which it can be exasperating to read yet another indignant refutation of music reviews for RAM that came out fifty years ago, when his last three albums have hit the top 3 in the charts in both the US and the UK and have gotten great reviews. I have seen people wonder, honestly wonder, how much more money Paul could have made, how much more respected he could have been, if the rock press had been inclined to give RAM good reviews. When I see that, it does start to feel like fans of Paul, at least the defensive ones in the fandom permutations I occupy, are arguing with the author photo of Philip Norman in the book jacket for Shout!. It's not that I think those arguments and discussions are not worth having; I do think they're worth having because I believe that the only way we can continue to grow is if we grapple with the mistakes made in the past. But there is a strange kind of disconnect that happens when you read about someone indignantly defending Wild Life as though the members of Wings are currently, actively having eggs and rotten fruit thrown at them, and then you remember that Paul is currently, and has been for many years now, one of the richest men in the entire world.

As for the misogyny thing, I'll copy and paste a quote from Erin Weber which may explain a little better than I can:

"Where it starts entering into serious discussion for me is when you have professional grown men (Schaffner would be the most glaring example of this, but not the only one) repeatedly using the term “pretty” or “pretty-faced” to refer to another grown man. (Norman does the same). Schaffner doesn’t only do that once or twice, he uses one of those exact words at least fifteen times in his references to McCartney. “Pretty-boy” is also a term that at least one journalist has used to describe Paul, and that’s not a stealth insult: that’s an overt one. (My husband, who hates the Yankees, routinely used the term “pretty-boy” to insult Alex Rodriguez. And it wasn’t meant as a compliment).

My reaction to this is based both on studies that I’m aware of (I’d have to hunt them up, but I’ve seen them referenced before) which argue that the use of feminized language can be a method of stealth insult/diminishment when used by men to describe other men, and my own personal experience. It is difficult to see a situation where a grown man using the term “pretty” or any variation of the word “pretty” to describe another grown man means it as a compliment. Even if its purely meant as a descriptive term, it is a descriptive term that is weighted with significant meaning and is feminizing. And given the rock press’s obsession with masculinity and its insistence, as noted in other studies, of using masculine terms to portray a song as good and feminizing terms to describe them as weak or inferior, I don’t think its a coincidence that a rock press that knew well the power of masculine and feminine language commonly used feminized language, particularly in the 1970s and 80s, to describe McCartney."

I personally see this more as pseudo-homophobic than pseudo-misogynistic (like, when I see a man called "pretty" by another man in an insulting way, I immediately think "oh, that author wanted to say a gay slur but he's too Professional"), but the two things can get muddled together, I suppose.

Anyway, actionable items:

Diversify Your Fan Experience. More perspectives can really help gain a fuller understanding of not just the fandom but the Beatles themselves. Don't be afraid to be wrong, and don't be afraid to be right; always be open to learning new things and hearing new insights.

If All Else Fails, Block 'Em.

[dreamylyfe-x]

of all the things they could make mickey and ian fight over, why are the writers going with 2 so OOC storylines in the final season? the show never framed ian as seeing mickey's illegal income as not "real" work before. and mickey was never the slacker type, so why now? and mickey would never vague about monogamy. i'm so confused. if they gotta fight, why not over something in character and meaningful. this just feels like writers being mean to the fans, making us sit thru all this nonsense

Hey! Thanks for the ask. Made my (very weird and stressful) day. 

I’m going to be disappointing right off the jump and say that I don’t actually think any of this is OOC, per say. But. In GENERAL. Shameless is not the show it was. I think this is very normal for long-running shows. Take Friends: When you get into the back half of that show’s extensive catalogue, is starts to feel like the characters are a Xerox of a Xerox. Early season Monica is a bit OCD, and a clean freak who loves to be in charge -- but she’s also warm, and hospitable and emotionally available to her friends. Late season Monica is often a coked-out squirrel-woman who loses her mind if someone moves a pillow. That’s quality isn’t out of character, but it’s no longer being balanced with the warm and supportive woman we initially met. I think a bit of that might be “we already know you either like or hate Monica, so we’re just giving you the stuff that’s funny and/or dramatic. We got 22 minutes and six characters and we don’t have to build that other shit anymore.” 

I think that’s happening with Mickey and Gallavich. And I don’t think that’s weird for a) a show that has run this long and b) a character who was gone and then returned. They are giving us a Mickey that has always existed -- unbound by traditional manners, aggressive, blunt and obsessed with Ian Gallagher -- but we aren’t getting much of the Mickey who curls up with Ian at the worst time of his life and kisses his forehead. We aren’t getting all the verbal confirmation of Big Feelings they gave us when he came back in season 7. We aren’t seeing Ian and Mickey as a team, which is a big part of their mid-seasons dynamic. I think that makes people feel like these arguments are OOC, when they’re arguably reasonable issues, but aren’t being given a ton of nuance, or balance. 

Aside: There’s some balance in how the actors are playing the intimacy and the physical affection. The little touches and kisses are appreciated by me. 

So to dig into the OOC stuff -- first of all, it makes total sense to me that they’d have issues about the role crime plays in their lives together. I love that Ian never gave a damn that Mickey is a straight up criminal. But every time Ian lost Mickey, it was because the law intervened. When Mickey is not incarcerated, he’s with Ian. Ian is no longer 16, no one is a juvenile offender, Mickey was given a devastating sentence in season 6 -- 16 years -- Ian was 18! That was his entire living memory, if not more. They are married now, against considerable odds, and I completely understand why Ian doesn’t want Mickey to risk going back to jail. 

Likewise, I get why Mickey doesn’t want to do what Ian is doing. Mickey does not have the temperament for minimum wage jobs. He has a longstanding history of thinking it’s absolute bullshit to work hard for no money. Particularly when he’s smart enough, skilled enough and ballsy enough to make a LOT of money in an afternoon just by spotting an opportunity. 

Mickey has never SAID this on the show, but in canon we have seen him go to prison four times. Once, because Ian’s unhinged spurned groomer shot him; once because Mickey CHOSE to headbutt a cop so he could go to prison and avoid his dad; once because Mickey was consumed with a need to avenge Ian; and finally because Ian got himself tossed in prison, so Mickey CHOSE to join him. If Mickey has confidence that he won't go to prison if Ian isn’t a factor... Not the craziest idea. 

So -- writers spitballing ideas for Gallavich conflict? I think that’s a pretty good one. Two clear sides that both have merit. I’ve already written a bit about my thoughts on the monogamy issues... first, I’ve always figured they were monogam-ish, to reference Dan Savage. They are faithful to each other while they’re together, and when they are separated (usually by prison!) they aren’t. This isn’t the first time Mickey has voiced a lack of interest in being monogamous -- most notably “Great. Now we’re in a horror movie.” Mickey isn’t a traditionalist and I don’t think he feels like this is a make-or-break issue. But MOSTLY? 

MOSTLY. 

I really and truly believe what I’m about to say... 

Mostly Mickey wanted to do what Ian wanted. 

If he legit didn’t want monogamy he wouldn’t have tried to cheat of Ian’s paper. He didn’t like that “write it down and flip the paper” game. He wanted to match Ian’s answer. So he took a guess and he was wrong about what Ian -- who had literally just told him he found the concept of the rest of his life overwhelming -- had written. 

This is my head cannon: I think he liked that Ian wrote down monogamy. This is not my head canon: they are SUPER sweet to each other in the next scene. I am not convinced that the monogamy debate is going to be much of a thing beyond that scene. And I understand that, for a lot of people, that scene was extremely unpleasant. To me, personally, it made sense for it to come up. But I think it’s settled. I think they’re done with it. 

The one place where I’m like “What is this?” is the slacker stuff. I mean, I can meta why Mickey might be afraid of failure or whatever, but it’d be mostly head cannon. They haven’t given us a ton to build on there. The best we got is “Stop disappointing the people you love!” being what motivated Mickey to do something he didn’t want to do. But Mickey was right, if he thought that interview was going to be a disaster. Mickey knows himself and he is painfully aware of his limitations. 

As for why are the writers DOING this? Well. Ok. Here’s what I think it is: 

1. Story is conflict. So they needed one. And “struggle to adjust to marriage” really isn’t a bad one. Specifically, figuring out how to be married when you have no role models and have a few social strikes against you is a good one. 

2. The writers are amused by Gallavich fighting. They think it’s entertaining. And while there are a lot of people out there for whom Gallavich is EVERYTHING, Shameless’s viewership is also made up of people who think Frank is hilarious. No one ever send me an ask about why Frank is hilarious. I will not be able to figure that one out and the research might kill me. We definitely don’t all agree on what is and is not funny. 

3. They’re going somewhere with it. At least a little. 

I don’t KNOW three is true, but here’s something I believe about John Welles. I think he’s a biiiiit of a sap. I think he probably wants to leave each Gallagher with something nice. I don't think his plan it to send everyone off on an ice floe to freeze to death. So I think (hope?) that what we’re going to see is three (maybe four?) episodes of Gallavich At Odds and then I think we’re going to move into them trying to work together to make lives together. And they will probably still fight, because that seems to be part of the Xerox of a Xerox of Gallavich. I’m sure many people will find that cringey and problematic and annoying -- but I also bet we get a few moments we love, here and there. 

I don’t think they’re trying to be mean to the fans, but I think it’s serving 8 characters ... Nope. 9. (I forgot Frank. I always forget about Frank.) ... and we aren’t going to get the depth and breadth we want. And most of that will be on the side where we see Gallavich loving each other, because at this point they expect us to KNOW that. And some of it’ll be Mickey’s internal life because they tend to focus on the Gallaghers. But I do fervently hope we get a little more of that other side of the coin. Because I absolutely agree that one side is more fun than the other. 

[youchangedme]

i think sam really had the potential to be a main character alongsie dean if the writers made something compelling with their codependency.

I'm having a hard time to form a Coherent thought in English so forgive me but what I'm trying to say is imagine if dean and sam were:

1. each other mirrors but going into different directions (which they kinda were - dean, a nonbeliever, heaven vs. sam, a believer, hell - etc. but it wasn't like a plot thing, it was just there a little bit on accident)

2. and their codependency maxed out but to a point where they literally cannot make a decision & nothing in the plot can happen without the other. because the show kind of overpowered dean, and turned sam into a plot device to fuel dean. I think it would've been so much more compelling if each of them had certain personality trait that corresponded to the other. Like you know, when one character has the brains but lacks heart but the other has the heart but lacks brains - more nuanced obviously but I think you get the idea? (which the show did, but again it was superficial and once again, all the interesting traits were given to dean while none of what dean lacked in terms of personality was filled up by Sam, especially in the later seasons)

3. for this to be possible the show would have to have more side characters, because the only way for us to see how they are both very different BUT equally important (other than Sam and Dean having Talks) is showing us how differently they interact with other characters. ESPECIALLY Sam.

4. give Sam more backstory. all the back story seems to belong to dean - Sam was just there. why don't we torment little Sammy too? why not give Sammy natural demonic powers strong enough to make John afraid of him? why not imply that sometimes John left little Sammy with dean for days because he was too afraid of his sleep talking in unknown languages to come back to the motel....

so yeah. point is there was Huge potential to have two main characters, with capital M. but the show would have to be planned from the start, with less censorship and with someone else playing Sam. no hate on Jared I just think he's too average of an actor to portray what would be needed to make Sam and Dean equally compelling.

if you read this then thank you very much. I've never had anyone to tell this idea to.

you’re absolutely right, especially on that last part. jensen was so perfect for his role and i think in order for sam and dean to play more like equals on screen they needed someone to match jensen’s talent and intensity. 

like you said, a big part of the problem is that a majority of supernatural wasn’t actually planned out and eventually the story was just moving from season to season, often completely retconning the plot and their character development which was. annoying to say the least. 

i think a big part of where they went wrong with sam, especially as a Main Character is that they literally never show how he feels. the show always seems to tell us directly how he feels about something which just doesn’t hit as hard or as genuinely as the most emotional dean moments have because they painted dean as someone who’s horribly out of touch with his emotions when it’s literally the opposite

and sam and dean did have the capacity to be good character foils for each other, but the writing team just sucks and thinks any difference between them means they have to have the same Winchester Brothers’ Fight for like the millionth time instead of, you know. doing something new and interesting.

a huge part of why people stopped watching is because they got tired of seeing the same emotional plot being recycled for years on end, which is also why the finale is such as slap in the face. s15 finally felt like something different and then they just put the uno reverse card on all of it. including trying to tell us sam is the main character again

[brothfan1997]

do u think john and june can coexist?

siiiiggghhh ok this is a complicated question and as a tme person i dont know if i can fully speak to the nuances of this conversation. my first point is just that i think the energy people put into this issue would be better directed not at other fans but at the actual writers of hs2 who have put exactly zero effort into representing her (i do not read hs2) in the source material thus far. [putting this under a cut because i have Problems and wrote like 700 words about this]

the intangible nature of “canon” is like, literally an entire aspect of the plot heavily explored in homestuck proper. canonization can be given and taken away freely within the actual confines of the story, as a narrative device, and this concept is intricately intertwined with the relationship between Homestuck and its audience. the main characters are observed by an outside audience even within the story, and interactions from observers have the power to make changes in-universe, in a literal sense (readers picking actions), a meta sense (andrew hussie and the MSPA reader as actual characters), and just textually, when the main character, one J. Egbert, leaves the narrative and becomes an character outside of the author’s control with the power to alter reality. if i was going by a strict interpretation of the actual plot of homestuck, technically nothing andrew hussie says has any bearing on any character that has retcon powers. but im not going to do that, because that is kind of dumb.

i think these are the sort of mental backflips the hs2 team are doing to justify their avoidance of the issue of actually canonizing june. because from my point of view, right now, she is not canon. she is not mentioned once, in any of the source material. again, this is a fault of the writers, but lets ignore that, and assume that she is canon by toblerone law, as im guessing that this is what this ask is actually trying to get at. people argue that oh, shes canon in this timeline and not others, which tbh i think is another transphobic backflip, using the plot mechanics of homestuck to justify ignoring a characters transition. making content for the hs2 cast on earth C that features a cis john is absolutely transphobic; john and june cannot coexist on earth C. 

HOWEVER: the thing is that june isnt a real person, existing as a conscious being at only one fixed point in time. shes a character in a story, one that has existed for almost 12 years, and that character can be consumed and interpreted at any point in her journey. every version, every moment of this character exists at the same time, and i dont think its a disservice to junes character to interpret and make content for her as she is, pre-transition, in homestuck proper. there are certainly ways to do it wrong, and there are certainly people who do it to be hateful, but i dont think this issue is completely black and white. at the end of the day, homestuck is a self contained story, and (when it comes to, like, making act 5 fanart) nobody is obligated to reimagine the original material based on second hand information from a ~dubiously canon~ sequel (i think that whole thing is bullshit for other reasons that i wont go into. take responsibility for the writing choices you make). 

i think this is a really unique situation of having a character transition AFTER the actual story takes place, which really hasnt been represented in media before at all. i would really like to see the hs2 writers do a good job, and i would love for the homestuck fandom to interact with the characters in a way that is respectful to their future journeys, because it is so so so important to respect people that see themselves in those journeys. i really think the most important thing to consider with june discourse is just... is that person being transphobic? are their headcanons motivated by transphobia? is this person trying to erase a canon identity or are they just exploring a character as they have been represented. anyway. i love june egbert and i just think we should hold writers to the same level of accountability as we hold the fans. i do think this is a really important conversation to have tho especially as we have more trans representation in media so please let me know if you have any thoughts on anything ive said here :-)

[wak-after-dark]

Still not able to come up with an argument about the Epilogue treating Gamzee (the murderous corpse molester) better than Jade (sat around for 3 years with depression only to have a dog dick and then be abandoned by her friends) huh? Guess you're just an idiot and willingly sucking Hussie's dick for a job at Whatpumpkin down the line. Maybe write some incest porn like IPDG and you'll get hired.

Wow get a load of this guy.

Okay I should probably just delete your comments and not give you the time of day, but you’ve been periodically sending me this kind of ask, and I really have to ask, do you really, really believe you’re someone with some sort of Moral High Ground right now? Like I’m not even defending the Epilogues as masterpieces or trying to shove them down people’s throats. I am literally just enjoying the content the WP Team put out and talking about it, and you come to my Inbox, to spew this accusatory nonsense and flinging insults. If you can’t read the Epilogues in a positive manner, and think they’re dogshit, sure, go ahead, but you’re like, trying to act like I’m some sort of brainwashed sheep and you’re trying to make me see the light. Also “Still not able to come up with an argument“ very passive-aggressive there, I have talked about the Epilogues, my opinions and takes on them, and how I feel about the way they deal with characters at LARGE here, if you haven’t bothered to look for the info, and the several responses to some of your asks, then don’t blame me for it. But sure. Let me talk about every single point you JUST mentioned here like some sort of big Masterpost, and when you don’t agree with my point either way, stop fucking harassing me on Anon, seriously you alone have been making me consider turning anon off entirely, which all things considered may just be the healthiest option I could consider, but here I am!

Still not able to come up with an argument about the Epilogue treating Gamzee (the murderous corpse molester) better than Jade (sat around for 3 years with depression only to have a dog dick and then be abandoned by her friends) huh?

Okay let’s begin with Homestuck proper. Gamzee is a Villain. He’s framed as such, people have constantly shown backlash against his character because he’s got fans that would like to see him redeemed, since a good chunk of his story happens with him brainwashed or mind-altered in some sort, but every time he’s shown to go back to doing awful things and killing people. He abuses Terezi, kills Karkat, and gets killed by Kanaya in return in one Timeline, and in another he gets locked up in a fridge, ends up in Caliborn’s planet, and trying to serve his Lord just gets beaten up, shot, left half-dead, until his final appearance in which he gets cut in half and absorbed into Lord English. Then, the Epilogues happen, and he becomes the butt of a joke about undeserved redemption arcs. His very existence in Candy is a joke that he’s not worth redeeming, actually, but tries to force himself to ‘seem’ like he has, despite ruining Dirk’s funeral, making Jake and Tavros’ lives miserable, supporting a Fascist ruler, taking advantage of a potential minor, and it all ends up with him being choked, killed, and his corpse being used as a Weekend at Bernie’s joke. Like... Is that really what you consider ‘good treatment of a character’? He gets away with a lot of bullshit, but he’s like. Constantly, and consistently, shown to be unpleasant, gross and awful. Like. He’s an awful person, and a comic relief, that does fucked up shit for most of his appearance, and I am not sure how any of this can be read in any sort of positive light. I’ve seen Gamzee fans MAD at how much he gets shat on.

Meanwhile, let’s take Jade. A huge theme of her character, sadly, is loneliness and isolation. I dislike that, like many Jade fans. She’s forced into depressingly helpless situations where she lacks agency or control over her own body, or the situation she’s in, and it’s shown affecting her greatly. I want my girl to be happy as well. So when the Epilogues came, and had her getting Callie-possessed, that was bad, it was like, AGAIN she gets the shaft. I want her to be happy and do what she wants to do and be badass with her powers! But- Oh wait, none of that is what you’re complaining about!!! You keep insisting on the Dog Dick instead of any of the genuinely heartbreaking things that happen to her. Jade has a dog dick. It is mentioned once in the entire Epilogues. It mildly affects her desire to have a child with Dave, but she doesn’t even shown herself that broken up about it, and had been looking about potential alternatives, even having Rose as a surrogate. There’s not a single joke made in the Epilogues about her HAVING a dog dick, nor any sort of isolation that happens as a product of her genitalia. Is it a weird choice to canonize that headcanon? Yeah! It kind of is! But this is also a reality where Obama and Dirk make out. And if someone is uncomfortable about Jade having a dog dick, or doesn’t like her being more openly sexual, then that’s fine!!! If they have a transphobic read on Jade, that’s fine!!! You can dislike it, and Homestuck, and the Epilogues, and the writers! But I, as a trans woman myself, and one who’s horny on main a lot of the time, liked the freedom Jade expressed to just do whatever she wanted with new partners on Earth C, and her seeming acceptance and lack of conflict at just, having junk. She does fuck up with Dave and Karkat, because she pushes them a bit too hard, specially Karkat, trying to use the Quadrant System to insert herself in a Black relationship. In Candy, this culminates with political tensions breaking Karkat away from the triad, which is bad for everyone involved. But in Meat, Jade states that they can tell her to just stop and she will, because she genuinely likes both Karkat and Dave, but their feelings are too deeply bottled and complex to just come to light. Does this put some tension in her relationship with them? Yeah! Does this ISOLATE her from her friends? No! Karkat and Dave DO still wanna hang out with her even if she’s a bit too much. John and Jade apparently chat online a bunch, and Jake seemed to have a good relationship with Jade before the whole Jane thing. She is close enough with Rose and Kanaya that Rose considered the surrogate mother thing. She has friends and ties! The major things that happen to isolate her is, Karkat leaving- Caused by Jane’s rise to power- Dave dying- Caused by Ultimate Self Timeline Shenanigans- And being possessed by Callie- All things outside of her control. I want her to get her agency back, but beyond that, her, as a person on Earth C, was not abandoned by her friends, and your obsession over her dog dick as a root of her issues and the bad stuff that happens to her says more about you than about the Epilogues in my opinion.

Guess you're just an idiot and willingly sucking Hussie's dick for a job at Whatpumpkin down the line. Maybe write some incest porn like IPDG and you'll get hired.

You know what? Yeah I would love to have a role at WhatPumpkin. Because I’ve seen the people working at it do other things, and I’ve seen their passion for Homestuck. The people currently doing Homestuck love Homestuck, and this is not up for fucking debate. As for the incest porn thing? Fuck you. Fuck you, fuck you, and a thousand fucking times fuck you. Once again, trying to get some stupid moral high ground mentioning incest. “Oh look at me, I am criticizing someone for something they wrote years ago”, is how you actually sound, and that’s only on the surface. V from Homestuck was never confirmed to be ipgd. V got harassed, and ‘doxxed’ by dubious sources and, I believe, Kiwifarms shit was going on at that time, so that was extremely shady and shitty. And the result of them being equated ended with ipgd being told to kill themself because of old fic they’d written, which, GUESS WHAT, was actually a critic to the way Incest was extremely popular in Fanfic back then, written by ipgd themself, a god damn survivor of that same bullshit they wrote about!!! Congratulations! THAT is the kind of bullshit people like you pull. You just cling to some idea of what’s right and wrong, and end up hurting real people that’ve gone through real shit, instead of considering nuance to your actions and thinking that, HMM, PERHAPS I SHOULD NOT HARASS SOMEONE ON THE INTERNET BECAUSE THEY DID SOMETHING I DON’T LIKE OR HAVE AN OPINION I DON’T AGREE WITH! But nah, let’s go send death threats to people we don’t like, riiiiiiight????

My fandom wish for homestuck 2 is the characters are treated with respect but since every single one of the new authors hate women and only want dirk and jake as well as Dave and Karkat to fuck on screen while Vriska gets comphet child raped by gamzee why bother lol.

Like, I don’t even know what to say. Have you seen like... The rest of the work the WP Team is doing with Homestuck stuff? Addressing actual issues? Doing right by the characters? Acknowledging their fucked up stuff while also showing them in positive lights? A good chunk of the Team, too, is queer? Like if they were all cis straight dudes I could see your complaint but they just. Aren’t??? At all???? Even Taz, who’s probably the biggest Dirk-Jake fan around, absolutely wants the best for other characters, yes, Jade and Rose included, you are just too jaded and blinded by your perception of the Epilogues. Vriska and Gamzee... Yeah that’s iffy. I am not going to defend that, whether it was a mistake with the ages or it was just Gamzee being more awful, that was extremely nasty. There’s also like, suicide and abuse and dictatorship in the Epilogues though. All of this shit that happens is awful, but also it’s not PROMOTING it or saying it’s a good thing? It’s... Fucked up. Comphet though, I dooooooooo want to elaborate on that, because, while I do like the reading of Vriska as being more into women, she does show a near-consistent fascination for Nic Cage and, then, ARquius as someone with a similar aesthetic? Like don’t get me wrong, Vris-Rezi is absolutely the way to go and the healthy thing for Vriska, but also I am not 100% sure if you can gloss over every single one of her relationships with guys as Comphet? (Compbi? Since it’s Trolls) Not to say it justifies anything with Gamzee, that was just nasty. But I feel there’s nuance to talk about Vriska’s sexuality.

Hussie doesn't like his fans or care about Homestuck, how you can read the Epilogue and say the opposite it honestly insane and a complete bold faced lie. Any author that cares about their work would read someone demanding a character be given a dog dick and say no. Any author who cares about their work and their fans wouldn't have released such a purposely bad and painful epilogue and then demand payment for a resolution. Just give up. That's the moral of Homestuck. Give up. It's pointless.

Nah man, you’re just jaded and hurt and projecting. Hussie and the WP Team love Homestuck. It would’ve been so fucking easy to just stop doing Homestuck and move onto something, not even release an Epilogue. It’s like when Homestuck ended. People accused Hussie of a rushed ending with Act 7 back in the day, of disliking Homestuck and the Fans, of having just wrapped it up quickly, but like... If you want to wrap Homestuck up quickly... There were a million fan theories and endings out around that would’ve been so much simpler, easier and basic than what we got. The fact we got Act 7 and all it entailed, the shit the characters go through the Epilogues, of course a lot of awful shit happens, but like... Precisely? If you’re tired of doing something, you just wrap things up. You don’t set up new plot points and mess with the characters and push a new narrative outlook on something. This is the work of an experimental team that still do love the content and characters. Again, you return to the fucking Dog Cock like it’s the biggest sin the Epilogues commit. You haven’t even mentioned Jane’s fascism a single time, but you’ve mentioned Jade’s Dog Fucking Cock like fucking twenty times. Who the fuck cares about what sort of junk Jade has, the Epilogues themselves barely even care, it’s mentioned in the passing and it hardly affects a THING at all. You ask me how I can ‘read the Epilogues and see the opposite of what they say’, and I ask you the exact same thing, because despite all the awful things that happen, Rose and Kanaya keep fighting against tyranny in Candy. Kanaya realizes she’s been brainwashed and chases after Rose because she’s NOT giving up on her wife. Roxy explores their gender identity and finds new things about themself. Karkat gets to live his rebel leader dreams in one Timeline, although with a bitter split from Dave, but ends up together in a proper relationship in Meat. John’s arc in Candy about feeling isolated from a world that seems fake, before realizing his nihilism has hurt the people he cares about and wanting to fix it. Jake’s morale of ‘better late than never’, working up the courage to take Tavros away from Jane- And in HS^2, working as a double-agent trying to sabotage Jane from within? Jane’s been shown at her worst in candy, but in Meat she’s shown to still be redeemable, and that’s exactly what the team’s aiming to do, too.

Like... I can see all the bad stuff that happens. And I find the reactions of the characters to these awful situations are interesting, and the political conflict among friends and the pushing forward in such a dark situation, resonates with me, personally, and some of my own experiences? Not to say, the Epilogues are a Game Over scenario? They are a low point. HS^2 sets up to be the high point. Like... When Game Over happened, a lot of people were like “Welp, Hussie just killed everyone, lol, guess he just got tired of Homestuck”, despite the Retcon Powers being there as the obvious solution. Epilogues, lots of shit happen, and similarly there’s still like a hundred ways to build up from there to a satisfactory resolution? Storytelling can have low points you know. It hurts when it’s characters you care about, duh, specially when it plays into the weaknesses they already acknowledged but fell into again despite themselves. I see why so many people would dislike them and take a more negative vibe from them than they actually convey. But I am still baffled as to why people like you feel entitled to shit on the WP Team and send harassment and insults to people who do enjoy them. You’re not helping anything. You’re not doing anything good. You’re just being a dick.

As for the “demand a payment for a resolution”, they didn’t demand anything? I will be the first one to say that I don’t like the Extra Bonus for 5 bucks, and think it would be better if the Bonus got released like, a month or two after it has for Patrons, an ‘early access’ scenario like I do with my Patreon. And I hope they change this. But aside from that??? The Patreon is optional to support the creators because, it’s not just Hussie, it’s a big team, and they’re also using the Patreon to help them with other projects like Pesterquest and Hiveswap, because we live in a capitalistic hell world and need money to be able to pursue passion projects. The main updates every month- And twice a month starting February- Are completely free for people to read, still, the paywalled content still circulates around the community despite being paywalled, and other paid projects like, Pesterchum, for their scope and the amount of fun they’ve given me, they’re super cheap and worth it.

You ask me how I can ‘see the opposite the Epilogues say’, you tell me that I am an ‘idiot sucking Hussie’s dick for a job at WP’, you act like I am scum and brainwashed and there’s literally no reason why I should ever like something you don’t.

You know what I am though? I am happy and excited about the things I’ve been given! I am happy with the representation I’ve seen the Team push lately. I’m happy with the way the characters have been treated in Pesterquest and have high hopes for HS^2. And I am interested in the events of the Epilogues, while acknowledging that of course a lot of fucked up shit happened in them.

Back when the Epilogues happening and I was reading them, I was reading Candy at like 4 AM and was LOVING the fucked up-ness of the Timeline and wondering what may happen in Meat. I got a PM from a friend asking me to make a channel in a server I’m in, to quarantine Epilogues Discourse, and was genuinely confused as to why there was Discourse going on. I went through the rest of Candy and Meat with some dread waiting for some ball to drop and something to turn really controversial, and I finished them still enjoying them? Obviously there was a lot of awful shit. Obviously there was a lot of things people wouldn’t like. Obviously they were tales that likely alienated a chunk of the Fandom that was looking for a happy ending. But honestly, the unbridled fury and subsequent harassment of people over them is just plain embarrassing. It was confusing then, and it’s even more confusing now, well over half a year since their release, and still sending random Tumblr Blogs this kind of bullshit.

So there you go! All of your questions and your bullshit, answered! Now let’s get this out of the way: You’re not going to like my answer, you’re not going to agree with a majority of what I just said, you’re not going to CARE about any of what I just said. Spare me the fucking asks and anon hate. Just move on and do something productive with your time.

[honeypiehotchner]

Trust -- part twenty-six

Uh oh...here it is. Warning for pissed-the-fuck-off (protective) Sherlock here. This is where you’re all really going to start to hate me. Happy reading! xx.

“Jesus Christ, Sherlock, you can’t just break into my flat!”

           “You weren’t answering,” he replies simply, shrugging his shoulders. He pockets the tool he used to pick your lock, offering a sheepish smile.

           The honest truth is, he’s been terrified. Ever since Mycroft’s phone call three days ago, Sherlock Holmes has been absolutely terrified out of his mind and he has had no idea what to do about it.

           “So, what, you think you can just break in now?” You scoff, tightening the towel around your body. “Well, I’m alive, can you leave now?” This is not exactly how you wanted him to see you in the shower the first time, but here you are.

           “Oh right,” he nods, looking a little guilty as he exits your flat, closing the door behind him.

           You wait by the door, looking up at the ceiling. You sigh loudly.

           “Go away, Sherlock. Don’t make me shoot you.”

           “Okay,” he says quickly, and then you hear him bouncing up the stairs, throwing open the door to his own flat.

           You flick the lock on your door, this time adding the deadbolt with a roll of your eyes. For fuck’s sake.

           You’ve never been more confused by one human being in your entire life. First, Sherlock is fine with getting close to you. You kiss, you sleep next to each other. Then, suddenly he won’t speak to you, look at you, or touch you. And now, for the past few days, he’s been so damn clingy, you think you might pull your hair out.

           After throwing on some clothes, you throw yourself down on your bed, dialing John’s number. And when he doesn’t pick up – you forgot he’s working today – you try Molly.

           “Hey Y/N!”

           “Hi, Molly,” you smile. “What are you doing this afternoon?”

           “Nothing actually…Tom is working all day and I’ve got the day off. What are you up to?”

           A lunch date with Molly is exactly what you need, really. You manage to sneak out of the building without Sherlock knowing – though it does pain you to leave when he’s playing his violin. You love to listen to him play, but you know if you’re going to make this daring escape, you’re going to have to leave when he’s occupied.

           “Taxi!” You hold up your hand, somehow miraculously getting the first one that drives by. That almost never happens to you.

           You slide into backseat, not noticing the guy sitting on the other side until it’s too late. Until the door is locked. Until the realization dawns on you. Until you feel a sharp pain in your neck. Until your vision goes black. Until the cab drives away.

~~~

Sherlock’s phone rings. And if it hadn’t been Molly, he wouldn’t have picked up.

           “Hello?”

           “Sherlock, is Y/N still with you? We were supposed to meet for lunch an hour ago, but she isn’t answering her phone.”

           Sherlock’s eyes widen as he practically skips all of the stairs, landing downstairs rather harshly. He skips picking the lock on your door and instead results in kicking it in – he’ll deal with Ms. Hudson’s threats to make him pay for it later.

           The door falls in to reveal and empty flat. You left a while ago.

           “Molly, don’t worry,” Sherlock tries, but how can he tell her not to worry when he’s even worrying? If Sherlock Holmes, the man who never busies himself with worry, is worrying, then isn’t it something to worry about?

           “Sherlock… What’s going on?”

           “I don’t know,” he answers truthfully. “Go back home, Molly.”

           “I’m at Barts, she was supposed to meet me here—”

           “Good, stay there. Don’t leave.”

           “Sherlock—”

           She doesn’t get another word out before he’s ended the call, flying back up the stairs to grab his coat and his gun. This isn’t a conversation to have over the phone. He needs to speak with his brother in person. But he needs to pick up John first.

~~~

“Uh, John,” Mary pokes her head into the room as usual, only this time something is different. He sees it on her face.

           “What’s wrong?”

           She pushes the door open, Sherlock stepping in.

           John groans loudly. “We have an agreement, Sherlock, don’t come to my work to recruit me for cases—”

           “Y/N is missing,” Sherlock interrupts, affectively shutting him up. “I don’t know how, but I know when. We need to speak to my brother.”

           John doesn’t argue, just grabs his coat and nods to Sherlock. “Let’s go then.”

           Sherlock nods, turning and leaving. John pauses to give Mary a kiss.

           “Are you sure you want to stay here?”

           “One of us has to work,” she reminds him. “But call me the second you know something, alright?”

           “Of course,” he nods, pressing another kiss to her forehead. “I’ll be back.”

           “Be careful!” She calls after him, even though he never is.

~~~

The men at Mycroft’s office always know when his brother is coming to visit because Sherlock always, always causes a commotion.

           He ignores the security guards at the front, telling them they should recognize his face by now and not waste their time in trying to card him – and that they should do better at hiding their obvious affair with one another if they want to stay in their current (separate) marriages. John tries not to laugh at their looks of surprise, even though Sherlock does have a valid point: they should be used to this by now.

           And Mycroft knows when Sherlock is coming to visit because the door to his office opens without a single knock or warning. You do the same, but Sherlock is more aggressive, nearly yanking the door off its hinges every time.

           “Y/N is missing,” Sherlock blurts, trying to gain his brother’s attention.

           But Mycroft barely looks up from his desk. “She took a cab from Baker Street an hour ago. She’s having lunch with Molly Hooper. You must have been a nuance to her again, seeing as she didn’t inform you.”

           “Y/N hasn’t answered her phone in an hour, and she was supposed to meet Molly at Barts, which is barely a five-minute cab ride. If you’d like to enlighten me on her whereabouts, I suggest you do so quickly.”

           Mycroft stops writing then, his eyes lifting to meet his brother’s. There’s a different anger swimming there, an emotion he hasn’t seen in Sherlock in a very long time.

           Mycroft notices John’s equally as hard expression, so he caves. He opens his laptop, moving to find your whereabouts to calm both of the men standing in his office. Mycroft doesn’t want to think the worse – can’t bring himself to because he’s kept a close eye on you. But apparently not close enough.

           “Mycroft,” Sherlock barks. “Where is she?”

           Mycroft doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know. The last record he has of you is getting into the cab. The cab that doesn’t have a tag anywhere on the vehicle. It drives away undetected. It will take hours to search through security footage to find it, if Gidon hasn’t wiped the video, or gone outside of the city – which he most likely has.

           “Oh my God,” John rubs his hands over his face. “Oh my God.”

           “This is your fault,” Sherlock nearly screams, pointing an accusing finger at his brother. “Never let her leave your sight, you told me. You should’ve let me take care of this the moment she was getting curious, but you couldn’t handle it, could you? What does he have on you, big brother? I know it’s not about protecting her because you’ve done an awful job at that, leading her to that drug den and nearly getting her killed—”

           “You knew she was going there?” John yells. “You knew, and you didn’t think I should know?”

           “I kept a close watch on her—”

           “Yeah, well, apparently not close enough,” John snaps. “I’m calling Lestrade.”

           “I’m going to handle it, John—”

           John cuts him off again. “I don’t want you to handle it, alright? You’ve done enough handling it, Mycroft, and it’s gone too far now. You can’t fix it this time, and frankly, I don’t want you to try.”

           John steps out to make the call, giving Sherlock a moment alone with his big brother.

           “Where has he been hiding?” Sherlock demands. “I want everything you’ve been holding back from me.”

           “Sherlock—”

           “Now.”

           Mycroft sighs, turning to walk over to his filing cabinet. Sherlock watches as his brother opens the locked drawer, pulling out three files, all filled to their maximum capacity.

           He pushes the drawer closed with his arm, holding the folders out to Sherlock. “This is everything.”

           Sherlock grabs the files, ready to rip them out of his hands, but Mycroft keeps his firm grip on them. The younger looks at the older with a glare that is lethal.

           “You’ve gotten attached, Sherlock,” Mycroft’s tone is warning. “You’re too involved.”

           “Shut up.”

           “You know what I have always told you,” Mycroft gives his brother an even look. “Caring is not an advantage. Don’t let it disadvantage you.”

           “Because that worked for you,” Sherlock mutters, ripping the files from his brother’s grip.

           Mycroft watches his brother leave, sighing loudly as the door slams on its way out. And even though Sherlock doesn’t want his help, he still opens his laptop, beginning the search for you.

[eldritchsurveys]

586.

Do you have a common first name? >> I really don’t. I experienced what it was like to have a relatively common first name for a few years and I think I prefer this, honestly. Do you like your middle name or your first name more? >> I like both, considering I chose them both. What year would/did you turn 21? >> 2008. What was popular when you were a kid? >> Oof. Honestly, aside from boy bands and I guess Nickelodeon, I’m not too sure. I was kept completely out of touch with popular culture when I was single-digit age. By the time I got to middle school I was deeply immersed in my own obsessions so I wasn’t paying much attention then either. Do you wear more rings or necklaces? >> I have more necklaces than rings.

Have you ever been engaged? >> Yes. Can you see your veins through your skin? >> I have a phlebotomist’s dream of a vein in the crook of my right elbow, but that’s really it. Do you have a certain song you sing aloud often? >> I usually just sing along to whatever’s playing (if I know the lyrics), as long as it’s somewhere in my range.  Do you concern yourself with what’s in? >> Not specifically. I mean, I have a pretty vague knowledge of what’s popular because of my time on tumblr, and sometimes I get into things after hearing about them from other people, but otherwise I just... like what I like, man. Do you worry about having good grammar online? >> I really the fuck don’t. I’m delighted that the internet has changed how we communicate and how we understand and use language. All the things language prescriptivists hate about “internet-speak” are things I love, even if I myself don’t use them.

Do you know anyone with a lazy eye? >> No. Did your parents let you have pets when you were a kid? >> We had dogs. Would you rather live in an apartment or a duplex? >> I don’t know. I’d rather just live in a separate building... Have you ever seen Boondock Saints? >> Yeah. I should rewatch that, I remember really liking it. Do you like spicy chips? >> Yes. Do you have any ‘different’ keychains on your keys/purse? >> I have an X-Files keychain and a New Orleans one on my keys. And a guitar plug that used to say “Trans-Siberian Orchestra” on it before the letters all wore off. Do you collect pins? >> I don’t collect them, per se. I do like pins and will often buy them, but I try not to buy more than I can actually put on stuff. What band was on the last band t-shirt you wore? >> Uh... hmm. Cradle of Filth, maybe. Do you wear more pink or yellow? >> I don’t wear either.

What’s the last movie you watched at a friend’s house? >> --- Have you ever been out of the state you were born in? >> Yes. Do you have any tattoos on your arms? >> That’s where all my tattoos are. Have you ever owned or known someone who owned a black cat? >> We currently have a black cat. When was the last time you felt jealous? >> The last time I was on Discord and once again felt like I had nothing to contribute to any conversation, ever, and I had no purpose being there. This is partly why I’m taking a break from Discord. What’s the last thing you bought besides food/drink? >> Gas for the car. What album is the last song you listened to from? >> The Devil Knows My Name by John 5. Do you know what the word lumiere means? >> Uh... something to do with light. Do you own a tea pot? >> Yeah.

Who scheduled your last doctor visit? >> I did. What’s the last video game you played? >> Guild Wars 2. Do you have anything on your wrists right now? >> Scars and a tattoo. Do you have any holiday theme’d socks? >> I have like four pairs of Halloween socks but only one pair of Christmas socks and I feel the need to rectify that immediately. (The Christmas socks are real neat, though -- they have an alien with a Santa hat on them, which is basically just a perfect depiction of me.) What kind of accent do you have? >> I don’t know. Generic American, I assume. What’s the last funny movie you watched? >> Klaus. Can you remember your parents’ birthdays? >> I know my father’s. Is there anyone who you just absolutely cannot STAND being around? >> Of course.

What is the design on your shirt? >> It’s a black and grey photo of some bare tree branches with ravens on them, and over that is listed a bunch of Odin-names in runes.

Do you know anyone who just flat-out fails at life? >> I don’t think anyone fails at life. Even dying isn’t failing, because that’s just an inevitability of life. Are you a Ghoulscout? >> A what? Do you know someone who’s just always wrong about everything? >> No. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Do you make fun of people often? >> No. Do you read your friend’s surveys? >> I read the surveys of people I find interesting. I don’t have any friends that also take surveys, though.  If you had to get a tattoo tomorrow, what would you pick? >> Every time I’m asked what tattoo I want, I immediately completely forget all the good ideas I have. It’s so annoying. I should start writing them down. How do you feel about band tattoos? >> I like band tattoos. Music is important to me, too, so I understand. Do you know anyone with a glass eye? >> No. How much are you willing to pay for a pair of sunglasses? >> I don’t know. I’ve never bought a pair that cost more than $10.

Did you have a GI Joe when you were a kid? >> No. What is the origin of your last name? >> I have no idea. Do you ever use the n-word? >> Yeah, because it’d become in-group slang in the communities I was in. Also because I listen to rap music and sometimes even learn the lyrics. But I don’t use it to address other people anymore because I no longer live in the hood. What piercing do you like most on the opposite sex? >> --- What brand of hair dye do you prefer to use? >> --- What county do you live in? >> Kent. Did/do you ride the bus to and from school? >> I rode the bus for most of the time I attended school. In junior and senior year, I walked. (WHS didn’t have a bus system because students either were driven, walked, or drove themselves.) Do you prefer beef, chicken or steak? >> I’m guessing the last one is supposed to be pork, not steak, heh. I like all three, but I eat chicken most often. What is your salad dressing of choice? >> Any kind of vinaigrette, or Italian in a pinch.

Do you know anyone who’s a really funny type of weird? >> Er... I don’t know. I’m not sure what that means. Do you make faces at certain people? >> No? Is there something you won’t let one of your friends live down? >> No. Are you any good at applying make up? >> Sure. Do you know anyone whose hair looks like a wig? >> No. Do you misuse commas? >> No. Have you ever bitten your dentist? >> Ha, no. Are you someone who likes to make simple things difficult? >> I’m someone who understand that many “simple” things contain nuance and complexity that deserves to be acknowledged. Who makes you laugh the most? >> I’m not sure.