#...actually i could complain some more about season 4 and how bullshit it is that they had to resurrect zane from the dead

[elemental-daddy-neos]

So a mutual put this on my dash, but I wanted to reblog this version to argue a few things here. Character design is very important, but if anyone actually bases their like/dislike of a character solely on that... That's just kind of dumb. I don't like Syrus, but it's certainly not because of how he looks.

We really need to start putting more words on shelves. Relationships can be bad without them needing to be "toxic" or "abusive". Like yeah, I don't think Syrus was a good friend to Jaden at all, but it's not really that deep. He just sucks. (That's my opinion, you can disagree with it, but it's not changing.)

I don't think it's accurate to say that people put Syrus on a pedestal, because no one was doing that. They certainly did with Jaden, but as for every other character? No one expected great things out of Syrus or acted like he could do no wrong/was some kind of savior. People sure thought highly of Zane because he was actually a great duelist, and yeah, it might suck to be related to someone more successful and feel like you'll never live up to them, but I can't think of a single person who pressured Syrus to try and live up to his brother's legacy other than Syrus.

As far as why I don't like Syrus... Listen. I did like him at one point in time, when I was a kid in middle school and had barely any knowledge of him outside of the handful of GX episodes I caught on tv and fanfiction. When I fully rewatched GX as an adult, I went into it with the expectation that I would like Syrus because I remembered him being written nicely in stories I couldn't remember, but that expectation quickly died. His greatest sin is simply being annoying, and I can safely say that there's no secondhand embarrassment on my part that comes with watching him. He just gets on my nerves for more than one reason.

As far as loyalty... Syrus is about the least loyal person in Jaden's friend group. The very first example is him leaving the red dorm the second he gets the chance to. It wasn't too long ago that Jaden had the same opportunity he did to advance to Ra Yellow, but he stayed in the end because red was where he belonged. You'd think that a loyal friend would at least consider doing the same, but Syrus didn't even hesitate or seem to remember how Jaden had turned down the chance to move up to stay with his friends. First chance he got, he left.

Of course, Syrus did still stick around as a friend, so him moving dorms didn't change much in the end as far as friend dynamics were concerned, and sure, if his goal is to be more like Zane, it'd make sense that he'd want to get to blue dorm eventually. I just think it's very telling how there was never a moment where he thought "What about Jaden?" before accepting the promotion. Even if he's got his reasons, you'd think that someone who considers himself the protagonist's best friend might think about him just a little before committing to Ra Yellow.

This kind of ties in to those comments about how "Syrus cowers in danger", which is a normal response to have, if you're not very brave, and he's definitely not. Those situations started to rub me the wrong way after enough times of watching Syrus continually doubt Jaden in every dangerous situation they found themselves in. I think it's kind of sad when new characters enter the show, become Jaden's friend, and have more faith in him than one of the characters who's been there from the beginning. He never believes in Jaden, he never has the slightest bit of faith in him despite seeing his abilities for himself time and time again, and every time there's a high stakes duel with our beloved protagonist taking place, Syrus is always standing on the sidelines fearing the worst and expecting Jaden to fail. This does not ever change throughout the course of the show, and it really just drives home how accurate that curse mark he received in season 3 was. His defining character trait isn't loyalty, it's doubt.

And for the aniki thing- Jaden never liked that. He was shown to be uncomfortable with Syrus calling him that because he didn't want to be an older brother figure for this guy, he wanted them to be equals. Syrus just didn't listen to him when Jaden said not to call him that, so he ended up letting it slide. It's not exactly a measure of how devoted he is to Jaden, just how eager he is to shove his brother problems onto the first guy that shows him kindness.

I know this is getting really long at this point, so I'll try to wrap it up: Syrus was never a good friend to Jaden. He used him as an emotional crutch for the whole show, leaned on him because he couldn't handle his issues on his own, and never gave anything in return for all the support he received from his best friend. Even as far into the show as season 4, when Jaden was struggling really hard with his depression over the events of season 3, Syrus (and everyone else) essentially ignored him unless they needed Jaden around to solve their problems for him. We never once saw Syrus try to reach out for Jaden or check in on how he was doing, arguably at the time in his life where Jaden needed his friends the most, but what we did see was Jaden still going out of his way to help Syrus. That episode where Syrus had to duel that guy who wanted to challenge Zane? Jaden brought him food to cheer him up. He was going through a hard time, and he still put in the effort to support his friends, and at the end of the day, what I really hate about Syrus is that all the effort Jaden put into being his friend was never returned by him.

Syrus isn’t a bad character, you’re just mean.

The way some gx fans just completely write off Syrus pisses me off more than it should, because you know they wouldn't be doing that if he was a little bit taller and a little bit more attractive. I have legitimately seen people argue that Syrus is an abusive, toxic asshole to everyone when most of the people around him are abusive toxic assholes to HIM. Syrus is just a little guy who was put on a pedestal because his brother managed to be an amazing duelist and all that people see in him is “Zane’s little brother”, completely writing him off and not seeing him as a person beyond that.

Syrus's entire struggle is that he'll never live up to his brother or be a great duelist, or even manage to play the card game he's going to school to study for, and he overcomes that as the seasons go by (ESPECIALLY season 4). Syrus starts off as incredibly cowardly, shy, clingy, and easy bait for stronger students, but he breaks free from that shell as the episodes go by.

I've legitimately seen people justify Tyranno and Chazz's bullying of him because he "deserves it for being a coward", when all he has done is be mildly annoying or a hormone-enraged teenager, as if those things are inherently horrible acts that require Syrus to pay for his sins.

Syrus is by far the most realistically written GX character and I personally believe that people do not like him because Syrus exhibits behaviors that they've done that they're embarrassed to death about. I've seen people get mad because "Syrus cowers in fear whenever there's danger" AS IF THAT ISN'T A NORMAL REACTION???

Syrus watched his teacher's soul get stolen and watched Zane have a heart attack and die right in front of him, give this poor boy a break and spare him of your massive hateboner.

Yes, it is wrong of Syrus to project his insecurities onto Jaden, but in NO way is he a bad friend or quote unquote “abusive”. He was ride or die, absolutely loyal to Jaden, why else do you think in the original japanese sub he called him "Aniki"? Because he cared. Jaden was like a big brother to him, and I hate that the fandom writes that off and claims he was horrible to one of his best friends. People hate Syrus for no reason much to the point people will literally pull shit out of their asses to Argue Syrus is a bad character, and I think thats very unfair.

Sorry for ranting but I just HAD TO.

[doofus-and-dragons]

As promised, I'm back on my httyd bullshit. Here's a list of things that don't make sense unless you watch the shows (idgaf if they're cannon or not, they should be for the background of small details!!!)

1. Grump.

Grump is Gobber's Hotburple in Httyd 2 and 3. But not in httyd 1. So this begs the question: Where and when did Gobber get Grump? The answer? Race to the Edge S3 E12, "Last Auction heros." Gobber and Snotlout go to Viggo's dragon auction undercover, and Grump is one of the dragons for sale. Without that episode, Grump is just a dragon they shoved into the second movie for shots and giggles.

2. Inferno

Inferno is a blade that Hiccup created himself that lights itself on fire using monstrous nightmare gel and can eject and ignite zippleback gas. To the casual watcher, he just showed up with it in the second movie. But Inferno is ALSO from rtte! Inferno's first form comes from S3 E9, "Tone Death." Hiccup then works further on it, but Inferno as we know it is actually based on a version of the blade that VIGGO GRIMBORN, the villain for most of RTTE, made.

3. The Deadly Nadder(? Looks like a nadder) plushie

Although this is a small detail that is only seen in the background of the later Httyd movies, it is still a detail that first appears within the SHOW'S cannon lore. According to S1 E17 of Riders of Berk, the toy was made by Valka when Hiccup was a baby. However, tiny Hiccup was so scared of the toy that he threw it in the ocean. Trader Johann managed to get ahold of it, and the episode was about the riders trying to save with mystery item because something happened to Johann's ship. I don't remember what. Something about smoldering smoke breaths, I think.

4. Skull Crusher

Skull Crush is Stoick the Vast's Rumblehorn in Httyd 2 and 3, who is later inherited by Eret, son of Eret upon Soick's death in Httyd 2. But again, where and when did Stoick get Shullcrusher? Because it seems like he just appeared. Well, I have that answer! Skull Crusher first appears in S1 E8, "Crushing It." In the episode, the gang is tormented by a Rumblehorn who keeps destroying their camp. Hiccup asks his Dad for help, and his Dad is able to train and befriend the wild dragon.

5. Hiccup's flight suit

In Httyd 2 and 3, Hiccup has/is trying to perfect a flight suit attached to his armor. Now, this could just be seen as Hiccup being a silly inventor off-screen, but it ACTUALLY shows up in Race to the Edge! S1 E12 "The Next Big Sting" actually opens with Hiccup trying out his first design for the flight suit. He does it many times, each time having to be saved by Toothless before he crashes into some form of rock/sea stack (much like in Httyd 2).

6. Hiccup's aging

I saw a post either on here or on tiktok the other day where someone was complaining about how different hiccup looked between 1 and 2. In 1, he's like...what...13?15? Where as He's about 20-21 ish by Httyd 2. To fans who don't obsess over something and consume all the media like I do, this would be a bit of a shock. I mean, you go from this:

Immediately to this:

Where as fans of the shows had this progression:

Much easier to swallow.

7. The Bewilderbeast

This is, again, something that could be choked up to the writers wanting more than just 7 species of dragons. HOWEVER, this dragon is actually the center point of the last few episodes of Race to the Edge. We learn a little bit about the dragon over the corse of the last season, which takes place just a year or two before Httyd 2.

9. VALKA HERSELF

I watched Race to the Edge long before I watched Httyd 2, so I had 0 clue the Hiccup's mom was still alive or what her mask looked like. But in the last bit of the last episode of race to the edge, guess what we see?

VALKA TAKING THE BEWILDERBEAST EGG.

In conclusion, these show's should be considered cannon to the HTTYD universe just as much as fucking Homecoming should or what ever. These are amazing and fill in so many continuity

[26790048]

The Boboiboy x Dead Or Alive Challenge (A. K. A Elemental Hero In a fighting tournament)

This mindset came to me as I was reading the Azur Lane x Boboiboy Wattpad fanfic by Jikdot and MHA x Boboiboy Galaxy by StarTwinkle (both I recommend a read), and since I’m recently into the Dead Or Alive series and quite disappointed by a lake of fics in Wattpad and FanFiction.Net. So I wanted to see if something like this could work with some future fanfic authors.

Okay for the DOA fans, Boboiboy is a popular Malaysian CGI animated show about the titular character getting 7 (started with 3) Elemental powers (along with their Second Tier forms, Third Tier forms,although he has two and one of them is uncontrollable,and Elemental Fusion) from a Power Sphere named Ochobot and along with his friends (Ying, Yaya, Gopal and Fang) they go out and save the world and the Galaxy. There has been two series (the original and Galaxy), two movies (a third one being released in 2025) and comics (I think the rest like the Elemental splits, TAPOPS etc can be explained by looking at the Boboiboy Wiki or some other sources).

For the Boboiboy fans, Dead or Alive is a fighting game series from the 90s that mostly centre around the Mugen Tenshin Clan and DOATECC (a company that host DOA tournaments but hides their schemes behind the publics eye) and that’s all I could say about the story of the franchise (like I said, I just got into the series so I’m not as knowledgeable about it as other fans of the franchise, so if you want to learn more about Doa, either just watch a YouTube video or look up some of the lore).

But what I do know is that DOA is a fighting game with Breast Physics and a lot of Fanservice (which I’m not complaining about) that has Ninjas, Clones, a Wrestler that turned into a model but turned into a singer then went back into the wrestling world and also it’s connected to Ninja Gaiden and has an Ecchi spinoff called the Xtreme series in which most of the girls are just chilling in Zack’s island (the most recent one Venus Vacation has 19 new Girls, so if you want to, you could include them in this crossover).

WAYS IN WHICH BOBOIBOY COULD FIT INTO DOA

Boboiboy teleports into the Dead or Alive universe due to either a new Power Sphere or a Dimensional Teleportar (You could place him at any DOA game but I recommend starting from DOA 1) and stays in that dimension until his friends find a way to get him back.

They take place in the same Universe. With that you could start this crossover from any series but I recommend using the First Three Seasons and the Movie (you can Age up Boboiboy if you want to) taking place during Doa 1 to 4 (yes the first four games take place in a year and I know it’s bullshit but I do recommend the Movie taking place after DOA 4 or Xtreme 2) and the Galaxy series taking place in DOA 5 to….uh Venus Vacation? Either way you can start the crossover from any entry of these two series.

3. (Even though I don’t count this but I don’t want to be the only one who feels this way so I’ll include it here) Reactions, you could make the cast of Dead or Alive react to some clips of Boboiboy like his first uses of the Penta and Hepta split against Bora ‘ra, the Elemental Fusions against Retak’ka or some of your favourite clips from the series, you could also use plain shenanigans like the Boboiboy Instagram posts which are about what Boboiboy and the others just do in life other than fighting.

How Boboiboy could influence some events in DOA (or you, the author could change some weird decisions by the development teams.

(This is something I thought off when writing this challenge) Boboiboy saving False Kasumi (from Doa 5) from getting killed by Hayate and Ayane, since False Kasumi isn’t someone with evil intentions and really thinks she’s the actual Kasumi I think that Boboiboy might try to stop Hayate and Ayane from killing her (fighting them if need be) and try to get her as far away from Kasumi Alpha.

Might try to get Ayane to open up as to why she hates Kasumi and at least try to be friends with her as that is something I could see Boboiboy doing as he’s dealt with sibling relationships before (Fang and Kaizo) but not to this extreme so it might be a challenge for him.

Boboiboy could also participate in the Ninja Gaiden series like with Razors Edge where Boboiboy could help Ryu with dealing with the Goddess and finding a cure for that disease that was killing him. You could also have Ryu try to train Boboiboy on mastering and obtaining his Third Tier powers.

(Now this is for the future authors) Try to make Boboiboy interact with the other characters in the series as he could build new friendships, rivalries and relationships and try to make some characters arcs not be redundant (Cough Leifang Cough) but also let them interact with Boboiboy’s Elements like how would Jann Lee interact with Fire/Blaze, how Hitomi would interact with Leaf/Thorn/Jungle, Kokoro with Water/Ice etc. The possibilities are endless.

You could put in some villains from Boboiboy into DOA like Ejo Jo, Adu Du (although he is less of a villain), Kapten Vargoba etc. You could also put in Reverse Boboiboy (which is a fan made version of Boboiboy but evil and bloody) alongside his holy handsomeness that make some of the toughest Guys and Girls of the series blush (okay that last part was a joke….probably).

This is specifically for Genra. Make him a Mugen Tenshin Clan member that was captured and controlled by DOATECC out of his free will which was probably intended in DOA 3 and not another villain that was hungry for power (don’t know why Dimensions did that) as that makes Ayanes story more interesting and heart wrenching.

You could also add New Elements and Fusions if you want to.

(Okay that’s all I could write about this crossover and man was it stressful to make but anyways I hope some future fanfic authors will enjoy the idea).

[sketching-shark]

Reading your last answers to some asks, soo... shxdowpeach is already canon then? ☠️ like, that would be gross because the director and some people who work in the show know that some chinese people culturally see them as siblings, like not everyone but still they are two parts of the same being, it would be like saying they are making Wukong falling in love with his own devil self- like I know it's a jttw adaptation, but knowing the original context and how some chinese people sees them is just- i dunno, man.

Monkie Kid spoilers & complaining below so proceed if you want to watch me whine

I mean it's definitely not, but given the hyperfocus on that ship in fandom & the way quite a few people at Flying Bark are openly liking it & have now repeatedly brought literally every other potential path in the plot to a screeching halt to focus on those monkeys' bullshit drama d'jour it's a frustrating situation indeed anon! And yeah! WTF! To this day I'm very baffled by the lengths to which so many people seem hellbent on ignoring and rewriting like EVERYTHING about Sun Wukong and the Six-Eared Macaque from the og classic to force them into a close relationship! I mean it's aggravating and boring enough that even Flying Bark basically threw away so much of what made LEMH & SWK interesting to turn them into yet another sonic/shadow clone--and with the added absolutely delightful bonus of frequent "swk is mean and awful and sucks!!" accusations that the plot then scrambles to at least semi-validate--but tbh what especially pisses me off about this situation is the way it almost seems like SWK has been written into this state where he's not allowed to have any other close companions besides LEMH, and in following so many cool and interesting stories that they COULD have gone with have been tossed down the drain. I've talked plenty about how it sucks that basically everyone from SWK's past hates his guts, how he's now routinely been written as an entire screw-up and now at times an entire asshole, & that we STILL don't know what happened to the og pilgrims (though given past writing whatever bad thing ended their lives was was probably mostly swk's fault lmao), but as of season 4, it turns out he never even had a monkey yao family (which means no grandchildren, no marshals, no "big happy family," no other monkey yaoguai characters who knew the Monkey King, etc), his six other actual friends in the sworn brotherhood never existed aside from the Demon Bull King (very confused as to why you would write them out of existence like that's basically 5 free ocs you've just been handed), he's never had any other tudi outside of MK (which means there's now no chance MK could gain some elder brothers in Liu Chenxiang and the Indian prince SWK trained in the og classic), and it's like...you can do SO much with a Journey to the West retelling, even one for little kids, but tbh Monkie Kid seems to more and more be this series of slamming doors & a subtle yet persistent disdain of the og classic, and tbh the shadowpeach ship seems like the epitome of that. As it is, it's hard to watch Monkie Kid these days without being reminded of this meme:

[robbierants]

THE FIRST OFFICAL POST OF ROBBIE RANTS

Todays Rant: Transgender Representation In Modern Anime

Hello Yall! I was reading fanfics pn A03 and that got me thinking about modern representation in anime of Transgender, Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual people. Specifically Trans Rep.

Alright, so I did some research on what everybody else thinks about this topic. A lot of people who were not trans thought that representation in anime was complete bullshit. As a person who identifys under the trans umbrella, I've actually been quite pleased by my representation in media. Everyone knows about Ouran High School Host Club, the story of Haruhi, who goes to a high school for the rich and bored. They (I see them as nonbinary) makes friends and explores their identity, and everyone looks like they were drawn in Ibis Paint, I found the anime amazing and have seen it many times (ive read the manga 5 times in. Row man) . If you want an intro into LGBT in anime though, this is your go to.

Now if we want to talk about something very cerebral and powerful, Black Butler/Kuroshitsuji's Ciel Phantomhive is our guy. I see him personally as nonbinary (He/they respective)

Alot of people see his romp through gender in the first few episodes as a reflection of drag, or an excuse for man-in-drag humor. Well, there's a lot more to it than that. When I was coming out to myself, I was incredibly transphobic (being raised by catholic parents also doesny help) to myself, saying that "I can't be anything but a girl. It's not allowed". This mindset kept me from my own truth, up until a few months ago.

Ciel is very opposed to many things he defines as feminine and un-manly. When he has to infiltrate the party of a perverted count (I love his design tho!) he dresses in a frilly dress and pigtails. We can see how uncomfortable with it he is at first, squirming and complaining. Later in the series however, he comes to embrace parts of it. He wears clothes that could be considered androgynous, embraces a feminine side, and becomes quite the diva (I love Ciel Guys)

I like to think of the first season as a reflection of Ciel's mental state. He lives the first couple episodes blissfully, as a Cisgender male. In episode 4, he "dons an evening gown", and allows the possibility of this other sex.

I remember doing this very briefly when I was 10 with a suit. To be perfectly honest? It freaked me the fuck out. I was terrified of being who I was, so I ripped the idea from my mind. This is exactly what happens to Ciel. The only difference is that when I thought I might be man, I wasn't almost sold on the black market like Ciel.

Later in the season Ciel allows the possibility again, through subtle remarks at his butler, servants, and peers. He realizes that there are deeper levels to his psyche, and without spoiling anything, he confronts his traumatic past in a number of ways. One major piece of evidence is when the theme song changes midseason. Originally, the opening lines of the song say, "The monochrome blows Through our colorless encounter. I shall entrust each of my pains to you." Later in the series, the opening lines change to, "Since then, I've actually come to like the night. In a sea of dependence I forgot even to breath." If that doesn't convince you, nothing will. Ciel is nonbinary (He/They) who likes to wear femanine clothing some times. Don't @ me

Another awesome example of a Trans female in anime is Chihiro Fujisaki of the Danganronpa franchise. This is a slightly more to the point story of Transgender psychology. Chihiro Fujisaki is one of the many students trapped in the hellish prison school of Hope's Peak. Chihiro is "the ultimate programmer", having created game changing software and programs. Chihiro is also biologically male. We don't know this until she turns up dead, and the only reasonable cause of this was someone in the Boy's locker room murdered her. Chihiro got into the locker room using her birth sex as an excuse.

Chihiro is also known for being very socially awkward, depressed, and kind. These are all characteristics very common of teenage Trans females. I know a couple of my trans femme friends fall under these categories. Chihiro is a perfect example of a passable Trans woman flying perfectly under the radar until being looked into further. If you knew how many Trans people would kill for this, you'd realize how truly rare Chihiro is as a character.

Chihiro notably built herself what is known in the programming world as a "Construct".

For those of you unaware, a construct is a direct copy of the users brain, rewritten via computer code. "Alter Ego", as she is called, is a version of Chihiro built to protect and inform the other students.

Now, if only I had an artificial intelligence to answer peoples stupid questions about being Trans!

Of course, on the subject of Trans anime, there's enough transmisogyny to go around. Let me show you some iconic anime clips you may not have known were transphobic;

Naruto's "Sexy Transformation"? Transphobic

Ouran High School Host Club's Over-explanatory Lines? Transphobic.

Black Butler's Pronoun Butchering of Grell? Transphobic.

(CMON BLACK BUTLER!)

I hope this has informed you on the potential of Trans people in anime. I highly suggest you check out shows like Black Butler, Ouran Host Club, and Danganronpa.

[sb0-0]

Teen Wolf Movie (Spoilers)

Okay, so I was a little late to the game in becoming a Teen Wolf fan, I started watching it during the pandemic but it became an all time favorite show of mine right away. 

I watched the movie today. (I know a little late to that too) and I have some thoughts. 

First off, I hate the fact that the entire storyline of the movie focused on the nogitsune and Stiles and Kira were nowhere to be seen. I get that Dylan O’Brien said no to coming back and Arden said no (good for her for saying no), but Kira and Stiles were the two main characters of that original storyline. Stiles, who was possessed by the nogitsune, and Kira, a kitsune who accidentally activated the nogitsune and was crucial in helping defeat it. 

Jackson being there was just plain odd. I get that Lydia asked him too and whatnot but I felt all he really did there was be a himbo and complain about being there. tbh I never really liked Jackson so this could be an unpopular opinion surrounding his role in the movie

I loved Derek and Eli, but we got 0 backstory on the two. Who is Eli’s mother? where is she? How did Derek get off the FBI’s most wanted list? Also, I saw online that someone pointed out how at the end of Season 4, Derek’s eyes go back to being yellow instead of blue, but now in the movie they’re blue again? Jeff Davis please explain. 

Why was Liam in Japan? how did he get the Jar with the nogitsune in it? Argent and Isaac took it to France. I mean maybe if they wanted to move it around a bit to keep it from being in the same place and being found like okay. but then why give it to the one character who was not even there during the time fo the nogitsune? When Harris goes into the restaurant and talks to Hikari and Liam, he’s directly referencing things that happened and were said during Season 3b, and Liam understands none of it. I feel like iff or example, Lydia had the jar for some odd reason, she would have understood the references and been like “oh Shit” 

What happened between Argent and Melissa??? At the end of the series, they were together and now all of a sudden they aren't? like give us an explanation.

I am a hard Stydia shipper. I have loved the two together since I started the show, but I HATED how nothing was confirmed or even spoken about after season 6a. We got 0 confirmation on them being together. And in the movie, there was barely any mention of stiles, which I hated. And then we come to find out that Lydia left stiles because she kept seeing his death? Fuck off. Bullshit. You’re telling me that we spent 6 seasons watching one of the slowest burning romances only to get no confirmation they were together, and then get told that they broke up?? 

I felt like almost everyone was so out of character. Scott was acting almost exactly like he normally does, so he’s the exception. 

If I talk about Derek’s death I will cry again, so I won’t say much. other than I felt he should not have died. I mean come on, Derek grew up at Eli’s age without a family and we are just continuing the cycle here? Derek should have lived to be with his son. 

there were obviously things I loved about this movie, like Allison coming back and the gang getting back together, but I just felt this left me with so many more questions than the show’s actual ending. 

[hylaversicolor]

good omens 2

i enjoyed some of it! the first half had me hooked the whole time, i didn't find myself yearning to fast forward through badly paced stuff until episode 4 or so. i thoroughly enjoyed the job and grave robbing subplots and overall didn't mind the season's slow pace - good omens at its heart is about an angel and demon hanging out and doing stupid bullshit so the slice of life stuff was fun and much more consistent than the all-over-the-place pacing of s1 (which the more i look back on the more i heartily dislike lol). no god narration is also a plus! everyone's caked on orange makeup was pretty distracting tho, moreso than s1.

i was pleasantly surprised by nina and maggie at first, i found them likeable and engaging. the second half of the season was where everything started to fall apart though. i wouldn't even mind (i cannot fucking believe i'm saying this) neilman using the lesbian subplot to further the relationship of crowley and aziraphale on principle IF the lesbian subplot had been developed adequately. sadly it wasn't. nina and maggie mostly just react to stuff. we learn a little bit about them but it was a little sad to see them both play straight man to aziraphale and crowley's antics by the climax. most of their dialogue towards the end of the season came down to "what's going on?" or "this is weird" not to mention by that point the b plot with miranda richardson had converged on them and i was SO ready for it to be over (i CANNOT believe they made miranda richardson unfunny. other than her line about toast i don't think i laughed once)

and then you look back on it and realize nina didn't really have anything to do except make coffee and get bombarded w texts from her abusive partner (sidenote i love that they made her cgi erase a chalkboard so they could put little texts on it, what was that about), and maggie didn't really have anything to do except crush on nina and be depressed about rent. i wanted more from their characters. and then they have this whole talk with crowley in e6 about "you need to sit down and talk to aziraphale about how you're feeling" but it just feels disingenuous because we never really got to see nina and maggie's own relationship develop organically NOR do we get to see the payoff to all that buildup OR azcrow's buildup because the season just ends. also that line about "we're real people, you don't get to just put us together" came off a little odd, like neil that's exactly what you were doing. you don't get to do something and then turn around and tell us not to do it. lol

i didn't mind the gabriel/beelzebub relationship, i didn't like it or hate it, i just REALLY wanted all that slow paced buildup to actually. you know. build up to something. rather than the metatron coming out of nowhere and stopping all that development in its tracks. all in all good solid start but i think the reason people are complaining about it feeling slow is because none of it ever amounted to anything. i kept waiting for someone to turn into a gecko or for some laudanum or those nazi zombies to show up again at the climax but they didn't. what was it all for neil???

much better than s1 though. unfortunately aziraphale and crowley have their claws in me for life

[spywitch]

rewatched lok w my boyfriend and like I remembered not liking it much and having a lot of criticism for it and liking those kat and skittle political essays about it but man rewatching it i realized its like so much worse than I even thought at the time it came out. But I realized this time like, as others pointed out Zaheer is kind of a mix of Amon and Unalaq in his motivations in a way and like. Theres totally a way they could have made ONE enemy (which ya ya ik they had to write it as they went bc their seasons weren’t guarenteed, but thats only half the problem), and said enemy could have been a lot more coherent and compelling.

There could have been ONE enemy, who wants to 1. Get rid of the avatar 2. Reopen the spirit portals 3. Get rid of bending and 4. Do all of this in the name of restoring “true” balance and natural order (like Zaheer talks about) the way things were before avatar Wan, as well for the purpose of social economic and political equality with nonbenders and ending bending related wars and violence.

These complaints about the current state of the world that this antagonist would have, rather than being dismissed as made up problems with most signs pointing to the opposite being true like in LOK, could have been shown as having validity to them.

Lok has nonbenders complain about “inequality” and then actually shows very little systemic inequality and in fact portrays many of them as ultrasuccessful capitalist businessmen who are doing better than ever because of technology (gasp, it was capitalist propaganda all along). Instead of blaming criminal gangs or a vague reference to the war in atla for peoples hatred of bending, it could be shown how mostly only benders are being successful, how police and politicians use bending to get what they want and bully ppl, how some other war or conflict is always inevitable bc someone wants to use their bending power for evil, SOMETHING valid like that.

The spiritual disconnect could have also been displayed better. They claim there is one because of the worlds new industrialized nature, but this supposed disconnect is never really displayed as a problem for benders, specifically it barely impacts Korra’s bending. Sure she struggles with airbending because of her spiritual disconnect, but she seems to actually still make breakthroughs with her airbending via fighting and probending and blah blah rather than actual spiritual awareness (nothing like Aang’s chakra journey or whatever where he had to give up attatchments to worldly worries and desires). She still is an extremely powerful bender and herself at one point claims maybe she “doesn’t even need airbending” and in fact everyone in the world’s bending is becoming stronger. There could have been some point made to show peoples bending becoming weaker, or more simplistic and violent rather than beautiful and representative of culture and spirituality as the world becomes more industrial and disconnected from spirits. Something could have been shown for how the world never really recovered from the fire nation’s violence and the loss of the spiritual air nomads. And of course the imperialist, colonialist origins of Republic City and the problems people have with that could have been shown too. The loss of connection to the original teachers of bending like they talk about in atla, thanks to the imperialist destruction of culture and animals like the dragons and sky bison, could have been reflected in how bending is losing its spiritual/cultural significance and becoming merely a tool of anger and violence, much like Zuko’s journey to relearn firebending.

The antagonist could have learned about Raava and Vaatu the same as Unalaq did. Rather than the extremely stupid “dark Avatar” bullshit that suddenly christianized all the lore and also dismissed his character as some randomly evil and power hungry guy, he could have decided that things should go back to the way they were before Wan ever interfered with them. He could decide that people should have never been giving bending (at least permanently), and that also the world sucks BECAUSE even while trapped Vatuu is overly powerful and out of balance. Plus they could point out how its not really fair that One Person gets to be in charge of all the light and “good” in the world and decide for everyone else what is right and balanced (easily able to get more into Zaheer’s anarchist themes there). It makes sense, because we also see at the end of Wan’s life that there still is a ton of fighting and violence between humans.

And maybe all that makes the enemy make TOO much sense, but it would still be much better writing than all 3 of the first antagonists who merely have their beliefs written off as a disingenuous attempt at getting power, or as just plain stupid and baseless, or as going “too far” and being the big bad leftist who actually kills puppies and tries to bring the world down in flames.

It would be probably difficult to do, but instead of just trying to invalidate this antagonists complaints and use pure force to squash them (which Korra always tries to do and basically proves the point that bending/the avatar is oppressive and totalitarian), as Korra fights with this enemy she could have 1. Grew and improved her spiritual connection, empathy and inclusion of nonbenders and other oppressed people and nature/spirits and 2. Proven with said growth that bending is good actually (not just because its “cool” as she literally says in season 1) and that bending IS a spiritual and cultural connection. Both Korra and the antagonist could have learned together that the world can never really go back to the way it was before Avatar Wan, and that actually things were still pretty unequal and bad amongst humans even back then, but that maaaaybe there are ways that things can be new and better in the future. Things can be more equal and in the hands of the people rather than just the hands of Korra herself or tyranical politicians. Things can be more in harmony with nature and spirits (think transforming the world from a sort of steampunk society to a solarpunk one). Bending can be used to build a better society and connect culturally rather than merely a weapon for “cool” looking police to swing around arresting people or for wars.

Like 😭 the building blocks were there for an in depth dive into the problems with the world the avatar lives in and with the very existance of the avatar itself, but it never happens that way and instead is a super sloppy nonsensical “liberal capitalism is the best!” message with 3 very stupid antagonists (and then a MEGASTUPID 4th antagonist who shouldn’t have written at all bc she’s literally just a stupid fascist who’s written more sympathetically and with more validity than anyone). The show is such a shitshow and its extremely disappointing.

[automaticdata]

I am becoming more and more convinced that the Miraculous Ladybug production team saw the SentiAdrien theory, went “oooh cool idea, let’s use that!” and went with it even though it wasn’t the plan from the start. Like, I’d kind of buy it if the amok was just in Emilie’s ring, but in both rings????

1) In Cat Blanc, Gabriel didn’t even try to use Adrien’s amok, despite it making sense for him to do so

2) “Getting sentimental for a sentimonster?” said with derision, by ... someone who claims to love his sentimonster son ...?

3) When he was wondering if Adrien was Cat Noir, he could have used the amok to demand an answer. Instead he came up with a convoluted way of figuring things out which allowed Adrien to figure out a way to fool him.

4) All the times he told Adrien not to go to school, hang out with friends, etc and Adrien did anyway don’t make sense if he could command Adrien through Adrien’s amok.

5) If the ~plan~ was for Adrien and Kagami to fall in love, why the hell did they not meet until they were 14 (in a pretty non-romantic way, no less), and why the hell did we not get a hint about how well Gabriel and Tsurugi-san knew each other until season five? Why was Gabriel okay with Lila and Chloe pursuing Adrien? and just .... ugh this makes no sense except if you follow the Rule of Drama.

Like ... there are some things I like about season five. Nathalie is finally a semi-well developed character. The plot with the sentikids is actually kind of interesting, complete illogic of it aside. I liked Felix/Kagami since they first looked at each other back during Gabriel Agreste, so getting more hints toward that pairing is *chef’s kiss*. They finally remembered, oh hey, Lila exists, we should, you know ... use this antagonist instead of this bullshit called “we gave up on Chloe’s redemption arc so we’re going to make her as bad as we possibly can now.”

But like ... the longer Miraculous goes on for, the more the ill thought out parts start to stand out. The sentiAdrien theory only worked if it was only Emilie’s ring that could control Adrien, but they still wanted to show Adrien struggling against his father’s control, so they ... made Gabriel’s ring also able to control him, despite that literally contradicting previous canon. (And despite, you know. Adrien’s story not needing a magical component to it. He’s a teenager who doesn’t want to disappoint his dad, you don’t need a magical macguffin to explain that). Nathalie went from “oh crap I forgot Adrien’s birthday let me steal this gift from his friend and pretend it’s from his father” to being basically the most supportive adult in his life - not complaining (holy shit I’m not complaining, I used to hate Nathalie and her “I will do villainous things for the evil man I’m in unrequited love with” BS, and I am really starting to love her), but it’s still a retcon. And Chloe ... just ... Chloe. They put so much effort into showing that Chloe has a sympathetic side, that she can change, and then they just gave up and literally replaced her with a “nice” version of her character. Luka was two years older than Juleka but uh no actually they’re twins now even though Luka goes to a different school and that makes zero sense but roll with it. Probably more I’m forgetting, too, but I think that’s enough to make my point.

I know it’s a kids’ show, but here’s the thing: kids’ shows can still make sense. Avatar the Last Airbender remained consistent through it’s entire runtime. So did She-ra: Princesses of Power, Steven Universe, and many others. Even some shows that were largely disappointing (cough Voltron Legendary Defender cough cough) still didn’t screw up their own internal logic this badly. The whole “it’s a kids’ show” excuse doesn’t fly any more. This is just lazy and bad.

Do I still like it? Yeah. But the strongest points Miraculous has do not include its lore or consistency. It’s the only media I know of that plays around with secret identity shenanigans as much as it does, it does a good job of creating chemistry between characters (both romantic and non-romantic), and its characters are (for the most part) fun and engaging. But holy shit the inconsistent mess is sometimes annoying af.

[orionsangel86]

SPN Conspiracies - Applying Logic to Chaos

Its been over 2 months now since the Supernatural finale aired. I am still so angry, hurt, and confused by it and I don’t think I will ever get closure unless someone like Andrew Dabb, or Jensen Ackles, actually opens up and gives us an explanation that makes sense.

What annoys me most right now is people trying to gaslight fans into believing that we should accept the narrative we have been given at face value: That the finale was always planned to be that way, that Destiel was never on the cards, that there was no Network interference, that the only changes made were due to covid and were minor at best.

This harmful gaslighting is FALSE.

NO ONE KNOWS THE TRUTH OF WHAT HAPPENED.

Look, I don’t agree with some of the crazier conspiracy theories. I don’t believe that there was some huge campaign among the CW Network execs to remove anything remotely gay out of homophobia. I don’t believe that the finale was changed because of some desire to make it into a Walker promo. I don’t believe that the finale was really bad on purpose in protest by Dabb for not getting to do an ending he truly wanted. I don’t believe that Dabb left us smart fans a bunch of secret messages in the finale to hint that he was on our side all along and that everything was fake.

I do, however, believe that all of these conspiracy theories have some elements in them that are plausible. At least, more plausible than the bullshit narrative mentioned above that some people are pushing in some desperate attempt to defend the Network (which imo is really strange behaviour anyway - why would anyone care about a TV network with a history of terrible behaviour?!?)

We have facts, based on information provided before the covid lockdown, which for some reason, people like Misha have since backpeddled on. So let me try to outline some of the information that makes no sense.

Below the cut I go on a deep dive into the conspiracies and statements I have heard about the SPN finale and try to make some sense of this whole fucked up situation. It gets long.

1. “Cas was never gonna be in the finale”.

False: We have many fan accounts of Misha confirming that he was filming the finale. We have video evidence of Misha confirming he was going back to film the finale after the lockdown. We have confirmation from fans in Misha M&Gs from March that he had about 5 days of filming left.

We also had fan accounts of discussions with Alex Calvert (I think) where he confirmed the final shot of the final episode was all four of them though I would LOVE if someone can find a source for this.

2. Okay, Misha was gonna be in the finale, but only as Jimmy Novak

False: I heavily side eyed Misha when he said this. But I think I can come up with a plausible explanation for it. Per above, Misha was supposed to film for 5 days. This does not align with the half a day he described of filming as Jimmy Novak. My own belief is that after Cas was cut from the finale (for whatever reason we don’t know) someone (probably Jensen Ackles) put up a fight and complained that Misha should be there for the final episode. The writers probably tried to come up with a way to bring Misha back without having to deal with Cas, and pitched the idea of Jimmy Novak being in Heaven. Misha, obviously annoyed about this, turned this stupid pitch down.

3. Destiel was never a thing, never planned, never part of Dabb’s ending. Bobo and Misha pushing the confession was the part of the season that was Wrong.

False: We have a SPN writer on record saying that Castiel’s confession was the first thing written for Season 15 when the writers returned to the writers room. If it wasn’t planned, why was it the first thing written, why does it align so well with the rest of season 15? Look I know some people either a. hate destiel and refuse to see it even if it slaps them in the face, or b. have major heteronormative goggles on, or c. are just homophobes in denial, but 15x18 fits in perfectly with the narrative of season 15. Everything Cas says, everything that happened in that scene was so in character it just works. It fit. If you just rewatch the season whilst applying some critical thinking skills and pay attention to the narrative and character arcs, trust me, the confession fits in with pretty much every other plot point, and character story in the season.

Also: We have known for a while that the network did market research into Destiel, wanting to know if it would go down well or not. They were well aware of its popularity and considering it. Where would this have come from if not pitched by the showrunner? Dabb must have at least been considering it. If you take all of Dabb era into consideration, starting with mid season 11, all the way through the season 12 build up, season 13 grief arc, and then Bobo’s Destiel break up arc in late season 14, early season 15, it is clear that there was some toing and froing on the issue of Destiel, but ultimately, I still believe that Dabb was on board. He wrote 13x01 for christs sake. No way he wasn’t taking it seriously.

 4. It’s always been about the brothers. The finale just stays true to what Supernatural is all about.

*rubs temples* Fundamentally FALSE: The show has time and again reasserted the message of “Family don’t end with blood”, as well as the messages of AKF and YANA. Sam and Dean may be at the heart of the show, but a heart can’t exist without a body to support it. Without bones, and lungs, and blood, and muscles, and a BRAIN. The finale abandons the shows core messages. It forces the characters back into their season 1 characterisations and the whole thing becomes hollow and souless. But I’m not here to complain, I’m here to lay down the facts. Dean’s heaven was supposed to be surrounded by loved ones right? We know OG Charlie Bradbury was gonna be in his Heaven, we also know CAS was gonna be in there. So this idea that the finale as it currently stands was how it was meant to be is wrong. Dean was supposed to die and reunite with his found family and loved ones. This alone would have been a far better ending than the one given. Do I think this was solely a covid issue? Fuck no.

The randoms that WERE in the finale are proof alone that they could have got people in and quarantined. We also have several actors on record saying that they WOULD have quarantined for the finale had they been asked to return but they WEREN’T.

Lies have been told. Samantha Ferris and Chad Limberg have confirmed that we have been lied to about the original plans for the finale.

This alone is proof enough that there is more plausibility in some of the conspiracy theories than any bullshit narrative some people are pushing in defence of the barbaric mess of a finale we were given.

So lets address some of the conspiracy theories now:

Conspiracy No.1: The CW Network reviewed Supernatural during the covid break, and due to homophobia, refused any Destiel arc that wasn’t already filmed, shut down any potential reciprocation from Dean, and forced Dabb to change his finale.

I don’t think this is entirely what happened. But I do think it is very strange how there is a such a huge disconnect particularly in Dean’s characterisations between what had come before the lockdown, and what came after. The one fact we have here, and please someone provide a source if you can find it because I know there is one, the finale script was still going through changes up to only 2 weeks before it was filmed. We know that there was some weird editing in 15x18 (which was still in post and uncompleted before lockdown) and we know from Jensen’s own mouth that there was more to the confession scene on Dean’s side that was cut. We also know that this isn’t the first time that Destiel heavy moments have been changed in post - the prayer scene is another big scene that went through a lot of changes and Bobo fought to have his script play out the way he wanted it.

There are certain things that in my own opinions, are basically true of SPN which I have put together from years of keeping one eye on the writers room, the network, and all the various comments made. My opinion is this:

The writers room has always been split on Destiel. Some writers heavily supported making it canon, others did not care, or were against it.

The Network considered it over the course of several years, did market research, green lit it, then changed their minds, possibly several times over the course of Dabb’s era. Destiel was pitched to the Network early in Dabb era.

The crew on set were also split. Some people heavily supported it, and worked to assist the reading, whereas others did not care/did not support it. The same can be said for the editing room.

Bob Singer supported the subtextual homoeroticism, but never supported bringing it into text (this is an opinion, but I think it aligns with everything we know about him.) IMO Bob Singer also supported subtextual homoeroticism between Sam and Dean - the guy is gross is what I’m saying. He isn’t exactly a progressive person.

Fun fact - a while back our old enemy Sera Gamble went on a Twitter rant about writers rooms and the ways a script goes through changes. I don’t think this was in relation to the SPN finale wank but she basically inadvertantly confirmed that the Network can step in and make sweeping changes to a script if they want to and if they decide they don’t like the direction of a story. Sera Gamble confirmed this as a fact.

Now. I’m not saying that this is what the CW did with Destiel. I just think its very strange how pre lockdown, the last thing filmed is a heartfelt homosexual declaration of love between Dean and Cas, and we have a finale script that Misha had not seen, but knew that he was meant to film as Castiel for 5 days (5 days on set is over half of an episode as far as I know). Then all of a sudden, Covid happens, and Cas is cut from the finale completely, a desperate attempt to bring Misha back only as Jimmy Novak takes place, which Misha rightly refuses, leading to a finale which makes zero sense narratively and appears in every way completely and utterly butchered.

The only explanation provided by anyone involved is that Covid meant changes had to happen - but that covid didn’t change the actual story at all.

But this makes no sense because we know that Cas was cut from the finale. This is FACT. Do not let anyone gaslight you into thinking otherwise. Misha was preparing to quaranting to return to set as Cas post Covid, so whatever happened to cut Cas from the finale, it wasn’t Covid.

I’m gonna have to Occum’s Razor this and say that the most logical explanation here is the one that is most likely true. Someone got cold feet with the Destiel story, and to prevent any possible interpretation that included Dean reciprocating, any hints of Destiel were removed from the finale script, including Castiel’s whole appearance.

Now, this isn’t me saying I think that Dabb’s original finale was full of Destiel love confessions and a homosexual kiss or whatever, but I am asking you all to really think about it and ask yourselves WHY Cas would have been totally cut from an episode he was supposed to be in at LEAST half of? 

We will probably never know the real reason Cas was cut, but he WAS cut. I’m not saying it was all homophobia, but some fuckery went down.

Conspiracy No. 2: The CW Network changed the finale to make it into a Walker promo because they only cared about raising up Jared and not Jensen and Misha as they were losing them anyway.

I don’t agree with this in terms of the finale being butchered solely to make it into a Walker promo. There are however moments in the finale that are clearly supposed to be Walker Easter Eggs and added to excite fans of Jared/Sam in particular such as Sam’s gratuitous and unnecessary topless scene, as well as the call on the “case in Austin”.

I will take this moment to say something pretty damn controversial though.

*Deep breath*

The fact is, Dean Winchester has been the “lead” character of Supernatural’s narrative for years now, with Sam often being sidelined and not given great storylines himself. Even in Season 15, right up until the finale, I myself felt bad for Sam sometimes because so much of this show has become all about Dean. Jensen Ackles is clearly the better actor when it comes to emotional story arcs, so the emotional heart of the story has most often leant on him.

So you can understand my confusion, when this is turned on its head in the final episode, to make Sam carry all the emotional weight, and have the most lines/screentime, and story resolution (even if his story resolution was just as crappy as Dean’s).

If we pretend that Destiel is not a thing, and ignore Cas’s confession, the story change in the finale from Dean focus to Sam focus is still rather suspicious. Again, I’m not saying I completely approve of or agree to the conspiracy theory that Walker influenced the butchering of the script, but I can believe that perhaps a note went down from the CW to someone like Bob Singer, to emphasise Sam/Jared more than they perhaps would normally, because the CW wanted to shine the spotlight on Jared to raise excitement for Walker.

I can also believe this note might have said something like “we wanna cater to fans of Sam/Jared the most - don’t do anything to piss them off.” but now I am getting into my own conspiracy theories so by all means dismiss this as me being bitter.

Conspiracy No.3: Dabb purposely made it bad, as a secret message to Destiel fans that he had been silenced, by layering meta clues into the episode that he knew fans would notice.

I doubt this one is true. Though some of the theories are quite compelling. The old vampire silent movie theory for instance starts off quite well, but loses me the moment it brings up Urban Dictionary slang.

Sometimes I have just had to accept that Supernatural is a bad show that is sometimes accidentally a masterpiece. However, some writers really did go That Deep with their stories - anything by Ben Edlund or Steve Yockey for instance, their episodes are meta masterpieces with a hundred different layers of beautiful subtextual storytelling and are a joy to analyse. Bobo Berens has certainly done some A+++ work especially now we KNOW that he was working hard all this time to bring Destiel to canon text (so any analysis of Destiel in the subtext in his episodes is very accurate). There have been many other key elements analysed over the years which have been confirmed true. Cas’s death in Season 12, Dean’s time as a demon in season 10, Season 11 ending in unity of dark and light, these were all plot points predicted by meta writers just by analysing the narrative. Sometimes the writers really have been very smart and they do add things to the show to aid us in our meta.

Richard Speight Jr for instance, confirmed that SPN has a visual library that the production team use to give clues and hints in the narrative. Pizza, for example, always means a lie has been told. Whenever Pizza is being eaten or even just mentioned on screen, there is dishonesty in that particular moment.

The beers also have a very specific message and the one thing I can’t let go about the finale, was that Dean was drinking El Sol beer. The beer his dad gave him, that was terrible.

El Sol has been used in the show to indicate something being wrong, a fake reality, or another lie, for the longest time. It is the beer of deception.

The fact that in the final episode of this entire show, Dean is in Heaven, supposedly at peace, and then he gets handed an El Sol beer to drink? Thats a HUGE red flag for any meta writer watching who can read SPNs visual library.

If they had given him the Margiekugel beer of family then it would make sense. Dean is in Heaven, with Bobby, his family, at peace. Margiekugel should have been the beer of choice. But nope. El Sol. Something is wrong.

I don’t know if it was Dabb, or Singer, or some disgruntled ADs and crew members who added these elements into the finale, but their very presence confirms some message of Wrongness.

I could go into a huge rant about Vampire Mimes not making sense and the very glaringly obvious symbolism of cutting out peoples tongues too, but that is high school level film analysis. It’s obvious. It means to silence someone. There is validity in interpreting this as Dabb saying he was silenced. I don’t know how true it is, but i can’t 100% dismiss it, because as I said, this is high school analysis levels of obvious subtextual storytelling.

So in summary, whilst I don’t think that Dabb intentionally went out of his way to sabotage his own script, and leave a breadtrail of secret messages for savvy fans to put together to confirm that he was silenced by an evil network into not getting what he wanted... I do think that there is validity in questioning these odd choices for the finale. Cutting out tongues? Vampire Mimes? El Sol beer?

The evidence is somewhat compelling is all I’m saying. I don’t believe the full conspiracy theories, but as I have said many times before, some fuckery went down.

So What Do I Believe?

That some fuckery went down and whatever company line they are pushing is bullshit.

I believe that the original script included Cas (since thats fact). I believe that the original script probably always had Dean dying on a vampire hunt (due to Jensen’s issues with it and in particular, his sarcastic comments about vampires in the past year or so which in hindsight are hilarious and prove he never really came to terms with Dean’s idiotic death). I believe Dabb’s original script was some less crappy version of what we got, which potentially included showing Jack rescuing Cas from the Empty and resolving the outstanding Empty plot points (potentially this was actually a 15x19 plot since Mark P commented that his final scenes were supposed to be with Jack and Cas), had Cas reunite with Dean in Heaven and had them have a discussion about Cas’s confession. I believe that there was probably a lot of back and forth over how to handle that with some people wanting Dean to obviously reciprocate and others believing they should keep it ambiguous. I believe that Dean and Cas would have reunited with Charlie Bradbury, and Bobby Singer, and possibly others (though if this was the case it must have been very early on since no one ever looped in Sam Ferris, Chad Linberg or any other Roadhouse people).

I believe that Sam’s ending probably didn’t change much, but I do feel that initially they were planning on him ending up with Eileen, because it is the only thing that narratively makes sense. Cutting Eileen and giving him a blurry wife is something I won’t ever understand and Jared’s bullshit explanations are quite clearly pulled out of his ass to appease bronly types. I believe the reunion on the bridge would have included Cas and Jack, with a final shot of all four of them together, at peace (as this aligns with Alex’s comments from around a year or so ago that the final shot was all four of them). (I also am not sure it was always supposed to be on a bridge since the foreshadowing in an earlier episode showed Dean, Cas and Sam all in the Roadhouse together).

I believe that script went through countless changes and redrafts, and not even production people or the types that some fandom people claim as their “sources” would even have seen those early scripts, since even Misha never saw it. I believe that these rumours of Dabb never having Cas in his finale and ignoring all Destiel elements likely come from people who only saw later versions, weren’t party to network discussions and felt bitter about the final scripts they did see (being the crappy butchered one that was ultimately filmed). Those “sources” are now spreading rumours to discredit Dabb.

I obviously believe Dabb is a weak ass pushover who either didn’t care enough to fight back, or gave up since he’s been stuck with fucking Bob Singer on his back for years, but I will NEVER believe he didn’t care about the DeanCas love story, because he has been one of the few writers who has championed for it for years. You can’t look back at Dabb’s episodes in earlier seasons and claim he didn’t care. Dabb was a writer whose creative ideas were beaten out of him by an unforgiving Network only concerned about where their future money was coming from. Do I think he gave up too easily? Yes. But I also have one other huge reason for not believing the bullshit about Dabb being this anti-Destiel villain.

Bobo. Because if Bobo truly believed Dabb was gonna fuck that up at the end, I don’t think he would have given us Cas’s love confession to begin with. If he had known it was gonna end like that, I think he would have reconsidered, because had Cas not confessed his love, I don’t think he would have been cut from the finale. Bobo - a gay man, would not have wanted such a horrible message for queer fans being put across in the show he worked so hard on. He started writing that confession scene the day they returned to the writers room. Dabb would have been there, would have seen what he was writing, probably discussed it with him, after all, other episodes were written with the confession in mind. No way was Dabb planning to fuck up the ending knowing what Bobo was giving us. Nope.

Something went very wrong over lockdown. Someone, somewhere up the chain of power caught wind of the confession scene in 15x18, realised that it demanded a resolution which would make Dean Winchester, their protagonist, queer, and pulled the plug. I believe this did not come from a place of homophobia, but of bad business sense.

The CW is constantly trying to win the approval and attention of the one demo group that they seem to fail at getting the most: young straight men. Supernatural was one of their only remaining shows that appeals to young straight men, and Dean Winchester is more often than not the fave character of those young straight men who project onto him. Making Dean Winchester, established Han Solo of Supernatural, queer and in love with his best friend in the finale would have come across as a betrayal to those young straight men. The CW probably feared they would lose that demo group for good, and with a show like Walker starting soon with Jared at the helm, they couldn’t take the risk.

Hence there was probably a whole bunch of back and forth script redrafts with the Network, with Dabb and Singer fighting to make a finale that would appeal to everyone. There was most likely no way that they could bring Cas back without addressing what had already been filmed, because any resolution of that plot would either a. make Dean queer, or b. address it awkwardly by having Dean reject Cas (this storyline would probably have been slammed by critics worse than the finale because it meant addressing it. It might have got the attention of LGBTQ activist groups and caused a bigger shitstorm than what we got). The best option was therefore C. Bury it and Cas, pretend it never happened. Never address it again and distract Dean with other things. Hope that Destiel fans will accept no answer from Dean as ambiguous enough to imagine a future reunion rather than shutting it down with a rejection, and still keep hold of the blissfully ignorant heteronormative straight boys so they can carry over to Walker when it starts.

I also believe (controversially probably) that there was concern that any resolution of Dean and Cas would have overshadowed network darling Jared Padalecki. If Dean and Cas had come together in the finale, with a very clearly textual homosexual reunion, then that would have been all anyone talked about. The reviewers, the critics, the audience, everyone. It would have been nothing but Dean and Cas (and look, if they did think this, they were right, Destiel trending over the US ELECTION.)

So what is the network to do, when they are losing the two stars who would get the most attention from this storyline? The one star they were holding on to and getting his own show, relegated to third place in the finale of the show where he was first on the call sheet? Nope. That’s pretty unacceptable. Even without Walker I can imagine people at all levels side eyeing the Destiel thing over the years. This IS a show about two brothers, and their relationship should be the core relationship, we can’t have one brother pushed aside in the finale to make way for a queer relationship that will get all the attention instead. It was never gonna get approved for this reason ALONE.

At the end of the day, if I look at it from a business perspective, it makes far more sense that the CW shut down Destiel, rather than “oh Dabb never cared and ruined it because he’s an idiot.” The writers cared, and had built on that story over years. But their mistake was leaving any Destiel resolution to the finale. If they had instead gone and got Dean and Cas together in early season 15, then they could have ended it in a way that satisfied everyone. Destiel wouldn’t have threatened pulling focus away from Sam and Dean, and the show could have gone out on a high.

When I lay out all the conspiracy theories, and line them up next to the cold hard facts, the conspiracy theories in some way or another, make more sense. To believe the company line, the narrative we have been fed, is to ignore your own eyes, ears, and memories pre March 2020.

All I’m asking people to do is take a look at the show, the narrative presented in the show, and the information presented above. I’m not telling you to believe what I’ve written here, half of which is just my own opinion. I’m asking you to ask yourselves if it makes sense to you. Because it sure as hell doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied.

[g0reoz]

i’m taking a break from art homework because i’ve been rewatching season 1 of burst in the background and i have once again developed Opinions 🥲

i’m the (or at least a) Music Guy, right? that’s sorta my schtick, especially irl (maybe less on here?). i like the beyburst soundtrack, doubly so for the first season—been meaning to transcribe some of it at some point, maybe over the summer! anyways, i just finished episode 20 and, uh. this is the first in (maybe, depending on what other hot takes i come up with) a few posts about that.

remember xhaka’s theme? leitmotif? whatever you wanna call it? The Piece Of Music That Only Really Cropped Up When He Was About To Kick Someone’s Shit?

ok, but do you remember how Completely Fucked Up the first 2 sections (the only ones used in season 1, from what i remember) of it are? if you really want to see what i’m saying, pull up episode 21. it’s right at the start of the last round from the team battle; timestamp is around 16:55. try keeping time with a consistent beat. hit it in downbeats, triplets, sixteenth notes, or whatever. or, even better, pull up a metronome and set it based on that initial tempo from the first few beats. you’re gonna see pretty quickly what i’m talking about, yeah? how sooner or later, it’s gonna be off to the point where the beat isn’t even close to lining up? (i’m not talking about the second section. even in the first one, it does this. i thought it would work if i subdivided the notes?? but even then, something‘s still off. )

i was just sitting there working on my stuff, and i tend to sorta do SOMETHING to keep time when background music exists. clearly, that did not work. CLEARLY, this part of the soundtrack is Really Weird. i can’t even figure out what fucking time signiature(s) it’s in—i’m guessing it changes every so often, but WHERE? where, beyblade? where does it change? i thought i could narrow it down if i counted it in triplets, but that would require some bullshit too. i really want to try transcribing the sheet music for this because i’m sure that’d Make It Make Sense, but until then i really don’t know.

***side note: in episode 27 of chouzetsu, there‘s an extended version at around 14:26. i am not complaining about that because, from the third section until around the end, it is Fine And Normal. you could probably feel it in a fast 4 instead of a moderate 2 and everything would work out alright on paper.***

not to get too literature teacher-y on you guys, but i have a working idea as to WHY it‘s the way it is. pretty sure it’s like a more abstract representation of the inherent unpredictability and lack of stability that come with (any) xcalibur and any strategy you could possibly formulate using it. like, for season 1, there’s the whole double ended launcher thing. the fact that the longer side hits harder but is less likely to make contact at all. in general, the way it’s off balance and sorta just moves haphazardly when the heavy point on the layer and disc line up, but that‘s also what makes it hit the hardest. every move you could possibly make will end in some sort of unstable movement, and that’s reflected by how…odd this theme in particular is. it stabilizes later on in chouzetsu, which is also at the point where there’s less of a gamble involved because, hi, hello, 5th Impact Is a Thing That Exists. you land a hit with that, and you’re pretty much guaranteed a burst finish—which is pretty much what happened. (the drums towards the beginning were sort of weird too, but i think they worked well considering everything else.)

overall, despite everything i just said, i actually really like the theme :] getting a lot of masked man mother 3 vibes, but i hope this one isn’t in 29/16 😓 but i’m a sucker for weird music shit, especially in a lower tenor-ish range :))) SPEAKING of which, is it pandering if i say it would sound good with some trombone? am i biased? either way, i think some scoops/glisses/growls/Extra Flavor coming from a Really Grimy Sounding Trombone (fast air, rough sound quality, shut up you guys i’m not just saying this because i‘m a jazz trombonist i promise <3 ) would be a great move.

also heehoo trumpet synthesizers Do Not Sound Like Trumpets but they sure as hell make A Sound

[kaypeace21]

I believe that byler is an endgame

but why would they spend 3 seasons winding up with mileven?

People REALLY need to pay attention to the shows the Duffers cited as huge inspirations to them. Cheers,dawsons creek, freak &geeks did exactly what the Duffers are doing (and the Duffers said these shows inspired them)

. Cheers for over 5 seasons built up the pairing of sam and Dianne- had them break up in the s5 finale and then in the last 2 eps of the 11th season have them get back together and once again break up explaining for the 100th time they were wrong for each other and brought out the worst in eachother . Cheers would build up multiple pairings (Frasier /Lilith (s4-11/broke up in s11) , sam/Dianne (s 1-11, broke up in s11 permanently) , rebecca /sam (s8-10) Rebecca/robin (s8-9) -these pairings lasted for multiple seasons and they all broke up! They built pairings up for multiple seasons but showed throughout the show why those pairing in cheers could never work out in the long term. The same Thing happened with almost every pairing in Dawson’s creek (they’d build up multiple pairings up -sometimes for multiple seasons- sprinkle in good but also dysfunctional aspects of those relationships- and then break them apart for good ).

Also in Dawson’s creek 2 characters (a rich girl and poor guy with daddy issues) date and breakup- but both of their gay brothers get together and are endgame instead of them (cough jancy vs byler). One of the gay guys (the rich one with the book smart sis) even dated the main girl (Joey) for a while before admitting he was gay and that he was in denial (while dating the main girl for more than a season ). In D.C even the main guy(Dawson) / girl (Joey) don’t end up being endgame (despite teasing it for all 5 seasons) . They did this with a lot of couples in the show. Honestly, the Duffers pretty much borrowed this idea of showing pairings with issues and breaking them up -but toned down how long they’d bait them . Like 11seasons of showing dysfunctional couples date -ick. And Dawson’s creek ... my god it had a literal love octogon/ love webs (so many love squares/pentagons/ and on and off relationships). The 1 adult couple broke up and I’m not exaggeration 4 times, and Dawson got back with 2 of his girlfriends like so many times. And ugh I’d say each (of the 4-5) main characters dated at least 4 people -and each of those relationships lasted for like 20+ eps each... and then after all that build up -break up ). That’s not even including the people the main 5 or so characters would date for like 5-6 eps . Thank god it was toned down compared to Dawson’s creek or cheers. i can’t imagine the frustration watching those shows during its airing 😂

Freaks & geeks (set in the 80s)was also inspo.14 y old Sam who is bullied and called “homo” “queer” etc throughout the whole series - he also obsesses over a cheerleader girl for the whole series and in the second to last ep of the series- they finally start dating  and he realizes they have nothing in common and says “it’s boring. all we ever do is makeout.She likes nothing i like. We can’t talk to eachother. We never have fun.” And he admits he only keeps dating her cause everyone would call him “crazy” to not date her. sam and her are also said to be “from different planets” and “different species”  just like mileven in s3 lol.  The gf of  sam also says before they dated she saw him ‘like a sister’ (like El asking mike if he’d be her brother in s1, before they date). And after this sibling comment various characters -encouraged the couple and said they would be good together (before they dated-like what we’ve seen in st with mileven and other ships ).Sam eventually decides to not cave to peer pressure- and breaks up with her. Meanwhile sam’s sis (is a straight A student, who is initially into a popular guy and starts hanging with the cool kids).  After getting over the first (popular) guy, she later dates another guy- a music-obsessed-stoner-guy  with a cruddy dad...and she breaks up with him (like jancy?). That couple was even called ‘romeo & juliet’ before they broke up-similar to mileven being called “romeo & juliet’ before their breakup. plus r&j were never in love... just like mileven.

All 3 shows had the main guy/girl date but not end up with eachother in the end . And both shows -would build up several pairings that looked like endgame but would show faults in those relationships and would have them breakup (because those pairings were never that healthy together). Which I believe is what they’re doing with jancy, jopper, mileven and lumax (explained in my analysis here all the evidence for why I don’t think they don’t end up together). I mean there’s many reasons I listed in the analysis but you think it’s a coincidence - jancy, lumax, mileven , and Steve/rando girl who rejected him in s3-all incorportated spying on their love interest ? you think the duffers think that’s good to have all these romantic pairings spy on eachother? When in the show they canonically have the us gov (villains) spy via phone taps, and hidden recorders, and cameras? Brenner used El as a spy for his own gain ? they even call the mf a ‘spy’ (which the characters perceive as the  main villain)... i don’t think the mf is  actually villainous but that’s off topic).The point is narratively equating spying as something ‘wrong’ by characters our main cast of heroes is against. But having that same cast of heroes partaking in spying themselves … specifically on to their romantic partners- and not also showing it as a negative. But romanticizing it? Would be quite hypocritical. And a HUGE narrative oversight.

Also build up?

S1- mileven kiss right after el asks if he’ll be her “friend” or “brother”. Has others compare el to mike’s sibling /cousin. Hint Will is gay . Have hints mike is queer too/ and cares deeply about Will. Constantly mention how el physically resembles Will/a boy. Parallel mileven to ted/Karen who were “never in love”. Have Nancy and mike verbally compare the jancy/stancy love triangle to mileven/byler . And at the end of the season mike writes a story for Will that likens the 2 to han/leia. Flo says about jancy/Jon “ only love makes you that crazy and that damn stupid”. (Which flo wasn’t entirely right about since jon punched Steve for insulting his family- for Jon it was familial love -not romantic love. But put a pin in that phrase)

S2- was pretty much byler season (and mileven barely interact that season). Byler say they’d go “crazy together”. But el’s new catchphrase is she’s “not stupid.” They Compare mileven to luke/leia (siblings that kissed) . Ref ghostbusters and parallel byler to the romantic pairing of Dana /venkman (but have el just be a ghost and mike a ghost buster which isn’t romantic but the opposite) .parallel mileven to hopper/el. Have el spy on mike, el hurt a stranger cause of unhealthy jealousy, have mileven dance to a song about a possessive spying/Stalking ex gf . Throw in mileven burns like “they’re not in love they’re not even from the same planet.” (El being et ref) . Have mike say annoyed “a bond ?! (Scoff) cause you shared nougat?! “ (egos like s1 ) “. Mike saying after knowing max for a week “hate you? I don’t even know you?” (He knew el for a week too so no way he loves her -cause he doesn’t know el , just like max ) . mike even criticizes his friends’ instant attraction to max saying “you haven’t even spoken a word to her.”Dustin saying “ I don’t have to . I mean -look at her.” Which makes it even more suspicious that mike was into a girl who multiple characters said looked like a boy (specifically Will) in s1. Have El watch a soap opera (all my children) and mimic the scene of  erica kane and her love interest michael. Which in the soap opera-isn’t endgame, and ended with some stalking after their breakup.

S3- mileven is finally dating : multiple characters (lucas, Will, Hopper, dustin,Max, etc) in the show dislike and verbally complain about them together . In cheers all of sam’s friends hated him dating Dianne and would vocally complain about it (similar to joyce they even clapped/cheered after 1 of their many breakups) . Mike is horrified by the spying(that mileven fans romanticized in s2) , el is happier single and neither is heartbroken over the breakup. They date for 2 eps and then breakup . Mileven being together inhibits El’s character arc from s2 (aka she went from wanting to explore the world and leave the cabin in s2 to see her friends, to ignoring her friends and cutting herself off from the world in order to stay in the cabin all day to make out with mike for 6 months - she would literally lie to her friends about curfew to return to the cabin and kiss mike -going against her ‘friends don’t lie’ mantra from the past 2 seasons too ). Mike canonically doesn’t trust her / doesn’t believe in her ability to make decisions and lies to her and never apologizes for lying. And el doesn’t apologize for spying . They throw in more gay hints of mike & Will. Mileven is called “bullshit” like s2 stancy . And Both pairings in the show kissed a bunch and said “I love you” (but they weren’t endgame). They also contrast s3 mileven scenes to s2 byler scenes and have byler win out. And once again parallel mileven to hopper/el and Karen/ted. As well as paralleling and likening Mileven to stancy in numerous other ways (besides the “bullshit “ line) . They also parallel mileven to stobin (both are straight baits) .They parallel the stobin confession to the mileven one -both confessions have them sitting on the floor, both girls have bandages on their legs, and both confessions are interrupted by dustin. Also both Steve/mike use the terms “crazy & stupid ” to confess to robin/el. But unlike Will who agrees to be “crazy “ with mike .El confused , asks “ what makes you crazy?” And robin says she didn’t have a crush on his “stupid hair”. el even says in reference to mike “there’s more to life than stupid boys.” Showing how el/robin don’t have romantic feelings for the boys-like the flo phrase of s1. Unlike Will who after fighting with mike calls himself “stupid” over and over and rips up the photo of him and mike where they promised to go “crazy together.” Even Steve says in s2 stancy should should “pretend to be stupid teenagers” in love. Emphasis on “pretend”. And when el says she loves mike “the first I love you” plays -the only other time that song plays in s3 is when robin rejects Steve (cause she’s gay.) cough cause mike is gay too.

There’s a lot more in each season (that illustrates mileven was built up -but not as a positive couple but a problematic one that was never was in love to begin with ). But I’m trying to keep this short . You can read this post here where I go in more depth about all of this .

S1-2 builds up the problematic ships (but showed good and bad aspects of their dynamic) . like the spying of jancy, lumax, and mileven or the jealousy. of Hopper in s2. In the s2 finalie they have them kiss or hug/exchange romantic glances. And in S3 we see the after math of this with all the couples officially dating - and they show all the couples issues at the forefront . I already talked about mileven. But, Lumax broke up 6 times (they dated for 6 months- and every month they dated max dumped him ). Jancy fight in the opening of ep 1 and don’t understand each others issues (sexism/poverty-and Jon’s issues with his dad) . And neither supports the other in their passions of journalism & photography.Nancy is also called “nancy drew” who in 1986 (year of s4) before going to college dumps her long term highschool bf (who helped her in many of her past mysteries/novels ). Their relationship was also shown as complex and somewhat dysfunctional because of both parties -before nancy drew dumps him. And (even if not dating like the other pairings) jopper almost go on a date in s3. Joyce was trying to hide the fact she was moving, Hopper was horribly jealous, and all they did was yell and argue.Murray says to joyce regarding hopper “he’s a brute... probably reminds you of a bad relationship” (aka lonnie/Joyce) . They even have Joyce watch a cheers ep- which directly compares jopper to (dianne/Frasier) who weren’t endgame in cheers but a rebound .  Hopper /fraiser both drink chianti . Fraiser asks dianne to marry him/Hopper asks Joyce on a date-both women stand them up. Or when Joyce asks Hopper out she calls her self ‘detective byers ‘and Hopper name drops miami vice. Which had an on and off again relationship for several seasons- of the male /female detectives.The relationship faded out as Gina realized they mainly got together when one or both needed someone. Crockett was very protective of Gina, and had some jealousy when Gina was involved in relationships , but was the first one to be there for her when things went wrong. And they realized it was better to not be together romantically. Heck seems like all these couples have negative film/tv parallels... lucas in s2 mentions not liking winston in ghost busters cause he came ‘super late’ (like Max). in s1 disses michael myers (which Max dressed as). And at the end of s3- lumax dress identically to eric/donna from a ep of that 70s shows (in the ep  eric/donna were broken up).

 (s3 was marketed as the “summer of love” and “summer love” is a euphemism for flings that don’t last.) s4-5 Will probably show good healthy ships/break up the problematic ones from past seasons .

So first 2 seasons focus on the unhealthy ships / and the last 2 seasons focus on healthy ships. S3 the middle season would be considered the turning point -and why none of the popular ships (assumed to be endgame) came off looking that great (compared to how they were presented in s1-2) .

[danceworshipper]

So I used this website to find which characters/people I have the same personality type as. Some of them are... confusing, to say the least

Me talking about them all under the cut!

Harry Potter: BILL and CHARLIE??? There's gotta be some mistake here, I'm not that cool. Blaise though - I can see that. And I'm happy about it. Harry Potter characters are also all a hit.

Undertale/Deltarune: How... do you assign a personality to a heart? Bob, sure, he's hilarious, Doggo, yep, love him, SUSIE MY BELOVED, I don't really remember who Seam is whoops, but... Yellow Soul. Okay. Overall, this is a hit. Still confused though.

Undertale/Deltarune: How... do you assign a personality to a heart? Bob, sure, he's hilarious, Doggo, yep, love him, SUSIE MY BELOVED, I don't really remember who Seam is whoops, but... Yellow Soul. Okay. Overall, this is a hit. Still confused though.

Favorite Shows: SPIKE???????????? This one made me the happiest. He's one of my favorite characters in that show - I'm so not as cool as him though. Chris Kratt just made me happy because I loved that show. Hunter fits me actually super well, wow. And Sir Percival - I haven't actually gotten to where he's introduced in the show, but from what I have seen he's great. So yay, all of these are good!

Hogwarts Mystery: ERIKA! She almost makes up for them sticking me with Jacob (derogatory). I'd much rather be a badass Quidditch bitch than that useless fuck. 1/2 good.

Video Games I Love: HANK FUCKING ANDERSON I LOVE YOU. Okay, now... how do you get a personality from two animatronics that kill you just like the other ones?? Don't get me wrong, Foxy makes me happy and Withered Bonnie is cool too, but huh??? All good though, even if those two don't make sense!

Real People: Jensen Ackles, eh? And Kristen Stewart, damn, the website must think I'm hot as hell. Also how am I half of Fall Out Boy, my favorite band ever?? Can't complain. Sam Golbach - I feel like we're very different, but the more I think about it the more I can see it. I haven't watched anything from him in a long time - guess I know what I'll be doing later! And yeah, Rosemarie, cool. I like that. Real people are all a hit.

Misc Games: I wasn't aware that Diogenes had a name, or a personality, but okay. Protagonist is cool, love him. I haven't kept up with Yandere Simulator, but Nemesis does look really cool so I'm going to be happy about her. Robert... buddy, I wish your ending was better. I was so mad when I immediately went for you and looked up a walkthrough and everything to get stuck with that bullshit. Ellie, sure, she's cool I suppose, and 47 is here because he made me crack up laughing. All in all, these guys are a hit as well!

Shows/Movie I Liked: Beck Oliver, eh, he's kind of an ass, but he is actually really similar to me. Mittens I love, no complaints there! Perry and Vanessa... why does this website think I'm cool? I'm not. 4/4

Shows/Movies I Haven't Watched: I've heard good things about both Bobby and Claire. It also gave me Ruby the demon, don't know why I didn't screenshot her. Nice, we love demons. My dad says Jasper fits me, and my mom says that Salem does, so I guess these all work. (technically I've watched spn but only the first season and years ago so it doesn't count shut up)

Misc Others: Edith is fun. I like her. Max? Eh, I could never be that quiet. It also gave me Charlie from Charlie and Lola, but I don't think it fits so I didn't put him here. Eddie yeah, I'd get super pissed off by Roger too and have my head up my ass, I can see him. Artemis I feel like is a direct attack against my hatred of men and chronic virginity, but she's also a badass so I'll allow it. Mulan - again, I'm not that cool. And Jessica Rabbit - I'm not that hot, but thanks for the ego boost.

[brazenautomaton]

okay so stranger things season 4

overall pretty good, now time for me to complain about it, big spoilz do not expand this readmore unless and until you have seen all 7 episodes

the gravity of the big episode 7 reveal is ruined by the fact that Numbuh One will not fucking shut up. about 75% of that narration needed to be cut. Show, don’t tell! He goes into way too much detail, so much it makes his character incoherent. Everything about humanity making a system that contradicts nature was gibberish, cut that shit. All the specifics just conflict with how we see him act as Vecna. Make it much more vague, have him talk about how the world needs to make sense but it doesn’t because people are always lying about who they are, he felt like he was watching them from somewhere else, etc. Specifics of how he tortured his family should all be SHOWN by Nancy seeing them in the vision. Also, the CG segment after he gets blown through the portal to the Upside-Down is fucking awful. It looks like shit. It looks like an inferior ripoff of the fucking intro to the Spawn movie. Don’t show us lightning turning him into Vecna, that’s dumb, that sucks. Show us him “landing”, groaning in pain, gasping for breath, and then show us looking at ONE HAND that is STARTING to get all fucked up. Then you cut to Vecna in the present with the 001 on his arm. We can infer what happened! It’s better if you don’t show it, even if you could make the effects not look awful!

Also the cast stabilizes into four and a half storylines : Hawkins, Eleven, California Road Trip, and then Joyce and Murray going to rescue Hop and Hop in the Russian prison are kind of like 1.5 storylines together. All of these storylines have great individual scenes but they don’t justify how much time they take from each other. There needed to be two story threads: Hawkins, and Eleven.

Russia Storyline is interesting enough on its own, but has nothing to do with the rest of what is going on. Only at the very very end does the Upside-Down even have any effect on the storyline. Like this is a spin-off series, not part of the main narrative. 

The California Road Trip storyline opens with a fucking awesome shootout scene and a great panicked atmosphere that results in this cast herd of Will, Mike, John, and Argyle spinning their fucking wheels for over half of the series, wasting our time. The thing they are trying to get to is a thing we’ve already seen and know about, there’s no reward at the end of this for them except “finally showing up at the plot.” It’s a storyline epicycle. Hey, you know what you’ve fucking already done and isn’t interesting any more? Have Eleven and Mike driven apart over minor misunderstandings and emotional difficulties that seem major to them. And you know what you fucking already did in season 2 and didn’t work out well and made the cast separation fucking weird? Having Eleven’s entire storyline involve only herself with no other characters to bounce off of.

Why the fuck didn’t Mike go with her? Give her someone to bounce off of! You’re already making up sci-fi bullshit for how this process works, say that it only works if she has an emotional or memory anchor and someone has to go with her into these recollections, and that’s Mike. Let Mike be there in the recollections where Eleven is the only one who can see or hear him. Let Eleven fucking interact with someone and preserve her character development instead of literally regressing to the start of the series! Instead of retreading the misunderstandings from before, how about we give Mike something to do involving interacting with El, where he gets to see what a fucking monumental Deal it is with El and the sheer scope of what he’s actually signed up for! “This is some heavy fucking shit, these doctors are awful and I can’t believe we have to still cooperate with them to get back your powers, I don’t know if I am up for it, but I know I have to because my relationship with you represents your personal growth and recovering your powers has to come from growth, not regression!

Just about everything in the Hawkins storyline is fanfuckingtastic and all of the characters are charming and lovable and believable and their stories are balanced and told well and have emotional weight and I want a spin off that’s Dusty, Steve, and Robin on Scooby-Doo adventures where they spend half the time arguing.

[redrobin-detective]

Crawls out from the Pit

Alright so after about 2 and half weeks I have finished all 8 seasons, 80 episodes of Ben 10 Omniverse. I’m a little sad to be done but also glad to have my free time back (also if I have to hear that motherFUCKING opening theme again I will actually cry). So it was an experiencing one that was both super enjoyable but also infuriating. Let me break down my thoughts (with some spoilers) under the cut.

Things I liked

- From the very first episode I was, and still am just fascinated by the basic world set up. Ben Tennyson is known across the entire universe as a hero and wielder of the Omnitrix, everyone he meets knows who he is. Coming off series with locked down secret identities Ben’s status as a universal celebrity had both pros and cons and was simply fascinating to watch.

 - Aliens are common in his hometown of Bellwood and there’s a thriving populous under the city. Watching aliens and humans interact with awkward moments and periods of adjustment was damn interesting, great world building in there too.

- The Plumbers being intergalactic peace keepers of sorts (again with all the good and bad that come with essentially being space cops) and having a presence on earth and beyond. Ben’s status as being part of the organization but not a true member, one who really answers only to himself was intriguing.

- For all that I nitpick Ben and Rook’s relationship (stilllll not seeing shippers sorry) I loved Rook Blonko as a character, he was delightful. I also did like Ben and Rook’s relationship bc their individual prejudices and problems kept them from becoming actually close and reliant on one another and while it came close at times it never really resolved which I’m okay with.

- Love the time travel shit *chefs kiss* Professor Paradox my beloved. Also I would die for No Watch Ben. And why is Ben 23 so popular? He’s a lil bitch.

- Genuinely did love the cartoony artstyle, I was obsessed with how green Ben’s eyes were. My personal fanon is the Omnitrix has slowly made them green and glowy over the years. Also the flashbacks to 10-11 year old Ben, baby diagnosed. Such a cutie patootie. 

- Speaking of which, loved the frequent callbacks to the original series (my first and favorite). OV felt way more connected to that Ben that I first fell in love with than AF or UAF.

- Ben, when his character was executed right, was wonderful. A big hearted teen who has way too much power and responsibility just doing his best. He covers his fear of failure with jokes and a deceptively casual attitude. While he can be lazy and overconfident and doesn’t think things through, he is dedicated to what he does not for fame but to help people and his determination and adaptability always see him through. 

Things I Didn’t Like

- So when Ben was done right it was great but my biggest peeve was how they changed his personality, maturity, competency level episode by episode. Sometimes he was capable of complex negotiations, sometimes all he could do was complain and eat junk foods, sometimes he he could sheer climb walls, other times he was pathetically weak without his Omnitrix. Needless to say I was really irked by the dangerously immature & reckless, rude to the point of being mean, willfully idiotic moron version of Ben who didn’t care about anything.

- When I first started someone said the first half of OV was good and the rest was not. They were right, loved S1-4, 5-8 had good episodes but overall was either cringing or rolling my eyes. S5 in particular aggravated me with Ben being at his worst. I was pulling my hair out at Ben yelling about how ugly and monstrous the citizens of Anur Transyl were like Ben... you regularly turn into those aliens.... your whole deal is being able to see from other’s perspectives...

- Just, the lack of taking itself seriously or following through on some damn interesting storylines. Like Ben being put on trial for recreating the universe? And being found guilty not just of that but misusing the Omnitrix??? That’s good shit right there but they waved it all away with some trial by combat bullshit and well back to normal. I know its a cartoon but that episode infuriated me. 

- Gwen and Kevin... didn’t care for them much here. Their characters just felt flat and shoved in whenever it was convenient with no real meaningful interactions between the supposedly close trio. They really were thrown under the bus to make room for Rook and the whole Plumbers thing.

- Kai *long groan* Honestly any attempt to address Ben’s love life was so nightmarishly bad. Everyone who says that Ben is Aromatic is absolutely correct. Boy hardly showed any interest in dates and tried to get out of most of them and yet he was ‘destined’ to be with a girl who was shown only to care about his transformations and not him? And that he didn’t really respect back? Hell no.

- Most of the villains were kinda Meh. Maltruant was cool but underused, we hardly got ANYTHING interesting out of the series big bad Vilgax, Albedo was... still don’t know what to think of him. Malware was cool tho, the whole Feedback thing was painful.

So overall the good outweighs the bad but I liked it far more at the beginning than I did the end. I’ll rewatch some of my favorites but probably won’t do a full binge again. Still, I love the idea of this particular universe and really did enjoy most of my watch!

[some-days-we-get-sundays]

Season 3 wish list for Batwoman

-WILDMOORE ENDGAME!!!!! Nah but seriously, I need Wildmoore in season 3. I would appreciate a slow burn but not too slow that we don’t get enough of them being canon. I’m thinking 4-6 episodes of obvious flirting, sexual tension, and over protectiveness. I know 4-6 doesn’t sound like a lot but in TV land that’s a lot. I wouldn’t mind seeing some jealous Sophie or jealous Ryan. Maybe Imani comes back because where the hell did she go? They didn’t break up did they? Anyway maybe somebody comes along for either Sophie and Ryan and one of them gets jealous. 

-Wildmoore kisses OBVI. 

-Wildmoore sex, PLS. Dear Diary: I know I am asking a lot but... No fr. The way that Ruby Rose got to have those lesbian sex scenes as if Batwoman was her personal private magical lesbian paradise... pls let Javicia eat. That sounds like an innuendo and it can be if you want it to be. In all seriousness, I’m gonna be pretty let down if they don’t have Javicia getting some action in season 3. Like can we see her in bed and kissing a woman preferably Sophie but I will also take her making out with another girl while Sophie rages in jealous lesbian.

-More villains, I’m kind of over the fukin Crows and their bullshit

-I want to see Sophie process leaving the Crows and all she has been through with Kate. That was all a huge part of her life and I want her to talk about it. 

-I want to see more of Ryan being there emotionally for Sophie in the ways Sophie is there emotionally for her. Not saying Ryan isn’t there for Sophie but we haven’t seen those scenes. Sophie is a lot more reserved. We saw the scene when it was Sophie, Luke, and Ryan at The Hold Up but I would like to see Sophie open up more and have Ryan be there in support and encouragement. And then they kiss. 

-More Mary/Ryan/Sophie shenanigans and drinking games. 

-MORE ALICE. MORE RACHEL SKARSTEN. Gosh the way that I love Rachel Skarsten is unmatched. Her playing Alice is just delicious. I know people were saying she didn’t have much of a story line this season and now with Kate gone that she isn’t gonna be relevant but I don’t think that is true. Honestly, while I loved Kate/Beth/Alice relationship journey and want to see more of it, I actually didn’t find that to be the most interesting thing. It definitely wasn’t the most interesting thing about Alice. She’s interesting on her own. I could watch her in a scene having dialogue with the wall and I would be enthralled (I mean a lot of her scenes have been her talking to herself and she’s brilliant). I actually want to see her journey dealing with Ocean and that loss and trying to get him back (hopefully) because I know I’m kind of alone here but I LOVED Alice/Ocean and I like the humanity that Alice shows when it comes to him. I also want to see more Alice and the Bat Team interactions. It’s comic gold. Also Ryan is gonna most likely want to work with Alice because of this info that she has on Ryan’s birth mom. 

-HAMILFOX. I never was a big shipper of them but I feel like they might have a little something something. I kind of want them to be friends but I wouldn’t complain if they ended up being more than friends. I want to see Mary get more of a life outside of the clinic and BW duties. I know the show isn’t about her but she deserves some more scenes and some fun. She was so different in season 1 than she is now. It’s not a bad different but it still doesn’t seem like they know where they want to go with her character. I think putting her and Luke together would make for an interesting dynamic. Especially with him being Batwing.

-Batwing and Batwoman teaming up/ more Ryan and Luke brother sister scenes because I love them so much. 

-I want Tavaroff to suffer a horrible and painful death. 

-I don’t focus much on Jacob cuz I don’t care but I want him to be nice to Alice please. 

-I would like to see Kate maybe come back once or twice but I saw people talking about how that would be hard on Sophie. In my opinion she didn’t seem that broken up about Kate lol. I wouldn’t mind Kate coming back and then if Ryan and Sophie were hitting it off maybe Ryan starts to feel threatened by Kate and jealous, or maybe Kate gets jealous because she thought she could get Sophie back then she tells Ryan, “so that’s what you meant when you said us having the same taste was an understatement.”

-I don’t know much about the comics so I don’t know all the things but I would love Poison Ivy to come on and be Ryan’s birth mom.

-Batwoman gets a season 4. Yes that is my wish for season 3.