#so most likely a ton of gif sets coming after the episode

[cenorii]

RE headcanons!

PART 1 (if you like it I'll make a sequel with other characters. I was just bored)

My serious headcanons about some RE characters. Some I'll write about more than others because I thought about them more often, I apologize in advance.

Chris Redfield

— his favorite color is green, he enjoys this color and adds it to any set of clothes, even his military gear. He doesn't care if shades of green may not match at all in the same outfit, he just wears that color because he loves it.

— his favorite genre of music in the early years, judging by his daring clothes, guitar and references to «Queen», was heavy metal and pop-rock. Nowadays, many years later, he probably likes the laid-back tunes of «Roxette» and «Savage» because Chris' life has become hectic and he needs an island of peace.

— he smokes, but he's not a heavy smoker. In his youth, Chris smoked a lot and often, judging by his concept art. Now, however, he smokes to get in the right frame of mind and pace, to focus and calm down.

— After the amnesia episode, Chris stopped drinking and now only drinks on holidays. Drinking has become disgusting to him, it reminds him of his episode of weakness.

— Chris prefers his natural scent, doesn't use any special perfume on himself because he washes with regular soap.

— he's a latent gay man, but he's never been in a relationship. Chris seriously doesn't understand why he isn't attracted to women. The last thing he thinks about is his real orientation. He's silly.

— he likes Wesker more than Chris is willing to admit. Since he doesn't realize what kind of attraction it is, Chris doesn't guess his crush. He's too inexperienced in love affairs to realize it. Especially when it comes to Wesker, who he has a ton of emotions associated with, a lot of which are negative.

— Chris has some guitar skills, but after 1998, he barely remembers it. He can't sing, he's just an amateur at it.

— he doesn't know how to cook, ordering takeaways. Chris doesn't like junk food, having given up his attempts to learn how to cook and not even opening the cookbook Claire gave him.

— Chris never has enough time to shave his face or cut his hair. But that doesn't bother him.

— he had a low grade in school, Chris liked fun more than textbooks.

Wesker

— his favorite color is blue, but Wesker doesn't like others to know too much about it, so he adds this color to his clothes very carefully. Blue color in his clothes has never been the main color, it is only an accent.

— Wesker doesn't usually listen to music, he prefers silence, but if he had to choose, he would settle for Frank Sinatra songs. He can only listen to something that won't throw him off his thoughts.

— Wesker doesn't smoke or drink. Spencer dreamed of creating an ideal society, so he raised the Weskers as ideal people. Such people should not drink and smoke. These people should only spend time on self-development and so on.

— he doesn't swear. Wesker doesn't like and/or know how to swear because of his «proper» upbringing. He will never insult a person with a rude word, but will pick up the most innocuous one, even if he is very angry. Who shouts «self-righteous fools» or «ignorant cretins» in anger? Only the child or Wesker, because in his situation I'd be yelling «assholes», «fucking bastards» and so on. He's polite and well-mannered, just like Spencer wanted.

— he has a good sense of humor. Wesker doesn't seem like a joker because his jokes are very subtle and infrequent. He says «I have a date to keep» and then goes and destroys the Red Queen with the phrase «goodbye, fair lady», isn't he the most serious joker in fandom after that?

— Wesker is pansexual, but he doesn't care about relationships and so he, like Chris, is not even aware of his preference. He doesn't pay attention to it, so his involvement with Ms. Muller or his sudden obsession with Chris doesn't give him any reason to wonder what his orientation is. He doesn't care.

— he's in love with Chris, but he sees those feelings as a manifestation of his pride in him.

— his bathroom shelf is filled with various self-care products, and he is very worried about his appearance. First, the smell of his perfume enters the room, and then Wesker enters.

— Ms. Muller was not just a «one-night stand» for him, there was a warm relationship between them, because she remained in good opinion of him and even kept the child. This is a side of Wesker that is unknown to the players, because he had no opportunity or chance to show it. I think they broke up because Wesker was getting too attached to this woman and she was becoming his weakness, and he «can't have weaknesses». His job may have also interfered with the relationship, causing Muller to make her own decision to get out of his way, keeping the good memories alive. Wesker, on the other hand, tried to forget about that pleasant time with her so it wouldn't interfere with him.

— he is not ashamed to recognize someone else's merits and praise another person. He appreciates people who are good at something, he is sincere about it.

— Wesker is not a villain and an antagonist, he is the anti-villain. He has all the personality traits that fit that definition. He is not the pure evil that many believe him to be due to their inattention.

— he can cook, and he does it well. Wesker is known for being great at everything and cooking is no exception. Back in the days of S.T.A.R.S., he took care of his healthy diet, but once he gained power and became a bioterrorist, he stopped cooking for himself, preferring to order food from restaurants or have a personal chef. Because of the virus, he doesn't need to eat as often as normal people, so he really enjoys the process, since it rarely happens.

— because of his principles or Spencer's upbringing, Wesker can't directly harm a child. Children have never been a target for him, and he considers it beneath his dignity.

— his name is a mononym. Wesker doesn't call himself Albert and doesn't like it when others do (but doesn't stop them out of politeness). He is Wesker to everyone and to himself. However, there is a contradiction here — he hates the word «Wesker» and this whole project. Surely he must have considered changing his name if he had achieved the evolution of humanity. He still uses his initials AW when necessary.

Leon S Kennedy

— Leon has no color preference, he wears whatever clothes he feels comfortable in. He doesn't care if the colors don't match.

— he loves children and is easy to get along with.

— he uses feminine shower gels and likes sweet scents.

— likes to drink to relax or for any other reason. But he doesn't smoke.

— the music that Leon likes is very hard to define. He is probably a music lover who listens to whatever he likes.

— Leon isn't shy about swearing. He likes to make silly jokes to lighten the mood.

— He knows how to cook, but not very well, but these skills are enough for him. Leon can make toast or fry eggs, but it would be difficult for him to cook something more complicated, so he often watches tutorials on the Internet or eats fast food.

— Leon is bisexual and he knows it. He's crazy about Ada Wong, but he tries to hide it, which is unsuccessful.

— he likes karaoke.

— it annoyed him that if he showed up in any kind of transportation, there was a high probability of an accident or something. He sometimes wondered if he was a loser.

— he had a girlfriend once, but the affair was so casual that it broke up after almost a month.

— In school he had average grades, Leon could not be called a bad student, but he was not an excellent student either.

Ada Wong

— her favorite color is not only red, but also black.

— she loves elegant clothes and doesn't care if they don't fit her work. Despite the design, Ada chooses only clothes in which she can move freely.

— only Wesker knows her real name, and her name «Ada Wong» is just a rehash of «AW» (Albert Wesker).

— I like to think that she and Wesker could have acted like best friends, but voluntarily opted out for personal reasons.

— Ada pretends not to like music, but she actually likes «Marina and the Diamonds». She listens to these songs alone, in a deserted place.

— she smoked once, but she quit. She doesn't drink.

— Ada doesn't have any holidays, she doesn't even celebrate her own birthday.

— she's straight, and she's openly attracted to Leon.

— loves subtle scents in perfume, she always smells nice, but this scent is barely perceptible.

— Ada can't cook and hasn't tried to learn. She eats food from cafes and prefers to go there herself instead of having it delivered.

— She has no problem with foreign languages, she probably knows a few besides English.

— she was an honors student in school and she's easy to learn new things.

— Ada is an anti-hero.

Alex Wesker

— Alex's favorite color is white. It is the color of sterility and truth that she strives for in her research.

— I guess her full name is Alexandra.

— loves getting her nails done to cheer herself up. Due to illness and failed experiments, she is always in a bad mood, so taking care of herself helps her keep her head cool and rational.

— Alex loved her own short hair, which she had in the past, but it reminded her too much of Albert, whom she respected. Because of what she knew about «Project W» and the truth about them, Alex felt a kind of guilt for keeping her brother in the dark and lying. So she changed her image so she wouldn't think about it.

— she's a lesbian.

— Alex knows Russian.

— she must have a secret altar in her house dedicated to Albert.

— she respects Albert so much that she even tries to think and act like him. It is forbidden to insult her brother in her presence, even though they have hardly ever met and are not related.

— Alex did grieve when she learned of her brother's death in the volcano. But when she learned of his death in 1998, she was not sad, because she had not yet had time to get to know him so well and get into his personality.

— the clothes Alex wears are formal and office style. She doesn't like to wear something informal because she feels insecure in it.

— the mole under her eye is painted, or appeared there with age.

— Alex likes only classical music, her ear cannot perceive anything from modern genres.

— Has never thought about relationships, but can admit if she likes someone.

— Alex's only humor is black.

— often communicates with quotes from books, like someone quotes from songs. This helps her to express her thoughts properly and emphasize them.

— she's a lot harder to piss off than Albert.

[showmey0urfangs]

Do you think the show will actually include widespread polygamy? The vampires in this show seem jealous even if there are "deals" between them, in the books nobody is jealous of anyone, they just fight for ego, Lestat (at least in Louis' version) is extremely possessive, will Armand act the same way? Or Louis himself? Anyway, I don't think they will rotate between many lovers, it will be an eternal ping pong between Louis, Lestat and Armand, Daniel will be there just to say that he had a role...

Hi Anon! I don't know that polyamory the way it is in the books will ever be a thing on the show.

In season 1 they went to great lengths to set up that being with other people is considered infidelity by both Louis AND Lestat. It looks like it will be the same in season 2. We see that Armand is not vibing with the fact that even decades later, Louis is still (literally) haunted by the memory of his 'dead' ex.

Personally, I would have preferred for it to be handled differently. The soap opera-esque Antoinette melodrama kind of cheapens the story imo, especially after episode 6. It made zero for Lestat to keep seeing her even after Louis had welcomed him back into his literal and metaphorical coffin. But ig they needed to keep her around somehow in order to have the plot twist in the finale.

It will be hard to walk it all back in future seasons given how central to the plot they made it. It would be weird for example if Louis is suddenly indifferent to 'cheating' to the point of encouraging Armand to be with Daniel like a lot of DM fans like to speculate, or if he's A-okay with Lestat getting freaky with nuns and finger-blasting Rowan Mayfair on a grassy slope next to a cemetery 😂 (why Anne??)

From the marketing we've gotten for season 2 so far, it looks like Loustat will stay the main focus anyway (Loumand season my ass! Gee, thanks AMC 😒) so idk about all the other pairings and how much screentime they'll be given—if any at all. I've also heard rumours to this effect from people who've supposedly seen the first 6 episodes, but I wouldn't lend it too much credence since it's coming from a very unreliable and biased source.

Whatever the case may be, I'm curious to see how they'll adapt the rest of the books in regards to the characters (mostly Lestat) having a ton of other love interests. I don't mind either way because I love most of the VC ships and I'm excited for all of them, as long as it stays consistent with the narrative and characterization they've established before. Time will tell.

[enriquemzn262]

It’s turboweeb shit time, so be advised.

Anyway, with the new anime season finally settled, let me share with you what I’m watching, or what I at least tried, so in case any of this is of your interest, you may check out:

Mayonaka Punch

A v-blogger has a falling out with her old friends, leaves her channel and accidentally gets involved with lesbian vampires, who now join her in her quest to reach one million subscribers in order to take revenge on her former partners, with the promise that once she does, she will let the main horny lesbian vampire suck her dry (of blood).

Great animation, weirdly deep character developments, an underlying plot of anxiety and denial, and even an exploration of what happens when an immortal vampire gets too close to the spotlight, all the while keeping an overall comedic energy.

8/10, its an original anime so the story will probably warp up by the time the season ends, hopefully they don’t fuck up the landing.

Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction

Aka DDDD

What I originally wrote off because I’m sick and tired of high school anime, it turned out to be quite the fascinating show about life after an alien invasion, with tons of Roadside Picnic vibes, a great cast of screwball characters who are actually as relatable as they are realistic, and for once its a show set in high school that doesn’t give a single shit about glorifying that era of education, you will not see any mention of any school council, festival or any of that tired nonsense.

Plus, there’s always an inherent darkness brewing around the story, with episodes 0 basically setting up how everything will go to shit at some point, and the story slowly moving towards that endgame, it’s great!

Oh, and if you’re a fan of Doraemon, you’ll be pleasantly surprised too.

10/10, I’m absolutely glued!

No Longer Allowed in Another World

In an era where there’s 10 million isekais about the most boring male main characters who go into your standard fantasy world to get harems and be overpowered, here we have a story in which the MC actually wanted to die (by double suicide with his lover), and accidentally got summoned into said standard world, only to say fuck it, I want to die, you fuckers deal with this shit on your own.

No overpowers, no useless harems, no boring MCs, it’s so far a hilarious story about the one guy completely incapable of playing along with the world, and how said world, which keeps getting standard boring guys who do fuckall and just end up indulging in their newfound powers, deals with him, including the love interest, which the guy barely acknowledges, and the standard cute cat girl that’s now the jobber of the group.

7/10, could have tried to make a more unique world, oh well.

Shikanoko Nokonoko Koshitantan

Not gonna lie, I too fell for the earworm of a theme song that dominated memes for a good month before release, and while it does have its moments, it hasn’t really lived up to the potential of it’s wacky premise, mainly because it tries too hard to go for the “cute girls doing cute things” angle, instead of completely embracing the batshit insanity that pops up in every episode.

I’ll still watch it, if anything, I want to see what else they come up with in between the boring school life shit.

6/10, needs more nuclear deer antlers.

Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian

There’s a good number of romcoms this season, and while all are set in high schools, since DDDD showed me there was a chance I could watch a show set in one and not deal with the usual bullshit, I gave it a watch.

It deals with the usual bullshit of school councils, school festivals, clubs and the like.

Honestly, the russian part is what made it somewhat interesting, but that hasn’t led nowhere, so now I have a female love interest that’s nothing more than your standard tsundere, and your standard male lead who at least doesn’t lack a backbone, but that overall remains boring.

5/10, the weird sister is the only interesting thing, but in a car crash sort of way, may end up dropping it if they actually try to be serious with her.

Too Many Losing Heroines

It’s garbage, had an interesting setting of following girls who are basically third wheels in their own love stories, and it could have worked, have they not chosen to tell the story from the point of view of the most boring, spineless, stuttering betamale in existence, the usual curse of the romcom, somehow turned up to 11.

It’s a pity really, overall the animation is really good, and while it gets too horny for its own good many times, it’s still cute to see those girls dealing with their unanswered feelings, a pity we can’t just follow them and instead have to stick with mister whatshisface.

3/10, dropped it after not being able to finish the latest episode (4? 5? I can’t be arsed to check), seriously, just write off the dude and the show will at least be 6/10.

I tried a couple more shows, and iseaki I didn’t know was one that I dropped after the first episode (oh no, I’m actually trapped in a VR game!!1exclamation point), and another about a drunk V-tuber who reinvents herself around alcoholism (good premise, extremely boring execution).

Not gonna lie, I only really like the first two, the other two may drop the ball really soon, and I’m another school council episode away from dropping the russian girl one, so overall it’s been a pretty underwhelming season.

Do watch DDDD though, that one truly is the absolute gem of this season!

[aspoonofsugar]

A Quick Nora Thought...

Nora's first appearance in the series sets up her arc in two ways:

Nora: I can't believe we've been at Beacon for a full twenty-four hours! Not that I thought we'd get kicked out or anything, I mean, you're the perfect student and I'm… well, I'm me! But it's just crazy, you know? We've been friends for soooooooo long! What are the odds we'd still be together? Well, not "together-together…" Not that I'm not saying that you're not handsome; you are handsome, but that'd just be weird, right?

Let's focus on 2 lines:

Not "together-togheter"...

I'm... well, I'm me!

Not together-together

Nora is initially co-dependent from Ren. She is saved by him and spends the majority of her life by his side. As a result, she struggles to find a new balance, when her feelings become romantic. They are together platonically, but not romantically. At the same time, Nora's idea of getting together-together as things are is unhealthy.

I'm... well, I'm me!

Let's consider these 2 scenes:

We've got a world-renowned fighter on our team, what's basically a ninja, I can bench five of me… Jaune… We've trained all year, our weapons are awesome, Glynda barely yells at us anymore and… Uhh… Jaune!

Nora: Yeah, they’ll be fine. Jaune’s a great leader, Oscar’s grown a ton, and Yang is more than capable of protecting them all in a fight. Oh, and of course Ren is- um…

Whenever Nora can't properly say who someone is, she would define them by their name. In volume 3, Jaune is still unsure of his identity, so he is no-one, but Jaune. In volume 8, Ren is going through a similar identity crisis, so Ren is someone Nora doesn't know anymore. This speech pattern highlights that the character mentioned has a frail sense of self. Well, what does it say about Nora, then? The very first thing she says is that she is unsure of who she is. Ren is someone, for example a handsome perfect student. But Nora? Who is she?

Ren + Nora = Renora

Nora's arc is built around 2 ideas, which seem opposites. On the one hand her story focuses on her relationship with Ren, as he is her objective since early on. On the other hand she must figure out who she is as an individual. So, how can she be together-together with Ren and be just Nora at the same time?

Nora: I don’t know what he is. Every time I think the two of us are making progress, he… (sighs) We’ve been together our whole lives but I feel like I understand him less now than ever. And I don’t know if that’s his fault or mine. Blake: When you’ve been at someone’s side for so long, after a while they become a part of you. But that’s just it, they’re only a part of you. Don’t forget about the rest. Nora: I don’t actually know who I am… without Ren. Pretty sad, huh? Weiss: Well, maybe take this opportunity to find out? Do something only Nora can do.

The two thematic threads come together in volume 8. Nora doesn't know who Ren is and since she has built her self-image around him, she is suddenly unsure of herself as well. It turns out that to go from Ren + Nora to Renora, our girl needs to figure herself out:

Nora: When my mom ran from the Grimm and left me behind, you found me. We became Ren and Nora. But I realized on this mission apart, I don’t know who “Just Nora” is. And if I’m ever going to find out, then I have to do it alone. Because I’ve always loved you, Lie Ren, and that pretty head on your shoulders seems like it’s doing a lot better. But I still got to get mine sorted out before I can be the partner you need. Is that…okay?

Only in this way, she can be by Ren's side (together), but not in aa codependent way (together-together).

As for who Nora is... the episode Risk makes it pretty clear.

The most beautiful flower of all

What beautiful blossoms we have this year, but look... This one's late...But I'll bet that when it blooms it will be the most beautiful of all. (Mulan, 1998)

The Renora's confession scene ends with Nora being not ready for a relationship with Ren. And yet, the moment looks at Nora he sees the air full of petals ready to bloom. Considering Ren's Mulan's allusion and the importance flowers have in Renora's arcs, I think the reference is pretty clear.

Nora (a pink flower) has yet to bloom. She is late in a sense. However, the flower which blooms late is the most beautiful of all. That is Nora. Our girl will definately bloom into herself, no matter the adversity she meets:

The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all (Mulan, 1998)

[popculturebuffet]

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off Review: That's How It Could've Happened, But How About This?

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR SCOTT PILGRIM TAKES OFF AHEAD. IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN AT LEAST EPISODE ONE, TURN BACK. SERIOUSLY DUDE. DO IT NOW. IF YOUR COOL WITH SPOILING YOURSELF, ROCK ON.

Hello all you happy scottaholics. I"m back in the saddle again. For those just tuning in i'm Jake, I review stuff.. and a few years back I reviewed the entirety of Brian Lee O'Malley's masterpiece, and the movie as a chaser, having been a fan of Scott Pilgrim since my teens but only having just revisited it at the time I started my retrospective. It was a wonderful journey that made me appricate one of my favorite comics even more and gave me a ton of my best running gags. You can find links to each review HERE in one masterpost.

So naturally when the anime was announced last year, I was entirely on board: I loved this story in all three of it's major forms and was excited to see it again, maybe updated a tad. I was also curious if the story would get a setting update, what would change , and what subplots we'd FINALLY see on screen after the film had to trim a lot thanks to half the series not being finished yet and a tight two hour run time. I was cautiously optimistic when the cast was announced as while I was happy to see the massively talented breakout cast of the film return and get another shot at the characters, I was worried it'd just be the movie but animated.. which thankfully turned out not to be remotely true once trailers came out. Instead they'd simply get a shot at playing the characters again but this time with diffrent characterizations. I coudln't be more stoked.

As it turns out though.. O'Malley had zero intention of telling the same story again. In fact, he almost DIDN'T sign on despite getting the juciest of offer, with the anime's studio, Science Saru, wanting their next project after their breakout hit Devilman Crybaby to be Scott Pilgrim and coming to O'Malley Directly.

The problem wasn't the offer: O'Malley, unsuprisingly, was a fan of Science Saru, who in addition to Devilman had also made Space Dandy and the early pilot shorts for OK KO. The problem was O'Malley.. really didn't want to simply retell scott's story a fourth time. It was a story that was personal, deeply loved and made his career.. but after a movie that everyone knew and love and a video game that was so well loved it was many's holy grail for a rerelease for over a decade after it was delisted, he didn't know how to take the story in a new direction and didn't want to do the story again if it was simply going to be a rehash: people could read the book sometime or watch the movie if they wnated Scott fighting the exes.

Thankfully for us, Brian brought up the offer to his good friend BenDavid Grabinski, a tv and film writer. BenDavid was a huge fan of Scott Pilgrim and thus when the idea came up coudln't help spitballing ideas. And one stuck: What if Scott LOST that first fight. It was naturally just a joke.. but like when Superman died.. it's one that had some heft to it. If Scott were gone what would happen to everyone else? How would Ramona react to his loss? Was Scott really gone? how would his friends go on without him... and what would happen to the exes now they weren't guaranteed to die in a fist fight and the entire problem with Gideon's whole plan was laid bare?

These questions and more are answered as Ramona gets to the bottom of what REALLY happned to scott, who unsurprisingly is not dead and even more unsurprisingly the truth is all kinds of bananas. The story of a human tire fire learning to be a better person and not runa way from his problems... becomes the story of a much more composed tire fire learning she can't run away from her problems after she chases after what might have been, forced to get closure with most of her exes as she tries to hunt down the ex that never was. Along the way there's messy bisexual love triangles, movie rental melee's, Tony Hawk style antics done on swarms of paparazzi ninjas, the greatest musical of all time, the rise of Matthew patel, the fall and re-rise of Gordon Goose, explosions, cameos, and more as Ramona Flowers gets it together while Scott Pilgrim takes off, resulting in one of the best animated series of the 2020's and possibly the best of a very stacked 2023. So take off with me as we press start on a fresh new take on one of my favorite franchises under the cut.

Ramona Flowers Gets It Together

This one's going to be a LOT to unpack, and the best place to start is with our new lead: Ramona Flowers. Ramona has never been unimportant to this franchise: after all it's her exes that make up the fight of the week each volume and who give the franchise it's hook, and in the comics she develops alongside scott: As I said in my reviews, Ramona develops alongside him, having to learn to not keep people at arms length and to not run away, nearly running away from everything before coming back, realizing Scott's worth it. Through each other, they grow stronger.

So with Scott gone... Ramona is forced to grow all on her own. If she wants to date Scott, SHE has to fight this time, and she can't run like she tends to. In the comics, she had to scrap with Envy and Roxy, but all the weight to evolve as a person was put on Scott: Ramona had a stable job, was content in her life even if her friend group was basically "Whoever scott happened to be friends with", she was seemingly all together until the last three volumes slowly chip away at that and reveal she's just as bad at staying and improving instead of noping the fuck out of an intense situation as scott. She has to evolve.. but her getting better isn't the point till the climax of the story. It's a lesson in how while a relationship can HELP you grow, ultimately it's on you to: Scott grows because he stops running and embraces his evil self and thus the memories of all his fuckups, embraces that he could sometimes be shitty so he can learn past it. Ramona has to choose to stand and fight gideon and let go of hte hold he has on her, to let go of running and embrace what she has.

Here without Scott and only the vauge mystery of a guy she dated once, Ramona instead has to confront herself: many a character question her doing this. While it starts simple enough with just Julie questioning it, because Julie hates scott as much as I hate the comics version of her, we get harder questions from Kim, whose dated Scott and knows how insesntive he can be, and Lucas who KNOWS Ramona and knows her style is to run. That a happy ending isn't as easy as finding scott again andmaking out intensely. Ramona has to make her own happy ending.

As a result instead of being the sneaky deutratonist or a prop depending on the version (I Love the movie but man do they not do her well), Ramona has to confront her past on her own, and instead of just getting cathartic punchings, she has to actually.. TALK to her exes and resolve things like an adult. And you can imagine how much she likes the prospect of that.

And this flip in how the story works.. is brilliant: It allows us to get to know Ramona: We're seeing things from her perspective instead of Scotts so we see her way more vunerable, genuinely shaken by Scott's "Death", obssesed with solving his kidnapping, and forced to confront her past. Granted like the books we also get to see the lighter side: Ramona is still the straight man to a lot of the cast especially her exes. She and Kim are the sanest one's here and Kim is often out of focus, leaving Ramona one of the few rational people in a sea of gloriously goofy nonsense. Yet we also see her own intrests: she's a columbo fan, turns out to be a natural for stunt work, and has a meticulous routine for her hair dye. We also find out she's a blonde which is only TECHNICALLY cannon to this version.. but fits too well as her hair color to work.

We get to see Ramona not as some ideal to chase slowly turned into a person but just.. a person. Funny, aloof, kind, easily baffled... this is easily my favorite verison of her. Granted it's not exactly ac ontest: The comic's version is great and this simply takes the best of that and fleshes her out, the video game is a 16 bit brawler, and the movie... well look I like the movie, but the film version is a nigh emotionless prop that barely gave Mary Elizabeth Winstead anything to work wtih forgetting ramona HAS emotions who instead of simply having her emotoins amplified is outright brainwashed. I used to think Kim got the shortest end of the stick but doing this review.. no it was Ramona. Ramona got screentime but had any personality stripped. Thankfully both Ramona and Mary Elizabeth get a second shot on the screen here.

Mary Elizabeth's performanc ecan't be overstated: she nicely ballances Ramona's stocisim, something key to her charcter as her main problem is distance, that she puts up and that she creates by running away, with the emotoin peeking up just underneath to say hello. IT's a truly great performance and I hope she'll consider doing more voice acting, she's an natural.

And this is great as Ramona's quest eventually leads her back to scott.. and to an ending that's both profound.. and pokes some holes in the series itself.

The Adventures of Scott and Scott

So turns out Scott was kindapped by of ALL characters, Robot 01, the Katanagi Twin's robot minion who shows up for one fight in the comics and video game and then explodes real good. Here he's their little robot son.. and how Scott got kidnapped.

But thankfully the culrprit isn't the Twins. I would've liked for them to get more to do, more on that later. THeir involved, having leant their robot boy to a friend since , as a robot who can't eat, Robot 01 has never had meat and has no human limits and thus is the strongest robot vegan who ever existed.

God I love this stupid reveal. Anyways, turns out Scott's kidnapper.. is SCOTT. Specifically a version of him who did the usual story, won, had a happy ten years with Ramona, then it fell apart after an argument which he assumed ended in divorce.

This is another twist that was brilliant.. I thought Scott's kidnapper was another scott, but I assumed a clone situation. I never thought FUTURE Scott but it's such a brilliant move. We see a Scott who won.. but who simply didn't let the lessons he learned stick. It's easy to learn something about you sucks, I have many a time.. it's harder to make the changes stick. I can't tell you how many ephnaiinies i've had only to end up back where I started. Some change has stuck with effort, but it's not easy. You have to constantly work at it, to grow. And it's easy enough to backslide.. and thus sadly easy to buy that this verison of Scott , when hit with his relationship not working, spiralied instead of working at it , not helped by Old Ramona, their words not mine, ghosting him.

He's a ghost of Scott future, every bad thing about the guy amplified: he's oblivious, thinking his newest band is going anywhere with his gloriously crappy music video, and refusing to accept it was his fault, throwing a tantrum when Young Scott states the obvious solution: just tell his younger self some of his fuckups and hopefully that'll right the relationship. Instead Future Scott goes for the solution that's easiest and laziest: use time travel to undo his relationship. And naturally this being Scott he got this stupid idea from taking a joke Wallace told him seriously. I love Wallace's "Buddy I was kidding".

I also love the performance here. Rather than use Michael Cera , Future Scott is voiced by voice acting, comedy and beard legend Will Forte. Forte's goofy nature, penchant for playing man children blind to their own flaws, and deadpan deliveries make Future Scott work. He's deeplys ad, but also deeply hilarious, sharing some of Scott's weird intricates like assuming because Future Wallace's husband works for nintendo he gets all the video games for free and making a virtual boy scrapbook of his relationship.

He's still throughly Scott.. just one who can't get past himself, requiring Scott and Future Wallace to go to Future Ramona for help. Shockingly.. she's more than willing too: While she still has Ramona's own problem of running away at the first sign of trouble, she does still LOVE this idiot, she just dosen't know how to fix it and knows she can't talk him out of this, so she sends scott back to be with his ramona... well rides him back leading to some awkward selfies.

But naturally for this tale, Scott coming back.. dosen't fix things. And not just because his older self put anti kissing nanites in him.

Scott has grown some from seeing what he could be: He apologizes to Knives, in a scene that I truly love.. mostly for this line "Apparently a 23 year old dating a high schooler is frowned upon by society".

And I have to stop for a minute to give ALL the props to Michael Cera. He already had done plenty awesome this year as the boy of the year

He didn't need to go for two but he did. Cera wasn't at all bad as Scott the first go round: the character was different, a bit less goofy but still awkward as hell and oblivious to his own flaws: the core was there. Here .. Cera is playing the character as on page, if slightly amped up: Goofy, excitable, trying to ignore his painful past and flaws, charming.. all the good and bad of scott is bubbling around this guy. And the line deliveries my god: we have instant classics like "I'm using the world wide web" "The place where they make the video games", the instantly memetic sonic scene (Which would be me trying to flirt with a girl, ngl), and the above frowned upon line. Cera just bubbles in this roll, sliding into who scott is: Loveable but a total mess who needs to get his shit together and has made some grave mistakes.

Granted they also take steps to make sure Scott's relationship with Knives as judging from interviews, O'Malley is kinda tried of the take that scott pilgrim is a bastard man. I mean he is, but it's less that Scott has some shit to work out and need to be better and more that everyone acts like this is a new discovery. As the author himself said it's there on the first page and a good chunk of chapter one is the people who know him best asking what the hell is wrong with him.

Granted this is mixed with Stephen hooting and hollering as much as he can with his stoic personality, Neil being in awe and asking if they'd "done it yet" and Wallace being tempted with the idea of a high schooler himself, though I get the impression he never seriously considered it. So it is muddled slightly.. but not NEARLY enough.

I do get it with the movie: the movie.. outright portrays Knives as a legit love interest, and while it ages Scott down, it's not enough to make that not blehhhh and the game has Knives end up with Kim, which younger me didn't get was still pedophilia. So I do get it as while the comics make it clear this is messed up, it got muddled.. but it's also still a pretty weak gotcha when the source material has always said "This is wrong" They even bring up trainspotting for fucks sake, which I haven't seen but is a pretty good indication O'Malley knew what he was doing.

So here they make it clearer that while Scott's still stringing this poor baby girl angel baby along, he dosen't really consider it a relationship, or just dosen't want to and after seeing what he easily could be even with Ramona, apologizes way sooner. So they did make strides to make things a bit clearer here if only so another version didn't miss the point.

So one rant later while Scott and Ramona think things are wrapped up.. it's just not that easy. You can get closure, we'll get into the exes more shortly, but it dosen't mean your done or done growing... or that the past is done with you. Or future in this case. Like I said, Old Scott/Future Scott put nanintes in scott and after figuring out the exes aren't involved, the two get kidnapped along with the exes , knives, pretty much anyone who can throw a punch.

The kidnapper is naturally Old Scott.. EVEN OLDER SCOTT.

I love his look: he still has his old jacket, his iconic x-men one, but laso looks like Ryu from Street Fighter 5, just with a giant beard and crazy eyes, being a mix of that ryu and devil ryu.. and nega scott. Old Scott wasn't a great person but still had the potetial to turn it around if he got his finger out of his ass. Even Older Scott is every horrible thing Scott Could've been.. and this is something the comics foreshadowed was possible.

And the thing is while Ramona was being dickish in her own right there, not getting that while Scott cheated on Knives with Ramona he had changed since then, she's not WRONG. Scott was VERY close to giving up on change entirely if Kim hadn't turned him away. Hell had Ramona not come along Scott might've become Old Scott sooner just by dating a teenager. The potential to, like the exes, sink into his resintment and worst self was always there... this is just a Scott that did. A Scott who when faced with the fact change is hard would rather hull up, get buff and plan to kill everyone he cares about just to avoid changing. This is the Scott he almost became.. and sadly at least one scott did become.

He's also horrifying for more than just the implications of seeing this guy who while a dickhead, CAN be better if he puts in the effort and does change and grow in both main versions as his worst self. It's sad to see that.. but we also quickly see just how dangerous an evil ex scott would be: After all Scott beats all the evil exes... I mean original timeline scott beat Lucas and Todd via Indigo League style technicalities, but still. While Scott was still beatable, it took multiple rounds, a feint, and ramona's help to put down the last four exes, he was still fairly strong.. so give him 24 years more of experince with ten of those spent JUST training and specifically preparing to counter the exes , ramona and his past self.. and you have an unstoppable monster that NOTHING can stop and everyone else is very lucky they get sent back. They all put in a good offense.. but the league is out of their league.

Even Older Scott is a brick wall.. and one that smacks straight into Scott and Ramona trying to run from their problems. Scott is forced to face the fact that even getting better might not last even if he dosen't become this guy and Ramona's forced to face the hide this guy is right. Our heroes are up against the wall, their relationship almost over...

Enter Even Older Ramona. Turns out Even Older Scott just.. ghosted her. But her presence finally gives present Ramona the wakeup call she needs as finding our her older self just.. ran away each time her and scott had issues.. gives her a needed ephinay the same way Older Scott being a dumpster fire on cocaine gave this Scott one and Scott in the comics got one from seeing a dark mirror in gideon: Ramona Flowers.. always run. Lucas outright said as much and with the series fleshing out the exes more, almost there just give me a minute, we find out she just.. bounced on each relationship. Matt isn't a suprise, his backstory is the same as it ever was, and in some cases she was ENTIRELY justified in her assholery: Todd was an obnoxious prick she left another, far better guy for, the Twins were recontexculazed as serial predators who preyed on new freshman with Ramona dating them both being a way to get even on both of them, so while she still did a bad it was on legitly bad people, and Gideon.. is still Gideon. He may get more development here and have his own backstory.. but the series makes it VERY clear he was every bit as shitty to ramona as previous versions, he just hadn't got to using the glow or mind control chips levels of creep yet.

But as i'll get into more in a bit... she legitly hurt everyone else: While Matt didn't get into supervilanny till high school, it's hard not to think that being used as a weapon to keep other boys away didn't lead him down the tryhard path he now walks, Lucas was left devistated and became a xerox of a xerox of the kind of guy Ramona left him for, and Roxy was left genuinely devistated thinking she was nothing. All Ramona has done is run and deny people closure and the series reckons with that.. and like the comics forces Ramona to stand and fight, recognizing that her relationship with Scott could end badly.. but it's worth having.

It's a neat metaphor: our heroes see exactly how badly things could end... and that's how relationships can be. You worry about how badly things are going to go or how you'll fuck up. But the only way it can go forward.. is if you try. Risk the hurt for the good. present/past/whatever Scott made a valid point when trying to talk to his Older Self before seeing that was a lost cause: There had to be good times too? While Old Scott and even Older Scott bury them in self pity, a relationship, even if it fails.. has something to add. Something to help you grow. And given Brian himself had been through a divorce after a ten year marriage it's hard not to see the subtext, to see that idea of "would you talk yourself out of a relationship if you knew it'd end". And the answer he and Ramona have.. is no. It's worth the risk, worth the pain, and worth the possiblity that someone else can do it better.

Granted this being scott pilgrim doing it better involves the ramona's fusing and Even Older Ramona, while done with Scott (He ate up his second chance a LONG TIME AGO) gives both Scott's another chance. As she puts it "This one's just an idiot kid... and this one's a real mess" (When told to kick his ass) "It's never too late to clean up a mess.. " Despite it all.. part of her loves him.. and gives him another chance. Not with her, Oh lord no, but to be better. That .. we can always be better, no matter if your 23 or 47, you can become better. As Super Ramona says "What you've done in the past dosen't define you, hell me keep remembering that". It's a beautiful message: you can screw up, there is no happily ever after.. but you can always be better even if you stumble. And as our heroes face a new future together once again.. it feels a bit brighter this time, like these two kids will make it you know?

Not That Evil

One big pull of doing the story this way for Brian and BenDavid was the exes. Brian admitted in interviews he wrote the books by the seat of his pants and as a naive 20 something who didn't know how skaters or musicians worked except via magazines. Moving to LA among other stuff gave him more perspective, and he wanted to add that to the story, flesh the Exes out as people and use the bits he didn't have time for in the original.

As such 5/7 go from sometimes one dimension, sometimes wholly evil bastards for Scott to punch.. and Lucas, to 5 very flawed , very intresting people we get to see way more of and who all get something resembling a happy ending. Also Kyle and Ken are there. Getting them out of the way once again the adaptation barely uses them, as their more a plot device/backup so we can hear Will Forte sing the theme to Bubblegum Crisis. You know when Brian hinted at that scene in interviews pre show I expected to here Kirean Culkin, Bree Larson, maybe even Micheal Cera. I didn't expect Will Freakin Forte and god bless Brian for that.

So yeah the Twins are.. fine here and I love the anti climax: they don't get closure with ramona.. but are cool with Scott since they'll be buddies eventually. I also like that out of ALL the exes for Scott to befriend after they respawned it's these two guys.

Thankfully everyone else gets way more and no where is that more apparent than with MATTHEW PATEL, the first evil ex.. and the one who naturally gets the most to work with, going from the biggest jobber who ever jobbed, to the guy who killed scott pilgrim

Satya Bhabha gets to have a fucking feast here and I hope this leads to more rolls, voice acting or otherwise. While he was already one of the highlights of the film, easily, taking what was implied to be a music number and making it into this glorious thing.

The series takes it to new heights.. mostly by giving Matt his best life. Granted.. this life naturally dosen't include Ramona who walks out pissed off and Matt is befuddled "Wait we DON'T get her automatically if we win?"

So he does what you'd expect from an egocentric theater kid who realizes he was just played and this whole evil exes setup is a sham... call a meeting in GIDEON"S OWN LAIR to dramatically reveal it all. And punch the head off a good soft robot boy because he's a prick and a half. A loveable prick and a half but still.

It's something I just.. never thought about with the league. I assumed it was simply a "If I can't have you" situation as that was GIdeon's whole goal.. and to put her in his girlfriend freezer which i'm sure Matt released. Gideon and Roxy seemed like the only ones who wanted her back. But given the weird logic of this unvierse even if some of them DIDN'T want her, I like the idea they'd still like to keep that option open by unaliving someone. It's fucked up as it is sensical for a group that all gathered to keep their ex from moving the fuck on.

It makes equal sense that this was all a ponzi scheme, Gideon , being an entiled dick, just.. assumed he got her if anyone won. That the exes wouldn't object or, more likely, they simply woudln't make it far enough. They were just patsies so he could swoop in and score her on the rebound, also not getting that would never work and sh'ed just hammer his nuts so far in they'd be impacted.

What threw me after this.. was Matt's Challenge to gideon. Not him challenging Gideon, I expected that easily: Matt gets all of Gideon's empire if he wins, Matt dies if he looses. I figured Gideon would kill Matt, again, and would do some sort of cordinated strike. But as before Scott Pilgrim Takes off Decides

Instead we get an absolutely gorgeous, awesome fight scenes. one of the best i've seen in animation and one of the best of the year, which given Invincible came back, is saying something. Gideon, while not having his pixel or glow powers, fights well with swords, a harness and pure skill while Matt is consistently forced to push his powers in new and creative ways. While we get the ones he got to show off against scott, fireballs and demon hipster chicks, we also get to see a lot of cool new shit as he manifests arms ala the Hindu god shiva, with all his powers seeming to tie into Hindu mythology instead of "magic stuff I guess" like the originals. It's a tense fight I assumed would end one way.. but instead... Matthew Patel FUCKING WINS and wins Gideon's emppire, only leaving him alive as a brag

Yeah I assumed from this when first watching that this was some sort of Buffy "Superstar" situation, that Matt had altereted reality to make it better for him. Instead.. nope. This just happened organically. Turns out Matt is badass as fuck, Scott simply had the power of friendship and punches. No power scaling here bitches.

As a result... the League falls apart. Matt is TECHNICALLY leader.. but in practice the exes all go off to do whatever, with Ramona instead encountering them organically. Matt spends the season as a highly paid CEO, mostly showing up once in a while to shut down a whole movie production because it makes him look bad, pathetically hit on ramona.. then get scared when he finds out Scott is alive. My faviorite bit of that is his very timid "Is he mad at me?" like he's a second grader and Ramona's understandably irritated "I dont' know dude" as a response.

Granted this dosen't stop his dreams as Knives and Stephen are able to pitch him a Scott Pilgrim Musical, one of the most gloriously batshit subplots in the history of this franchise. Which really can be said for.. most of this fucking show, but I digress. Despite seemingly hvaing no talent, the prospect of finally getting his broadway dreams back after his dad crushed them is enough for him to level up again, do a performance everyone loves and become a broadway icon. I assume the last part. Hamilton move over, your new compettiion's in town.

(Sidebar to that refrence, I think Hidgens and Matt would be besties. THeir both weirdly violent and obessed with musical theater).

Hell Matt.. dosen't even get upstaged by Gideon. When Gideon tries a looney tunes plan to bomb the theater, the Demon Hipster Chicks just.. disarm it and Matt.. gives Gideon his company back. Turns out being a CEO is hard yo. He's already lost billions. So Matt has his career, his musical, the only thing he didn't want to give up and Gideon could care less about anyway, and a new evil bestie. Life is good.

And naturally it sucks to be Gideon Graves as a result, or rather Gordon Goose. I liked giving Gideon a backstory, aging him down to be julie's old peer who used to wear no fear shirts every day and got shot down hard. Huh I never knew the guy I knew in high school who gave every girl he knew an invitation asking them out in high school became a super villian.

So Gideon spends most of the series in a depressed daze secretly plotting revenge and watching anime. Why is every guy I knew in high school compressed into one sad canadian?

Where he's crashing though was a nice twist: Julie. For those who read my reviews of the comics, you'll recall I didn't exactly like Julie very much. And for good reason: she's the worst. Here she still is.. but Brian found the secret to having a character whose human garbage around without making the audience pull their hair out. You have to make them entertaing. Julie is still a high school alpha bitch all grown up here, but instead of just constantly talking about how Scott sucks, she gets to be funny. She swears constantly, taking a great gag from the film and escalating it, slacks off at her job, and snarks to Ramona about her taste in men.

She also.. gets redeeming qualities. Something I never thought any verison of Julie could possibly have, but here we are. Instead of just seeming to know Ramona and only claming to be her friend because Julie Powers is a starfucker, she's GENUINELY a good friend to Ramona, giving her the info she needs and being contrite when Ramona catches her with Gideon. Julie here feels more like a person and less like a blob of all the worlds sins congealed into that bitch.

And yes she ends up with Gideon, a ship I never thought of in my darkest day but somehow works perfectly. Their both awful in a way that's made for each other and Julie taking in Gordon at his lowest is genuinely sweet.

We get to see Gideon not as G-Man.. but as a nerd whose lost everything.. and gets the greatest and most wholesome montage ever with Lucas Lee. Seriously Lucas and Gideon fucking around Julie's house like two teenage boys is one of the greatest thigns ever put to film, even greater knowing it was somehow only 90 fucking minutes. It's fucking adorable.

What helps though is that while Gideon is a touch more sympathetic and pathetic... he's still not let off the hook for how he treated Ramona. He's not putting the glow in her and stuff, but he was still the same controlling manipulative asshat. I mean he still made the league just to win her back. It's just without the league or the trappings of power... he's a less charming scott, something the books largely hinted at. Ramona DOES get him to be a better partner to Julie, calling him out for leaning on her hard and taking advantage of her, and as a result instead of leeching off her they become equal partners in villianny with vauge never to be elaborated on plans at the end. And it's honestly.. sweet. It's nice their evil together. Sure they'll probably be meancing our heroes with a super mario bros 3 airship eventually, i'm sure, but at least their better. And matt freed his frozen kidnapped wives so we're good.

So moving right along fun and fancy free we have Gordon's best bro, Lucas. Lucas Lee takes more after the film, something Brian admitted was unavoidable for some things: after the movie made some versions of the characters more iconic he really coudlnt' go back. It's why getting the movie cast was so important: While this was going to be it's own thing, having them added a layer and frankly he didn't think anyone else could do it as well. I do think someone could've, there's tones of great voice actors, but i'm still glad he got the all star cast back as their just.. giving it their fucking best. God bless Michael Cera for reviving that email chains.

And you can feel the enthusiasm in most performances, but especially Chris Evans, who responded back within 20 minutes of being asked and hams it up. This Lucas is a bro whose on the verge of being cancelled and who is delightfully try hard, saying let's party as every other line in his films, throwing parties, and generally being axe bodyspray made into a person. He also tony hawks a lot, and you can tell BenDavid loves skater culture.

Lucas is fun to watch, being arrogant and an asshole, but one whose hilarious epsecially squeezed into Scott's t-shirt playing him in young neil's movie. It's a great visual. And his downfall being dating a 30 year old who happens to LOOK like a high schooler is both a brilliant meta joke on ellen wong, and just.. fucking great.

The show also, like all the exes, fleshes him out: It takes what we knew ,that Ramona cheated on him in high school, and fleshes it out: Ramona was his everything, helping a skinny skater kid get by, fixing his boards and generally being sweet.. then aburbtly left him for a fuck boy, with Lucas deciding to become the KING of all fuck boys in revenge.

Lucas isn't super deep, but I love that he's not just the dudebro party massacre we see on the surface: he does actually read the script, has genuine insight into ramona pointing out how unlikely the regular ending of the story is .. simply because she always runs. He also willingly skates into a cloud of ninja paparazzi to cover for her.

And the skating scene.. is one of my favorites in the show. Granted I like me some tony hawk even if I suck eggs at it, so that helps, but the animation is gorgeous. Granted this whole damn cartoon is gorgeous: Science Saru put their heart and soul into every frame and everything looks stunning, having a very early 2000's look with it's frayed edges on the characters, and capturing Brian's style perfectly.

The Skating Segment shows this off, with fluid motion, some great set pieces and some impressive jokes like the alien. It's fucking great.

So Lucas ends up not even able to afford a first class ticket back home.. but finds happiness as a barita. and Stacey finds happiness starring at his ass. Everyone wins. I kinda low key ship those two.. I mean Stacey's a bit younger, yes, but it's not knives level of age gap, and Lucas could use someone with their head mostly on their shoulders. They do try teasing him and kim.. but she'd eat him alive. It'd be fun but she would. So speaking of Kim and the evil exes, let's roll on to my faviorite, Roxie. Roxie is a fucking delight this time, with Mae Whitman, unsuprisingly, bringing her best. It's fun to get to see her cut loose and just play a horny lesbian ninja gremlin like she deserves, with Roxy hamming it up. She spends the evil Ex meeting dunking on everyone else ("Act like you've been here todd!"), and already being the best. She comes off as a combo of her two versions: she has the manic gremlin energy of her film counterpart, being as bi-furious as ever, but has the snarky energy of her book counterpart, being willing to take shots at people and question them... it's just spread to all of the exes since Scott isn't around to be the sole obstacle in her way of ramona.

She's then the first ex Ramona has to deal with herself on her investigation, and it perfectly fits her character: In the film she tried to jump the line, but got a cup of accidental boob punch instead, and while she did wait for Todd to get headbutted out of existence in the books, she also started her attack with some ninja poster clones of Canadian hillary duff in the excellent Free Scott Pilgrim one shot (The very comic that got me into the series), and tried the same sneak attack that ended up in boob punch city. No matter the version Roxy is an impatient little cave goblin and of course the second she realized Ramona was free and the others had stopped giving a shit she'd be the one to show up at her door.

She's also the only one Ramona has to fight instead of just having an adult conversation. And while Takes Off changes a lot by design.. it dosen't deny giving us another excellent Roxie vs Ramona fight, something that I didn't realize was a tradition till this one. Still they saved the best for possibly last as the two's video store dustup is one of the best fights of the series, only topped by the final battle with Even Older Scott and even THEN it's a very close call.

Starting with a furious one on one in No Account Video, one of my faviorite settings from the books i'm glad to see get fully fleshed out and used here, even if it gets wrecked and then shut down as a result, with sprinkler's going off, discount tapes being bodied and Hollie deciding fuck this i'm clocking out, we then get a fun take on an old trope as a stack of tapes fall on them, leading to the two getting stuck in video land. We get westerns, film noir, samurai flicks, Hollie griping about them ruining her faviorite movie but watching anyway, it's a gorgeous fight and the video tape grain just adds to it.

We also get at least one fun bit using the medium as when Ramona gets sucker punched, Kim simply rewinds to help her new bestie out.. and Roxie takes it like a champ and... exits the tape JUST to stomp the remote. Fucking amazing.

The best part though, like a lot of SPTO, isn't the punching, though it's glorious but the payoff. With both exhausted, Roxie lashs out in a brutally painful way, blood down her cheek. It wasn't just that Ramona left, it's that she left.. without saying anything: we get an actual sense of their relationship this time and rather than be the "phase" Ramona cruelly brushed it off as the last two times, we see the two slowly fall in love, a really cute shot of ramona throwing a blanket over the two of them.. and then Ramona moving out, almost saying something but not wanting to, leaving Roxie devistated. It's easy to see WHY she has this bubbling anger at Ramona: every time they've fought, she's made her feel like nothing, something she vocalizes here. It takes what was an extremley dated bit that made Ramona come off like a giant asshole in the previous versions, it's fine if she realized she's not bisexual (which any scene with her and kim in both the comic and this very anime proves is just.. factually false), but it's a face punching way to put it, and puts it in the context of really hurting someone. Ramona realizes she done fucked up, genuinely apologizes and the two.. just collapse. Their friends now.

I also love Roxie hitting on Kim. I could honestly see those two working out.. I mean yes there were no sparks but Kim was kinda put on the spot there and Roxie was on the rebound. Give em some time. Plus I think Kim would work well with a feral gremlin she has to reign in. She's done it before. Roxie also asking about hollie right after before cheerfully leaving.. it's the best. Mae Whitman's the best and I could see her headlining a spinoff easily. Give me more of my feral cave gremlin daughter comma you cowards.

Finally we have Todd. Unlike the others, Todd.. isn't really fleshed out more and is given an entreily new personality from the comics swaggering egotistical rockstar jackass (Since Lucas very much had that niche filled), and the film's errrr...

Brandon Routh done good with the cleaning lady bit, but he wasn't given much to work with. Here... he makes Todd into a gloriously dumb and horny slab of moron. The guy can't go ONE SCENE without nearly fucking envy, which is one of the funniest bits in the show, capped off with the glorious wolf whistling, then fucks Wallace about ten diffrent times that we see over three days, then gets an adorable wallace sailor tatoo.

Todd.. really isn't changed. He was a fucklord in high school and he's a horny cheating mess now. He's an excus efor an already rediculous show to take it up to 11.

So let's unpack the show's sense of humor since I hadn't got to yet: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off takes an already ridiculous franchise with psychic vegans, bollywood hindu sorcerers and literal one ups, and decides to take it to the next level with film fights, lucas lee pro paparazi ninja skater 3, future renditions of Konya Wa No Hurricane by will forte, the montage from stepbrothers: Canadian edition, stunt double fights, and Matthew Patel: The Main Character. This is a series that takes it's emotinal consequences seriously and not much else. And I love it: I love weird shit, I Love balls to the wall humor, and the humor still feels very much scott pilgrim just taken up a notch.

And episode 5 is where it hits it's what the fuck is this peak as Ramona infiltrates the set of the Scott Pilgrim movie. The episode feels like one long shit post and i'm entirely in favor of it. We have Wallace fucking todd and casually dumping him, Envy and Wallace siccing their stunt doubles on each other, an Edgar Wright stand in voiced by Kevin Mcdonald for some reason and Young Neil, who in this series is entirely shit post and i'm here for it. IT's glorious chaos and only the ending is really at all emotional on some level. I mean I feel for Todd, even if he was a cheating bastard, but it's hard to take his grief or envy's seriously when Envy is a carcature of herself in this series and Todd's depression is eating a KFC bucket of poutine and sadly recounting every place he and Wallace made out. Todd isn't given extra depth.. but even as a villian he never really had depth to begin with. He had a disapproving dad and a massive ego. It's fine if he's a giant goofy blushy man who's soul wallace destroys. Brendon Routh does a phenomenal job with that.

Overall the expansion of the exes is part of what makes this adaptation so fantastic. With the exception of the twins they all get to live their best lives, and we get to see more of them. It's fun to see them implicitly join scot'ts friend group, and i've already written little chats about that, as it's fun as hell now their full characters in the world instead of respawning back probably not having learned much except not to punch scott in the face.

And the Rest

So with everything upside down, how do the rest of the people in Scott's Precious Little Life fare when the main character their built to support is gone? It's another hook of this series: if scott's gone, even just temporarily, what happens to everyone else.

Sex Bomb-Omb naturally gets impacted the most, and the versions here are superb.

The standout of course is Knives who deals with Scott's death by discovering a new love: playing music. While Knives had always been a huge fangirl in past versions, it was in the way more teens find music: by glomming on to the first band or two that makes them feel something and guarding that new faviorite thing like a cat with a ski chalet

See? Despite letting these characters live rent free in my head for the past decade, I never once thought of this idea, letting Neil join shatterband, sex bomb omb's followup as it crumbles to dust in the comics, instead.

In hindsight this idea is the most obvious thing: Knives loves music, it's an easy excuse for her parents that eases them into the fact her friends are all 20 year olds, so she can stay with the group easier, and as for why Stephen and Kim would let it happen... both have always liked her. Kim's annoyance is more worrying about Scott scarring her for life, and Stephen an dher get really close towards the end of the series, with him becoming a big brother towards her. The two becoming big siblings to her and letting her join makes sense.

It's especially nice to see with Kim. Kim interacted with Knives a BIT in the books, being the only one on Team Sex Bomb-Omb (The band plus knives and young neil), to take scott to task for the Knives thing to his face, at worst getting annoyed Knives is copying her. Granted like most of the Team, Kim still fucks up with her, most notably.. this

Which at the time I, and apparently the devleopers of the game, saw as a shippable moment but nowadays I see as NOPE PLEASE STOP, PLEASE STOP.. PLEASE NEVER AGAIN. AGE GAP'S STILL AS WEIRD AS WITH SCOTT. PLEASE DONT' TRAUMTIZE THIS CHILD MORE. Kim gets more of a pass than her band mates and neil because she was drunk at the time and clearly regrets it, but it's still something entirely fucked up I wish hadn't happened and feel bad for all involved. This is not how you should find out your bisexual.

The series wisely avoids this as they've realized "This is also statutory". and instead nicely has Kim take up the big sis roll to Knives, being the only one to really look after her after her boyfriend allgedly exploded and was found to have been cheating on her.

Hence we get one of the the best scenes in the series, the drum session. Which I know some did interpret romantically but first off...

And secondly.. really dosen't given the context: Kim sees the band needs a bassist.. but more importantly sees Knives is trying really hard to learn and is clearly spiraling after Scott's death. So she invites her to play since Neil is busy with his screenplay and Stephen, as usual is handeling this sudden loss with all the grace and dignity he's known for

IT's a beautiful scene as two people simply bond as they jam, and both heal a bit from what they've lost. And we find out Knives is a musical progidy who mastered the Bass in only four hours, and masters a keyboard later in less.

This gives Knives her first real plot in the series that isn't tethered to Scott in some way, something that was jarring to realize, but easy to see why: the books are centered around Scott's life, his friends, his love intrest, etc. Their there as needed for his story. Knives has one of the most detailed and intresting character arcs of the main cast.. but it's still thorughly tethered to Scott: his dumping her sends her on a journey of spiraling depression and growth, eventually going from someone who puts scott on such a pedestal that she attacks his new girlfriend instead of seeing the obvious, to accepting Scott wasn't perfect, he cheated and that while he opend her world up, they were really bad together and it was never an equal paring. Even the fun subplot with her dad as the mystery swordsman in book 4.. is because he thought she was still dating Scott and thus attacked him for dating his daugther. The movie makes this worse by trying to make the relationhsip seem legit missing the point entirely. While Knives has a friend in Tamara an da passle of high school drama she gleefully tells scott about, neither are important to the narrative. We only meet her parents because her mom was there when Knives met Scott and her dad tries to run him through.

Here while Scott certainly is part of her story, why she met sex bomb-omb and why she wears his jacket for most of the series, and his death certainly had an impact, she moves on quickly here not because she forgot Scott like it seems a chunk of the cast do or she's TRYING to avoid thinking about him like Kim and Wallace seem to be, she just found a healthy creative outlet, something to put her pain into in a healthy way instead of getting highlights and trying to murder Ramona or dating a guy who looks close enough to Scott. Knives moves on faster here, taking what's implied to be maybe a month at most to move on versus a year.. because she's not isolated in her pain. Scott's friends dont' dump her because it's awkward now and then awkwardly let her stay around post neil because they feel bad. Kim invites her in and after hearing she can wail, Stephen warmly welcomes her into the band, and the two become besties. So we have to talk about Stephen really quick as his plot dovetails into Knives, with the two being a duo for half the series. Stephen is based more on his movie self.

Yeahhh while I love the books on re-read, Book Stephen sucks. He just.. sucks. If your wondering some of the lowlights i'm glad you asked, here's an expertly crafted montage.

And that's just what I could fit into a montage: he also cheats on Julie for most of volume 4, focuses on his affair with joseph to the point he refuses gigs when it's clear playing live is something Kim LIKES doing and helps her relax, and never even informs Scott the band's broken up. The last one's .. iffy because Scott was in a waking depression coma after loosing Ramona, so he coudl've told him and forgot, but out of Scott's friend group he's the most consistently dickish, with Kim's grumpy nature mostly being a wall. It's partly the writing as , again given this is scott centric, we dont' peel back the layers on him the way we do with say Ramona, Knives or Kim. We don't see why he thought it was easier to cheat like we do with Scott and Knives, which wouldnt' make it okay but would make him less punchable. we don't know WHY he stays with Julie. Stephen is just an enigma and as such comes off immesnely annoying when most of his major endevors screw up everyone elses life in some way. And as one final coda to this rant, i'm not saying telling knives about Scott's two timing is bad... i'm saying he's the wrong person to tell her as not only did HE cheat on his partner, and as the last panel shows, KNOWS it's wrong Ramona clearly dosen't know half a year into the relationship, but won't tell her anyway for a friendship he REALLY dosen't seem to remotely care about.

So yeah a hammy constantly anxious relatable stephen was better, and Mark Webber was a delight by contrast. We didn't get to know movie Stephen.. but I didn't want to punch him either. So having Anime Stephen be more like the one who isn't punchable was smart: He's still panicky, crying more over the fact Scott leaves them baseless than over the fact his friend's dead (Which is mildly douchey but as we learned with Julie, if it's for a joke it's fine), and still obessed with making music his career while his band mates are like "Yeah fine whatever", so he's not really changed hard from the core of the character, but he is a delight and him and Knives becoming best friends in a far less hypocritical sense is adorable.

I also REALLY love their pet project: After Young Neil's movie falls through, more on him shortly, they make Scott Pilgrim, the original timeline, into a MUSICAL, complete with a bread makes you fat music number. I do like the ocasional nod here and there: O'Malley and Grabinski conciously didn't want to just.. repeat a gag because it was expected, but threw a few of the more iconic bits in as long as they could remix the joke. It's why the pee bar and the shoe tying making cameos, as their in new contexts, while there just wasn't room for the l-word or scott going out a window.

This whole subplot is gold from Stephens aying "as a creative to another creative" a hundred times, something I relate to since i say as a critic way more than I probably should, to it paying off.

And this is where Knives asceneds. By the end she not only gets closure with scott, admitting she's glad he's back but is glad he died, as the relationship wasn't healthy and she could grow into a hit songwriter, but she has a huge career with an award winning (Probably) musical, a new best friend and mentor, and writing songs for her fav envy.

And most nicely for me.. .I get a reality where Sex Bomb Omb dosen't fall to pieces in some way or form. Yeah without Stephen's drama or callousness depending on the version and with Knives creative vision the band not only stays together, but has a real shot at being something, giving everyone in it a bright future. Knives Chau really got to take off.

Kim is as usual the meaning in my life and the inspriation, with Allison Pill getting to do more with the character since she's not shunted to the background to say one or two lines. I mean she's still IN the background sadly: She gets a major roll in episode 3 and then just shows up when Sex Bomb Omb's together, not even getting that involved in the musical. I really wished after the film Kim got a big beefy roll. She could've been Ramona's sidekick or something like that, the two been clue buddies together. But I suppose the raw sexual tension would've left Scott out. Still she plays of Ramona well and it woudl've been nice ot have Kim around to response to the madness of episodess 4 and 5 with ramona. Still she gets a better shake than the movie: Episode 3 highlights how this version is actually over him, but encourages Ramona's attraction to him, simply warning her of what he's like, is a good friend to Rammy, and gets that moment with Roxie. I love how sh'es just like "I'm not... oh alright". And I think given another chance there would be sparks. Kim is sadly not given MUCH but it's still more kim pine, and i'm always in favor of that.

Finally we have my newly adopted son Young Neil. Unlike with Stephen, they didn't really take from the previous neil, whose super excited, and goofy and better than the graphic novel version whose alright. They go back to the Graphic Novel's glass eyed, barely emotive werido.. yet STILL make him something new rather than just adapt that version.

The result is a neil whose spacey, barely emotive.. but also REALLY dumb and really weird. Naturally I love him and relate immensely. Neil is somehow CRITICAL to the plot this time and entirely unaware of what is going on. He's season 1 todd chavez and it's wonderful.

This Neil gets most of the best bits, with Johnny Simmons having perfect timing. A good chunk of this series weird shit comes form Neil, who takes Scott's death as as sign he should persue his passion for screenwriting and get's his big break when in a half assed wel lmeaning plan, ramona adapts his book into a screenplay and sends it to him. Neil sees a mysteriously cloaked future ramona writing the script.. then assumes it's his sleep paralysis demon and he's a scripting genius.

We then get two glorious episodes of Neil at a movie set not remotely qulaified to be there as he assumes Americans and then the japanese call golf carts mario karts, gets a perscription but somehow winds up with sunglasses, and barely registers Matthew shutting his expesnive nightmare of a film down becuase he can't drive golf carts anymore. It even takes a lengthy and fucking glorious scene with sex bomb omb for him to realize "oh maybe my sleep paralysis demon didn't write this". Just the casual way he says it while everyone else is baffled, and how Kim and Knives have to slowly explain reality to him is great. Neil is comic relief incarnate and I love him, easily the best version. I'm also happy that like most of the cast, he gets a happy ending, as he apparently got a job at the studio after Gideon reopened it driving his cart around. Nick Frost is right, Young Neil really is off the chain.

So onto the one charcter who over FOUR DIFFRENT MEDIUMS has never really talked to anyone I just talked about but knives, we have Wallace. First off: yes i'm still disapointed he never really talked to Sex Bomb Omb. I got it vibe wise: everyone has friends who just.. don't know each other, but the intro got my hopes up they'd actually.. hang out at some point. But just like everything else, the intro isn't remotely indicative of what happened in the anime. The comics sure. And it's a true banger.

Seriously the colors are vibrant, the song is vibrant and fits scott perfectly, with Necry Talkie really nailing him down, and it's a perfect intro. Even if it ends up being nothing like the series , I still love it. One of my faviorite anime intros of all time. Love that cute falling shot of scott and ramona and the bit showcasing the exes. So good.

What was I on about? Oh yeah Wallace. Wallace here is a mixed bag. As with the film Kirean Culkin is perfect as Wallace: he gets the dry tone down, his drunken antics down and the whole sarcastic vibes perfectly. He was the best performance of the film, and while the compettition's too steep here for him to win again, he's still amazing.

That said Wallace.. is a bit more of a dick here. He comes off more.. tolerating scott instead of having a genuine friendship with him, and the only hint we get of him mourning his best friend is just how plastered he is.. and even then he threatens to change the locks. If Ramona reminded him to. I get the two weren't going to be as focused on, but it's still sad.

I also wish his friendship with Ramona stayed. While it makes sense they don't bond, Scott isn't around to link them, it was one of the funnest parts of the books.

Really this Wallace shows why he needs Scott and what he might be like when his bestie isn't around: Just because Wallace is more put together.. dosen't make him not an asshole. While I admi the's more dickish here with reflection.. I have to say it's not out of character. He's still giving us killer bits from wanting to see a notriously straight actor play him, to his smug acceptance of becoming an actor, to his deadpan acceptance that todd's in love with him, he's still the wallace we love... it's just we're seeing the side of him that dosent look better with a dumpster fire constantly ned tot him.

The biggest douchery is of course stealing Todd from Envy.. but besides it taking two to cheat, Wallace stealing someone's boyfriend.. isn't new behavoir. I laughed at how out of left field the PARING was.. but Wallace is Jimmy's bi or gay or pan, whatever he is, awkaneing in the book and film, and Stacey's reaction in both makes it clear he steals her boyfriends CONSTANTLY. So him stealing Todd and then explaining it was just a fling to him.. is entirely in the realm of Wallac'es douchebagery. He's not a terrible person.. but like everyone else in the cast he's a mess. HIs abuse of his stunt doubles was a bit over the line, but is so over the top it works. And this wallace also sings us complicated. So while I wish we got to see more of the Wallace we don't in the books... what we do get is still great.

Envy.. gets the shortest end of the stick here next to the twins, as she at least had a fairly comepelling arc in the book, being the focus of volume 3 and a major part of volume 6. Here while Brie Larson is once again great there really.. isn't much for Envy here. Even the film, which basically squoozer her in at the last second, still gave us an awesome version of the phone call she gives scott and the iconic black sheep sequence. Here while Envy gets another all timer scene in her funeral concert, the second most obnoxiously awesome crashing of a funeral behind flintheart glomgold

Envy DID at least get to dance on his casket. Or a stage above his casket. still counts.

Envy.. is left at the face value we meet her at the start of volume 3: queen biatch, queen of all the chaos, queen of all you love and adore. She's still a lot of fun from the above horny antics with todd to her yanking Ramona out of a talking head interview to fight her battles for her, but there's .. nothing really to her and it stand sout in a series that gives everyone else but the twins something new.

Okay ALMOST everyone as Stacey is once again out of focus like the comics. The movie gave her a bit more, but here she's scott's sister who calls people. That's it. It makes sense, Ramona has no real reason to talk to her, but it's a waste of your Anna Kendrick to not find more antics for her, especially since they found wallace and Neil great subplots. That said she does live her best life at the end starring at lucas' butt.

I also want to note the presence of Hollie, kim's roomate, best friend and co-worker. She does little, Shannon Woodward does a fine job, but I like that she's in here at all: Hollie was a character I liked in the comics.. who went on to steal kim's boyfriend for plot convience. So having a verison of her that dosen't do that shit and is just Kim's snarky foil and friend again works for me.

Finally we have a bunch of cameos, the bulk of them legendary. We get Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as security guards, Weird Al as the intro narator for the doc on the failed Scott Pilgrim film, comedy and voice acting legend MIcheal Mcdonald as Edgar Wrong, Bowen Yang as a tv gossip, kal Pen as matt's lawyers and Kirby HOwell Baptiste as Lucas Lee's agent. All fun one or two off bits, all fantastic.

Finishing off the character stuff we have a missed opportunity too: Joseph and Lisa get to cameo.. but are once again left out, to my annoyance. I get not being able to fit them in and Lisa has less of a point without Scott around.. but it'd still be nice to get a scene or something, especially since I was far from the only person asking for Lisa Miller to get a proper apperance.

So with that we close the book on Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.. and it was phenominal. While I would've loved a new adaptation, this.. is even better: a spirtual sequel that expands the characters, is not afraid to go full nonsense, let's a lot of the cast from the film fully shine, and has a bitching soundtrack once again. Not a ton of original songs sadly, but I Feel Fine and Orange Shirt are bangers, and we get Will Forte singing an anime theme song. If the last part dosen't appeal to you, I don't know how you got this far in the review. Takes Off is one of the best entries in this franchise and leaves me hopeful we'll return to this world again. Maybe not on screen but hey, even with the mountain of work it took to get this cast together again, tthis adaptatoin has proven anything is posisble.

Thanks for reading.

[my-name-is-bunnyfoxy]

Some thoughts I have about Noggin

He's been on my mind for a while, especially when I remember my original thoughts on him and just how the show ended up subverting my expectations for this character.

What were my first thoughts on Noggin? When I first saw the trailer where I got to saw him for the first time, I thought he was actually pretty adorable. My main assumption was that he was probably gonna be a crazy and loopy gremlin like Daffy due to similar design and possible similar behavior. Which led me to the idea that he was gonna be a reincarnation (I would have headcannoned he then became blender gremlin and eventually Daffy) later down the line. Which I would have really liked.

Then finally, the series came out and after some months of delay, I finally got around to watching the show. He basically acted like what I basically assumed. Though this time he was more rather dumb then crazy in my opinion. I thought he was just gonna be that. That's all. But then, never squeeze a fox came in and I was actually surprised when he started talking. I thought he honestly just died in the previous episode and then would just come back like that and act like nothing happened, but no.

The creators actually ended up making me be surprised by that, and then came the ring he wears that is immune to any sort of magic. I actually got pretty excited when he began talking and I really was curious to see more of him. I ended up loving Noggin a lot more. Instead of being just a simple gremlin with a simple backstory, the creators did something else.

Noggin ended up getting so much more personality. At first he was a dumb, slimmy, feral, idiotic and weird gremlin, but then he became intelligent, very educated, mature and even a literal emotional and mental manipulator and somewhat of a gaslighter judging by what him and the others did to Riley, taking advantage of his trauma and when he is at his most vulnerable. He is cunning and also an asshole. However though, he still keeps his feral side and acts very hostile and aggressive. As he did pretty much kill a guy and also the chickens.

Speaking of chickens, I was genuinely shocked how he was the last to survive. The creators genuinely ended up making me dumb and made me forget that because of his newfound ring, he is immune to any sort of magic, including the clay knife of creation. I actually did before watching this episode read on the wiki he is the last to survive, which I genuinely thought was just him by accident surviving and then at the end he just dies by yet again another accident. But nope. Nope. Now he is set to be the season 2 villain which I'm looking forward to.

I genuinely love Noggin and how much development he went thru and how they put me thru a whole ton of shock I wasn't expecting at all. Love Noggin, my 2nd favorite gremlin, total chad, let's see if he dies in season 2 lol

[itsdappleagain]

it is time for the crackle goes kiwi caper!

oh man. im so close to being caught up. hold on, stockholm, I'm coming and i WILL be on time (i hope)

thats auckland btw

notes under the cut as always

OH okay ive been saving a really old edit for this episode

you're welcome

oh opening thoughts on the episode. ummmmmm its good. i like it. only reason i would have to dislike it is i guess the sort of red crackle stuff from it but i dont hate red crackle on default so it stands as a good episode. i like the dancing and the stakes actually feel pretty high a lot of the time!

not player hacking into the russian government

ah, neal. neal the eel. he is indeed. an eel

also rhys darby is my favorite voice actor on the planet

also also autistic dr bellum real and true

YOU WILL TRY

YUHHH GET IT

neal loving puns 👍

the "coo" neal does after he escapes into the vent is the bane of my existence i hate it with a burning passion

i wonder if "project tripwire" is supposed to be an experiment left over from the cold war or something?

zack is enjoying his sandwich!

that lean over carmen's shoulder one hand on the desk one hand on his hip move shadowsan is doing is the most dad thing

top ten moments before disaster

GIRL THE 3/4 PROFILE IN CS STYLE DOESNT WORK STOP USING IT

i love that the vile harddrive is like. VILE google

CRISPY FRIED CARMEN

player: we need an electrician who knows their stuff so carmen doesnt get electrocuted to death!! the job they need done: wooo slidey thingies....ooooooo dont let it touch the line!! woooo!!

player in s1: we CANT let crackle get ANYWHERE near you he may be a SLEEPER AGENT or put you in DANGER player in s2: we cant 🥺 even bring him back to play for the good guys? 🥺🥺🥺

i guess thats probably because shadowsan confirmed that he doesnt have any memories or sleeper agent tendencies lmaoo

fun fact! graham's cafe does not in fact exist. it is a housing complex/ lookout

carmen could not have picked a more. i mean just what a cover story. obviously i get that its personal to her but imagine being an electrican and this lady who is even younger than you comes up to you and is like oh...yeah i run an international charity. for abandoned children how unaccomplished would you feel wheeze

i will never stop saying this but SAY GOODBYE OR SOMETHING PLEASE CARMEN

interesting that the "cuppa" he insists she has with him kind of sets off a shit ton of stuff for s4. if acme hadn't taken gray in they wouldnt have probably ever been able to help carmen get out of mind control, or it would have taken much longer. she wouldnt have been able to discover and destroy the robots. weird stuff

insert meme about people calling paper star tammy because of that one time she used that as a codename here. except its with player and peter

ALSO HEEY PLAYERS ACCENT FROM S1 PAID OFF...he was practicing...

where did they get that ballet which is perfectly synched up to the lights he needs to turn off

not bellum's ominous green lighting black shiny lab. so subtle

also you would think that the power station bellum draws ALL her power from would be better protected wouldnt you?

did they let crackle practice the "lights" because if they didnt- yikes that sucks and if they did- bellum's security mechanism just going haywire as he practices pjgkkjsghd

mm this scene is good

OH also. eternal bounce looping gif because mmgh that animation is good

that animation of gray adjusting the slides where he goes in like. an arc in reverse. good shit

carmen is so not normal about the electric fields i love her. i get you're supposed to be dancing but girlie just run and jump its ok

even more bouncy because i cant be stopped

I LOVE HOW BOUNCY SHE IS. LOST IN THE SAUCE (the sauce is tchaikovsky)

a nearly electrifying performance is the best way to tell your best friend you didnt just die in a really horrible way

honestly the quip about sheep is a pretty good one. neal is SO COOL his fight scenes are really fun. takes a lot of ingenuity for our mains to outdo him

also his score is SOOO COOL its like. its slithery idk how to explain it

HAHAHA SHE PROTECTED THE FACE AND HE WENT FOR HER LEGS

i love how she was just like "nah fuck this" and ran the other way

HIS "OUGH" WHEN SHE TRIES TO KICK HIM IN THE FACE DHGDJHGKD. WASNT EXPECTING THAT ONE I GUESS

she goes down really hard a couple times fighting him. you can hear after he mule kicks her against the wall that it hurt

carmen's signature move, the titty twister

that "slick" line has become a line i just repeat with the same inflection like five times a day wugewghdh

player's kiwi went a little irish there

why did he go out the back door looking for carmen if the rest of the "theater" was supposed to be the other way 😭

oh okay nevermind he's just. he just doesn't listen

gremlin bellum appreciation

gray is literally the luckiest motherfucker alive please

didnt carmen lock the door behind her also??? im so confused how did he get in

"carmen?" "sandiego" (clapping noise from the intro)

the little confused noise gray makes pls its so funny

also love how his first question is "what kind of concert hall is this" and not "why are we sprinting down a hallway"

THATS THE NIGHT THAT THE LIGHTS WENT OUT IN AUCKLAND (sick guitar) THATS THE NIGHT THAT THEY H wait a minute

so hot i love her

kill, my queen

WILHELM SCREAM!

i love the disgust and annoyance that immediately overtakes her face when neal shows up again

are we ever going to talk about how neal was trying to snap her neck or no

no? okay

it would have been really funny if that crackle rod was set to lethal

i love how she says "zackivy" as one cohesive unit

pls carmen looks so short next to cracker

sharon muthu is such a queen

love also how carmen is more concerned about gray recognizing the voice than bellum threatening to take out auckland. yes girl priorities

fantastic shot of her grinning and then getting all smirky about it. she's so hot. again

michael put his whole pussy into that scream/crikey

"it won't blow up in our faces will it?" "um just. stick your hands in there okay"

i love when cs uses "bad" colors like the red flashing warning light to indicate goodness like carmen winning

the crikeys are killing me

THE TRIPLE SHOT OF THE TRIPWIRE PROJECT BLOWING UP IS SO ICONIC

i love neal going from horrified at the explosion to looking at bellum like. what did you just say

crying over how carmen just looks at him with no expression on her face after he makes a kiwi joke

and now a series titled "OW!"

thank you

also carmen does a WHOLE FLIP when she crashes (not doing photos because its hard to see) but she goes down on her neck, does a flip, and then slides in on her stomach

wow! good thing carmen is okay after crash landing in the woods due to something going wrong with a glider flight. im sure that won't happen again, and even if it did I'm sure the consequences couldn't be that terrible!

it would have been funny if he had died on impact im just saying

maybe he did and the power of carmen saying the wrong name brought him back

if the copyright wouldnt blow them to hell and back im a thousand percent certain they would have had crackle ask if carmen was like james bond

carmen: ill explain over that coffee also carmen: explains nothing

wow look the line that jumpstarted me writing fanfiction. my first fic was a red crackle fic based off of this scene/the afterscene of acme looking at the cameras and speculations of gray joining acme. guilty ✋

carmen vaporizing on the spot and leaving graham with thousands of dollars is a vibe

yeah vile didnt lay eyes him. yep

ALRIGHT FUCK YES IM CAUGHT UP WITH CS WEEKLY!! STOCKHOLM HERE I FUCKING COME ON TIME YES BITCH MY FAVORITE EPISODE

[purrincess-chat]

Hi Cat! May I ask you to rank S5 episodes aired so far? and what did you like the most about each of them?

Finally getting around to answering this now that s5 is officially over. Overall, I'd say s5 was definitely not as bad as people have made it out to be, and I'll share my full thoughts on it later and go over some of the notes I took upon rewatching, but I'd say this season on average was pretty mid? Adrinette hard carried a lot of episodes that otherwise were just okay. Again, I've said it a bunch, and I'll say it a bunch more times, ML's biggest problem is pacing. S5 is probably the most ambitious season of this show by far, and they crammed a shit ton into this one season that would have been more digestible if it were spread out I think.

But anywho, I'll discuss more later. For now, here is my episode rankings for season 5! The ratings are rough, and I will likely adjust them to be a bit more specific when I eventually do my complete episode ranking with all the other seasons, but for now these ratings correspond to how I relate just the s5 episodes to each other. None of them got a 10, and tbh most of these eps sit around 6-7/10, so ranking them was actually kind of hard because as I said, Adrinette hard carried some of these eps, and I just did not care for the other things going on in them. Okay, here we go:

Protection: 9.5/10

Anyone who knows me or is in any way familiar with me probably knows why this episode is here. The picnic will go down as one of Adrinette's iconic moments. The whole set-up was incredibly sweet, and I could stare at that scene for hours.

2. Emotion: 9/10

Outside of thinking that Felix should have come back sooner and that perhaps this should have been the mid-season conflict rather than the Kwami's Choice eps (I'll talk more about why in another post eventually), I really liked this episode. I love how much Marinette has grown. I enjoyed Felix being a lil gremlin man. Idk, I liked it.

3. Elation: 8.5/10

"Cat, but you always shit talk MC-"

Incorrect. I shit talk toxic stans. I'd be lying if I said seeing those two losers kiss didn't make me feel things. I also appreciated the realness of this ep on why they couldn't be together, and that Chat Noir/Adrien had enough respect for Marinette to realize that there was a power imbalance between them. It was very sexy of him.

4. Revolution: 8.5/10

This one honestly surprised me being this high, but so much shit happened in this episode. Like I needed to sit for a sec after watching it because it was a lot to process. While I was rewatching it, I had moments where I was like wait, is this a new episode? But then I'd remember, nope. It's still the same one where all this other shit happened. And weirdly, it didn't feel too rushed? A lot of episodes this season felt like they were moving a million miles a minute and rushing to get to the point, but I felt like for as much shit as went down in this episode, it flowed pretty well.

Also, I'm Adrinette trash so of course I'm gonna rank their first kiss high fucking sue me

Also, hardly anyone talked about the LadyNoir power up! Like hello???

5. Deflagration: 8/10

I know I just dunked on the Kwami's Choice arc, and I will probably do it again because these two episodes were HARD carried by Adrinette. I didn't care about Kitty Noire or Scarabella at all. Their fight was lame, why the fuck did they start talking like that, just, ugh-anyway. I felt like part 2 was the stronger of the two episodes, and not just because of the Ladrien crumb! (though the ladrien crumb was v nice) I enjoyed the Resistance swooping in to help. I enjoyed Marinette outsmarting Gabriel. I enjoyed Adrien ripping the earrings off his dad like how dare you touch her things, you crusty eggplant. I liked the Adrinette scene in the cafeteria. I dunno. I don't think giving up their Miraculous was really necessary, but I appreciated several of the moments in this episode.

6. Passion: 8/10

So, in prior seasons I came to really not care for Nathalie when she was simping for Gabriel, but I gained a lot more respect for her this season. I just kind of wish she'd been like that from the beginning. There to make sure Gabriel doesn't go too far, someone to love Adrien and carry out his and Emilie's wishes. I wouldn't have minded even if GabeNath happened as a result if they were able to talk Gabriel down from his madness and truly let Emilie go in the end. But alas, we didn't. I loved the Adrinette moment in this episode where Adrien just immediately tells her what's wrong. It was such a huge step for him as someone who usually just buries his feelings. And the kwami swap was much better this go round.

7. Jubilation: 7.5/10

My cat is sleeping on my notes, but I remember enjoying this episode. A thought that I had in regards to the fantasy that they saw is that the gift sees beyond the masks, even if they don't. Like, yes, of course they want a life together because they're soulmates. They just can't quite see the whole picture yet. Idk how to explain it, but anyway, it was a cute episode. The nightmare children need to be burned at the stake, but overall, it was nice.

8. Transmission: 7.5/10

Listen. I did not give a single fuck about the new heroes, and their battle was very anticlimactic and lame, but god dammit, the Adrinette in this episode! Adrien audibly recognizing he shouldn't have played with her feelings as Chat Noir. Him seeing his photos in her trash can and telling her he loves her! The motherfucking hand game! Nothing else happened in that ep. It was just them.

9. Determination: 7.5/10

I absolutely loved seeing Adrinette go all pink sparkles when he looked at Marinette, and how Kagami was like stop being a fucking wuss and ask her on a date. As much as I cannot with the statue scene, I loved that Adrien was just like lol yeahhh you kissed me, it was kind of awesome. Like baby boy XD I liked him being lowkey jealous and wanting to be more with Marinette and trying his damnedest to get closer to her when she was freaking out. His patience with her this season has been so sweet.

LN stans can roast me all they want, idc, but I have a lot of thoughts about her switching her affection to CN. Not to say that she doesn't genuinely have feelings for him because I think she definitely does deep down, but I have always seen her pursuit of him this season as a means to run away from her problems. (i.e. her feelings for Adrien) Because she never got over Adrien, and that much was obvious. And Alya even called her on her bullshit. Marinette was trying to force herself to stop loving Adrien by throwing herself at Chat Noir, and while her feelings for him might stem from a genuine place of love for him, she was trying to love him for the wrong reasons. Rather than it being a natural thing, it felt very much like she was only doing it because she thought it would be easier, and she was refusing to face and process what had happened as a result of her loving Adrien. I just wish that the reversal were handled differently. She can and absolutely does love Chat Noir, but in this context, it just felt a little cheap to me. Not as genuine because she was still clearly hung up on Adrien and avoiding that.

10. Multiplication: 7/10

We have reached 6-7/10 territory. A loooot of eps are in this range, so it was actually pretty difficult to rank. I went solely on vibes for this section. Any single scene that sticks out in my memory for each episode were the breaking points on these.

Idk why, but I liked this episode. I loved the scenes of Adrien trying to greet Marinette. I loved everyone getting progressively more bored with waiting for Monarch to show up again. It was cute.

11. Derision: 7/10

Do I think this backstory should have come way, way, way, WAY sooner? Yes. Like s1-s2 sooner. Did I still slurp up all of the Adrinette anyway? ...Well, I'm only human.

12. Evolution: 7/10

I actually skipped this episode in my rewatch to save time because I know it's solid. Bunny Cat was cute. Seeing Gabriel fucking wreck himself because he's an idiot was funny. Alix being the GOAT was fun. Yeah. It was a nice start to the season.

13. Pretension: 7/10

I'm not a Feligami hater like some people. I think it was a bit rushed, but I think that's more of an issue with ML's general struggle with pacing rather than a reflection on the viability of their relationship. I liked seeing how Felix has a softer side because he was always meant to be morally grey. Emotion talked about that a little bit. He had no dog in the fight between Gabriel and LB/CN. He has his own motives for doing what he does, and he's not a bad person, just has done some questionable things to get what he wants. And I think Kagami would be good for him. I loved her roasting him and kicking his ass (and he loved it too).

14. Confrontation: 6.5/10

As the pilot of the Lila downfall plane, you'd think this episode would rank higher, but like, listen. Was Marinette's plan very sneaky and big brained? Yes. Did I enjoy seeing them get caught? Yes. Did this shit need to happen way sooner? Yes! The fact that Alya said with her whole chest in the episode before, "You know we're always ready to believe you." When she fucking wasn't? Like, bitch, your bestie is LADYBUG. Perhaps if she doesn't like someone, recognize that it's for a good ass reason? And I hated how dismissive they were of Adrien when he tried to speak up in that scene too. My honest reaction to Lila being outed was just fucking finally. I rank this one lower as well because they cut a small moment that I wish they fucking hadn't where everyone apologizes to and hugs Marinette after they're exposed. Because they fucking gaslit her for months about this bitch, and she absolutely deserved that apology!

15. Collusion: 6/10

Ya know, I'm not much one to care about Andre. They really tried to paint him as a victim this season, and I just was not there for it. It's okay for him to just suck too. They're all rich, sucky people. It's okay to just say that.

A note I did make that I might talk about later is on the topic of Chloe and her alleged redemption that everyone is mad about and how Astruc just hates Chloe, and I'm not going to say he doesn't. I just think that overall what happened there is when they started planning out future seasons, it was more plot convenient for her to be mean than it was for them to put in the effort to redeem her fully. And looking at some of the other redemptions they've done in this show, we know they would have botched it anyway. They kept her mean because it served their purposes for making things happen. That's it.

16. Revelation: 6/10

For reasons mentioned above in Confrontation, I ranked this episode lower because I wanted to fucking strangle everyone. Everyone in that god damn class knows Chloe is a bitch and always will be. The fact that they all turned on Marinette, including fucking Alya who knows she's FUCKING LADYBUG just ugh. Honestly, when their future plans got fucked in the next episode, I was lowkey like GOOD. Suffer, dumbass bitches! It's what you get! But I'm also just really petty, and I wanted to see Lila finally get shut the fuck up.

17. Adoration: 6/10

This one was fine? Let's go lesbians, I guess. Idk, in comparison to the myriad of other shit going on in s5, this one just felt like filler. Gabriel is an asshole, what else is new? I kind of wish Marinette got a better confession, since, ya know, we've been waiting for it since s1. I wish it were a bigger moment and more heartfelt, but like, eh, I guess.

18. Intuition: 6/10

Seeing Gabriel fuck himself over was nice. Other than that, it was just okay. Get dunked on, you moldy cheeto dust of a human being.

19. Perfection: 6/10

"Cat, did you rank this episode this low because of Adrien's cringy-ass song?"

AND I'D DO IT AGAIN! And the fight was kinda boring. I love Kagami, and she deserved the love in the end, but like c'mon.

20. Illusion: 6/10

A big thing I noted from this episode that became kind of a recurring thing throughout s5 is the illusion of choice. I'll talk more about it in my s5 analysis, but I think that illusion of choice extends to Gabriel's wish too in the end. I did love Nathalie fucking bodying him the second Adrien walked away. It's what he deserves.

21. Destruction: 6/10

This one was fine, I guess. I wasn't super into the format of it being a flashback that Marinette was explaining to Alya at their sleepover after the fact? And that it kind of just glossed over them Cataclysming Monarch, since that was kind of an important thing for this season. ML made some weird choices for big moments throughout this season that kind of cheapened the impact, imo. Idk. Baby girl is smart and all that, we been knew.

22. Representation: 5.5/10

Adrien fighting his dad was the highlight of this episode. You go off, king. The play was incredibly info-dumpy, and I feel like this information should have been spread out more organically. Rather than hinting at all of this shit in s3-4, they should have just sprinkled in these details as actual confirmation back then rather than dumping it all in our laps now.

23. Reunion: 5/10

Listen, this episode wasn't bad, and Adrien being a horse girl is funny, but in the context of this season and compared to the other episodes, this one is honestly just filler. Like, it's cool lore, but feels a bit out of place in this season, especially because she didn't call on her past holders for advice on how to like, idk fight her villain, she called on her for love advice. Just felt very unserious in the context of this season.

24. Conformation: 5/10

This one was fine-ish? The whole finale is definitely the weakest finale we've had. And I've ranked Miracle Queen in my bottom 10, yall. This is saying something. I'll go ahead and continue in my next point because

25. Re-Creation: 4.5/10

Both of the finale eps were just... They happened? I feel like they were pulling at too many threads bringing in everyone the way they did. I feel like the perfect alliance thing was an okay choice? I kind of dislike that Adrien was just no where to be fucking seen for most of these episodes. I know a lot of people are upset that he doesn't know about his dad, and there was no reveal between him and Marinette. Which, no identity reveal, I can live with, but I feel like letting Gabriel make his wish was such a weird choice. I'll talk more about it later, but we've been following this show since s1 and rooting for Ladybug and Chat Noir, and they just let the villain get what he wanted? And you can argue that he didn't really get what he wanted because he died or whatever, but like he got the Miraculouses and made a wish. Stop being obtuse about it. Like what is the ultimate lesson here? What's the message? I'm willing to give s6 a chance, but my future with this show is going to depend on how they unpack some of the fallout of this finale.

And for those arguing over Emilie v Amelie in the ending scene, it was Emilie in the original script and storyboard, and her memorial statue is gone, meaning they no longer have to memorialize her because she's not dead, so unless they randomly decided to not bring her back last minute, that bitch is his mom. Also, they removed a scene where she and Adrien smile at each other, but I digress

26. Migration: 4/10

I'm not going to explain this one, but anyone that knows me, knows why this one is here, and why I didn't care about this episode.

Anywho, my biggest takeaways from this season were that it was a bit too ambitious at times, and I think in general it lacked a lot of the heart of ML. Big moments we've been waiting for fell flat because they got lost in the mess of them trying to cram storylines we should have been getting this whole time into one season. It's not a bad season, and I think it is definitely a step in the right direction. ML just needs to get better about pacing its story arcs so that it maximizes its time and doesn't have to rush through shit to get their point across.

[fostersffff]

The Big Gundam Watch, Part 9.1: Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, Episodes 1-26

Boy, it’s been a minute since I did one of these! Like my old Zeta Gundam post, I’ll be splitting this into two parts, because in my notes I kept going “wow, with how fast this is going I feel like it’ll hit a conclusion to the established conflict by the halfway point, and have to do something new for the second half”, and considering the way Episode 26 ends and that Episode 27 is a clip show… I think I’m on the money. Plus, I’ve got a lot to say, so: here we go!

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing! For many Westerners my age, this series was their first exposure to Gundam, as it was the first ever Gundam series aired on television in America. Personally, Wing was in my blind spot: the only Gundam I ever saw on TV back in the day was G Gundam. I figured I’d take a break from the Universal Century after watching Hathaway, and this seemed like a good place to stop off before going back to chronological order with War in the Pocket.

To begin: I gotta say that I’m very glad I watched the original Mobile Suit Gundam and its sequels before fully engaging with Wing, because doing so has given me a ton of additional context for this series. As a result, my strongest opinion, and maybe most controversial, is that I don’t think Wing should have been a Gundam story at all.

The Mobile Suit Problem

The first thing I want to talk about is the mobile suit design philosophy of the After Colony timeline. Let’s start with the Tallgeese, as it’s established as being the common ancestor of all mobile suits in the setting:

I love this thing! It’s such a fucking cool concept, made to resemble a classical suit of armor with the plumed helmet design and the impractical-but-stylish buckler, and it also comes with a giant shoulder mounted gun and SUPER VERNIERS. Next, let’s look at the Leo, After Colony’s equivalent of the Zaku II:

A perfect grunt suit: clearly mass produced and simple, but still a neat giant robot. Compared to the Tallgeese, it looks like it’s been massively stripped down, which is exactly what happened: the Tallgeese was a big, unwieldy bastard of a prototype, so they stripped off the SUPER VERNIERS, shoulder mounted gun, and fancy decorative elements, and what they were left with became the Leo. In fact, when it’s being put back together in the early episodes, you get to see that without its helmet, the Tallgeese has the exact same head as a Leo!

Now, let’s examine the Wing Gundam Zero, which in-universe was the first mobile suit made by the Gundam Scientists after the Tallgeese:

Despite its origins, this thing looks completely alien to the previous two mobile suits. They provide some kind of explanation in the story, but seriously: besides the fact that they are bipedal giant robots, Wing Zero doesn’t look like it belongs in the same series as the Tallgeese and Leos. Even more confounding are the Mercurius and Vayeate, which were the result of all the Gundam Scientists coming together explicitly to make mobile suits specced like the Gundams:

These look perfectly in line with the Tallgeese and Leos, but they have no relation to the Gundams!

In the Universal Century, the reason mobile suits looked different between the Earth Federation and Zeon is because they were being designed and built by completely unrelated manufacturers. In the Future Century- the only other Gundam timeline that existed at this point- the Gundams are a particular type of giant robot used specifically for the Gundam Fight, so they share a basic core design that is distinct and different from the other handful of giant robots that appear in that setting. In After Colony, I’m hard pressed to think of why the Gundams would look so radically different from the other mobile suits, except for the sake of The Brand™, which is really distracting.

The Colony Problem

In Episode 18, there’s a nice, long, expository soliloquy by Heero that goes into detail about the setting, and why the colonies even exist in the first place. Unlike the Universal Century and Future Century, where the existence of extraterrestrial colonies was necessitated by rapidly deteriorating conditions on Earth, the After Colony timeline seems to be pretty stable in terms of available resources. There’s a conversation between Relena and Noin earlier in the series that suggests that energy is plentiful, climate and pollution are under control, and population isn’t at critical mass, so the colonies kind of just... exist arbitrarily. There’s no reason to assume Heero is lying, but I was expecting a reveal of the true nature of the existence of the colonies at some point afterwards, because that’s a bizarre choice to make when the conflict between the colonies and the Earth is the critical to the story you’re trying to tell.

What’s more, the colonies don’t even really seem to have much of a cultural identity to them to help this problem out. To be fair, they also didn’t have much of a cultural identity in the Universal Century either, and the Future Century is at the polar opposite end of the spectrum with “Neo Mexico is a cactus shaped like a sombrero”, but something like that would have helped this problem out immensely. The only thing we get is that a few generations of being submissive to the Alliance and peaceful has rendered the colonies’ leaders susceptible to obvious manipulation by OZ, which could have happened just as easily if they weren’t in space, and instead were just nations that were... well, submissive to the Alliance and peaceful.

Again, much like the Gundams being Gundams for the sake of Gundams, it feels like the colonies only exist because this is a Gundam series, and you gotta have space colonies because that’s right behind Gundams in terms of repping The Brand™ .

The Main Character Problem

Presumably trading on the idea that a team of characters would be successful after G Gundam and its Shuffle Alliance, Gundam Wing presents us with five main characters: Heero Yui, Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, Quatre Raberba Winner, and Wufei Chang. I like all of these kids to varying degrees, but they’re not particularly interesting, because I don’t really know anything about them. The Gundam Scientists trained them all to be Perfect Soldiers (with varying degrees of success), and that’s about all we get.

When they first meet, Dr. J tells Relena that Heero is fighting because he loves the colonies, and that’s certainly true from his actions, but… why does he love the colonies? Amuro was thrust into the One Year War because he made a spur of the moment decision to try to protect his home. Kamille leapt into the Gryps Conflict because he was sick of his home being occupied by militant fascists. Judau actively resists being roped into the First Neo Zeon War until his sister is abducted and it gets personal. Domon is compelled to take part in the Gundam Fight and destroy the Devil Dark Gundam in order to avenge his mother and clear his father’s name.

What specifically compelled Heero, an apparently kind-hearted young boy, to willingly undergo intense super soldier pilot training that turned him into a “perfect” killing machine? Was it that he was such a sensitive, empathetic soul that just learning about the history of the colonies drove him to it? What about Duo, or Trowa, or Wufei? The only character who has any kind of tangible backstory as of Episode 26 is Quatre: his father is the leader of one of the colonies, and so he feels a familial responsibility to participate in Operation Meteor.

It’s certainly possible they’ll get around to giving these characters backstories across the next set of episodes, but again, that’s a bizarre choice to make for a series: where you don’t know your protagonists’ actual motivations until after you’re more than halfway through.

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: The Chronicle of Char Zechs and Sayla Relena

My two favorite characters in this series- at this point, anyway- are Zechs Merquise and Relena Darlean, otherwise known as Miliardo and Relena Peacecraft. I knew when I originally checked out the first few episodes a year ago that Zechs was this series’s version of Char, but what I didn’t know is that he’s literally Char. Like, he’s more Char than Full Frontal, a literal in-universe clone of Char. Milliardo Peacecraft is the oldest heir of an important leader who proposed a radical solution to a pressing political issue and got assassinated as a result. He then swore revenge on the people who killed his father, and did so by disguising himself with a mask and taking up a new identity so he could work for his father’s killers, all while separated from his beloved younger sister who has no idea about him. Not to mention all the direct references to popular sayings and imagery:

When I say that I don’t think Wing should have been a Gundam story at all, it’s because I think, with some minor adjustments to the story, Gundam Wing would have been much better as a character study of the Char archetype by centering the narrative on Zechs and, to a slightly lesser extent, Relena.

Zechs circumvents the problem I brought up about the Operation Meteor boys not having any clear motivations: people either know what Char’s deal is already from cultural osmosis, or if they don’t, “revenge for my family” is very easily picked up. This quick familiarity would actually complementary to the lightning pace of the story, because by Episode 9 of Wing, Zechs is where Char is by the last episode of 0079. He’s successfully avenged his family by killing their murderers, which then begs the question: what next?

In 2001, the manga Char’s Deleted Affair: Portrait of a Young Comet started serialization, which actually covered what happened between the immediate end of the One Year War and the start of the Gryps Conflict. But in 1996, “what did Char do right after he killed Kycilia” was ripe territory to explore. Technically, that is what we’re seeing in Gundam Wing as it exists, but the problem is that we also need to know what’s going on with Heero and Duo and Trowa and Quatre and Wufei and a number of other named characters. In this hypothetical alternative where Zechs is the protagonist, the audience wouldn’t really need so much detail on the day-to-day activities of the Operation Meteor boys; they could just be recurring antagonists. In that setup, their lack of backstories would actually make way more sense.

The emphasis on Zechs would of course also mean a greater focus on Relena, a character who I had been led to believe was awful. On the contrary, Relena’s great! She’s absolutely a spoiled and naive rich girl who doesn’t know anything about the world, but in this story that manifests as her having no self-preservation instinct. She constantly tries to approach Heero after he makes multiple credible threats on her life, she very nearly assassinates a commanding officer of OZ in a crowded ballroom in front of hundreds of witnesses, and then after telling all the people in control of civilization that a reckoning is at hand and being ushered off the stage before she gets got, she grumbles that there’s technically nothing stopping her from just burning them all to death. I love her, and I wholeheartedly think she could carry the plot of the show as a deuteragonist with Zechs, rather than the current arrangement where she’s just another part of a giant ensemble cast.

All of this is to say: I think the weakest parts of Gundam Wing are the parts where it feels like they went “well, it’s a Gundam story, so we gotta have (x).” and it would have been better if they tried something that departed from convention to try something a little different. To say it another way, and much more concisely: as the first non-Universal Century story, G Gundam avoided the landmine of “this the Universal Century again with some arbitrary differences” by riding a flying robot horse over it, and as the second non-Universal Century story, Wing leapt onto that landmine with both feet.

THE STUFF I LIKED:

For all my bitching about the Gundams, I actually think Gundam Heavyarms is an all-time design. It executes on a tangible, functional theme better than any of the others, and that theme is “what if we strapped a hojillion guns on this bad boy”. And then- because evidently Nose Doctor was the smartest of the Gundam Scientists- he gave it some cool arm blades because even a hojillion guns will eventually run out of bullets This results in the coolest fucking kill in the series to date, that also doubles as another SpEeEeEeEeEeEeEeN gif for my collection.

As a direct tie-in to that particular scene, I love that the solution to Lady Une’s ultimatum that she’ll attack the colonies if the Gundams take any action isn’t “we can’t use the Gundams for a while”, it’s “she can’t find out we’ve been taking action if all the potential witnesses are fucking dead.”

I adore that the reason mobile suits exist in this timeline is The Illuminati Thinks Giant Robots Are Cool. Sometimes, the simplest explanation is best.

I got upset at first when it seemed like a needless redesign, but upon the reveal that something is deeply not right, I’ve come to enjoy both halves of Lady Une. On the one hand, you have Unrepentant Evil Superbitch, and on the other you have “Pretty Soldier Sailor Une”, who, despite her genuine desires for peace, is still handily manipulating the colonists to make sure it’s peace as defined by Treize.

The open, unambiguous hostility between Relena and Une is golden. Starting with Relena delivering the compact bomb Une planted right back to her with cartoonish sincerity and Une forgoing any sense of subtlety and shotputting it through a second-floor window, to Relena pulling a fucking gun out of her fancy ballgown’s bow to murder Une, to basically everything Relena does in Episode 14, including responding to being patted down by Noin with “you know what, that’s fair.”

The shock I felt finding out that the infamous “I’ll Kill You” scene was the end of the first episode was surpassed only by finding out that the not-quite-as-infamous-but-still-incredible "Relena calls out for Heero to kill her” scene was the fourth.

Lining up with me liking Heavyarms despite not really caring much for the Gundams, Trowa is my favorite of the boys. I can’t quite put my finger on what makes me like him more than Heero, who he’s functionally identical to, but I can say that the delivery of this particular line made me laugh like Seth Rogen.

This series has a stellar soundtrack. Like, not only is “The Wings of a Boy that Killed Adolescence” a fucking raw title, the actual song lives up to the name. It also makes me wish Heero kept the characterization he had in the first episode, where he took out two Aries mobile suits with a single shot and then started laughing like a sociopath while the song blared in the background.

THE STUFF I LIKED LESS:

As mentioned at the very top: the pacing is insane. “The villains who operate from the shadows make their grab for power by manipulating the protagonists into killing off their competition” should be the halfway point of a story, not barely a fifth of the way in. Then the next fifteen episode are spent rehabilitating and/or justifying every named character from the villainous faction so they can fight together against the autonomous military force of the TRUE true villain. Although, speaking of rehabilitating and/or justifying named characters...

I would describe Treize Khushrenada as “Big Boss from Metal Gear Solid, but fucking stupid”. I could not believe when this scene played and Treize, who by all accounts at this point in the story was presented as a master manipulator and strategist, revealed himself to be an idiot. The man who was willing to let a baby fall off a dock and drown because Muh Doctrine of Individual Strength thought the people he was consolidating all the power for respected that idea? He didn’t have a plan in place to undermine them and take all the power he earned with his military might for himself???

Also on the subject of Treize: while before I mentioned that I like both of Lady Une’s personalities, the fact that she developed DID because she wanted Treize’s dick so bad is maybe the crowning moment of Women Be Shopping in Gundam, somehow displacing Reccoa Londe committing genocide for Scirocco dick.

And while we’re on the subject of dumbass characters, Wufei went from being “the smartest and most clear-headed of the Operation Meteor boys” to “dipshit MUH HONOR boy”. The fact that he was able to figure out that the other four got played like a fiddle by Treize, only to- one episode later- have Treize dead-to-rights and then just not take the shot because MUH HONOR is so fucking stupid.

Honestly though, despite feeling it most keenly with Wufei, all of the Operation Meteor boys develop a sudden sense of chivalry in response to Treize and Zechs. They’ll mulch any number of grunts, but when the time comes where they can strike a decisive blow and accomplish the objectives of their mission, suddenly they need to stop everything and make sure they don’t commit any faux pas. And you know the only reason for that is because the creative team wrote themselves into a corner: either they suddenly develop an honor code, they lose every encounter until the very end, or the story is over at Episode 10.

The total lack of coordination involved in Operation Meteor is insane. I get it: the colonies can’t communicate with each other, so after the initial plan came together there was no way to fill in details, but couldn’t the scientists have at least mentioned “by the way, there may be anywhere between 0 to 4 other Gundams, they will be trying to do the same thing as you, so don’t waste time fighting them.” In fact, now that I think about it, that would have been the perfect justification for the Gundams looks completely different from every other mobile suit in the setting!

OTHER OBSERVATIONS:

Something that seemed obvious early on was that Heero was suicidal. Like, there’s being willing to die for the mission, and then there’s accomplishing a minor objective in Episode 2 and being like “FINALLY, I CAN DIE!” That, plus the Noventa Apology Russian Roulette World Tour made it seem like he was hopeful one of them would just do it, but then it just kinda... went away.

Conversely, the suicidal streak was also present and explicitly stated for Trowa, but in his case, it got punched out of him. Which, by the way, props to Catherine for not settling for a slap.

I had a sensible chuckle at this line, because it seems like a jab at G Gundam, considering the penultimate philosophical conflict of that series is “can the Gundam Fight really be considered a better solution to war when it still results in mass devastation?” However, with where my opinion of Wing currently sits, I think its arms are a little to short to box with God.

When it was revealed that the context for Heero’s soliloquy about the purpose of the colonies was him giving a speech in class, I thought about how funny it would be if, after he finished, the teacher went “that was fascinating, Heero, but the subject was ‘what I did on my summer vacation’.” But then that’s almost literally what happens!

So, tl;dr: at this halfway point, Gundam Wing is kinda mid, but not unsalvageable. There’s still 22 episodes left, not to mention whatever Endless Waltz is.

In the meantime, please enjoy this shot that I initially interpreted as Gundam Heavyarms riding a Gundam-sized hovercraft.

[declanlikesmusic]

Today's Listens: Episode 002

August 6th, 2023

Welcome back to the series! I hope that as I write more of these and document my growing thoughts on music & albums, we all come to acknowledge that while you may disagree with me on some takes more than others, we would all best come together to civilly discuss our collective love for the music that we're passionate for.

That said, this is a content warning for graphic imagery, specifically on the cover art for this first album. If you're not a fan of gross bodily organs and stuff, don't worry, neither am I.

Nirvana – In Utero (1993)

I'm kicking off today with me accepting the fact that I'm not a big In Utero guy. I know this album has often seen reappraisal as considered by a great deal of music peeps to be Nirvana's best album, but I'm personally firmly in the Nevermind camp, even though my last revisit of that album wasn't as infatuated. That said, while I wasn't keen on the raw recordings of this album at first, I grew to be more based and accustomed to it in the years since, leading to some damn good enjoyment nonetheless. It's a very good album all the same and I respect the status that it has, especially today.

6.9 / 10

Highlights: Heart-Shaped Box, Very Ape, Milk It, All Apologies

t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 – アンドロメダ (2014)

I'm taking my sweet ass time with Telepath's massive discography of legendary vaporwave & slushwave music, but coming back to this one in particular was a shockingly pleasant surprise. I've always seen this as one of his most meditative albums, but I didn't recall it having actual music much on my first listen. So coming back to this, I can't believe I walked away with so many highlights. This thing is gorgeous; it gives you a ton of memorable short-term melodies and some beautiful deep cuts that run much longer and justifiably so. This might go down as one of my favourite Telepath albums, to be honest, but I still just can't wait to get the rest of his big heavy-hitters out of the way like this one.

7.8 / 10

Highlights: 空に光、いつも、二、アトラクション、不思議、蒸気涙

Gupi – None (2020)

So after work was a non-starter due to the weather, I headed right back home after lunch and rolled upon this record that I had heard all the way back when it came out. Many were hooked onto this, not just because of what this producer was making, but also because of who he even was. Goes to show you the true, unbridled power of nepotism. Speaking of non-starters, the opening title track was a deeply unpleasant first impression to me, but I was pleasantly surprised (again) that the rest of the record picked right up from there and remained consistently decent throughout, even great in spots towards the end. Bubblegum bass (and subsequently hyperpop) were running completely wild during the days of 100 gecs, so it was only natural for this young talent to bust through with this debut and have me have a decent time with it as well. I just don't look forward to revisiting his duo project with Fraxiom, that one was rough when I heard it, even if his track here was good too. I also really liked the refrain on False Awakening as well.

6.5 / 10

Highlights: Driving Directly Into a Concrete Wall, Regression, Faking It, False Awakening

N.W.A – Straight Outta Compton (1988)

For my 1,312th rating on my second RateYourMusic account, I thought I'd finally tune into one of the most respected and critically acclaimed rap albums of all time, not to mention among the most controversial records of the 80s and good for it too. The first two cuts off this album are iconic, though I've always been more of a Fuck tha Police type of person myself, and after that, Parental Discretion iz Advised and Express Yourself are great listens too. God, this drops off hard though. The last four tracks of the main album were a slog, from their Compton's n the House remix to the closer Quiet on tha Set. Every beat was far too scant & repetitive for my liking, especially at the runtimes they were given and tracks like I Ain't tha 1 especially had some lyrical clunkers that read as childish. Still, this was a fine time with some prime cuts, but just way more underwhelming by the end of it.

6.4 / 10

Highlights: Straight Outta Compton, Fuck tha Police, If it Ain't Ruff, Parental Discretion iz Advised, Express Yourself

Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (2006)

I remember some time last year when I was trying to pull myself out of the rut of music listening burnout, I tuned in to a pair of Arctic Monkeys records with a friend/carer of mine. This excessively long-titled album was one of the two, the other being the excessively short-titled AM. I ended up preferring and even loving AM by comparison, but that doesn't (nor should it) undermine this debut album's accomplishments, especially as it's still very good to this day and has some exceptional highlights coming out of it. I thought to return to it just to have a simple good fuck rock time and I got exactly that. God bless the Arctic Monkeys for giving me exactly what I expected.

7.1 / 10

Highlights: The View From the Afternoon, I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor, Fake Tales of San Francisco, Perhaps Vampires is a Bit Strong But…, A Certain Romance

Rollergirl! – I Love You, Rollergirl! (2014)

Keats Collective as a label was the birthplace of future funk as a genre, thanks to acts like Saint Pepsi, Macross 82-99, Flamingosis, Lancaster and yes, Rollergirl getting a spotlight all over their formative years. This is currently the last EP Rollergirl has put out after their popular Self-Titled got buzz in the scene, but I'm certainly not as thrilled about this one. Compared to that previous EP, this record lacks a lot of the energy and tempo that I would've hoped to carry over. It felt a lot more homogenised and sterile by comparison, but I still really appreciated bits and pieces, like the opener, the closer (especially) and the part in I Love You by the end where the sample was chopped to sing out the album title. It's good and if you're curious, I wouldn't stray away from it. Like with rollerskates.

7.0 / 10

Highlights: Boogie Down, I Love You, Last Night

Yes – Close to the Edge (1972)

I've been meaning to revisit this record for the longest time now and I finally put my foot down to retry it. I really loved this record when I first heard it, but I can't say that I adore it as much as I appreciate it now still. It remains a wonderfully crafted record, but I've never been able to fawn over the title track and its segments until the last one. It's the B-side of this record that almost completely sold me and while it didn't win me all the way over in the end, I was still very happy with what I heard. If you wanna get into progressive rock, this is still one of the greatest places to start.

7.4 / 10

Highlights: And You and I, Siberian Khatru

INTERNET CLUB – DELUXE (2011)

Finally, to conclude the night, I wanted to listen to something very obsure, almost dark while eerie, ominous and mysteriously short. Who better to turn to for that than the one who made ▣世界から解放され▣？This super short, almost 15-minute offering was the first of a strange trilogy of pioneering broken transmission mini-albums and while I strongly admired ▣世界から解放され▣ for what it contributed to the scene, I ended up falling out of that same appreciation for the finale NHK REMINDS YOU TO BOOST YOUR SIGNAL. Returning to this album though was a complete shock to me; despite the rough start, when it got to the title track, I was in complete love with the looping sample and as the rest of the record went on, Robin displays hit after hit with chopped up vaporwave tunes and mystifying glitches. It ended up being my favourite of the three by a very good margin! Obviously, I don't expect this one to click with everybody, but if this intrigues you and you've already dipped your toes into the broken transmission or signalwave subgenres, I don't see why you wouldn't enjoy this one! Except NO MORE MONO, that one was uncomfortable.

7.9 / 10

Highlights: NIGHT DRIVE, DELUXE, ONLY IN DREAMS, SHARPER DUB, HEARTS (NIGHT DRIVE, PART TWO)

So that was a lot that I listened to today, but I had a ton of fun with it! Let me know what you thought of any of these albums and what I should try in the near future! Thank you so much for reading and stay gay!

[invisiblegarters]

(Not so) Micro BL (mostly) Reviews

It's that time again; I've been watching things and I want to talk about them. So here I go.

These are all shows that I watched but for whatever reason did not (or am not, in the case of the currently watching ones) liveblogging week to week. Mostly they're binge watches so make of that what you will. I would love and welcome discussions about any of them, if anyone wants.

Watched - New to Me

Tonhon Chonlatee - Did I watch this entirely for Khaotung? Yep. Am I sorry? Not really. Did I wind up shipping Na and Chonlatee way way harder than Tonhon and Chonlatee in spite of myself? Oh, most def. So when are Neo and Khao gonna get a BL, huh?

I am glad the horrible former faen trope is slowly dying out, though. Really couldn't stand Amp, but then again I was way more offended by the attempted SA followed by literally nothing (and by the fact that Amp was somehow worse than the person actually trying to SA Chonlatee, like no. NO nononono). Also incredibly incredibly annoyed with the whole "I will kiss you to prove I'm a man who isn't afraid of women" thing. Nope, sorry. It was dumb, I'm calling it out as dumb, Ton is just lucky Chon loved him too much to keep staying mad at him because that's a dumping offense, my friend.

I liked Chon's spine, though. Khao is so tiny and fox faced that it would be very easy to play into that and have Chon be this sweet, spineless little thing that can't stand up for himself and that  Ton has to protect constantly. And in some ways he does, although I think the show does a really good job of showing that Chon is more than capable of taking care of himself. I liked that.

Honestly I just feel like the writing failed both Pod and Khao. They did what they could with what they had, but Pod especially could have had so much more. There was so much meat there that they just…didn't let the man chew, and I saw nothing that made me think that he couldn't.

The chemistry between them was good though, even if I am one of the (few? Idk I have no idea how people see this show) people who liked Na for Chon better. Na was actually my favorite character, and in the end I'm pretty sure I was only watching for him. Final verdict 5/10. I would probably have forgotten about it already except I keep coming across that set of gifs. You know the one. A+ gifs, 10/10 no notes.

The Warp Effect - This was my second drama ever from Jojo, and I loved it so much. I enjoyed all the characters, especially Jean and Mollie, and I loved the relationships and the way that Alex had to navigate his new (to him) adult life as an asshole after (essentially) passing out as a fairly earnest, well-meaning seventeen year old. I adored the things the show had to say about sexuality, about gender, about the way people who don't conform to expectations (in whatever way that is) are treated.

I loved how it continuously pointed out the hypocrisy towards women in particular (there are several examples of this, but I am thinking particularly of how Jean was treated after the party vs. how Alex was. I love that the show made a point of explicitly stating how messed up the disparate reactions were, and how unfair. I also liked that despite following Alex as he goes on this journey, the show never attempted to pretend that he was the wronged party in that situation. Neither did Alex himself, which was refreshing). I'm not used to that from my shows, full stop.

I loved how queer friendly it was. I have read over and over again that it is one of the queerest shows people have seen, despite focusing mostly on a het dude. And you know what? They were right.

I spent eleven episodes loving this show with everything that I am, so enthralled with it that I did nothing else but binge it over the course of like a day and a half (if it hadn't been a work night I probably would have stayed up just to finish it, that's how hooked I was). And then…the final episode. I have to say that it disappointed me.

I am one who puts a lot of stock in an ending. A great ending can elevate a drama for me, a bad one can kill it stone dead. The Warp Effect didn't kill things, but it disappointed me. It felt like the show was saying something really interesting about forgiveness using Alex and Jean, about how sometimes you do things in your life that can't be forgiven. That sometimes things happen and the best you can do for the person you wronged is to step the fuck back like she's asked you to and let her try to forget.

But nope, Alex gets to go back in time and wisely fix all his friends problems and never have that awful encounter with Jean. And everything ends in a pat, happy way that kind of set my teeth on edge. If not for the fact that Jean (my darling) didn't deserve what happened to her I might have disliked it more, but the truth is that she didn't deserve it, and I'm happy for the unambiguously happy ending for that and that alone. No clue how prevalent this opinion is but knowing how my opinions tend do go I'm guessing not very, ha. Final score 8/10 - yes I docked it two points for the ending, I said they can make or break things for me.

Step By Step - I will watch any and every office BL that I am given. Do you hear me? Any. And. Every. Except A Boos and A Babe, oops (does it count if I tried because it was an office set BL and then just bounced off hard? I'm counting it).

Anyway, tangent. The point I'm making here is that I was never going to not give this a shot. And I am glad I did. It wasn't my favorite thing but I was happy to see it actually tackle the realities of what it look s like when you're dating your boss. The way that all the crap rolled onto Pat was very true to life, if painful to watch, and I appreciated the show for going there.

I was also kind of unimpressed with the time skip BUT that's only because it happened in the dreaded episode eleven and I would have liked more time with the 2 years later Jeng and Pat. Ah well, it was still cute. 7/10

Enchanté - Watched this because I was curious about Force & Book after I bounced off of A Boss and A Babe (and since they are in one of my most anticipated dramas of the year, possibly as the main main couple but definitely as one of them). I was curious if I would bounce off of them here as well, because if so that probably wouldn't bode well for the future.

And? I liked it. I liked the bickery romantic tension between them (I blame my misspent youth and all those slap slap kiss shows from when I was a wee, impressionable thing too long ago to want to talk about). I was highly annoyed at the beginning when it seemed like eight hundred different men wanted to date Theo (as well as incredibly baffled why Theo was so damned into this dude who wrote two whole sentences in a book with him. But I have no romance in my soul so I was willing to let that part go) because I start to get twitchy at two, let alone literally every guy he talks to. But once that mystery started unraveling and we started learning what was going on with all these dudes, I liked it a lot more. And I don't know if Be My Favorite has made me appreciate Gawin more (yes, definitely) or if I was just way too hard on him in Not Me (maybe, idk I still think he was kind of drippy), but I really enjoyed him in this one, too. Yes, even with the singing. Gawin for me is a rarity because frankly, he can actually carry a tune. I will never understand what's with making all these BL boys sing and dance. Sometimes you just aren't a triple threat, and that's okay.

Anyway remember my endings problem? Yeah, didn’t love this one. I mean, fine, chase your love interest all the way to fair Paris because he's having a crisis about his parents (and honestly, that part I really liked? I liked how selfish he was about it. Idk it just worked for me), I would have let him run off and found someone else but as I said I have no romance in my soul. 7.5/10

Naked Dining / Zenra Meshi / 全ラ飯 - Cute, but. I found myself really really annoyed by all the misunderstandings. This never happens to me, I love a good misunderstanding or three, but my gosh there just comes a point when you need to stop making assumptions and talk, my guys. Food porn was good, though. 6/10

Hello Stranger - Baby's first Pinoy BL! So I guess this is in the same vein as Gameboys, but I did not see that one, and I found this charming. The leads were adorable, and I do have a fondness for shows told almost completely via skype. Look, I still haven't seen enough of them for the novelty to have worn off. The mix of Tagalog and English was a little hard to adjust to at first but after a couple eps I got there. It was just a cute, breezy little thing that was easily digestible and I'm happy I watched it, although to be frank I probably won't put it into my rotation. 8/10

Dear Doctor, I'm Coming for Soul -

While I really enjoyed most of it, I feel like it fell apart for me at the end and I'm having a hard time articulating why.

I think it might be the reincarnation bit. While I get what the show was going for there, what are we saying, exactly? Is Tua gonna wait now until Prakan is of age before showing up to be his boyfriend again? Are they gonna go back to phi and nong until then? Or is Tua gonna watch Prakan like he's straight out of a Police song without speaking to him for the next 5/6 years? My problem isn't even really with the idea that Tua and Prakan will continue to meet in all of Prakan's lifetimes until perhaps Tua's time as a reaper is over and they can be reborn in the same timeline again and maybe be together for real. I think it's the idea of them both waiting around for Prakan's minor clock to expire that's doing it. I feel like Goblin did this trope better. Personally I loved Tua and Prakan being together until he passed, and for me, I think that the show would have been stronger overall if they had left it at that and not done the end bit with the new Prakan.

That said, the child actor who played young!Prakan was stellar and I hope that he has been getting steady work. I have to say that in a lot of the Thai dramas I've watched, the child actors have been standouts.

Other than that, I did really enjoy the drama. It was interesting and I liked seeing Yacht play a character that wasn't super Pond-esque for once. I did feel watching Between Us that he could do better, if given the material (not his fault, Between Us had too many side couples, both he and his partner did what they could with what they had), and I'm happy to see I was right. Metha actually became one of my favorite characters - he had a whole arc from conflicted asshole to loosening up and remembering that he actually loved his friends/realizing his uncle had manipulated him into hating Prakan for his own personal gain, and Yacht did a really good job with playing both the asshole and the decent dude beneath.

I saw a lot of comments complaining about Prakan's inability to be mature regarding Tua's job, but I think that for the most part it was actually fairly believable a reaction, especially after his mom died. And it would be hard for me to deal with the idea that death can be around any corner no matter how hard I try to prevent it, let alone someone for whom that is their entire job.

I was annoyed, however, by the weird ep 11 (I think, might have been 10) "Nuch could die" plot, simply because it was so late in the game, took up so little time, and seemed like a plot device just to get Metha to finally tell her he loved her. Annoying and pointless. Wasn't needed - he could have done it a million other ways.

Enjoyed the couple of Kheeta and Nathee as well - Nathee was another one that did a 180 as the show progressed, but unfortunately I believed his less than I did Metha's, mostly because I just don't think the actor is as good. He was kind of a weak link in Between Us too, although I think I enjoyed him in Even Sun? I can't remember (and just as I said that I did remember, and no, he wasn't one of my favorites in that either. But the less said about Even Sun the better, really). Still, the whole plot for them is one of my bulletproof tropes. It would take a lot for me not to be into it.

Overall though, I enjoyed it. It kept me extremely engaged and made me cry more than once, and up until the last let's say half episode it really worked for me. 8/10

Rewatched

He's Coming to Me - Seeing everyone talk about this lately made me want to rewatch it, and aw, I forgot how much I loved it. It truly is a gem of a show, and I am glad that a lot of people are talking up how good it is lately. Ohm especially really shines.

What a gem this show is. I really enjoyed the slow burn between Med and Thun, and I liked that it went hand in hand with Thun's realization that he was gay. Really enjoyed how supportive his friends and mom were about it, too. Just a really lovely group of people all around.

Another thing that was fun was the mystery of how Med died. I liked that once Thun decided to help him find out he was all in, willing to help him pretty much no matter what. I honestly don't know if I guessed the mom thing or just remembered it from before but that was a kind of hilarious twist - well mom, I'm in love with your ex who's been a ghost for twenty years. Blessings?

The one thing that knocked this down for me was the whole story with the grandpa/uncle. I think I will never get used to these dramas downplaying things that seem like a pretty big deal to me. Manipulate your student into committing literal crimes and nearly drive him crazy with the pressure of holding up an impossible standard? It's okay, you have trauma too so we understand! Deliberately sabotage your son's happiness so that you can make your marriage scheme become reality? All's well that ends well! Plot and then actually go ahead and murder your own nephew, or at the very least orchestrate events so he could die? We can't change the past, all we can do is hope for a better future! Clearly I take these things too seriously.

Overall though, I really did have a good time. I thought that the chemistry between everyone was excellent, not just the two main characters but the entire cast, and I think the eight episode run time worked in its favor because it kept the show from ever feeling bloated, or like they were trying to find things to do to fill time. And the ending, while bittersweet in its way, is perfect for them. All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable show, and I'm very glad I decided to watch it again.

Currently Watching, Sans Liveblogging

Laws of Attraction - I am LOVING this. I did not expect to from the trailer, but nope. I'm hooked. It's got plenty of time to off the rails I guess, since it just started, but I'm not even sure I will care if it does, so long as our very cute lawyer keeps smiling and flirting (and then trying desperately to gtfo of the room whenever Tinn gets to close the whatever killed his ideals (mom was murdered and then the murderer got off? Drunk driver who got released due to a slick lawyer? It's definitely mom based, and I am very curious). The chemistry between the two leads is very very good, too. I've not seen them in anything else, but I might check out To Sir, With Love because I like them that much. Also Silvy Pavida is in this, and she was one of my favorite things about The Warp Effect. I gave out a little cheer when I saw her, and I hope she's in the show more.

Stay by my Side - Cute, has all the tropes. It's Taiwan so I expect it to be solid. Reminds me a bit of Master's Sun kdrama, but BL. That is not a criticism - I freaking love Master's Sun. Although our ghost repellent isn't aware that's what's happening in this one. I'm enjoying it a lot.

3 Will Be Free - I'm working my way through this, and am way more invested in Mae than the three main characters. Oops? If anything happens to her I will lose it.

The Jungle - MIX VILLAIN ERA GO. If it goes too far in the womanizing direction I will probably drop it, but otherwise I will stick around just to see if I am right and Hunter is the worst of the lot. It has a cast mostly filled with actors I like, and I have to admit I got a kick out of watching Lookjun play a character in love with Off's character again. Also they're giving Nanon the Gun Atthaphan treatment and having him play two people. Whee.

Wedding Plan - It's MAME. Enough said. No telling if at some point I'll have to drop it, but well. MAME. I hope the lesbian couple does more than coo at each other, though. Even if the cooing is indeed very cute.

Looking Forward To

At this point I think we all know, but just in case we don't:

Only Friends

Dangerous Romance

23.5

Only Friends and Dangerous Romance are neck and neck in the race to get a premier date. My ideal would be to have them both released in August so I can have max messiness and angst to finish out my summer.

23.5 is on Q5 so I expect we won't see it for a while, but I'm waiting and very excited. We need more GL and I adored Milk and Love in Bad Buddy - I shipped ink and Pa so hard and watching it become canon was one of the best times I've ever had. I'm also pretty jazzed that it looks like there's a second GL couple as well. Both View and June are actresses I like and I'm just very ready for this.

Also I watched the GMMTV 2023 lineup again and I think Last Twilight is now on my list too. Like I'll watch stuff like Cooking Crush when it comes out but I'm not really jazzed about it, lol. Last Twilight however has moved into my "I think I'm excited for this one" list. 

If you made it this far, congratulations. I'd offer you a prize, but I have none. So instead, here. Have a dancing Chonlatee.

[kireshai]

Current Watchlist Game

I was tagged by @iamdarthbader, and honestly I took too long to get this done because I had the stupid idea of giffing things and that takes me forever. Here we go!

Currently Watching (Somewhat in order of enjoyment)

Love In The Air - I'm here for messy, toxic and epic romances. The show is insane and so giffable, it is just a ton of fun for me. I've also enjoyed a bunch of the background music, there are some real bangers in there.

Vice Versa - I've been enjoying this since the first episode, and it's been pretty solid if not great throughout. The visual design - sets, costuming, post-production - have been fantastic and the colour theming is so well done.

The Eclipse - An intriguing mystery with amazing production design and UST through the roof? This is shaping up to be an amazing show with really important messaging regarding non-comformity. Khaotung not playing a softboy is also new and interesting.

Unforgotten Night - Possibly the most unintentionally hilarious show I've seen in a while (or maybe casting Yoon after his history of crack was intentional). I have so much fun with the bizarre choices in this show, and I do not regret my decision to re-use the shitty tigger tattoo gif for this post.

About Youth - It's only 2 episodes so far, but I'm digging the vibe and style of the show. Got some great music, and I will not be taking questions about why I chose to show the second couple in the gif.

My Only 12% - I started this one a little late, but I've caught up now. Earth's ability to convincingly play a high schooler is criminal, and I'm a big fan of the potential for an uno reverse pining plot. Chomping at the bit for the timeskip already.

Takara-kun and Amagi-kun - This reminds me so much of the heart-rending high-school shonen-ai I've read for years. Sweet and simple, the actors are obviously a bit new to things, but they're doing an admirable job for newbies.

Currently Rewatching

Triage - I will probably never stop rewatching Triage. The plot was so strong, I loved so many of the performances, the medical scenes were really top-tier (except the CPR, lol), and there was some really amazing camerawork that elevated the material.

Manner of Death - I have ascended to the role of Sammon simp. It definitely helps that Max and Tul are such strong actors, especially together. The murder and human trafficking show has become a comfort watch for me, please don't ask why.

Love Mechanics (2022) - I have loved this new version so much more than the original attempt. I'm really glad they got a redo and that Yin and War returned. War is just a really strong actor and Yin has come so far since the first time around.

Fish Upon the Sky - I actually love me some wacky comedy BLs, and while not the strongest, I have a lot of fun with this. I was brought back to it by watching the trailer for Pond and Phuwin's upcoming show.

Looking Forward To...

Never Let Me Go - Pond and Phuwin's upcoming show looks super angsty and dramatic. I dig it. Also, why do all the shows this year have mafia, lol?

Moonlight Chicken - I took way too long to watch 1000 Stars and Cupid's Last Wish, but I was so glad when I did. Earth and Mix work really well together, and I'm interested in seeing them in something a little less sweet and innocent this time around.

Manifesting an official announcement for... Transplant - Please, I want this so much. Please, please, please, please... You cannot be surprised by this.

I have no idea on the etiquette of who I should tag, but I'd like to ask @queersouthasian, @gillianthecat and @thequeenofsastiel to have a go.

[enriquemzn262]

What are some western cartoons you've enjoyed?

Amphibia

A fun western take of Isekai, without the wish fulfillment escapism that plagues Isekai, which was actually criticized with the character of Marcy, with a lovable cast, great animation and a well made story with a bittersweet yet satisfying ending.

Hilda

The best modern cartoon period, a cozy and sweet yet action packed and even sometimes dark adventure show about a little girl exploring her magical realism world.

Gravity Falls

Not nearly as fantastic as everyone and their mom claims to be, but still a great show, with tons of good characters, excellent animation, and an overarching plot that while ultimately flawed (the second half of season 2 really dropped the ball on that one) was still great.

She-Ra

Great solid show from beginning to end, but especially towards the end when the silly princess stuff finally began to be properly integrated with the actual plot. Also Catra best character don’t @ me.

Kipo

The most underrated modern cartoon I’ve seen, a superb show with a great story, characters and a truly unique setting, not to mention it did the whole villain redemption thing everyone and their mom was doing at the time, but actually did it fantastically.

Invincible

Like many others I was drawn in by the brutality of the first episode, and boy did it just keep getting better after it! Just skip everything with Amber in it, and you should be in for the best animated superhero show since JLU.

Arcane

Love it! From beginning to end it was a wild ride of a show, and this is coming from someone that only knows about LoL through memes and porn. At times it almost felt like I was watching an extended movie.

The Amazing World of Gumball

This has to be the funniest modern show there is, at least before they decided to use a ton of “funny faces”, when it went down to being among the funniest. Still, a love letter to animation, featuring just about every style of it there is, and with an extremely weird yet fun cast of characters.

Before jumping back to anime I used to watch a ton of these, so I’m sure there’s more, but these are on too of my head and from the last decade, but I can honestly tell you, that my favorite cartoon of all time is:

Courage the Cowardly Dog

There’s just not a single bad episode in it, and every character has been as memorable as Courage himself.

Dishonorable mentions:

The Owl House: Amphibia but actually embracing the bad of Isekai.

Steven Universe: Started weird, got good but ultimately fell down the stairs due to its terrible obsession with finding good things about terrible people.

OK KO: Garbage character models and too obsessed with making references.

Adventure Time: Everything wrong with modern animation.

Regular Show: Modercai is a simp and just looking at the guy gives me cringe.

Bee and Puppycat: Everything wrong with AT and SU COMBINED.

Korra: Not canon

[popculturebuffet]

500th Article Special: House of Claremont Part 1: A Wein Start (Giant Size X-Men#1): A Rope of Sand

Welcome to my 500th article extravaganza you happy people! Yes folks it's been a long road: three years, countless reviews of Duck Based Media, regular coverage of Ducktales, Owl House and Amphibia. I've had high points with successes like my Scott Pilgrim Retrospective, my coverage of the season 1 and 2 arcs of ducktales, an annual best of episode list, my three cabs retrospective, covering all 12 issues of watchmen, two seasons of thomas the tank engine and three seasons of venture bros among MANY more things i'm probably forgetting. I've also had projects that stalled: I still haven't finished life and times of scrooge mcduck and will probably have to start all over again with New X-Men at some point. I've had schedule slippage, delays and what have you.

But i'm proud of how far i've come: I have three patreons, multiple commissioned reviews a month, and 500 articles under my belt. After years and years of wanting to review stuff I finally am, I have a loyal fanbase who loves what I do, good fans who turned into good friends, and i'm STILL going. I'm still doing this three years later. I thought by now the bottom would fall out but here I am. So before I get into the festivities anymore i'd just like to say: Thank you all. Thank you for reading, thank you for staying, thank you for following. Wether you just read one or two reviews or read every damn one, thank you. Thank you all. And special thanks to Kev for bankrolling about half my salary, Emma for doing most of the other, and Brotoman for being a new yet loyal patreon who helped me revive a project I couldn't be happier is going at top speed. Thank you all. I love you guys.

So for my 500th spectacular I wanted to do something that both fit the history of the blog but was still something neat to do, especially since this also doubles as my annual birthday review. For those new to the tradition: I start a new project based on something dear to my heart, my very soul. Something that is a very real part of me. And the choice this time was easy: If there's one thing i've talked about on the blog every chance I get, one thing that is a true part of me and I geek out about at every chance, if there's one thing I had only scratched the surface of it was the Uncanny, Amazing, Astonishing, Classic, Extraordinary, Immortal, New, Blue, Gold, Red, Black , Green and X-Treme X-Men. There's no one franchise in comics that has kept my attention, created so many characters I love, and given me this much joy.

The question though was what to cover: The X-Men are a MASSIVE franchise and there are tons upon tons of runs I want to cover at some point: New Mutants Original Run, Every Run of X-Factor (Particularly the three runs by Peter David and one by Leah Williams), New Mutants excellent 2010's run by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, Cable's Solo Series, Uncanny X-Force, X-Statix, Iceman's solo after coming out, Cullen Bunn's trilogy of stellar work on the franchise.. the list goes on quite a while.

But what I settled on was something that's both obvious and daunting: A run on the merry mutants that set the tone for everything, and changed their world forever. That took a decent but forgettable Fantastic Four knockoff with a lot of potential and made it one of the greatest comics of all time. As you can tell by the title , we're talking about Chris Claremont's run on Uncanny X-Men… though before we can get into it in full next time we're starting with what kicked it off.. a book ironically NOT by Chris Claremont but which would set up the characters and themes he'd follow since. A book that's a tad awkward, somewhat dated, but still big, fun and has an island that walks like a man. We're talking Len Wein and David Cockrums Giant Sized X-Men #1 Under the Cut.

HIstory of X: To understand why this run and it's start, sorta but we'll get to that, with Giant Sized X-Men #1 was such a big deal you have to understand the state the X-Men were in when Giant SIzed X-Men #1 was published.

See the X-Men of the 60's came about because Stan's editor wanted more books dammit since Stan and his oftentimes creative Partner Jack Kirby were a lisecnes to print money. And given Stan had at this point created Spider-Man, Hulk, The Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Ant Man, the Wasp, the Avengers, and brought back Namor and Captain America, he wasnt' exactly wrong. So while he created yet another solo hero in Daredevil, again not exactly wrong, he needed another team book too. Problem was you could only have a hero fall into a radioactive vat of cream of wheat so many times before it got boring. Stan The Man needed a new way to create new heroes and villians.

And that folks is how we got mutants: "Er their just born with it! Yeah people with power exists! That's the ticket! Excelesior!"

That said as hilariously simple and need based as the solution was.. it was still brilliant. A one size fit all solution for when a writer didn't have time for a villains power. An easy out: you can still give them a backstory and such if you fancy, but this way if you didn't have a reason for the villains power in mind, just make them a mutant. It came up quite a bit till decimation for a reason after all: it was just easy to make them when anyone could be one if they weren't introduced as a human already. Was it a cheap narrative device? yes. Was it one that others would use brilliantly in a myriad of ways? Hell yeah. He also decided to make a teen team, with the original 5 x-men, now enshrined in most continuities as the OG's before whatever modern team pops up, consisting of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Iceman, Beast (Pre-hairy), and Angel lead by Professer Xavier, fighting the dreaded Magneto. A lot of the basic stuff from the school to a lot of the most iconic x-men are there from the start.. but the basic element of protecting a world that hates and fear them took a second and even then it wasn't fully crystalized.

And that was kinda the problem: while stan and later roy thomas intital run wasn't lacking for great ideas, iconic foes the Sentinels and Juggernaut were Stan's idea, it kinda feel more often int0 being just another superhero book: For starter stan's teens, from what i've raed of classic x-men (which I also intend to cover), was very

Especially compared to Spidey which has some of this, but still felt a bit closer to earth. The idea of a superhero school was brilliant.. but the problem was at this poitn it was a prep school with pretty stock , if still deeply loveable teen characters; Brooding troubled hunk Scott, richie rich Warren, female sterotype because Stan Lee's talents didn't includ ewriting women Jean, jokester baby of the bunch bobby and erudite badass jock hank. Okay not all typical, even before he got all beasty, Hank was still a standout. They weren't terrible character, there's a reason they've endured since and this run brings all of them back for guest spots or in the case of Scott, Jean and Warren brings them back as full members at various points, eventually cumilating in the spinoff X-Factor. The seeds of who they are, Scott's brooding workaholic nature, Warren's rich joviality, Jean's warm caring nature, Bobby being fun personified and hank being the best before his long slow dark decsent into being a macvilian jackass, it's all there and stan and later roy thomas deserves credit for it.

The Lee and later Thomas era wasn't bad.. but it just wasn't anything new for the silver age. The foes were mostly just "bwahahahah i'm evil" types, including shockingly Magneto. Even I forget he started as trying to conquer the worlds for mutants not because of deep seated trauma but because that's what super villians did. There wasn't the complexity the franchise would gain with the iteration i'm talking about here. We got the first hints of that with Denny O Neils breif but fondly remembered run that brought in Havok and Polaris, Scott's brother who sure is there and Magneto's daughter who sure is awesome, but ultimately it just wasn't a huge standout from Stan's other team books. It's more worth checking out for what Lein Wein and directly after him Chris Claremont made of it, and what Denny O Neil before them did, than as some big silver age gem. So it's no shock that with feedback on O'Neils run reaching them too late to keep him from giong back to dc that the X-Men eventually got the boot. they remaind in reprints because back then it wasn't as easy to get those and the book still had a cult fanbase, but the x-men for all intensive purposes were dead. The team wasn't gone: Hank got his own solo adventures that made him a real beast before joining the avengers and the X-Men showed up every so oftne as guests.. but the strangest heroes of all were on the backburner. Thankfully as luck would have it the X-Men had a key ally in their corner; Roy Thomas, marvel legend, creator of my boy the Vision, and former X-Men Writer. He had grown attached to the team and wanted them to come back, and kept pitching. Eventually he got his chance when President of Marvel Al Landau, wanting to break into foreign markets with thier reprints more, suggested an international team of heroes. And since the X-Men were doing nothing and needed a fresh shot in the arm anyway, Roy gladly volunteered.

He originally leaned into the global aspect, pitching the idea of the x-men traveling around the world in a floating base, rescuing new mutants and generally being global. Which honestly does sound badass and if it hasn't been recycled yet it needs to be. It didn't end up going ahead as this for whatever reason, possibly because Thomas Himself , being an editor and busy as heck, coudln't do the book himself.

He did put it in good hands though with at the time Hulk writer Lein Wein and former Legion of Super-Heroes artist David Cockrum. And for those just joining us i'm a massive Legion of Super Heroes fan so finding out years later as I got into them that they both shared an artist at one point was a feeling so awesome i'ts hard to describe. Both also brought a character along for the ride: For Wein he was currently working on Hulk, and when asked by editorial to create a Canadian superhero, ended up creating the best at what he does, Wolverine.. and what he did in his debut was fight the Hulk himself, AND live and also fight a Wendigo because every sundae needs a cherry. So he was in.

Cockrum brought in an awesome character he'd designed for a Legion spinoff. But with him leaving DC because they wouldn't let him have some original art, which given Cockrum went on to help create their competitors most popular book of the 1980s, was moronic even by executive jackassery standards, he brought Nightcrawler with him and he eventually shifted from a sardonic ghoulish alien to the friendly chap with the demonic face we know and love.

The result of this powerful partnership was one of the most important comics in marvel history.

My history with the comic is probably baffling to any younger readers: See I had the comic on CD-Rom

In the 90's marvel did a bunch of these: it's how I became a lifelong fan of the hobgoblin by seeing his first appearance and got my first taste of legendary writer, artist and ego John Byrne's Fantastic Four run. Which is also on my to do list along with the runs of Mark Waid, Jonathan Hickman, and Matt Fraction's run with Scott Lang. I inherited these Discs from my brother and in the early 2000's somewhere, I popped em in and throughly enjoyed myself.

While a Wizard Magazine focused on X-Men's greatest moments and X2 made me an X-Men fan for life, this issue is what cemented it. I feel it shaped a lot of my opinons on the house of x as I got more and more into it. And with some nice sound effects, data files and other nice widgets it was a great way to dive right in, to the point I later bought the first two masterworks for the uncanny era simply because it had this issue.

It's opening is a big reason. It's one of my faviorite scenes in all of comic books, one of the best character introductions i've seen period, and introduces one of my favorite characters all in one go. We open in a sleepy remote village in gemany where a bloodthirsty mob, the kind you might see in a Universal or Hammer monster film, is out for the blood… yet in a clever reversal of this old cliche, it's the target of their bloodlust that's our viewpoint character.

It sets up Kurt perfectly: He's a perfectly normal, charming guy who simply dosen't want to live his life being pointed and laughed at for being different. It's a fair and honest thing anyone in said "Freak Show" should be able to have. It's not.. phrased the best, mid 70's and all. But instead of being welcomed by this small town, by society, he's shunned simply for looking different. They see him as a monster and try to burn him simply because he looks different. It's prejudiced boiled down to it's core: people hating something because it's different, and instead of trying to approach it with an open mind, instead bring out a closed fist. And when they try to burn him out, he decides if their going to think he's a monster than so be it and goes down fighting as they end up overwhelming and restraining him ready to stake him

I'll admit the villagers are heavy handed: It's a literal angry mob complete with a wooden steak, clearly having the wrong issue as Dracula's guest appearance isn't for another couple of years. It'd only be less subtle if the dialogue read

Yet it works: Sure people aren't going to be forming a mob to go stake a trans, nonbinary, queer, or POC person, but they'll do everything in their power to make that persons life harder simply because they don't agree they should exist and can't accept it. Prejudice sadly will probably never go away because there will always be hatred, ignorance, religious dogma and white supremacist nutballs. They just say the loud part quite.. unless your Kanye West. There are still assholes commiting violent hate crimes and others trying ot massage those hate crimes on television or the internet because they just can't be happy unless people they don't like for reasons of prejudice and hate are miserable. Kurt just wanted what we all want, to be treated like a person and he nearly died for it Thankfully it was just nearly as we get a nice moment of Charles Xavier demonstrating just how scarily powerful he is: with one thought he paralizes every one of the mob in motion and has a nice long conversation with Kurt afterwords. He'd heard Kurt had come to learn.. and well he happens to have a school for mutants that coudl use someone like him. Their conversation after Xavier makes the option is one of my faviorite exchanges in X-Men:

It gets to the core of the franchise: You don't have to be normal.. just be a whole you.. and that will be fine. And that's all Charles wants: not for his students to perfectly blend in, but to be who they should be, to be their best, and to fight for a world where they can be without being feared and hated. And with that Kurt goes with him. All Kurt wants to be is treated like any othe rperson and for the first time someone does, while showing Kurt he dosen't have to be normal: just a whole Kurt Wagner.

Next up is the best at what he does.. and what he does is stare longingly at a photo of Jean Grey. But since he hasn't met her yet, he's made due being an oprative for the Canadian Goverment as Weapon X. Yes it's

Turns out Charles Xavier knows people so he easily got a meeting to speak with Wolverine. While I like Kurt's the most out of all the intros wolvie's is still great, with him just kinda swaggering in there, and being fine with listening to Charles offer for a new job. It also sells him as a badass long before he'd earn the title: Charles mentions his debut fighting hulk and how he sought out Wolverine specially because he needs someone that strong and skilled. It dosen't take much either: Charles offers him a job as a free agent, and being able to escape government red tape sounds fine just fine so he takes it and agrees to quit. His boss mr. soldier.. guy here… dosen't take it especially well so Wolverine has to deal with it with all the grace and tact he's famous for

He'll regret those words as this guy will take that as "Challenge Accepted", but we'll get to that another day.

We get our shortets recuritment yet with Banshee, which only takes two panels but it's understandable: The rest of the cast are either brand new, or in the case of Wolverine relatively new. Banshee however had been a recurring character for a bit, a former criminal brainwashed by the evil mutant empire known as Factor Three.. which naturally was acftually run by an alien wanting world domination because comic books. This.. wont' be the last time an alien was largely responsible for the X-Men's woes for a while, but we'll get to that next time.

Since the Professor asked nicely and it's an opportunity to turn things around, Banshee's happy to help. He also gets a slight redesign having looked a tad inhuman.. which was apparnetly the idea as creator Roy Thomas apparently intended for him to be a "GIANT LEPRECHAUN".

Yeah.. I have no real joke here. Roy Thomas wanted the only major irish character in marvel comics at the time.. to be a LITERAL LEPRECHAUN. Thankfully Len Wein hard noed out of that and had Cocrum make hi mlook like you know.. a person. Banshee also adds something as being a bit older: not as old as charles, but still older and experinced enough to be an extra mentor to the group.

So next we go to Kenya to meet storm and well… you just kinda have to see this part for yourself.

Yeah… maybe having your first major black character in a franchise, and marvel's first major black woman character be a mock goddess for a bunch of stereotypically dressed villagers who want to slaugther animals in her name and has to have it told by a white man that she needs to go into the real world might be just a touch horribly offensive. LIke there's still some good stuff to pick out of this mess: the drawings of Storm ussing her powers are beautiful and Charles does give out a great classic Charles Xavier speech to convince her to join the team…

While him saying she has a responsiblity just for being a mutant is oh such bullshit, she doesn't have to put on spandex and save the world because she has power charles, but he's not wrong that actually living in the world, even if some hate and fear her, is better than living a lie as a god, knmowing people instea dof having the mworship her. Also yeah.. she's topless this entire scene. It's far from the last time storm gets naked but here it just adds to the immense discomfort of the scene. Some great stuff in here but man oh man is it uncomfortably racist. Not the worst i've seen.. but i've seen some pretty deep lows so that's far from a compliment. Next up is Sunfire who has a neat as hell costume.. but is an arrogant racist prick. While he once fought the x-men only because his evil uncle tricked him into it, he still hates the US and only agrees to help out of arrogance. I used to love Shiro.. but honestly it was mostly the costume. Behind it.. he's just an arrogant racist prick, who while having some good damn reason to resent the west (his mom died during hiroshima), it still dosen't fully excuse him being a racist prick. His past is sad.. but it dosen't mean he should take it out on othe rpeople or be a jingoist dickhead. And the Dickhead part has nothing to do with his past, he's just.. ike this.

Next up we get another iconic intro to a character, and thankfully without any overt racisim this time. It's Soviet Russia and on a collective farm, Pitor Rasputin gladly works hard to help bring in the harvest when a young child, later revealed to be his sister Illyana who will become a major supporting character in this book and a main cast member in another later, as well as a longtime x-man herself, from a tractor.

It sets up Peter perfectly: He sees a child in trouble, dashes to save her without any hestiation, and when he ineveitbly has to destroy the tractor.. .worries about how his neighbors will possibly pay for a new one. It shows him for what he is: A Kind empahtetic paragon of good not unlike superman.

What makes this noticable as this was at the height of the cold war: tensions were flaring and woudl only get worse.. yet Wein and Cockrum still portrayed peter as a kind decent man doing his best. That just because a countries goverment and military might be pure evil.. dosen't mean every single person there is evil too. This is especailly enlighted as previously marvel had a bad habit of having COmmunists as one note villians.. instead here one is a hero and an honest one at that who loves his homeland and is a genuine patriot, he just so happens to also be a kindhearted young man. He is conflicted though when Xavier offers after the incident: He has great power.. but shoudln't it go to the state? Charles, once again expertly, aruges it belongs to the world.. and while Peter's heart wants him to stay with his beloved family and community.. his concisence tells him the offer is the right call and thus Colossus is born.

So it's back to racisim as we get John Proudstar. Whoboy. John Proudstar. John is an angry young man who hates living on the reservation.. and while a indgenous person with anger towards the community is an intresting angle and one actual indgenious writers have done great things with, this.. is a clueless white guy who has him take down a buffallo to make him look extra Apache and tell Charles..t his

I mean he's again not wrong.. and Charles response.. is to use racist sterotypes to basically bait him into joining. Like Pitor, Ororo and Kurt all got well reasoned arguments… he just gets "Well I guess your a pussy then huh John?" My god. The Storm stuff is bad but this. this is somehow worse. I'm really glad when John came back after several decades that an indeginous persons writer, Nyla Rose, wrote his one shot because jesus christ he was done dirty.

Anyways we're onto act 2 as the various new X-Men have assembled in Charles Foyer, complete with spiffy new uniforms courtsey of Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic Aka Jimmy the Reach. He says they'll meet him some day and true to his word some of them sure, do.

It also makes Storm's and colosus outfits, iconic as they are at ad creepier knowing a middle aged man dressed them this way.. which granted is also what happened in real life but it's a bit diffrent when ti's an actual character saying "Yes you sexy young people dress in next to nothing for me, your new commander> I promise it's all about moveablity.. and showing off them legs. "

Jokes abotu Charles being a dirty old man aside, the costumes are X-Cellent for the most part. And I only say the most part because Thunderbird looks like they stacked every native American sterotype they could on top of one another. I've seen worse, but it's very telling when coming back he only wore this trainwreck for one issue before getting a kickass new outfit.

The rest though.. the rest are fucking awesome. There's a reason that 90% of Colosus, Wolverine and Nightcrawlers outfits are based on this, and that all but one of storm's iconic looks has that cape, as well as Banshee just.. wearing that outfit until very recently and Sunfire usually doing the same.

Starting with Nightcrawler because he's my boy, and because his outfit is the only one out of this group that dosen't cahnge over claremont's run with the character. And it's easy to see why: The red pointy vest, white gloves and boots and heavy black jus tlooks damn cool and fits his showy, carny nature. The only thing that's ever changed is getting rid of the shoulder pads and I question.. why.

Speaking of shoulder's hey goons , thugs and bosses let's talk about Colosus. His outfit is skimpy when you see pitor without his metal form.. but it makes sense with it. The cool serated look (with writers making sure his muscles showed), NEEDS to be shown off and the red and yellow just perfectly fit peter's heroic and often hammy when mid combat nature. He has blue coverings for his legs here but those won't last long.

Storm's outfit is pretty good. It shows some skin, but it fits Ororo not really having any taboo about being naked, kind of how Starfire later would be a lot of the same way, and her strong, confident nature. The black and yellow will forever be her colors and the cool has heck headband and badass, neatly styled cape just complete the style. It's regal yet modern, even by today's standards.

Wolverine's is a classic and there's damn good reason the only thing Chris changed later was removing the shoulder pads, and changing the color to brown. I like both versions and both colors, so i'm fine either way, but the OG outfit, well the remodled og outfit, is still an utter flassic: the cool mask, awesome claws and bright blues and yellows truly help him stand out.

Banshee's outfit is awesome, mostly for one reason: while the cetner of it, the greens and yellows really work well together, it's the fucking black and yellow spiral cape that truly makes his costume an all timer. It's just hwat makes banshee banshee and ther'es a reason his daughter wears it and he does no matter the verison. Even when brainwashed or an angel of death, he still has some varation of it. Finally we have SUnfire. HIs costume is goofy, very sterotypically japanese..a nd yet awesome. The weird fish mask is just a banger and those eyes are just so freaking cool, and having a japanese flag perfeclty fits Japans #1 hero and someone whose a japanese nationalist.

Charles prepares to explain, simply having been waiting on someone else who was there first hand: Scott Motherfucking Summers, one of my faviorit x-men, THE leader of the team only equaled by storm in terms of record and iconography leading, and certified badass. A sfor the the details…

As for why he uses Cerebro to .. somehow take us back to what happened: The X-Men got a ping from Cerebro that a massive, powerful mutant had been awkaned on the islnad of Krakoa in the south Pacific. So that means…

It's no bub, sugar, boz moh, fraulien, mein gott, or juggernaught bitch that's for sure and it ain't very nice. It is however charmingly goofy.

Like this was just Cyclops catchphrase while the x-men were gone or something Scott tried to make a thing and none of his friends had the heart to tell him it wasn't working.

As I said, Hank is with the avengers now, something that comes up and Scott seems totally not at all bitter about it.

Dude he's busy fighting gods and WITH gods. Move on. Find another best friend whose super intellgent and has feet hands. I mean.. it'll be hard that's a narrow classification but you can check the want ads. Those are still a thing in 1975.

Things don't go well on the island as not only is it massive, making FINDING the mutant an issue, but they soon get attached and Scott only remembers some breif flashes of horros when he wakes up in the Blackbird, no memory of what happened, the controls locked to leave and his eyes suddenly normal. He tries his best to go back, to save his fellow x-men.. but resigns himself. it's who scott is: he won't give up until there's no other way and will press on through. Sadly the only GOOD part of this, that he can finally look someone in the eye without cool shades or a visor without slamming them into a table, doesn't last as soon his eyebeams are back and even STRONGER. And it's here I'm going to start a little counting gag for later

God Hates Scott Summers Count: 1 Trust me, we'll need this.

So that's the mission: Take this untested new team to Krakoa, save the x-men and defeat whoever took them down. Sunfire naturally nopes out. Which begs the question why he came at all. He could likely tell the x-men were out simply because Charles asked for his help and was alone, and if he didn't then the room full of strangers probably shoudl've clued him in. He comes back of course, but only after Thundebrird gets pissy with Storm for daring to not.. you know like that one of the first muatnt's she's met decided fuck these innocent people needing rescue who have saved an ungreatful world countless times. (also you should fuck off) He of course returns .. and is a racist ass to nightcrawler calling him misfit and getting angry later when he's paried iwth the guy, which Kurt snarks at him for.

Kurt: 83, Sunfire: -2 So once they approach Cyclops decides to have them split up gang to find the x-men: th eaformentioned team of nightcrawler and the human tire fire, wolverine and banshee, thunderbird and cyke himself and storm and colossus. Colossus tries to make a superhero landing but ororr catches him with a "you fool you cannot fly" not getting he can land. This does actually have a nice payoff in the story after this so props to Wein for thinking ahead as while he didn't write the story he did plot it. This does lead to one of the issue sproblem: there is a LOT of arguging and in the case of Thunderbird and Sunfire i'ts insufferable. And it really is sad that two of the only POC members of the group.. are insufferable egotistical assholes. I get the missiong sucks, it is kinda stupid, but I also get why it is: while it is depserate to grab whoever and put them on a missiong together, the x-men have no time for it, did apparently try to contact the avengers nad ff but both were busy: forming this new team.. is a last ditch effort. So the fact neither can show one ounce of empathy rankles me. It makes it hard to enjoy the campy, fun action when you have two guys who won't shut up about how much this blows every other page.

Thankfully we do get that campy action as each team encounters some gloriously weird shit and get to show off: Cyclops and THunderbirds fight some living vines, Storm and Colossus fight some rocks tha ttarget them, Nightcrawler and sunfire fight some birbs, with Storm and Wolvie and Banshee get the best of it

Killin Crabs, Their Krakoan! Kill em fast, pain explosion. Seriously I love me a good giant crab and you add in Wolverinme slicin em up and banshee voicesploding them and you have my fandom for life.

Our heroes all converge at a weird temple, and decide on the bst, most stealthy method to break in

With their kool aid manning done they find the OG X-Men and help get them unhooked from some weird vines entalging them all. Angel is less than Greatful

This bit.. has always bothered me and come off as face punchingly dickish. Yes I get it, Angel dosen't want Scott or these new strangers to get eaten. That's fine.. but how the fuck could Scott have possibly done anything else? Yes he likely smelled a trap even if not the distincitnly weird KIND of trap this was, but the love of his life, two of his best friends, his brother and his brothers girlfriend were all trapped here. How would he ever even consider for one second NOT coming back to save you all? To risk everything, to fight with EVERYTHING he has to save the people he loves most in the world? What kind of man would he be if he didn't and what kind of man are you, Warren, to be mad at him for trying.

As for what had them.. well that my friends is the most delightful twist. See i've talked abotu Krakoa.. so if you've followed my work you likely know what's coming.. but it is in the most glorious comic booky way possible. Ladies and gentleman I present…

Yes folks the All New All Diffrent X-Men's first foe.. is a fucking living island. It'd be retconned that h'es an ancient being and what not, but for now he's simply a gaint atomic mutant that's a living fucknig island that looks awesome, wants to eat our heroes, and WALKS LIKE A MAN. I have ALWAYS loved Krakoa, from the look to the gloriously goofy "island tha twalks like a man" moniker, to the fact the very ground xaviers was on was once a clone of him, an idea that was only topped when in 2019 they straight up MOVED to our boy, made them into a nation, and he becmae best friends with fellow boy Doug Ramsey. So. Fucking. Awesome.

Also just if your curious as to how this guy still eats now mutankind and him are cool and live on him… he still feeds off their energy. It's just instead of kidnapping them iwth conflulted super villian plans, he straight up asks for some of their energy as part of mutankinds lease, and with millions of mutants on krakoa… they don't even feel the tiny bit he takes. With millions of peopl ehe dosen't have to drain them to death, they willingly give it for giving them homes (seriously he amkes theM) food (that too) and a homeland.

Anyways back int he present.. or rathe rthe past, the x-men get a badass page fighting him

Only for Xavier to yell at scott that their efforts are meanless. I'm going to go ahead and not only add to this count God Hates Scott Summers: 3 For both this and the angel thing, but also start up this count Xavier is a Jerk: 3

2 for his treatment of thunderbird in diffrent ways (the name calling then the outfit thign) and 1 for yelling at Scott for doing the bes the could when he coudln't possibly know the plan. Xavier does have a good plan thoguH: have Storm and Polaris combine their powers to create a giant rainstortm and a magetic wave of force and stuff. Cyclops and Havok combine powers and use it to propel krakoa into the air.. and thanks to the magnet stuff, it seperate sthe island from the earths gravity FLINGING IT INTO SPACE

I'm conflicted on this finale. On the one hand.. it fucking rocks. I mean Scott launched an island into space. How he got back I truly don't know, and I don't care. it's coming. Weird shit happens a lot. Maybe he regrew. We don't know Krakoa the Island That Walks Like a Man's life. Leave Krakoa The Island that Walks LIke a Man Alone. But it really dosen't involve the new team all that much: Lorna does most of the heavy lifting, and only Storm really contributes. The rest of the action is Done by vetran x-men. For an issue spotlighting this new bold era.. it feels weird tha tthe resoultion is all up to the old guard. Maybe it was to give them a last hurrah but it still feels weird. At any rate our heroes survive, find the jet, and are vicotrious and happy. But their left with one little problem

And we'll find out next time. For now though Giant Sized X-Men has shown some flaws with aged, but is still a stellar start for this era. The characters mostly get great introductions, the art is crisp and awesome , and the new characters are intresting and engaging. There are some uncomfortable flecks of racisim strewn about, Thunderbird and Storm's origins paticuarlly are painful to read, and the last half is n't nearly as snappy as the first, with it mostly being the formula of "X-men veruss something on krakoa" for a few pages, then the finale not using the new characters hardly at all. Still the awesomeness of these x-men and them fighting a giant island cannot be overstated and the cheesy goodness helps paper over the weaker parts. Wein would not be there for it though> Whlie he plotted the next issue, as it was planned to just keep going with Giant Sized the issue ended up being a massive success.. so massive in fact, that they brought back the monthly instead. And since he could only handle one monthly book, hulk, Wein passed it over to a fresh face in the office,a young chap who had kept barging into meetins planning this who practically begged to get the roll. A man who would DEFINE the x-men and write them for the next 17 years: One Chris Claremont, whose run we properly start next time. Until then thanks for reading all this time, thanks for being here, and just.. thank you. Thank you all . Next Time: We wittle the roster down to 6 x-men as five leave and one dies. Then our All New All diffrent x-men deal with betryal, giant robots and space for the first time as the series first major overarching plot kicks up.. and the Sentinels return just in time for a late christmas.

[l-a-l-o-u]

super curious abt ur opinions on tlovm. would u be willing to talk abt it??

Two other people (@raycowboyroy and @sapphiczorua) asked me so I guess I'm doing this!! Ty for your interest in my opinion ♥

So!! The Legend of Vox Machina. The tl;dr is that I'm a lil disappointed in the quality of it, but I'm still very very happy that it exists. I have a ton to say about it after watching the first 3 episodes, so I'll organize my thoughts into a list of positives and negatives. But first, some context for my silly little essay:

• This is my personal opinion, and from what I've seen so far, most people love the show. So, please don't decide to avoid it because of me. Check it out and decide for yourself!

• I'm an animation professional so I have a trained eye for animation... and I'm really nitpicky about it! I'll complain about stuff that the average watcher wouldn't even notice

• Critical Role has been a main interest of mine for the past 3 years. I know the story of Vox Machina by heart and actually wrote a big chunk of the main characters' articles on the wiki. That means it's really easy for me to compare the two stories, and also that I already know what's going to happen most of the time

• I had really high expectations before we saw the final art, and that influences the way I feel about the show

Okay with that out of the way, let's start with the list of things I liked in the first three episodes!

• I like the story changes that were made so far. I'm glad we got to see Brimscythe - now we get to see the entire Chroma Conclave story! The way the reorganized some plot elements to shorten the storyline without taking away the main elements has been very well executed so far. And that must've been pretty challenging, what with hundreds of hours of content to distill into a few episodes.

• The voice acting is overall great! My favorites so far are Pike, Scanlan and Keyleth; their line deliveries make them very easy to get attached to. Percy is also very nice, although I wanna wait until I see how he'll be in the Briarwoods arc.

• I enjoyed the group interactions a lot! Every time two main characters talk to each other I can feel their connection and their history. The scenes in Greyskull Keep were especially nice and reminded me why I love this group! Scanlan and Grog's dynamic is especially entertaining.

• The Briarwoods....... hhhnnng

• I really like the backgrounds. There's a lot of great establishing shots where you can appreciate the environment designs, and the artstyle is really solid and pleasant to look at.

• Great use of color to set the tone in every shot. Not every animated series does that! It helps a LOT to carry the story and adds an extra layer of immersion. Plus, it adds a layer of mush needed polish on the animation.

• The storyboarding / photo direction is nice so far. Apart from a couple of awkward shots, I like how they frame everything, it flows well. As they say, good cinematography is when you don't notice it. I especially enjoyed the opening scene of episode 3 with Percy's memories.

• This is probably my favorite Scanlan design yet! I like it even better than his campaign art and comic book design. It's perfect for him. Keyleth is also really well executed overall

• I love that they made Gilmore fat and gave him eyeshadow. King shit

• I just love the fact that this series exist honestly! I love that a group of people managed to turn their silly little friend activity into an entire production. The CR cast looks over the moon about it, and I'm very happy for them.

And now for the depressing part! Here are the things I was disappointed by.

• I saw this coming a mile away with how much the cast insisted this was "adult animation" in interviews, but it really started off kinda crass. A lot of scenes, especially at the start of episode 1, feel like they exaggerated the gore, language, and gross moments just for shock value, and I just thought it was unpleasant to watch. They show vomit and peeing and gory deaths on screen and it's all front and center - I feel like there's a better way to make an audience feel the weight of the action without actually shoving it in our face, ya know? But I guess it was funny in a few places.

• Although the story is well planned out, I think they fell a bit short on the pacing. Many scenes feel very rushed, with too much happening and not enough time to really appreciate it. There are things that should have lasted longer so we can actually feel their emotional weight. For example, the scene with the fisherman's family was nice, but it didn't feel like we were supposed to care about them at all. So when Vox Machina uses their death to motivate their new goals and morals, it fell flat to me and wasn't super believable.

• I wish they would tell us more about how the group came to be. I already love Vox Machina, but I feel like a new viewer would have a hard time getting attached to them. When Keyleth asked “why are we even together?” and nobody answered her, I was like yikes. She’s right who the fuck are you!

• So far the tone of the show doesn't feel super solid. Is it supposed to be funny? It doesn't feel like a comedy, apart from a few jokes here and there. Is it a serious high fantasy adventure? I think that's what they're going for, but so far it lacks a bit in charm and lore. I'm confident this will pick up later in the season though.

• I've said this before, but I really don't like the art style they picked for the characters. It's really a personal preference, but I also think it does a disservice to the animation as a whole. The designs are a bit too realistic and complicated for a television production. They have a lot of elements and little things poking out, making them harder to move in three dimensions.

• I said earlier that I like the use of color, but most character designs are the exception. A lot of them I find weirdly desaturated, which doesn't help to integrate them in the bright environments. Some characters, especially Vax and Pike, have a weird greyish tone to their skin that constantly takes me out of scenes as I stare at them in confusion.

• There are several elements in the main characters' designs that I dislike - again a lot of it is personal preference.

• Vax is my least favorite. The furs on his shoulders make him like he's wearing a football uniform, and he looses all of his twink charm. The top of his hair looks weirdly flat in many shots, and the lines under his eyes are so pronounced that it makes his look a lot older than he is whenever he's not smiling. He doesn't really feel like Vax to me!

• I also dislike Vex's design: she has three belts for some reason, and her tunic is such a bright blue that it looks off next to every other desaturated character element. She also feels too old and not quite like herself, especially without her braid in the front.

• Some very minor things: I don't really like that Grog is blue now, and I CANNOT take Percy seriously with that hair.... And they made Keyleth short?!? at least its not extremely obvious

• Like I mentioned earlier, there were a couple of awkward zoomed-in shots here and there. You could feel like they were trying to be cinematic, but they stand out too much or they're not amazingly executed, taking you out of the moment.

• I thought Scanlan's songs were overall not great. I liked the one he sang to open a door tho!

• The 3D animation was awkwardly integrated with the 2D. The horses were especially jarring. But at least the dragon animation was well made, it just didn't fit super well.

• And lastly! I feel a bit let down by the animation quality. It's really good for the budget they had! I just wish they had more budget lol

That last bit is its own section because there's a few things to unpack.

I wanna preface this by saying that I absolutely don't think the animators did a bad job. The poses are nicely drawn, the layouts work, it's not hard to understand the action, etc. They obviously know what they're doing. Traditional animation always has a less polished look in a television production, because you have to animate more scenes in less time. That means less time for polish and touch-ups. Like I said before, the character designs are also difficult to animate. And I believe that the CR cast, ie. the producers, specifically asked for an animation style similar to anime (because they're attached to it, having done a lot of anime voice work) and also similar to 80s cartoons (for nostalgia again). And, well, anime and 80s cartoons are notoriously cheaply made, with very little budgets and a lot of cut corners. All of that helps to explain why it looks the way it looks. And I absolutely don't think it's bad animation - it's good, it does it's job, and I think most casual watchers will probably not be bothered by it. I'm a silly fool who just wishes to see my favorite thing have movie quality animation! Plus, the CR cast seems to love the final animation, which, awesome for them! It's their characters after all.

Let me explain what I mean. If you compare the animation in the show and the animation in the opening, I think even the untrained eye will notice a significant difference in animation quality. You could even compare it to The Legend of Korra, a show with a very similar art style. The opening of tLoVM was done by a different studio (Grackle), and they likely had a lot more time to polish every shot. Everything seems to move more fluidly, the actions have more punch, and everything is constantly in motion. So what's the difference? The answer is that the opening's animation follows the 12 principles of animation! You can learn more about the 12 principles here if you're interested.

In a production, the first step of animation is to draw key poses: the start of the movement, the end, and a few important poses in between them. When a production doesn't have a lot of time, they go from pose A to pose B to pose C by drawing the inbetweens at an equal distance from each other, going from pose to pose in a straight line. There's a LOT of that in anime. The movement works, you understand it, but it's kinda.... bland. It's stiff and robotic and a little boring. No action has more weight than the one before or after it, they're all equal. I barely noticed any anticipations, follow-throughs, ease-ins, ease-outs... not a lot of arcs either. They used a lot of still poses where only one body part like an arm, a mouth, or the eyes move on their own layer. Facial animations are limited, with characters often starting and ending a shot with the same facial expression. I don't think I noticed any deformation - nothing moves in an elastic way, nothing bounces or stretches or squashes. They did do smears here and there but that's pretty much it. And I want to reiterate that it looks fine and it works! They had less time to make it and less frames to work with.

All of that affects the acting. I don't mean the voice acting, I mean the body language, the expressions, you know!! Acting!! There's acting in the key poses, but so much of acting comes from HOW you move. And when you're trying to cut corners, oftentimes your animation won't do the voice acting justice. One scene that comes to mind is at the start of episode 1, after they've been thrown out of the tavern, and Scanlan turns to ask for his clothes: something covers his mouth, and even though Sam is delivering his line in a really peppy way, barely anything moves. That line deserved so much better!!!

There’s exceptions of course! Some shots, especially the action ones, are a lot more put together. I think overall, I’d give the animation quality a 7/10. Because the layouts and key poses are really good, and they cut corners in a clever way, so it works really well. I do think Titmouse deserves praise for their work! They did really well!! The animation quality is most likely due to budget limitations, and if less episodes had been made, it would've likely been higher. But they made the choice to write more of the story, and I think that in this case with how much material they’re adapting, that's not a bad decision. I wish The Legend of Vox Machina had a big production budget, but it didn't. And that's just life!

As a last thought, I just wanna say - this could've been a lot nicer if they had more cartoony designs. Do you guys remember the picture they used in the Kickstarter days? Sometimes I look at it and think about what could have been... They could’ve done cutout animation, even. That could’ve turned out nice. But oh well! The showrunners are happy, and for such a personal project that's what matters isn't it?

If you read all this hello!!! I hope you had fun reading this & don’t forget to love each other ♥

[gunsatthaphan]

~ Monthly BL Breakdown: August 2021 ~  

Disclaimer: All shows can be streamed here, here or here! For more info about shows, check out their MDL pages!

- Updates coming every month - feel free to add stuff! -

What came out this month? (green tick = seen or currently watching)

🌟 Be Loved in House Special Ep - August 5th (Taiwan) ✅

🌟 Don’t Say No - August 6th (Thailand) ✅

🌟 Light - August 13th (Taiwan)

🌟 Love Beneath the Stars - August 16th (Philippines)

🌟 Check Out Ep0 - August 22nd (Thailand) ✅

🌟 Bed Weather - August 27th (Philippines) 🌟 A First Love Story - August 27th (South Korea)

🌟 Love Advisor - August 28th (Thailand)

🌟 Love is - August 28th (Philippines)

🌟 Bite Me - August 29th (Thailand) ✅

🌟 Check Out Documentary - August 29th (Thailand) ✅

🌟 Peach of Time - August 30th (South Korea) ✅

🌟 7 Project - August 30th (Thailand) ✅

Monthly likes/dislikes

❣️ Don’t Say No - sorry if I can’t shut up about it but I’m obsessed lol; LF’s chemistry is phenomenal and the plot is super interesting. They’re not shying away from anything, everything is raw and real which is 👌🏻. Also communication hello? These guys are actually talking to each other about their insecurities - something I haven’t seen since Cherry Magic lol. And not just the mains, but also the other characters probably have the best communication I’ve seen in a bl. A+++ ❣️ PitchBank (Golden Blood) - I had to put them in here; I haven’t had second couple syndrome since RamKing lol but how could I not I mean?? They’re so lively and hilarious and no offense to SunSky but they stole the show for sure lol.

❣️ Check Out - Episode 0 was unexpectedly good, I really liked their chemistry and the filming style is really nice. It sucks that we have to wait until next year for the full series but if it’s anything like this episode then it’s definitely worth the wait. I love it!

New show announcements

🎥  First Love Only Third - Coming November 2021 (South Korea)

🎥  Konorebi - Coming late 2021 (Taiwan) 🎥  Golden Blood The Movie - Date TBA (Thailand) 🎥  Vanishing My First Love - Coming October 18th 2021 (Manga adaption, Japan)

🎥  Want To Be On Your Mind - Date TBA (Thailand) 

🎥  I Wanna Bite It (from the producers of wish you & nobleman ryus wedding) - Date TBA (South Korea) 

🎥  My Sweet Dear (starring Jang EuiSoo from WYEL & Lee ChanHyung) - Coming October 2021 (South Korea) 🎥  Cherry Blossom After Winter - Coming late 2021 (South Korea)

Other news from the bl world

❗️The upcoming korean bl “First Love Only Third” will have 6 episodes à 25 minutes. Filming is scheduled for September and it will be available worldwide via OTT.  ❗️A first trailer for the upcoming Filipino bl “Turbulence” has been released. (Date TBA)

❗️ The annual LINETV awards were held on August 5th. The following 2 bls won:

ITSAY: Best Viral Scene,  Best Kiss Scene, Best Thai Song & Best Couple 2gether: Series of the Year, Most Followers of the Year, Most Hearted of the Year & Best Rising Star (Win Metawin).

❗️ The upcoming Thai BL “Check Out” was set to air this month, but was postponed to 2022 due to the pandemic. Episode 0, which tells the backstory, aired this month; the other pre-airing content (documentary, reactions, etc.) is being released over the next month.

❗️ “In Your Heart” is an upcoming Chinese BL with no censoring. The date is still TBA but they have released a few sneak peeks on the show’s Twitter account. ❗️ Podd Suphakorn (THCT, DBK) and Phuwin Tang (FUTS) received the award นนทลีสยาม in the category “Children who create a reputation for the nation”, which is given to people who have proven to have good ethics, morality and loyality on the occasion of mother’s day in Thailand. ❗️ The cast of the upcoming Thai BL “Unforgotten Night” has been announced. Yoon Phusanu and Ton Saran will be the leads, along with Sammy M. and others. The plot constains sadism and is considered controversial. ❗The korean webtoon “Cherry Blossom After Winter” will be adapted into a series and produced by Wstory (WYEL, Mr. Heart, YMMD). It is set to air later this year with a runtime of 20-30 mins per episode.

❗️A Tale of Thousand Stars won “Best LGBTQ+ program made in Asia” at the Content Asia Awards 2021. ❗️The upcoming thai bl “My Ride” is officially back in production after being delayed multiple times. A new poster has been released.

Upcoming shows & movies for September

☝🏻 See You After Quarantine - September 17th (Taiwan) ☝🏻 The Tasty Florida - September 24th (South Korea) ☝🏻 Innocent - September 24th (Taiwan)