#really did not want to use mostly all of s1 but i just rarely ever gif that part of his arc which is a shame bc the shots are so spicy

[drconstellation]

More Half-and-Half-A-Miracle Thoughts

Part 2: The Dark side of Aziraphale

Updated 10 Nov 2023

Part 1: Miracle Power Ranking is here. Part 3: The Third Archangel is here

There was one that thing that struck me about the miracle working scene: why did Gabriel offer crossed hands to the duo?

Gabriel offers his right, his good, heavenly angel-sided hand to Crowley first, and his left, his sinister-sided demon hand to Aziraphale.

And this is NOT an accident.

Its been observed that Gabriel, in his amnesiac state like this, has reverted back to a more base-state angelic being, one of joy, and love, and curiosity. He's acting on instinct here.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. The demon has more light in him than the angel, and Gabriel and can feel that instinctively. This really shouldn't be a surprise to us, its been in our face all along. Now don't get me wrong - Crowley is still a demon, and Aziraphale is still an angel, I'm not saying that they aren't. Mostly we talk about how Crowley isn't all that much of a demon at heart, just "going along with Hell as far as [he] can," but we don't really talk about much about that other side of Aziraphale other than wishing to see more of his BAMF! side.

You know what - its a side that thanks to all of the rest you ops and meta-ists out that that I've come to both fear and appreciate. And let me tell you, if I found myself in a dark alley on a bad night I would hope to God it was Crowley I bumped into , because I feel he would at least give me the choice to walk out alive. I don't think Aziraphale would, I would be at the mercy of how ever he decided he wanted to manipulate the situation...and I find that rather chilling.

Crowley might be the charred demon with a heart of gold, but Aziraphale is the two-sided bastard of an angel he loves. All bright light casts a shadow. Its easy for us to be blinded by the shining light of goodness and right and the side of God (er, hang on, isn't the GO God an eldritch horror in disguise...?) and not be able to see what is hiding behind it.

We rarely see the back of Aziraphale's waistcoat, because he is rarely seen without an overcoat on, a covering of social propriety. There is the noticeable occasion in S2E1 when Crowley comes back to do the apology dance then they perform the hiding miracle (see screenshot below, and it was still hard to chose a good angle for all it went on for several minutes!) and perhaps in S1 when he spends all night reading Agnes Nutter's book. Both times its only in the privacy of the book shop, under the cover of night. So its easy to miss that the color of the back panel is a most un-angelic color: a dark viridian green. I know I keep banging on about this, but its important, and in more ways than one.

[Edit: Since I first wrote this, I've written a mega-meta on all the colours in GO, and some of the following interpretation has changed a little - but the significance of the green still stands!]

All the angels wear some form of a pale colored neutral palette, ranging from white to beige to taupe (white, off-white shades and shades of brown,) with dove-grey for the known in-show seraphim, Gabriel, Michael, Uriel and Saraqael. Gold and blue are also associated with Heaven. But Aziraphale is the only angel to wear green and shades of blue-green. He's quite unique in that department.

The colors of Hell are completely different. Black, lots of black. And red, different shades of red. The demons are actually quite a colourful lot, but do tend towards the darker shades. Red is a colour of passion, not just a demonic colour, although it can be associated with the demonic sinister left hand side. The main colour of Hell is actually green - the thick green light that you almost of have to swim through in the crowded halls of Hell, and examples like the green stag on Furfur's sash. It represents chaos, in competition to the rigid lawful nature of Heaven.

So while Aziraphale mostly presents a socially acceptable angelic front, its telling only Crowley has properly glimpsed that dark, shady, bit-of-a-bastard unpredictable side to him - and likes it. (More from Cobragardens about it here in 1793 Paris and 1601 at the Globe.) I mean, come on - this is a being that sent a man to his death so he could go on lunch date? A lunch date he practically concocted just so he could see Crowley. wtf? A being of love who was about to shoot the Antichrist to stop Armageddon? A being who quietly and efficiently discouraged the mafia who threatened to set the book shop on fire from ever returning? (See, told you I didn't want to meet him a dark alley...) Plus we saw him mind-control a whole roomful of people for his Jane Austen-themed ball, just to woo his beloved demon, with no thought of the possible collateral damage. I'm sorry, is this the same "guardian angel" we were all glowing over earlier?

The coat lapel as wings theory adds some weight to this hidden dark side of Aziraphale as well. Aziraphale's lapels always point downwards, towards Hell. Particularly when he has been discorporated and returned to Heaven, where frustrated about being told he has to gear up for war, he instead wonders out loud if he can return to Earth to a possess a body, reasoning that if demons can, he must be able to as well. lmoa! You are so not an angel, my dear! Yet...he isn't a demon either. He's almost...a bit of both. Two sides to a coin. A blend of light and dark. Shades of grey...although he doesn't like to admit it.

Image by lomiel

Back to the shadow-like green panel on the back of the waistcoat.

Actually, on second thoughts, I'm going to put that in Part 3.

[mdhwrites]

Honestly I’m also Kinda Sasha Waybright fan and personally She’s mostly one of the main reasons I wanted to finish Amphibia to it’s end.

To me she and Grime were kinda an inverse to Zuko and Iroh and sorta became one of my favorite Animated Duos. I enjoyed Anne but Sasha’s character arc and growth was SO INTERESTING TO ME!!

I also always saw Boscha as wasted potential really but I usually blame the Owl House’s cancellation most of the time. Honestly I kinda wanted Amity, Luz and Boscha to have been the show’s Girl Trio in my head. Mostly cause I was inspired by fanfiction.

*vibrates intensely* I... I kind of wonder if you actually know me and don't realize because as far as I understand, I'm the only Lumischa writer out there and one of the rare writers who tries to really do a lot with Boscha in a positive way. Regardless, as always, I did a stupidly long story called The Power of Love that focused on Amity, Luz and Boscha.

ANYWAYS, to the main thrust: Sasha and Anne are honestly the two who compete for the best character in Amphibia for me. Anne for just being so likable and having such a slow, complex but understated arc while Sasha has ALL THE CHARISMA and an extremely compelling arc in her own right. I do love you mentioning Grime and Sasha being a reverse Zuko/Iroh because there's a lot of truth to that.

In Avatar, Iroh was always the peace in Zuko's mind. The one pulling him away from war and more destructive methods. Ozai acted as a counter. Distant but so vividly powerful in Zuko's mind that it took literally an entire season for him to start breaking away from him, even longer to break entirely.

Grime on the other hand is the one whispering ambitions into Sasha's ear... But also only once Sasha has reignited the flames within Grime by showing that he's not at his pinnacle yet. So with their dynamic, you have the old dog learning new tricks to use and hurt people while Sasha is actually the constant who is goading Grime into doing worse and worse. Her own ambitions make the analogy not entirely work but the two are genuinely good for each other to push them to be better... But terrible for each other's morality. One adds the power of a manipulator, the other adds the calculus of war and cold, hard strategy. These aren't bad things to know of but dangerous for one another when taken too far.

Much like a balance wasn't struck immediately for Zuko though, Sasha's moral balance didn't start pressing on her right until S3. Anne was always her positive example after all but she never had the power or place within Sasha to change her. Not until Sasha gave her a reason to listen. As Grime's ambitions are tied to Sasha for having inspired him multiple times, when she changes, so does he. It's really interesting and genuinely complex and SO TASTY! AH!

Amphibia good and I really wish more people talked about just how good its arcs are instead of only ever giving that to TOH because *takes a sharp breath in* I have talked many a time before how the cracks in TOH's structure and writing go as far back as S1 and that the cancellation should not be blamed for its shortcomings for little is excused by it.

But that is a blog for another time. Or you can go back and try to find those old blogs about it (I have one literally titled why S3 could never have been great) and originally I wished luck on finding that but someone liked it so I could get a link easily. XD

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[daylander1000]

HotD vs GoT (season 1) ?

I've seen many comparisons between the two and according to some critics (quite a lot of them tbh) HotD is superior or has a potential to be because... reasons. Now, while I do believe that, while comparisons are always odious they sometimes make, but this one is really weird and unjust because a lot of people are still disappointed with how GoT ended (personally, I wasn't happy with how some things played out either, especially in the last two seasons, but I am definitely not that upset four years later and actually remember the show as a whole more or less fondly) and this disappointment together with anti D&D discourse probably clouds the judgement. However, they seem to ignore that GoT had 8 seasons and was mostly well liked and praised until the last two, while HOTD has barely begun and already has many problems writing-wise imho. Will those same people, after HOTD ends (and there is no way that everyone will be satisfied with the ending) retrospectively start to hate everything they are praising right now, I wonder? I do sincerely hope that HotD will improve and that every new season will be better then the previous one, but based strictly on the first seasons (I recently rewatched GoT s1) it's GoT >> HotD.

What do you think?

I didn't like GOT. I didn't watch it properly. I tuned in to see how they did some of the bigger moments like Red Wedding and Purple Wedding, and I watched the last two seasons just for asoiaf closure, and honestly, I liked the GOT ending, more or less.

Not Dany being killed by Jon, or Arya vs Night King, or King Bran, but Dany burning the whole place down. Her arc's sort of going there in the books imo. I'm a simple woman—I'm in this for the dragons and for Drogon burning things. I wanted to see Stoneheart and Young Griff and those storylines, but I will take Drogon burning things.

I truly don't get the pretense that HOTD is better than GOT or that Codal & co are in any way better than D&D. I'm giving them less points actually because they saw how GOT unraveled and they've made zero improvements. D&D at least have an excuse—Martin promised to have the books finished when they started. They signed on to adapt, not finish asoiaf on their own strengths. It's a complicated thing that even the creator is struggling with after a decade. They tried, at least.

Codal and co are already floundering in S1. They've already lost narrative coherence. Even the characters aren't coherent. And yes, you can use a time skip to just wave a "People change" flag at all the inconsistencies but come on.

In their defence tho, "And then all the hyper-intelligent special rare sentient magic dragons killed each other in the stupidest ways ever for no real reason" is not an easy story to tell without an extreme amount of hand-waving.

I don't think F&B should exist. I think Martin should have looked it over a couple of times like "Hot six-year-old? Jumping from one dragon to another? WTF is this? This ain't it. Nope."

Honestly, I think HBO just has a bunch of media people on the payroll hyping them up so they can use the emmys for free advertising. Brian Cox is up for a lead actor Emmy with a grand total of three episodes? It's not TV, just HBO living by HBO rules. If they say it's better then it's better. 🤷🏾‍♀️

[countessofravenclaw]

I was tagged by both @weirdthoughtsandideas and @assim-eu-sou . Thank you guys!

10 Fandoms ~ 10 Characters ~ 10 Tags

Do I have 10 fandoms? We'll see.

Nina Simonetti ~ Soy Luna

I mean, I feel like many think that my favorite character is Gastón since I talk about him so much and have so many headcanons, but it is actually Nina. I see myself lot in her, as the shy nerd who thinks that no one would ever like her.

Nina is probably the best representation of the stereotypical "nerd" I have seen in the media. Even if she is into books and doesn't talk much and is portrayed as not conventionally attractive (even when she is absolutely gorgeous. If the aim was not to have her like that, casting did not get the memo), she can still want romance and someone who is conventionally attractive is attracted to her and absolutely falls head over heels for her.

She is also quite fleshed out and we know some background for why she is pretty closed off at the start of the series, primarily due to the trauma of her parents' divorce and how it still is handled. No one ever blames her for being shy, but the right people (mostly her best friend and boyfriend) who love her are able to bring her out of her shell.

Since she is a nerd in a sense, she is into stuff like math, but really the thing she is into which we don't see many nerds to be is writing, which is something many of us can relate to.

The sad thing about this is how she was handled in S3. She was always the main character's best friend, but that season she really was reduced to that archetype and not allowed to do anything for herself outside of being heartbroken and suddenly being a journalistic writer. Oh and being assaulted, by a guy she only wanted to be friends with.

2. Francesca Caviglia ~ Violetta

Who doesn't love the original DCLA resident Italian? Truthfully she is tied with Naty for my favorite, but I went with her here. Who doesn't love Fran? She's pretty, fun, has common sense (something that is rare in DCLA) most of the time, and she is a soprano just like me.

You can just identify with her when Vilu comes up with new dump plan

3. Olivia Rooney ~ Liv and Maddie

First of all, I need her whole wardrobe and the shoes.

Secondly, I love her with my whole heart. She's a teenage celebrity who may seem bit ditzy and shallow, but in actuality, she is kind, loving, and intelligent person who will fight anyone who tries to hurt the people she loves.

Even if Liv was famous and probably had money, she never was spoiled or thought she was better than anyone else. And she used her resources to do good.

And you absolutely would be surprised that she only really had one boyfriend throughout the 4 season run of the show. Nad they did her one ship so dirty for no reason. S3 is the death of ships in shows, always.

4. Elton John Cashwell ~ HSMTMTS

Everyone knows that I am a loyal member of Ej Caswell defense squad. He deserves so much better.

I always had a soft spot for him in S1 and felt like there was more to him... now we know why.

EJ is just a person who tries his best but anything is never enough for anyone. He is legit the best and most complex character in this show.

5. Anakin Skywalker ~ Star Wars

It has been a while since I have talked about Star Wars. I seem to be into broken guys. I mean have you seen the Clone Wars? NAaking is the best!

6. Ronald Weasley ~ Harry Potter

I am talking about the book-Ron. Movies... we don't know them at this blog.

Ron is the best friend you would ever want. Harry and Ron is my favorite literature Bromance.

7. Adrian Agreste ~ Miraculous

I already had EJ here, so why not Adrian too. I seem really be into broken, emotionally abused teens. I am really finding it hard to put into words why I love these characters so much

8. Samuel Costa ~ Alex & Co

I don't think I have ever talked about Alex & Co and my love for the hot mess that it is.

Anyways, with Nina, Sam is one of the best portrays of a nerd on screen. International Disney just knows how to do it.

Sam is loved by his friends, never treated as annoying and a "popular" girl falls in love with him. He and Rebecca are the best ship and they even have Diecescaesc hiding plot. There also is potential for tradic backstory that we never got since we do not know about his parents.

Okay, I made it to 8. Good enough...

Tagging: @putonmyfavoriteshow @silver-inked @bchemiqn @sapphire374 @bookishjules @hide-in-imagination @simbar-tvshowgirl and everyone else who wants to do it

[adeadhorse]

Zoey? I know she isn’t the best but not all bad lol (002 ask meme)

pretty obvious how you feel about her as a character but i am just curious for headcanons

lol

How I feel about this character:  I do not hate her - hell, as a kid I used to like her (mostly because JL was pretty). I think people enjoy hating on both her and JLS a little bit too much, like the whole "everyone treats her like she's perfect" not really?? That basically stopped in S2, and then her bad behaviour basically just goes uncommented on. The main issue I have is how unequal her relationship with Chase is, and even then compared to Lizzie and Gordo (very clearly the blueprint for this show, especially in S1) Zoey seems absolutely infatuated with Chase compared to Lizzie's very platonic vibe. She's mostly fine in S1, and really she's fine in any episode where she's shown to actually care about Chase as a person.

But the rest of the time she is incredibly rude, and a lot of that is because JL is incapable of bringing any softness or warmth to her as the show goes on, so you get one designated "Choey" episode where she acts like she likes him and then the next one she's completely contemptuous; sometimes this is even scene by scene. That's not completely her fault, she is the most underwritten character because female protagonists in Dan's shows rarely get quirks which is what he thinks characterisation is, but it does make episodes centered solely around her boring at best and actively aggravating at worst.

All the people I ship romantically with this character:  Chase.

My non-romantic OTP for this character:  ...Lola? Michael? Also Chase because they're bffs?

My unpopular opinion about this character:  I think the most unpopular opinion would be that I wrote a 21k fic from her perspective because I could have done that for an interesting character.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I will say it again, we deserved more jealous!Zoey and also probably pining!Zoey.

My OTP: Chase/Zoey.

My cross over ship: Frankly I don't even really want her in this show let alone another one.

A headcanon fact: Every headcanon I've ever had has gone into what I've written, specifically if there is anyone in the sun because even when you go off of canon there isn't a whole lot there. But you specifically asked for headcanons so I'm just going to list some things that hopefully constitute as such and aren't just thoughts:

I think I hc her as being on the grey ace/aro spectrum so a lot of the dates she went on, especially in high school, were more out of a societal expectation than true desire. Either that or the Catholic guilt is very strong.

I usually don't have Chase and Zoey being together around college, partly because a lot of stereotypes about high school couples, but also because I think they needed to grow as people and fall in love with each other as adults. Part of this is politics, because I think Zoey would have been quite conservative (both in a "I am going to get married at 23 and have 2-3 kids" way and a "fiscally I am a Republican" way) meanwhile Chase is like "here is why Reaganomics has always been a scam". She grows out of it though.

Zoey doesn't get jealous 99% of the time but the few times she does it's Quinn levels of "I will zap you with a laser/stab you with a fork" etc. She also does occasionally get nauseous over the idea of Chase having been with other people, in that "I can't believe you existed romantically with other people before me" way. She is specifically annoyed that her first time was with Chase and his first time was with Rebecca even though she's let the balloon thing go.

I have a half-baked fic/TV season idea where Zoey and Chase have a teenage daughter and Zoey quits her job as a fashion designer to instead teach at PCA. It is a deliberate subversion of "the gang ends up teaching at PCA" trope because I don't especially like it, and the main reason Zoey did it is because Maddie is a complete daddy's girl and Zoey is trying to connect with this child that is way less like her than she expected or wanted.

None of these headcanons have been fun lol uhh...Zoey was fully in love with Chase by Goodbye Zoey because otherwise why is she crying over him and going to England to spite him, and the show probably wouldn't have done the weak ass "I could be" had Sean stayed on. You could even argue she's in love with him around The Radio which is why she a) takes him overreacting so personally and b) gives the radio back even though he's been a dick because at that point the idea of him not being her best friend is kind of unthinkable, so she stops caring about being right.

In general I think being right/the moral high ground is very important to Zoey and how she perceives herself, as is being able to fix things, so letting herself be wrong and letting herself 'fail' around Chase is always a testament to how much she loves him.

[flower-of-darkness]

Analyzing bsd's cycle of abuse

ft. Dazai, Akutagawa, and Kyouka

Even though I'm familiar with this cycle of abuse that's been traumatizing children of the PM, I never really understood its depth until I decided to rewatch the abusive scenes in the anime (how am I even alive after reliving that much pain omfg) and realized what makes this cycle so deep and meaningful. I'm telling you, bsd portrays the most realistic abusive relationships I've ever seen in fiction. So uh- enjoy this analysis I made about it!

We all know that the chain of events started from Mori - who emotionally ruined Dazai. He made Dazai his accomplice despite only being a child and planted thoughts into him, manipulating him into being loyal to the mafia. He used Dazai for his intelligence and powerful ability. And although his way of abuse was mostly emotional and psychological, I'm sure he also physically abused Dazai at some point.

Dazai continued this cycle by taking Akutagawa under his wing, only to abuse him. As shown from countless sequences in the anime, Dazai frequently physically abuses Akutagawa, up to the point of nearly killing him.

He also has no regard for Aku's life. It's either he learns how to toughen up, or his life is worthless. This is shown when he shoots Aku repeatedly in S2 EP02 only to cultivate his abilities, not caring that he might have killed his subordinate if he failed to activate his newfound ability.

Asides from physically abusing him, Dazai also abuses Aku emotionally, constantly taunting him that his ability is weak. Even after transferring into the ADA, he still haven't acknowleged Aku's ability. Instead, Dazai repeatedly told Aku that his ability is weak and that he would never be a match for him - up to crossing the line and deeming his ability inferior to his new subordinates in the agency.

This took a huge emotional toll for Aku - because we all know that this emo boy's greatest wish is for him and his ability to be deemed powerful.

Moving on to the next victim of this cycle- our sweet Kyouka. She's also often physically abused by Aku, as seen from a couple of episodes in S1.

But then, there's a significant detail that I completely missed during my first watch - something small but so crucial.

Aku was trying to become a better mentor than Dazai.

Look at what Aku said here. As we all know, this man rarely considers someone below him in ranking worth fighting, let alone someone who was powerful enough to face him. Yet, he considers Kyouka to be an enemy worth fighting - his equal.

You see what this means? Akutagawa had acknowleged Kyouka's ability - because it's what he wanted the most, but could never get from his own mentor - Dazai. He knew how it felt to have your ability deemed weak, and maybe, deep down, he didn't want Kyouka to feel the same way. He was trying to not repeat Dazai's mistake.

But that wasn't what Kyouka wanted.

Ironically, it's what she hated the most.

Demon Snow killed Kyouka's family right in front of her eyes. She hates her ability. Hearing Aku acknowledge her ability, saying that it's well-suited for killing people - it must have utterly destroyed her inside.

What she really wanted was the opposite of what Aku did - she wanted her ability gone. She wanted to be accepted as a human being, as herself, instead of her worth revolving around her ability.

But then, Kyouka got what she thought she'd never find - hope.

Atsushi and the rest of the detective agency came and pulled her out of the darkness she was trapped in. They gave her a new life - a life where she would never have to kill again. They gave her a home where she wouldn't be defined by her ability.

Just when she thought her nightmare was over, she encountered Aku again in S3 ep 10, and they fought. But after seeing the newfound light in her eyes that he had never seen before, Aku said to Kyouka something he knew he would never be able to hear from his own mentor :

"Kyouka. I'm happy for you."

And so, this cycle of abuse finally ends.

[absolutebl]

Zettai BL S2 is coming in soon, and I still haven't managed to even dare starting S1 in grounds of the bad hair. T_T But I also don't want to prematurely jump into it for risks of ruining it. (As I know what it did to Seven Days for me very much.)

Do you have maybe a list of top 15 titles with bad hair to grind through for getting some immunity, but which are also safe to watch?

Safe as in they aren't all that brilliant (so not much to be ruined), but also aren't terrible titles. (I don't even mind dark per se, but I dislike deus ex machina for the sake of nonsensical enforcement of plot points.) Since most of the bad hair coming from earlier shows also means treading into that minefield of old. (Something like Boy's Love certainly has pretty bad hair to serve the training purpose, but I've already read the manga of that one and definitely can do without a repeat of it...)

OOOO, what a question. Because this requires early Japanese BL and that is a minefield. So I'm going to branch out a little bit, and also not sure I can come up with 15. But here we go...

10 BLs to Watch to Get used to Japan’s Penchant for TERRIBLE Hair

(that aren't too dark or depressing, but also, some of these are just... not very good either)

In order of WORST HAIR, starting with the worst at the top, so you might want to watch in reverse order? 

1. Seven Days 

Hair rating: I cried at the hairdressers

What, a list of Japanese BL from me without this one at the top? You doubted me. Anyway, one of my favorite BLs of all time. And the only one from Japan I’ve given a 10/10. And yes, TERRIBLE HAIR. Truly, awful. Still one of the best live action yaois ever made, with perfectly structured angst, fantastic characters and acting, and no problematic tropes (rare in Japanese BL). The leads have excellent chemistry although it’s low heat there’s still some really cute mutual kisses. 

2. Takumi-kun series

Hair rating: I instantly shaved it off 

Series features all the problematic tropes and watches almost exactly like yaoi reads, the leads do have good chemistry, though. Includes incest, abuse, dub-con, and obsession and absolutely awful hair. 

3. Docchi Mo Docchi AKA Same Difference 

Hair rating: I wore a hat for a month 

What to say about this one? The hair is bad. And the show? Well, it’s not as good as it should be, squandering great chemistry, good acting chops, the perfect rivals to lovers concept, and one of the best office set BL yaois ever written. I don’t know why it failed so far when it had such a good foundation, but it was made all over bromance and boring. 

4. Life: Love on the Line AKA Life Senjou no Bokura 

Hair rating: I use a lot of gel every morning 

Mostly just the uke character, but his hair is bad. He’s manic pixie dream gay and so is his hair. Actually this is a good BL, if a bit adult and gut wrenching at times. Goes through young love, break up, and reunion. But it all really a saga of self acceptance. You want the director’s cut. 

5. Love Stage!! AKA Rabu Suteiji 

Hair rating: I just restyled it and never went back 

It’s just not good. It could have been great if they had stuck to the crossdressing of the original manga and if the pair had any kind of chemistry. The hair, like the show, isn’t egregious it’s just stupid. 

6. Ossan's Love 

Hair rating: I learned how to use a dryer to compensate 

Eh. 

Just, eh. 

7. Silhouette of Your Voice AKA Hidamari ga Kikoeru

Hair rating: Eh, it’ll grow out 

 This is not a terrible as either a show or hair, but it’s not good either. It’s certainly not as good as any of us wanted given how wonderful the original manga is. Also it doesn’t really end happily, nor is it honestly BL. 

8. Utsukushii Kare AKA My Beautiful Man

Hair rating: I was going through a phase 

If something is going to turn you off of this BL it certainly isn’t the hair. It was exactly as weird and as messed up as any 2000′s yaoi: emo af and hella warped, entirely true to itself with no attempt made to modify its POV for modern sensibilities or current BL fandom. It didn’t pander to us in anyway, and I fucking loved it for that. This is not just live action yaoi in its purest form, it’s Japanese cinema, uncompromising. But the hair was actually okay for the characters.

9. Given

Hair rating: I was trying to look younger than I am 

Boy joins band, falls in love with other boy. The hair is a bit fluffy but fine but the singing is terrible, fast forward through that. With the possible exception of the hair styles, this BL could have been made in 2015 and no one would be surprised. As such, it wasn’t ground breaking, but it didn’t disappoint either.

10. Cherry Magic AKA 30 Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard

Hair rating: I just tried a little too hard and it was a little too dated 

The sweetest fluffiest magical realism BL, packaged as a pinning office romance, very low heat (practically chaste) but the cutest. Hair gets crazy on occasion but whatever, you’ll stop seeing it after the first episode. 

Zettai BL ni Naru Sekai VS Zettai BL ni Naritakunai Otoko AKA Absolute BL AKA A Man Who Defies The World of BL

It’s pretty far down on the list because the hair could, quite frankly be a lot worse. I would put it in at about level 5 - just restyle it and never go back. But remember, the point is that this show is intentionally making fun of stuff like this. 

If you want something *interesting* to watch that’s rarely discussed and no one has really seen, try 2015′s Wait For Me at Udagawachou AKA Udagawachou de Matteteyo. It’s odd, but fascinating as a piece of BL history, although not BL. It’s about a boy who falls in love (fetish?) with another boy BECAUSE that boy is a crossdresser (possibly trans). Ultimately I think it is not successful, but it is worth watching and the hair is BAD. 

Bonus?

Epic origin Kdrama de jour... Heirs. The hair is SO AWFUL. Go on, you know you want to.

Honorable mention to the weird hair sticky-upy bit they insisted on portraying from the graphic novel (I assume) for Shao Fei in HIStory 3: Trapped. Poor Jake. 

(source) 

[chevvy-yates]

OC Interview Questions

I saw @smilepal's post with Hiro being interviewed, thought it was cool and wanted to do as well (also goes for the idea to have the character answering for the interviewer, so I thought I'd make that as well.)

Tagging: @nervouswizardcycle @dreamskug @a-pirate @wraithsoutlaws @jaymber and everyone who want's to do this (no pressure).

Edit: Imagine his voice being similar to SPN S1 Dean's (just a lil' lighter maybe).

---

Name?  

Vijay. — jus' V's fine, tho.

Are you single? 

I was in fact — until last week. smirks So, I'm off the market. Sorry to all the gents and ladies out there!

Are you happy? 

I'm mostly good but I wouldn't call it happy in every case. Being happy really's kinda rare. Since I live in NC and left Portland behind, yeah I guess I'm much 'happier'. But there's always room for improvememt. (bonus ask) But you seem happy to me? That's because of my face. I got a happy face. Doesn't mean I'm always the happy cute guy you see in me. Anyways: yet, I appreciate it when I'm also not happy — See, I don't think u can achieve to be the happiest either. There'll always be times u get kicked off of your rainbow shootin' unicorn, u know.

Are you angry?

Show me one person in NC who's not? Everyone's angry. Not all the time, and I believe many hide it, so they're practically lyin'. I get angry, too, at times. But I tend to vent quickly and not wasting any more time with it because I got better things to do.

Are your parents still married?

Heck do I know? Don't care 'bout 'em anymore.

=NINE FACTS=

Birth place?  

Monterey Bay. Scenic coastline, almost looks ike some neat painting. I used to play a lot at the beaches and swam in the ocean when I was a kid. Area is thrivin' with wild life. There isn't one day I'm not thinking about it. Once I'm gettin' tired of the city life, I'm gonna buy me one of these fairytale cottages and spend the rest of my days sitting on my porch watching the sun setting beyong the ocean.

Hair color?

Ginger. And yes, I have a soul.

Eye color?

Used to be pure green but I had to replace them with optics because of the biz, so now got a color that looks green to blueish? Depends on the lighting.

Birthday?

February. Close friends get the numbers.

Mood?

's good for now.

Gender?

I'm a male.

Summer or winter?

Well, this is NorCal. It's mostly Summer throughout the year. Even Portland didn't get much of a Winter thanks to global warming shit noone could stop yet. I don't even know what a real Winter feels like. Maybe I should take a trip to where Winter still happens to be? Then u might get an answer 'bout this.

Morning or afternoon?

Often get to enjoy mornings since I mostly work at night and come home or finish a job when it's about to get morning. Yet, I've always loved afternoons way more. The moment u can just watch the sun getting lower until it's disappearing behind the horizon has always been and is very peaceful to me.

=EIGHT THINGS ABOUT YOUR LOVE LIFE=

Are you in love?

I defintiely got that strong butterfly feeling again I haven't felt in a long while. Feels great!

Do you believe in love at first sight?

Nuh-uh. I believe it's attraction that's drivin' people mostly when they think they are in love from zero to hundred. Maybe there are exceptions, though, dunno. But for me — there's no "at first sight". It developes after time is what I can say from my experience.

Who ended your last relationship? 

I did. Personal issus I couldn't cope with. That's all you need to know. We're still very good friends. It's not easy that easy though.

Have you ever broken someone’s heart?

He told me I didn't, but I think I did. His eyes do tell me that.

Are you afraid of commitments?

What kind of commiment?*

Have you hugged someone within the last week?

Yeah, sure. Hugs are important. It's part of my love language.

Have you ever had a secret admirer?

Yah, bet I got some. But I don't — uh … really care? Come to me, talk to me — rest we'll see.

Have you ever broken your own heart?

Yup. Got to do with these people called "parents" I once had.

=SIX CHOICES=

Love or lust?  

I like both but lust always seems to be stronger, lingering deep inside, waiting to get into action. I've got a better understanding of it than love. The latter is unpredictable and hits you totally unexpected. But the two can go along well together if you got the right person at your side and keep both balanced.

Lemonade or iced tea?

Lemonade — always a good choice. Am I gettin' some now? Don't forget to put some gin into it for me, alright?!

Cats or dogs?

Send me all them doggos u got! I love them. -happiest face ever- They are the only animals that love you unconditionally. Cats would eat u if they were bigger than us for sure.

A few best friends or many regular friends? 

After Portland I went with "few best friends". The rest is only mutuals, too me. U need to be careful with whom you talk about personal stuff — especially in this city. True friends takes a while to find, though.

Wild night out or romantic night in?

Can u stop askin' me 'this or that' stuff? It's both. Wild nights are a lot of fun but if I got someone I just wanna spend time alone with? — Fuck yeah! Nothing can beat a romantic night at home. I crave for that as well.

Day or night?

Where are we right now? Right – NIGHT City. More than half of the city sleeps at day and is awake around night, same goes for me.

=FOUR HAVE YOU EVERS=

Been caught sneaking out?

Where to? If u mean by that, as a kid — dozens of times. If on a job — I stopped counting.

Fallen down/up the stairs?

In my biz? Couple of times.

Wanted something/someone so badly it hurt?

Yup. But as I said — done with it.

Wanted to disappear?

As in getting invisible for my job? Heck, wouldn't that be awesome!? Otherwise, nah.

=FOUR PREFERENCES=

Smile or eyes?

Ohhh, it's eyes alright. They tell you so much about a person sometimes it's incredible.

Shorter or taller? 

Well, I ain't got anything against people smaller than me, but — nearly same height as me is very pleasing, bc you don't have to bend down all the time. I'm 6''4 so, there ain't many people taller than me. Well, Jackie is — was, tho …

Intelligence or attraction?

I must admit I go for attraction in the first place and therefore intelligence does come a bit short in some cases. But it is also very important. So, both.

Hook-up or relationship?

I prefer relationships, but hook-ups are nice, too — especially when you had enough of relationships for a while.

=FAMILY=

Do you and your family get along?

Why are there so many family related questions? U can answer this to yourself. Don't have to tell ya twice, bro!

Would you say you have a “messed up life”?

It was messy alright, until I got myself together and got out of it. At least for that messed up life part. The one I'm in now is a different messed up. I don't think about that much. Pulls you only down, to be honest. Just tryin' and get the best out of it everyday I wake up. You live only once, right? So make the best out of it.

Have you ever run away from home?

Not really. U could say I did but he part at home didn't bother either? Does that makes sense? Ah fuck — just get me the next question!

Have you ever gotten kicked out?

No. I was gone before anybody could have 'kicked me' out.

=FRIENDS=

Do you secretly hate one of your friends?

Ehm… why should I hate one of my friends secretly? Your questions reaching the peak of lowness, seriously.

Do you consider all of your friends good friends? 

Didn't we already have a similar question? The few friends I got, are my GOOD Friends — the rest is, already said, mutuals.

Who is your best friend? 

Was– best friend. Jackie — I still miss him. But Ryder, my team mate, is always there for me if I got somethin' on my mind. I met him about the same time as Jackie. We've been very close to each other for a while.

Who knows everything about you?

Jackie knew a lot about me. I would go that fare and say he'd know almost everything, yeah. But Jack's gone, so I'll pick Ryder. He might know almost as much about me as Jackie did. And I know he'll keep private things for himself. I know I can trust him.

[lilyblackdrawside]

This is a list of my PERSONAL evaluations of the operators I use in IS2.

I'm writing this because I want to do SOMETHING but can't bring myself to anything good from being exhausted by 24/7 heat.

You can take these mostly at face value, I'm not going to just be joking around, but I also write these with some consideration to the core operators I have in 99% of my runs, without whom some of these may not perform as well as I’m describing them.

Vangs

I just pick Myrtle at some point in my runs. Usually towards the second half. Unless you're going for the Extra Boss it's pretty feasible to just not have any Vanguards, in my opinion.

There's also this thing where my roster of Vanguards consists of 6 Elite 2s and Plume. 5 of these Elite 2s have 1 block, 2 of them are Standard Bearers.

My Vanguards aren't for combat. Is this questionable practice? In IS, yes. Outside of it? No.

I deploy light units so I don't need to run Vangs.

On the rare occasion that I aim for Lucian I pick Elysium instead of Myrtle because my team will be mostly Snipers.

Siege (my one 2-block Vanguard) has performed well for me, but I've always picked her very begrudgingly, what with her being a 6-star.

Guards

Outside of IS I play Guardknights, Sniperknights or both at once. Within IS2 I pick either 1 or 2 very specific Guards depending on my route. Sometimes extra depending on my mood (and recruitment vouchers.)

Bibeak - In theory performs really well, in practice just doesn't. She doesn't get much out of The Hand, what with it "only" boosting her auto-attack, for which any other beneficiary of The Hand is preferred, she also pairs exceedingly well with the "Guards gain 2 extra sp per attack", since it gives her 4 sp per attack and she has a stack-holding on-hit charging skill with which she can perma-stun anything not stun immune.

This isn't worthwhile. Most things that you’d want to stun are immune. Will she completely invalidate the Rock Golem Boss if you bait one stun for her? Yes. Is the Rock Golem Boss a problem in the first place? Usually not.

It makes me sad, but she has never played a relevant role in my runs, even when I had amazing relics for her. By all accounts she should be amazing, but she isn't.

Cutter - Imagine Bibeak, but with physical damage. I haven't picked her much, and when I did she performed okay. It's super fun to press her Skill 1 and see all of her knives just annihilate a single target. She's also never been outstanding for me, but she does have the potential.

Probably. Cutter, please do something, you have all the masteries.

La Pluma - Now we're talking. She's amazing. She clears the map, never dies, files your taxes and works with everything.

I'm not lying. She works with every single relic. Extra charge for on-hit skills, more damage in any form, more healing, every single Guard-specific relic, more attack (Her S1 is %atk). I can't think of a single good run that didn't involve her. She's one of my most important operators.

Actually, I can think of some runs that didn't involve her - the ones that go for Lucian. It's not like she's bad there, she just doesn't do anything that nobody else could do. A lot of other people can hold the central choke after all, and if I ever picked extra ground units I could probably drop her onto him on the top left spot and watch her cut him up from behind.

Specter - I've picked her a few times and she has a bunch of good uses.I mean, she can become unkillable. Obviously there are uses for this. Be that half of the possible first bosses, just tanking something (and chunking it at the same time) or whatever.

Her only issue is that Centurions kinda suck when they're not Elite 2? She's good, but has never been essential. Her damage is pretty choice though.

Lappland - The few times I've had her she's done pretty well. There are a whole bunch of targets for her silence, being able to switch between physical and arts damage is quite handy, she can hit air. What doesn't she do? I dunno. I'd probably pick her more often IF I COULD EVER FIND ENOUGH GUARD VOUCHERS.

Mousse - Mousse Mousse Mousse Mousse Mousse Mousse Mousse Mousse Mousse Mousse Mousse Mousse.

Going for Big Sad Lock? Pick Mousse, thank me later. It's okay if she spends the entire journey sitting on the bench, she'll make herself worthwhile just for the boss. Let her have some fun on that oversized scratching post. Watch one of my BSL clear videos somewhere on my blog to see what she does to it (Hint: It's not damage.)

Defenders

Liskarm - She's aight. She really benefits from the relics that passively charge on-hit/on getting hit skills, but then her skills also practically have doubled costs since she already double-charges on taking a hit so the relics are only half-effective. You can do some fun stuff with her talent to super-charge other operators, just like in normal stages. I only pick her when the game throws too many Defender vouchers at me, which honestly isn't that often. The Defender Hand works with her, but I honestly don't think it's that good. A lot of stuff that'll hit you either also inflicts Nervous Impairment or has annoyingly high resist. I mean, if you have the hand you have extra incentive to pick her since you're already picking her to let her get hit.

Give her a break... She can shoot people just fine.

Mudrock - More like Roadblock, amiright. She solos the first two floors as long as the stages only have one exit. An Elite 2 Mudrock handles the singing puppet with some mild assistance in the form of either arts damage or some kind of debuff, with just some functional relics (better charge on her skills, more effective healing, less atk on enemies) she solos it. She's also good against... the enrage guy.

She is good in a lot of stages, especially the Lancer ones. She also perfectly blocks the entire left side on Big Sad Lock.

She's really good, well worth the 6 Hope and she also works really well with all of the Defender-specific relics. More damage is more damage and two of them do just that, more health means more healing, less cost means no Vangs.

Ashlock - Early on she's a good blocker and deals good damage even while blocking. Her damage and attackspeed are the same as when she's firing her lance, just without the splash.

Then once you have a team that she can sit behind she's just so good. Being effectively a ranged dps that sits on the floor is really good on a lot of stages that limit ranged-tiles (Bob stage with the slugs, Traveler from afar) and her damage output is just excellent. If you're in need for someone who clears the right side dancers on Lucians stage, she does that. If you need someone who damages the center-area on Lucians stage, she does that too. She also deals good damage to Lucian himself. She’s also a great damage dealer for BSL. She just pushes so much damage, it's great. And of course she scales amazingly well with all of the frankly broken Defender relics. Really,  +60% atk, +40 aspd / +40% atk (and -1 block). They only gave these to the Defenders because they do no damage normally.

Hah, that's where they're wrong. I only have Defenders that deal damage. (and Cuora and Heavyrain because I like them and they're special and great.)

I don't pick any other Defenders. Unless they're free. Eunectes could theoretically be good since she's a huge stat stick that gets even huger with all the % boosts, but she just can't charge her skills in a good way and is too clunky and inflexible. Sorry, Zumama.

Snipers

Fartooth - I don't pick Fartooth but I'd love to. All the stages are designed against her.

Did you know that she has a talent where she ignores an enemy's Evade? She does. I'd love to utilize it against Lucian, but the stage is laid out in such a way that she can't get a clean hit on him with her out-of-range bonus active unless you have the white shoes.

It'd be so sick. It wouldn't even be outstanding, I'd just love to do it. I'd also love to use her against Big Sad Lock because she'd do great damage to it in a way that even minimizes its counter-bursts (not that I ever cared about that), but on that stage you would have to place her at the very bottom center on the floor and that's just too clunky. She'd never get a shot in! There's too much trash in the way that distracts her!

An unfortunate case. But even if she did work on the bosses, she's not terribly useful for normal stages I'm afraid.

Ambriel - Bring her for Extra Boss. Also she's funny once you get enough aspd to allow her to perma stun people.

Archetto - She's great. Her damage is great, it works well with Spinach/Siracusan Curry, all of the on-hit charge relics, other attack boosts, just wonderful.

The problem is that she's a 6-star. She's a luxury, but I WILL pick her if I go to Lucian because it is too funny to pass up on. Be that watching her annihilate the dancers or go to town on the center area.

GreyThroat - I pick her as a dedicated Lucian killer. I place her on the very top left and she snipes him down from 100 to 0 with Pramanix and Skalter support, and some Elemental Medic healing.

But even outside of that she just delivers overall excellent damage. Not outstanding and she lacks any kind of utility, but she does a good job and DOESN'T cost 6 hope.

May - 10/10, 100 points, gold star, best unit, just pick her 12 times and watch her go.

She's the La Pluma of ranged units. Arguably, La Pluma is the May of melee units.

She perma-slows or stuns enemies, she wrecks both Duck Lord and Gopnik (with some help on the latter), her damage gets insane with some lucky relics, your ear drums will rupture once you hit the +150 aspd threshold, she's a 4 star, what more could you want? I pick May on literally every run. She is always my first Sniper to pick, outside of free recruits and even then I WILL pass up free recruits for May she is just THAT GOOD. If you have enough hope for a 6-star operator you have enough hope for May, because she will be a better choice.

Pinecone - Look at how they've massacred my girl. Look at the stage designs! They're so terrible. She has the potential for greatness, but suffers the same problems that Fartooth has. Unfortunate range-limitations and lack of utility. She even scales amazingly well with a lot of relics.

I shed a tear everytime I pass her up, knowing she'd just be sitting on the bench.

Toddifons - I like to pick her but she doesn't do much. Why do I pick her then? Because it's funny to watch her fire at unreasonably high speeds. She does do pretty well against Lucian's dancers and there are quite a few stages with Sarkaz enemies where she can flex her massive x1.45 damage bonus (x1.5 if you have enough Potential on her.).

Her unique Besieger range is also pretty handy on a bunch of stages, like Drone... Factory? The one in the final stage that's basically the Skill Book Farm Stage (when did I last go there...).

By no means necessary, but I do always feel at ease going into that one with her on my roster.

She's fine, I pick her for the funnies.

W - I used to pick her to handle the Dancers, but have since found cheaper (or funnier (Archetto)) alternatives.

If she didn't cost 6 hope to recruit, I'd love to pick her.

That is to say, her Skill 2 is quite excellent since she can set it up during breaks, which a lot of stages have, and with extra charge rate relics she'll block up your deployment tiles faster than you can remove her bombs.

Meteorite - Honorable mention, I won't generally bring up Free Recruitment Operators that I haven’t raised personally, but that one time I got her she was just way too good.

Usually her Skill 1 is held back by her terrible aspd, but with some charge-relics and/or Archetto (who charges at 1sp/2.5s, so the second best quality version) she gets her skill on basically every attack and it just hits so hard. She doesn't even need to crit, but you will notice them. I didn't even have Spinach, so I can only imagine how powerful it'd be with that.

All that being said, aoe damage is all she brings to the table and I don't find that to be terribly worthwhile in the grand scheme of things. She is incredibly fun to watch and that is the most important thing, but I like picking operators for the final boss I intend to face and they will then also handle the challenges on the way there. Usually I'll have easy space for operators that won't do much in the final battle, but the sniper vouchers are pretty hotly contested for me I'm afraid.

Sniperknights for life, you know.

Casters

Medics

If I go Lucian I -

Okay, okay.

I think Casters are a semi-necessary evil in IS2, since almost all Challenge stages give enemies increased defense, which in the early game can easily lead to me getting overrun as May's taser gets turned into a toy gun. I also prefer to just fill the arts damage slots with Supporters like Pramanix, Glaucus or Orchid, but there are some casters I will consistently pick when I get a voucher for them.

Kjera - I like her. She's blue, she's nice to me, she's always so reassuring to have around and makes me happy.

She's also a Drone Caster and Drone Casters are excellent in any situation where you can buff their attack-stat.

Guess what you can do in IS.

She also brings Cold/Freeze, both of which are excellent status effects, especially Freeze, since it's a stun that also allows her to bypass enemy resistance in a good way.

Given that aspd-increases are also relatively consistent to come by, she is very reliable in inflicting Freeze all by herself or keeping Cold applied permanently on targets that are immune to freezing.

Click - "Oh, a Caster Voucher. Really would've rather had anything else, but okay. Wait, I only have 2 hope."

Steward - You'd think I'd make the same joke here that I went for with Click, but no. Steward is unironically good in this game mode because of one. simple. thing:

Power Strike α . It scales with attackspeed, it scales with Spinach/the middle one that you have to unlock first that "only" gives +65% over Spinach's +60%, what's the deal with that/Siracusan Curry, it deals great damage. His single-target damage is outstanding and if you happen to have the right relics he will outdamage operators of higher rarity.

His talent that makes him target high-def enemies first (just like Ceobe with Skill 2 active) is honestly very hit or miss, but I've had it work in my favour more often than not.

It's just a shame that there aren't more casters with on-hit-charge auto-fire skills, because if there were, I'd pick them more often. I guess I could raise Dusk and give her Mastery 3 on Skill 1, but when have I ever raised an operator for a single, silly purpose.

Medics

Am I going for Big Sad Lock? Ptilo.

Am I going for Lucian? Mulberry.

My Medic roster is small and every single one of them has been raised with a very specific reason.

Ptilopsis and Silence have been raised because I like them. They also turned out to be quite excellent at their jobs and I like to bring Ptilo to facilitate certain strategies and to generate DP.

Warfarin is Ptilopsis partner in crime in facilitating dubious strategies with her +90% no drawbacks attached I promise attack buff.

Whisperain I've leveled because look at her. I love her.

Same goes for Mulberry. She happens to be an Elemental-healing Medic, but I didn't raise her for that purpose, though she is quite excellent at that.

Her Skill 1 has the highest consistent single-target healing output in the game... when buffed by a Bard.

I pretty much always field Skalter. Skalter also buffs Whisperain in a really good way, since it amplifies her talent's passive regen effect.

And that's it. Those are all my Medics. Do I have the Ex-Wife available? Yes. Do I have Nightingale and Shining hanging around? Sure. Will I level them? No. Maybe Shining, for Aak.

I won't level Nightingale because I feel like she's too much of a universal answer to arts damage in a way that no other operator can replicate and I don't want to fall into that. I will always find a way around arts damage without her, even H8-4. Eventually. Just haven't felt like going there for a long time.

Is this 90% just rambling about how I don't bother much with Medics? Yes. Thank Skalter and my choices in ground operators for that. Skalter makes medics twice as strong and also twice as benchable.

Supporters

I've already mentioned Supporters previously, but there's a little more to them.

Magallan - Picked her once on my first regular clear. She's just fine at elite one sicne she can stall in the grandest ways possible.If you get her as a free recruit, give her a shot.

Her Skill 2 drones aren't good, but her Skill 3 ones deal amazing damage and you can place them very aggressively by timing her skill with their invisibility. This is the same as in regular gameplay, but there is that +50% atk to summons relic. I don't ever actually pick her because I tend to not get Supporter Vouchers nearly enough or at the right times, but she's aight.

Deepcolor - If you get a Supporter Voucher to start with, feel free to pick her! She's amazing at dealing with any early threat. She's especially funny with the Brokenblade since with halved redeploy time you can just toss tentacles around recklessly and recover them in half a minute.

The downside of Summoners in normal gameplay is that they'll usually run into the unit-deploy cap, but in IS this is rarely an issue until the lategame. She's cheap to recruit and quite competent. She does her job at Elite 1 and can be phased out as the roster fills. Might sound like a waste, but to get to the lategame sometimes you need a Jagen so you can greed early on.

Skalter - I'm honestly not sure if she's amazing, but I always pick her since she works really well for me. flat attack increases are always good, especially wehn you run a lot of skills that do %atk modifiers. I also like to pick operators that can't be healed normally (Mudrock, La Pluma) and the extra regen is very appreciated.

Any attack-buff relics you get that affect Skadi effectively splash over again onto anyone she buffs.

The +35% for ranged units relic turns into an extra +21% for everyone with Skill 2 Mastery 3.

Increased defense also goes a long way. I've had runs without her where I've won just fine and she's by no means necessary, but I will always pick her.

Another nice thing is that her Seaborn fella spreads the atk/def/res debuffs that the Supporter relics can grant, if you have them.

Glaucus - She's fine. I never really need her,  but she does her thing. You know, anti air and stuff. One caveat is that the baloons aren't classified as drones, so she won't prioritize them and doesn't get her damage bonus/stun from Skill 2 (not that the stun over the bind makes a difference here). Her skill 1 also performs quite well early on when you may not have that many operators available and slows/binds in general are nice to snack a Duck Lord or Gopnik.

Pramanix - I pick her to kill Lucian. She does other things well, like giving a massive aspd debuff and her def/res downs are always appreciated, but I mainly get her for him.

Supporters also have some rather nice relics that mostly rely on enemies being in their range to deliver extra atk/def/res debuff, which Pramanix does well since she has such a large area.

Orchid - Glaucus Light. Don't make her work too much.

Specialists

I hardly pick Specialists! They've got some amazing relics, but my roster was limited to Kafka, Gladiia, Frost and Aak when IS2 started and has recently been expanded to also include Mr. Nothing after he performed quite well for me in IS and Invitation to Wine and also Mizuki because I kinda just wanted an Ambusher Specialist and he's just so wet. Just... soaked. You deploy him and Ceylon activates her talent. I'm even giving him a Mastery 3. Will I make frequent use of him? Probably not. Is he pretty cool and interesting? Yeah, yeah.

I don't use Gravel.

Mr. Nothing - He's a beefy boy. He's just loaded on stats. Honestly probably not as good as Jaye. I don't have Jaye raised, but I hear he's quite good. But I'm sticking with my boy Nothing.

He's just so flexible. He does everything - good damage, aspd debuffs, tanking, talking nonstop as you try your hardest to get him into the one stance you need him to be in COME ON NOTHING MATE I NEED YOU IN THE TWO BLOCK STANCE OR WE'LL ALL DIE.

Kafka - Picked her once. Don't remember how it went. This is just a shoutout to all the fast-redeploy Specialists. I know you're there. I know you're probably good. I'm not utilizing you on purpose. I raised Kafka because I like her. I'm not not raising you lot because I dislike you, but because I don't particularly care about that style of play. I don't get any kissies, I don't get to go over Home and receive 200 LMD and that one slug did just run past my defenses.

Gladiia - She does it. What does she do? All the things. Unlike Mr. Nothing she does them all at once. Solid single-target damage? Check. Survivability? Check. Hits air? Check. Sucks every enemy into a whirlpool of despair? Check. (only if you promote her though.)

Gladiia is honestly just the same as in regular gameplay. She's a downsized Ranged Guard in the same way that Weedy is a downsized Aoe Guard.

She's quite good on the poison mist stages in particular since she can make excellent use of that single hole they have.

Weedy - On that note, Weedy. She's not quite as flexible as Gladiia, but she's a more justifiable early pick due to her aoe-damage being good at dealing with small fry.

If you get the +2 shift strength relic and grab Angelina she can shove Lucian! Is this useful? No.

Is it funny? Yes. Hosing down the maddest cat while he's on stage singing and dancing is just hilarious.

(Also she can't actually shove him, because the relic doesn't apply to her cannon. I just want you to imagine the scenario.)

She's good. Honestly not worth 6 hope. If you have the Shift Strength relic then an elite 1 Shaw can handle the left lane on Big Sad Lock with a medic. Doesn't even have to be anyone more prestigious than Hibiscus, but you'll probably have to clear the stage in a decent amount of time or she'll get overwhelmed by the heavier enemies.

Frost - Frost is sooooo good. You can pick her early as an Anti-air Sniper-like. She effectively does the same thing, but she also brings traps. These traps will deal amazing damage, even moreso if you get her to Elite 2 with mastery on Skill 2. (Use the Skill 2 traps, they're better)

But her real utility lies in the Bind of her Skill 2 traps. She easily handles Duck Lord by herself and allows you to handle Gopnik with as little extra damage as what Orchid provides in the early stages and those extra relics they drop can help you snowball your way to the end.

She's also great for the Sarkaz Lancer and Ergate stages (except for the one on the last floor in Challenge mode where the Lancers are invisible). I used to pick her all the time and now I tend to see the holes her absence leaves.

And that's about it. My core consists of La Pluma, May and Skadi with Mudrock always on BSL, usually on Lucian paths and either of Ptilopsis or Mulberry, depending on the path.

Beyond that, I've made my favourites clear, but I have a lot of options and am always happy to take free recruitments to check out new operators, or just different skills on operators I've already raised.

[gch1995]

I’m 25 going on 26 now, and I grew up loving the classic Powerpuff Girls cartoon series when I was a kid. Even now when I rewatch it as an adult, it’s still a cute and funny cartoon, especially now that I’m old enough to recognize all of the adult jokes. Like, there’s no way it was a coincidence that Professor Utonium’s despicably dishonest, greedy, lazy, manipulative, selfish, and sleazy former roommate from college was given the name Professor Dick Hardly by accident.

Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup actually are pretty relatable little girls who have believable flaws and insecurities. They make believable bad choices for little girls. Those issues actually get dealt with seriously, rather than just being brushed aside as no big deal with no negative consequences. They are still endearing and sympathetic in spite of their flaws.

While he had a few OOC moments of bad parenting in some bad episodes here and there, generally speaking, Professor Utonium from the classic Powerpuff Girls is actually one of the best dads in cartoons that I’ve ever seen, which is sadly pretty rare in most cartoon sitcoms, even the ones that are actually aimed at a children audience.

Most cartoon dads are abusive, lazy, neglectful, selfish, and stupid oafs. Granted, those type of dads in cartoon sitcoms can actually be entertaining and funny to watch when they are actually being well-written as shitty and slow-witted, but still essentially well-meaning people in regards to their families, such as S1-S8 Homer Simpson from The Simpsons and even S1-S3 Peter Griffin from Family Guy. However, the entertainment quality of those shitty, but well-meaning cartoon dads was mostly lost when the writers flanderdized their negative traits to the point of making Homer and especially Peter downright despicable with little to no redeeming or sympathetic qualities much of the time anymore. They went from being shitty, but essentially well-meaning parents and husbands to downright bratty and spoiled man-children who were much more intentionally abusive, childish, cruel, neglectful, petty, and selfish in regards to their families and others around them with little to no sympathetic or redeeming qualities much of the time anymore, and that’s one of the biggest reasons why The Simpsons went downhill in quality after S8, and why Family Guy went downhill in quality after S3.

Nonetheless, even as they were originally written on their shows pre-flanderdization when they were still well-meaning, but misguided parents and spouses, cartoon dads like Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin, weren’t good dads on the whole. There were still plenty of recurring plot lines and/or gags of them being abusive, lazy, neglectful, reckless, and selfish. Back in early seasons pre-flanderdization, it was more forgivable, though, because they also still had their fair share of kind and selfless moments with their families, and their shittiness as parents wasn’t intentionally abusive, malicious, premeditated, and selfish in nature, which balanced them out enough to still be entertaining and likable characters in spite of their flaws.

Realistically speaking, though, dads like Peter Griffin and Homer Simpson would be better off having their kids taken away from them by CPS. Their good qualities and lack of malicious intent, particularly in earlier seasons pre-flanderdization, would still not hold up as legitimate excuse as to why they should be allowed to keep their kids. Bart would have bruises all over his neck, fractures in his neck, and he could possibly be killed if Homer strangled him hard enough to actually break his neck and/or cut off his air supply long enough in real life just once. Meg, Chris, and even Stewie would not only be injured, but actually outright killed in real life from some of the abuse and neglect that Peter and Lois put them through in later seasons of FG. All of these kids, especially Meg, would have serious self-esteem issues for the rest of their lives because Peter, Lois’, and Homer’s abuse and neglect of their kids went beyond just a pattern of being physical in nature, but emotionally and verbally abusive as well.

So yeah, Peter Griffin and Homer Simpson are really not good fathers who you’d ever want to deal with for a parent in real life, even pre-flanderdization. The major reoccurrence of the abusive, bumbling, idiotic, lazy, drunken, neglectful, and selfish dad trope in cartoon sitcoms is exactly why I really love Professor Utonium from the classic PPG cartoon. I don’t necessarily mind it in absurdist cartoon sitcoms when it’s done well as a trope, but I’m also getting tired of mostly just seeing bad and stupid dads in cartoon sitcoms, and not enough good ones.

For the most part, the OG Professor Utonium is a great dad who goes above and beyond to make sure Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup are happy, healthy, disciplined, and safe. He’s usually the parent most of us wish we could have in real life, if we don’t already. It’s refreshing to actually see a good dad in an animated sitcom for once.

Professor Utonium in the classic PPG cartoon is generally a very kind, loving, selfless, and supportive dad to girls. However, he also knows when he has to discipline them and be strict without ever being mean about it. He gives them good advice. He’s very selfless, and even though the girls are superheroes with superhuman abilities, he’ll still risk and/or sacrifice anything to protect them when they’re unable to protect themselves with their powers, including his own life. He didn’t need to be the stereotypical cartoon sitcom abusive, bumbling, dumb, and neglectful dad in order to be funny either. He was funny because he could sometimes be overprotective of the girls, and he could sometimes embarrass them by calling them sickly sweet terms of endearment and telling embarrassing stories that he shouldn’t have about them in public. He was socially awkward. These are relatable flaws in parents that even the best ones have.

While the girls don’t have a mother, Ms. Bellum and Ms. Keane were very brave, kind, and intelligent strong women who were good role models.

Also, the Professor did many activities with the girls and chores around the house that get gender-coded as “mother’s work.” Some of these things include begrudgingly playing dress up as Bubbles to make her happy when she was playing PowerPuff Girls with Buttercup and Blossom on a rainy day inside of no crime when he saw that she was upset that no one wanted to be her, cooking, cleaning, and actually sitting down to talk with the girls, listen to them, emotionally support them, and give them advice. He’s also not afraid to be openly affectionate, doting, and emotional with the girls. There’s just not enough good dads in cartoon sitcoms, which is why I really like Professor Utonium from the OG PowerPuff Girls cartoon and movie. He mostly defied all the bad dad stereotypes, and was a really great one to the girls more often than not.

The main villains from the classic PowerPuff Girls cartoon are incredibly entertaining, especially MoJo JoJo. Him was always the creepiest to me because he was the most devious, insidious, and manipulative one. All of the psychological abuse and manipulation he put the girls and Townsville through was always the scariest to me when I was a kid because out of all the villains on the show, the torment that he wreaked upon the girls and Townsville by brainwashing them, gaslighting them, and/or exploiting their fears and insecurities often was played as dead serious with really scary results, especially in early seasons of classic PPG. While Him had a few human moments here and there, for the most part, he was pretty consistently played off as being seriously scary and dangerous.

MoJo JoJo was an egomaniacal asshole hellbent on destroying the PowerPuff Girls and world domination, and on a few occasions, he actually came close to succeeding. On a few occasions, he genuinely was more scary than camp evil. But he still had a lot of humorous, human, fallible, and relatable moments, too. My favorite MoJo moments are the ones where he is making jokes, irritably going grocery shopping to get eggs, getting too frustrated by the girls antics and childish behaviors and reactions to actually go through with his plans to destroy them at certain points, and getting angry and jealous enough to actually destroy the alien/robot invader from another planet who was destroying Townsville in all the evil ways that he always wanted to himself. He was highly intelligent at coming up with clever schemes and inventions with all his science and technology to take over the world, destroy Townsville, and/or destroy the PowerPuff Girls. However, his arrogance, impatience, and impulsivity always doomed him to fail to succeed in the end, though he did come pretty close on a few occasions, especially in the 2002 prequel origin story movie, and he did actually get to rule the world in “The PowerPuff Girls Rule the World!” Surprisingly, he actually was a kindhearted ruler who did good things, but then he gave it all up and went back to being evil because he got bored.

Originally, MoJo was a well-intentioned extremist who wanted to create a utopia ruled by primates where they would never be controlled or rejected by humans again. As much as Professor Utonium’s irritation with JoJo for being a destructive chimp lab assistant was completely justified, it’s also hard not to feel kind of sorry for Mojo Jojo and understand where he’s coming from in his motivations to become evil, particularly in the 2002 prequel movie because originally all he really wanted was to be loved by his owner, too. He understandably felt rejected when Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup became the center of his universe instead. Of course, that doesn’t excuse him for choosing to respond to the Professor’s rejection by becoming an arrogant, evil, cruel, hateful, hypocritical, domineering, manipulative, petty, selfish, and vengeful villain going on a quest for world domination, attempting to commit homicide several times, probably committing voluntary manslaughter of citizens several times that we didn’t see on screen when destroying Townsville all those times, turning the rest of the world into dogs to try to take over the world, and trying to destroy the girls. However, you understand why Mojo became the villain he did with his backstory. He’s relatable. Occasionally, he does have some genuinely sympathetic moments where he’s actually willing to be friendly with the girls, team up with them, and do the right thing.

HIM was just the personification of evil for no other reason than the fact that he was satan. While MoJo was a complex, human, and relatable anti-villain with his origin story as the Professor’s lab chimp, who gained genius-level human intellect from having Chemical X splashed on his brain, and then chose to become evil after feeling rejected by the Professor when he saw how he pretty much forget about him once the girls became the center of his universe instead, HIM was evil, manipulative, and hateful for no other reason than the fact that those traits were a part of his nature as the very embodiment of evil. Many times, a fictional villain being portrayed as one-dimensional with no sympathetic qualities or relatable motivations will annoy me, but with HIM being evil just because that’s who he is, it actually works because he is literally Satan. There doesn’t need to be a deeper sympathetic story behind why he is evil. Committing crimes, wreaking havoc, corrupting people, manipulating people, turning people against others, exploiting the fears of others, and deceiving others for his own amusement is just who he is, and in the early seasons of classic PPG in particular, that made him really scary to me when I was a six year old little girl watching the cartoon on TV.

You get the idea...The classic PowerPuff Girls was a fantastic cartoon, particularly the first four seasons. Granted, there was some series seasonal rot going on in the writing in S5 and S6 after the 2002 prequel movie, and Craig Mcracken and Gennedy Tartakovsky’s departure from the crew. Like, the characterizations of the characters and/or storylines in S5 and S6 felt comparably flanderdized, ooc, immature, inconsistent, pointless, shallow, and underwhelming at certain times to fit the plot, such as in the episodes “Keen on Keane,” “Pee Pee G’s,” “Seed No Evil,” “Reeking Havoc,” “Toast of the Town,” “Say Uncle,” “City of Clipsville,” “”Bubble Boy,” A Made Up Story,” “Mo’linguish,” and “Simian Says.” Even the good episodes of S5-S6 still didn’t ever reach the same level of greatness of the ones from S1-S4. However, the seasonal rot in the classic PPG cartoon of S5-S6 after Craig McCracken and Gennedy Tartakovsky’s departure still wasn’t nearly as bad as the seasonal rot on The Simpsons after S8, Family Guy after S3, and SpongeBob SquarePants post S3–S4 ish, so I’m still willing to consider most of S5-S6 of classic PPG legit canon.

However, it sounds like the 2016 PPG reboot fucked up everything that was originally good about it to go for a more slapstick comedic feel without substance without consistency, depth, and intelligence. Now, I hear that the CW is making a live-action TV show spin-off of the PowerPuff Girls being jaded and resentful young women who’ve given up crime fighting as result! No, no, no! Why? Why does the CW keep making dark, nitty, and gritty live action teen soap operas out of beloved childhood cartoons?

Yeah, the original PowerPuff Girls cartoon and movie had dark moments. The girls could be bratty and make bad choices sometimes. However, it was still very much a fun show about normal little girls born with superpowers, which they chose to use to defend their father, their city, and on some occasions, the whole world, from crime. No one ultimately forced them to be superheroes for everyone in the classic PPG cartoon and movie. They chose to do it because they had brave and selfless hearts. There was ultimately no obligation for them to be superheroes in the classic PPG cartoon and movie. Sure, they got tired of fighting crime at times, but they still ultimately enjoyed doing it when push came to shove. They weren’t weighed down by the darkness of the world, hatred, and resentment. They still were relatively normal little girls with happy, peaceful, and normal lives of little girls whenever they weren’t fighting crime after the events of the prequel movie about their origins. That’s what made the PowerPuff Girls classic cartoon so special.

By turning Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup into jaded young women, who have given up on being superheroes because they’ve grown resentful of “losing the normal childhood to crime fighting” that they basically are shown to have in the original series for the most part in their spare time aside from having superpowers that they chose to use to fight crime to defend their dad and Townsville from, anyway, where is the fun in that?

[randomtvpollsjp]

I’ve finished my TVD rewatch and I’ve got a lot to say! And I’m sorry, but y’all are gonna hear it.

***

THINGS I LOVED

Everything To Do With Doppelgängers: I could not get enough of Katherine Pierce in particular. But something about Doppelgängers being magical but not so magical that they’re POWERFUL was very unique. And it made Elena special without making her some type of amazing, overpowered magical creature. No, she can’t defend herself against a vampire. She’s an average 17 year old girl. And the gag of finding out that STEFAN was a doppelgänger too—and the jealousy that made Damon feel—was high drama. Chef’s kiss.

Vampire Lore: Vampires have special abilities that you don’t often find in vampire stuff. Their strength and speed is to be expected. But the rules about turning, their healing blood, compulsion, the humanity switch and dream manipulation were really cool abilities. Not to mention the origins of vampirism coming from witchcraft was really cool.

The Pacing: Specifically as it relates to how they introduce conflicts and villains into the show. Before one villain arc ends, another villain arc begins. It feels very organic and allows for the seasons/chapters to flow from one into the other. It feels cohesive while also feeling like A LOT happens in every season.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE

The Mistreatment Of Witches: Witches are arguably the single most powerful (and useful) creatures in the show. And yet, they’re just a smidgen less disposable than the average human. They have little to no defense against other supernatural creatures (unless they plan for them in advance), which makes them too easy to kill when up against an actual threat. Bonnie especially suffered because of this. She’s had her neck bitten into too many times.

The Mistreatment Of Bonnie: Tied into my first point is just how unfairly Bonnie was treated throughout the show. All the characters are WILLING to die for each other. But Bonnie often does. Or has to make a huge sacrifice. There were whole seasons when Bonnie lost access to magic for doing something good. And she’s rarely ever rewarded for her sacrifices. I was particularly triggered by the fact that Enzo was so brutally ripped away from her as a way to level her up. And the writers knew they were tormenting her (more than once she’s made to put everybody else’s needs above her own, and she acknowledges this) and they never really stopped doing that. Even up to the end. We never find out what her life is like. Did she fall in love again? Have kids? Carry on the Bennett line? Hang out with her mom more?

All Big Bads Were Not Created Equal: Over the 8 seasons, there were a lot of villains. But some were wayyyyy more interesting and powerful than others. Katherine is a standout and recurring antagonist for me. But I also think Klaus, Silas and Kai were exceptional. The others were mostly ok, but lacked depth. For example, Cade was an interesting antagonist. But he was just PURELY evil, which made him less interesting overall. Because he wanted the Salvatores to make good people do evil things. He was irredeemable. Klaus came across as very evil, but we got to see so many layers to Klaus that even if he did awful things, we saw him as three-dimensional. So we came to understand and maybe even LIKE him. I ain’t never liked Cade. I liked Sybil the Siren more than I liked Cade.

Too Many Plot Contrivances: This show doesn’t have a lot of holes. But by GOLLY are there a lot of conveniences. TOO many conveniences. For example: we had never heard of siphoners before meeting Kai. And then by the end of the season, Damon and Stefan’s long-supposed dead mother has a coven of vampire-siphon hybrids as friends?! This was a problem that especially plagued the later seasons. Didn’t like that.

***

Overall, I enjoyed my rewatch. Standout seasons, IMO, are S1 (arguably, the season that stands up THE BEST), 2, 3, 6 and 8. The other seasons are fine and have good chapters. But these 5 are my favorite.

[purpleyin]

Savitar, Joe West, and/or E2 Killer Frost for the character opinion bingo. :D

Doing all 3 in my rambly way, but let's go with Joe West first.

I think Joe is a fairly solid character, who got a decent amount of depth early on in the show. I don't always agree with his character's choices (especially the over protectiveness in S1) but he has a good heart and it's clear he's always coming to things with good intentions. He's pretty likeable too, I've rarely come across anyone who dislikes him, though I've seen a few which surprised me!

The 'wasted potential' is minor and more related to the mid seasons. S1/2 had great stuff for Joe but I feel like it's s3/4/5 had much less and it was mainly focused on him and Cecile rather than just Joe. Less in S5 was unavoidable due to the actor's injury but I remember there was a whole other plot that got scrapped about Joe finally getting a new partner and it was a real shame we didn't get to see that with him. I've only seen til mid S6 and it sounds like he gets more to do with his promotion recently at least so I look forward to seeing what more he gets when I finally catch up with the show.

I think we don't get to see him being a dad to Wally, Jenna (maybe even Joanie?) as much as we should. Like, we occasionally still get him giving his nuggets of wisdom to Barry, Iris, and sometimes Caitlin as a sort of father figure for her, but I'm trying to remember when him and Cisco last had a good talk, it feels too long but maybe I've forgotten some.

I don't know if it's gotten better more recently but I think he did in the past also fall foul of becoming the writer's exposition character, in the sense that he's one of the non-scientist characters who prompts the explanations. Sometimes that did a bit of a disservice to his character I think, that he's often made to be the confused person in the room, since he is smart in others ways; he's quick witted, must be good at logic/deductive reason given he's a detective and good enough to get promoted as well, and he's got some impressive social skills, he's good at advice and talking people round gently usually. I think mainly though it would really have been nice to see more of Joe at his day job in those mid seasons and also him outside his work and Team Flash, in a capacity other than just his dating Cecile. I'd say where are Joe's hobbies and friends, but none of the cast ever seem to have outside friends except when the writer's want someone new to kill off/become a villain...

Now for Earth-2 Killer Frost

I enjoyed most of what we got with Earth-2 Killer Frost, though I was always curious if - after what we got on E1 with Frost and Caitlin sharing a body - that meant there was a Caitlin pushed to the back of her mind on E2, suppressed instead of Frost. I occasionally think about writing fanfic for her but mostly I stick to thinking about E1-Caitlin and Frost to be honest.

There were also all sorts of interesting angles about metahumans on Earth-2 and possible discrimination coming from Harry's well-intentioned 'detectors' for safety that might have been why her, Reverb and others felt they had to join Zoom, or were bitter enough about their treatment to. But it did feel like they just went for her being evil, because, and I would have liked to know more there - I suspect the writers didn't know why any more than they do for E1-Frost's arc.

I really disliked how they offed her, that felt anti-climatic for such a powerful character and just used to shock Caitlin more as if being abducted etc wasn't trauma enough for her end of S2 arc. I think it could've been fun to keep her around for occasional appearances, possibly even become a sometimes anti-hero ally for Earth-2. But then I would also have really loved it if we'd gotten an E2 spin off with Jesse and Jay, that had occasionally appearances from E2 Barry, Iris, Harry, Wally etc. Not likely but it would have been fun, you know.

And saved for last, Savitar.

Anyone who's seen my The Flash fics back catalogue isn't gonna be surprised that this was one of the characters that got on my brain majorly. I love time-travel, time-loops, all the timey-wimey-make-my-head-hurts overthinking of this stuff, and the added identity issues to boot is great. Plus, I love the meta about Barry versus Savitar. How such a good guy could turn so bad, it just fascinates me from an evolved characterization point of view and buttons had to be pressed down to push him over that edge. Also, I eat up angst and his character is just so damn tragic any plot with him comes with boatloads.

I know it's not popular to enjoy villains or spend so much time creating fanworks for them - in case people think you're condoning/romanticizing things - but part of why I like writing explanations for how he is (and in some cases more of a redemption arc) is precisely because he used to be Barry. I feel like the capacity for good/hope is still in there somewhere and the team canonically tend to give people 2nd chances etc, possibly more than they should.

Re: not enough screen time, we got a lot of suit/CGI Savitar but not enough of unsuited Grant playing him for my liking. It was so interesting to see how different he played Savitar. There was also a lot of wasted potential with the show just dropping the early S3 stuff for Dr. Alchemy and Savitar's followers with no resolution, and little ongoing link to Julian either, but I'd seen people blame switching show runners for that fault.

I think one of the reasons I'm rather attached to writing this character now and wanting to just do better than canon ever did - see the adoption papers square - is because they never explained his origin all that well. And the show continues to be ableist too where Savitar is just one example of that with how they treat his scars on multiple occasions. They also glossed over the speedforce prison causing insanity angle for his turning bad which seemed kind of relevant, not an excuse for what he does but certainly part of an explanation and something that seemed too throwaway in canon. There's the damage to his eye affecting him and Barry's likely PTSD that Savitar will only have so much worse with the timeline he came from, and both those make for interesting things to explore that canon clearly never will... so time for fics to instead.

[gra-sonas]

"We're all tired of waiting, and just throwing us a bone with two consecutive episodes of them interacting won't quite cut it."

You said it! If this is supposed to be a love story over a decade in the making, they shouldn't have to be "throwing fans a bone" by allowing the two of them to even interact. This is THE love story for a main character and it's disappointing that fans are having to beg for scraps, and even that is only the fans that follow the actors that are keeping the hope alive. I doubt anyone who hasn't seen Valmis in head-to-toe Malex gear talking about how in love they are even has a clue the two of them might still be a thing.

I doubt anyone who hasn't seen Valmis in head-to-toe Malex gear talking about how in love they are even has a clue the two of them might still be a thing.

Yeah, and even fans who have seen him in head-to-toe Malex gear for an entire hiatus are struggling to stay positive.

I think it's a real problem, that TPTB don't understand how damn insecure we are about the whole thing, how little faith in showrunners, in general, we actually have, and that trust in them doing right by us doesn't come naturally after watching a million other shows handling queer ships rather badly. We don't come from a place of confidence and certainty. We're always in free fall, not knowing whether we'll ever get what we want.

All the vague teasing and maybes they think are cool and a way to advertise the show - that's NOT exciting to us, it's a terrifying reminder of how wrong it can all go in a heartbeat, bc it happened so many times before. Queer ships and fans of queer ships are rarely treated well, a "maybe" way too often turned into "LOL, you wish".

I keep repeating myself, but Wynonna Earp and Schitt's Creek are the only shows I can think of, where WE showrunner Emily Andras and SC showrunner Dan Levy kept reassuring fans in pretty much every interview, that fans didn't need to be afraid, and that the queer ships would definitely get their HEA.

That knowledge and the constant reassurance made all the ups and downs those ships went through so much more enjoyable to watch bc it was always clear, that they would end up together, and be happy.

As a shipper of several queer ships over the years, I've never had the luxury of that kind of assurance before. All I've known is either

no canon queer ships in most shows

tons of queerbaiting without actually making fan-favorite queer ships happen

when there were canon queer ships, they were often treated badly, didn't get a HEA, characters were killed off, and so on

So, most of us really don't come from a place of trust. We're used to only ever getting crumbs, being treated like we're weird [for shipping characters that are not together in canon, especially when the characters are supposedly straight], and not getting what we so desperately want (and yet keep begging for).

With RNM, we were rather well-fed from the pilot up to ep 1x06 - we got so much amazing Malex content, an abundance of beautiful scenes and backstory, and even after M/M got set up in 1x09, most of S1 still delivered mostly beautiful Malex content.

S2 still had some good Malex scenes, overall, the season didn't exactly bolster our confidence tho. On the contrary, several times we got the reminder (in canon), that our ship was just too painful, too difficult to handle, that there were too many bad memories associated with it, and so on. The m/f relationship on the other hand was hailed as "easy" and exactly what Michael needed. And the season ended with Alex singing a love song about (and for) Michael, Michael walking out on him, and Alex kissing someone else.

The change of showrunners after S2 gave us a little boost in being hopeful, after all, Chris is the romantic one, the writer who'd provided us with some of our favorite Malex scenes, right?

So, when he asked us to trust him, many of us did. Some more willingly than others, but ultimately, I think many of us did trust him. Most of us probably still do, but man, we're now 7 episodes (that's more than half of the season) into S3, and all we got is 2 Malex scenes, cumulating to roughly 5 minutes of shared screentime.

Excuse us if that doesn't scream "trust us to do right by them" to us...

What we got in 3x07, was yet another reminder, that yes, the entire town of Roswell knows about Alex and Michael. Har, har, so funny...

I hope this is the last time this "joke" is used, the teasing isn't really fun anymore. There's only so much "so, you're in love with Michael" and "I've always known about you and Alex" we can take without them being in scenes together. All this "foreshadowing" and teasing has to lead to something solid going forward.

I believe the show will do that, but man, part of me desperately hopes I'm not wrong, and that all the trust I've put into Chris and the show for over a year, will pay off, starting next week.

Anyway, that's one more Malex-less episode out of the way, next episode's going to be a good one!

It's (finally) time for Malex, baby!

[shuttymcshutfuck]

So deeply hurt

Fandom: The Magnus Archives

Relationships: Jonathan Sims/Martin Blackwood/Tim Stoker/Sasha James (polycule)

Type: Hurt/comfort

Word count: 2,039

TW: crying, hiding pain, fever, internalised ableism

A03 link

Now that he was closer Jon could tell it was a bad day. He could see the tension in Tim’s jaw, the way he swayed ever so slightly when he stood before righting himself, the fake smile he’s plastered on.

or: Tim's having flare up so they have a movie night.

Set vaguely in S1 or S2 but Sasha doesn't get not!them-ed.

As much as Tim joked around and slacked off, he was very rarely late. Especially not almost two hours late. Jon tried to relax as much as possible but with the concerned glances from Martin and Sasha every few minutes through the window in his door and the constant ticking of the clock in his office it was getting harder by the minute. But he had to stay professional, Elias couldn’t know about their relationship. Jon wasn’t ashamed in the slightest, he just didn’t want to get them all fired. Although, that didnt mean he hadn't sent off quite a few messages to him. All of which were unanswered. He was typing another when he heard a voice curse at the top of the stairs. Trying to look as casual as possible but presumably failing miserably, Jon grabbed his cane and rushed to the bottom of the stairs.

“Tim?” Through the fluorescent lights he could barely make out Tim sitting at the top of the stairs, crutches lying next to him. “Do you need a hand?” He tried to keep the worry out of his voice. They’d all agreed that none of them would make a big deal if Jon or Tim were using their aids. He wanted to respect that as best he could since he knew how bad it felt when people would keep pointing it out.

“Ah, no need. I got this!” Jon watched as Tim slowly slid himself and his crutches down each step before using them to stand. Now that he was closer Jon could tell it was a bad day. He could see the tension in Tim’s jaw, the way he swayed ever so slightly when he stood before righting himself, the fake smile he��s plastered on.

“Well, that was one way to do that. I’m sure Martin or Sasha would’ve been able to help.”

“Na, it’s alright. This building’s just inaccessible as shit. I doubt we would’ve been able to all fit together on those weird ass stairs anyway.”

“Well since you’re here now, there’s a statement on your desk I’d like you to look into after you’ve finished compiling the research from yesterday.” Putting his professionalism on as much as he could, Jon went back to his office leaving Tim to get settled at his desk. He shot Martin a quick text to keep an eye on him and tried his best to continue with his work.

Recording a few statements helped distract him for a bit even if he knew that they were all fake. Floating lights, a ‘disappearing’ man and walkie talkie feedback that sounded like words. It wasn’t long until a knock at his door brought him back to the present. “Come in.”

“Hey,” Martin, of course. “I’m going to the breakroom to make myself a cuppa, do you want one?” Jon never understood why Martin always lowered himself when he entered a room. It was like he was trying to take up the least amount of space possible.

“Yes, thank you. I’ll come along, I need to stretch my legs anyway.” Perfect, a completely professional reason to talk to him in relative privacy. “How has he been?” Jon set his cane beside him as he sat at the breakroom table, watching Martin go through the practiced motions of making tea.

“I’m not sure, he looks a bit peaky but he seems alright.” It was days like these that Jon struggled with boundaries the four of them had set. He knows that if Tim needs help, he’ll ask for it. But he also knows how stubborn you can become when you’re in pain, how frustrating it can be, how hard it is to ask for help. “In other news, I was thinking of having a movie night at mine tonight? Tim and Sasha are down, fancy it?” Jon brought himself back, this is something he could do. Something that would help.

“That sounds lovely but why don’t we have it at mine?” Jon took the cup Martin handed him and sipped, perfect as always.

“Uh, sure.” Martin looked a bit hesitant, probably because Jon usually doesn’t offer up his flat if Martin’s already offered. They all know Jon prefers their flats to his because then he can kidnap a jumper or cardigan to feel safer once he has to leave.

“It’s just, my flat’s closer and I think it’s best for Tim and I since there’s a lift.” He wasn’t lying persay, the lift would be better for the two of them but that wasn’t the only reason. He had supplies for bad days at his house. Heat pads, painkillers, ice packs, you name it. And he knew Tim was going to need it. He’d crash soon enough, most likely when they were all finally settled at Jon’s, so he needed to be able to help once Tim let them.

“Oh right, of course. Sounds great, I’ll let them know.”

-----

It wasn’t long until Tim popped into Jon’s office, struggling with the door slightly. “I’ve got that research for you, Boss.” Jon gestured to one of the seats in front of his desk which Tim took quickly. He pulled the file from his bag once he sat down and had his hands free again.

“Tim, I- um. Is there anything i can do?” Jon tried to be as gentle as possible, not wanting to sound patronising.

“I’m not sure what you mean.” So he was still in the stubborn stage, great. “I’m all set for the last hour work wise if that’s what you’re asking.” He stood and Jon could see him hide a wince.

“Okay, I’ll let you get on then. Thank you again for the research.” All Jon got in return was a nod before Tim was out the door as fast as he could be.

-----

The journey to Jon’s flat was nice for once, mostly due to Sasha driving them all instead of having to take the tube. But even just sitting mostly in silence it was comfortable. As soon as they were in his flat he wandered off to get changed into comfier clothes, urging them all to do the same. Once they were all back in the living room he spotted Tim in a familiar jumper, specifically the one Jon was looking for as it was nice and cosy but he left it with Tim. He looked like he needed it more than he did.

Stocked up with snacks and tea, bundled up in Jon’s duvet that he’d asked Martin to bring through, movie night began. After finishing La La Land per Sasha’s request and Howl’s Moving Castle per Martin’s request they decided to order some takeout.

“Tim, do you just want your usual?” Sasha was over at the table, notepad in hand with everyone's orders but his. The only answer she got however was a groan. Jon gently moved him off of his shoulder where he had been resting his head and it was only then he felt the heat coming off Tim’s skin.

“Hey, sleepyhead. Can you wake up for a minute for me please?” Jon watched him blink slowly and he swore he had fallen in love with him all over again.

“Is he alright?” Martin moved the duvet off of their laps and knelt at the feet of Jon and Tim. “Love, you’ve got a bit, uh-” Martin's gaze fell to Jon’s shoulder and when he followed he saw what Martin was clearly holding back a laugh at. Tim had drooled over his shirt.

“Martin, can you go into the cabinet in the kitchen, grab some painkillers, water and the thermometer for me please?” Martin’s face dropped so Jon rushed to calm him. “He’s okay, I think it's just a flare up. Take a breath, Love.” Jon watched him do as asked and head over to the kitchen. “Sasha, just order him his usual as long as it’s not too spicy.”

“Gotcha, I’ll be back in a minute.” She placed a kiss on Jon’s cheek then Tim’s, frowning slightly at the heat before heading to the bedroom to order.

“So, how are you really feeling? All of it, okay?” Jon kept his voice low and soft, channeling all the times Martin had calmed him down from a nightmare, all the times Sasha had comforted when the knock on his office door sounded too familiar, all the times Tim had helped him home once everyone had left because the pain was so bad.

"I'm alright, just being a drama queen as usual." Jon watched as Tim’s eyes filled with tears.

" Tim ." It seemed that Jon had finally chipped at his stubborn exterior just enough to let Tim breathe.

“I…Awful, it just hurts and I’m so tired, I don’t-” Jon pulled him into a hug as he finally let the tears fall, running a hand up and down Tim’s back while the other cradled his head.

“It’s okay, it's okay.” They sat there, Jon whispered sweet nothings until Tim’s sobs had calmed enough that he could speak “What hurts, Love?”

“Everything but my hips hurt the worst. It’s like they’re shooting pain down the rest of my legs.”  Tim pulled back slightly and Jon let him, wiping away Tim’s tears with his thumb.

“Got them Jon, but if it’s a flare up then why do we need the thermometer?” Martin’s eyes flickered over Tim’s face and Jon could tell he was holding back his mother-hen instincts. He trusted Jon and it made his chest warm to think that he trusted Jon enough to let him lead.

“I’m just hot stuff, what can I say?” The joke made them both smile, breaking some of the tension.

“Sometimes during flare ups you can get low grade fevers, I just want to make sure it’s not too high.” Jon explained as Martin kneeled back at their feet.

“Alright, okay.”

“Martin, it’s okay.” Jon reached out and took his hand, the worry practically radiating off of him.

“I know, I’ve just never been around either of you when you’ve had a flare up before and-” Jon’s eyes fell to his lap, guilt slowly seeping into his bones. He could tell Tim felt the same, squeezing his hand slightly before interrupting Martin. “You have actually, as much as I don’t want to admit it, we are relatively good at hiding them. Which isn’t necessarily a good thing.”

Martin looked to Jon and he nodded. “Right. Well, we can talk about that later.”

“Okay.” He turned to Tim. “Is it alright if i take your temperature, love?” Jon was pretty sure that he would say yes but it was still good to ask, to make sure Tim was comfortable.

“Yeah, alright.” Martin handed him the thermometer and Jon put it in his ear, waiting for the beep before taking it out again and doing it to the other ear.

“Hmm, 38.1 and 38.3. Not bad but still could be better. Let’s get some painkillers and water into you. Sasha’s ordering food just now so you’ll have that soon too.” Tim took them without issues but seemed uncomfortable when Jon mentioned dinner.

“I’m really not hungry just now.”

“Nausea or just no appetite?” Jon didn’t want to force him to eat if he felt nauseous but he needed some form of food in him if he was going to take more painkillers.

“Appetite.” Good, that’s something at least. Something he can work with.

“Why don’t you try some food and if you don’t want what we’ve ordered I’ll make you some toast?” As much as he hated that Tim was in so much pain it felt nice knowing what to do for once. Pain was something he was familiar with, something he knew so much about that it was instinct to him now.

“Alright.” Jon stood up and motioned for him to move along the couch slightly and he complied. He got them situated so Tim was lying down with his head on Jon’s chest and legs over Martin’s lap. He felt Tim curl into him and sigh contentedly. “Jon?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.” Jon ran his fingers through Tim’s hair, watching as his eyes started to shut again.

“Of course, love. You know I’m always here.”

[bedlamsbard]

All right, reactions to Mando 2.05, “The Jedi”, in...semi-coherent form. Spoilers, obvs. I hated this episode, so keep scrolling now if you don’t want to see negativity.  This is not in any kind of order except stream-of-conscious.

again, I reiterate, spoilers.

again, I reiterate, this is REALLY negative.

Rosario Dawson...yikes.

how...did Bo-Katan know that Ahsoka was on Corvus? are they in contact? since when? Ahsoka seems to have been on Corvus for long enough to be a nuisance to the Magistrate (Morgan Elsbeth), but normally Ahsoka is very efficient and she just...really does not seem to be here? I did not get the impression she was planning on sticking around for any period of time.

(the same could be true for Frog Lady and Bo-Katan on Trask several episodes back. that wasn’t a convert, that was three Mandalorians hanging around the port in cloaks. I guess they could be doing that on the regular, but? would the Empire not then be more worried about being attacked by Mandalorians?)

there was only ever a very, very slim chance that I was going to be happy with any translation of Ahsoka from animation to live action.  I am on record as thinking that animation is the medium for Star Wars and that live action is always going to be a weaker medium than animation and that a lot of things that can be done in animation just cannot be translated to live action in any meaningful form.  I knew Ahsoka’s fighting style couldn’t translate to live action convincingly (here’s what I said about the mo-capped duel in TCW); it never occurred to me that they couldn’t pull off TOGRUTA given that Shaak Ti, you know, exists, and also there are so many excellent Ahsoka cosplayers.

(Consider KM Creations’ excellent silicone lekku (S7), which have beautiful movement; the cosplayer behind that is CallMeSnips and her epilogue prototype is from SWCC is in there somewhere.  I think Rei Kennex’s are latex (you can tell they don’t have much movement) but at least they’re the right length.  I think Ahsoka94′s are also latex (again with the movement); this is her Mortis vision grown-up Ahsoka.)

AND YES, THE LEKKU/MONTRALS WERE A DEAL-BREAKER FOR ME.

I feel very “you have made your bed and now you have to die in it” about that -- apparently the reasoning is for stunts and movement, but for me here’s the thing: her lekku length wasn’t optional.  This is not the equivalent of changing a hair style, which some people seem to think (believe me, I have read so many hot takes); this is like...I’m trying to think of a good comparison.  Like putting Peter Mayhew or Joonas Suotamo in a wig because Chewie’s head was too hard for the actor to see out of, or giving them normal human hands because they can’t grip with the Wookiee hands.

Also your main character wears a helmet at all times that (if it’s anything like my Mandalorian helmet) is pretty poor visibility and full body armor and THIS was your breaking point for stunts?

Ahsoka’s lekku and montrals grow as she ages. These are about S7 length; as @reena-jenkins put it, THEY DE-AGED HER HEAD.  Ahsoka fans coming in know this.  PEOPLE SAW THE REBELS EPILOGUE.

I wonder how many of the people being self-righteous about being totally fine about Ahsoka’s lekku are the same people who claim that Katee Sackhoff is too young to play Bo-Katan.

this also puts them in a weird position in regards to the inevitable merchandise: do they go with normal Ahsoka from TCW and Rebels, the one everyone is familiar with, or do they go with these stunted lekku?

(I can’t believe they’re going to make Her Universe sell merch with this Ahsoka on it. it’s not going to happen but I wish HU was going to be petty enough to not sell any nu!Ahsoka merch.)

Here is some nice art of how Ahsoka’s lekku and montral should have looked.

hoo boy were those prosthetics also just Bad.

“but the stunts” buddy I’m sure Pedro Pascal and his various stunt doubles aren’t having a great time in full armor with almost no visibility either

if you’re going to put the character in, do it right

YOU CAN’T CHEAT

look, I am really, really aural -- the best example I can give is that even though intellectually I know that Matt Lanter and Hayden Christensen both play Anakin Skywalker, I literally cannot parse them as both being the same Anakin Skywalker and for that reason TCW and the PT don’t exist for the same continuity for me.  (This also goes for Ewan McGregor and James Arnold Taylor, Natalie Portman and Cat Taber, and Samuel L. Jackson and TC Carson. I can kinda cope with the multiple Palpatine VAs. Yes, the decision to use Hayden and Sam in Ahsoka’s vision in “Shattered,” even blending into Matt’s voice from Hayden’s, threw me so badly I couldn’t take the vision seriously.)  Ashley Eckstein has a very distinctive voice, and moreover has been the only person to ever voice Ahsoka up to this point (even in the Ahsoka novel audiobook). Barring a MIRACLE I was never going to be able to parse another actress’s voice as Ahsoka’s, solely because of how my brain works.

I could probably have parsed someone else’s face because animated Ahsoka is pretty stylized but the voice thing is a huge problem for me because of how aural I am.

(I say this but when Squadrons did a more live action-style Hera -- knowing they mo-capped Vanessa Marshall I think they used Vanessa’s face for Hera’s, which is also what it looks like on the revised art and face sculpt for the Black Series Hera -- I kind of had a meltdown about it (for...weird reasons). And that was the same VA.)

(The timeskip between TCW and Rogue One, then Rebels, probably saved Saw Gerrera for me here, but he was also never a main character.)

can you believe that Sam Witwer’s Maul got more live action respect than Ashley Eckstein’s Ahsoka

I love Sam’s Maul but wow

this is particularly jarring because Dave Filoni and Ashley Eckstein always seemed like they were friends? I realize that this gets skewed by how little of their actual lives we see online, but that is the vibe that I’ve gotten from interviews and social media posts.

can you believe that TROS gave more respect to Ashley Eckstein’s Ahsoka than Dave Filoni’s Mando episode did (here is her statement on TROS.)

back in March, when the Dawson casting rumors first dropped (or leaked, as the case may be), Ashley posted a statement about it saying that she was not involved in The Mandalorian. she has over the years been very vocal about desperately wanting to play live-action Ahsoka, who is a character solely associated with her up until today, and honestly this just breaks my heart.

I am not the massive Ashley Eckstein fan that many Ahsoka fans are, but I have never heard anything bad about her (I saw her at my hotel at SWCC while I was waiting for my roommate to arrive! that’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to her, a distance of about six feet), and I really desperately hope that someone told her about this beforehand and she didn’t find out from watching the episode.

Also, while I’m here talking about Ashley Eckstein, the characterization here was extremely off, in that specific way that happens when a writer/director is working with their absolute favorite character, DAVE FILONI. I do trust Ashley to course-correct Dave on Ahsoka (in the same way we’ve heard about Sam Witwer pushing back on people about Maul), and that...was not happening here.  (I think Katee Sachoff said something similar to this about Bo-Katan in her interview last week, as well.)

how did you get Bo-Katan so right and Ahsoka so wrong

look, Dave Filoni is truly living up to George Lucas’s legacy in that he can story tell pretty well but he’s not actually that great at nitty-gritty of writing and directing. (none of the really good TCW episodes are his.)

this episode made me think of A Friend in Need (which he directed) which is not, like, a BAD episode but quite notoriously includes the Bo-Katan ass-slap and also Ahsoka beheading four Mandalorians at once.

it also includes a helpless village of oppressed and exploited Asian-coded civilians who are there mostly as background scenery so the bad guys can be bad and the heroes can feel righteous

I’ll come back to that one

the level of violence in this episode was...weird. honestly, too high? in a way that probably would not have registered if it was anyone but Ahsoka. look, I am an animated shows person. I know TCW and Rebels inside and out. I know that neither one is particularly shy about killing off faceless bad guys (though if you watch Rebels S1 compared to Rebels S4 they really dial back the amount of fatal violence the main characters commit in the last season, lol).  But this felt off for Ahsoka in a way I can’t really articulate.

why is Ahsoka attacking a random Mandalorian (her allies are Mandalorians!) who is walking through the woods WITH A BABY? WITHOUT WARNING?

part of that is just her movement -- when they animated her for TCW back in 2008, they made a deliberate decision to give her mannerisms and movement and a fighting style that a human can’t do because she isn’t human and animation can do that. which means that they hobbled themselves when they came to translating her to live action because uh a human can’t do that.

something about her lightsaber blades looked really, really wrong and I can’t put my finger on what. it’s like they just used the illuminated blades of the stunt sabers but didn’t do the extra CGI that the films do? I don’t know.

Ahsoka did a LOT of dramatic posing and what WAS that?

Dave can’t direct live action, that’s what that was

since when can you canonically convey that much information mind to mind

are Ahsoka and Grogu a dyad in the Force (I know the answer is no but also: what? what was happening?)

the only people we’ve seen who can do that sort of thing are Quinlan Vos and Cal Kestis, who both have the rare talent for telemetry, and even that’s not mind to mind communication, that’s touching a thing and going “YIKES”

you are telling me that Ahsoka Tano, whom six months ago we saw take on Darth Maul, a whole barrage of Mandalorian warriors, and her entire clone trooper battalion and walk away without a scratch, had to work up a sweat fighting one woman with a spear

you do know that we all saw TCW and Rebels right

and here’s the problem! this episode makes zero sense if you HAVE seen TCW and Rebels because (1) she doesn’t look right (2) she doesn’t fight right (3) timelines? we’ve never heard of them? (4) is Thrawn back? did you find the Chimaera? (you all do remember that Ezra and Thrawn aren’t out there alone and are in fact with a 40,000 man crewed star destroyer right) (5) did you NOT find them? (6) are you even looking? (7) this is supposed to be AFTER the Rebels epilogue unless you’ve decided to take advantage of that specific ending scene not being super specifically dated and if it’s before IT MAKES IT EVEN WORSE! because I desperately hate that epilogue and its implications EVEN AS IT IS! (8) why would you call this episode “The Jedi” when since 2013 Ahsoka’s whole thing has been not being a Jedi

to be fair I’m pretty sure S7 tried very hard to course correct that but unfortunately, they could not because the rest of canon exists

are you still trying to deny me grown Ahsoka and Rex when we know you got Temuera back for a five second shot of Boba

to be fair I would have the same aural problems with Temuera voicing Rex because that’s Dee Bradley Baker as far as I’m concerned (I reiterate that this is because of how my brain process character and sound, not anythign else)

if you haven’t seen TCW and Rebels this is a random Jedi wandering around for no specific reason namedropping a completely random person who has no prior significance unless it’s going to turn up later

this entire show has consisted of namedropping random people and things with no prior significance within the show itself and it remains entirely unclear whether they’re ever going to have significance within the show itself

look, I can buy Ahsoka not wanting to train the kid both for her stated reasons and for some implied stuff from earlier on in canon (the kids in the Ahsoka novel, the babies from Future of the Force), even what happened with Ezra, and obviously she has Plans and cannot haul a baby around with her when that baby is going to be a baby for an indeterminate amount of time

which honestly is something that ought to come up because even if Ahsoka wanted to train the kid by the time she grew old and died he might, if we were very lucky, have advanced to being essentially a pre-teen and then would be on his own again? this is also true for Din.

lol sure go cast yourself out into the Force, I’m sure there’s absolutely not a single darksider still wandering around the galaxy who might perk up at “ooh, free apprentice!”

I’m literally starting to think that this show takes place in an alternate universe where Luke and Leia either don’t exist or died at some point in the OT

me, baffled, last season: you’re telling me Cara Dune, Alderaanian, had never heard of the Jedi? was she not keeping up with whatever Leia Organa was doing? was the Rebel Alliance actually big enough that PEOPLE IN IT HADN’T HEARD OF LUKE SKYWALKER?

what...is Luke doing right now. isn’t he training Leia?

WHAT HAS AHSOKA BEEN DOING FOR TEN YEARS are we seriously supposed to believe she peaced out of the Rebel Alliance after Malachor and whatever the hell they’re going to make that out to be (honestly at this point I’m betting on “they will never touch it”)

does or does Ahsoka not know that Luke exists

hoo boy can you just see them trying to cast a younger Luke, or do you think they’d CGI de-age Mark Hamill?

oh yeah let’s go through this again in a season with someone else playing young Luke, let’s, I’m not emotionally invested in that so I’m prepared to be entertained

hasn’t Sebastian Stan been floated (even if just on Twitter) for young Luke?

why are these not-imperials on this planet. what are they doing here. what’s the point.

 why is the planet...being burned? I was half-expecting, like, normal deforestation (in terms of logging for lumber) but I’m also a bit ??? about this.

since when is beskar resistant to lightsabers, I thought cortosis was the only thing that was? whatever, it’s new canon, they can do whatever they want. (ETA: apparently that’s been true for a while; I am more a Jedi person than a Mandalorian one as far as the EU goes and my Mandalorian lore is my weakest point.)

dear god were these fight scenes bad

I did spot Morai and I appreciated the tookas

okay, I am taking the next thing out of bullet points because I was really, really upset by it, and as an Asian-American woman it affects me directly.

I was really, really shaken by the use of village of (space) Asian people who were portrayed solely as background victims to be tortured and exploited.  Star Wars has a long history of Orientalism, and some of it I can look away from and some of I can’t.  Mando especially has a very bad track record with its treatment of Asian characters (Fennec Shand), and in recent years the rest of Star Wars live action has also been pretty bad about it; I will never forget how shaken and upset I was by Paige Tico’s death at the beginning of TLJ, and Rose’s sidelining in TROS was a lot to deal with. There has also been some pretty appalling anti-Asian racism from the Mandalorian fandom that I have seen in regards towards casting rumors about Sabine (which brought me to the point of tears as recently as yesterday).

I had been braced for Rosario Dawson Ahsoka because it’s been rumored for so long, if never officially confirmed by Lucasfilm, and after they pulled the original VA for Leia from Resistance a few years ago (without ever making an official statement but it was after she made really dismissive statements during the Kavanaugh hearings) I was still really hoping they’d pull Dawson for the transphobic assault allegations, or that the rumors were false, or...something.  I was not expecting the way that they treated the Asian civilian population here.  I kept hoping that there was going to be something, and it’s like they kept almost going there with Governor Wing (you want to make either his name or his position clear in the actual episode, maybe?) but then kept pulling back, which just made the whole population victims that had to be rescued by outsiders. And exploited, and tortured, and abused in general.

And yes, I’m aware the Magistrate/Morgan Elsbeth is an Asian-American woman.  That doesn’t make it better?  Since Ahsoka presumably kills her offscreen?

(Also Diana Lee Inosanto is a stunt performer and a fight choreographer, why is that fight scene so wooden, damn.)

okay back to bullet points to wrap up

I realize I haven’t said much about Din and the kid and that’s because they didn’t...do...much? I guess if you’re actually invested in them “YAY HE HAS FEELINGS” is a major thing but I’m not

I have flashes of being invested in Din, but the problem is that I never know what the hell this show is doing because it’s all over the place.  We are 5/8 of the way into season 2 and I have no idea what it’s trying to do: they keep setting stuff up and then not doing anything with it. I can make vague predictions based on what’s set up and based on my knowledge of canon, but this show is so weirdly set up and paced that I can never tell if they’re something for A Reason, for the lulz, or for the Aesthetic.

I feel extremely vindicated by the revelation a few weeks ago that Din grew up in a cult but I also straight-up feel like I spent the past year being gaslighted about what Mandalorians were, and that’s...not a great feeling. Do I think that the show is going to do anything with that? Fuck, I don’t know. I hope so. I know what I’d do as a writer. But I can’t predict anything they’re doing and that makes me really uneasy.

jeez, at least when George Lucas was making Star Wars you knew he was doing it to entertain himself and tell a specific story rather than constantly having to go back and wonder what story lines got compromised for a project down the road.

like, is this why they did mo-cap Ahsoka in S7, to brace us for live action Ahsoka here? I know they had already filmed Mando S2 before S1 came out. WHY THEY DIDN’T THEY REUSE LAUREN MARY KIM AS AHSOKA’S STUNT DOUBLE THEN? it’s not like she hasn’t stunted in Mando before?

if this was supposed to be a backdoor pilot to a Rebels sequel...I will flip a table

I enjoyed the Bad Batch eps in TCW S7 but knowing that there’s going to be a Bad Batch show I’m now wondering if they’re only in S7 to backdoor pilot that show

how far back does this go? did they put the Legacy of Mandalore story line in Rebels S4 solely to set up for this? especially considering that that’s the one thing in S4 that actually has saga weight and then they immediately got rid of everything it accomplished to set up for this?

I presume that this is the reason they refused to release the turnaround for Ahsoka’s epilogue look two years ago. apparently it doesn’t matter given they changed her entire epilogue color scheme and also her lekku and personality.

Look -- at the end of the day, there was only about a 2% chance I was ever going to like this episode, but I was holding out for it nevertheless. I do get surprised from time to time! I liked the Bo-Katan episode! This was, however, a hot mess. And yes: a lot of the things that bother me are not going to bother other people. (I haven’t seen anyone comment on the Asian villagers, for example.)

[lucemferto]

First impressions on characters who are just now becoming important to the lore? :D (specifically Hannah and Foolish, but also Puffy and Sam, although they've been doing lore for a little longer than the other two)

Hannah and Foolish, I like well enough. There isn’t a lot there right now for me to examine, so it’s a little hard to express an opinion. I still have to catch up with their inclusion in the Crimson-storyline, but the stuff I heard seems like a fine starting point for some good character stuff.

Now, Puffy and Sam, I have more to say about.

I like them both a lot. They really carved out a niche for themselves, especially in S3. It’s super interesting that they are the only two characters that take the mostly metatextual issue of Tommy’s, Tubbo’s and Ranboo’s age and make that an explicit part of their character motivation.

Like, I know this is a hot button-issue in the fandom, but textually speaking, Tommy’s, Tubbo’s and Ranboo’s age didn’t matter in S1 and S2. Like, they were part of the intertextual/metatextual readings for these characters by the fandom, but like with Wilbur’s and Tommy’s drug business for example it’s - if ever - just brought up as a joke.

Like, there’s no narrative or thematic emphasis placed on the fact that Tommy and Tubbo are technically child soldiers - not to disregard what they have gone through! But it’s never actively examined through that angle.

But that changes with Puffy and Awesamdude - and I think that is mostly due to the fandom making it such a point of discussion. And, honestly, good for them - I do hope they consulted Tommy, Tubbo and Ranboo on this, if they want to make that a thematic component of their character - but just on itself, I think it works well enough.

Now, outside of these factors, Puffy has positioned herself as a de-facto hero of the Crimson-arc - especially seeing how Tommy’s current metastory is about him denouncing that “responsibility”. That gives her a lot of moments to shine and fills a niche in a narrative that oftentimes deals with a more morally dubious characters.

I also think it’s interesting, because we rarely see maternal figures explored as active characters of their own story, so that is something that I appreciate Puffy bringing to the table.

Puffy and Sam have also developed into fine dramatic actors - Sam especially knows how to carry pathos. Like, he is so good at delivering angst.

I also really love Sam Nook - it’s quite brilliant. It’s introduced as a comedic element and helps lighten the mood after the heavy ... entirety of S2. Sam uses this tonal relaxation to really make the viewers attached to Sam Nook - but then, when the tone of Season shifts, so does his utilisation - and without having to recharacterize Sam Nook at all. Like, Sam very effortlessly in Ranboo’s stream turns this once comedic element into a moment of tragedy. It’s like the opposite of what Tubbo did in response to Tommy’s death.

One ... problem I see maybe arising is with Sam’s role as Warden of the prison - because depending on how the prison is further utilised in and examined by the narrative, that could turn out spicy. Like, the fact that he kept Tommy in there for as long as he has, is a pretty big ask for the viewers to just accept as “justified”. It really challenges - at least my - suspension of disbelief.

I have spoken about the prison’s morality and how I view it in relation to real-life prisons here and here - but with Tommy’s incarceration, it becomes harder to “ignore” the inherent immorality of how Pandora’s Vault is run.

If you want to read some insightful takes that look at how the “reality” of Pandora’s Vault is/would be highly immoral, I’d suggest @blockgamepirate‘s posts on the subject.

It simply reflects badly on Sam‘s character. Now, he has taken some steps to include these metatextual problems into his character arc - but I’d still wait to see how that ultimately shakes out.