#maybe if i ever do a full rewatch i can do a new post

[emptyjunior]

I'm rewatching Starstruck in the break, can I say I DESPERATELY would have loved to have seen this intergalactic chase across the stars from the Other Side😭

Like okay, campaign where you're a crew of kooky spacers on the run, classic, fun, oh the adventures we had.., can you Imagine what this story would have been like from the pursuers side? From Lucienne and UFTP?

You're Lucienne and you just got SCREWED on the corporate ladder and are already dealing with some rich trust fund kid DYING yet also leaving you in Charge of an insane company.

And during that you find out oh my god the world might be destroyed?? And there's a Princeps who has a super special computer that will decide the fate of the universe? So you stash them away to keep them safe and go back to covering up the murder you might be to blame for, because universe destroying computer is like priority TWO right now.

And then you find out?? Your ex lover friend has become a pirate???! And has STOLEN the princeps??! AND THE WORLD ENDING COMPUTER??! And quit??! And posted Nudes to the world??! And they look amazing?

So okay okay new priority is FIND THEM right NOW so you send all the resources in the world to go snatch them up which should be easy enough because you've seen them run, they're literally a weak and flailing office worker in a pencil skirt.

Welp! Next report comes in and they exploded a building with sex putty??? And decimated a fleet of the best fighters you can hire? And had time to go to a dogshow in between???

Fine, okay, it's fine because you KNOW they'll slip up again and they do! They show up,,., in a live stream? Partying with the ceo of space uber?? In a casino? That they just OPENED? WHILE THEY'RE ON THE RUN?!

So you go to that planet and go to contact the sheriff and his Head is on a Fucking Spike because your Friend absolutely wasted him? And kicked every police officer out of town so the whole town could go super super hard for space burning man?

And have escaped Again.

So now you're in some kind of room with like 20 screens and probably two blackberries in each hand, going full manhunt. Face recognition software, algorithms, zooming in on photos and yelling Enhance.

And you find them! And they👏 are👏 at👏 Disneyland👏! What! The! Fuck!

You send your best guys again! (And also??! These 'best guys' maybe have a space slug in their skull that's going to end the world! Can't even focus on that rn!). And then when they get back, happy and proud they show you the Princeps that they've captured and it's god damned thin air! Because it was a hologram and this dumb sonuva bitch is zonked out of his mind from a fish psychic. Great, of course. Of Course.

You're being hounded by your company, you still don't know where your 'dead fiance' is, you're running out of time. How are you ever going to find them- You check your phone they are doing a hunger games at Las Vegas. And a rival company has made them influencers. And they're famous.

Of course.

But you do pull it off in the end! You get them! You imprison them! And their one fatal flaw? They decided to reunite one of their crew members with their birth mother while being wanted criminals.

So that's the chase you got them (they escape again of course they escape, and the birth mother turns out to be a Hell of a business woman and maybe just did a masterful corporate maneuver on you.)

And it's so important to know that this entire time you've been chasing a Big Hot Dog.

[thursdayinspace]

Hi friend! What are your thoughts about Anasazi? 🤣😉

oh god one day i will have to make a real post about this. maybe on my next rewatch. but my immediate thoughts?

love can be expressed in so many ways. like shooting your friend in the shoulder and keeping him unconscious for what must have been a three day road trip across the country. after that friend had accused you of working against him.

honestly, it is such an important episode for them. mulder's father gets killed and he feels sick because someone has drugged the water in his apartment building, and he goes straight to scully. he isn't even thinking straight anymore at that point, but he needs scully, he's gonna be safe there when the whole world is against him. and scully does keep him safe. she knows him. she trusts him absolutely.

mulder believes she betrayed him? no, he doesn't. she knows he doesn't believe that. he's had something done to him. she figures out what it was, shoots him before he can shoot krycek and put that on his conscience and his permanent record, and takes him on that insane road trip -- i really want to know how she even managed that. if that isn't a true act of love, what is? it must have been difficult. they didn't make that trip in a day. and, you know. she had to take care of him. with . . . all sorts of physical stuff. that's friendship.

and he did not expect that. even saying thank you is something he has to figure out how to do. not because he isn't grateful, but because who has ever done something that big for him? who has ever done anything big for him without an ulterior motive? and she keeps doing it. she keeps being there for him. no matter what. it has to be a process for him to figure out why, because she doesn't ever really ask for anything in return and she never uses it as leverage to get anything from him.

he understands what she did for him, but i don't think he fully grasps the entire meaning of it yet, because he can't. friendship and love is conditional, in his experience. not in the way he loves other people. he loves unconditionally and with all his heart. he just doesn't expect to be loved back in the same way. but i think this, the way she takes care of him here? i think he sees for a short moment, before he shuts that part of himself off again, that there is somebody who believes he's worthy of being loved just for who he is.

over the course of their partnership, she gives him more and more moments like that and they accumulate over time. but it takes him a long, long time to be able to take that risk and stand still long enough to be loved. because that is such a risk. so he runs and runs and runs, making himself a moving target so her expressions of love graze him but never wound. but scully is a good shot. she doesn't just put a bullet in his shoulder. she hits him right in the heart with the full force of her trust, loyalty, and love again and again, until he realizes that it doesn't hurt. it doesn't make him bleed. it heals him.

and this episode, what she does for him here, that is one time he cannot dodge the bullet. he walks away from that adventure with a new scar on his shoulder and a little bit of that protective wall around his heart chipped away.

[madlad-sadgal]

I got bored again, so for the third time, here are random things I noticed throughout my rewatch of Nimona.

As always, Nimona Spoilers!

To start off, a few people pointed out how the first time Nimona shows up on screen, we see her doing a graffiti of the word dumb. Also, rewatching some of the scenes, in the scene where she shows the new murder wall, you can make out the word "Nemesis" written over Ambrosius' picture. Also, if you look at the very top of the wall, we can see a drawing of Bal's prosthetic with flames coming out of it with the words "Literal Firearm" written under it. So, I rethought it, and realized Gloreth was probably the first human Nimona had ever seen (as far as we know), so Gloreth probably taught her to speak, write and read, except this was a thousand years ago, and language constantly evolves, and we can all agree that "From whence you came" and "Nemesis" aren't really phrases or words people seem to use. So, I think Nimona probably has some knowledge when it comes to reading and writing, both thanks to Gloreth and just picking up bits and pieces throughout those 1000 years, but she still has trouble when it comes to full on writing actual long phrases to create like an essay or something like a resume.

When she pins back Am's picture on the wall, we see a post it with "Disrupt the System" written and highlighted on it.

We get a hint that Nimona might be "Gloreth's monster" when we see a drawing of her in dragon form that kinda resembles the dragon we see at the beginning in the scrolls.

When Bal calls Nim a monster, there is literally a newspaper cut out on the wall next to him with his picture and the word "Monster" written on it.

We get a bit of insight on the type of pressure Ambrosius suffers from when we get back to the Institute. All the other knights seem to think it's his fault for not having stopped Bal from escaping, despite a whole horde of knights chasing after him and not one of them even coming close to stopping him from escaping either. The other knights, despite probably not knowing the full extent of it, seem to be aware of the close relationship between the two of them, putting him under even more pressure because of that small fact.

When the Director stops the fight between Ambrosius and Todd, she tells them; "Look at you, acting like common children." Reminder that everyone is fully aware that Bal was a commoner and is currently suspected to having killed the queen. She is basically telling them; "Those people are very clearly below us and one of them is a murderer and a villain, and yet you are acting like them."

When Am volunteers to lead the manhunt for Bal, we can clearly see him go slightly worried for Bal as Todd is talking about how he'll make Bal pay. He probably volunteered because he wanted to lessen the chances of Bal getting hurt.

Like I mentioned in another post, Nimona often tries to get Bal to understand that the Institute is filled lies, but not by directly telling him. She starts by giving little hints. One example of him is when she tries to tell him that maybe there's nothing over the wall. I talk about it more in this post.

Nimona's little pink streak in her hair

Nimona is quick enough to go up an escalator that goes down, but a literal knight who has gone through harsh training isn't.

Todd knows that Am's hair smells like lavender. In flower language, lavender is associated with purity, silence, devotion, caution, serenity, grace and calmness. That sounds an awful lot like qualities the Institute would expect a direct descendant of Gloreth to posses, doesn't it?

I'll stop here, cause this is starting to get long.

Unrelated, but I decided to watch Nimona with my siblings (13, 7 and 5) and they all loved it. The best part for me was that my homophobic aunt watched the bit where Bal and Am kiss, started freaking out that I was pushing it onto them, and then my 13 years old brother just commented about how she kept forcing him to watch her romance movies with her and was always pushing him to "get a girlfriend for them to meet" and she just shut up and left. Just wanted to put that out there.

Might make another one of these if y'all like this!

[distracted-and-diffused]

Hit my subscription renewal date - Thoughts Part 2

At this point, my subscription to Netflix is functionally a subscription to Dead Boy Detectives.

That's partly because I really, really love the show -- and I do! Partly because I've been rewatching the show as much as I reasonably can in hopes of supporting the fandom as we hope to change Netflix's mind about the cancellation. And partly because -- for a lack of time, to get a point across, out of stubbornness / spite -- I haven't been watching anything else on Netflix since the cancellation.

My Basic subscription was recently dropped, and before the cancellation news, I was actually telling myself that the forced move to new plan would have an upside, because this show is one of the very few things that have made me wish I had that higher resolution subscription.

I want to see all the details, and it feels rewarding to notice little things in the show, like the plaque on the moose bobblehead in Episode 2, or the wording on the label on the black salt, or the different ways that Esther accessorizes with the evil eye necklace that she wears constantly. I've paused the show so many times to get a better look at things, and it's almost always been rewarded.

And also, before the cancellation news, I thought that I would give "with Ads" a try for at least a couple of weeks, to see if I could live with it, since I couldn't keep my Basic plan.

But I can't imagine, now that rewatching the show is part of my routine, having ads pop on in between scenes. (It would very much be a "flames on the sides of my face" situation if they messed with the timing and transitions of the show at this point. I don't feel like this is a show that is written to have ad breaks.)

And that's not even counting the whole targeted ad situation I talked about in my previous post.

Because of this show and this fandom, I'm watching more Netflix right now than ever. (I'd previously have bursts of watching, at most, a few 22-minute episodes a day while I cooked, followed by weeks of nothing as I watched shows on another service. Now I'm averaging at least 14 hours a week, while I do other things.)

Now, I'm renewing so I can keep up the rewatches (round 12 right now!), and in hopes that Netflix, too, might choose to renew (hint, hint).

But frankly, I'm considering my options, in the event that they don't.

If there's ever an official DVD/BluRay release, I'm going for it. (Very much hoping that Warner Brothers will put one out; what can I say, we're a passionate fanbase, and at the very least I hope they'd see that it would be worth it for them to do so.)

And if there's no hope of further seasons, I can't see myself keeping up a subscription full time. I'm sure I'd want to come back and visit the shows that I already like that have ended, but I don't think I'd have any motivation to try to keep up with anything new that's exclusive to Netflix as it comes out. What would be the point?

(Since the cancellation, I've learned about multiple Netflix shows I've never heard of before that sound interesting to me. I've heard about them specifically because they have also been cancelled -- and because Netflix's recommender thinks I'd be interested in them since I like Dead Boy Detectives. The fact that they have multiple recently cancelled but well-received shows in that segment seems somewhat damning.)

If I do drop back to part-time, I don't think I'd be coming back for enough time to make up the revenue they'd lose compared to the last price point, so that, too, seems like a loss for Netflix. (For the cost of a year's subscription at the last price point for Basic, I can manage almost 8 months of Standard. But I'm not sure I'd be coming back for 8 months at a time, if I knew I wasn't planning to stick around.)

Maybe I'm not the customer that Netflix is thinking of. Maybe I'm not the demographic that they want, or I'm not motivated by the same things that they think I should be.

But for a service that wants steady revenue and is concerned about cancellation/subscription churn, Netflix has been making some odd choices lately, as far as I'm concerned.

[milkovichrules]

sorry to come into your ask box but i just rewatched mickey’s coming out scene and i just… i get choked up every time. i love ian but i also feel like he pressured mickey into coming out. of course he had to set his own boundaries but he KNEW how badly mickey was treated when it came to his sexuality, it’s almost seemed cruel to give him that ultimatum in some way. but then mickey comes out and all he could do was look at ian and ask if he was happy!!!! like i cant even explain all the emotions noel was able to put into his voice in that moment, it literally break me just thinking about it! he knew what was coming and he still only wanted ian to be happy.. thats really just something. i dont even have words for it but i wanna let out the loudest scream about it

hello sweet thing!! you're always welcome here💕

tbh the coming out scene always reminds me of noel's fucking beautiful ig post about Ian's character but especially 'the truly remarkable thing about Ian's inner courage is that it's infectious. to put it simply, he's brave and an undeniable reminder to those around him; they can be brave too.'

I used to absolutely not be at all but I am definitely an Ian defender about this to a certain extent.

like do we enjoy ultimatums? fuck no. it's a shitty way to go about it. BUT I have to think about what's probably going through Ian's head, right? keeping in mind he's in/just coming down from what we can only assume is his first ever manic episode.

mickey came to find him, literally carried him home and protected him from creeps. gave him a place to stay and didn't just plonk him on the Gallagher's doorstep, actively chose him over his marriage. went to the Gallagher's when Svetlana kicked him out and asked him to come back, agreed to do whatever he wanted to get him to stay with him. slept next to his tiny bed on the floor.

mickey kissed him, full on made out with him in public!! that's so huge!! he accepted an invitation to a little gay party with ian's new friends. he slept in the same bed with him without fear in a house full of strangers!! he doesn't even know that mickey told that guy that they were together 😭

we all know mickey is an acts of service girlie but Ian is the kind of person that needs to hear it too. and when Ian DOES ask it's 'of course we are'. like it's a given. mickey doesn't need to have the conversation, but Ian does. and as far as mickey's concerned 'it's working out so far so good' to be a couple that hides.

there's a million reasons mickey might want to still keep them a bit of a secret (though its a pretty open secret at that point). sure I think some of it is to protect his reputation, to not have any sort of weakness, and to some extent I think he feels a lot of pressure in protecting the reputation of the Milkovich name, no matter how infamous it is. maybe because of how infamous it is.

but I also think it's because what he has with Ian is theirs. and its something in both of their lives that's genuinely really beautiful.

like not to bring up 3x666 but that's obviously the moment that the bubble really burst. he had built up this little secret life with Ian behind closed doors and he was opening up! he was falling in love! and once people (Terry) found out it was just ripped open completely. ruined. I think there's some element of mickey wanting them to be back at that place before it all went to shit. which of course, they never can be.

just like when Ian starts heading for the door in the alibi. he doesn't think mickey's going to do it. Ian's going to walk out and not see Mickey for a while and then in a few weeks it'll be 'just cuz I've got a wife and kid doesn't mean we can't still bang' like it was back then.

but now mickey knows what it's like to lose him and he doesn't ever want to do it again (which 🥲 but anyway)

the fact that when Ian tells mickey he's sick of living a lie mickey's immediate response is 'I'm not lying to you' somebody fucking sedate me

and of course Ian wants mickey to come out so that they can be together but 'you're not free' absolutely kills me because he just wants mickey to be okay with being himself openly. and 'what you and I have makes me free' and ian's FAAAACE but then Terry shows up and he has to watch mickey tear himself away and go straight back in the cage and it hurts. of course it hurts.

so Ian drinks a little and lets himself stew and shoves mickey toward the edge of the cliff.

mickey's voice when Ian tells him not to bother coming back and he says 'what the fuck are you talking about?' breaks my heart every time because they're fine, aren't they? they just have to get through this bad thing and then they can go back to their little bubble.

mickey's always in survival mode, just varying degrees of severity. you can see him, literally see it on his face, weighing the options.

what's gonna happen if he does nothing? he's going to watch Ian leave. again. he's going to get blackout drunk and go home with his wife and his son and his fucking dad and wake up like that every morning for however long he can stand it. he's going to be walking on the eggshells of his own broken heart.

what's gonna happen if he says something? he's going to be physically hurt. he's going to bleed. he's going to have to bite and scratch his way out of that bar unless he's arrested or knocked out first. there's hopefully enough people around to keep Terry from straight up killing him. and what else? Ian stays. Ian stays and they get to go home together. take care of each other. sickness, health, all that shit.

so he does it. he shouts and he bangs on that table and he says it and hes fucking brave!! because he might think he's fucked for life but he has one beautiful thing that's worth fighting for!!

oh my god and him asking 'you happy now?' I fucking knooowwwwww honestly it makes me a little bit? insane? there is SO much going on there.

fucking getting everyone's attention to announce he's fucking gay and 'I just thought everyone should know that' and then looking at the only other openly gay person in the room and going 'you happy now?' jEEEEEsus like?????????

the eyebrow raise as well like 'you know exactly what's gonna happen now' and of course it does.

but Ian absolutely no hesitation gets stuck right into the fight!! and he says 'I've wanted to do this forever' which, same babe. I too would take a chair to the back wrestlemania style to defend mickey milkovich.

all my blorbos shitty dads I would be in your walls but you're all dead so✌️

[chirpsythismorning]

Hi.what make you believe byler is endgame and how do you think The Duffer will make them endgame?

There's a lot of different factors for why I believe byler is endgame. If it was only one or two or three or a single digit amount of things, then I'd probably be more skeptical. Instead it's so many things that I don't think I can even quantify with any number?

Long post ahead so queue for later if you must!

I used to ship milkvan back in the day, and that's probably because I watched the show once and fell for the whole boy meets girl trope as peak romance, without even thinking about it? Like my first time rewatching the show pre-s3, I remember only focusing on their scenes and even going as far as to skip entire episodes in s2 without them in it, so it's really no wonder I missed details that might have helped me understand the full picture.

I also don't get queer-baited, like ever. I have watched shows like Teen Wolf where fans loved sterek, and even though that show had a gay show-runner, it was obvious to me they were never going that route, despite kind of feeding fans over the years with banter between them. The problem was the details weren't pointing to them being endgame, they were pointing to stydia. With stydia, they were using color coding in their costumes and had the fucking red string of fate in the frame with them multiple times and they were having entire plot lines built up around sort of their feelings for each other. Then there's all the other shows out there like Supernatural and Sherlock, and to me, it just felt like two guys that had chemistry that fans read as romantic and were having fun with it, only for the writers to try to profit off of that hope fans had, just sort of fucking with fans for years without really going for it literally in the text of the story.

And even if they did (albeit extremely subtly) that's when you would see shows tend to kill off the characters. Because after years of queer-baiting, the only solution is to kill at least one off, after tricking a sector of your audience for so long. Because unfortunately, no, they're not going to end up together, so we just have to get rid of one of them to make it clear that it won't happen.

While I don't vividly remember the moment I dropped Milkvan and picked up byler, I do remember watching s3 for the first time and feeling like something was off. And then to humor my confusion, I went online and came across an analysis for the end of s3. Even though it did really made me think like 'woah.. what was that?', in the moment, I was still in a position to not want to fall for it because of all the queer-baiting out there. I'd never fallen for it before and I wasn't going to start now basically.

And then I didn't read any more theories after that, I just basically jumped into rewatching the show for fun again, without really thinking about it even, and without skipping this time. And I vividly remember the shed scene definitely had some romantic undertones going on. When the camera was focused on Mike talking to Will, we didn't get any reaction shots in between of Joyce and Jonathan. Whereas when Joyce and Jonathan talked to Will, we got Mike's reaction and both Jonathan and Joyce's kind of reactions to each others speeches in that moment, which was to obviously convey the familial bond going on. And so in contrast, seeing Mike's monologue to Will be isolated, without any cuts to the others reactions during, with intense close-ups of Mike and Will, with Mike literally having one by one teardrops falling down his face and him repeating softly you said yes, you said yes... That... Like it made me really start to consider it in that moment, based on my new potential understanding of the end of s3 and based on what I had found upon rewatching that time.

Even still though, I didn't let myself believe it. And maybe in large part it was bc I did like the idea of byler I guess? And so that made me want to be more cautious? Other times when I came across fans shipping queer pairings that weren't canon, it felt like harmless shipping to me, where like I got the appeal, but didn't like feel genuine intentional slow-burn chemistry? It was always a thing that at most I liked merely as fanon. And so I guess I was trying to prepare myself for that inevitable disappointment that it wasn't going to go any further than what it had?

Maybe it was also because I was holding onto this idea of milkvan I had at the beginning? An idea that in large part contributed to my ability to get hooked with the show in the first place? Boy meets girl is like the most universal trope in our society and it was easy to just go along with it when everyone else was.

But more than anything I do think it was because I thought it just had to be queer-bait like it's always has been. At best I thought maybe it would continue very vaguely in the subtext in s4, with like 1 or two scenes at most hinting at attraction? But we all know that's not what happened..

S4 promo dropped, and I remember being like well here goes. It had been over a year, almost two since I'd been exposed to the possiblity of byler, though I was going into it prepared to see Mike and El being perfectly in love and that they were just going to act like nothing had ever happened between Mike and Will.

But then that Cali poster dropped. And that had me reeling. I remember sending a text to my sister like 'QUEER-BAIT?' and she was like yep queer-bait. But that's also because she's in the mindset of someone that hasn't seen anything outside of watching the show, and while half paying attention at that. This is the first piece of evidence she is being presented with and so of course she is viewing it from a don't hope or assume that could ever happen bc it never happens lens.

Even that I took as maybe a reality check, that this meant nothing, but also at the same time, this is the Duffer Brothers? They're smart? Why would they apply the if boy is pointing his feet at you he is in love with you rule via New Girl, with Mike and Will in the Cali poster, for shits and giggles? When the whole point in those posters is to hide foreshadowing?

Regardless of how much it genuinely shocked me they were appearing to really play with this concept of Mike having romantic feelings for Will, I still didn't fully let myself think about it too much...

And then as s4 got closer and more stuff dropped and there was like a lot of promo hinting Will having feelings for Mike, that's when it really kicked in for me. And that's when I went back and rewatched and holy shit it suddenly became clear as fucking day. My excitement for Vol. 1 was insurmountable because I was just about to have all of these recent built up theories confirmed or denied.

When Vol. 1 finally premiered and it turned out Mike couldn't say I love you to El? And Will very clearly had feelings for Mike, staring at him constantly when he wasn't looking and conveniently with Mike's POV missing by comparison? There was just too much at play that perfectly set-up byler.

Mike having a hard time telling El he loves her, while also having a best friend beside him who is in love with him, like, that's sort of what makes it clear that this is them trying to create a conflict that easily transitions into this revelation that the reason why Mike couldn't commit to El was because he was struggling over repressed feelings for his best friend.

And then that doesn't even include all the details along the way that support it. Like closet scenes for example weren't able to be harmless anymore post-s3, they just weren't. That scene at the end with El and Mike in Will's room established this idea that Mike is in the closet, and s4 did not let up on that idea whatsoever.

We were being bombarded with very basic film techniques that any filmmaker would be thinking about to establish the story and setting and create a feeling to convey a message through all of that.

They did not need to have Mike sitting in front of his closet at the very start of s4. They did not have to have a one way sign pointing to it. They did not have to have two dudes with muscles on his walls while most of the other guys either have stuff completely unrelated to the human form or bikini clad woman. They did not have to show Mike in focus more while staring at Eddie fondly as he talks about DnD and getting out of Hawkins. They did not have to have Mike go searching for DnD replacements in the wrestling room and the art room followed by saying, I hate high school.

The I hate high school line is viewed by most of us as a throw away comedic sort of line. But it really isn't. In fact it's arguably as deep as without heart we'd all fall apart, which is why they literally had that be Mike's quote alongside that one being Will's quote for the season.

Mind you, all of this shit in 4x01 is happening after Mike just episodes ago, in the previous season, sort of treated playing DnD like it was something kids did and told Will he felt this way, by essentially saying he assumed they'd be getting girlfriends and moving on from this idea that they can play games for the rest of their lives.

So Mike in s3 went from I want to grow up and have a girlfriend and stop playing dnd bc it is childish, to in s4 Do you want to play with me? I will literally settle for an absolute stranger rn, literally anyone? No? Uh. I hate high school aka I don't want to grow up. Now he thinks that he's the childish one when really, it doesn't have to be, if he just opened his mind to it.

Watching s3-4 back to back is actually so real bc it's showcasing Mike's complete shift, a shift that basically got flipped from s1-2 to s3 to s3 to s4, and it's directly related to his relationship with El and Will (along with his parents who all of s2 punished him by taking away his toys when he acted out bc of trauma/called his toys hunks of plastic and to essentially be used as collateral bc he's going to need to grow up eventually anyways). And we see how that is conveyed when he shows up to Cali unlike his true self, he just reverts right back to trying to be someone else like in s3. Only now he's trying to pull off a Cali look on-top of it, wearing sunglasses as he mumbles an incoherent sound, something like, 'eahauw' as he rushes up to kiss and hug El, putting the flowers between them so he had an excuse to separate sooner than later, followed actually voicing words to will, moving his duffel back out of the way to hug will properly, w/out sunglasses, visibly very happy to see Will, only to not even be able to hug him by cutting it short. AND for Argyle to confirm our suspicions by calling him a knock off?? NOW I'M REALIZING IT'S TOO MUCH YELLOW? Come on!?

That's another thing, the end of s3 hug between Will and Mike literally ends with Mike looking like he is in physical pain. Like dude looks like he was burned. He looks like a mixture of angry and heartbroken. And so having that, followed up with Mike barely even being able to properly hug Will properly 2 episodes later..? Gee I wonder why?

And then it just spirals from there.

The entire season Mike is by definition emotionally cheating on El, assuming that they are even technically still together atp. There's a reason they had her say From El, and it's so that there was this sense of maybe they were technically broken up now or even just on a break rn, since they wouldn't see each other for who knows how long? Maybe never again? And so that was a writing choice made in large part to allow all of these moments between Mike and Will throughout the season to feel romantic coded and for us to comfortably view them as such. Same with how they did that with Jonathan and Nancy in s2. They create conflict that is near breakup territory, without outright saying I want to break up, and then they throw them with their other love interest and create tension.

When it comes to like how I think s5 could go down with byler, I have a few different thoughts about how that would play out. Obviously I love byler but there's a lot of other stuff going on so this would just be one aspect of the greater overall story. But for the sake of this post I'm going to focus on Byler possibilities.

Them holding off until Vol. 2, literally 2 weeks exactly after the premiere, to have Noah officially release a statement saying We now know Will is 100% gay and in love with Mike, that is them clearly knowing the gravity of revealing stuff too soon to an audience that might not be ready for it. They saw the reaction to s4 and they waited and then they made that choice to discuss it the way they did. That was the point they decided they were willing to tell the truth of the situation, including Noah admitting for the first time, that they've been hinting at Will's feelings since s1, and so he had to always be vague about things to avoid spoiling the Duffers surprise. And while they're doing this, when they talk about Mike's feelings about the situation, it is always that he has absolutely no idea.

There would be no justifiable reason to hold off on admitting Will's feelings for Mike outside of canon, only to admit they've been hinting at it since s1, if there wasn't actually something yet to see be revealed, making this revelation so late in the game, justifiable.

The main thing that we get from Mike being oblivious of Will's feelings, is that if Mike doesn't know, then technically he hasn't rejected Will yet. Because how can he have rejected Will if he has no idea? Answer, he can't!

And so now there is one season left and they are choosing to hold off on Mike's knowledge about Will's feelings? After they just finally admitted after 4 seasons that they've been avoiding telling us about Will's feelings, despite hints from the beginning because they didn't want to ruin the surprise?

What surprise though bro? Slow-burn unrequited love??? There isn't any such thing. Because that wouldn't be satisfying!

It takes us right back to the line Will makes in s3 (mid-series) to Joyce about how he's never gonna fall in love. It's not that he doesn't want to or even hasn't yet at all, it's that he doesn't believe experiencing mutual love with the person he has feelings for is in the cards for him, bc odds are, that person is going to be straight.

But... How is it satisfying to hold off on even admitting Will's feelings for Mike until the second to last season, only to hold off on Mike's POV of the situation until the last season, just to say at the last minute, Well, Will, you were right!...? Like, no.

And so I genuinely think the same thing they did with Will is happening to Mike in a sense, in that by sort of dancing around the situation with answers that don't even allow you to answer the question, by saying Mike is clueless, they can avoid delving into what exactly Mike would think. They can just say Oh of course he will accept Will and leave it at that.

The thing is, if I'm supposed to be rooting for Mike and El, these choices that they've been making, to practically infect all of their scenes with Will in the frame looking like a kicked puppy, it's not giving endgame, it's giving I should be praying for this kid to get a happy ending who is fully convinced that he won't get it.

The main question I have, is are they going to hold off the slow-burn for as long as they can, or are they going to do something unprecedented and make it happen sooner than anyone expects?

I guess for now I think that it's the most likely they will hold off until 5x07 for like the big obvious endgame moment? Slow-burn tends to thrive in it's true form, aka slow-burn until the very end. So it would make sense to have these barriers in place that prevent Mike and Will from truly realizing they have mutual feelings or something of that nature, and then acting on it. That doesn't mean the audience wouldn't be clued in on those feelings earlier in the season, but I think them both accepting those feelings and coming together and choosing to be together is something that won't be like established fully until the end.

THOUGH I will say there is one scenario I could see them manage to have Mike and Will realize those feelings sooner than we think and it's because of the satanic allegations... If Will and Mike were to ever get caught in a precarious situation, by someone in the town already accusing these kids of being the cause, specifically Mike as a member of Hellfire and specifically Will as the kid who has been connected to all of this, it would be sort of visceral seeing how that could play out with them being viewed as like a symbolic indicator of the incoming apocalypse.

Though then again, they still might not get together until like episode 7, bc with the last couple episodes being like 2 hours long, it's possible the homophobic/satanic aspect of it could come into play around then. I think it would be really critical to see other peoples reactions in the story to them getting together, including their family and friends, but also potentially the community bc that would go full circle with what went down in s1 and how like the whole community had an opinion about Will's sexuality even as a kid.

Early s5 is a big indicator of how everything will go down though. I don't think that they'll get separated and be apart the whole season, bc they made a point to convey in s4 that they want to make sure to give the audience a lot of groundwork to root for them and so I think s5 has to be much of the same for it to end in a way that has most of the audience full-on rooting for them and just screaming at their screen for them to kiss already.

However, I do think it's possible we could see them get separated for like 1 episode, maybe 2 but probably not 2 full episodes, I think the reunion would happen sometime at the end of 1 or 2 episodes.

I think Will is likely going to be targeted by Vecna, arguably already was at the end of s4, and then there's birthdaygate to address. Maybe he gets forgotten by everyone as a result of the memory/time trickery that Vecna has going on. And so we could see that play a role in them being separate for a bit while that is resolved, which would likely be early s5, to sort of mirror early s1. But then I think they would reunite by like the 3rd episode and work together most of the season as a team. And we will probably be aware of Mike's feelings in these moments because we would've just presumably gotten a bunch of parallels to s1 and considering Mike and El are broken up, it's going to be difficult to see Mike be so up in arms about Will after all of that romantic subtext, only to be with him and be looking at him like he hung the stars and shit. Even if Will isn't doing the same bc he's like convinced himself at this point Mike doesn't like him back, that would just make it even more clear bc it would be them finally showing us Mike's POV, after hiding it so much in s3-4. It would also sort of wake up those fans who had insisted Mike couldn't feel the same bc there would be no reason to do all of that for nothing.

Another way I could see it going down is by Mike basically somehow making 'a deal with god' (Vecna) that takes him instead. Maybe it's about saving Will who is trying to sacrafice himself already. Or maybe it's a way to save Max and it's sort of a last minute thing that is intended to cause them a lot of grief. Bc we know Vecna loves fucking with them. This would fit into the whole without heart we'd all fall apart, and the whole how am I gonna survive a whole week w/out you guys and Mike getting out in the DND game at the start of s4, along with like the whole theory about how if a paladin breaks an oath they basically have to go on a mini self discovery journey and can essentially be reinstated and forgiven by a cleric (Will). That would fit very very well into the imagery we got of Mike sitting down on Jonthan's bed with the upside down tapestry behind him, followed by Will sitting down beside him + Mike sitting down on the upside down couch at the cabin, followed by Will sitting down beside him. Meaning basically Mike would end up in the upside down and Will would follow behind him.

And I think in that scenario we might be seeing some things from Mike's POV that we have overlooked before, or maybe even things they have deliberately kept from us for the sake of saving it for later. Maybe that unused footage of him crying biking home after they found Will's body, or maybe they re-contextualize the cliff scene in a way that sort of frames Mike as feeling like he deserved to die that day bc after everything that happened with El, maybe he doesn't feel like he deserved to be saved by her, like Vecna just overwhelms him with the guilt that's been piling up for years, which led him to that failed monologue.

Also I think there is a very specific reason they chose to not use the song Time After Time in Max's memory of the Snow Ball in s4, and that's because they're saving it for s5. Every Breath You Take was regarded by most the fandom as a Milkvan song, and if anything it fit with all of them dancing more than it did specifically with Max's memory from that day. So them bringing that back for s4 felt like a combination of the Vecna foreshadowing and also them refusing to use Time After Time quite yet... Time After Time started playing right when Lucas asked her to dance, they easily could have used that song instead and left Every Breath You Take for s5 for a milkvan montage, hell Time After Time even would have fit well with the whole clock theme going on in s4.

But, I genuinely think it's because they're holding off on fully, in canon, re-contextualizing our understanding of that Snow Ball scene when it comes to Mike and Will's perspective of it. And how that song would fit into that revelation is a little to perfect to pass up, again on a show that has made a big deal about clocks and also has connected Will/Mike to the clock in Starcourt with the Yellow and Blue hands ie you say go slow I fall behind-- the second hand unwinds is fucking clock coded bro???

They are 100% saving that clock ass song for the end and that just tells me byler has to be endgame bc that song literally ended right before El entered the gym, it has no association to them, only to either Lucas/Max, Dustin/Nancy, or Mike/Will. That's it.

And so arguably the build up of Mike and Will is the only way to satisfyingly bring that song back full circle.

I guess I'll keep it simple and say that I think one of them are going to go missing/dissapear/be taken (something along those lines) early s5, and the other is going to find them and they're going to be a team basically. I think there could be 1-2 episodes of them alone sort of in the pits of the UD (Hell vibes). Maybe there's an almost kiss in those moments, or maybe even an official one bc them being alone finally is what grants them the courage to do what they haven't been able to do in the real world without the fears of the real world stopping them?

Though I do think that they will reunite with the others after 1-2 episodes alone. And so most of the season will be them teamed up with the og party and also having interactions with other characters along the way as well.

I do think a Murray/Byler confrontation is inevitable. I do think a Will & Robin confrontation is inevitable. I do think it's possible Mike could be exposed to the idea of having a gf then a bf (and vs) by Vickie in the case that Mike finds out bisexuality is real and an option. Bc tbh it's still something people today don't know about. So I don't think Mike Wheeler in 1986 Hawkins, Indiana would, though again maybe an interaction with Vickie could change that. Either that or Robin, Vickie and Steve are going to see Mike call Fast Times overrated and they're all going to share a look and that's when we'll know...

I do think that Will is going to have a hard time believing Mike could feel the same, even when presented with evidence? Not only does he have his insecurities in the way, but he also views El as his sister now (hell she might even actually turn out to be his twin). Even though Mike is his best friend, he's going to want it to be crystal clear that El supports it before Mike ends up being in their family via them being partners at some point. That's just who Will is as a character. He's just going to assume he is wrong for wanting that considering everything that has led up to this point.

And i think El is the kind of character that, no, she wont be like ecstatic about how this all played out and how she didn't need to get her heartbroken, but I don't think that feeling will last forever. I think they might have a little sibling talk about lying, assuming she finds out about the painting and what he said to Mike about her commissioning it. That would be a good parallel to her and Will at Rink-O-Mania when he chastised her for lying to Mike? Essentially an Oh how the turntables moment? Even so, when it's all said and done, she's going to make it clear to Will that she supports him fully.

And I think the same applies to Mike who also is going to want closure that they are okay and still friends and love each other as friends/family.

I think how all of this plays out would be very intricate, yes, but largely keeping in mind that they want us to like this ending and not be bitter about it, and so they're going to have to convince us that we want to fully let go of Mike and El and to root for Mike and Will.

This so called love triangle doesn't have equal stakes to the stancy/jancy one because we're dealing with an audience that has been completely left in the dark, now being bombarded. They have to try really hard to convince the audience to be on board with this, and also avoid homophobia in the process. They're going to have to make it very, very clear there are no more romantic feelings for Mike and El happening. Especially since we're ending the show with them in a sibling dynamic because of their relationships with Will. It would be gross to have this level of well maybe one day he could change his mind I mean he did that once before. Nope. It would be okay to have that sort of left unanswered with the stancy/jancy parallels bc we're not dealing with people being related to each other and swapping back and forth. That's why it needs to be clear in their situation.

And I do think that's why they did the whole I love you 9 times with Mike's monologue. Because it can't go up from there, there is nothing left for them to do after going all out like that, only to reveal Mike meant it deep down platonically? I mean what could they possibly do to backtrack? Have him give her another love confession where he says it 20x and adds no but fr this time?? No. They had to go all out like that to give those viewers what they wanted, the most they could possibly get and then say, sorry it's not happening. It essentially made it impossible to hope for it bc there's nothing left to hope for.

When it comes to byler and like these major moments that are bound to occur between them, I am genuinely most looking forward to them hugging again for the first time since the end of s3. That to me is going to be even more exciting than a kiss honestly (not saying I don't want a kiss but you know what I mean). And it's bc from a hug alone, I think we'll be able to tell that what's going on between them isn't platonic and that will in turn add so many layers to past seasons. I think it's also likely we'll get an almost kiss or two before the inevitable, and that would then make the slow-burn stretching until the end worth it, to me at least? Because just throwing them together never works when the formula has always been to hold off.

And that's also why the show has to end now. We can't have 6,8, 10 seasons of slow-burn, it would be exhausting. 5 seasons is the perfect amount. And having all of that angst and tension and heartache lead to a happy ending is going to make all of those moments in between that fans fought over for being critical of, sort of just dwindle to epic angst that was necessary to appreciate the happy ending.

[ro994art]

A very specific nitpick I have with 'Megamind vs. The Doom Syndicate'

I don't do text posts here very often. This feels odd, let's just get on with it.

I was originally going to write down a full-on review expressing my utter disappointment and disgust dislike towards the horrible and cheap "sequel" to my favorite Dreamworks movie, Megamind. A sequel which, by now, we all know was nothing but a glorified extended pilot for a Peacock series that I have not watched, but it honestly looks just as mediocre, so I have no current plans to.

Hoooowever, I have since seen many reviews of this "movie", most of which have been able to express my feelings and thoughts pretty well. So it felt like I didn't have much else to contribute to the discourse.

Except for one thing that I have not seen anyone talk about (or maybe they have talked about it and I just haven't seen it), and it was one of the things that bothered me most about the film. So this post's entire purpose is to publicly point it out.

No, I'm not talking about Keiko herself (although yes, she was my least favorite character and completely ruined the movie and this franchise for me thanks for asking). It's more the purpose of her character.

You see, and allow me to put my cranky old lady pants for just a moment, I believe most people have been able to guess that the entire reason this character was put into the movie was to be a target audience insert. So the 8 to 12 year-olds watching can go "Hey! This character is around my age and has the same interest as me! I'll keep watching for her!" (Do no ask me how well that's going because I personally do not find the excecution of it all that great, but I digress). And although, as a more mature viewer and long-time follower of the franchise, this does feel a bit annoying, having this kind of character when you're trying to appeal to a new audience is, technically speaking, not a bad thing in itself. And when executed well, this can totally work.

But here's the problem.

It makes no sense for a character like this to form part of Megamind's story.

You see, my friends, for those of you who have not seen this movie (which, for your own good, I sincerely hope is the majority of people who are reading this), "Megamind vs. The Doom Syndicate" is VERY explicitly supposed to take place two days after the events of the first movie.

Just two days.

This is explicitly said at least two or three times in the first act of the movie alone (I value my sanity too much to rewatch the film to double-check that fact, but I'm fairly confident in that).

If you all remember, the masterpiece known as the original Megamind movie came out in 2010. Therefore, the most logical thing to assume is that the events of the film itself also take place in 2010, if not before that, right? It's never explicitly stated, but since there is nothing that confirms or denies this, I think it's the default assumption we as an audience should make.

Now, I did not own my first cellphone until the year 2012 when I turned 13 (don't make fun of me for that fact), so, correct me if I'm wrong. But I don't think in 2010, we were seeing thing such as:

Smartphones like the one Keiko has throughout the film,

People using said smartphones to make livestreams in which people leave likes and comments in real time,

Kids who are content creators gaining half a million subscribers in TWO LITERAL DAYS (I cannot stress this enough) by getting information and newsflashes from goodness-knows-where,

App equivalents to TikTok and Instagram with as much popularity as we saw in this,

And overall, just social media getting the same treatment and functioning the same in 2010 as it does in 2024.

I mean yes, in 2010, things such as the ones I listed above were probably beginning to take popularity and to become a thing. But they surely weren't as well-established as they're being presented to us in Megamind "2".

This cheapquel "sequel" is suppossed to be only two days after the first one, and yet, everything that revolves around THIS KID'S existence suggests to us that we're in the 2020's era of internet, influencers, and social media. Heck, the earliest I could buy any of this believably happening is like, 2018. 2015 as a stretch.

We went from 2010 to (at least) 2015 in two stinkin' days.

No sense whatsoever.

Logically speaking, there's no way TikTok Childstar Keiko was even born in the year the first Megamind took place. Like, her birth year is 2011 at the earliest, and you can't convince me otherwise. Why do you even exist two days after Megamind was renowned as the hero of Metrocity? Please go back to the womb.

(That got personal, sorry. This kid gets too much on my nerves)

"Well, TECHNICALLY since it's never stated when the first Megamind took place, nothing's stopping them from making it so that it's been 2024 all along"

If that seriously does not sound like gaslighting your audience in order to force "hip" references that resonate with the kids watching almost a decade and a half after the original film came out to you, then I don't know what does. I don't even care if "you're not suppossed to think too hard about it" (which is a lame excuse for lazy writing btw), just watching both movies back-to-back, the tonal differences and any chronological references just clash way too much for me to buy this as a legitimate follow-up taking place in the same universe, same city, and even same week.

So yes, "Megamind vs The Doom Syndicate" sucks, and the inclusion of this character and this anachronistic plotline, for me, is a huge reason why. It's insulting to the audience and a clearly desperate attempt to appeal to a new generation of kids that frankly, if Megamind had gotten a genuinely good sequel, they would've liked it all the same, even if it didn't include a 12-year-old TikTok influencer with a half-baked personality and forced role in the story. Because seriously, don't even get me STARTED on how forced her joining the gang felt, holy crap. 😓 But that's a tangent for another day. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I'll just leave this meme here and move on.

This was, of course, only one of many flaws this movie had, but I feel like other people have ranted enough about how the writing, character portrayals, poor animation, bad humor, and lame attempts at world-building did the original Megamind dirty.

Here's hoping one day Dreamworks wakes up, thinks smart, and decides to give us the Megamind 2 we deserve, so we can all happily toss this... project, into the realm of non-canon media, where it belongs.

[aceofnace]

I have no faith in these writers ever since Ace got stuck in the liminal space and Nancy didn't even notice and hooked up with Park in a closet while truth serum made her reveal her feelings for Park (with NO mentions or thoughts of Ace). Nace never gets good content. Even Tristan is treated better than Ace. 4x10 was everything the finale of season 3 should have been with ACE when he was in danger.

We the fans do all the hard work, the writers give Nace the bare minimum and I'm pissed. At the end of the day, fanfiction and what could have been is not enough for me, Nace failed onscreen.

Ace getting stuck in the liminal space and nobody noticing he was even gone until it was almost too late is actually my villain origin story. Actually, all of 3x10 was my villain origin story. The fact that Nace had been building up to be THE ship and then they put Ace in danger and instead of having Nancy going feral over trying to find him and save him, they had her hook up with Park in a coat check closet, even after finding out from Connor that Ace had missed his job interview with him (that should have been a HUGE red flag for Nancy, but nope). To be honest, I had never felt more insulted in my life. It felt like a slap in the face. And somehow, Ace took the news better than I did because I really, really, really loathe that episode. The only part I can rewatch is their hug at the end. The rest makes me feel icky.

It does seem like Nancy gets the best shippy content with all her other love interests and Ace is always left with nothing. The writers are like, "Hey Nace shippers, wanna see Nancy slow dance? Okay, here! You can watch her slow dance with Park! Wait, that's not what you wanted? Okay, here's her slow dancing with Tristan! Oh, you want to see her slow dance with Ace, the man she loves, her person? Haha, no way! That would make you too happy! Here, go back and watch this season 1 scene of Ace dancing with Laura instead."

And don't even get me started on how half of 4x10 was Nancy freaking out over Tristan being hurt when they never even showed us Nancy finding out that Ace had the last piece of Charity's soul and then they spent 3.2 seconds saving his life in 3x13 and nobody was freaking out over how much danger he was actually in. I will admit, these writers sometimes make very odd choices when it comes to this ship. Choices that make no sense to me. And it sometimes has me wondering how much they actually like Nace. Remember, a post season 2 interview did state that the writer's room was an even split down the middle between Nace shippers and Namura shippers, so maybe that explains what's going on here: not all the writers are on board with Nace, and maybe it makes it difficult for some of them to write something they're not into. I don't know. I can't think of any other explanation. Kennedy and Alex handed these people an absolute gift with their natural but insane chemistry and Nace has been a big part of the reason a lot of people have started watching the show to begin with, so I have no idea why they didn't take full advantage of any of that.

[stylespresleyhearted]

I didn't follow the elvis promo closely: what happened between Austin Butler and Olivia Dejonge?

hiiii ohh well i’d say it’s more about what happened before promo ??? i.e more specifically during filming and covid lockdown. it might be a bit lengthy so bear w me sweet anon

*if you don’t like olivia don’t read won’t tolerate hate against my girl 🌚*

so sometime in dec 2019 deuxmoi got a tip about olivia and austin checking into a hotel together and keep in mind this is before any vanessa + austin break up that i know of although DM didn’t make this public until either 2020 or 2021. there’s also two infamous photos :

that’s bebe orleans (a best friend of olivia’s during the time of filming i don’t think they’re friends anymore tho opp-) and a shirtless austin butler hugging her (apparently during this time olivia would post A LOT of stuff and austin or something of his would be in the background and as soon as fans pointed it out she would delete it poor girl is still so spooked by social media to this day)

Then there’s the infamous shirt-gate. Olivia wearing Austin’s Hawaiian shirt and this was posted to Olivia’s IG jan 2 2020 about two weeks before vaustin break up hit any headlines. vanessa fans clocked this and tore olivia apart. i’m not saying it was alright for olivia to post but she was young, she was about 20/21??? and we don’t know where austin and vanessa stood during this time. idk just ~ drama really. filming continued, life went on, austin was in london filming mota and then DM was sent in this tip right after the austin x lily rose photos dropped

Olivia followed DM when this was posted and only unfollowed them *after* this had been sent in. Now as much as I love Olivia and Olivia x Austin I actually don’t think they ever officially dated either like where Austin was claiming her as his girlfriend or girl or anything. I think they were just something ya know? Fucking, hanging out, feelings unrequited maybe but no titles. So yeah I don’t think Austin “cheated” on Olivia with Lily Rose but maybe they were still hanging out or Olivia was still waiting on him when the photos dropped so she was just hurt/heartbroken? Personally I think someone Olivia knows (or maybe Olivia herself) sent this in and knew using words like cheated would just make Austin look worse so they went that route with those words.

If you watch Elvis promo interviews/videos Olivia and Austin seem to get along just fine and this is where Kaia (austin’s long term gf) comes in. the photo of olivia holding austin’s face in cannes with kaia sitting behind them will always make me laugh because its so relatable i too would be messy having to see the guy who broke my heart be in love with his new gf while we promote the movie we’re in. olivia and kaia follow each other so i think they’re friendly as well. i think its kinda obvious that olivia did have feelings for austin/was hurt by him and then had to do promo with him where he sometimes brought along his new gf. this is when i really started to feel for her and began looking into her.

But then of course press tour ended and so did anything between austin and olivia??? they have different friend groups, live in different cities but then comes austin’s aacta speech

now austin robert butler why in the damn hell were you waxing so poetically about your co star who by this point wants seemingly nothing to do with you? i love this speech and can rewatch it and cry especially when you realize olivia didn’t mention austin by name not even once in her acceptance speech. i don’t think she did that to be petty i think she didn’t want the drama of it which i can understand. so i think she was just distancing herself from the elvis experience already by this point and trying to move on. there’s one (1) photo of them at the Oscars greeting each other but idk as much as it hurts me i think olivia really just wanted to move on from this part of her life. she’s good friends with sophie turner (who i also love and think is so awesome) and one night last year went to dinner with sophie and taylor swift and unfollowed austin. she tried to play it off by unfollowing 100 people the next day lol but girlie u didn’t fool anyone!

fun fact and unrelated but in 2022 kaia was having a girls night with charlotte lawrence (her best friend) and this same night charlotte followed olivia on ig (olivia who was in australia) so i always wondered if kaia was maybe talking about olivia lmao

now i think i’ve covered the most important parts but honestly it’s a lot of lore and most of it unconfirmed you just have to use your basic common sense and critical thinking skills it is not hard to see there was obviously something between them and olivia was hurt. i think if timing and the elvis possession and austin’s identity crisis during all this played a big part in them not publicly dating but i think in a different time/life they could have been “the one” and i associate maroon and the 1 by taylor swift to them. i love olivia, she’s gorgeous, talented, chill, minds her business, kind, idk what everyone has against her.

also gonna tag @bcofl0ve on this because she knows a lot more than me on this subject and was auslivia president she can correct me on anything if im wrong.

[station19probie]

I’ve been rewatching Station 19 and realizing that…

…sure the show is officially over… and as such, there will be an inevitable decline in any new fandom content…

…and sure, I’ve exclusively existed as a silent observer of fandom content…

Yeah. Okay. I’m starting a new blog just because I want a place to share my station 19 thoughts anyway. Even if no one else ever ends up seeing or reading my blog. Because I still want to make the blog.

Yeah, I kind of wish I’d actively participated in the fandom spaces for the show before now… okay? Oh well. I can have a blog now.

I’m currently part of the way through a full series rewatch, but the further I get the more I’ve been considering just starting back at episode one so I can do an episode by episode post on this new blog I wanted to make… anything from random thoughts to more in depth analysis, since different episodes lend to different thought trains, and I would like a one post per episode format to start with…

So at this point there’s like a 99% chance I’m going to start the series back on episode 1 either tonight or tomorrow, and then I’m thinking maybe one episode post per day. We’ll see.

(Side note for the curious: I am old enough that I first became involved in online fandom spaces more than two decades ago… and for a majority of that time, I actually was an active participant in fandoms I’ve enjoyed… I have seen and been there for a lot when it comes to online fandoms… it’s really only been in the past few years that I went from being an active member of online fandom spaces, to becoming a more casual silent observer of fandom content, mostly just because… real life is messy and complicated and different things take priority… but I have missed this… and now, it strikes me, that as much as it sucks that there will be no new content for Station 19, it does allow for it to be in that bubble of a completed series whose series can be viewed and analyzed through a completed lens… and maybe most of what this blog will end up being is me sharing my random pointless thoughts I have every time I watch through the show, because I don’t have any other friends who watch the show, but, I do love experiencing content through the lens of media analysis so I’m hoping to dedicate time to making posts about those thoughts too…)

[logically-asexual]

Thomas has done to Sanders Sides what Jacksepticeye did to his Egos. (Except Jack made his fandom wait 5+ year's)

5 years ago Jack's Ego videos would get 4+ million views within a few days. Then he started making Merch for them which was fine for a while until he stopped making content about them and only did things with them for Merch while endlessly teasing his fans with false hunts in videos that never went anywhere or amounted to anything. Fans eventually gave up on him ever doing anything but make excuses and shill Merch so they left the fandom. Now he has hired a Fan to write his Ego Lore and is once again making big promises that he will have more content "Soon" but the video's he has released so far have done terrible.

Jack waited too long and now the audience is gone and not here for his content now. I fear the same thing for Thomas. 3+ year's filled with false hope and Merch drops disguised as actual content has made his fandom weary and bored. No one is excited anymore about SS stuff because we think it's just going to be another money grab with no actual story or relevance.

🪦

yeah i’ve heard several takes on this jack guy and i can’t say anything about that because i am not familiar but what you describe does sound like what Thomas’s fate could be.

because like. the long waits are annoying, yes, specially if you’re an active fan and want to do stuff but you feel that you have nothing to draw upon to get inspired. but the Sanders Sides fandom —like as a crowd— had always been willing to move on to other things and then as soon as a new episode dropped everyone came back. and then you had your dash full of Sanders Sides even though you didn’t even remember that the blogs you followed posted that kind of content!

so yeah the fandom could stay dormant for months and months and then wake up and shoot to top ten trending hashtags whenever there was a video. and that was fine. but that can stay happening only under the condition that people like what they see when they return.

if you wake up the fandom to say “hey!! here’s content!!” and they all come running and see that it’s an ad, many will be disappointed. but okay. they’ll wait for next time.

few months later comes thomas saying “hey!! here’s more content!!” and they all come running and. it’s another ad. well. maybe next time? two in a row is enough surely? but by then lots of people no longer trust you. and maybe next time they won’t jump to watch the new video, but wait until others confirm that it’s not an ad or something similar before they go watch it. and once they do they don’t have much energy to rewatch it and post about it.

one or two more episodes come out and they seem alright. you’re thinking okay maybe that was all and well get back to the normal show. so you keep paying attention and then thomas goes “hey! content!” and you go and see the thumbnail and it’s a goddamn ad again! so you get sick of it. you don’t come back. you gradually lost your emotional investment that was previously just saved for later. now it’s gone. how do you get those fans back?

[nakanotamu]

ive never actually watched a stardom match and im really bad at learning new things, so how would you recommend watching matches? and do you have recs for what matches to watch first?

AHH I'm so so happy to hear you're even thinking about checking them out I love getting asks like this!

Okay so idk what your familiarity is with pro wrestling but if you've like never watched wrestling at all my friend wrote a guide to starting with Japanese pro wrestling here. It's targetted towards people also learning Japanese and much more comprehensive promotion wise than just Stardom so the part you'd want to read is the one labeled "How プロレス storytelling works".

As for how to watch Stardom like the literal steps of how to find Stardom matches, I answered that in my sort-of beginner's guide here. (I talked about a couple other companies as well but me being me it's mostly Stardom.) tl;dr kind of the only way to watch Stardom matches in full and in decent quality is just paying for a sub to Stardom World. There are pirate sites but they tend to only have big shows and top out at 15 year old cellphone quality, and there are highlights (though I think those have become more rare?) and the weekly show on youtube if you're really not sure about the like $8, but World has everything.

As far as specific matches I have sort of two answers for this. I did, pretty recently, recommend a bunch of random matches in this post right here, and stand by those as matches I really enjoyed. Also I have since watched the QQ vs OT cagematch I mentioned there and can confirm it owns and I think the emotions will still come through even if you didn't follow the whole story.

However. That is where the second answer comes in - following stories. To be quite frank I think watching old wrestling matches is overrated, I think most of the fun is in following along with wrestling; wrestling is something happening right now. This is probably an ironic answer from someone who is like chronically a month behind bc I can't stand to ever skip a show but I am who I am. Maybe it's more accurate to say I think rewatching matches is overrated.

But anyway the simplest way to put it is my rec for matches to watch first is matches that you think look interesting that have happened pretty recently. Natsupoi and Saori Anou had a strap match on July 2nd, which is just as gay as it sounds but not in the way it sounds, I haven't watched it yet but I've heard good things. The 5 Star Grand Prix, Stardom's yearly big singles tournament, just began last weekend on the 23rd, and is a great way to get introduced to most of the wrestlers. I know the time commitment of a wrestling show can be daunting, I'm very familiar on a personal level with the way it eats time, but I think you can still get a lot from just watching a little if you can't get through everything. If you pick one person in each block and only follow their matches, you'll still get a little snippet of every other competitor to see if they hook you, y'know? Caveat if you do begin with that show though that the main event ended with a real injury, which obviously isn't fun to see happen.

If you decide you're enjoying it and want to try and start following along, my translation blog is here (it's not exhaustive and I'm behind with some stuff but I do what I can) and my asks and DMs are always open if you have questions about any stories or characters or anything.

[napkinzilla]

Godzilla vs. Megalon 50th Anniversary and the Origin of Jaguarposting

I started this account in November when my Godzilla hyperfixation was in full force thanks to a series rewatch I was doing and G-Fest. A lot of that hyperfixation was focused on Anguirus, Baragon, and Jet Jaguar.

I don’t exactly think they’re great characters or anything, I just kind of gravitated towards them for some reason. I know why for all of them, Anguirus having an off-screen reconciliation with Godzilla while forced to live together on Monster Island was actually sort of neat, I don’t like that we never get to see it and are forced to just assume it happened but its also nice to see something interesting and new, especially since this was at a point where the Showa era just kind of felt like it had grown entirely creatively bankrupt (The last truly creative Showa film is Hedorah, ik its a polarizing movie and I think that actually kind of proves my point a little). For Baragon, its that I just found it funny how they paired him with two far more popular monsters for this movie and then had him get his shit wrecked really quickly (he also has the most creative fight in the movie but I’m pretty sure I just liked him cause he’s a jobber). And for Jet Jaguar, its sort of hard to say. I know most of the western fanbase for the character likes him because of MST3K, but I never watched the GvM episode (except the Jet Jaguar song sub but that was after the hyperfixation kicked in).

The only reason I can think of is that he’s just funny to me. He’s basically the star character of this movie he isn’t in the title of and his plot just goes all over the place. He starts the movie as the invention of an engineer who wants to protect the world by piloting a robotic suit (which, considering there is an island full of monsters that is so poorly secured they could just leave anytime they wanted if they can swim or fly (almost all of them can), which they did in the last movie, its understandable why he’d do this). And by the end the suit has gained full sentience, befriended Godzilla, and defeated a bunch of underground men who control a giant bug with a drill head and drill hands. There isn’t that much explanation for most of these things either, they just sort of happen suddenly. Godzilla vs. Megalon is a terrible, terrible movie, and Jet Jaguar is the central character. Godzilla vs. Megalon is also an immensely enjoyable movie that I have subjected multiple people to so that I could see their reactions. I love it, its so fun, and Jet Jaguar is a big part of why the movie is so fun. He’s so fucking silly and stupid, I love him.

I said its hard to say why I like Jet Jaguar as much as I do, but its not impossible, in fact I basically just did. This overly long post has been mostly me saying why I like Jet Jaguar. But I haven’t really talked about Jaguarposting. Why the fuck do I post this guy? Because he’s funny to me, I made Baragon my Discord pfp for a while because he’s funny to me to. Its not super complicated, I am a very simple man. I main Blanka and Faust because they’re goofy guys, and in the same vein, I fixate on Jet Jaguar because he’s a goofy guy. The legacy of Godzilla vs. Megalon is that its a stupid fucking movie. Jaguarposting is a celebration of that movie’s stupidity, the idea that a post is funny solely because it features a character from the film.

I didn’t realize March 17th was Megalon’s birthday, I didn’t see any posts about it on the day and didn’t have the date committed to memory. So this post is late. But I still want to wish GvM a happy 50th. Maybe go watch it in it’s honor and hopefully see what I’ve been rambling on about for this long.

If you don’t know what Jaguarposting is, don’t worry, I’ve only ever used the term once and made like 5 posts in the genre across all social media. However its my first post on Tumblr, so I felt it was about time to explain myself.

[tarochimochi]

Your BFDI human designs are soo good!!! What's your process on designing them? :3 Also, what inspirations do you use for them?? Just curious!!

Okay long answer so everything is gonna be undercut! Thanks for asking btw!

One reason my humanizations take forever is because I really wanna make sure I understand that character, so I have a design that I think fits for them. It’s different from humanizing Pokemon characters because typically your making your own personality for your Pokemon humanization in the process. (Unless your humanizing your Nuzlock or Pokemon OCs, then that’s different but you get what I mean)

I’m was already pretty hardcore into humanizing, or furrify, characters prior getting into object shows so this is really nothing new! I mainly did My Little Pony humanizations for a fanseries that most likely is never seeing the light of day, and I had alot of fun doing that!

When looking at other people who have done humanizations, the ones I always remember were the ones where they dresses like normal people, like people you see on the street, and had exclusively natural haircolors. Like take BixelWixels MLP humanizations. No bright hair colors but still readable as the character! I think those are shows of super good character design.

I knew right when I got into BFDI though, the Algebraliens would be the only ones with bright colored hair. While the contestants they would have exclusively natural hair colors, with exceptions. (Ex: Puffball, Tree, etc).

I really try to understand and study the characters before I finalize a design for them! Trust me so much writing and scrapping goes on behind scenes. For some characters, I had an idea for immediately and ran with it. Others, I had to do so much research for it. Some research included reading fanfics and me annotating them so I could deem if it was in character or not and rewatching episodes a ridiculous amount of times. Once I finish that we can finally get to designing!

So first I refer back to a master sheet which has my race and age head canon for them. Usually it will stay the same as the chart but sometimes a friend can convince me to change it or I changed my mind about things on the list. I won’t show the full list but here’s where the character were using today (Clock :33) was in!

Also has a show of how much changes, I believe my original head canon for them said he was Wasian so things can always change!

Now let’s take a look at my first ever concept for Clock

At this at this point Clock was really young? I believe if my memory serves me correct in this concept Clock was 17. Also he would have worn a see threw shirt so you could see his cool arms.

I really struggled with Clock design but I had a cool idea for his arms to actually look like clock arms kinda and I ran with it so hard. Although I did get the inspiration to make him blasian after taking some inspi from the Timekeeper cookies in cookie run and I thought hey maybe locs could somehow resemble clock arms??

So we got to the sketching finalization stage and again things are going to change!

Since that concept he’s 23 now! Um my sketches are messy so sorry! I messed around with his clothing more to the point we got to the this and I must say I am quire endeared by his design and in the process I’ve grown to have a really nice fondness for Clock! I like him alot actually!

One word of advice is, don’t follow what everyone else does just because everyone does it their’s so many cool ways to interpret things. Like show don’t tell and what not! Personally I like to not look at other humanizations for inspo while concepting them usually because I wanna make sure I’m not being to heavily influenced by anything. As far as I’m aware I’ve never seen a Clock design with locs. (If you have one PLEASE DM ME I WANNA SEE) Just have fun with it at the end of the day!

I’ll ramble about clock’s design in a second when I post him

[shivvroys]

20 author questions

tagged by @harrietdyker <3333

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

11 (and a secret 12th one on fanfiction.net)

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

almost 73k!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

since i’ve taken up writing again i’ve only written for succession, but i also have one fic each for oitnb, agent carter, orphan black and warehouse 13

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

flirting over dead bodies (when else am i going to do it?) - post-finale carterwood, i still dream of rewatching agent carter so i can finish her sometimes 😔

beneath the underdog - post-finale shivlina, probably my magnum opus lmao, she’s very special to me <33

wouldn’t you love to love her - nichorello angst, takes place after nicki got sent to max, i’m scared of rereading it bc i wrote that eight years ago 😭😭

the cost of our desired wrongs - shivlina oneshot that takes place during ‘too much birthday’, karolina having a panic attack is something very personal to me <33

likeness has made them animal and shy - this is a weird Shiv study I tried to do through Roman’s POV, i abandoned it bc i didn’t like it that much and bc i posted it without having a strong concept for it to begin with. But the poem it was inspired by (The Twins by Karl Shapiro) is amazing!!

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i try to but i suck at commenting or replying :((( if i ever liked someone’s fic or if someone commented on one of mine and i didn’t comment or reply back just know i was very much losing my mind over it!!

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

that one warehouse 13 fic i did when i was 14 😭😭

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

i haven’t posted it on ao3 but maybe this prompt fill? idk most of them have endings that are not necessarily happy, but more so hopeful

8. Do you get hate on fics?

i never took it as hate, but that one WH13 fic got a couple of comments warning me to tag character deaths in my fics 😭😭 they were very nice about it, though (and i did very much kill off the MAIN character in it)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

not really, i’ll do some suggestive bits here and there, but i mostly gloss over sex scenes bc i don’t have a good grasp of that vocabulary

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

it’s not really a crossover, but i recently wrote a shivlina severance au

11. Have you ever had a fiction stolen?

hopefully not 😭

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope, not that i know of

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

no, i’m very much still new to writing, so i honestly don’t even know how co-writing works 😭

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

oh god…i’ll just say shivlina bc i love writing for them, but there are A Lot of ships i’ve lost my mind over

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

btu SIKE!! probably flirting over dead bodies :’((

16. What are your writing strengths?

idk?? maybe dialogue?? weird ass metaphors??

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

i give every character asthma bc they’re always sighing or taking deep breaths 😭😭

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

technically everything i am writing is in another language bc english isn’t my first language. but yeah, if it isn’t a language i know well enough i try to avoid it. I’ll insert words or phrases here and there, but I couldn’t trust doing full dialogue just by using a translating tool

19. First fandom you wrote for?

…warehouse 13

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

hot take but it might be a quiet apology - it was my first time trying to write in karolina’s POV, and tabitha’s in it!!! 😍😍

tagging @novotneys @badcatholichusband @mlovesmoons and anyone who wants to do thisss :X

[oddishblossom]

Tag People You Wanna Get to Know Better

Tagged by the wonderful and lovely @lans-rabbit-glade 😊💖! Thanks for tagging me izzy! I loved reading your answers :)

Relationship Status: It’s just me here (single pringle)

Favorite Colors: Pink & Red

Song Stuck in My Head: Do I Wanna Know by Arctic Monkeys… I’ve listened to that song probably a million times and I’m still not tired of it nor will I ever be 💖. I’m definitely not looping it for writing inspiration or anything (also izzy I see your song choice and I am tempted to roast you for being a mobile gamer 😜)

Last Thing You Googled: “There’d Better Be a Mirrorball.” I was looking up song lyrics (I listen to other artists besides arctic monkeys, I swear 😅)

Time: 11:47 PM when I’m writing this. But I usually queue most of my posts so it’ll be 10 AM when I’m posting this :3

Dream Trip: Hmmm, idk. I’m not much of an explorer lol. Maybe Japan or New Zealand? Just to say that I’ve been there before. Honestly, as long as I can go either shopping or to an amusement park I’ll be happy as a clam.

Last Thing You Read: It’s rare, but sometimes I want to read a cute high school AU with a love triangle. So the last thing I read was a tyrus fanfic called Of Course by CaithyCat & imnotanauthor. I’ve been rewatching Andi Mack, an old comfort show of mine. I know it’s a disney show “for kids” but sometimes I just feel like watching disney or nickelodeon shows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Also this one in particular I started watching when I was bedridden for a month so it’s very dear to me :)

Last Book You Enjoyed Reading: Believe it or not, I actually read a paperback book last week. I was looking for a quote, so I opened my volume 2 of *cough* Scum Villain’s Self Saving System *cough*. And then I found the quote. And then I just kept reading until I was halfway through volume 3 and it was like 3 in the morning. Seriously, that book makes my brain go a little bonkers. The scene where Shen Qingqiu tries to hide Luo Binghe from Zhuzhi Lang nearly made me cry from laughing too hard.

Last Book You Hated Reading: Excluding fanfics, I can’t think of one… Maybe Tokyo Ghoul/:re back in 2017? I remember really hating that manga. Honestly, I’m really picky when choosing something to read so the stories I end up disliking I tend to just drop them and then completely forget they ever existed.

Favorite Thing to Cook/Bake: I’m kind of a terrible chef ngl. But the reviews are in and I make a pretty stellar spaghetti. Whenever my niece visits, she always asks me if I can make her my spaghetti because it’s way better than any she’s ever had. Getting that kid to eat anything is a struggle, so I’m really glad that she not only eats my food, she asks for seconds.

Favorite Craft to Do in Your Free Time: When I think of the word “crafts”, I imagine, like, art projects made by hand, so I’m not sure I can include writing and gif-making on this one. So excluding those, does drawing count? Even before I got a drawing tablet, I used to doodle all the time even on scraps of paper. I’m not really good at it, but it’s always been something I do just to kinda get my brain to chill.

Most Niche Dislike: Hmm. You know, it’s funny that you mentioned nail polish, izzy, because the first thing that popped into my head was long nails. I have tried to be that girl who gets a full set at the nail salon and I never did it again because the sound of my nails clacking against things bugged me. Like, I can’t even stand the feel of my own natural nails when they’re the slightest bit too long lol.

Opinion on Circuses: Never been to one. But, clowns slightly freak me out so I don’t have the best opinion of their home turfs.

Do You Have Any Sense of Direction: I’d say I do. Or maybe I think I do by association? My parents both have a pretty bad sense of direction and I used to help them a lot by printing out maps and searching for streets in relation to where we were. One of my older brothers used to always assign me as designated navigator because I’m good at keeping an eye on where we are and how to get back on track should we get lost

I liked this tag game! It was fun and refreshing. Gonna tag a couple of you, but please no pressure to respond! Only if you feel like making one 😊 @bioerin @kimievii @koujaaku @ashinlae @wallynorthbynorthwest @fluffyrabbitofdoom @apocalyptickoala @theraincanttouchus @mdzs-rabbithole + anyone who sees this and wants to make one 💖