#what is with me and having friendzone plotlines

[crystallizsch]

Okay obviously Yuusha is shipped with Jamil because baby idiots /aff

But I can’t remember… is Yuuna shipped with anyone?

Does our favorite floofy-haired silly have a ship or are they just focused on their platonic soulmates Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum, and Tweedle Dumber (Ace, Deuce, and Grim - who is who? You decide! 🤣)?

HI HI YES yuusha and jamil, my baby idiots, i cant separate them ever 😔💖

also,,, i finally have an excuse to share this silly shitpost i had from a while ago that i didn't know when to post ---

(this is a joke) (and im pretty sure this joke has been said and done before LMAO)

okay so to actually answer your question: as of now, the main "ship" yuuna has is with tweedle dee (ace), tweedle dum (deuce), and tweedle dumber (grim) as their platonic soulmates 😤💖

when yuuna was my only yuu oc, i used to ship them with riddle (unrequited -> platonic) and leona (platonic)

and jamil (romantic) but shhhh that's some old and forbidden lore (lowkey i was insane for all that)

although i'm kinda thinking about bringing back that unrequited-crush-from-riddle plotline ---

(im going to have a short-ish ramble about it below if anyone is interested hfjdsajfklds)

i'm so mean to riddle aaagh bc i thought it’d be interesting if i had riddle have an unrequited crush on yuuna :,D

bc i like the idea of riddle being like "hey i insulted you and was Not A Good Person and Almost Killed You, but for some reason you're still willing to be kind to me and be friends with me" to yuuna

cue attempts at "courting" yuuna -- with riddle reading books, looking up stuff, asking for advice, etc.

he invites yuuna on a "date" without it being explicitly stated that it's a date; yuuna just thinks they're hanging out

come the confession and yuuna is just like "oh :D?" "i'm sorry i only see you as a friend"

but it’s okay they both get over it and they see each other as genuine friends now :]

anyways have some old art of them :3

also also i’m still debating on whether or not i want ace be another unfortunate unrequited crush

bc there's like a scenario i imagined where riddle sees ace making the same look he was making towards yuuna when he had a crush on them and then ace denying it

(this thought process is all inspired by the ghost bride event bc ACE IN THAT EVENT OMGGG)

sigh

i dont talk about ace much either but honestly i have a soft spot for him too 🥺

like the way he cares So Much (in his own being-a-little-shit way) and is just overall really genuine and protective of his friends

ahgklsjfldjsl

alright i'll end it here --

[ladyfromaspookyforest]

What Is Will's Arc if Mlvn Is Endgame?

A Byler trying to make sense of the show from a mlvn POV

I like to be informed on both sides of a debate. So I'd like to understand what evidence mlvns have to support their ship. Unfortunately, most Milkshakes think mlvn endgame is obvious and therefore that they don't need to prove it. So basically, this is me trying to explore the one thing that just Does. Not. Make. Sense. to me from a mlvn endgame perspective. And that's Will's arc.

Will's arc IS STILL SUPER IMPORTANT when addressing the show from a mlvn standpoint because ships do not exist in a bubble. Therefore, it is essential to acknowledge that Will is integral/central to the show and that supporting queerness has been an ST theme since day 1. Will's arc has never been about familial acceptance. The first episode of the show demonstrated that Joyce loves Will no matter what. We had a queer-coded acceptance speech from Jonathan in that same season (another in season 2) and a far more blatant one in season 4. The series wrapping up with yet another would be dissatisfying and redundant.

Acceptance from his friends is not it either, because we also saw his friends sticking up for him despite being bullied about his visible queerness. Not once did anyone stick up for Will by denying his queerness. This is likely a consequence of taking Will's lead, suggesting Will has never denied his own queerness. It is very clear that this has been going on for quite a while and his friends not only do not have an issue with people thinking Will is gay, but will defend him on account of it. Will's friends accepting him is no great revelation.

Will's conclusion CANNOT be something that has been a truth from the start. If Will's story begins with being loved by all of his friends and family whether he's gay or not, we can't watch five seasons of him struggling only for the conclusion to be that he is loved by all of his friends and family whether he's gay or not. There is ZERO development. It can't be romance if it's not Mike. The turnaround is too quick for Will's feelings to come into the open, for him to be definitively friendzoned, for him to get over these feelings, for him to meet someone new, for him to develop feelings for this new person, and for him to get involved with this new person. This is literally impossible to cram into the final season even for a side character we WOULDN'T mind a rushed romance for. But ESPECIALLY not for Will, one of the backbone characters of the show (*cough* whose queerness has been integral to the show's very makeup from the start *cough cough*).

So if I'm fighting for my life over here to make mlvn make sense for Will, in order for this to work, you have to remove romance from Will's arc completely. Yes, we as Byler shippers are fully aware of the moment romance became integral for Will.

BUT for the sake of this exercise, we're going to say that Will's romantic plotline is a dead-end (I'll come back to the queerness) and that he's going to have to put his feelings for Mike on the backburner for the sake of the world. With this logic, you'd have to acknowledge that Will is going to be at the center of the supernatural plot, which most people do but some mlvn dingdongs think he's a gay, irrelevant, crybaby. So. Pretending we have logic: Will's at the center of the plot. Here's an imaginary arc for Will I've constructed in which he does not get the boy OR get sidelined:

Scenario

This is extremely dependent on the parallels between Will and Henry.

For the sake of this exercise, Henry is queer. He may or may not be within the actual world of ST, but for this to work, Henry's queerness would need to be expressly stated within the show. Additionally, THIS IS NOT A THEORY and it's not what I THINK will happen, so anything related to timeline theory is being side-lined here. For this scenario to work, there is one Henry and he becomes Vecna. Henry feels like an outsider. He is made to feel "wrong" and different. It would be necessary to parallel Virginia with Lonnie and to introduce a friend or a neighbor or some boy Henry had a crush on. If we wanted to explore more mature feelings to be closer to Will's, this could even take place later in the lab when he's older.

The gist is that Henry would have to experience the heartbreak of having feelings for a straight boy combined with internalized homophobia and a lack of acceptance from the people in his life. Both Henry and Will would experience harassment, feelings of being different, unrequited feelings, and come to a confrontation with one another. For maximum impact, Mike just found out about the painting/Will's feelings and reacted poorly (because of the lying, not the gay). Now Will's in a trance, having a one-on-one with Vecna in his mind lair and Mike's freaking the fuck out and feeling like an asshole and Vecna tries to relate to Will and Will's big triumph is realizing that Vecna is RIGHT and they are so much alike, but despite what Mike said, Will knows Mike loves him anyway. And despite being sad, gay, and alone, Will still loves the people in his life and he has some big moment of AND I LOVE MYSELF TOO and yay Will self-love hurrah you're sad but not going to let it ruin you woohoo and he tells Vecna there was nothing wrong with him when he was a wee lad either and yada yada you get the gist.

Why it works and why it doesn't

Ignoring what this does to Henry (because that's a whole other thing), this actually concludes Will's struggles with his own queerness perfectly fine. THEMATICALLY, it's trash. And that's the big issue with Will ending up single. When you look at Will as a character within this body of work, sans themes, you can see his arc as one of needing to accept HIMSELF. As I said before, it isn't about his family or friends accepting him (although explicit scenes of this would be beneficial for Will's self-love journey). We know he has accepted his own queerness, but he still feels like a mistake. His arc culminating in his acknowledgement that he is NOT a mistake is super important for him. I do, in fact, believe it's a large part of his REAL arc. Being able to take ownership of this part of himself and feel happy with it is necessary for him with or without romance. And within the story, it's okay to tell a tale about a queer boy who doesn't get the boy he loves if the story ends with him learning to love himself.

The issue is that this body of work exists in the real world. It exists in a world where telling that tale of the gay kid not getting the boy is delivering a negative message about queerness. It exists in a world where PR has been done surrounding the show that both allowed and encouraged the shipping of these boys. If the show ends with this bittersweet conclusion of Will's arc, letting go of his love for Mike but gaining love for himself, it won't be JUST about Will. Because Will represents gay youth in general. And ending with Robin and Vickie together does nothing for this message. It doesn't serve to show us that queer relationships are good and possible and that Mike and Will just weren't meant to be. Because Rockie is not a stand-in for Byler. That PR I mentioned still exists. You cannot say, "well we queerbaited Byler, but we still gave you a queer relationship!"

And way back to the beginning when I mentioned that supporting queerness has been woven into the show since the FIRST episode, while my (stupid) scenario or something similar allow Will's personal arc to conclude in a way that doesn't negate the narrative, it DOES negate the message.

So...WHAT is Will's arc if mlvn is endgame?

Self-love, IMO. I think Will's arc is equal parts learning he is NOT a mistake and learning that he CAN find love despite his queerness, but if mlvn were to be endgame, it could only be the first half. And if the show played his journey strong enough, they could make that extremely powerful on its own. Unfortunately, it's impossible to create this ending without sending a negative message. So while I DO think it is possible to wrap up Will's arc sans Byler in a way that makes sense within the narrative, I don't think it's possible outside of it. In a world where people consume the narrative and recognize that sad gay boy ending up alone = bad message. That even if queerness is accepted, celebrated, and supported WITHIN the show, the show says the OPPOSITE by allowing the only single party member to be the gay one.

I think this is where a lot of mlvns get confused. I'm not talking about the extreme antis and the homophobes. But for the people who genuinely care about Will and ship mlvn (they exist), I think this ability to disconnect Will and his journey from the Real World the show airs in is what allows them to believe mlvn endgame is not harmful. The people saying "It's realistic!" about Will being sad and in love with his straight best friend in the 80s are failing to recognize that THIS IS NOT THE 80S. It's MEDIA.

This is the major difference between Mlvn + Will and Byler + El. Both El and Will need to learn to love themselves and find strength in themselves outside of other people's perceptions of them. But, even if we ignore the depth/nature of feelings both El and Will have for Mike or the ways in which their relationships with him have been portrayed. Let's say Will and El feel EXACTLY the same about Mike. Byler + El = sad but empowered El while Mlvn + Will = sad but empowered Will + bad message.

I did genuinely set out to try to explain this argument to myself, not to go on an anti-mlvn tangent. But...my conclusion is that I can't (shocker). Art was meant to be perceived. Thank you and goodnight (it's afternoon).

[thethingsidoforausername]

#saveMacGyver!

This one is full of SPOILERS, so if you haven’t seen the 2016 MacGyver remake yet, go watch the show first and then come back.  Have fun! ^_^

 Okay, my fellow MacGyver fans (and those of you who apparently don’t care about spoilers), here’s why I’d love for someone to pick up this show for at least two more seasons:

 Obviously we require some Mac/Desi/Riley resolution.  Desi and Mac’s breakup can happen early in the sixth season, even like episode two, given the reasons for the breakup, but Mac is going to need time to recover (he had multiple seasons to recover from Nikki; he should get at least one season to recover from Desi or Mac+Riley will feel forced).  He’s got a lot to recover from that he’s been putting off feeling (as Mr. Bozer pointed out recently), so this would be a great opportunity for this to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and lets everything flood in. Mac can take some time throughout the season doing some real healing work (including therapy), and he and Riley becoming a thing can be weaved in gradually until they become an official thing, which can be used as a triumphant note in the season finale.

 But OF COURSE we can’t have Mac and Riley get together in the last episode and then not get to enjoy it, so we’d obviously need a seventh season.  Fortunately, there are plenty of moments and resolutions that need to happen (and the writers are clearly up to the task of creating engaging plotlines to weave around them):  

 Mac meets Riley’s parents as her boyfriend:

-          Elwood and Mac have weird, awkward bonding and/or conflict (Mac has to be thinking about the similarities and differences between his and Riley’s dad issues)

-          Mac and Riley visit Diane, who tells Mac that nothing would have made Jack happier than seeing Mac and Riley happy together (and that if he hurts her girl she’ll end him) (and oh my GOSH I just realized that they’re Jack and Diane, oh for heaven’s SAKE)

 Mac attends a Dalton’s Heroes reunion without Jack :’(

 Can we please run into Nikki again?  It’d be fun to see Mac and Nikki reunite while Mac is with Desi, but it’d also be interesting to see that while Mac is with Riley—Mac can have an internal crisis about the fact that he went from dating the team field analyst to dating the team field analyst and wonder whether he’s doing to Riley what Desi did to him: reaching through them to get to their ex.  By the end of the episode, Mac will have worked through the question enough to realize how very many things he loves about Riley Davis, and hearing him say them with happy, peaceful confidence will be awesome.  

 Some unresolved plotlines:

-          Jonah Walsh and his super soldier serum

-          Samantha Cage’s real identity (and why Murdoc knows that she’s going by a false name)

-          MURDOC

-          The one last bomb that The Ghost left for Mac somewhere out in the world

-          Desi’s KIA ex-fiancé who is definitely not dead (and how Desi and Mac get along after the breakup.  How does Mac handle receiving an invitation to their wedding??)  (Or, alternatively, who takes Desi’s place on the team after she leaves, but I do very much like her and would love to keep her.)

-          You made me watch Matty get her heart broken and then never let me see her fall happily in love??

-          Hey, it’d be fun watching Russ go after treasure; let’s do that

 And by the way, remember that moment when Desi knelt in a destroyed building in Germany and handed Hellen a radio so she could tell her family she was okay, and there were no subtitles provided because the context and tone and rhythm were all that was needed to convey that Hellen was saying something along the lines of “I love you so much.  So much”? Like dang.  

 DO YOU REMEMBER THAT TIME THAT BOZER ASKED JACK HOW TO GET OUT OF THE FRIENDZONE WITH RILEY AND JACK TOLD HIM THAT HE WAS LUCKY TO BE FRIENDS WITH SOMEONE AS AMAZING AS RILEY AND TO START TAKING NO FOR AN ANSWER??  JACK IS MY HERO <3 <3 <3  I fell madly in love with the entire show in that moment.

 Hey, remember when Russ asked Mac how he can always manage to find a coil of rope and Mac replied, “Same reason I look better than you in a tux—the universe wants it that way”? I freaking died.

 TL;DR  Whether the show is rescued or not, thank you so much, cast and crew, for delivering such a good one.  But if at all possible, I could really use some good Mac/Desi/Riley resolution, so please please please #saveMacGyver!!!

[barbreypilled]

☕️ other asoiaf in general opinions? (your post about theon's plotline sounds great btw)

hehehehehe I’m literally just at work Being A Crazy Person Online hehehehe also sorry if most of these are just me raging

-I said my piece about how I feel weird about certain aspects as an indigenous person in the tags of another post but I think about Dany’s mouse dress every single goddamn day and how GRRM probably wrote it to be perceived as weird or gross but if u think about it 1. mice in the Dothraki sea are probably much cleaner/literally just wild animals 2. the level of effort that would have had to go into catching, skinning, tanning and sewing all those mice is insane and impressive. I’m not surprised that an old white man from New Jersey has implicit bias especially about plains cultures but like. 😐. questionable.

Anyway my headcanon is that the Dothraki have a very rich culture that would have to be not only extremely scientifically advanced but also meticulously maintained in order to have survived as long as they have. They have a deep connection to the land and the ecosystems and to me that is genuinely impressive and should be portrayed as such and unfortunately it was completely overshadowed by the Hulking Brown Guy and Tiny Innocent White Girl dynamic which I hate so gd much

ANYWAY

also on that note if u think everyone in Westeros is white I think u might be a bit uhhhh dumb (actually yeah I’m going to make a separate post about all the weird shit ppl say on that topic in this fandom because good god)

-Sansa isn’t a bad person because she antagonized Arya she’s just an 11 year old child they’re all Like That (same w Jeyne)

-idk how to even explain it but I think The Show misinterpreted the series on such a fundamental level that I don’t even know how to finish this sentence like how do u….like….what…when u…when…when…when u.

-if GRRM didn’t want me to have autistic headcanons he wouldn’t have written so many autistic people. I said what I said

-the only good thing to come out of r/asoiaf was the Barb Is Hiding Mance In The Crypts Theory and I am choosing to believe it wholeheartedly solely on the grounds that I think it’s very sexy of her to sneak around and do weird underhanded shit. I love unhinged women so much it’s unreal

-I am so endlessly glad Tris wasn’t in the show if I had to endure the absolute barrage of friendzone memes that would have resulted from show!Tris I think I would have snapped a long time ago

-I think the only good adaptation would be a series of Disney-renaissance-esque 2d animated movies that take themselves very seriously. Period. I think Cersei should have an edgy villain song and the Walders should be cartoonishly different sizes.

aaahhh that’s all I have rn

[vyther16]

so, I made a meme for JoL ships that I either ship or have seen other ppl ship. my thoughts on all of them under the cut.

Chen Pingping/Xiao En--you mean to tell me there was never any hatefucking? Chen Pingping literally dedicated 20 years and ruined 3+ lives to get a few secrets out of Xiao En. There was hatefucking there at some point. 

Ye Ling’er/Lin Wan’er--friends with benefits. I have never seen a more lesbiany lesbian than Ye Ling’er and Lin Wan’er is bi. I’m sorry, I don’t make the rules

Ye Ling’er/Fan Ruoruo--butch/femme lesbians. Also they made eye contact once and I immediately said “that’s my ship” (then I got yby/sxj but that’s aside the point)

Zhan Doudou/Si Lili--idk about this one folks. I don’t call them lesbians bc I hc Zhan Doudou as transing his gender but there’s definitely something going on there

Xie Bi’an/Li Chengze--there is a lot of devotion going on here, though I personally don’t see what all the fuss is about. I don’t think Xie Bi’an is fleshed out enough for it to be NOT disproved by canon.

Li Yunrui/Yan Xiaoyi--this is basically the same as Xie Bi’an/Li Chengze except I personally am more invested in it and therefore read much further into their actions

Chen Pingping/Ye Qingmei--this might be outright stated in the show? I’m not sure. The whole mama mia plotline with the dads and Ye Qingmei is confusing

Fan Xian/Si Lili--book love interest, yadda yadda yadda, I guess they have chemistry? But they also kinda get over it sooo…. I don’t see it, personally. I could ship them for a deadly one night stand, and canon could too, I guess, but canon also pushes the monogamous!fx agenda against the book so they say fx/sll don’t get it on

Fan Xian/Haitang Duoduo--book love interest, but she friendzones him hard in the show (and i think the feeling is pretty mutual too). The only reason this is NOT disproved by canon is because of the stunt Fan Xian pulled with the empress dowager about being in love with htdd

Fan Xian/Lin Wan’er-- this is literally canon. And I thought they had a lot of chemistry, tbh, even though not everyone agrees. I also just really like Li Qin lol. I just think she’s neat.

Yan Bingyun/Shen Wan’er--may I direct you to one of my three joy of life fics, all of which have some form of yby/sxj? This is my favorite ship in this show. The enemies to lovers. The mutually requited pining. The ‘I lied to you.’ The continued lying. The cold one likes the sunshine one. Betraying king and country. Self-sacrifice is a love language. I just really love yby and sxj guys. I love them a lot.

There are some double standards in my shipping, such as the fact that Fan Xian/Si Lili has very similar circumstances to Yan Bingyun/Shen Wan’er, but fx/sll is a v specific circumstances ship while yby/sxj is an otp

Xie Bi’an/Li Chengze and Yan Xiaoyi/Li Yunrui are also very similar, but Yan Xiaoyi is a much more compelling character to me, so his ship has more meat to it than Xie Bi’an. This is not a knock on the Xie Bi’an/Li Chengze shippers out there; it’s just an explanation of my personal tastes.

I don’t actually think Zhan Doudou/Si Lili is a canon ship, at least in the show, but it’s fun to imagine. I know some fans think of them as lesbians, but my reading of Zhan Doudou is that he’s trans, and thus they are not lesbians, though still very queer.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S2 Ep 44-45: Kaiba Hallucinates a Dead Woman and Then no One Talked About it???

So, for the record, I am writing a little bit to the future here because I did make a little bit of buffer. And this episode had a Hella Random Thing in it and I just want y’all to know I try to create an authentic reading experience--although it’s not like a blind riffing, I clearly watched each episode twice to make the caps and write all this stuff--and I do it one episode at a time so you get a somewhat close to a realistic live cap experience, but like, believe me when I say I did not see this coming.

At all.

At all.

And if any of you were watching this at home and saw this happening then you are lying OR you have been writing a very creative fanfic and this fever dream was also shared by that one guy on this writing staff who really really really stans Seto Kaiba. Lets dive into it, shall we?

Things start out pretty normal, as we are yet tucking another hospitalized person into Kaiba’s floating coma ward.

I’m starting to notice that this room also has sheets which just means when they got to Bakura, they just didn’t feel like tucking that nasty boy in. They looked at him covered in blood and grime and whatever other sweaty layers are all over Bakura and were like “None of us like Kaiba, but we don’t want to do that to his linens.”

And then the episode starts with Joey literally saying this

Now in the actual line of the show, Serenity stayed behind because she wanted to be strong for Mai, a lady she looked up to so much for all of 3 hours. She also said that her brother’s strength inspired her to have the courage to stay well below deck and whatever the hell nonsense was going on up there.

I mean courage is a word you could use to describe it, I would just call it common sense.

Also, look at this Christmas miracle.

I like that someone on the animation team was like “How else are they going to know that Mai isn’t wearing the disk? Draw it on the table. We have to.” and then bam there it is. That is one super random detail.

(more under the cut)

At the top of the blimp, they’ve decided to give Marik a little bit more space.

The Yuge crew must’ve looked at this situation and been all “I can stand next to Marik, or I can appear to root for Kaiba.” And they made their choice.

Below deck we get to see one of my favorite things, that’s right, it’s fake UI for TV shows.

these look like windows you pull up in Maya when you’re trying to find the right vertex or something. Maybe that’s what inspired all this? I dunno, it’s very silly that he would need the same image of a card twice, and that he would need one flipped and in wireframe. Especially since all they're doing is translating a language.

Or maybe he’s just been dogging Kaiba for half an hour before this episode started? Who knows, but honestly, I kinda have to side with Kaiba on this one, moving Mai would be a bad choice since there’s doctors--right there--but like...they should land the blimp though. Like the blimp with a murderer on it maybe needs to land at some point?

But never mind that, there’s cards to be played.

Or...not played.

It takes Ishizu so long to show up that Roland almost cancelled the game and I was so ready to not have to watch a card duel. I was so ready for that to be the canonical end of Ishizu but of course that didn’t happen.

PS, Marik is permanently glowing now.

Kaiba still doesn’t believe in magic and this guy has a constant third eye. So did Yugi all of last duel and Kaiba was just like “I don’t get your weird fashion” and tbh that’s a fair assumption to make.

To be fair, they probably only have once source of not cursed jewelry living underground, and it’s probably why their so matchy-matchy. Like, we all have that one Aunt (I was that one Aunt for a little while) with an Etsy shop and way too much inventory that they just give away to family every birthday and holiday. Judging by how much jewelry these two are wearing, their one Aunt isn’t doing so hot selling her merch.

Anyway, Marik’s good side makes an attempt to reach out and it doesn’t get him very far.

Honestly, when you look at it, there’s more people here from Kaiba’s extremely close school class than there is from the Ishtar family. And they don’t even know that Odion is also related. Sort of calling the kettle black here.

Again, ancient Egyptian Samurai with Yugioh cards would have been one hell of a spinoff with so many problems, where is that anime?

So, the game begins, between a mostly-neutral-antagonist and a protagonist who has done nothing but lock herself in her room in the dark for about 1/4 of a season. I have literally no idea who I’m supposed to be rooting for. Neither does anyone on the show.

Things went about as well as you’d expect dueling a psychic, because Kaiba has learned absolutely nothing from dueling Pegasus.

*Mokuba still has the whistle*

Anyway, because Ishizu can read the future, she knew she’d be going up against a dude who relies on very big strong dragons, so she straight up removed every strong card from his deck, leaving only six cards. 

It’s at this point that he only really has one option, to play a Blue Eyes White dragon, which he had in his hand still, or to play the God Card Obelisk which I think was still on field? Again I don’t pay too much attention to the duels but the big thing is that he’s gonna use Obelisk, so Ishizu cursed it so it would hella kill him.

Much like any of the God Cards have done thus far. The worst cards. These are the worst cards and at this point no one should want them anymore. But youknow, hubris.

This is all pretty run of the mill since every time Kaiba duels, he gets hella dunked on, but then...this happens out of absolutely no where.

WHAT?

SHOW.

The least dateable guy in Yugioh!? How is it Kaiba--a past version of him mind you--but a shirtless Kaiba who’s got some lady draped across his arms like he’s gotta model for the cover of a Harlequin romance novel for old ladies? Which...I can arrange that.

Why--out of all of these boys, was it this one that has something the most resembling a fully formed relationship? More so than Tristan, more so than Yugi, more so than whatever was going on with Joey last episode.

What!?

WHAT?

This came out of no where like a jump scare!

And like, here’s the thing, if Kaiba was your slice of pie from the weird ass hair dessert tray that is Yugioh’s selection of husbands, that’s fine. Ship away. But like, imagine with me here, you have a boyfriend--and if you don’t like boys that only adds to this experience--you have a boyfriend and he has the most normal hair of anyone you know, and that’s really great. But his voice ALWAYS sounds like he’s announcing an NBC cop drama. Like you’re eating dinner and he’s like “Can we watch the food channel?” like he’s solid snake.

You’d kill him. You’d kill him way before you end up dead draped across his arms in some weird flashback. You’d straight up kill him.

Sorry, I just made him a lot more attractive for half of you. Whatever, my plan backfired.

But, despite...how...he is, now Seto has one of the most tragic of all the relationships on this show, up there with Pegasus and his dead wife. And so like, I turned to my bro and was like “WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT WHAT JUST HAPPENED??”

Cuz this show that has very, very little dating in it. A show that has had no physical kissing unless you count that time Pegasus macked a ghost. A show where someone almost got married to someone they never dated in their life and they shrugged it off. A show that had Mai and Joey friendzoning the hell out of eachother rather than admit any sort of crush. A show where Tea and Yugi went on a date but then I guess forgot that happened 20 episodes ago and are now in permanent friend limbo. (Tea and Yugi so far having the most realistic dating experience tbh.)

This is just straight up here’s a picture of past Seto, and his dead wife is here too, no explanation! Have fun digesting that!

(wouldn’t have noticed they forgot to finish Yugi’s necklace if I hadn’t done the cap. hm. So fast I blinked and missed it until I wrote this copy.)

And like, I’m making it seem in these caps as if these characters talked about what I just witnessed in any degree and straight up they didn’t. Of course they didn’t. Kaiba didn’t want to discuss this crazy ass thing that happened. Just me. I am the only one that’s talking about this in 2019. Just me.

So I turn to my bro and was like “you have to tell me what just happened” and bro was like

“Sorry to disappoint you but...I’m pretty sure that dead girl never comes up again.” and then he kind of continued “I’m pretty sure Kaiba sacrificed his one true love in order to get his Blue Eyes.” and I realized “Bro, is this just a headcanon you made up? Are you telling me your spicy Seto Kaiba fanfic as if it’s true just like that one time you told me that Yugi’s Grandpa ate a guy in Egypt and I believed you for 30 episodes?” and bro was like “Mmmmmm It’s probably a headcanon. I’m pretty sure they dropped Kaiba’s dead girlfriend plotline completely off the face of the Earth. Like a LOT of plotlines from s2, Rach, don’t get attached.”

So, because Kaiba believes that his.......dragon.......told him to play a dragon, Kaiba sacrifices his Obelisk to play a dragon--thus removing the Obelisk curse.

So if it’s strongly suggested that Kaiba’s love for this dragon is youknow, an equivalent to the devotion you would have a for a dead wife you have cradled in your arms, then -- has Kaiba been dating this dragon the whole time? Is that what the show just seriously suggested to me with this juxtaposition? Because I am an illustrator and if I wanted to make someone look like they had an intense and complicated relationship with a playing card, that is how I would draw it. Just saying.

And like for serious, how is it that Yugioh keeps writing it’s own fanfic? Like, is this dragon infused with the spirit of his dead wife? Is that why his reincarnation has this weird fixation with the Blue Eyes White Dragon? OMG this is absolutely ridiculous, I can’t believe I’m considering that Kaiba was literally married to what is now his paper card of a dragon. Of which he has 3 of.

Clearly I am thinking way too much about this.

I mean to be fair, Kaiba did save Tea that one time. He also took out a helicopter and a crane at the same time but Tea was just fine.

Oh boy.

That was so freakin random. Well...I’m glad that Kaiba got back together with the dragon. They had sort of a breakup at the beginning of the season and now KaibaxDragon is back in full swing. Good for them.

This was the only guy smart enough not to play a God Card, PS. This guy. I guess if Seto fell in a plot coma the entire tourney would be essentially over, so...it had to happen this way.

But dead wife, amiright?

Here’s a link to read from S1 Ep1

And PS in case you don’t know about the Billionaires and Baby’s books that have--I swear to you, like 400 books in the series--please admire the billionaires and babies books. Never read them. But I like to spread the news of these completely insane and real book covers wherever I go.

[wendella]

OUTLANDER Outlander Season Finale: Who Are the “Men of Worth” in Season 4? by Natalie Zutter www.tor.com

After last year’s Outlander finale, which literally shipwrecked Claire and Jamie onto the shores of America, I was expecting a bigger cliffhanger ending to this season—that the letter the redcoats delivered to Jamie at River Run would be conscripting the poor Scot to fight on their side in the American Revolution. Then I remembered that it was only 1770, and that the next big war was a few years (or, I’m going to assume, one season) away. Instead, the season 4 finale, filled with resolutions both neat and messy, ends on Jamie getting a much more pressing, one-on-one assignment that reemphasizes this season’s enduring question: Can a good man do a bad thing and remain a “Man of Worth”?

Spoilers for Outlander season 4.

The thing is, it’s difficult to care too much about Jamie being ordered to hunt down Murtagh on behalf of Governor Tryon, because it seems too obvious that, between the two of them, they’ll be able to come up with a solution. That could mean faking Murtagh’s death or smuggling him back to Scotland, and thus away from Fraser’s Ridge, which would carry its own bittersweet heartache, but it’s not as if there’s an ideological chasm between them—hence the low stakes. It also seems a far-off problem when this season was more than a little uneven, and I’m still working through my frustrations with how the Brianna and Roger plots shaped the latter half of the season.

So, what feels like the most appropriate way to send off Outlander season 4 is to return to the theme linking the past thirteen episodes—good men doing bad things, bad men doing things that might have positive ramifications despite their intent—and reexamine the worthiness of Outlander’s men.

Jamie: If I were Jamie, I would be feeling like a right arse by the end of this season. First he helps outlaw Stephen Bonnet escape, out of a misguided sense of goodwill toward a fellow immigrant in this new country, only for that to blow up spectacularly in his face. Of course, he has no way of knowing how the consequences of his act of charity will lead to his daughter getting raped by Bonnet, but it’s a sobering lesson in the dangers of believing the best of your fellow man. Then Jamie swings to the opposite end of the spectrum by assuming that Roger is the one who violated Brianna, beating him senseless without taking a breath to consider, to question the circumstances, propelled by pure rage. Brianna is rightfully furious at him—and they have one of the best moments of the season, when Jamie screams and kicks a chair in frustration and Brianna snaps, “No! You are not allowed to be angrier about this than I am.” He’s clearly wrestling with so much self-loathing that, after twenty years of maturing and growing beyond the hot-headed lad he was when he met Claire, he has regressed back into an impulsive thug.

But Jamie has also learned self-awareness in the intervening decades, as he demonstrates in his incredible scene of vulnerability, asking Claire if she and Bree think that Frank was the better man. He got the girl—she went back in time for him—and he still doubts that he’s good enough. Sam Heughan has brought so much depth and nuance to a character who could have stayed a one-dimensional fantasy; watching James Fraser grow up has been one of the series’ greatest delights.

Roger: On the one hand, Roger endures indescribable pain and suffering as a slave of the Mohawk—the worst possible time travel experience, all because of a misunderstanding he was only partly to blame for. On the other hand, every time he’s offered the chance to be the good guy, he finds a way to be unlikable. Slut-shaming Brianna for being unsure about marrying him as a virgin was difficult to watch, especially considering that the next time they see each other, she was the one to compromise her comfort and pledge her life to him because of his unwillingness to budge. He reiterates multiple times that he had the chance to leave and kept coming back for her, but we only hear that through his telling, which casts him as some romantic hero. At the last minute of the episode he comes riding in on a horse, for crissakes, but that’s more than a day after Jamie and Claire return to River Run, believing that Roger was unwilling to join them.

Again, these are the kinds of choices one would not wish on anyone—such as being told that there is a good chance that Brianna’s baby is not his, and that to honor the terms of their handfast would mean committing to raising that child and spending the rest of his life in the past. If anything, as much as their plotline aggravated me, at least it forced constraints on Roger’s decision, instead of him getting to set the stakes. Roger is not a bad man, but he has demanded a lot of Brianna; I’m curious to see them build a more equal partnership going forward.

Stephen Bonnet: I’m still so impressed with how Bonnet went from charismatic stranger to fatal threat in the space of one episode, and how just a few acts of specific cruelty did so much to change the course of the Fraser family’s lives. Considering how we witnessed his turn in the premiere, it was difficult to muster up any real sympathy for him when Brianna confronted him with her emotional speech about how her child would be nothing like him. Offering up the ruby seemed like a rare moment of vulnerability for the criminal, but I suspect that was more of a formal obligation to contribute one positive thing to this bairn’s life than any regret for raping Brianna in the first place. Also, I’m not convinced that he perished in that prison, and am half-expecting that he will reappear, cockroach-like, next season to kidnap the baby that might be his.

Brianna’s son: Just born, and as far as I remember they did not mention his name. So, for fear of revealing the few book spoilers I stumbled upon in my research (ironic, I know), I’ll just reiterate that he’s a wee fighter and not tack on “like his da” since we are just ignoring his paternity. It was clear, though, that Bree was anxious to meet the little guy, in case she somehow saw Bonnet reflected in his face, but that upon taking him in her arms she was relieved to feel nothing but overwhelming love.

That said, from the moment that Brianna decided to keep the baby, there was no saving her plotline for me. But that’s a discussion for another piece.

Young Ian: I can’t feel anything but oddly maternal pride upon witnessing Ian’s character growth, particularly in this season but even stretching back to when he dragged his poor uncle and aunt across an ocean to save his overeager ass. The season premiere saw him grappling with the trauma of being raped by Geillis, of shaping his identity around what happened to him while not letting it define him; concurrently, he’s learned how to make himself a useful member of Fraser’s Ridge. Sure, offering to marry Brianna was classic dumb Young Ian; selling Roger to the Mohawk was nigh unforgivable. But he more than made up for it by offering up himself in Roger’s place, to live among the Mohawk and replace their dead member. Honestly, it was about time that Ian learned who he was without his blood relations there to protect him. And look how he made it through the gauntlet! That’s our boy.

Murtagh: It’s fascinating to see how the writers fit Murtagh into the narrative, considering that the character is kinda living on borrowed time—that is, he’s long-dead in the books, but they spared him in the adaptation. His and Jamie’s reunion in Wilmington scratched one of my narrative itches—that prolonged moment in which two souls, separated by time and distance, slowly recognize one another while the viewer is screaming omg, hug already!! But now not only are they caught up on the last decade-plus of each other’s lives, but they also recognize that they have landed on different sides of a growing conflict, due to their respective definitions of self-preservation. I’d like to see the series delve more into this next season, to really make it an impossible choice for Jamie.

Side note: Murtagh and Jocasta’s argument-turned-hookup, complete with her throwing whiskey in his face, was amazing.

Fergus: Under-utilized this season, stuck in Wilmington and mostly just reacting to the plot action when it comes to him. What would make Jamie’s dilemma more affecting would be if Fergus (who, it’s been established, can’t find work anywhere else) joins the regulators in earnest—making it twoloved ones that Jamie is contractually bound to hunt down.

Otter Tooth: The initial discovery of Otter Tooth’s skull made it seem as if he and his silver fillings would play a larger role in the season. While at first it was a surprise that it took only half of an episode to lay out his story, it also speaks to the utter tragedy of the failed time traveler. Unlike Claire, who finds a willing believer in Jamie when it comes to Culloden and other predictions of the future, poor Otter Tooth could not convince enough of the Mohawk to heed his warnings about the Iroquois being forgotten. Instead, he was branded a madman, hunted down, and forced to haunt this time and place, unable to bring about the change he so desperately wanted. Moreso than almost any other plot this season, it’s a thought-provoking story that Diana Gabaldon included, and the writers adapted. Plus, the post-credits visual of him in his present watching the two white boys play Cowboys and Indians was wrenching, and one of the series’ best of these little moments.

Lord John Grey: Poor Lord John puts up with a lot this season, mostly in the form of the daughter of the man he loves blackmailing him into marrying her, lest she out him to everyone. But this is the man who maintained affection for Jamie even after being friendzoned, who has proven over and over that he will put his own desires behind those of a child in need of a father, or a pregnant woman who will be dishonored without a husband. LJG is good people.

William: What a fierce, pouty li’l jerk. It’s too bad that we weren’t treated to the narrative weirdness of William’s half-sister Brianna becoming his stepmother, but perhaps he’ll reappear in future seasons.

Lesley: To be honest, I had barely registered him before he got his throat slit by Bonnet, but nobody deserves a death like that. RIP.

Frank: FRANK. His one cameo this season, in a number of revelatory and gutting flashbacks, was the perfect way to bring him back—especially since we see him through Brianna’s eyes, after years of him refracted through Claire’s perspective. But even Brianna doesn’t realize how many complicated feelings it layers on top of Frank’s motivations to know that he had the obituary the whole time and never let on to Claire that he knew about her supposed death. Not that I blame him, considering how she treated returning to their marriage as a consolation prize, but still.

George Washington: Presumably, but we only got a few scenes with him. I’m looking forward to (hopefully) more of the would-be President next season.

Rollo: Very Good Boy. Very glad he made it through the season and will accompany Young Ian on this new adventure.

[ctl-yuejie]

How do you feel about the cheating storyline in Friend Zone? I hate when cheating is used as a lazy plot device to instil unnecessary drama. That's why I steered clear of TNC. From the various reactions to TNC I've seen it seems that storyline was sloppily written and uncalled for. Is it the same in Friend Zone? Or is the writing and acting solid enough to still make it worth watching? (Is it obvious I just want to watch Sam and Earth make out? 😀)

hmmm….I personally don’t mind cheating as a plot-device but I do understand people having reservations about it, especially when it’s between a same-sex couple (reenforcing the “promiscuous-and-unfaithful”-trope).

that being said, I do agree very much on the lazy part. if you want it to be a romantic series your writing has to be really good in order to not ruin the story.

with twm:tnc i stopped watching pretty early on (not because of the cheating plot but the writing in general) so i don’t know how exactly the storyline played out but from what i’ve heard it belongs to the bad examples. not only contradicts it Korn’s character (in the first season we learn that he got cheated on) but I can’t root for a happy ending in a romantic-comedy when one of the partners cheated.

i don’t have that emotional attachment to Friend Zone as i do with TGM so i might be more lenient on this show.

a big difference for me is that all male characters (except maybe Good and Earth) are catastrophes either happening or about to happen so the whole storyline is heading towards a train wreck from the get-go.

i live for that kind of messy and can’t wait for everyone to get hurt. 

so far they got the important things down: we know the motivation of each character and their emotions and for some terrible reason you can’t really hate Stud (who is the catalyst for the cheating) cause they’ve written him charmingly.

i don’t wish on Earth the agony of getting cheated on, but while a scream “no-no-no-no-no” at Sam i can’t wait for him to cross the line because that’s where they put the focus of the story in my opinion.

for kornknock it’s all about “will they work through this?!” which doesn’t make the cheating plotline entertaining at all. so far with friendzone i’m very entertained and can’t wait for everyone to escalate. 

that being said, if they have Earth end up with Sam after he cheats i will take this back. so far it’s well-written and fun to watch but Earth is too precious to give him a bad end (maybe we’ll get a plot-twist of some sorts but idk).

[supermansion-appreciation]

Welcome to Supermansion!

Hi! I'm making a Supermansion Appreciation blog, because it is a genuinely amazing cartoon with a basically nonexhistant fandom.

Why is there no fandom? I don't know. This is a free cartoon with unique animation, interesting worldbuilding, scathing political and social commentary, emotional plot developments, and shamelessly progressive representation: central LGBT characters whose characters are defined by more than just their queer identities AND who actually get to have love interests, cultural diversity in terms of race, religion, and even species (though oftentimes species is a metaphor for class, ethnicity, or even disabilities), disabled characters whose disabilities affect them but don't prevent them from being kickass, even the character's ages are widely varied in a way that impacts the plot! Season 1 Finale Spoilers: And none of these diverse characters are tragically killed off. Instead, a straight white man is the one who tragically dies to further the character development of his neurodiverdent POC-coded girlfriend and the rest of their found family. It's really good and kinda heartbreaking. At the heart of it all? An engaging, constantly shifting found family dynamic.

It has all the elements of a Tumblr Hit, but it sadly fell flat due to an unpopular media platform (Supermansion is, admittedly, the only reason why I have a Crackle account, but it's a FREE account!) And the inescapable first impression of a mindless adult swim show due to season one's complete lack of shame in using South Park-esque offensive humor. It's a tragedy, because one of the greatest things about this show is that it defies it's first impression.

I'll be honest, this show started as a guilty pleasure for me, but the deeper you get the deeper it gets. Main characters die tragically and permanently, with lasting impact. Once-offensive characters slowly but surely learn to be better people, and more interesting characters. Parody plotlines evolve into actually interesting dynamics, and explore the relatability and humanity of supers in complex situations far better than any other comic universe I've seen.

They just started season 3, which so far seems to be focusing on the complicated and blurry dynamic between heroes and villains, and what it would take to bring them together as a family. A hero and a villain (former allies torn apart by betrayal) work together to be decent dads for their morally fluid (and canonically genderfluid) daughter: another "villain" grapples with newfound romantic feelings for his self-proclaimed nemesis, an enthusiastically bisexual batman-esque manchild: a dog friendzones himself while nervously trying to ask a cat out on a date. It's amazing.

[jeanjauthor]

Gonna post the pics here and explain which ones I’d knock outta the running.  My reasons are ONLY my own opinion, and I admit in advance that others have their right to their own opinions as well, and that whatever I say about what I like & dislike, all of these categories are still valid for those who actually do like them...even if some of them I am just utterly sick of by now, or have what I think are genuine reasons to want those categories gone.

Anyway, caveats over, on with the fun...which I will put behind a cut to save everyone’s dashboards!

Trapped Together. Only One Bed. Marriage Of Convenience. Fake Relationship.

...Of course they start this off with the hardest one to choose to get rid of, because I love all of these.  I think, however...that “Only One Bed” and “Trapped Together” are pretty darn close.  Marriage of Convenience is not the same thing as Fake Relationship--it’s an actual relationship with an actual committment at some level on both sides--so those both have to stay.

Only One Bed, that one presumes they actually like each other at least enough to travel together, so that’s a bonus, but Trapped Together doesn’t guarantee even a smidge of that; they’re forced together...

Damn this is hard.  I really like the “oh no, only one bed, and we’ll have to share it!” trope...but Trapped Together could include that...plus it has more plot possibilities.

So I’m going to vote out Only One Bed, even though it goes against my plotline principles normally.

The next one is this:

Tortured/Scarred.  Cinnamon Roll. Alpha.  Playboy/Rake.

Tortured/Scarred needs more love, because there are a lot of people in the world who are indeed tormented & injured / unlovely / disabled.  I do wish the disability aspect would stop being used as inspiration pr0n but people are getting better about that, at least.

Cinnamon Roll is a keeper, too.  Truly good, or rather, Good™, characters need to be celebrated, protected, and promoted as an ideal role model...provided there’s someone in their lie who can and does keep an eye out (cynical eye) for Bad Things And Bad People™, because perpetual innocence is ridiculously unreal...but it’s 100% valid to have a hopeful heart and a kind nature.

As for Alpha and Playboy/Rake...I’m sick of both.  And it’s difficult as to which one to toss out, because they both have their downsides.  “Alpha Males” tend to be bullies and abusers and manipulative self-centered assholes. I’ve read far too many of those stories where they literally kidnap women and refuse to return them to their homes / families / homeworlds (scifi or fantasy), etc.  But on the other hand, Playboys & Rakes perpetuate the “rich = right” and “money means you can grab them by the p***y, they just let you do it” mentality.

Right now, I am far too angry at T & Co, and the oligarchs keeping them in power.  And I am also reminded that Nalini Singh (we have the same editor, squee!) has a FANTASTIC universe, the psy-changeling universe, where Alphas are actually kind, caring, loving, protective, and NOT bullies toward their own people, including their own mates.  (Usually, but the few that were a bit bullying learned better!)

So I’m going to ditch the Playboy/Rake mindset, because we need to stop thinking the rich can get away with anything.  I mean, have you SEEN 2020??

*ahem*  Next...

Turgid. Moist. Thrust. Plunge.

Part of me really dislikes moist (though not Moist, the character from Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog) as a word...but on the other hand, lubrication is always a good thing to have.  Turgid is a bit old-fashioned, but at the same time it is an accurate word.  Thrust is a bit, well, stabby.  Plunge makes me think of swimming pools, not lovemaking.  (Or possibly stopped up toilets, ugh.)

Mkay, this is another difficult one, but...I think...rrrgh, had to change my mind. I think I’ll do away with moist, so long as “lubrication = a very good thing” is still implied somewhere in the descriptions for lovemaking.

Next!

Instalove.  Roommates. Friends With Benefits. Just A Fling.

I’m not fond of Just A Fling, since it implies a lack of emotional & at least some mental intimacy.  But Instalove also does the same, and it’s trying to tell readers that infatuation = abiding love...when that often isn’t the case.

I’ve lived long enough to learn that infatuation is great, but rarely turns into an abiding love, because we rarely teach how to turn infatuation into an abiding, long-lasting love.

For these reasons, I love Roommates and Friends With Benefits, because you already know (or are getting to know) each other’s bad habits and other potentially annoying quirks...and yet you fall in love anyway, while knowing those things.  That sort of journey has a lot more of the patience, understanding, and willingness to compromise on all sides that makes long-term love a genuine thing.

Just A Fling implies they know each other a bit more, or can get to know each other a bit more as they fall for each other.  And yes, Instalove IS a thing, I’m not deying that...but you have to make the follow-up efforts to turn it into lasting love.  I think it has more of an incentive to make those efforts than Just A Fling does...and it’s possible for Just A Fling to fit under Instalove (though it’ll be a bit of a squeeze) so I’m ditching Just A Fling.

On to the next quartet:

Enemies To Lovers. Forbidden Love. Unrequited Love. Second Chance.

A couple toughies in this one.  Forbidden love...we still don’t have marriage & relationship equality, so that one’s staying right where it is, as it’s an analogy of how love should triumph over bigotry.

I’m more torn on the other three.  Second Chance...sometimes there are good reasons to not give someone a second chance.  Abusers can be very charming, and make all sorts of sweet-talking promises.  Sometimes, however, two people are just in the wrong stage of life to make a go of it.

Unrequited Love runs the risk of crossing over into the ‘tragically friendzoned’ bullshit which is only viewing the narrative from that one person’s perspective.  This is not to say that unrequited love is only ‘friendzoned through rose-colored glasses’, which it isn’t, but it is potentially problematic, unless it’s just another take on Friends To Lovers.

Enemies To Lovers has a lot of potential, but it needs to be realistic potential.  Not just a “Hey, let’s pit the Hulk versus Thor, get ‘em mad at each other for no other reason than action sequences & giggles!” sort of plotless nonsense, but a genuine “these two have more in common than they ever realized, AND their antipathy hasn’t crossed into unforgivable awfulness toward each other territory.”

I think that Second Chance is going to have to be set aside.  It was either that or Unrequited Love, but while Friends To Lovers can cover Unrequited Love...I really, reallydon’t want to send the message that “it’s okay to reunite with your abusive ex.”  ...See?  I can’t even write it without striking that “okay” out.  It’s NOT okay.  It never will be.

Secret Relationship. Secret Billionaire. Secret Baby. Secret Royal.

I’m fine with Secret Relationships...unless it’s cheating/adultery, in which case oh hell no. (Remember, I am polyamory-friendly, but polyamory ≠ cheating!!)  But otherwise it’s fine.

Secret Baby sets my teeth on edge a little, because one should know about babies. The body bearing it has the right to choose to continue bearing it or withdraw consent, because we SHOULD have more rights to bodily autonomy than goddamn corpses, but mostly it’s a case of there’d better be A Damn GOOD Reason™ for hiding this child, robbing them of a presumably loving parent’s love for X period of time.

I’m very much anti-oligarchy, but to be honest, I’m much more inclined to believe a secret billionaire has run away to live a normal life (such as the child of a manipulative asshole running away from association with all that) than I am to believe in Secret Royalty anymore.  It’s just...it’s overdone.  it’s like HOW MANY DUKES EXISTED in the Regency era??  It’s lost its believability potential that’s all.  So out with the Secret Royal (for now)!

Mistaken Identity. Amnesia. In Disguise. In Peril.

Amnesia. Kicking that one out the door right away.  It’s overdone, it doesn’t work the way it’s most often displayed, and I just know too much about the actual medical condition to enjoy it.

Mind you, pretending to have Amnesia is fine! That’s “In Disguise” right then & there, lol...but no, the other three tropes are far better than that old rag.  *tosses it away!*

Duke. Cowboy. Tycoon. Athlete.

...You’d think that from my rant above regarding Secret Royals, I’d kick out Duke as a category. I won’t.  I just want to see Dukes (and other nobility titles) in other eras than just Regency and/or modern.  So overdone in those eras, but not in others.

Athletes...I’m not into sports.  I’m not a sporty-sport type.  I don’t read those books so I don’t know how overdone the tropes are, though I’ve only noticed them coming into prominence in fanficdom in the last ten to fifteen years, with the HP fandom being big on quidditch-based fanfic stories.

Now, Cowboys are a bit overglamorized, but...they’re working class types, and if you get some actual honest work-on-the-farm or work-on-the-ranch scenes in there, and it’s believable? That’s still okay.

Tycoons are overused, too...but unlike Billionaires, you can be a Tycoon in a lot of different ways.  Sometimes via money, sometimes via some sort of monopoly--like the company that owns the company store, town, people, etc.  Still...being a tycoon means you (or your family) has done something to monopolize money, business, property, etc...and I despise the oligarchy.  So since most tycoon stories don’t talk about paying employees above a livable wage, or constantly improving the living conditions in the company-owned town, etc...fuq ‘em.  *punts them outta town, covered in tar & feathers*

(I never said I’d be consistent, just that these are my opinions per category group.  I’m evaluating every quartet solely against its fellow members, even if I reference other groups or categories.)

Flick. Pierce. Spear. Breach.

...Unless these are in reference to combat, only Flick should remain, because the others all make me think of combat more than lovemaking.  However...that being said, we’re only supposed to discard just the one, so I think I’ll get rid of Breach.

Why Breach?  The bullshit misogyny of virginity culture, and the absolute anatomical awfulness of writers who don’t know where the goddamn hymen is.

...i could go into a very long rant about where the hymen is, what it’s shaped like, why it doesn’t have to be torn and spurt oodles of visible blood when you’re making love for the first time, blah blah blah--and why if you do get that happening, you 1. haven’t taken care of your partner’s needs AT ALL, and 2. clearly have never heard of lubrication, and 3. ARE SEVERELY INJURING YOUR PARTNER, wtf is sexy about THAT??--but I’ll digress and simply say that virginity is utter bullshit, patriarchal and misogynistic BULLSHIT, and it needs to go away!

Kthxbai!

Blackmail. Revenge. Bully. Kidnapped.

...Can we do away with all of these?

...No?

...Just get rid of one only?

...Dammit.

Ummm...if these are -between- the love interests, blackmail has to have a really good plot reason behind it, but there are a few conceivable ones.  Revenge, too.  Gotta have a good reason behind it.

Bullying is not something I care for at all, got that too much as a kid, and that shit HURTS.  It takes a lot to forgive a bully all the horrible things they did, and if it’s a case of “they’re only bullying you because they love you and this is how they show it” that shit is NASTIER, because it’s the “you should put up with being abused because it’s how he shows he loves you.”  OH HELL NO.

Kidnapped...nope.  That’s the Bad version of Alpha bullshit I don’t like either.  Though as with Blackmail, there has to be a solid reason AND there has to be some atonement for the kidnapping, PLUS TIME AWAY FROM EACH OTHER, and time spent getting to know each other in a non-Stockholm Syndrome non-Lima Syndrome sort of way...

I think we’ll get rid of Bullying, even though part of me really wants to ditch Kidnapping...if only because of the message listed above is NOT the message that should be absorbed by anyone.

Pirates. Medieval. Highlander. Regency.

Medieval and Highlander both still have a BROAD range of eras they can choose from, literal hundreds of centuries, plus Medieval can mean much more than just the British Isles for its setting...and you could have a Highlander traveling to Hungary or Italy or wherever.

Regency on the one hand is overdone and has been overdone quite a lot.  I’d love to see something else, BUT at the same time I acknowledge it’s a much-beloved juggernaut.  Just...tone down the numbers of Dukes and Earls for the love of population distribution statistics, and I’ll be much happier!

Pirates...are kinda fun on the one hand...but also an over-glamorization of horrible people doing horrible things for a living, on the other.  I’d only keep Pirates as a category if you PROMISED to do some non-European pirates...and since that’s not likely to happen... *flicks the Pirates off their own plank*

(I hate having to do that as I’m a proud Birate, but it’s not quite the same thing, so...oh well!)

Dragons. Wolves. Vampires. Bears.

*kicks Vampires off the plank as well*

Wolves are almost overdone as a trope, but vampires jumped the shark tank long ago, so I’m sure they’ll be fine after walking the plank, right?

There still aren’t enough Dragon stories, Wolves may be a little overdone with the ABO stuff, but there are so many other possibilities that could be explored, and Bears are an excellent example of exploring other shapeshifter types.  (No Dragons in Nalini Singh’s psy-changeling books, but there ARE changeling wolves and changeling bears, and remember, they have awesome Alphas who are actually NOT douchebags!)

Needs more Changecats or Werecats or whatever, but that’s just me.

Sexy Space. Sexy Time Travel. Sexy Apocalypse. Sexy Fantasy.

Ditch the Sexy Apocalypse.  There’s no such thing.  It’s an oxymoron.  An apocalypse is the opposite of sexy, because everything is being destroyed.

There’s plenty of Sexy Fantasy, but there’s always room for more.  There’s almost as much Sexy Time Travel, and plenty of eras & places left to be explored. And there is not enough Sexy Space stories. (Tho’ I’m working on that!)

But ditch the Apocalypse stuff. It’s just not sexy at all.

Royal & Lionheart. Beauty & Beast. Celebrity & Bodyguard. Warrior & Bard.

Not enough Warrior & Bard stories, definitely keeping that one!

Beauty & Beast is a bit overdone, but it sends a good message about how external beauty standards and external beauty tropes are overrated.

However...I’ll confess I’m not familar with Royal & Lionheart.  If it means royalty and the strong right arm that defends them, the head of the armies falling in love with the head of state...then I’m fine with that, not enough of that. (Seriously, this is the first time I’ve heard of this one.)

So I guess we’ll ditch Celebrity & Bodyguard...because that’s 1. an unequal balance of power between employer and employee, and 2. falling for the person you’re trying to protect means your thoughts are not going to stay on the job nearly enough of the time.  That could put your client in serious danger...and that’s a trope I don’t want to encourage as “emulation-worthy.”

Slow Burn. Angst. Fluff. Mutual Pining.

Slow Burn can be frustrating if not done right...but I love Fluff, and Mutual Pining has some serious Comedy of Errors potential.  Seriously, who doesn’t love a good comedy? (So long as there’s a good resolution, of course.)

I’ve had too rough a year, however, to want Angst around right now.  It can come back later, but...sorry, Angst, there’s the door.  *gently shows Angst to the door*  Come back in half a year, mkay?

...

That’s the last of the trope groupings!  Feel free to play with this one yourselves.

[vaspider]

In Which Actors From #Travelers Like My Tweets & I Stop Being Able To Breathe (also, you should watch Travelers on Netflix like NOWWWW, Spider tells you why)

[Caption: a tweet that reads “ #Travelers, or, David Suffers Eternally. “ which is liked by Patrick Gilmore, who plays David.

A longer string of tweets, mostly from @vaspider​ which read:

So, having written a tweet saying #Travelers is the show where David Suffers Eternally, let's talk about him & @PatrickGilmore's portrayal.

So often in TV, we are treated to Nice Guys, the ones who feel entitled to women's attention & complain about the friendzone. #travelers

I have to admit that when David first appeared on #travelers I was REALLY expecting a Nice Guy. And what I got? Was... omg. A good guy.

@PatrickGilmore's character doesn't bitch about the friendzone but instead won't influence Marcy's feelings/choices when [spoilers]. WHAT!

THAT NEVER EVER HAPPENS. That is not a thing we see. And while Marcy/David looks strange from the outside, as viewers we get the ethics.

The ethics are clear, the ethics are consistent. And honestly every time David appears on screen you either want to hug him or cry for him.

So, writers, especially TV writers, do not give us more Nice Guys. Give us more Davids. More guys who treat women like people with agency.

Please. Because I am sick of Nice Guys, but I can't wait for S2 of #travelers mostly bc I really, really want to know if they tell David.

Goddamnit, at this point, he deserves to know. Also, David/Marcy forever, hopefully she chooses him again after [spoilers] because damnit.

Reponse tweet FROM PATRICK GILMORE AAAAAAA:

@vaspider XO!

ME UNABLE TO BREATHE AND TRYING NOT TO ACT LIKE A DWEEB:

@PatrickGilmore *squeak* Hi! Thank you for David. In a sea of Nice Guys, he means a lot.]

Guys, in all seriousness, both the actor for David (Patrick Gilmore) and Nesta Cooper (Carly) are actively watching the #travelers tag on Twitter, and probably the others and the writers as well. (Nesta Cooper liked one of the tweets in that series too so yeah I was kind of hyperventilating there.) This is a small fandom so far for an amazing show so get your ass on board, because let me tell you what we have in this show (I tried to avoid massive spoilers but there are a few so it goes behind a cut you have been warned):

Addiction portrayed realistically, and talking about addiction vs dependence. As someone who lives on painkillers because I need to I have winced several times at what Phillip goes through. 

Good Guy, not Nice Guy 

A very complicated and nuanced and extremely complicated Black woman character who gets to kick the shit out of an abuser (repeatedly) (omg that shit is delicious) 

Also the head of the team’s partner is an extremely kickass, competent FBI agent who is a smokin’ hot Black actor thank you Travelers for giving us multiple hypercompetent people who are not white dudes (white women, POC including WOC)... the number of times Grant says ‘I don’t know what you want me to do about him, Forbes is a good agent!’ are just off the charts

All the bad guys so far are white men (with one exception but she isn’t necessarily bad we just don’t know if she’s good or not, it’s complicated, she definitely is trying to do the right thing but all of the explicitly bad people are white dudes) sorry I don’t write the rules but that’s A++ 

The military is in fact the bad guys most of the time

Poppy The Turtle <3 <3 <3 <3 

I’m not sure if I like Ray or not but he’s complicated

GRACE I LOVE GRACE HI GRACE 

Teryl Rothery from SG1!!! HI DOCTOR MOM!! <3

Almost everyone has been on Supernatural??? I don’t even watch this show but if someone has watched Supernatural it will be like ‘find the person who was on that one show that one time’

The ethics of time travel

I think Phillip is asexual and if not he is demisexual, it’s really nice to have a young white dude portrayed as ace/aro (’it’s not a priority’)

I HAVE PIGS!

Playing ‘place the actor’ with all these amazing ppl you haven’t seen enough of, and a bunch of new ppl who kick SO much ass 

The friendship between Phillip and Marcy, and how much it pains Phillip when [spoilers] and he has to start over on that friendship

I love David, I want to hug David and his beard. 

The reality that an abusive dude in a place of power is a scary adversary (this show does come with trigger warnings that yes, there is a long plotline dealing with an abusive man in a position of power, but the payoffs have been worth it so far, oooomg)

Even the only thing I didn’t really like (Marcy’s origins have some troubling, ableist overtones) have serious consequences (’we can fix you’ is never kind, ever, someone always has an ulterior motive except David)

Octagenarians with sniper rifles

How what is on social media is different from reality is a big part of the initial plotline

The cinematography is great. ugh. The scenes with Marcy and David where they focus on the minutae of people’s movements - eyes and hands - are just amazingggg 

But what is The Director? 

HOLY SHIT WHAT JUST HAPPENED (you say that a lot)

“We stopped to take a picture of a dog”

I love Trevor. I love Trevor’s actor because he manages to portray someone who is much older than his actor living in a much younger body, without making it weird.

“OH THANK YOU I WAS WORRIED I WAS GETTING LEFT OUT!”

So anyway I’m going to go watch this show again and you should watch it too. There’s so much that I love about it. The writers know their fucking shit, and while I’m sure I’ve missed something that could be picked at about the show, so far I am so in love with it. So in love. 

The only thing I could like better in S2 is if we find out that the couple on the team (if they’re still a couple in s2, bc their relationship does break Protocol) were both women in the future. Partially because that would also mean that Carly is bisexual bc she clearly digs Grant as he is in 21st. Like... you don’t know, they never talk about the genders of the original people, they exclusively use the genders of the host, and they do make it very clear that it’s possible to be sent into a host of either gender - a couple of plotlines are explicit on that, hosts of different genders being possible for an incoming Traveler - so it’s very possible. 

Oh yeah btw I really love that part of the show, that you could be in either gender body and that’s just accepted as part of the assignment. 

GO WATCH TRAVELERS NOW IT IS ON NETFLIX GO WATCH IT I LOVE IT BYEEEE

[teamwynn]

The Night Voice Retrospective, Pt. 6

[Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 11.5 | Part 12]

Wow, I can’t believe Osha ran a #WasteHerTime campaign against me, personally. Or maybe I can, because as we find out in TNV, Osha’s transformation from a bumbling, lovable ditz into a mopey MRA Broni Friendzoni didn’t even end up having any actual point to it. Let’s explore some of that.

Wait, Where Did the Babies Go? What Happened to the Sword Subplot? (Did these chapters really need to happen with everything that’s getting dropped?)

For as much as I was just complaining about it in my last point, at least the book found room for Chap, Chane, and even Ore-Locks, which is more than can be said for Wayfarer, Shade, and Osha.

You know what, I’m just going to say it. I don’t want to say it, but it needs to be said: There was no reason for Shade to be in this book at all. She didn’t do anything. Not even in a “it was not necessary to have this specific character do this specific thing” kind of way. She quite actually did nothing that further the plot, even in a book where most acts of “furthering the plot” just fling it into a dead-end. So I almost can’t even get mad that she was put on the back-burner for nearly the full first half of the book. Wayfarer and Osha, however, who both actually do things in the plot (even if those things are bullshit), were off-page for so long that when I was reading I legitimately wondered if I would see them again before the series ended.

But, no, halfway through the book remembered that they existed. Granted, even then, returning attention to Osha, Wayfarer, and Shade seemed to mostly just be a vehicle to reintroduce Chuillyon to the story after he hasn’t had a major role since the end of Series 2, but, hey, we get a little bit of the babies. A real little bit. I guess Wayfarer was having a good time playing with puppies in the woods for several months (or however long they were there), but guessing is really all I can do, because the book just kind told me that she had been growing as person rather than actually, you know, showing any of it. Not just showing the process, but showing the end results, even. The book literally just says a few times that Wayfarer has ~changed so much~, but it doesn’t specify what she has changed into. Osha, meanwhile, is resolved not to change at all, and spends this portion of the book complaining that his new friends in the She’ith want to hang out with him when can’t they see that he’s too busy suffering in the friendzone? What a bunch of insensitive douches, interrupting his pity-party like that. And Shade, of course, is just… not doing anything this whole time. A fine way to treat one’s major characters in the final book, right?

There’s just a whole lot of nothing going on, honestly. What’s worse is when Chap and Chane come back to pick the kids up from daycare, and then, after two chapters of leaving the forest and plot-irrelevant travel, Shade and Wayfarer declare that they must go back to the forest… even though they haven’t done anything since leaving. So why…. write about them leaving the forest…. ……. if you were just going to send them back immediately before they could even do anything???????? That’s literally two full chapters that didn’t need to happen. Again, when you have major fucking plot threads like the elven rebellion just hanging at the end of the series, you really can’t afford to spend time on fluff. And at least the fluff with Chap and Chane was funny. This was just two chapters of packing for a trip followed immediately by, “Lol, nvm, let’s go back home.” Like, I know there was a whole Thing with a new editor being assigned to Noble Dead for its final book, but this kind of thing makes me think it wasn’t edited at all. This is the kind of pointless writing choice that’s embarrassing when it shows up in a first draft, never mind the final product. Did seriously no one involved in the creation of this book point at these two chapters and say, “Hey, this serves no point to story. It’s not interesting, it doesn’t further the plot, and the only actions taken are immediately undone and everyone moves on with their lives without being impacted by anything that’s happened here. You gotta cut this.” The only possible justification I can find for these chapters is that there was literally no other way to keep Osha, Wayfarer, and Shade involved in the story prior to the final battle--as if it wasn’t already apparent that this book is just a series of plot points getting written into corners.

Well, I suppose these chapters were necessary to wedge Chuillyon gracelessly back into the series and to lay the groundwork for the conclusion to Osha’s subplot with the sword. Which is way overdue for a conclusion, let me tell you. After everything we’ve had to suffer through with Osha’s Self-Flagellating Nice Guy(™) arc, I was so ready to find out once and for all what the deal with that sword was.

Oh, the Sword Subplot Also Got Dropped Even Though We Were Just Talking About It? (Fuck you, too, book.)

Five fucking books. Five fucking books of Osha crying over that goddamn sword, starting all this pointless drama over that fucking sword and what the fuck happens with the sword? NOTHING! It vanishes completely from the story halfway through! Literally, it is not there at all! I am livid! I would say to put me in my grave, but my anger is such that I would just jump out of it, screaming and swearing about this goddamn sword!

All of Osha’s fucking pouty attitude and licking non-existent wounds over this and for what? Like, damn, shit, back in Between Their Worlds I was thinking Osha’s shitty act of abandoning Wayfarer to go chasing after Wynn might have had something to do with the sword, like maybe he needed Wynn to tell him something about it that only she would know with her sagely knowledge. In The Dog in the Dark, I was thinking the sword probably ties Osha in to the elven rebellion in a more active role than Bystander Swept Up By Events. In A Wind in the Night, I was thinking maybe someone would fucking ask Osha about the sword and teach him to use it or something. By First and Last Sorcerer, I was wondering when Osha would just fucking give it to Wayfarer, since obviously she was interested in it and it made way more fucking sense for her to have it anyway.

No, no, no, and no, across the board. Not a single one of those things happened. He didn’t even use it in the final battle. The sword just there fucking there this whole time to serve as some kind of misery totem for Osha to motivate him into being an uncharacteristically bitter, sour person in what ultimately seemed to be nothing more than a bid to make Chane look less shitty in comparison. Fuck. Off.

Like, what was the point of it? You can’t even pretend this was one of those dropped plotlines, because they were talking about the sword earlier in the same book! I can’t believe I was just saying that Chap and Chane’s shenanigans were pointless when there were so many pages in this book devoted to Osha throwing a tantrum over something that everyone stopped talking about by the final battle, anyway! Goddamn! That time couldn’t have been spent on any other plot point? ‘Cause obviously this one wasn’t important enough to get a conclusion itself! Fuck!

[rawinternets]

Star Wars Episode 2: A rediscovery

OK... at this point, I’ve reviewed in series: 

Rogue One Ep4: A New Hope Ep5: Empire Strikes Back Ep1: Phantom Menace

And boy, I am not excited for Episode 2. Still, I’m ready to give it a chance. 

What happens when I do this is, I watch a movie that improves upon the effort in Episode 1. You can sense here that George Lucas took a lot of the criticisms to heart, maybe even ceded some control to others whom he trusts. Jar Jar is significantly toned down, the spectacle is there but the mystery and darkness is turned up a bit. 

Still, we have a mostly flat movie. Only one “9″ scene and really it’s just the visuals, which have always been Star Wars’s strength. And, we are introduced to George Lucas’s Awkward Teenager Fantasy of a Space Romance (tm) featuring a horribly directed Hayden Christensen and a bewilderingly amenable Natalie Portman. Like, at no time at all in this movie does it make sense that Padme should be falling for this petulant, whiny, and kind of creepy kid... unless we simply assume that she kind of sucks, too. 

Despite John Williams again trying to save the day (and this romance) with a score that soars to beauteous heights with Across the Stars, the film definitely fails here. The infamous “sand” line, etc etc etc all to come. 

Lastly, we get an incredibly hokey and just inexcusably bad Gladiator style setpiece. 1′s and 2′s abound. The end result is a film that kind of flops on the main plot points and otherwise just plods the prequel plots forward, setting up an ep3 that might well have been made into three movies since it’s the only prequel that is interesting or ties to the originals in any satisfactory way. 

On to the scores. 

Average score: 5.48 Standard deviation: 2.07

Scroll. 7. This whole scroll made me say, “I guess...” Like, fine, I guess Count Dooku is a necessary new Sith character. I guess the Republic needs to create an army to help the Jedi... None of it makes me that excited. Appropriate omen for the rest of the movie. 

Approaching Coruscant. 6. Very pretty ship. Very pretty cloudy day on Coruscant. Terrorist attack! Holy shit! Hollywood dramatic death of the decoy getting killed, bad directing/acting by Amidala. I wrote, “woof.” talk about botching an interesting idea. 

Palpatine and Jedi. 7. More expository scenes here. “Dooku was behind it.” Sure, whatever. Keep republic together, sure, whatever. Yoda is fine. Samuel L is bad (must be the directing...). Palpatine scheming is just sort of Meh. 

Obiwan and Anakin. 8. Not too bad, to be honest. Ewan does well, he’s turning up his “Alec Guinness” knobs quite well. 

Jarjar / Padme, re-meet Anakin. 7. Damn, Amidala friendzones Anakin immediately. Anakin less good in this scene vs. with Obiwan. But the tension here actually makes sense.  I wrote, “I’m OK with it.” Jarjar, man. Boo. 

Worm assassination attempt, city chase. 6. This was supposed to be a big sexy setpiece and I was not loving it. Pretty imagery - very bladerunner - but Anakin’s “not another lecture” and subsequent arrogance during the chase scene means I really can’t understand how the Jedi didn’t see this coming. He’s a total prick. On top of that, one basejump from a speeder down 500 feet to another moving speeder *might* have been excusable, but two? And Obiwan catching a lightsaber out of nowhere? Plus, we get bad alien cutscenes. They go to a bar and there’s robot football on in the background, and that’s just a SMH / facepalm type stupid easter egg. Wasn’t into the cigarettes / “death sticks” line that much either. Anakin as a detective is a “meh.” Just... lots of falling flat going on here. 

Jedi Council and Palpatine. 8. Obiwan tracks down the bountyhunter-assassin and Anakin gets to guard the Senator. So, I actually think this is starting to set up Anakin’s turn pretty well. Palpatine is subtly sowing confusion, discord in Anakin’s mind. The council shows serious flaws in trying to spy on Palpatine via Anakin. Palpatine can appeal to Anakin’s ego. Again, the Jedi really were pretty stupid, which I guess we just have to believe (and call-forward to Episode 8, Luke’s POV). 

Jarjar becomes senator. 3. Copy-pasting my notes: “bad. why is anakin monologuing? padme is just sitting there. anakin temper tantruming for no reason. anakin a little rapey.”

Refugees. 3. I skipped over this scene accidentally and that would have been appropriate. Anakin and Padme stilted banter is bad. “At least we have R2! ha, ha, ha!” Good music (as always, JW). 

Diner. 5. Obiwan goes to see an “old friend.” They give a big alien a mustache and have him talk like a Chicago line cook. Gimme a big “meh!” Gotta go to the outer rim to meet some cloners. hurray. 

Library. 7. Jedi archivist arrogance. The mystery deepens - no system is there where the cloners are supposed to be! zomg. But this is all fine, and almost decent with deepening the mystery. 

Padme and Anakin refugee dinner. 7. Kind of as painful as watching someone’s first date at a bar while waiting for a friend. “Attachment is forbidden but we’re encouraged to love unconditionally” and a bunch of other hoke. Anakin is persistent. Still, not a bad scene. 

Jedi training w/ Yoda. 7. A little hokey how Yoda asks the padawan kids to guess at why there’s no system in the archives. A bad yoda chin scratch. A little hokey, but good. 

Back on Naboo. 4. Good music. Dialogue between Anakin and Padme continues to be pretty rough. “Keep our faith in the republic.” More politics. Lake country. Anakin and Padme tension is dumb. 

Camino. 7. Bad name, cool scene. Good mystery unfolding... why is Obi-Wan expected? What are all these soldiers doing here, who ordered them, what’s going on? Kind of clunky revealing dialogue and the CGI is a bit out of hand but also decently cool. I wrote: “I’m OK with the secret army storyline.” 

Lake country on Naboo. 2-6.  Padme is smoking hot. Beautiful scenes here, but then we get this gem: "I don't like sand. it's coarse, rough, irritating... gets everywhere. Here, everything's soft and smooth." Anakin is such a douche. Padme lets him kiss her, but why? Not sure i'm buying this shit. Love song (Across the Stars) is amazing. Beautiful waterfall. But then they dissect their first kiss. mehhhhh. Let's talk politics at a picnic? No. "Make people agree." Anakin is authoritarian and sort of evil. How could she fall in love with this dude? Then he surfs a cow. No. Now they’re rolling around in the grass. No. No thanks.

Django and Boba on Camino. 8. One of the better and subtler scenes maybe in the whole series for acting. Obi-wan and Django do a great job of dancing around each other verbally while sizing each other up. 

Anakin-Padme Dinner / Wooing. 3. God, I wish I didn’t have so much to say about this tripe, but I do. I guess i'm fine with wooing Padme with Jedi tricks... But I still don't really buy the love story. And now we get lines like: "I'm in agony. the closer I get the worse it gets. The thought of not being with you." Suuuuuper creepy. “Haunted by the kiss you should have never given me.” “You are in my very soul tormenting me.” Honestly! This is like The Room. "THEN YOU DO FEEL SOMETHING!!!" Just a bad scene overall. Now Anakin is getting nightmares. "Your presence is soothing." Meh. Natalie Portman - did I mention she’s smoking hot? Anakin's mother is suffering in his nightmares, so he’s leaving to help her. Padme will go with him!? what the fuck. Bad lines too. Also callback to Luke leaving to help Han and Leia... I don’t know. Bad.

“Collect call.” 7. I believe this is the scene where Obi-Wan calls back to the council and Yoda or Samuel L. says their powers are diminished for not being able to see the creation of this clone army. Decent plotline, OK. 

Django Fett vs. Obi-wan fight. 6. Decent. Too much ledge-hanging and Jedi are too super-duper-heroey. Tracking Django is fine but looked hokey. 

Tatooine. 4. A fancy ship lands at Mos Eisley... man, they’re really going back to this well a lot. We see the stupid slave owner bug guy again and long story short, Anakin’s mom has been taken by the Tuskan Raiders. Time to kill some things. 

Obi-wan tracks Django. 6. Asteroid field again. Depth charges again. Supposed to be a good action setpiece but I’m distracted because there’s not supposed to be any cool noises in space. Fine with Obi-wan faking his death to avoid Django. Very pretty scenery and Obi-wan sneaks around some. Whatever. 

Anakin on the mother hunt. 1-7. Clever shadow of Anakin-as-Darth on the side of the building. Back to good music from Ep1. Finds his mom, and we’re back to bad dialogue. “Ani? Ani? Ani? Ani?” ... should feel something here, and don’t. The actor chemistry is just so bad, and I blame George. Still, Anakin going HAM is a good slip to the dark side. Hebrings his mom back dead, and proceeds to monologue shittily to Padme. "Life seems so much simpler when you're fixing things. I'm good at fixing things.” Awful. “Why'd she have to die? Why couldn't i save her? I know I could have?” what the FUCK. Terrrrrrrrrible. "I killed them. I killed them all." "I'm a jedi, I know I'm better than this." OK, finally at the very end as he breaks down, some sort of decent turn in this scene.

Count Dooku. 4. Jesus, how long is this movie? We get a random weirdo trying to create a new treaty with the trade federation to oppose the Republic. TWIST! This is what the rebellion does, but they’re somehow good! Sigh. 

Yoda and Windu. 4. “Pain, suffering. Young Skywalker is in pain.” Whatever. 

Funeral, message. 4. Here’s what I wrote and I remember none of this: “Clete is fine. Not really buying the whole anakin thing with mom. anakin stay where you are and protect the senator! padme is a mess too.”

Senator scheming. 5. So blatant. Sometimes this plotline is really well done and sometimes is sucks. Could have given this a 3-5. 

Dooku and Obi-wan. 7. OK, we have an exposition-y scene where Dooku tries to recruit Obi-wan to his side. This scene saved by two very good actors giving a good performance. 

Jar Jar in Senate. 2. The worst thing the franchise ever did gets to deliver the vote that gives Chancellor supreme powers. Jar Jar is a f***in’ tw*t. And Chancellor creates the Grand Army of the Republic. 

Padme and Anakin on planet. 1.  Oh, right. Anakin was going to go find Obi-wan or some shit. Padme saving the day with her senate powers! mehhhhhh. C3PO and R2 engage in dumb banter, but not as bad as jarjar. We’re now on some kind of shop floor ... that’s a No. Padme is now running through stampers. No. Bad. Dumb. No. Anakin also dumb. No. bad. My reviewing devolves into 2-year-old level angry language. We see machines making machines. C3PO hangs off a ledge. R2 flies around... come on. Wow, this is so bad. Padme falls into a fucking steel boiler. NO. NO NO NO. Anakin’s lightsaber is cut in half and we get a terrible "Obi-wan's gonna kill me." BOOOOO. And now droids and the fucking bountyhunter show up. God, that was worthless. 

Padme and Anakin pre-Gladiator. 2.  Anakin gets to deliver this gem: “I’ve been dying each day since you came back into my life. I love you.” I don't feel this makes any sense. Except I guess it’s clear now, as i said at the beginning of the review, that Padme kinda sucks. “I truly deeply love you.” Why?

Gladiator Death Battle. 1. HOW LONG IS THIS MOVIE? Also: GOD, THIS IS HORRIBLE. The only good part is Obi-wan with some sarcasm, otherwise we have unnecessary zerg monsters and midriff-revealing claw slashes and general dumb gladiatorial action. The “bad feeling” line was terrible, worst of the series. And where did Padme get her fucking keys? 

Jedi save the day. 3. The Jedi look very hokey and stupid, to be honest, and they don’t look like very good fighters at the end of the day. Scores 3 for light sabers but otherwise it’s a 1 or 2 scene. What’s the end game here? Get surrounded and killed? Django vs. Mace Windu who cares. We get terrible Anakin and Padme cheesing, terrible C3PO humor, bad Jedi vs. Droids action, just all around shit. 

Clones save the day. 5.  Yoda arrives with clones to save the day. At least the plotline is somewhat nuanced - who is fighting who, who is good and who is not. This ambiguity is good. But nobody wanted to kill Dooku until he was already escaped? Sort of mediocre action. Soundtrack just sounds like the matrix. Why is yoda so into the fighting? He’s trying to protect the Republic, which he knows is eroded. The jedi sure fucked up.

Death Star Plans? 5. So having seen Rogue One, this doesn’t make any sense at all (continuity errors!) ... but the DS was actually a design from the Trade Federation, apparently? Not into this. George Lucas sucks and Dooku sucks. 

Dooku Chase. 7. God, I can’t wait for this to be over (the movie and the review). Padme falls out of the transport - OK. Obi-wan and Anakin argue and it’s good. Finally some good acting out of this guy. 

Dooku fight. 7-9. Notwithstanding that Dooku seems like a very unnecessary character, this climax is decent. Anakin’s an idiot apparently, and force lightning is apparently a big sith weapon. OK light saber fighting until double-lightsaber fighting, at which point it’s hard to follow the action. George is too busy focusing in on faces. And Yoda shows up. Huzzah. Fun to watch him with the light saber, maybe a bit too much spining around and Yoda ParkourTM, but why is he shouting? Aren’t Jedi supposed to stay calm? What happened to the Quigon meditation approach? Dooku esacpes. bleh. 

Dooku Sidious meeting. 8. It’s all going to plan, yes, yes. Who the fk is Lord Tyranus? Very good music. War has begun, cool. All to Sidious’s plan, no surprise. 

Yoda and Windu. 7.  "Victory you say? Not victory. The shroud of the dark side has fallen. Begun the clone war has." Meh. 

Clone Deploy. 9. The visuals of Star Destroyers lifting off and a huge army deploying is pretty cool. This is the highlight of this movie, which is sad. 

Secret Marriage on Naboo. 7. Very pretty shot, no dialogue is good, anakin has a fake arm, bad kissing. definitely not an “8″. 

Credits. 6. The tone of the ending music (traditional theme) is too upbeat. Should have taken a page (pre-emptively) from Rogue One’s book and used a quiet, somber theme. Gets there after a minute or so. Bleh. So glad this is over. 

VERDICT

Not memorable, not unique, and basically a handful of scenes could have done the job here instead of what felt like 5 hours of filler. Happy to forget this movie ever happened. It grades out on the histogram as mostly 7′s and an even distribution around 4 or 5, but really, the 7′s were often due to boredom or “meh” type scores. Very flat movie in experience, with only downside and very little upside. 

REVIEW LINKS:

Introduction: Star Wars, a rediscovery.

Rogue One: 6.92 / 10.00 (stdev 2.06).

Episode 4: A New Hope. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.34).

Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back. 8.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.29).

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. 5.00 / 10.00 (stdev 2.08). But probably worse than that, actually.

Episode 2: Attack of the Clones. 5.48 / 10.00 (stdev 2.07).

Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. 7.00 / 10.00 (stdev 1.77).

Episode 6: Return of the Jedi. 7.90 / 10.00 (stdev 1.91).

Episode 7: The Force Awakens. 6.57 / 10.00 (stdev 2.01).

Episode 8: The Last Jedi. 6.31 / 10.00 (stdev 1.89).

Verdict: Star Wars, A rediscovery.