#I am in fact talking about the TV Man comic again

[sincerely-sofie]

A particular type of torment one is very lucky to suffer.

[writteninlunarlight-years]

Hi! can i get a match up for obey me?

Gender: Female

Pronouns: She/her

Sexuality: straight

Appearance: Pretty tall standing at 5’8 or 172 cm. I have brown hair with highlights. I mostly dress and do makeup in the style of trad goth. I have blue eyes

(MBTI &/or Engram if you would like to take the tests and add it) : INTJ

Personality: I’m more reserved. I don’t like to be around people much usually because most people in my area do bad things. I don’t mind social interactions though. I can be extroverted when with the right people. I have a low social battery and can be known to sort of zone out or want to leave places after a bit. I have adhd so if someone does get me talking about one of my interests I will be very excited and talk for a longer period of time. I also tend to be very paranoid due to personal matters.

Likes (at least like three things): Horror movies, cars, baby food, ice skating, sewing, acting, comics (specifically walking dead), reading, learning new things, music (goth music on top), films and tv shows in general, and men (lol)

Dislikes (at least three things): coffee, waking up early, and people who start drama and do bad things

Extra fun fact (this is about whoever you are describing to me): I’m a professional scare actor and I also do theatre acting.

~~~~~ MATCHUP ~~~~~

Obey Me!

Barbatos

~~~~~ HEADCANONS ~~~~~

Barbatos was a quiet man who kept to himself a lot. He preferred to associate himself only with Dia and Lucifer, though the other brothers came and went on that list of people he would deal with.

When you came into his life, he was skeptical. Dia had set you two up on a date since you were both entirely withdrawn.

After the date though he did seek you out again if only to hear you talk about your interests, you had a glow about you when you were enjoying something.

As time passed, Barbatos learned more of your tics and traits; at social gatherings, he would find an excuse for you to leave or help you plan the most direct way to get out of something.

Where you were controlled chaos for Barbatos, he was what kept you organized and sane.

When he visited the House of Lamentation to deliver news to Lucifer, he would stop by your room to talk briefly.

Barbatos really liked your style. It suited you, and he felt he could compliment you.

This man is very analytical and always looks for the best possible outcome.

Once you two were dating, he had even more of an excuse to take care of you and assist you in all manners of life. He even took on learning how to do your makeup for you.

~~~~~ BLURB ~~~~~

One of Dia's balls was in full swing, the music loud, and so many bodies crammed into a room. You were growing tired and restless, not liking all the close contact. As you began to overthink and panic about your escape, your partner appeared next to you. Barbatos extended his arm and helped guide you close to a balcony. The fresh air sounded nice, way nicer than everything in there. "I am sorry, dear, I can't help you escape yet; Dia plans to showcase all exchange students here shortly." You nodded briefly, just happy to know he did care about you.

As the music died into a slow dance, you turned to look at Barbatos, who was already staring off into the distance. He wasn't needed now; Dia was handling the event well, so this extra moment with you could exist. When he felt your eyes on him, he turned and picked up on the music. Extending his hand to you, he gracefully began to walk you around the balcony in a waltz. As you two danced, you felt light and at ease, Barbatos never judged you and always wanted to ensure you were comfortable.

Once the music ended, Barbatos bowed and took his leave, not before reminding you to come in soon for the speech. When you heard Dia speaking, you walked in and immediately found a spot next to Barbatos. Once the ceremony and the speech were done, Barbatos had a hand on the small of your back, helping lead you out of the crowded hall. Once at the entrance of the castel he spoke, "Remember to stick to the lit roads on your way back, as soon as we finish politics with the other demons I will come and visit you at the House of Lamentation." You smiled and decided to grace his cheek with a kiss. Barbatos never let his smile leave his face for the rest of the night.

~~~~~ EXTRA ~~~~~

(It was raining in the Devildom. Everyone was having a big slumber party at the castle. Everyone was in small groups. You and Barbatos were huddled in a corner, looking over your lines for a play that the school would be hosting.)

Barbatos: No, you should say it more like this.

Y/N: I could, but what about here? The character is obviously feeling sad where. If I said it like that, I would sound indifferent.

Barbatos: Why would that matter, love?

Y/N: Well, Barbatos, let's say I was on the verge of death. Would you sound sad and distraught or just indifferent?

Barbatos: Ah, I see, I would sound sad. However, this is a close friend who is dying, not a lover, and I can tell you for sure if any of the brothers were dying, I would be indifferent.

Mammon, Asmodeus, Leviathan, and Satan: HEY!

Lucifer: Dia, when has Barbatos ever been that happy?

Diavolo: I am the best matchmaker, aren't I? Maybe I should do you next.

[alicepao13]

Hudson and Rex S02E06 - Under the Influencer

I don't really like this episode, I find the subject surrounding the murder and the whole influencer thing boring, plus it somehow was the most repeated episode when it aired in Greece (somehow they managed to put a few of them on a loop. Idiots). But I'll make an effort.

I think someone knew that the subject isn't too appealing which is why in the scene after the murder we get Charlie and Rex playing/training.

I know Diesel is a well-trained dog but I can't help thinking that a) I wouldn't put my hand there and b) I hope they pay John Reardon well.

I am with Charlie on this one, we shouldn't know about any of these people's lives. It's all like a bad reality show, and reality shows are already bad.

"Weddings and bad luck are virtually synonymous in my books" - Charlie Hudson. So, we're going with this now. And it's a cute small scene with Sarah and Charlie discussing weddings.

"Until death do them part, or another man in my case". Poor resentful man. It will get better.

If anyone actually speaks like that in real life, please don't tell me. Leave me blissfully unaware.

It's so insane how no literally no one actually cared for Katie enough, not even her mother, and the man who seemed to care the most about her actually killed her.

Rex: *repeatedly barks to indicate poison* Charlie: *repeatedly ignores him*

That's a lot of purple for a wedding.

Fun fact: The Greek word for the flower "snapdragons" is skylaki which translates to "doggo". I am not making this up. So, maybe that's why Rex likes them lol

Poor Jesse had to explain the term shipping to Charlie and Joe.

Charlie Hudson canonically ships Batman and Robin. Huh.

Fiance gets brought in for questioning because he has set up a ship account shipping him and one of the bridesmaids. We live in crazy times.

"I know this looks like a thirst trap..." And Charlie is error 404.

Katie may not have deserved to die but she was an awful human being.

"Your children's interests infiltrate your brain" I don't know what Joe is talking about. The only thing my parents ever got out of my interests as a child was a deep hatred for Pokemon, video games, and television, and a mild approval for the Harry Potter movies (at least back when JKR wasn't an unhinged right-wing nut).

Well, that reaction I get. Also Rex's what-the-fuck as well.

Sarah: The happier people look online, the sadder they are in reality. Charlie: You should post that.

Remember when Joe wanted things to be done by the book in the previous episode? Well, in this one Charlie is breaking into the storage locker without a warrant, right after asking Jesse if they're actually going to get that warrant and being assured that it won't be a problem. Good tv? Yes. Bad police procedure? Also yes.

For a shirt that says Katie club? Bitch, please.

"When you're a social media star, having trolls is a sign of success". Yeah, no. Any idiot with a few hundred followers can have trolls.

The scene with Rex's takedown in the storage area is almost comical and badly edited, with too much slow-mo. The scene with Rex's takedown outside the airport is better, has some obstacles which are good for jumps and such, and doesn't make me want to cringe. Although again, more slow-mo than what is needed.

Well, I'm glad it's on this show because in other fandoms this wouldn't have gotten weird so fast...

[bodies-needs-a-fandom]

Some headcanons abt the detectives bc I'm bored.

(disclaimer: i have not read the comic and don't intend to so if there are any OG bodies stans that know canon facts which dispute any of these headcanons, I want to note that I am only talking about the show here, not the book)

Karl:

Definitely a bi disaster. He has a preference for women, but he's very aware of his attraction to men as well and doesn't see anything wrong with it.

Secretly has a massive sweet tooth, but it doesn't fit his cool-guy vibe so nobody knows about it

If he could wear fishnets and multiple piercings, he would.

He has never liked reading. It isn't his thing, at all - he's always been a very modern person and movies are just so much better. He avoids paperwork like the plague and every time a case requires a lot of reading he considers giving up and cold-casing it just so he can skip the boring research.

If he was ever transported to 2023, he would despise most of it. Mostly the no-smoking rules. But one thing he would like is the rom-coms and the reality tv shows - specifically the awful ones. He likes laughing at people.

Shahara:

Judging by the colorful middle-school-art-teacher outfit vibes, she was very into art - specifically floral impressionistic styles - but had to drop it when she became a mother and a cop. Just didn't have the time

Has been to every pride parade she ever had time for. Probably unlabeled and no gender preference

Was a massive rebel as a teenager. Snuck out to house parties, drank underage, probably faked an ID once or twice. Or three times.

Hates crime mystery novels - not because they're bad, just because she's good enough at her job to be able to easily nitpick the plotholes and immediately guess the killer.

If bodies was a show in her world, she would be a stan. Like she'd have made a whole fan acc and everything.

Alfred:

If he could wear piercings, he definitely would. Not many. He's not that extravagant. But he'd probably have a couple earlobe piercings and he'd usually wear studs or very small hoops, mostly in silver or bronze.

stole his mum's dress as a kid once when she wasn't home. He liked it, but when she found out she was furious and he never did it again.

I think he had a decent relationship with his father at first, but as he grew older and continued to suck at lying his parents Figured Things Out the relationship sort of dwindled. They don't speak now. There was no dramatic moment, but eventually the periods of silence grew longer until they never stopped.

He's very interested in fashion. Goes out of his way to keep up with trends and so on.

Work comes first for him because even though he loves Charlotte and Polly with all his heart, it becomes difficult to pretend around them all the time, and a good case is also good escapism.

During his time deducing The Shake, he accidentally stumbled along a different Shake which meant something else entirely and it all got rather embarrassing from there.

Iris:

had an emo phase, which heavy quotations around 'phase'. The fashion style changed, obviously, but she's still emo in spirit. We all know it.

She probably played the cruellest pranks on Alby known to man. To be fair, Alby fought back just as hard - especially after that one time that Iris accidentally spilled water on his new fancy tech during a prank gone wrong when they were teenagers. THAT did not end well for her and there were definitely a shitton of slugs involved or something equally disgusting

Hates sweets. or sugar in general. Shes a fan of bitter, strong things. Like vodka, probably. Or that 'six-shots-of-espresso-nothing-else' monstrosity Crowley ordered in good omens

Tried to hit on Lorna a couple times early on and when Lorna remained totally oblivious she gave up.

Was really into true-crime stuff as a teenager, but nothing involving terrorists. Ever. For obvious reasons.

She saw Mannix as a sort of father figure for a breif period of time, which is part of the reason she was so loyal to him. Immediately after the incident at the throat in episode 5, she turned her parental figure attention to Shahara.

[roosterbox]

Fic Rec Friday 8/4/2023

Title: Endless. Not Everything.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Fandom: The Sandman (TV 2022)

Relationship: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus/Hob Gadling

Characters: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, Hob Gadling

Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Dream can have a gender, as a treat, Dream of the Endless | Morpheus is Bad at Feelings, Lack of Communication, Idiots in Love, I cannot stress enough that nobody in this fic has any emotional intelligence, they're all idiots, idiots who don't talk about their feelings until shit goes tits up, LITERALLY, Happy Ending, Body Horror, kinda? tagging anyway cause better safe than sorry

Summary: "I am. Endless. But there are still... things that I am Not."

'Lovable' is at the top of the list, he thinks, though 'wanted' isn't far behind.

'Woman' is on there somewhere too, apparently.

———

And now for something completely different. But if it’s yet another gay ship, how different can it really be?

Much like with Steddie, I fell for this pairing sight as yet unseen. I’ve never watched The Sandman. Never listened to the audiobook(s). Never read the comics. But someone posted cute fanart. And dammit, I am weak.

Y’all know gender fuckery is one of those fic subgenres I adore, and I feel like this fandom/pairing is particularly well-suited for it. Just the fact that endless, ethereal beings could have gender at all (Desire notwithstanding) is pretty interesting. And Dream trying to be something else, only for it to be just… wrong wrong wrong, ugh. My little Enby/Gender-Fluid heart just breaks for him. Because I know that feel. I’m sure a lot of us know that feel, even if we are only squishy humans and not Endless. Also I love the Author’s note at the end. Definitely shouldn’t be that hot of a take - it makes perfect sense to me!

Dream is absolutely precious in this, in his gender conflicted glory. And Hob. Hob Motherfucking Gadling. I am officially crowning him as my Sandman Blorbo. That man is a saint. He certainly has the patience of one, at least. The care he shows to Dream in this fic is just everything. When his first concern when he finds Dream after their… encounter(?) is if Dream is okay, if he hurt Dream… I cannot. And I love that, despite him being several hundred years old (and Dream being several millennia), their communication skills still need work, lol. They may be an immortal human and the immortal personification of Dreams, but they really are just like us.

This is a beautiful story.

———

Next Week: Spacedogs time again! And this one’s a doozy. I mean, with how obsessed with space Adam is, canonically even, it somehow makes absolutely perfect sense to have an AU where Nigel is an alien, right? It’s soft, romantic, slightly silly, and sexy as hell.

Stay tuned!

[phil-lesterfan]

4, 22, and 61 for the ask game

4. how did your elementary school teachers describe you?

“a pleasure to have in class.” also creative :) i was quiet and bookish and usually writing stories or making comics when we had free time. i used to make my own books and my teachers would read them and put them in our class library ^_^ (copy+pasted from prev ask sorry haha)

22. role model?

amazingphil / phil lester !! i’ve looked up to him ever since i was a kid, like <10 years old. i just think he’s so cool and creative. back when youtube was at its peak, i feel like he and jenna marbles were kind of the brains behind all the “challenges” and “tags” that existed. i also like how he keeps to himself and values his privacy — i have a bad habit of oversharing, but i hold that same value. especially bc in the past i have had a very strong online presence, so it’s good to know what to keep personal and to yourself and what you just… put out there.

and then there’s the fact that he’s driven and gets what he wants; dan jokingly calls him a “sell out”, but it’s like to me if phil wants to do something, it will get done one way or another. and how he went to got his masters for video editing, and also when you can tell he enjoys things. plus, he sticks strongly to his, like… image, which can seem shallow, i know, but when he wanted to keep things more pg, he was so careful about it, and he’s so considerate of his viewers (i’ve made a post abt this in the past, how he reassured the audience he and dan are friends, when i know, if i were a creator, i wouldn’t have even thought abt that fear ppl have).

i know i’m getting parasocial, and phil could be an absolute menace off camera (i’m choosing to ignore what others have said abt him — that he’s really just a decent person 😭), but what he does choose to show, i really respect and admire. also, him coming out and having pride just really makes me happy, especially as a lesbian who has struggled with her sexuality. he makes me feel like things can get better, and seeing gay people older than me be happy and successful is really fulfilling.

61. favourite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.?

GOD. asking this of a past english and creative writing student is just. cruel.

“dogfish” by mary oliver has inspired my own poetry.

“I wanted / the past to go away, I wanted / to leave it, like another country; […] You don’t want to hear the story / of my life, and anyway / I don’t want to tell it, I want to listen / to the enormous waterfalls of the sun.”

and a certain scene in rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead helped me work through shit about 5 years ago

“… [T]hat isn’t what makes it death. It’s just a man failing to reappear, that’s all — now you see him, now you don’t, that’s the only thing that’s real: here one minute and gone the next and never coming back….”

lastly, and i’m really limiting myself here as i could go on about quotes all day, a quote from the best manga of all time, the cat proposed (化け猫かたって候) by hayane dento

“… Someone, somewhere in this city, is getting ready to take a plunge. Somewhere, a child is crying. Someone has come to a stop, so weighed down that they can’t go any further. I’m holding Kihachi’s hand. He is telling stories again today, stories that may or may not save someone else. And I … am thinking about writing my own story. I’ll start by writing the first letter / of the first word.”

i did not mean for these answers to get so long but one question let me talk about phil (favourite person) while the other let me talk about quotes (i’m in love with writing and language). like. oops but also not really. AUGH. thank u for the ask ^_^ <3

[idyllcy]

✨!congrats on the milestone!✨

might I ask for a dc comics batman/batfam matchup? (pls don't match me with Bruce though, anyone but Bruce lol)

INFJ

Leo (but I don't really vibe with it and I was born two months early sooo maybe I'm not supposed to be leo- I don't vibe with the confidence of a leo)

Age 24. Brunette. Blue eyes. 152cm. No piercings. No tattoos (although I'm half reluctantly saving for a big one to cover my thigh because I'd rather see some cool artwork than the stupid scars that I made)

Personality: Reserved. Reclusive to an extent and I'm not sure if that's just my nature or if it's cuz of the former years of mental illness just socially stunted me 🙃 or smth. Optimist by choice (negativity comes natural to me so I always make myself look to the bright side of situations and people). Turn the other cheek is my motto in fact I am rather a pushover and find it very hard to say no to people. Will take the path of least resistance and do my best to keep the peace. Don't hold grudges. Often become the mediator of family/friend disagreements. I love fall/winter, November is my fav month and I'm legit sad that it will be over in a few days and won't be back again for a whole year :( Hobbies include listening to music (love all music but the blues hit the best), embroidery, attempting to make my own clothes but its difficult, evening walks alone, reading (mostly Agatha Christie, Donna Tartt and H.G Wells), watching TV, reading fics on Tumblr, shopping. I'm a tea drinker because caffeine doesn't mix well with me it amps up the heebie jeebies, plus spearmint tea is quite soothing.

Ideal date: hmm idk I like a casual comfortable tea date. Or getting take out drinks from a cafe and visiting the flea market or vintage stores and just wandering about. If its not a first date then movie or boardgame night. Or a like a book club date where just the two of you swap copies of your fav books all highlighted and annotated and talk about it. I would consider this to be the best date ever but its too expensive but a date on The British Pullman ahh I would die authentic 1920s train carriage, everyone dressed vintage and fancy, multiple course meal while journeying through the English countryside in a private carriage, then visiting the Canterbury Christmas Carols or Castle ruins or Oxford, bonus points if the date is in November ✨

to be loved by you

Babs holds your hand as the two of you weave through the crowd to get to the front. Before the two of you lies a fake murder, and you tap your chin. Babs notes down the abnormalities, and the two of you go around interviewing the characters at the play.

"Who do you think it is?" Babs glances at your notes, and you hum.

"...you." You grin. "All the evidence points towards the man in a blue bowtie, but you dropped the USB. So, my darling partner? Care to tell me why you have data from the corpse?"

Babs smiles, closing her eyes as she does, laugh on her lips as you hum.

"That's cute. There's no way it's me."

"I'll show you." You hum, pressing the USB to your lips with a wink as you slip back into the crowd.

Babs shakes her head as her lips curl up as well. You'll see.

Headcanons:

murder mystery girlfriends you guys do SOOO much fun shit together (sometimes you attend murder mystery-themed events for fun)

Babs isn't afraid to speak up so if you ever start getting pushed around she will speak up and talk down to whoever is being rude

She will 100% take you around on dates to places you think are super expensive (Bruce pays her handsomely for being oracle)

You guys try new teas together!! Babs drinks a lot of coffee but she's always down to have some tea with you

Also, both of you are avid readers and Babs has so many books up her sleeve, so reading dates are super common too!!

[volcanicflowers]

Since I don't know when I'll get around to making a video, I've compiled some short text descriptions of everything on the list.

Under a cut because this is very very long.

Most of this is sourced from The Frood by Jem Roberts, 42: The Wildly Improbable Ideas of Douglas Adams by Kevin Jon Davies, and the Making of Documentary for the 1981 TV show. I am also happy to provide further sources or elaborate upon request. Tier One.

42: The answer to life, the universe, and everything.

Towels: The most useful thing in existence. As a fun fact, towels were not in the original version of the story, they were introduced in the book and then added to the radio series in Secondary Phase three months later.

Book series: Despite common misconceptions, not the original version of the story.

Ill Fated Whale and Petunias: The Heart of Gold’s infinite improbability drive turns two missiles into a whale and a bowl of petunias. The petunias later return in Life, the Universe and Everything, albeit in a different form.

HHG Movie (2005): Film adaptation of the series which had been pushed for since the 1970s. The script was originally written by Douglas Adams just before his death in 2001, before being completed by Karey Kirkpatrick.

Tier Two.

Most Gratuitous Use of the Word Fuck/Belgium: A gag from Life, the Universe and Everything which was censored in the US edition. The original version features a man receiving an award for The Most Gratuitous Use of the Word “Fuck” in a Serious Screenplay, however US publishers insisted on removing all swears from the book, including two instances of the word “Asshole” which became “Kneebiter” and one instance of the word “Shit” which became “Swut”, “Fuck” was changed to “Belgium” and a whole new scene was written explaining this, which became a much more popular gag than the original.

Radio Series: The series originally began as a radio show in 1978, a year later half of the first season, called Primary Phase, was novelized as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Secondary phase aired three months after the first book was published and it was combined with the second half of Primary Phase to become the second book, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. However the last three books didn’t have any accompanying radio productions until they were adapted into radio in 2004 and 2005. In 2018 Eoin Colfer’s continuation of the series, And Another Thing, was also adapted into radio as Hexagonal phase, although with some changes to the plot.

HHG TV Series (1981): BBC mini series adaptation of Primary Phase. Simon Jones and Mark Wing-Davey reprise their roles from the radio series, however Ford and Trillian were recast as David Dixon and Sandra Dickinson.

Ford’s Surprisingly Tragic Backstory: Ford’s father was the sole survivor of Betelgeuse Seven, which was destroyed by a collapsing Hrung. He escaped to Betelgeuse Five where Ford was born and, in memory of the destroyed planet, given an old Praxibetel name in an obscure Betelgeusian dialect which Ford was never able to pronounce. Because Ford was never able to pronounce his own name, his father died of shame and Ford ended up being called “Ix” which means “boy who is not able satisfactorily to explain what a Hrung is, nor why it should choose to collapse on Betelgeuse Seven”. This is mentioned in a footnote in the first book and then never again in any other adaptation.

Okapi: Arthur’s brother was nibbled to death by one.

Arthur’s Dog: Arthur mentions brushing a dog when he talks about things he planned to do that day before the Earth blew up, this dog is never mentioned again.

Young Zaphod Plays it Safe: A short story written by Douglas Adams in which a younger Zaphod works as a salvage ship operator, he investigates a crashed ship with incredibly dangerous cargo which turns out to be “Designer People”, one of which escaped towards Earth. Although not stated in the original version published in The Utterly Utterly Merry Comic Relief Christmas Book, when the story was republished in the 1996 anthology, The Wizards of Odd, it was clarified that this person was US president, Ronald Reagan. It is also suggested that this may be at least one of the reasons that the Earth got blown up.

And Another Thing: A sixth installment in the series written by Eoin Colfer in 2009, later adapted into radio as Hexagonal Phase in 2018. Mixed reception by fans.

Tier Three.

Doctor Who and the Krikkit Men: The rejected Doctor Who script that eventually became Life, the Universe and Everything.

HHG Infocom Game: An 80s text adventure game based on the first book. Known for being stupidly difficult.

Starship Titanic: Originally mentioned in Life, the Universe and Everything, the Starship Titanic was a luxury starcruiser which suffered a total existence failure. Douglas Adams later created a video game also called Starship Titanic which had a tie-in novel by Terry Jones, albeit with many changes to the story. The novel was later adapted into radio, although with a different ending. While the game is explicitly a separate universe from Hitchhiker, the radio version is more of a spinoff of it, with the story narrated by the Guide's competitor, the Encyclopedia Galactica.

Aleric B: Arthur Dent’s original name.

Cosmic “Obscene Little Thing” Cutie: The green orb featured on many Hitchhiker covers. US publishers believed that readers wouldn’t be able to connect all the books to each other, so they added Cosmic Cutie (also known as Jeremy Pacman) on all of the covers, much to the disdain of Douglas Adams who is quoted as saying “I HATE the little green blob and have spent years locked in arguments with my publishers with me trying to get rid of the obscene little thing. I've finally secured its demise with the new Ballantine editions of the soft cover backlist.” However Cosmic Cutie still frequently appears on book covers and in Hitchhiker media due to readers' fondness of it.

DNA’s 42 Puzzle: A series of orbs in a grid pattern which Douglas Adams suggested be the replacement for Cosmic Cutie as the image tying all of the books together. The idea of the puzzle is that you must find questions to which the answer is 42, such as how many orbs are in the picture, what number do the blue tinted orbs spell out, etc. This was also done to appease the people who insisted there must be some kind of significance behind the number 42, although according to Douglas Adams “Nobody paid it any attention. I think that's terribly significant.”

ZZ9 Club: A still active Hitchhiker fanclub dating back to the 1980s which received the seal of “Official fanclub” from Douglas Adams or at least from a suitable representative. The ZZ9 club produces a fanzine called “Mostly Harmless”, predating the book by the same name. Their name often appears in the back of Douglas Adams books.

Beeblebears: Teddy bears with two heads and three arms produced by ZZ9 club. Referenced in Hexagonal Phase when Wowbagger says “Beeblebum, Beeblebear, ah yes Beeblebrox”

H2G2.com: A website founded by Douglas Adams in 1999, created to be similar to a real life Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy focused on Earth.

Unmade Sixth Hitchhiker Book: Douglas Adams planned to write a sixth Hitchhiker book to make up for the bleakness of Mostly Harmless. A partially written Dirk Gently sequel, the Salmon of Doubt, may have become the sixth Hitchhiker book as Douglas said that a lot of the stuff planned for Salmon of Doubt wasn’t working in a Dirk Gently context but could be potentially salvaged for a Hitchhiker book, although he died before it was completed.

Tier Four.

DNA’s Beef with John Lloyd: John Lloyd helped write Primary Phase and it was originally planned that he and Douglas Adams would work on the first Hitchhiker novel together, however Douglas decided that since Hitchhiker was his first original property, he wanted to write the novel solo. He broke the news to John by mailing him a letter through the BBC’s internal mail, despite their offices being right next to each other. John had already been promised an advance for the book, which he eventually got after threatening to sue for a cut of all Hitchhiker earnings from then on. There was a known feud between the two of them, until the feud was finally ended when Douglas’ mother made him apologize and the two made up.

DNA’s Beef with Alan JW Bell: Alan JW Bell was the producer/director for the Hitchhiker TV adaption, which Douglas Adams was unhappy about from the start, as he wanted John Lloyd to produce/direct (After their feud ended of course.) Douglas and Alan frequently disagreed on the show as Douglas had a very specific way he wanted everything to appear, which often conflicted with things like budget and what was actually physically possible at the time. Alan went as far as giving Douglas incorrect dates for meetings to minimize his interference. When it came time for the planning of season two, Douglas Adams insisted that he would not work on a second season unless Alan JW Bell was fired and replaced with John Lloyd, the BBC however tried to call his bluff and the second season was never made.

Hitchhiker Live on Stage: A live performance of Hitchhiker with the radio show actors. The first half picks up just as Ford and Arthur are transported on to the Vogon ship and afterwards mostly follows the story of the first book. Depending on the production, the second half starts with either Arthur meeting Agrajag while Ford breaks into the Guide offices and finds out about the Guide Mk. 2, or it starts with Arthur and Ford on the B ark ship. There are then some time travel shenanigans where Arthur meets Random and Slartibartfast arrives to correct the timeline, the show ends with the implication that Arthur is caught in a time loop. The show is typically around two hours long, however a shortened version was done for Radio 4’s Character Invasion.

Comic Series: A three part comic adaption of the Hitchhiker books published by DC Comics in 1993. Art from the comics was used for the 1994 trading card game.

Kharthur: Surprisingly popular romantic pairing of Arthur Dent and Khan Noonien Singh from Star Trek, with 91 works on Archive of Our Own at the time of posting and countless pieces of fanart. The ship was born from the fact that Arthur is played by Martin Freeman in the 2005 movie and Khan is played by Benedict Cumberbatch in Star Trek: Into Darkness, the same actors who played a very popular pairing in BBC Sherlock.

South Bank Show Skit: A 1992 episode of the South Bank show which interviewed Douglas Adams and had Simon Jones and David Dixon appear in character as Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect, alongside Dirk Gently characters. Arthur and Ford discover that they have crossed into another universe in which they are fictional characters and must get Douglas Adams writing books again.

Marvin on Blue Peter: To promote the TV series, Marvin appears on Blue Peter in 1981 where he sings the Paranoid Android song and discusses training turtles for a race.

Sheila’s Ear: (Misspelled on the chart, sorry!) The “Lost Sketch” in which Arthur, on prehistoric earth, dreams that he is being interviewed on the radio show Sheila’s Ear, a fully recorded version with Simon Jones exists.

Marvin I Love You: (Will be updated to include Reasons to be Miserable) A song sung by Marvin from Polydor’s “Double ‘B’-side Album” in which Marvin finds a love letter that he is never able to find the origin of. Released alongside the song Reasons to be Miserable, also sung by Marvin.

Tier Five.

Out of the Trees: A 1975 sketch TV special written by Douglas Adams, Graham Chapman and Barnard McKenna. Features Simon Jones and Mark Wing Davey who would go on to play Arthur Dent and Zaphod Beeblebrox. A sketch with Simon Jones and his girlfriend being harassed by police for picking a peony ends with the world blowing up.

Cowboy Ford + HHG Illustrated Edition: A 1994 edition of the first Hitchhiker book, the “illustrations” in question being mostly photo manipulation. Ford is dressed a bit like a cowboy.

How Zaphod Knew Ford’s Name: Douglas Adams had been frequently asked how Zaphod immediately knew Ford’s name if Ford only changed it when he got to Earth, so he came up with this explanation for a footnote in the Original Radio Scripts book “It was very simple. Just before arriving he registered his new name officially at the Galactic Nomenclaturoid Office, where they had the technology to unpick his old name from the fabric of space/time and thread the new one in its place, so that to all intents and purposes his name always had been and always would be Ford Prefect. I included a footnote explaining this in the first Hitch-Hiker book, but it was cut because it was so dull.”

Mark Wing Davey’s Request to the Costume Department: During the production of the TV series, Mark Wing Davey suggested that “If Zaphod can grow an extra head at will, maybe he can grow an extra penis at will.” He suggested that the costume department make up two nine inch sausage like props which would be stuffed into Zaphod’s trousers. The sausages ended up being just seven inches long, although none of it was ever at all visible in the video.

Ford’s Purple Eyes: To make him appear more alien, Ford was planned to have purple eyes. David Dixon was given purple contact lenses, although they were either never used or the purple color didn’t come across in video.

Disembodied Leg: Disembodied legs keep attempting to appear in Hitchhiker media, the commentary track for the TV series jokes that “Douglas Adams obviously had a thing about isolated legs.” A single leg was planned to be a character in the Hitchhiker movie.

Tier Six.

1987 Script: A potential script for a Hitchhiker movie from 1987, written by Abbie Bernstein and, supposedly, Douglas Adams. Douglas Adams states that he “did not contribute a single comma” to it and in fact calls it “the worst script I’d ever read”, However Abbie Bernstein gives conflicting information and says that there were “great swaths of verbatim Douglas Adams in my script.” The script shares some similarities with the 2005 movie, such as a romance between Arthur and Trillian, as well as the earth coming back in the end. Unique to the script is a subplot about teasers, Arthur getting arrested on a planet obsessed with courtroom dramas, and a very different Ford and Zaphod.

Kryl: A character invented for the 1987 script, essentially a female version of Zarniwoop/Vann Harl who Ford thinks is very attractive, even after finding out her plans for the Guide. As Trillian puts it in the script, “God Ford, all you ever think about is your spam dagger.”

Unmade Don Bluth Movie: An animated adaptation of Hitchhiker was planned by Don Bluth Entertainment, it was cancelled along with animated adaptations of Quintaglio Ascension and The Belgariad during the opening of Fox Animation Studios. (Dubious Source. In researching this, I’m having trouble finding a reliable source so I may remove it. If anyone has a good source please let me know.)

HHG TV Series Season 2 Episode 1 Script: Roughly a page worth of script was written for the first episode of Season 2 before Douglas Adams’ beef with Alan JW Bell halted the series permanently. In what little was written, we see how Ford and Arthur are living together on prehistoric earth, they are drawn to a mysterious door with a staircase. At some point they’re meant to come across God’s final message to his creation, as seen in So Long and Thanks for All the Fish.

Adman and Eev: Season 2 Episode 1 would’ve opened with Adman and Eev in the Garden of Eden with a mysterious box, just as they are about to open it, we cut to Ford and Arthur. (Will likely condense this with the previous entry, I remembered the script being longer than it was)

Cancelled 00s HHG Video Game: A video game by Phase 3 Studios planned to release in 2002. The game would be 3D and the player would control Arthur as he solves puzzles and fights Krikkit robots by beating them with his towel. Concept art and models exist for most of the characters, although the game was cancelled for unknown reasons.

Voyager Expanded Books: One of the earliest attempts at E-books from 1991. These books were special at the time for having such revolutionary features like being able to search the text, chapter menus, an area to write notes in, and, in some of them, interactive annotations. The first three books to be released as Voyager Expanded Books were Jurassic Park, The Alice in Wonderland series, and of course, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Douglas Adams was a big fan of the concept and recorded a promo for the books which was later part of a contest to animate in 2012.

The Sally Crisis: A married woman, Sally Emerson, had an affair with Douglas Adams during the writing of Life, the Universe and Everything. The book was nearly completed with Sally’s help when, around Christmas, Sally decided that she must return to her husband and Douglas was left completely devastated, falling into what his friends called “The Sally Crisis”. While having little time for anything other than wallowing in his misery, Douglas insisted that the entire book must be rewritten from scratch. It is theorized, although not confirmed, that Trillian and Zaphod’s breakup may have been inspired by this. Douglas was clearly not above writing parallels to his breakup considering he also wrote an outline for a story in which a man finds a wonderful happiness generating gift and is then forced to return it to its rightful owner who doesn’t respect or appreciate it.

Tier Seven.

Half Human Trillian: A cut plot line from the 2005 movie would’ve been that Trillian is actually only half human, this was to further explain why the mice needed Arthur’s brain specifically, why Trillian was so interested in space, and make Arthur seem even more alone.

Lost Hitchhiker Musical: In 1995 a newspaper posted a review for a Hitchhiker musical which was never recorded. According to the review, it was a jukebox musical with no original songs.

Mrs Rogers: In an early outline for Hitchhiker, when Arthur was still Aleric, the earth man was going to find himself in a universe torn apart by a war between a goddess like figure called Mrs. Rogers and an intelligent greasy Chinese takeout meal called The Naughty One.

Ringo and the Robot: A planned TV special in which a robot takes Ringo Starr to space and they go on several adventures, one of which is the B-ark story that appears in Hitchhiker.

Official HHG Winamp Skin: An official skin for Winamp released in 2005 that features an animated dancing Marvin, looking surprisingly happy.

Pirate Zaphod: Although he never ends up appearing in Mostly Harmless, Douglas Adams did have an idea for a Zaphod who had fallen on hard times and taken to life as a space pirate to show up in Mostly Harmless.

Red Dwarf Crossover Promo: A promo for Red Dwarf on VHS which features the voice of the Guide and 1981 TV show style artwork of the Red Dwarf characters.

Fenchurch Death: In Mostly Harmless, Fenchurch was originally planned to die in the crash that stranded Arthur on Lamuella, although it was ultimately decided that it would be better to let Arthur believe she’s alive and give him a hopeless quest to find her.

Tier Eight.

HHG Movie Mobile Game: A tie-in game to promote the 2005 movie, includes the half human Trillian plot line.

Arthur Dent advertising GTE: Simon Jones appears in his iconic robe in a GTE commercial, although the joke is that GTE runs even in the middle of the night, it’s hard not to see Arthur.

Jittery With Sex: Douglas Adams originally had notes for a version of Arthur and Fenchurch’s flying scene which were a lot more explicit, with Douglas writing that it should make the reader feel “jittery with sex”. The full page of notes was published in 42 The Wildly Improbable Ideas of Douglas Adams, although the hastily handwritten page is not transcribed in the book and has only been partially transcribed by fans. It makes references to things such as ice lollies and how they compare to certain body parts.

Been working on this iceberg for a while now and decided to post what I have so far. I'm taking suggestions right now so if anyone knows of something that should be added or thinks some things should be rearranged or are too boring to be included let me know

[yellowocaballero]

Iron Fist is Kinda Weird

Or: How do we talk about talking about social justice?

I have a diseased brain poisoned from reading comic books since elementary school, and I think it's fun to look at bad things and wonder why they're bad. I ended up writing Danny Rand AKA The Immortal Iron Fist for my Moon Knight fic series and I got so deep into researching him and the Heroes For Hire that he began to interest me. I ended up having a lot of opinions about it, things went out of hand again, I wrote a very weird Iron Fist story, and I'm officially giving up and putting my thoughts down about the character.

TL;DR: Iron Fist's history, character, and most notable relationship has an intrinsic relationship with race that really shouldn't be ignored, but the consistent framing of the character is highly revealing of the assumed context of media about social issues.

Yeah, there's some stuff to talk about. Rest under the cut. I want to make a giant disclaimer here that I am speaking from the perspective of the origins and histories of the characters, and that I am sourcing from the 1970s-1980s Heroes For Hire comic.

Unfortunately Important History

In 1974 comic book executives realized that martial arts movies were highly popular among teenage boys and were making a lot of money. Similarly, the other comic book execs across the hall were also realizing that Blaxploitation movies were also super hot right now. Thus, Iron Fist and Luke Cage were born. With this identical genesis, it's fitting that they ended up so tightly paired.

Thanks in part to the martial arts movies and the booming Hong Kong and Japanese industries, Orientalism was at a huge high America. Probably highest since the 1920s when the whole archeology thing and movies with dancing women were really taking off. TV shows like Kung Fu, about a man who wandered around knowing kung fu, were about the glories of kung fu and featuring a half-white half-Asian man played by a white man. Similarly, Blaxpoitation movies (which I know relatively little about besides the fact that the NAACP hated it, so that's probably the main takeaway here) were probably the first American film genre predominantly featuring Black people. Blaxploitation films...talked about Black issues...kind of...in a way, and you can see that thread in Luke Cage. The main thing you need to know about Luke Cage was that Dwayne McDuffie, one of the founders of the imprint featuring the only comics that actually deserve to talk about race (DC you neutered Static Shock), hated him. The background for these guys and the cultural & media landscape that gave birth to them is important, but you mostly just need to get that they were born from an American voyeuristic fascination with sensationalized depictions of other cultures.

Frog (Luke) and Toad (Danny) Are Friends

To their credit (?), they did eventually realize this about themselves, and Danny and Luke's strong friendship was characterized by their polar opposite backgrounds. Danny had been adopted at nine years old by the mystical Oriental city of kung fu etc, became the specialest little white boy and harnessed his chi to become the hero of K'un Lun, and travelled back to America in a revenge quest to find his father's killer and avenge him and inherit a fuckton of money. Luke was in a gang and then prison and he's very bitter about the prison industrial complex. They're good friends and a great team, but you can see repeatedly that no matter how seamlessly they work in the field they essentially can never understand each other. The most interesting parts of their relationship involve the push and pull of this disconnect, where Danny's naïve and clueless about America and Luke has to teach him about how the world works and the injustices that POC face. Luke teaches Danny about racism and checks his privilege like a thousand times a day. Observe.

Danny doesn't know or give a shit about money so he cluelessly tells Luke that they are best friends, what's mine is yours! Luke's tetchy about it because of Blaxpoitation Baggage. Danny's offended and he doesn't know why, Luke's old wounds are reopened and he struggles to explain it. Frog and Toad have racial conflict.

Danny is, basically, the clueless white guy. The backstory panels highlight that: he was trained in kung fu in K'un Lun, and now he's swimming in money and privilege in America and Luke feels weird about it.

Look at the way Danny talks about himself - Danny talks about his life in K'un Lun as if he had gone to the weirdest boarding school of all time. He talks about K'un Lun from a distance, using words an American would use. Danny is the privileged, sheltered white guy.

He does not think of Asia as an actual home. He doesn't identify with it. Narratively and thematically, he is a white guy who grew up in a sheltered place learning kung fu and now he's Dazed And Confused in America struggling to connect with his best friend's very unsheltered experiences.

The conversations Danny has with Luke about race are held as a white person. It is Luke explaining racism to a white person over and over again. It is a white person's clueless privilege being knocked down a peg again and again. Danny could be from Antarctica or Mars and his relationship with Luke would be he same.

Wait, Why Would A Dynamic Entirely Around Race Never Engage With The Fact That One Party Grew Up In Asia

You tell me buddy!!!

Why! Why make this choice? It is RIGHT there! Why would a guy whose entire schtick is living in Fantasy Vaguely Tibet from ages 9-19 never once speak from that cultural perspective? Why flush all of that experience and perspective down the drain?

Why would Danny engage with the world as a privileged, clueless white guy? He was just a kid when he left America. He doesn't engage with these conversations with Luke as, "Wow, your weird American situation's fucked up", he engages with it as "That can't possibly be what America is like!". Like a white person. There is no difference between Danny and someone who never left their boarding school as a child.

Is this really the most interesting way to talk about race? The characters, by virtue of their history and genesis, are inherently about race. Why are we talking about it as a Black guy constantly educating a white guy instead of as a Black guy talking to a white guy who grew up in Fantasy Tibet? As a a product of capitalism to a product of Whatever K'un Lun's Fantasy Economy was. As a product of a highly racialized society to an aracialized society. As someone who's from an area of great cultural and racial diversity to someone who grew up in a racial and cultural monoculture.

Why does Danny not have a complex relationship with his own race? He was the only white guy around for ten years, that has to be kind of weird. How does he relate his adopted culture to his home one? How does he deal with the white privilege he does hold when he doesn't understand why he holds it? I can seriously go on. I absolutely did go on.

None of this makes any sense. And the only way it makes any sense if if you see that Luke & Danny's conversations about race are not actually conversations about race. They are Luke explaining racism to the reader. Danny is the audience stand-in. The audience is obviously American white guys, so Danny has to be white and engage with the entire thing as an American white guy would. As he audience stand-in Danny has to come from the same place and viewpoint as the assumed reader, so he has to come from a place of white privilege.

It sucks. Not every reader was a privileged white guy. Not every reader was white. This narrative decision, conscious or unconscious, cut off a lot of interesting choices at the kneecaps. Because there is a basic assumption that white audiences cannot relate to nonwhite characters, and that they are incapable of looking through another's eyes and learning from their perspective.

How Do We Talk About Talking About Race?

Why should we care that Iron Fist is uninteresting and bad? This is not news. The premise has always been vaguely racist and boring. I've read some pretty nifty Iron Fists in my time and there are a fair handful of good Iron Fist comics, but the very root of the character is Orientalist. This Dances With Wolves style of 'story about POC but the lead has to be white or white people won't watch it' scenario is very old hat.

Heroes For Hire is interested in race. Luke Cage & Iron Fist are characterized by race. Their writers can admit this or not, but it's true. At its best, this inherent disconnect opens up the comics for potentially interesting breakdowns of racial dynamics, prejudice, the prison industrial complex, privilege, and American society. Luke & Danny talk about everything from capitalism to crime. Pretty reliably, the comic tends to actually try.

But all of these conversations are fixed through a white gaze. Luke talks through a white gaze, Danny's characterized by a white gaze, and these conversations are written with the white audience as the implied constant observers. At a certain point it never really feels like two different perspectives clashing and changing - just one perspective, talking about two different issues from both sides of its mouth.

I have mixed feelings on #ownvoices, but I think this is what people mean when they talk about it. There is a provincial, reductionist scope of perspectives allowed into the conversations Heroes For Hire holds, and although that's not a crime it's abjectly disappointing when compared against the interesting stories that could be told.

I haven't read a modern Iron Fist comic in like ten years, and the last time I read Heroes For Hire was during the cursed Civil War situation. I really don't know if modern Heroes For Hire and Danny & Luke are still like this. They probably aren't! But the same problems probably still underlie the two characters, and their origins will always occupy this strange space.

TL;DR: Read Milestone comics. Start with Static and move to Icon & Rocket. These are the only comics about race people should read. Look up their history sometime, it's fascinating. Ignore Luke Cage & Iron Fist. Good god.

[multiples-fandomswontkillme]

~Metal Family headcanons~

These are like my... general hcs)? which means I didn't include my main hc that Glam, Ches and Vicky are polyamorous, married and started dating after Glam met Vicky, and absolutely everything that implies for the kids and the relationships between each member of the fam. Maybe I'll make a separate post for that or maybe not! Who knows lkfwnlfqnf

Glam

Bisexual

Glam has constant nightmares and ocasional night terrors ever since he ran away home and is an active sleep walker. Ches helped him through the worse ones when they were younger, and learned how to deal with them, always preferring not to wake him up but being with him until the episode passed. Vicky has learned how to deal with them, though she normally asks Ches for advice with it cuz she comes out short sometimes.

He has PTSD. I bet it's diagnosed too, he takes medication and goes to therapy, it doesn't mean he still doesn't have his bad days anyway. He's trying to get better.

Glam has talked to Vicky about his past, his father and his family. This is a direct contradiction of Alina's confirmation that Glam doesn't talk about it with anyone but man FUCK THAT. We love good communication in this house, Vicky tries her best to help him, but there's only so much she can do to help.

Glam enjoys gardening, cooking and making models, he also likes doing his make up, painting his nails and dressing up in fancy, extravagant clothes even if he has nowhere important to go.

He likes taking care of everyone's hair, and constantly helps Vicky brush her hair cuz there's so much of it, Dee when he gets stressed over how tangled it can get, buys Ches hair products so he actually takes care of it, and chases Heavy so the kid actually washes, untangles and brushes his hair.

This one is kind of weird, but I refuse to think any adult in the family is unarmed at any time. Glam owns a taser and pepper spray. They're bright pink and sparkly.

This man cried his eyes out while watching Coco. He's hell to watch movies with cuz he talks and predicts what's gonna happen during the movie, judges them with scores at the end and all.

Vicky

Also bisexual!

Vicky's the one who does everyone's laundry most of the time. She prefers it that way since she's the only one that knows how to wash their black clothes so the colors stay vibrant. (This is based on my gf shaming everyone but Vicky cuz their black clothes always look so muted and almost gray, but Vicky's whole outfit is always the same vibrant black colors, so we decided that neither Glam or the kids know how to wash dark clothes)

She has anger issues, if it isn't obvious. I think she also has PTSD, mainly survivor's guilt due to her surviving the accident her brother died in. She blames herself and cannot bear to talk about it, in some sort of deep denial. If she can't remember, it can't hurt as much, right?

She has scars on the right side of her back and her hip, from the road rash she got on her brother's accident, she never treated it due to grief and it scarred badly. Apart from that, the scar of the caesarean section from Heavy's birth. She doesn't really mind both of them, they happened, nothing to do about them.

She likes watching boxing competitions, brawling matches and motorcycle repairing on TV. Loves doing BBQ's and going to the pool. Also an enjoyer of teasing her kids, kissing and loving her husband at random times, spending time drinking and bonding with Ches and bragging about her family and punching anyone who thinks they're not that cool.

Not particularly a fan of make up, skirts and dresses or any traditionally femenine-perceived stuff. But has been making exceptions due to Glam and Ches being unashamed of being seen as femenine, and actually rocking the looks. The internalized misogyny is kind of slowly dissapearing.

Apart from the guns she carries in each arm (I mean her biceps, have you looked at the size of those?? She strong) she has brass knuckles on her at all times. Glam gifts her new ones sometimes, she loves having multiple choices to punch people teeth in.

Loves horror, thrillers and action movies. Falls asleep during rom-coms and dramas. Ironically, loves gossip and talking shit about people. Enjoys hearing Ches talks about the gossip going on in the nursery home even if she doesn't know who the hell he's talking about.

Rest of the family under the cut!

Heavy

Heavy is a trans boy! He doesn't know his sexuality yet though, he's still figuring himself out. When he's older, i think he definitely dated some men but had better luck with girls.

Heavy has had innocent crushes on some girls on his class before, but they never turn into anything more cuz he's not the best at expressing himself. He follows the bother-the-girl-to-death-until-she-hates-you gimmick, and unsurprisingly, it doesn't work.

I'm sorry to break this to u but Heavy totally had an among us phase, and uses so much reddit and twitch slang... You know he does.

Likes bullying and teasing his brother to death. You know that when Dee had his first romance, Heavy was ALL up in his business being a tease and a bad attempt at a wingman. He means well tho.

He's not squeamish at all. Also has great pain resistance. This kid has picked cockroaches with his bare hands and loves cats, of course the cats have scratched him. He's tough!

Grows up to be the charming himbo he was always destined to be.

Dee

I hc him as demisexual. Kind of inherited his dad's tastes for the takes no crap, intimidating but pretty kind of people.

Can't cook. He tries but he can only do basics like rice, cereal, chicken nuggets or eggs. Complicated meals always burn or don't taste like anything at all. It drives him crazy.

Dee was a quiet and very well behaved toddler before Heavy was born. He never threw tantrums or got whims. After Heavy was born though, and despite the fact he understood his brother was small and needed special care, he started craving attention often and cried and got mad at little things. Typical jealousy of the oldest sibling.

The first time Dee fell in love with someone, he didn't recognize it was love at first. He just thought his interest on the person was born out of curiosity and aesthetic attraction, but as soon as he realized he seeked validation and companionship, that he liked seeing them smile, that he wanted to protect them, that he yearned for more time alone with them and that he wanted more than what just a simple friendship implied, it was an instant 'oh hell no'. He wanted those feelings to get the hell away, but unfortunately, they were there to stay.

Canonically likes MLP, psychological and horror anime like Death note and Hellsing, so I'm deciding he also watched Death Parade, had a FNAF phase, is very into The Walten Files. This guy enjoys any kind of specially dark ARG's and knows a ton of lore of real crime, unsolved cases, ghost appearances and other stuff. Doesn't believe in the supernatural, but sure is entertained by it.

He's a mess at romance. Flirting? His attempts at compliments are hardly flattering. Giving gifts? The best he can manage is jewelry and you can kind of tell he asked his dad for help. Dates? He's so nervous he's silent for most of it, but begins getting comfortable and having fun if his partner really knows how to get him down from his negativity cloud.

Ches

Pansexual.

He's very good with kids. He has the patience of a saint and he's laid-back, chill and fun but still is an authority figure who knows how to put limits. Sure, he's gonna let the kids light up a house on fire BUT hey, now they know everything about fire precautions, burns and how to treat them AND how to get away with arson. What an educational evening, am I right?

Due to certain info from the "Goodbye" official comic, I headcanon Ches as depressed. I don't want to elaborate a lot 'cuz of spoilers, but... God, everything related to his mom fucking hurts, man. How did he deal with all that?

Ches has been Dee and Heavy's babysitter so many times he cannot count them with all his fingers. He learned how to put those kids to sleep almost immediately (Sing Bon Jovi's "This ain't a love song" and any cheesy love song in a slow lullaby style and they're out), which movie were their favorite as kids (Heavy loved 'Monsters Inc.' and Dee never looked away during 'Meet the Robinsons'), how to console them after nightmares (Heavy needed reassurance, sweet words, and to be with someone until he fell asleep again. Dee just had to be tucked in, get his nightlight turned on and kissed in the forehead). He practically raised those kids along with Vicky and Glam.

More than once, Dee and Heavy have slipped and called Ches "Dad". Ches immediately gets his shit eating grin on and answers "Yes, son?" and does a couple of dad jokes just to mess and embarrass them. He's actually very flattered and surprised at how proud of himself he is for being a father figure to both kids.

Has a scar on the left side of his forehead due to a bottle his mom threw at him when he was younger, around the time he met Glam. He hates the scar with passion, it's a permanent reminder of the fact she never cared, that's why he always keeps it covered with his headband. Gets sad about it sometimes.

Ches likes to spend his time with a group of grannies of the nearby nursing home. He genuinely considers them his friends and gossips and hangs out with all of them on weekends. Bingo, billiards, walks in the park, soap opera marathons, you name it. I even designed them, gave them names and backstories... God, i just love the concept too much. I'll make some art about Ches and his granny gang FOR SURE, you're NOT ready for them.

Carries a pocket knife on him at all times. This man grew up on a bad neighborhood and absolutely knows how to defend himself, he can be intimidating when he wants to be and will pose a threat if needed. He's fucking terrifying when genuinely mad. Just cause he looks harmless doesn't mean he is, darling.

That would be all!

[sineala]

let's talk, then :D do you have any favorite tv show lately? also, are you more of a binge-watch or one-episode-per-day type of person?

Aww, thanks for the ask, I appreciate it!

I am actually not a person who watches a whole lot of TV or movies and the fact that I have been in any TV/movie fandoms at all is a testament to how much I want to be in some fandom if it'll get me to actually watch something. I'm about three years behind on all the new Star Treks, for example. Books are great; I can read books for hours on end. (A lot of my Trek fandom was me reading the official novels.) I just have a hard time paying attention to TV/movies and I can probably watch at most two hours of anything at a time before I start getting really restless. I am trying to keep up with the Disney+ Marvel shows but have not started Ms. Marvel yet. (I did watch Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness the other day. I experienced some Madness, all right.)

(As of last year, I somehow got deeply into watching baseball on TV, which as far as I am concerned is perfect because I don't actually have to pay any attention to it and they let you know when something you should pay attention to.)

@lysimache likes watching TV more than I do and she really enjoys hitting the "Watch Something" button on Netflix and Netflix has decided that she wants to watch gay high school shows, so now we've seen Heartstopper and First Kill and we're part of the way through The Politician. Other than that, uh, I guess we watched Our Flag Means Death just like everyone else in fandom, and we're about halfway through a rewatch of the RayK season(s) of Due South.

But what I have been watching recently is actually a lot of obscure Avengers shows and movies because our 18+ 616 Steve/Tony Discord server You Gave Me A Home has been spending the week celebrating 616 Day and our server anniversary, so we've been watching some 616 Steve & Tony-adjacent... stuff. So far this week, it's been a dramatic livereading along with the YouTube video of Captain America/Iron Man: Invasion Force (which I posted about the other day) some of the 1960s Avengers cartoons (which are straight out of the early comics because they are so low-budget they mostly just animated the actual panels), Next Avengers (the direct-to-DVD movie where Tony has to raise all the other Avengers' kids in the Ultron robot post-apocalypse), and last night we watched both of the 1979 made-for-TV live-action Captain America movies (I am not sure I would call either of them good, per se, but I had a whole lot of fun watching them and I honestly would watch them again). So that's been fun.

(I'm not sure what else we're planning to watch; I think the contenders include the 1990s Iron Man cartoon, the 1944 Captain America serial, and maybe some EMH because EMH is actually good.)

[tangledbea]

Hello I can't remember the last time I watched Tangled the movie as well as the tv series but was shocked to find out about the controversies surrounding Chris Sonnenburg and the accusations from the former staff of a toxic work environment. I also read a post that you confronted him about racism within the series and movie. Would you mind telling me what the racist moments were in the series and movie that you pointed out? I want to understand the situation better, thanks.

I'd first like to clarify that I didn't confront him. I wasn't even talking to him. I was having a conversation with someone else, and he commented on it something like, "And here's where I bow out." And then we never saw him on Tumblr again.

As for racist moments, the movie has an all-white cast. Even background characters. There is not a single POC in Tangled, even though there are crowd scenes with hundreds of people in them.

And while there are POC in the series, the Black people are all pretty trope-ish. While I adore Lance, Xavier and Quaid (and Ruthless Ruth), there is still a sense of tokenism to them which I wish the creators hadn’t let happen. Lance is the token black guy in the main cast, who is mostly comic relief and doesn’t get much of a character arc of his own, on top of which, he begins the series as a criminal. Xavier is the magical negro trope. Quaid and Ruth drift away from the tokenism a bit, but they’re still each only there for an insignificant amount of time. (It’s kinda badass that Ruth was a proprietress and Quaid is basically Tangled’s answer to Bass Reeves, though.)

Then there's Madame Canardist. She was created for the movie, but not used (you can spot Vigor in the credits, though), so I can't even blame this entirely on the show (though they could have done something to make her less of a racist caricature). Madame Canardist is a harmful stereotype of a Romani person, frequently and negatively called a g*psy. (That word is as taboo as Esqu*mo and neither should be used.) They are not all fortune-tellers. They are not all mystics. They are not all swindlers. They do not all live in painted wagons. And they are a people who are alive today who are still being persecuted.

Vigor, himself, is a racist stereotype. Psychic monkey in a turban was an oft-used racist caricature for Indian people, back when the mysticism and glamor of the East was all the rage in the US and the UK. The fact that such imagery has persevered to this day shows how little people know or think about the stereotypes.

And then there's the Separatists of Saporia. I have seen people criticize them for being Middle Eastern-based (if nothing else, they are all POC, regardless of what race they are), and having a group of POC take over a predominantly white kingdom in a terrorist move... well, I hope you can see why that's a problem. Even Petunia (the Daylight Thief pretending to be Kiera's mother) is a villain.

The series definitely did better than the movie, in that it included POC at all, but as the saying goes, "They did better, but there's still room for improvement." I acknowledge that there has been progress in the Tangled franchise. But a lot of the issues are a complete tonedeafness to societal issues. I don't think the decisions were necessarily made in malice, but that doesn't mean we can't criticize them.

Before I close this out, I would like to bring up Gothel, and by extension Cassandra. Many people think Gothel is an antisemitic caricature, but I disagree, primarily because her design is based on the looks of Donna Murphy (her voice actor) and Cher, neither of whom are Jewish. Not to mention, the movie was written by a Jewish man, and I find it hard to believe that he would have deliberately written antisemitic tropes into his movie. I think Gothel is an unfortunate coincidence. However, I am also not Jewish, and I am not at all attempting to say that Jewish people who feel slighted are wrong. I have seen convincing arguments both for and against the idea, all from Jewish people, so it's not as if there's a unified front.

[dominique-mini]

i think we should blame more doctor who for only bringing jack back as comic relief

i think we should be angrier over the fact that jack went through the most traumatic experience he'd ever lived in his centuries of life (and im not talking only about ianto's death. what he did to steven held a BIG toll on his mental health as well) and then acted like nothing happened when he appeared again in doctor who

i know miracle day happened between children of earth and revolution of the daleks, however that does not change the fact that ianto and steven's death were directly caused by the doctor (the doctor not being there, but you get it) and that jack would be absolutely furious when he met the doctor again.

it makes total sense to blame the doctor. that motherf***er has a time machine, for gods sake. that means they could just pop in 2009 WHENEVER they wanted and fix everything that happened (i know the entire plot of children of earth depends upon the doctor not being there, but jack doesn't know this is a tv show. to him, the doctor just didn't show up when they should have)

i know everything could still go wrong anyway, but c'mon guys. it's THE DOCTOR. they are earth's main guardian. doctor who uses this factor as an emotional tool COUNTLESS times. it's always about THE DOCTOR and how they LOVE the earth SO VERY MUCH they just CAN'T GET OVER this little planet and comes back EVERYTIME to save it when we need them.

and so, like;;; they didn't at least show up? it's not like they haven't heard about the incident either. every single kid in the entire WORLD has gone through the event, and there were several political ramifications to it.

so yeah, with the "the doctor doesn't know about children of earth" possibility off the table... what's their motive? did they hear about the incident and went "oops, that one is already dealt with, i think it came out all right"??? that's even WORSE than them not showing up. i can't believe the doctor seriously looked at the political mayhem after the 456 was destroyed and said "this is fine"

yes, the doctor not being there is a main requirement for children of earth to happen, but they could at least DO something to blend it in the story a little better. have them say to jack's face that they don't think the 456 incident was that catastrophic and they have more important things to do. how cool would that be? to have the doctor ADMITTING they don't care about the people who died and the trauma caused by the 456 because it wasn't catastrophic enough for them???

anyways, in my humble opinion i think we should protest somehow if jack's used as comic relief the next time he appears in doctor who (if there'll be a next time after the whole thing with barrowman last year am i right. im also totally okay with the idea of never looking in that man's face ever again)

but idk guys give me your thoughts. do you think they should address the CoE incident in doctor who? and if not, they should build jack's emotional arch based on what?

[luxshine]

Moon Knight Primer Part Seventeen (and final for now)

Moon Knight (2021) #1 - 11, Moon Knight Devil's Reign #1, Moon Knight Black, White and Blood #1

Prologue, Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX, Part X, Part XI, Part XII, Part XIII, Part XIV, Part XV, Part XVI

And so, we reach the Mackay era, and the current status quo that is… not precisely good.

Don’t get me wrong: Mackay had one hell of a challenge as Age of Khonshu left Moon Knight in a horrible place both as a character and in general standing in the Marvel Universe, and he’s doing what he can with that, doing some things very well and adding very interesting stuff to the mythos, while doing… not so great on others. But again, I have no idea if the problems come from his writing specifically (as it was the case with Bemis, Bendis, Ellis, Huston, Dixon and so on), or because there’s some sort of editorial mandate that reads that poor Moon Knight can’t catch a break no matter what and the Lemire run was an outlier.

There’s also the undeniable fact that Mackay has had terrible luck, timing wise. Whatever he wants to do with Moon Knight? He was interrupted right in the middle of it due to the horrid crossover of Devil’s Reign -where Kingpin outlaws superheroes AGAIN, because that has worked in the past for Marvel, right? Outlawing Vigilantes who are, by nature, Outlaws anyway, and then an inexplicable one year hiatus between issue 10 and 11 -which narrative wise happen literally one after the other, without any pause that would allow for Devil’s Reign to happen, which was in issue #8, not between #10 and #11, which ALSO allowed for the TV Series to drop, so that most people picking up the most current comic of Moon Knight after watching Oscar Isaac being awesome are going to be completely lost because there’s absolutely NO synergy or continuity between one and the other. And I don’t just mean the fact that Marc in the comics is still a white-passing jewish man, who up to issue #5 was a multimillionare on the levels of Tony Stark AGAIN because Steven Grant in this universe is a financial wizard. No, I mean we have again NO Egyptian gods as enemies, Khonshu is… well, we saw Age of Khonshu, and of course, no Layla.  In fact, I am not a hundred percent convinced that the twist we will see in issue #11 was not actually editorial mandated in order to start pushing Moon Knight to something closer to what we saw in the series, but we will talk about that when we get there.

So first, the status quo and the usual “Does anyone at Moon Knight’s editorial team has even cracked open a book about DiD write before 1975?” spiel.

We pick up right were Age of Khonshu left us, sorta.  And we’re going to try and keep this chronologically this time, as we have only 11 issues to go.

Marc is, once again, fronting pretty much exclusively. That is to say, in 11 issues? We haven’t seen a PEEP of Jake or Steven. Marc is also pretty much 24/7 in the Mr. Knight outfit -and here we understand what Oscar Isaac said in the making of: Yes, originally Marc was Mr. Knight, and well, someone else had to be Moon Knight and that had to be Steven due to the series’s constrictions. But as Oscar said… it always makes more sense for Steven to be Mr. Knight. EVEN MORE when Mr. Knight’s suit is, well, just a very well tailored suit. But I digress.

Oh, when I say 24/7? I mean it. I think I can count with one hand the number of times we actually see Marc without the mask in 11 issues. One panel by choice, three pages as Dr. Badr needed to take it off to mummify Marc and cure him from his wounds. The boy has lost the plot and is immersing himself in the Mr. Knight identity and we all know that can’t be healthy.

Anyway, he is now the Head Priest of Khonshu in the Midnight Mission, and yes, we’re going to discuss that title in a second considering I just said that Khonshu is, at the moment, in an Aasgardian prison because Marc Phoenix-punched him there and was thus re-branded as an heretic by the actual Cult of Khonshu. But well, we know Moon Knight writers tend to forget what happened in their own runs, let alone someone else’s. And Marlene and Diatrice are no longer in their lives because due to the previously mentioned Age of Khonshu, Marlene got spooked, took Diatrice to Europe and told the guys to lose her number AGAIN.

At the Mission, people can go and tell him their problems, like, say, gang related disappearances and so, and then he goes out at night and fixes them. He is now trying to keep to one specific neighborhood of NY, HIS area, so to speak, where he has painted his symbol on the streets as a sign that it’s safe for the travelers of the night (Despite being at odds with Khonshu? Marc still repeats his credo like gospel). The very first mission we see him take is to save four kids from a vampire MLM (Which is only mentioned in those two pages, and it’s so incredibly stupid that I wish they had more time on screen). He spares the kids even when they’re already turned, because they’re innocent and thus, not deserving of death and I like that because THIS is the Moon Knight we love: He kills those who deserve killing (the Vampires who turned the teens), he gives second chances to those who don’t deserve death (The kids).  He even offers one of them, Reese, a nurse student, a job at the Mission as his secretary and thus, he starts building a NEW support group which is always good.

In particular, I love Marc’s relationship with Reese because, as Marc tells her: She’s the only one who doesn’t try to fix him, which is an arc subject as we have three people in the 11 issues trying to “fix” Moon Knight: Dr. Sterman, his new psychiatrist; Dr. Badr, a follower of Khonshu; and the Zodiac, who comes back as the villain of the current arc. I will be talking about each here.

Dr. Andrea Sterman is treating Marc because it’s one of the conditions that T’challa put on his freedom after the Age of Khonshu’s fiasco. And yes, this means that yet again, the person who is in charge of helping Moon Knight with their mental health is actually being paid by a THIRD person who doesn’t have the Moon System’s best interests at heart. Dr. Sterman is not as bad as Dr. Emmet (But then again, you need to be REALLY bad to get to Dr. Emmet’s levels) but she is also incredibly damaging given that her to go solution is “repress your alters, and be a singlet… or at least pretend to be one”. Oh, and because she is on the Avenger’s payroll, we can imagine Marc -because well, again, Marc is the one who talks to her- has zero privacy with what he tells her which again, is not how therapy is supposed to work.

Dr. Sterman also seems to think that because Marc is Jewish, being the High Priest of Khonshu is a contradiction. Which is funny because Mackay is NOT jewish, so he’d be the last person who could decide if it’s a contradiction or not, and I’m going to go with “no” and “This gentile idiot is talking over the jewish community” because Bemis, who IS jewish, actually managed to make sure we’d get that yeah, the boys’ jewish faith is not at odds with Khonshu’s credo of justice -as long as we’re talking about Real Khonshu and not Fake!Shu and his quest for global domination/kill every person he dislikes.  By the way, DESPITE this happening mere weeks after Khonshu built pyramids around New York and had mummies and werewolves keeping the population under control, Dr. Sterman is skeptical that Khonshu a) Exists, and b) brought the boys back to life.  

I SERIOUSLY hate how this is a constant theme in a world where Thor can be seen walking around Times Square, Ares and Hercules were Avengers, and frigging Eternity has come down to visit Earth more than once.

For the first time, however, we get Marc’s OTHER deaths mentioned. The time he drowned, the time he had to make his whole headquarters explode around him and so, Dr. Sterman asks if Marc is actually capable of dying. (And yes, I am switching here to Marc because he was the one who died. Steven and Jake, very wisely, had noped out of those two arcs) and Marc replies that he doesn’t know.

Which, if touched again, can be an interesting subject: Is Moon Knight immortal because Khonshu will keep bringing them back, no matter how angry he is at his Fist at the moment? Is he immortal because the First resurrection had a warranty of “as long as you believe, you will always be brought back EVEN if you are at odds with Khonshu at the time”? Or is Moon Knight a secret mutant with the power of immortality and no one told Xavier when he was recruiting?

We will never know, because I bet that this will be forgotten by writers.

Marc relationship with Khonshu, as I mentioned before, is very strained due to Age of Khonshu. In fact, Marc claims that Khonshu is unworthy of his worship… but he will still perform his duties as high priest because of his debt to the god -the original resurrection- and he will always be his fist.

THAT makes less sense than “Jewish man worships an Egyptian god” if you ask me.

Oh, and Dr. Sterman also parrots Dr. Warsaw’s theory that Moon Knight’s brain got a bit modified by his direct contact with Khonshu, although thankfully she doesn’t blame the DiD on this, just points out that it might make treatment more complicated. This theory will keep getting confirmed, as Marc himself will say Khonshu “rebuilt” his brain differently, but at least now it’s not “DiD was caused by an alien touch and brain damage”. No, it’s just “he has Did and UNRELATED, also brain damage”.  Interestingly, Dr. Sterman admits that Marc doesn’t really need help with his DiD, and congratulates him a bit about how Jake and Steven only surface for “minutes at a time” -all of them obviously off panel because we can’t have our nice co-conscious system be happy.

Dr. Badr is he current physician of the Free Clinic near the Midnight Mission, who, as I said before, happens to be ALSO a follower of Khonshu and gets right into Marc’s face by calling him “A�� Fist of Khonshu and not “The” Fist of Khonshu.  This is because Dr. Badr is the LEFT Fist of Khonshu, Hunter Moon, and considers his sacred duty to bring Moon Knight back to the “right” path of faith. Interestingly, he has a power similar to Duchamp’s long forgotten “Bloodline” power. That is to say, He has all the fighting knowledge from the previous fists of Khonshu, left and right, which makes me wonder why our boys never got that particular upgrade, even as Marc claims it was because his head was already too crowded for it, or the manual -not that it really helps Dr. Badr once Marc gets his bearings. THIS Marc is once again a former soldier, CIA agent, super spy trained and Merc who did very, very bad things, and he points out to Dr. Badr that he MAY know the moves of all the Fists before him, but Marc EARNED his own.

I have to say this is very interesting, as it picks up a BIT from way back when Randall Spector was running around trying to kill Moon Knight in order to take their place as Khonshu’s fist, without making Dr. Badr a villain. YES, he starts in the wrong side, trying to kill poor Reese just because she’s a vampire (for some unexplained reason, given that Vampires are morally neutral in Marvel, Dr. Badr insists they’re all evil and enemies of Khonshu. This is because HE got revived after being almost killed by vampires, so he has a bit of a bias. However, once again, he is kind of alone and the huge numbers of Moon Priests we saw in Age of Khonshu are nowhere to be seen.

Also, seeing Dr. Badr go from “I hate all vampires and Moon Knight is completely in the wrong” to “I can stand ONE, count it ONE Vampire, and ok, yes Moon Knight MAY outrank me in the Church of Khonshu”? Great writing. Seeing him change from Hunter Moon to DR. Moon when taking Mr. Knight’s place in the mission when needed? Hilarious. Him, a black man, calling Marc his “Brother” as they’re both followers of Khonshu (although I will admit, not a fan of Khonshu calling Hunter Moon “Son” so soon), great little detail. By the way, MacKay also can’t write doctors to save his life, because despite being one? Hunter Moon KILLS. Not just vampires, not just monsters. HE kills HUMANS.

Then there’s Soldier, a former Hydra agent who is trying to reform himself to take care of his mother. I adore Soldier because he is pretty much a younger Moon Knight without the Did or the superhero calling. He just realized that killing people for profit was not right and is trying HARD to clean up his act.  Who of course, gets blamed by the real villain for some of the worst parts of the arc, but I will go there later. (BTW, Both Dr. Badr and Soldier end up following Mr. Knight's fashion choices, Soldier fully cosplaying as Mr. Knight and I have to say, I LOVE the idea of "formal suit" becoming the new Hero fashion of the Marvel universe)

Tigra, Moon Knight’s old teammate and girlfriend, also comes back, both to be a friend and to spy him for T’Challa. In her defense and to her credit? She tells him about this in issue #11. In Marc’s credit? He always knew and didn’t care.

Then there’s The House of Shadows. I ADORE the House of Shadows. They’re a Living structure from Beyond Space and Time that wants to be lived in. But everyone keeps rejecting them because, well, they kind of eat people in the sense that they don’t let them out. And Marc, instead of fighting they? Once he knows what they are? Invites the House to become the new Midnight Mansion and they accept. Mackay still hasn’t done anything with them besides the original issue, but how cool is it that now villains CAN’T enter Moon Knight’s home without the home chewing them up?

Oh, and DESPITE his reputation? At least in the neighbor people like and respect Mr. Knight, and are thankful to him for his protection.

Zodiac is… weird. HE spends the first half of the series pretending to be “Terry”, another one of Moon Knight friends. Because he wants to destroy Moon Knight, prove that he’s fake, that he really doesn’t want to help the defenseless or follow Khonshu’s credo of protecting the travelers of the night. THIS Zodiac is obviously not Nick Fury’s long lost dead brother, the Zodiac who fought against Moon Knight way back in WAC, but more of a… violence fanboy? Because he really, REALLY wants Moon Knight to go back to his 2006 ways where he “cut people’s faces off”. I am SO tired of that one line since he only did it ONCE. It’s not as if people are harping about him trying to eat a rabid dolphin… which was far more recent than the Cutting of the face. He acts, sorry to say this, like all the people insisting that Jake in the series is a relentless killer who likes violence just for the sake of violence, who is only “Chained” by other people’s rules, and who is Moon Knight not really to help others, but because he WANTS to hurt others. The only difference is that here I can call Zodiac an Idiot because we have about… 211 issues proving him wrong.

Anyway, he’s so weird that now people seem to have forgotten the original Zodiac. Not even TIGRA remembers him and SHE fought HIM with Marc! (I mean, I forgive Marc for not remembering, yeah but its’ MARC)

Det. Flint returned for one issue, as he’s apparently now retired due to his connections with Moon Knight. In that same issue, Stained Glass Scarlet is now an immortal story who punishes evil. That was very, very interesting and I am sad it was a Hunter Moon case, not a Moon Knight one, and that of course, it got forgotten as soon as Devil’s Reign ended.

Then there’s Khonshu, who for the first time EVER, keeps answering his Sons’ prayers. BOTH Of them.  He is “still imprisoned” but both Marc and Dr. Badr’s faith can call his spirit to help them in battle. Dr. Badr does it freely, and Khonshu doesn’t seem to mind because Dr. Badr is his “loyal son and loyal fist”. When Marc does it… well, there’s a price to be paid and we’re still not told that price yet, but hey, issue #11 just came a week before I wrote this so… we will have to wait for more to know.

Then again, I ask what is the point of having Khonshu imprisoned in Aasgard if he can just pop up whenever they need him and fight ghosts directly or open portals into the othervoid to help Marc seemingly teleport from one side of the city to the other? Age of Khonshu is more and more pointless as I write, right?

Of course, as always, the worst part of this series is how the Boys’s mental condition is treated. As I pointed out, the whole run has had Marc fronting. Where are Steven and Jake? Issue two tells us this, and it’s very ironic they were printed and sold a year before the series because they’re literally trapped in two sarcophagus (and now there’s also an evil murderous janitor trapped there, but we can forget about him as he was just a one-shot villain sent by the Zodiac to “test” the waters”) in Marc’s mind -which he claims was rebuilt by Khonshu to be his weapon, because we’re still on THAT track and I do wonder if at some point Moon Knight will get powers again due to this because seriously, if we’re going to be all “He is no longer human”, I’d like for him to get some shiny tricks out of it. So yeah, Steven and Jake, who, remember, until Bemis was the frigging moral compass of the system, are out of the count and just like clockwork? Marc is doing some very, very questionable things that make everyone think that Moon Knight is insane, untrustworthy, and yadda-yadda we know the drill.

Marc also says that he wears the mask because when he wears the Mask, people don’t see him as Marc Spector. That Marc Spector is nothing, that who matters is the Fist of Khonshu, because being the Fist of Khonshu has cost him everything, but it’s all he has left, because if he isn’t Moon Knight, then he’s “just” Marc Spector, the man who ALWAYS makes the wrong choice and that’s why he thinks he developed DiD, to be anyone but him. And boy, yes, he needs a therapist that is not working for T’challa, because now he’s gone so to the deep end of depression that he is sleeping in his suit, in a literal sarcophagus, and his ring tone is Blue Moon and totally forgot that wonderful “We are Moon Knight and we’re never alone” of Lemire.  Especially since after he tells his therapists all about the mission and how the mask is part of his priest’s garments… he confesses to Tigra that the reason he wears the mask is so that he doesn’t have to see himself in the face. (BTW, that’s issue #4 and it’s the FIRST TIME in the run we actually see Marc’s face and he looks… far more bishoneny that he used to). Ironically, it’s when talking to Tigra when he admits that he went OFF the deep end, by killing some of his enemies (not that he, you know, actually DID. I checked, every single named villain he killed in 2006? Back alive now except for Black Spectre but I am not going to say he’s not coming back. He died full of nanites and that’s Comic Speak for “He’ll be back”), carving people’s faces with crescent moons, and yes, betraying the Avengers and helping Khonshu take over the world. Once again, cementing that all that? WAS MARC. Not Jake, the so called “violent” alter. MARC. Who really should realize that all those times he did all that stuff? He was repressing Steven and Jake.

Hell, he even goes back a bit to that as he buries Waxman, a sort of immortal villain who doesn’t need to breathe, alive for the crime of kidnapping Dr. Sternman under Zodiac’s orders. In front of THREE people, including Tigra who could, you know, just later call the Avengers and tell them “Oh, yeah, pick this guy up before he goes even more crazy” (meaning Waxman, who is a serial killer, not Moon Knight)

Someone get the boys a REAL therapist please but thank the gods that we’re back to Jake as one of the moral compasses and not the violent psycho Bemis wanted to make him be, because Jake Lockley would NEVER do that.

Mackay also decided that Steven Grant being a millionare was in the way -just as Steven himself was- and thus let one of The Zodiac minions, Stuart Clarke, blackmail him a little bit with the idea of losing the money. But even as Clarke gives all the money to the Zodiac? Marc doesn’t care. So he’s now “poor” again, but we all know that’s not going to last because Steven Grant, trapped or not, has so many secret bank accounts he’s probably forgotten a few. And we also know that there was a Spector corp that was also a multimillionare enterprise, and Steven probably was the accountant for Jake’s retirement fund so the guys will be ok especially as not 5 issues after the “we took all your money” scheme? Marc is still paying Reese for her job, still paying the Midnight Mission rent and STILL having all his toys. So the Zodiac probably only got, dunno, Steven Grant’s vacation money.

Issue #11 ends with Tigra and Marc ready to run through a mystical pathway opened by Khonshu so they can reach the Midnight Mission and fight Zodiac before Zodiac kills Reese and everyone in the neighbor to “Free” Moon Knight, Hunter Moon captured by Zodiac’s mercenaries after killing three of them, and Soldier… cosplaying as Mr. Knight to win some time before Mr. Knight acutally arrives. It is really cute.

So that’d be all of Moon Knight except… well, there’s Moon Knight’s Devil Reign #1 and Moon Knight: White, Black and Blood.

Moon Knight Devil’s Reign is SO BAD I couldn’t believe it was written by Mackay too. It takes EVERYTHING that the Bemis run did wrong regarding mental health and dialed it up to 11.

Long story short: Kingpin outlawed superheroes and put them all in jail. Marc let himself be caught because a woman asked him for help against her abusive ex, a super-villain called Man Mountain Marko, and the only way to get to him was to get in jail. Where he starts going back to “the wild dog days” because being locked with so much violence and evil is not good for his mental health. And then, when Marko claims he will kill his ex-wife and turn his daughter into a supervillain? HE TEARS MARKO’S EYES OFF.

And, once again? That’s MARC fronting. Not Jake. MARC.

Also, as much as I love manga (I mean, look at my art!) the cutesy bishonen style? REALLY doesn’t fit this story. And I am just showing you the cover and the interior page where Marc channels his inner Usagi Tsukino because the rest is... bad.

Finally, we have the three short stories in Moon Knight: Black, White and Blood, a short anthology of stories printed in well, Black, White and Red (I do hope it’s red ink and not like that old KISS comic, mixed with actual blood).

Despite the title? The stories are Mixed but not violent.

First one, Anubis Rex, is by Jonathan Hickman, drawn by the AMAZING Chris Bachalo, about a future where a girl named Bunny is the high priestess of Khonshu and leds “a” Moon Knight in a fight against futuristic beetles that  have the essence of Ra. It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with OUR Moon Knight, but the art is so amazingly bizarre it’s worth it.

Second story, So White, Yet So Dark, is by Murewa Ayodele and Dotun Akande, and it is the most perfect story for Moon Knight and series’s fans. Because it’s a team up between Moon Knight and Spiderman, as they fight together to stop some thieves to get an Egyptian scarab that can control Anubis… because Spiderman needs Moon Knight to do him a favor.

The favor? Loaning him the Mr. Knight suit for a special occasion. And omg, the punchline of the last page? WORTH IT.

The last story is confusing, as it’s told backwards. Written by Marc Guggenheim and art by Jorge Fornes, it tells how Mr. Knight is protecting a woman who is going to testify against the mob. It’s weird due to how it’s told, as it seems to begin with Moon Knight dying. But he can’t die, and we still have the new ongoing so… he’ll be fine.

Still, the whole issue is worth it for So White, yet so Dark.

Anyway, with that, we’re done for now with ALL of Moon Knight comics.  Both White, Black and Red and the current series are ongoing, so as soon as we have a bit more to add, I will do so. In the meantime, I might, if you want, do single issue analysis of what is to come -just not tied to the primer. There are a couple of things I’ll later expand on in meta , mostly about how negative it is to try and keep writing Marc as a singlet, something very, very common in the comics, and the relationship of the boys to themselves and mental health in general, as well as some mythology, but as this was mostly for facts, I won’t add them here.

Thank you so much for joining me and I do hope that this primer is helpful to you all for fic, meta and remembering that Jake Lockley is not evil, nor a violent psychopath, Marc Spector can be an idiot, Steven Grant is an adorable himbo, and Khonshu is not always bad.

Oh, and that “I am Marc Spector. I am Steven Grant. I am Jake Lockley… and We’re Going to be okay. We’re going to live with who we are. We are Moon Knight.”

[yandere-sins]

Hello! How are you? May I pls request the prompts scratches and collar for Sakusa Kiyoomi for the yandere writing challenge thingy? I hope this is alright! Thank you <3

Thanks for requesting!! Sakusa is one of my favorites actually, so I am really excited to write for him! uwu Please enjoy!

Scratches - “Try that again sweetheart, I dare you.” (I don’t want to overlap prompts too much, so I am doing just this one!)

»»———————— ♡ ————————««

Living with Kiyoomi had never been easy.

When you two got married, you’d been quite intimidated by him after your husband wouldn’t look at you even once the whole day. You thought to yourself about how much he must have hated you, considering he only agreed because you two had been promised since your childhood. This marriage didn’t seem like something he was interested in, and the moment you were ‘unloaded’ at his home, you felt like the strangest organism in the whole world.

Nonetheless, you tried to be liked. If you at least couldn’t be a nuisance to him, you thought he might accept you as his partner. But all your attempts backfired gloriously. He wouldn’t eat your cooking, clean over your cleaning, ignore you after he came home from training. For the first year or so, he wouldn’t even take you to one of his matches. You were sure other spouses were allowed to go, so why not you?

But you got used to it. You had to, somehow, or else you probably would have never stopped feeling unloved and unwanted. It wasn’t what you expected, hearing about love all this time, but you didn’t have a bad life by his side, at least. His accounts were filled with money, food was delivered fresh to your doorstep every day, and though you didn’t know anyone in the city that you two settled in, you got along well enough with your neighbors, so you didn’t feel too lonely.

And what you least expected, once you accepted that you and Kiyoomi could never be an item, he started to relax too. Had you been too much? Maybe pushing him too far without realizing? Intruding on him? Or perhaps he had just been told to be nicer to you by his parents, but your surprise was great when he joined you to watch TV one evening.

Given, he didn’t speak a word and didn’t seem too interested in the show you were watching. There also were about two seats free between you, but it was a start. And gradually, your relationship improved.

»»———————— ♡

Nervously, you looked at your outfit, wondering if it was too much. Kiyoomi had never asked you to dress up to accompany him before, scowling whenever you decided to try and impress him with your fashion sense or asked to go with him. Even now, you knew that asking you to come and meet sponsors was just a way to look good in other people’s eyes; he even had a suit delivered to him that day. It wasn’t you who was wanted. It was the image of being married to someone. But as his partner, maybe that was the only thing you could do to please your husband.

“Are you ready?” he asked through the door, not daring to step into your room. He never had entered it ever since you moved in, and you wondered if it was because he disliked you so much or because he feared you were ‘dirty’. But you gave yourself an encouraging nod in the mirror, quickly making your way out. “All done!”

You didn’t expect him to stand right in front of the closed door as you opened it, almost running into him but stopping at the last second. “Do I look fine?” you asked, noticing him appraising you over the rim of his white mask. He looked comically like that, suited up yet wearing gloves and mask as if he was going to clean, but even so, you had to give it to his looks that he was handsome. You didn’t doubt your own attractiveness, but the curt, “It’s alright,” he muttered did sting.

»»———————— ♡

Had you known how exhausting these kinds of events were, you would have almost been thankful that he never took you with him before. Giving it all you had sure was taxing when you never did it before, but you wanted oh-so-badly to be accepted by Kiyoomi’s side. You didn’t even notice your own mental exhaustion until you finally had a chance to sit down.

Alone, again.

Maybe you simply weren’t fit for this kind of life. You didn’t know much about volleyball, and there were many weird insider jokes you didn’t understand. Everyone appeared so friendly, some faces still familiar from the wedding, yet you couldn’t help but notice the pity in their eyes. They were all thinking the same thing, you were sure. Just how pitiful you were to be so unluckily married to a man who never seemed interested in what you two had.

“What’s the long face for, hm?” you suddenly heard a cheerful voice, something cold being pressed to your cheek and startling you. You looked up in confusion, only to be blinded by a warm and cheerful grin, the light of the room being reflected through a water bottle and accentuating his features even more.

“O-Oh,” you stuttered, reaching up for the drink he held out to you. “I didn’t see you coming, Atsumu-san. I’m sorry, I was in thoughts...”

“No offense, but you don’t seem to have much fun,” he sighed, plopping down next to you. “It’s such a shame Omi-Omi never shows you off, yer so cute, you know? Makes it much easier to endure parties like these!”

Laughing it off, you found yourself mesmerized by how carefree Atsumu seemed. To you, all of this was a big deal, and you had always assumed it was the same for everyone. But apparently, more people shared your sentiment of the time seemingly dragging out. Without noticing, you chuckled, and Atsumu’s eyes flitted over to you before he straightened his back briefly, crossing his legs. Smirk falling over his lips, you almost caught yourself gasping at how gorgeous he looked in the ambient lighting around you two.

“That’s much better. Ya should laugh more!”

Feeling the warmth spread through your face, you quickly cleared your throat, looking away as to not stare. For a moment there, you thought he really looked like an angel, making you feel at peace around him. “I just- You know- You call him Omi-Omi?” you changed the topic quickly, trying to hide the awestruck expression on your face by hiding behind your hand a bit.

“Huh? Oh yeah. Wouldn’t recommend it, he doesn’t really like it, but it’s fun teasing him, ya know? He gets all-” Reaching up, Atsumu pushed his brows together and put on his best impression of Kiyoomi. “‘Don’t call me that, you Idiot. Work on your serve if you have so much time.’ That’s what he says to me! I’m just trying to be friendly...”

Shaking your head slowly, you couldn’t hold back your laugh as you listened to him gush on about your husband treating him ‘unfairly’. Part of you felt sad having to hear it from a third person, never having been able to collect experiences with him yourself. Still, you were also relieved to see he wasn’t just treating you so coldly. “You’re so funny, Atsumu-san,” you chuckled, and he finally stopped talking, relaxing next to you after his tirade.

“There we go,” he mumbled, and you felt his hand fall to your head, giving it some pats. It made your heart grow to receive the affection, slowly but surely making you realize you had been missing fooling around and laughing or even being touched gently for a change. “Don’t let him get to you, ya hear me? Or I’ll come and kick his ass for you!”

“Who’s ass are you kicking?” you both were suddenly interrupted, and knowing the voice, you looked up. Shame hitting you, you stood up, Atsumu’s hand falling from you as you slipped out from under it, facing your husband cautiously. “Kiyoomi, you’re back!” you mumbled, wondering if your mood change was too noticeable. “Yeah, we’re leaving,” he announced, ready to go.

“Don’t just go around touching other people’s spouses, Atsumu,” he warned his colleague sharply, his arm coming around your back. Still, not even the tip of his glove touched you, much less gentle than Atsumu did.

“Mood-killer,” you heard Atsumu complain. “Good night, [Name]!” he called after you, and you graced him with a brief smile thrown over your shoulder, waving after him while you let yourself be led out by your husband.

»»———————— ♡

The ride home was almost as tiring as the evening itself, and the streetlights passing you as you looked out the window weren’t enough to keep you awake. It was a long drive, but the next thing you noticed was a warm body carrying you upstairs from the garage. “Bastard,” you heard a voice, slowly but surely regaining your senses.

“Kiyoomi?” you asked meekly, rubbing your eyes. Blinking a few times, when you looked up, you were met with a disgusted glare staring down at you, instantly making you shrivel into yourself. A flight instinct set in, and only now you noticed he was carrying you through the hallway of your house, not bothering being gentle with the bathroom door once he reached it.

He seemed furious and disgusted, and at least one of these were emotions you had never seen him make before. You almost expected him to drop you into the bathtub as you found yourself hovering over it, but he set you down gently. Nonetheless, the sudden stream of cold water hit you like a slap in the face as he turned on the shower without even a moment of hesitation. It grew warmer quickly, but you found yourself weirded out as your clothes began to stick to you. Kiyoomi, too, barely took off his blazer before kneeling down next to the tub, reaching for the shampoo standing close by.

It was in no way gentle or comfortable as he rubbed it onto your head, the gloves he wore not helping at all. You began to splutter as you had to close your eyes, soap going everywhere on your face. “Where else did he touch?” Kiyoomi asked, almost too calm for the fact it felt like he was trying to press the shampoo into your head rather than wash you. “No- Nowhere!” you complained, ducking out from his touch and wiping away soap from your face. “What are you doing?!”

“I don’t believe you,” was all the answer you received to your question. “Tell me. Now. Don’t make this harder for us.”

“What...” you muttered, flinching as you felt his hands fall to your body, grabbing your clothes. “What’s wrong with you!” you finally yelled, swatting his hands away harder than you wished you did. Finally, you got the time to wash off the soap and open your eyes again, feeling ill-treated and confused by his actions. Though despite the warm water, as you finally managed to look at him again, you felt your body freeze.

You thought you knew how he looked at you all this time. Disappointed, disapproving, and disgusted, but this time it was different. He looked at you as if you just ripped his heart out and claimed he was fine like that, and that hurt almost more than any look before. But in the next moment, it was gone, just like a snap of his fingers, and he grabbed your wrist, tightly and unbudging even if you complained. “Try that again, Sweetheart, I dare you.”

Blinking a few times, you couldn’t decide what was scarier; seeing him for the first time up close, face only inches from yours and without the mask, which usually gave some more distance between you two, or having him threaten you. Kiyoomi never talked more than a few words with you at a time, nor did he show any interest in anything you did. “Slap my hand away again, and I will make sure you can’t use it for a long time, you understand? Don’t you know by now who you belong to?”

His questions were so clear, yet in your head, they made no sense. Who did you belong to? Who was it?

“Y-You?” you eventually muttered. “Do I belong to you?”

A question as stupid as it sounded, and yet, it eased Kiyoomi’s rage, it seemed. “That’s right,” he confirmed. “You’re mine. You’ve been mine ever since we met for the first time, don’t ever forget that. I am the only one that is allowed to touch you and no one else. Especially no sleazy bastards like Atsumu.”

“Kiyoomi...”

“Undress,” he interrupted you. “I have to clean you.”

Hesitating, you gripped your own clothes. Never before had you heard him talk like that, especially not about you. You never even believed he could have those thoughts about you, and after being unloved for so long, they felt like bandaids to your wounds. Mind you, not strong bandaids, no. They didn’t even manage to heal you partially, but who were you to complain. Because, what Kiyoomi said...

“Okay,” you whispered, slowly stripping out of your clothes. “I’m sorry... Omi.”

You were stretching your luck, but you were so close to tears as he placed his hand on top of your head. It wasn’t like Atsumu’s. It wasn’t gentle, and it didn’t fill your core with happiness. No, it pressed you down, making you lower your head and feel so insignificant compared to its greatness. But it was Kiyoomi’s. The person you wanted to be loved and caressed by the most.

“It’s okay,” he sighed, and for once, his voice sounded almost gentle and forgiving after you did something. His hand stayed as his free one helped you get out of your clothes, and laying your own hand on top of his, you felt his warmth for the first time, no glove separating you two.

And to this day, you still remember wondering if what Kiyoomi said meant that he loved you too.

Even if that meant you were living in the worst kind of relationship possible.

[You can find the prompt list here]

[vanimy]

So late for this but... let’s talk about two TV shows I’ve been obsessed with lately

I’m a very weird person because while everybody and their mother posted a lot of stuff during the various lockdowns we’ve been having for two years, I was keeping to myself and kinda dropped off the face of the Earth. For those who still care, I’m alive and for the others who’ll see this well, hello, there. 

Before talking about the two TV shows that kind of occupied my free time, a little digress on the Obi-Wan Kenobi show. Yes I’m kinda excited to see Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen get back to their iconic characters. Yes I liked seeing lil’ Luke out there who looks roughly the same age as the Luke I’m currently writing in my WIP that has yet to be posted BUT what kind of acting Hayden is going to have from under the suit? What on Tatooine is Obi-Wan going to do? Are they going to meet in total contradiction to the classic trilogy? Have chess games every year like Magneto and Xavier ?(I would actually pay to watch that but I’m not holding my breath) Do I trust Disney to not  ruin two characters I love? NOPE. Which is why even though the mere announcement of that show fueled my need to write SW again (actually pick up an old project that was collecting dust on my hard drive) I am not about to suscribe to Disney and give money to the monster that ate my SW babies. 

I’ll wait to see gifs on tumblr. 

- Lucifer : 

I started watching it during the first lockdown because I found myself watching a random  Tom Ellis video on YouTube and his accent did things to me.

 I really enjoyed the first season, the show was basically crack (I mean the very premise of it being about the Devil who opens up a nightclub, goes to therapy and solves crimes I mean come on...) but I liked the fact it was crack and the show didn’t take itself seriously. Then I was obsessed come season 2 because the story got deeper, the character issues and relationships really pulled me in and it was still as funny as the first season. Then I watched season 3 which was less enjoyable because Tom Welling is one of the worst actors I’ve ever seen and some plot twists were kind of ridiculous but the ending was great and then season 4 which is to me the best season of the show along with season 2 and by then I was ready to worship Netflix because I thought the writing and acting had been raised to the top during that season which happened to be when the show was bought by Netflix. But then season 5 happened and boy was it a mess. The show started to take itself way too seriously and the plot twists (I mean seriously an evil twin that no one ever talked about before? I know it’s in the comics but I think this is one instance where written form doesn’t translate well into visual media),  the main female character whose story never revolved solely around Lucifer in the first seasons suddenly is all about the male lead like all she talked about was him and their relationship all the time and I was fed up by half season and while I really enjoyed God and Lucifer making up (yeah I know how that sentence sounds like) I think I liked that God was a mysterious figure throughout the show, sure the comic potential of bringing him to Earth brought out laughs but in the end I liked it better when the main characters were as clueless as we are in real life. And since I’m weird, the last season which really brought a divide amongst fans and made a lot of people mad, well this one I actually liked. Maybe because I didn’t watch it right away and thought it would suck and by the time I did, I was genuinely surprised, I liked the ending, it was the right kind of bittersweet. But I shouldn’t be surprised, I’m usually in the minority. Sure Linda is great but the know it all attitude and the focus she kept on getting to the detriment of other characters and the fact every man seemed to fall for her became kinda ridiculous at some point. I’m not even going to touch the whole baby story. Sure Maze is badass and one of my favorites but why is she NEVER held accountable for her bad actions? Like never. Everyone always forgives her betrayals and that’s... lame.  Sure I loved Chloe but I had a hard time reconciling the Chloe from the first season with how she was later on, like she had a personality transplant or something. The only characters that I felt had good evolutions were probably Lucifer and Amenadiel.

Anyway, farewell Lucifer. By the time it ended I wasn’t as obsessed as I once was with the show so I’m not sure I’ll rewatch it again but I thought the ending was satisfying and I enjoyed these characters. That was really bittersweet to see it end. 

- Shadow and Bone :

The need to rant somewhere about something as trivial as a TV show I was starting to get invested in made me turn back to Tumblr and reactivate a long dead blog. Because all of us still around here know this is the only place to be when you want to do that.

So here we go !

I'll start this review by saying my lil sis convinced me to watch this show by the mere following promise : There's a dark hot guy in there I KNOW you're going to love.

Cue end of the pilot and that first shot of Ben Barnes standing there all dark and hot even though we only see him from the back and...

yep.... I was gone. So first warning, this review/rant is going to be partial to the Darkling which explains partly why I was disappointed by the end of the season and fighting against myself regarding the Darklina ship. Second warning, I haven't read the books, I only searched a bit for what's next so I know how it ends basically but my feelings are only based on the show.

So let's start with what I loved about the show :

-New mythology, characters, locations. Cool powers, I really love the whole Grisha thing, the discrimination that goes along with it. Really cool environment I got sucked into.

-Apart from one character in particular (I'll come back to that later) I really loved all the characters. I liked Genya and Nina but my absolute faves are Alina, the Darkling and all the Crows, especially Inej and Jesper. The Crows' story is the only one that never disappointed me actually, I loved their dynamic and their tight group and Inej is my QUEEN alright? I hope we're going to see much more of her later on. Kaz and she were too cute together as well. Probably the only ship I liked that ended on a good note by the end of the season, lol.

-The visuals of the powers being used in action, the action sequences. WOW. That first ambush scene with Alina being brought to the palace and we're shown the way the Grisha powers work was chef's kiss. And right after that, the first time we see the Darkling summon the shadows then the Cut was so beautiful visually it actually gave me inspiration for something I was working on for my Star Wars fic in progress (sidenote: I'm currently writing a SW fic where Anakin becomes more powerful and can see the Force Matrix!Neo like and those visuals of the shadows around him like in that scene stayed with me and inspired me to picture the dark side. /end of sidenote). Also some shots are really well done and so symbolic I can't. For example one of my favorite scenes in 1x04 with Alina and the Darkling chatting late at night in his room. There's that beautiful moment when her light literally chases away the shadows and they're inside a bubble of sunlight and the expression on my face was close to Ben Barnes' when he looked at Alina. Also at the end of said scene when Alina is like “hotness activated must go” and leaves the room, there's this beautiful shot of her leaning against the closed door in the light and him coming closer to her in the darkness but they're both separated by the door and she leaves first as he approaches and I can't with the symbolism and the foreshadowing.

-I know I'm repeating myself  but Inej, Inej, Inej. Kicking ass, her dilemma about taking lives, her faith. I really loved that the story that was given to her ( the whole dilemma of killing vs her faith) was a plot that would usually be reserved to a male character but was given to her here. 

-The whole shenanigans around Milo. Seriously. This was so good.

-The turns and twists of the story. All this time I really didn't know why the Darkling would need Alina's power if he was a bad guy because I could only picture her power being useful to destroy the Fold and Episode 8 threw me for a loop. Also the collar thing did but that's for later about the things I didn't like.

-Alina, Alina, Alina. In terms of female characters I fell for Inej first (and I really loved that those two became almost instant BFFs). I liked Alina from the get go but I didn't stan her right away because at first I was fed up with Alina's constant moaning about having luxuries at the Palace, her powers and needing Mal (more on that later) but once she grew into herself, started to befriend other people in the Palace and became more confident about her powers, oh yes she became my second Queen definitely.

-The Darkling, the Darkling, the Darkling. First Ben Barnes. Man he's not only very very easy on the eyes

 (yes I'm shallow, sue me),

 he's a great actor and he has such presence on screen. I talked about that wonderful scene in episode 2 when he arrives and summons the shadows for the first time, that quiet calm he exudes and from the start he keeps you on edge. He looks and feels like a dark character from the start so you ask yourself can he really be trusted? and then you keep changing from “yes” to “no” to “yes maybe?” to “no definitely” to “Ugh I don't know”. Even when he started to turn full villain at the end, he played the character so well I couldn't quite hate him. I really really wanted to (more on that later) but dammit even when he's in full Villain mode he's still fascinating to watch. Best roasting lines, best entrances à la Darth Vader  (for those who follow my blog you know this is one thing that will always be good in my book).

 I was disappointed by the ending but I think he was at least more or less consistent in his character development, I could always follow his line of thinking (even when he was an asshole) and the backstory was a nice touch even though it was definitely too short.

-Last but not least. The Darklina ship. At first I didn't want to ship it because I'm a canon Nazi and I could feel from the get go that ship was probably doomed. I mean, the Darkling is called the Darkling and he cuts a guy in several pieces like two scenes in. It was also very obvious the writers wanted us to ship Mal/Alina, since that ship was very much shoved down our throats all the time, what with those few flashbacks scenes (that was more or less that same meadow scene on repeat) and emphasis on them despairing away from each other. I'm really happy for those who ship Malina, seriously you're probably right to, since it's clearly written as the only ship you're supposed to root for, time and time again. So power to you shippers, it's kind of obvious it's going to be endgame (and from what I read here and there after watching the show, it ends up that way in the books). But for myself, I never managed to like the Malina ship (mainly because I seriously dislike Mal as a character but more on that later). And then I got sucked in by the Darklina ship from the very first scene they shared. GODDAMMIT THE CHEMISTRY between the two actors. I hadn't witnessed such chemistry in a long time. I mean, the first episode we see them together and they share like what 2 or 3 scenes, I thought they were going to literally start making out by the end of their second scene together and I wouldn't have batted an eyelash at how fast it would've gone. That was insane chemistry. And on top of that you have other things that made this relationship or at least the potential of it fascinating. First, Ben Barnes and Jessie Mei Li played the characters as those two always fascinated by each other and longing for each other in a very real raw way (yeah, even at the messy end except for that last episode I will return to shortly). Second the parallels and the fact they're the exact opposites in terms of power yet complete each other. From the get go I was like “OMG he's the yin to her yang” their powers complete each other, she's the light he's the darkness and so on. I was really excited about the possibilities for a beautiful relationship.

I mean...

But that was before THE TWIST.

-Which brings me to the things I disliked :

-I have no idea how it's played out in the books but even though I loved her, at times Alina's character suffered from inconsistent reactions that kind of irked me. Like for instance, Alina goes from moaning about Mal every two seconds to “he's not responding to my letters so I don't give a rat's ass about him anymore” in the course of one scene even though Mal might have had good reasons not to respond to those letters. I mean it's not like the guy wasn't fighting in a freaking war, you know? The fact she was wary at first yet never even doubted once her letters could be intercepted was also plain stupidity. Then she jumps straight into a relationship with the Darkling (I mean, we all get it, look at him but still...) and then in the space of literally two minutes  Baghra reveals the plot twist (it wasn't much of a twist that Aleksander had a hidden agenda to be fair but the reveal that he was the Black Heretic, was immortal, wanted to use the stag to control Alina, Baghra was his mother and so on, that felt like a lot and THAT was a twist for me at least), then Alina shows two seconds of grief then completely gets over it (after being completely in love with the guy two seconds ago) believes Baghra on the spot (had the information come from Genya I would've totally believed it but why would she believe Baghra so easily ? Baghra's always been mean to her and everyone and is Aleksander's mother which makes her not to be trusted as well?) then flees without even showing the slightest emotion to part from her friends in the Palace and everything. There was also that missed opportunity of her grieving for Marie who got killed to protect her and about whom she was supposed to care.

(I'll admit though, the scene when she ends up being the Crows' sort of captive without knowing it and the timing of it were really much fun).

Then she goes back to mooning over Mal and hating the Darkling (with good reason after the antler scene) then not so much then not caring at all. Look hating the Darkling's guts I get it but being indifferent about his apparent death didn't sit right with me. It gave me whiplash.

-In that same vein I didn't like how Zoya did a 180 turn at the end. Sure it was her family out there but first that information should've been something that appeared beforehand, not shoe horned it in the very last episode, right when they're already sailing (unless I missed something). As soon as she started saying she had loved ones on the other side of the Fold I knew they were toast. Zoya should've appeared more conflicted at the end, IDK make her turn against her fellow Grisha to do the right thing then make her mourn the people she had to kill or something, or make her resent Alina still and dislike her instead of becoming instant BFFs at the end (it worked with Inej but with Zoya it felt way too forced) things aren't black and white. It also portrayed Zoya as fickle IMO because she was shown to be jealous of Alina because she was the new General's favorite and pissed because the Darkling turned her down so this made her look like she changed loyalties because she was rejected. Which I know isn't the reason but it could be interpreted that way since there was no sign at all she was doubting her orders or whatever before that and was “ride or die” for the Darkling right before that.  

-I said I shipped Darklina. Hard. Yeah well that was before Episode 7 and that awful collar twist. That whole thing was disgusting and turned me off, made me really dislike the Darkling (the only time when I softened the slightest bit was that “Make me a villain” scene because Ben Barnes and Jessie Mei Li played that scene with such emotions and that almost made me melt me again). Until then I thought there could be a way for them to patch things up, that the Darkling was kind of Magneto and Alina could be like Professor Xavier in X-Men you know, like they're on opposite sides of a war because Alina is a good guy and the Darkling is an extremist but when it comes down to it you just know these two will never hurt each other personally. But then he put that collar on her, took away her power, and I was so DISAPPOINTED. Man the potential for that relationship, it all turned to waste in that single act and I was like so bummed. No offense to the Spike/Buffy or Reylos shippers but I've always hated those ships, that's going too far for me, this is entering toxic territory and I was like Alina with Adele singing in my head “We could've had it all...”I was pissed because I knew I couldn't really ship it afterwards and damn it that waste of chemistry, of great potential for a story on light and dark and their powers and rivalry while still loving each other and everything. I felt like I was gaslighted you know. Why make him a sympathetic villain until then?  If only he had done something redeeming like IDK withdrawing the collar afterwards or stopping during the sailing or whatever, I could've been there for the angst and redemption but nope by Episode 8 the Darkling had become that cartoonish villain, showed no remorse (seriously I was half expecting him to shout “unlimited poweeeeeer” à la Palpatine at some point), Alina was looking at him “like that guy's a monster I can't wait till he dies”, telling him she never needed him (which irked me TBH I would've preferred something like “I don't need you anymore” which would've been more accurate but still badass because that would've still meant “fuck you” but I digress) and he was about to kill her if Mal hadn't intervened and the writers so obviously wanted you to hate the Darkling at the end it wasn't even funny. That ending scene when he exits the Fold all villain like was badass but it's obvious more than ever he's supposed to be The Villain TM and that just made me mad as hell. I know a lot of people still ship Darklina but I know I was disappointed.

Me after finishing the season : I'll never ship Darklina again.

Also me after watching Darklina YT vids in the midst of this review : 

Fuck I still ship it.

Alas I don't believe we're going to see any change to the story from the books so that means he's probably going to die and Alina won't care and you wouldn't blame her and fuck this ugh. I mean, they wouldn't have ended the first season with Mal and Alina against the world and the Darkling being rejected by his own troops, fully evil and surrounded by dark creatures (and his beautiful face marred dammit) if they were going for a redemption arc. Hope I'm wrong (really do) but I don't think so unfortunately.  

-I really dislike Mal as a character. Sorry I just really dislike him, he's just so... bland. At the end, I don't know much about him and I don't connect or relate to him at all. He's brave and loyal and that's it, that's all I know about that guy. The actor tries but he can’t make up for the way the character just doesn't do it for me. Before someone tells me that’s because I’m the Darkling’s b*tch, I have to mention I just wasn't interested in Mal from the get go, before the Darkling appeared, not the way I was invested in Alina and the Crows from the get go, and after that, Mal was portrayed in such a ridiculous Gary Stu way it just took me out of the show. The amount of times when he should've dropped dead yet miraculously survived was preposterous and made me roll my eyes so hard. I also dislike his dynamic with Alina. At the end of the season I was hoping Alina would drop both men and find herself another third better guy (or hook up with Inej, I would root for that ship).

Look, it's not like I’ve always been a gal who shipped toxic enemies to lovers ships usually, far from it I'm actually usually rooting for the sweet ships and the whole first love thing is usually my thing but I like it better when a ship isn't shoved down my throat with the whole “We are epic TM” stance while giving us only literally two scenes before separating the characters. Mal and Alina gave me major Dawson/Joey vibes (for those of you who followed that delicious 90s show) and that's not a compliment (yes back in the days like a lot of teen girls I was shipping them at first because the writers wanted you to ship them but then the superior Pacey/Joey ship happened and a lot of people including me jumped ship and never looked back because Dawson was the embodiment of The Nice Guy TM and we were starting to realize how toxic that was back then).

Another nail in the coffin is that I don't feel the chemistry between the two actors who felt more like brother/sister when they reunited at the end than anything else. Also I can't root for a ship where the guy never saw her for who she was even though they knew each other for so long and only wanted her when he lost her. I also couldn't get into a ship where the female character was sabotaging herself to be able to be with the guy and thrived only once she was away from her male counterpart - it really felt like she blossomed away from Mal - AND fell in love/was infatuated with another guy two minutes after leaving the first one. I just can't. There were times when I felt something close to caring like when Mal and Alina reunited in the woods in episode 6 and when he told her she didn't owe him any explanation about the Darkling and her, that was a real mature way of handling everything but shipping it? Nope.

So the novel is over. I didn't like the ending of the season (and probably the end of the series as a whole down the line) because it’s such wasted potential to me. But the good I listed outweighed the bad so I'll probably watch the next season anyway and try to focus on the Crows and Alina as a character, watch the Darkling as the Villain he is and... not expect anything on the Darklina front.

*watches YT vids and reads Darklina fics on AO3*

Dammit.