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weekendwarriorblog · 3 years ago

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The Weekend Warrior 10/1/21: VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE, THE ADDAMS FAMILY II, THE MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK, TITANE, MAYDAY, THE JESUS MUSIC

Yeah, so I haven’t had the time over the past couple weeks to write a column, and I kind of hate that fact, especially since I’m coming up on a pretty major milestone for me writing a weekly box office column and reviewing movies. In fact, that milestone comes next week! And once again, I’m struggling to get through the movies I was hoping to watch and write about this week, because I’ve been out of town and once again, very busy over the weekend. Let’s see how far I get...

Before we get to this week’s wide releases, I’m excited to say that my local arthouse movie theater, The Metrograph, is finally reopening for in-person screenings, and they’re kicking things off with a 4k restoration of Andrez Zulawski’s 1981 thriller, Possession, starring Sam Neill and Isabell Adjani, who won a Best Actress prize at Cannes for her performance in the film. I actually saw this at the Metrograph a few years back, and Metrograph Pictures, the distribution arm of the company is now distributing the 4k restoration. There’s a lot of exciting things ahead at Metrograph, including an upcoming four-film Clint Eastwood retrospective, including White Hunter, Black Heart (1990) and A Perfect World (1991) this Friday. Also, Lingua Franca director Isabel Sandoval will be showing her fantastic film from 2020 (a rare chance to see it in a theater and I’ll be there!) as well as program a number of other favorites of hers. Sunday will have screenings of Ingmar Berman’s Scenes from a Marriage (1973) in its full four plus hour glory, Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993) and John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness (1994).. In other words, the Metrograph is back!

Moving over to the weekend’s three wide releases, the first one up being Sony’s VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE (Sony Pictures) with Tom Hardy returning as Eddie Brock aka Venom, joined by Woody Harrelson as the psychotic symbiote, Carnage. Taking over the directing reins is Andy Serkis, who has only directed two other movies, Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle and Breathe, but as an actor, he’s been heavily involved with the CG VFX (and performance capture) needed to bring the characters in this Marvel anti-hero movie to life.

Venom has been one of Spider-Man’s most popular villains and sometimes allies for quite a few decades now, starting out life as a cool black costume Spider-Man found on a strange planet during the first “Secret Wars,” which turned out to be an alien symbiote that had malicious intentions. Spider-Man got the costume off of him but it then linked up with Eddie Brock, a sad-sack journalist whose emotions drove the alien symbiote to become the Venom we known and (mostly) love, thanks to one Todd McFarlane. Venom continued to play a large part in the Spider-Man books before getting his own comics, and not before a super-villain was created for him in Cletus Kasady, a vicious serial killer whose infection by the symbiote turns him into Carnage. And that’s who Harrelson is playing.

Being a sequel, we do have some basis to go on, although the original Venom movie, released in early October 2018, also arrived at a time when it was only the second time the character of Venom was brought to the big screen -- the first time being Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, in which the character was received without much love as Ryan Reynold’s Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. And yet, Venom did great, opening with $80.2 million and grossing $213 million domestically, which is more than enough to greenlight a sequel. (It made over double that amount overseas, too.) For comparison, the Wolverine prequel opened with $85 million but at the beginning of summer, so it quickly tailed away with other movies coming out after it. Venom: Let There Be Carnage has to worry about the new James Bond opening a week later, so it very likely could be a one-and-done, opening decently but quickly dropping down as other big movies are released in October (basically one a week).

I’ve already seen the movie, and by the time you read this, reviews will already be up --including my own at Below the Line. Social media reactions seem to not be so bad though, so maybe it’ll get better reviews than its predecessor, which was trashed by critics, receiving only a 30% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But if you look at the fan ratings, they’re higher with 81%, although it’s hard not to be

I’m thinking that bearing COVID in mind and the law of depreciation since the previous movie, Venom: Let There Be Carnage will probably be good for around $50 million this weekend, maybe a little more, but however it’s received, I expect it to drop significantly next week, though a total domestic gross of $135 to 140 million seems reasonable.

Another strong sequel to kick off October is the animated THE ADDAMS FAMILY II (MGM), which is following up the 2019 hit for MGM/UA Releasing with most of the voice cast returning, including Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloe Grace Moretz, and Finn Wolfhard, as well as Nick Kroll, Snoop Dogg, Martin Short, Catherine O’Hara, and Bette Midler voicing the popular characters from the New Yorker cartoons, a popular ‘60s TV series, and two Barry Sonnenfeld movies from the ‘90s.

The 2019 animated film was a pretty solid hit for the newly-launched UA Releasing, grossing $100 million domestic after a $30.3 million opening, making it one of MGM’s biggest hits since it was restructured under UA and became its own distributor again. Who knows what’s going to happen with Amazon’s plans on buying MGM and whether the latter will remain a distribution wing, but MGM still has a number of movies out this year that likely will be awards contenders. But that doesn’t mean much for The Addams Family II, which will try to get some of those people who paid to see the original movie in theaters back to see the sequel… and if they’re not going to theaters, MGM is once again offering the movie day-and-date on VOD much like they did with last year’s Bill and Ted Face the Music, which opened much earlier in the pandemic (late august, 2020), so it far fewer options to see it in theaters compared to this animated sequel.

It’s highly doubtful that The Addams Family II was going to open anywhere near to $30 million even if there wasn’t a pandemic, and it wasn’t on VOD just because MGM just doesn’t seem to be marketing the movie as well as its predecessor. You can blame COVID if you want, but it’s also the fact they’re distributing the company’s first James Bond movie in six years, No Time To Die, on their own vs. through another distributor, ala the last few Daniel Craig Bonds. But we’ll talk more about that next week, since that’s going to be an important movie to help cover MGM’s expenses for the rest of 2021. (I haven’t had a chance to see this yet, but it’s embargoed until Friday, so wouldn’t be able to get a review into the column regardless.)

We’ve seen quite a few family hits over the past few months even when the movies were already on streaming/VOD, but parents are probably being a bit more careful with kids back in school, many younger kids still not vaccinated, and the Delta variant still not quite under control. Because of those factors, I think The Addams Family II is more likely to do somewhere between $15 and 18 million its opening weekend, maybe more on the lower side.

Third up is THE MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK (New Line/WB), David Chase’s prequel to his hit HBO series, The Sopranos, which went off the air in 2004 but still finds fans on the new HBO Max streamer. Ironically, this prequel will air on the streamer at the same time as it's getting a theatrical release, which probably won't be a very tough choice for fans.

Chase has reunited with director Alan Taylor, who won a Primetime Emmy for his work on the show in 2007 before moving onto other popular shows like HBO's Game of Thrones. Taylor has had a bit of a rough career in film, though, having directed Marvel Studios’ sequel, Thor: The Dark World, a movie that wasn't received very well although there were rumors that Taylor butted heads with the producers and maybe didn't even finish the movie. He went on to direct Terminator Genesys, which honestly, I can't remember if it was the worst Terminator movie, but it was pretty bad.

What's interesting is that because this is a prequel set in the '70s and '80s, none of the actors from the show appear on it, but it does star Alessandro Nivola, a great actor in one of his meatiest roles for a studio movie. It also introduces Michael Gandolfini, son of the late James Gandolfini (who played Tony Soprano, if you didn't know), playing the teenage Tony, plus it has great roles for the likes of Jon Bernthal (as Tony's father), Vera Farmiga (playing Tony's mother), Corey Stoll (playing the younger "Junior” Soprano), and Lesile Odom Jr, as the Sopranos key adversary, even though he ends up coming across like the good guy of the movie. It also stars Billy Magnussen, who oddly, also has a key role in next week's No Time to Die.

I'm sure there's quite a bit of interest in seeing where Tony came from and to learn more about his family, many who were dead long before the events of the HBO show, but will that be enough to get them into theaters when they already have HBO? I already reviewed the movie for Below the Line, and reviews are generally positive, which might get people more interested in this prequel.

As with most of Warner Bros’ movies this year, Many Saints will also debut on HBO Max and unlike some of the studio’s other 2021 offerings, it will actually make more sense to watch this one on the streamer since that’s how most people watched The Sopranos. That seems like a killer for Many Saints, and it’s likely to keep it opening under $10 million, where it might have done better on a different weekend (like sometime over the last two weeks).

This is what I have this weekend’s top 10 looking like:

1. Venom: Let There Be Carnage (Sony) - $50.4 million N/A

2. The Addams Family II (MGM/UA Releasing) - $16.5 million N/A

3. The Many Saints of Newark (New Line/WB) - $9 million N/A

4. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Marvel/Disney) - $7.5 million -44%

5. Dear Evan Hansen (Universal) - $4.1 million -45%

6. Free Guy (20th Century/Disney) - $3.3 million -30%

7. Jungle Cruise (Disney) - $1.1 million -35%

8. Candyman (Universal) - $1.3 million -48%

9. Cry Macho (Warner Bros.) - $1 million -52%

10. Malignant (Warner Bros.) - .7 million -53%

Opening in select cities is French filmmaker Julia (Raw) Ducournau’s TITANE (Neon), the genre thriller that won this year’s coveted Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. It stars Agathe Rouselle as a young woman who has an interesting relationship with automobiles, but she also has psychotic tendencies that leaves a trail of bodies behind her. On the run, she decides to pretend she’s the missing son of a fireman (Vincent Lindon), who has been missing for 10 years, and things just get weirder from there.

I honestly wasen’t sure what to expect from this although I do remember walking out of Ducournau’s cannibal movie, Raw, just because it was so gross, even though so many of my colleagues and friends swear by the movie, and this one, for that matter. Sure, there’s a certain “prove it” factor to me watching a movie that wins the Palme D’Or, because it’s very rare that I like the movies that do win that benchmark cinema award.

After a flashback to Agathe’s character Alexia when she was an obstinate young girl kicking the back seat of her father as he’s driving. They crash and she’s forced to get surgery that puts an odd looking piece of metal in her head. Decades later, she seems to be a pseudo-stripper at weird punk rock car show -- I guess they do those things different in France -- and hooking up with a fellow “model” afterwards. Agathe is actually a very popular model/dancer but when one fan gets too grabby, she pulls a knitting needle out of her hair and stabs it through his ear, killing him. Oh, yeah, she then has sex with a car and seemingly gets pregnant, but that only happens later. First, she goes on a bit of a killing spree and then goes on a run and decides that by strapping up her breasts and breaking her nose, she can pass off this fire captain’s son… and it works!

So the second half deals with acting great Vincent Lindon’s absolutely bonkers steroid-addicted man who seems to be sexually attracted to his own son, and most of his fellow firefighters knows that he’s gay but in the closet, but I’m honestly not sure what that matters. He’s a pretty disgusting character whose 70-year-old ass we see way too much of, and even those who might find Rouselle to be quite fetching, there’s a certain point where her nudity is not alluring but quite horrifying.

Oh, and at this time, Alexia (or Adrien, as she’s now going) has also gotten significantly pregnant, but it’s not a normal pregnancy because what should be milk from her breasts seems to some sort of motor oil. That’s because she FUCKED A CAR earlier in the movie!!! What do you expect when you fuck a car and don’t use protection, girlie? The fact Alexia/Adrien is trying to hide the fact she’s a pregnant woman from a station full of men isn’t even particularly disturbing. The part that really got me was when she broke her own nose to pass off as this guy’s son -- I actually had to look away for that part.

Listen I’m no prude, and I think I can handle most things in terms of horror and gore, but Titane just annoyed me, because it felt like Ms Ducournau was doing a lot of what we see more for shock value than to actually drive the story forward. There just doesn’t seem to be much point to any of it, and once the movie gets to the firehouse, and we see her interaction (as a young man) with her “father” and his colleagues, it just gets more grueling.

It’s as if Ducournau had watched a lot of movies by the likes of Cronenberg or David Lynch, or more likely Nicolas Refn or Lars von Trier, and thought, “I could be just as strange and horrific as those men… let’s see what people think of this.” And way too many people fell for it, including the Cannes jury. While I normally would approve of any good body horror movie, especially one with cinematography, score and musical selections as good as this one, I doubt I’d ever want to watch this movie again. And therefore, I don’t think I can recommend this movie to anyone either, at least no one I want to remain my friend.

As far as the movie’s box office, NEON is opening the movie in 562 theaters to build on buzz from various film festivals, including the New York Film Festival earlier this week. I think it should be good for half a million this weekend, although maybe it'll surprise me like NEON's release of Parasite a few years back. I just don't see this getting into the top 10 but maybe just outside it.

And then we have a few more movies that I got screeners for but just couldn’t find the time to watch, but might do so once I finish this verdammt column.

The faith-based doc THE JESUS MUSIC (Lionsgate) by the Erwin Brothers (I Can Only Imagine, I Still Believe) takes a look at the rise of Christian Contemporary Music through artists like Amy Grant and Stryper and everything in between, featuring lots of interviews of the artists’ trials and triumphs. Even though there isn’t much CCM I ever listen to, I’m still kind of curious about this one, since I generally like music docs and this is guaranteed not to be the sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll of most of them. I have no idea how wide Lionsgate intends to release this but it certainly can be fairly wide, because the Erwins have delivered at least one giant hit for Lionsgate, and I Still Believe may have been another one if not for the pandemic. It actually opened on March 13, just days before movie theaters shut down across the country, so it's little surprise it only made $7 million domestic. That said, the acts in this one have a lot of fans, and if Lionsgate does release The Jesus Music into 1,000 theaters or so (which is very doable), then I would expect it would make between $1 and 2 million, which would be enough to break into the Top 10.

I haven't seen any of the movies based on Anna Todd's YA romance novels but the third of them, AFTER WE FELL, will play in about 1,311 theaters on Thursday i.e. tonight through Fathom Events, and may or may not continue through the weekend. These movies just kind of show up, and again, having not seen any of them, I'm not sure what kind of audience they have, but this one stars Josephine Langford and Hero Fiennes, as well as Stephen Moyer, Mira Sorvino and Arielle Kebbel with Castille Landon directing.

Grace Van Patten (Under the Silver Lake) stars in Karen Cinorre’s action-fantasy film MAYDAY (Magnolia), playing Ana, a young woman who is transported to a “dreamlike and dangerous” coastline where she joins a female army in a never-ending war where women lure men to their deaths. It also stars Mia Goth, Havana Rose Liu, Soko, Théodore Pellerin and Juliette Lewis. It will be in theaters and On Demand this Friday.

The great Tim Blake Nelson stars in Potsy Ponciroli’s action-Western OLD HENRY (Shout! Studios/Hideout) about a widowed farmer and son who take in an injured man with a satchel full of cash only to have to fend off a posse who come after the man, claiming to be the law. Not sure who to trust, the farmer has to use his gun skills to defend his home and the stranger.

The romantic-comedy FALLING FOR FIGARO (IFC Films) is the new movie from Australian filmmaker Ben Lewin (The Sessions), who I’ve interviewed a few times, and he’s a really nice chap. This one stars Danielle Macdonald, Hugh Skinner, and Joanna Lumley, and it will be in theaters and On Demand this Friday. This rom-com is set in the world of opera singing competitions with Macdonald playing Millie, a brilliant young fund manager who decides to chase her dream of being an opera singer in the Scottish Highlands. She begins vocal training lessons with a former opera diva, played by Lumley, where she meets Max, a young man also training for that competition. Could love blossom? This actually sounds like my kind of movie, so I’ll definitely try to watch soon.

The second season of “Welcome to Blumhouse” the horror movie anthology kicks off on Amazon Prime Video on Friday with the first two movies, Maritte Lee Go’s Black as Night (which I’ve seen) and Gigi Saul Guerrero’s Bingo Night (which I haven’t), and actually I’ll have an interview with Ms. Go over at Below the Line possibly later this week. The former stars Ashja Cooper as a teen girl living in Louisiana who has a bad experience with homeless vampires, along with her best friend (Fabrizio Guido).

Also, Antoine Fuqua and Jake Gyllenhaal’s remake of the Danish film THE GUILTY will begin streaming on Netflix starting Friday after premiering at TIFF a few weeks back. I never got around to reviewing it, but it’s pretty good, maybe a little better than the original movie but essentially the same. I’d definitely recommend it if you like Jake, because he’s definitely terrific in it.

Also hitting Netflix this week is Juana Macias' SOUNDS LIKE LOVE (Netflix), a Spanish language romance movie that (guess) I haven't seen!

A few other movies I didn’t get to this week, include:

STOP AND GO (Decal) VAL (Dread) BLUSH (UA Releasing) RUNT (1091 Pictures)

Next week, it’s not time for James Bond, it’s time for James Bond to die… no, wait… there is NO TIME TO DIE! Also, a very, very special anniversary for the Weekend Warrior….

#The Weekend Warrior #Venom: Let There Be Carnage #Many Saints of Newark #Addams Family II #movies #review #box office #reviews #The Jesus Music #Titane

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jujymikey · 4 years ago

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Gifts

Ever since Bruce came back from being lost in the time stream, he hasn’t been able to get close to his third son. He’s been able to connect with his other kids, even more so then before he got lost in the stream, but for some reason he and Tim haven’t been able to. Before he got lost, Bruce and Tim were the closest he has ever been with any of his sons. They talked all the time and they even hung out when they weren’t working on a case.

So when Christmas time starts approaching, Bruce is surprised when he has no idea what to get Tim. He’s only shared one Christmas with Tim back when Tim was Robin and his parents were away on some trip. He got Tim a camera that Tim used all the time, but Bruce doesn’t think he can give Tim the same gift twice. So Bruce decides to ask for some help.

“What’s up B?” Dick asks as he walks into Bruce’s study.

“Thank you for coming. I need your help with something about Tim.” Bruce gestures to the chair in front of his desk, “Please take a seat.”

“What’s wrong? Is Timmy ok?” Dick asks, worry spreads over his face.

“He’s fine. I just need help figuring out what to get him for Christmas.”

“Oh, I don’t know if I can help with that.” Dick frowns, “I haven’t gotten him anything yet...”

“You are the closet in the family to Tim, surly you have some sort of idea of what he’d like.”

“We aren’t close anymore... not since...” Dick trails off. There’s so much that they’ve all left out about what happened while he was gone.

“Since what?”

“Since I gave Robin to Damian. He didn’t take it well... he hasn’t really talked to me about anything besides cases.” Dick shakes his head, then immediately perks up, “We should work together to figure out what to get Tim!”

“Do you still have contact with the members of the teen titans? They know Tim pretty well.”

“Yeah, I’ll text Gar about it.” Dick pulls out his phone and stands up, “I do have to go now, but I’ll let you know what I find out.”

This time of year, stores send out magazines with gift suggestions. Usually the only one that cares about these magazines are Dick, but this year Bruce is the one reading through them. There’s a week until Christmas and Bruce hasn’t gotten any gifts for his kids yet. That’s why he’s sitting kitchen isle surrounded by magazines.

“Looks nice.” Cass sneaks up on him and looks at the magazine of men shoes.

“You want some men’s dress shoes?” Bruce smiles at her.

“They’re shiny.” Cass smiles and sits down in the chair next to him, “Whatcha doing?”

“Looking for Christmas gifts.” Bruce says flipping through the page, “I have an idea for most of you guys, but I’m having a hard time figuring out a gift for Tim.”

“I got Timmy a gift.” Cass flips through the magazines then points to a basketball, “I got basketball, because Tim is my basketball.”

“I don’t know what that means, but I’m glad you found a good gift.” Bruce flips to the page of men’s graphic t-shirts, “Do you think Tim would like one of these? He likes anime, this shirt has an anime girl and says ‘oppai’.”

“Tim wears suits and sweaters.”

“He used to wear t-shirts.” Bruce frowns, when he was Robin, Tim would wear all kinds of cartoon t-shirts. It’s been only a year since then, has Tim really changed that much?

On the 23rd the Christmas tree is surrounded by presents wrapped in colorful paper. Four of those gifts are from Bruce, but he still can’t figure out what to get for his fifth kid. The problem is that a Bruce doesn’t know what Tim is into anymore. Does he still like video games? Or comics? Or action movies?

Damian is the easiest one to buy for, Bruce got him some fancy paints. Dick is also really easy, Bruce just ordered the lucky charms but only marshmallows. Cass is a little more difficult, but it only requires a bit of thinking. He gets her an elementary school level English learning book. Jason is very difficult, he likes book, but Bruce isn’t sure which books he has and which he’d want. So Bruce got him a new armor set that Lucious created that has a built in chest taser. It seemed like something Jason would enjoy.

Bruce has spent two hours at the mall looking for the perfect gift for Tim. After looking through each store twice, Bruce finally gives up and calls Dick, “Did you talk to your titan friend about Tim?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t that helpful though. Gar just said that Tim likes to boss people around and paperwork.” Dick says over the phone, he can hear the others talking in the background, “I ended up getting him a new clipboard.”

“I don’t want to get him office supplies. I don’t want him to think of our relationship as only work.” Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose, he can’t spend two more hours walking cluelessly through the mall.

“Why don’t you try asking Jason? They’ve gotten pretty close since Jason stopped trying to kill Tim.” Dick suggests.

“At this point I’ll try anything, put him on the phone.”

“Old man, what do you want?” Jason huffs over the phone.

“Do you know what Tim likes?” Bruce asks bluntly.

“What? Is this a joke?”

“No, Dick says you and Tim have gotten close and I don’t know what to get him for Christmas.” Bruce explains quickly, he doesn’t want to tell Jason about this, but he hopes that Jason will be mature about this.

“Pffffttt, really B? You can’t figure out what to get your perfect little solider?” Jason laughs, “I almost killed Tim twice and I know more about him than you, thats so sad.”

“Jay, I don’t have time for this. I really need your help.”

“It’s really nice to hear you this desperate. This is so great.” Jason sighs contently, “Alright, I’ll help you.”

“Thank you.” Bruce breathes out in relief.

“I got Tim an action figure of some game of thrones character. Just get him something nerdy and he’ll like it.”

“Tim doesn’t have any action figures in his room.” Bruce frowns, Tim’s room has nothing but the essentials in it. The walls are completely blank, no posters or anything like that. If there wasn’t a bunch of case files spread across the room, it wouldn’t look like anyone even lived in there.

“Yeah, but he’s a nerd. He has to love action figures.”

“I don’t think that’s true.” Bruce shakes his head, “Does Tim even watch game of thrones?”

“Of course he does! Everyone watches game of thrones!” He can practically hear Jason rolling his eyes, “You’re a hopeless case.”

Then Jason hangs up the phone, leaving Bruce to wander the mall for another three hours.

Bruce is starting to panic, it Christmas Eve and he still doesn’t have a gift for Tim. He’s resorted to snooping through Tim’s stuff. Tim is away on having a Christmas party with the teen titans, so he doesn’t have to worry about Tim catching him.

Most of the room is completely impersonal, so Bruce starts really digging through all of Tim’s stuff. His closet, drawers, Tim’s laptop. He can’t find anything even a little personal, if she didn’t know that Tim lived in here he’d never have known that was Tim’s room.

After searching through all of Tim’s stuff, Bruce sits down on Tim’s bed and tries to figure out what to do now.

“Father, what are you doing in Drake’s room?” Damian stands in the doorway of Tim’s room, he’s holding Alfred the cat.

“I’m trying to figure out what to get Tim for Christmas, it’s harder than I thought.” Bruce sighs.

“Come on, Father. Even I’ve gotten Drake a gift.” Damian says, setting the cat down on the floor and she runs underneath Tim’s bed.

“The gift better not be a knife to the stomach, because I will not allow any stabbing on Christmas.”

“Please, I wouldn’t ruin a perfectly good knife with Drake’s blood.” Damian rolls his eyes, “I got him a membership at the Metropolis museum so that he’ll be at home less.”

“That’s actually a nice gift.” Bruce sighs, his two sons that have tried to kill Tim are getting Tim a better gift than he is.

“You’re a detective father, it’s not that hard to figure out Drake.” Damian pats Bruce’s head, “Drake is a very simple man.”

“I’m sure I’ll figure something out in the next few hours.”

Christmas Day comes way sooner that Bruce expects. It’s 5 am and Bruce is just now getting home from the store, finally finding a gift for Tim. He didn’t have time to wrap it, so he bought a gift bag to put it in. Placing the bag under the tree, Bruce sinks down into the couch.

“Long night, sir?” Alfred asks handing Bruce a cup of coffee.

“Thanks Alfred.” Bruce down half of the cup in one go, “I’ve been out all night.”

“With a lady friend I presume.” Alfred sits down on the couch with a cup of tea in his hand.

“Actually, I was out shopping for a gift for Tim.”

“Waiting to the very last minute I see.” Alfred shakes his head in disappointment, “I ordered master Timothy’s gift months ago. A tea of the month set. I’ll get that boy to like tea eventually.”

“I just don’t know like I used to.” Bruce sighs into his cup, “I guess I’ve just realized that we aren’t close anymore.”

“Master Timothy has been distant from the family for awhile now.” Alfred stares down into his tea, “I’m afraid the boy doesn’t feel like he’s wanted here.”

“I didn’t realize it was that bad. I thought it was just me that’s fallen out of touch with Tim.”

“The only reason Timothy moved back into the manor was because you’ve come back.” Alfred says and gives Bruce a small smile, “He really cares about you.”

“I care about him too, I just can’t figure out how to show him how much I care about him.” Bruce drinks the rest of his coffee, “I couldn’t even figure what to get him, I just got him something random and I don’t even know if he’ll like it or not.”

“I’m sure he’ll love whatever you got him. It’s the thought that counts. You just need to tell him that you love him.” Alfred pats his shoulder and stands up, “I will go make breakfast now and I’ll get you another cup of coffee.”

Christmas breakfast goes way better than most meals in this family goes. No one fights and no one gets stabbed. Then it’s time for presents.

Dick is like a little kid, dressed in his Superman pjs separating his gifts from the others. Jason is sitting on the couch eating cookies. Cass is next to Jason sharing the cookies. Damian is sitting on the floor with Titus and Alfred the cat. Tim is sitting on the couch drinking his third cup of coffee. Bruce stand behind the couch nervously waiting for his kids to open the presents.

“You don’t need to be so nervous.” Alfred smiles and gently pats Bruce’s back.

“I’m not nervous.” Bruce grumbles into his sixth cup of coffee.

Dick, Damian, Jason and Cass all open their gifts and love each one of them, even the ones that Bruce got for them. The only presents left are Tim’s. They look over at Tim and find him on his phone.

“Timmy! The only gifts left are yours.” Dick says in a sing song voice.

“Oh, were we taking turns?” Tim looks up from his phone.

“Here my gift.” Cass hands him her gift.

“Thanks, Cass.” Tim smiles and opens the poorly wrapped gift, “Oh wow a basketball. I love it.”

“You basketball.” Cass bops Tim’s nose.

“Here’s my gift replacement.” Jason throws his gift at Tim.

Tim opens the gift and tilts his head, “Who’s this?”

“It’s John Snow from Game of Thrones!”

“I don’t watch game of thrones, I don’t really have time for tv.” Tim sets the gift down, “But thank you.”

“You suck.” Jason throws a cookie at Tim.

“Now my gift!” Dick hands Tim his gift.

“Oh wow... a clipboard... I love it.” Tim smiles at Dick and Dick lights up. Bruce knows Tim enough that it’s a fake smile, but Dick doesn’t seem to notice.

“I guess it’s mine turn.” Damian huffs and hands Tim a card.

“Wow this is a really nice gift.” Tim says after opening the card, “You’re not going to stab me as payment for this gift right?”

“Keep it up and I might.” Damian growls.

“Here’s my gift, Timothy.” Alfred hands him his gift.

“Tea.” Tim smiles soft at the box, “I love it.”

“Here’s a gift from me.” Bruce grumbles and hands Tim the bag.

Tim opens the bag and pulls out the anime t-shirt that says ‘oppai’ on it. Tim burst out laughing, “You don’t know what that means do you?”

“....it has an anime character on it... and you like anime...” Bruce says dumbly.

“I do, thank you.” Tim smiles at him.

After presents are done, everyone spreads out and goes on their own, giving Bruce time to talk to Tim alone. He finds Tim curled up in a chair in the library watches videos on his phone.

“Tim, can I talk to you?” Bruce asks sitting in a chair near Tim.

“Yeah, what’s up?” Tim asks setting down his phone. It’s weird his other kids call him B and Damian calls him Father, but Tim does his best not to address him.

“I want to spend more time with you.”

“...is this a joke?” Tim asks with confused look on his face.

“A joke?” Bruce frowns.

“Or is something wrong?” Tim sits ups, “Or is this about a case?”

“This isn’t about a case or anything like that. I want to spend more time with you not doing work or cases or anything like that.” Bruce hates that he has to explain this. If he asked Dick or Damian to hang out, neither would ask if it was a joke, “Ever since I came back from the time stream, you and I haven’t had any personal time together. I’ve missed a whole year of your life and I want catch up on what I’ve missed.”

“Oh....” Tim blinks at him, then blinks a couple more times trying to stop the tears from forming in his eyes, “I-if you want...?”

“Of course I want to.” Bruce smiles, “You’re my son and I love spending time with you.”

Instead of replying, Tim pounces on him. Bruce holds Tim close to him, it’s been so long since he’s held Tim. He feels smaller than the last time he’s held Tim, which concerns Bruce, but he decides to bring that up later.

“So do you actually like the shirt?”

Tim wipes his tears off his cheeks and lays his head on Bruce’s shoulder, “Bruce, ‘Oppai’ means boobs.”

Bruce stares in shock as Tim just laughs at him.

#Christmas #batman fanfiction #Tim drake #Bruce Wayne #Dick Grayson #Cassandra Cain #Jason Todd #Damian Wayne #Alfred Pennyworth

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jcogginsawriter · 4 years ago

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Hand to Hand: Mark Waid’s Flash

I have been a fan of comic book characters for a long time. I started with the cartoons, and as I got older, I began doing deep dives into wikis, reading fanfiction, and participating in that shallowest of internet past times, the vs debate. I dabbled in writing fanfic for myself, but I spent far more time thinking about writing fanfic instead. I would come up with all these ideas about what I would take from the various different versions of the characters, and don’t get me started on the idea of Crossovers. The point is, I knew a lot of what happened in the comics, but I never read many comics. I didn’t know where my local comic shop was, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have had the money to spend on them. The comics that I did read were usually fan translations of manga. I did read a few comics, big name stories like Death of Superman or Crisis on Infinite Earths, but they were few and far between.

Recently, I’ve begun to change that. I now follow several comics as they come out, most notably the current X-line. This change sprang in part because I began reading a lot more comics criticism. In particular, I followed the blog of a certain Superman fan, and began to eagerly digest his various takes. I wanted to be able to ask him questions about new comics without looking like an idiot (This is how 90 percent of my interactions on comics twitter go, BTW) and that was a kick in the pants for me.

After getting into a steady habit, I decided to look into reading some of the classic runs I’d read so much about throughout life. To go from knowing them second hand, to knowing them first hand. After a bit of hemming and hawing, I’ve settled on Mark Waid’s legendary run of Flash Comics to start off with.

(Spoiler Warning for some 30 year old comics, by the way)

As of this writing, I have read up to the final issue of his story arc Dead Heat, wherein Wally does battle with the speed cultist Savitar. Before we get into things like plot and characters, I want to discuss the art, because no discussion of comic books is really complete without talking about the art. Unfortunately, the art in this run hasn’t done much for me, but that’s not really it’s fault. I read this comics in manner that they were not created to be read, digitally and zoomed in. These comics were drawn with physical issues in mind, and I don’t doubt that they’re good in that format. It also doesn’t help that I’ve read far more manga than I have American comics. American comics have never clicked with me the way manga does. Even now, I still find the layout of manga more legible than the layout of an American comic. That’s not a value judgment, it’s just my personal experience.

I do distinctly recall thinking that the art was better up to issue #79 (The conclusion to the Return of Barry Allen storyline), than it was after. I prefer the less exaggerated character designs, and lighter inks, though it could very well be a case of me having gotten used to the initial style and not liking the change. One thing that thing I can say about the art is that it helped me grasp how Wally’s costume differed from Barry’s. Before this, I was incapable of separating them in my mind, but seeing them side by side made it clear to me how different Wally’s Costume was colored and shaded.

Now, onto the writing of the run, we’ll start with the lead, Wally West. My previous touchstone for Wally was the Justice League series from the DCAU, which I watched a lot as a kid. The Wally in these comics comes off as more serious that his DCAU incarnation. Not too serious, he still cracks jokes, but he’s more on the ball. He takes his adventures as seriously as any hero would, rather than the more carefree attitude I recall his DCAU version having. This is not unsurprising, Wally here is the lead whereas there he was part of an ensemble cast, and here we get his internal monologue which gives us a much more thorough sense of his headspace. Not to mention, the DCAU version was voiced, so we know with no ambiguity what tone his dialogue’s in. In text, tone is more up to interpretation.

Perhaps the biggest thing that set Comic Wally apart from DCAU Wally is that the Wally in the comic was more consistently angry and frustrated. While his DCAU incarnation had hidden depths, I can’t recall a time when he got seriously angry. This Wally is frequently irritated, usually by things which are enitrely understandable. On occasion, his irritability causes him to be rougher with the bad guys than he could be, and that feels uncomfortable sometimes, though thus far he hasn’t gone too far.

Going into this, I knew that one of the issues that Wally had to overcome was his mental block about surpassing Barry, and to my surprise, it wasn’t as much of a through-line as I expected. I was expecting it to be a reoccurring issue that was solved by the Return of Barry Allen storyline, but in reality there are only one or two times something like it comes up, usually in the context of him not being able to do the vibrating through walls trick. In the Return of Barry Allen, it feels more like an issue introduced in that story than a long running plot line. Granted, it may only feel this way because I’m solely reading Mark Waid’s Flash. I didn’t read the issues prior to his take over, so that storyline could have been more apparent there for all I know.

Moving on, starting with Waid’s run had another knock on effect, that being that the character introductions aren’t introductions. I came into this expecting to see when Wally met Linda, when he met Jay Garrick, when Pied Piper redeemed himself, but all of that happened before Waid took over the book, so they’re already part of the cast from the start. Again, not a flaw of the work, it’s just a result of my personal experiences. Now, let’s take a look at some of these characters.

I’ve heard a lot about Linda and Wally’s romance, and so far it’s not bad. I wouldn’t rate it as one of the best of all time, but I haven’t gotten to most of the major moments yet, so that’s not a huge surprise. One thing that’s very apparent is the Lois Lane DNA in her character. Some of that is to be expected, which the love interest to your superhero is a reporter, but I see a lot of similarities in their personality as well. There’s a lot of the same fire in her. Fortunately, the fact that Wally’s identity is public lends a very different arc to their relationship than what you see with Lois and Clark, so Linda doesn’t come off as a Lois rip-off. Linda’s concerns that there’s no place for her in Wally’s wild superhero life is the kind of relationship hurdle that isn’t present in Lois and Clark’s Relationship.

Next, let’s take a look at the first Flash, Jay Garrick. Within this series, Jay is perfectly pleasant, and by no means unlikable, but he also comes across as...kind of superfluous? There are three elderly male speedsters in this comic, and of all of them Jay is by far the least defined and has the least role. Max Mercury is the Wally’s mentor in the ways of speed, the one with the most knowledge of the Speed Force. He’s basically what I expected Jay Garrick to be going into this. The third of the group is Johnny Quick, a speedster who is the father of another speedster, Jesse Quick. Jesse is also very skeptical of Max Mercury’s teachings, which veer from the scientific into the mystical.

Because Johnny takes the role of skeptic, Jay is left without a role in the narrative because being the nicest of Wally’s friend group. Veering over to Hollywood for a second, whenever a book gets adapted into a movie or TV Show, minor characters get lost in the transition. Either they get composited with other characters, or they get cut entirely. Game of Thrones is the most prominent example in recent memory. I bring this up because, if Waid’s Flash were to go through that process, it’s hard to argue that Jay wouldn’t get the ax. Despite being the most important of them in the context of the universe at large, Jay is the least important Speedster in this narrative. Of course, Jay’s importance in the context of the larger universe means that in this hypothetical adaptation, he probably be composited into either max or Johnny. More likely Max, since mentor is the logical position for the first Flash to take in the Third Flash’s narrative.

I mentioned Jess Quick there, so let’s talk about her. Thus far, her most prominent role in the narrative has been to call Wally out and be his critic, though she does have very good reasons to be angry. In the Terminal Velocity storyline, Wally believes he’ll die soon, and tells the Flash Family that Jesse will be his successor, but it turns out to be a lie in order to motivate Bart Allen to take things more seriously. Jesse has remained angry with Wally since then, though it hasn’t seriously impacted her hero work. That’s good, because her continued competence lends legitimacy to her anger within the narrative. She’s not being punished for being mad at Wally for mistreating her. Hopefully it stays that way going forward.

Now let’s take a look at the character Wally chose over Jesse, Bart Allen AKA Impulse. I’ll say up front that I’m not reading Bart’s solo series during this read through, as I didn’t want the hassle of going back and forth between books. As such, the only issues of it that I’ve looked at are the ones that tie into the Dead Heat arc. I feel it’s important for me to say this, because I’m basing my opinions of Bart primarily on his showings in Wally’s book, not his own. In Wally’s book, Bart’s character flaws are more on display.

Bart is a character deliberately designed to be obnoxious, and such characters are a hard tightrope to walk in fiction. Gotta be annyoing enough to get the point across, but not annoying enough to turn people off from the work. Bart in Wally’s book isn’t perfectly balanced, and tends toward the too much pile. Not to an egregious extent, but a little bit. I found myself echoing Wally’s frustration with Bart more than a few times. In Bart’s defense, Wally does share some of the blame here. He doesn’t do a very good job as a mentor, and handing those duties off to Max is probably for the best.

I find it interesting, that a character like Wally who is so defined by inheriting a legacy is a poor mentor, to both Bart and Jesse. He makes different mistakes with both of them, but he still fails both of them. I’m eager to see how that plays out in the future issues.

Now that we’ve discussed the supporting cast, let’s discuss some of the book’s villains. We’ll start with the one who is most infamous, Eobard Thawne. Thawne’s spends the majority of his time in this book thinking he’s Barry Allen, and if I’m being honest, he’s more effective under that guise that he is as Eobard. The scenes where what appears to be Barry Allen turns evil out of jealousy of his successor are powerful, more so than the more traditional villain Eobard displays after the reveal. Not that it would have been a good idea for it to actually be Barry, of course. Much as I prefer Wally to Barry, having Barry go full supervillain would have been very out of character. In any case, this run had a profound impact on Eobard’s character going forward, solidifying him as an agent of toxic fanboyism, making him a dark mirror of Wally West.

The next major villain of the run is the cult slash terrorist organization Kobra. That might bring thoughts of GI Joe to your mind, and you honestly aren’t far off. So far as this run goes, the biggest differences between DC’s Kobra and Hasbro’s is A) DC’s version prefer green over blue, and B) Hasbro’s version has more in the way of distinct characters. Kobra thus far is more of a plot device than anything else. They’re generic terrorists with little to make them distictive. Their storyline, Terminal Velocity, is more notable for it’s introduction of the Speed Force, Wally preparing for his upcoming ‘death’, and Linda going on a revenge quest after said ‘death’. All things that Kobra is incidental to, any villainous organization would have sufficed.

The final, as of my current point in the run, major villain is Savitar. Savitar was formerly a soviet test pilot who gained a connection to a the speedforce, gave himself the name of Hindu god, and started a speed worshipping cult. It says a lot about my mind that my immediate thoughts upon reading Savitar’s origin were. “Huh, an AU where Hal Jordan became a Speedster the same way would be neat.”. Savitar is in some ways an improvement on the Kobra Cult from Terminal Velocity. This time the Cult has a more direct connection to the Flash and his mythos. Dead Heat is by no means a retread of Terminal Velocity, but if you wanted to mesh them into one story, it wouldn’t be hard. And it’d improve on both, in some ways.

One of the things I like to do in my fanfic ideas is connect the other speedsters to Thawne’s theme of Toxic Fandom, and it wouldn’t be hard to do that with Savitar. His entire motivation is to deprive those he considers unworthy of their speed, and that can easily by played as a metaphor for gatekeeping.

Over all, while the run is far from perfect, I must say I’m enjoying these comics a good deal, and if you’re like me and have read a lot about comics without actually reading them, I don’t think you’d regret jumping into them.

#opinions #personal experience #dc comics #The Flash #wally west #mark waid

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trishyeves · 4 years ago

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Poorly Planned Halo Post

TO START WITH: SPOILERS FOR ALL OF YOUNG JUSTICE SEASON 3, DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT. NOT PLANNING ON SPOILING THE WHOLE SEASON, BUT WHO KNOWS WHERE THIS WILL GO

So, because my brain is weirdly cyclical and I’ve randomly gotten back into Young Justice, I’ve been trolling through Tumblr regarding the show. In doing so, I’ve run into a lot of posts that deal with Halo, and they inspired me to write this poorly planned, probably a trainwreck post.

Before I say anything else, I feel like I should make something clear: people react to media really differently (obviously), especially if the material is personal to them in some way. For a lot of people what was done with Halo is season 3 of Young Justice isn’t just hard to watch, it was a travesty that completely ruined the show for them. That is totally fine. I would never pretend I have the authority to tell people if they should or shouldn’t be outraged by something, or mediate their reaction to a show. This is all just a splattering of my thoughts and feelings on this messy as hell lump of topics. If you read this and think my point of view is bullshit and hate what I have to say, I can totally understand why. This is just my two cents, as someone who is genderfluid/non-binary and queer. (Though I am not a person of color, I do not identify as a woman, and I have no connection to the Muslim faith.)

To start with the smaller issues: how Halo does at representing nonbinary people, women of color, Muslim people, and Bisexual/Pansexual/Queer people. I 100% agree that they could have done better in all of those departments, full-stop. In the scene establishing her as nonbinary, it would have been much better if they had established what pronouns she prefers (I’m using she/her throughout because that is what is used in the text and she/her nonbinary people are valid), how she wants to be seen, and it should have been brought up more often. The fact her only brush being interested in a girl/feminine person was a kiss that made her feel guilty for cheating on her boyfriend sucks, as it conflates her kissing Harper with shame. I don’t really feel qualified to wade into the area surrounding the portrayal of her wearing a hijab or the fact that she wasn’t really Muslim, Gabrielle was, but I have heard a lot of people’s thoughts on those topics, and I think they’re important to hear and consider.

On all of those points, I don’t think it’s possible to not consider them at least partial failures. That said, I do appreciate the attempt to give us this intersectional character who can be so many different pieces of representation at once while also being a lovable and well-developed character. I know for a lot of people the failings of her portrayal invalidate any good will their attempts at representation could have fostered, but that’s not how I feel about it.

Onto the big thing: Halo dying, graphically, a lot. It is, to say the very least, a bad look. A lot of people are upset about the fact that one of the handful of queer characters on the show, a woman of color, one who is associated with the Muslim faith, is shown being violently killed episode after episode. They have every right to be. I find it pretty abhorrent too.

It was a bad idea, a really bad idea. BUT I also don’t think it taints the entire show, and I don’t think it signifies that the people creating the show wanted to show women/queer people/poc dying graphically. That was the effect, but I highly doubt malice, sadism, or bigotry was the direct cause.

From here on out, I am talking based on my understanding of worldbuilding, character writing, television production, and what I know about the development of this show in particular. But I am not an insider with special knowledge of what went down behind the scenes, and I could be totally full of shit on a number of points.

First off, Halo is basically a completely original character. The Outsiders comic series had a Halo character who was also a gestalt entity created by a being related to the Source taking over a dead woman’s body, but from what I can tell on the whole they have little to do with her. They made the decision to change her host body’s nationality to Quaraci, probably for better representation, and changed the entity in her body into a Mother Box’s soul, which I am fairly sure was to tie her in better to the overall season’s New Gods focus, the same way they did with altering Cyborg’s origin story.

Second, they changed some of her powers, but one of the ones they kept was the idea of healing and being able to resurrect herself from death. Now, the only way to really make that work in a visual medium is for her to die sometimes, then resurrect. That does create a weird narrative element, since no other characters get badly injured/fatally wounded at the rate Halo does, but it’s a way to show her using her abilities. Of course, a lot of people have said, rightly, that there’s no need for those deaths to be so graphic. They could have been off-screen, or hinted at, or a number of other things. If the season was aired on Cartoon Network, as was originally planned, I am certain that’s what they would have done.

Thirdly, and this is the big one, I am fairly sure the decision to make her deaths as graphic as possible was tied in with it being aired on DC Universe. Sure, the platform means they could do it, but I also think it’s related to why they did it. It’s possible that Greg Weisman wanted to show off some gore thanks to the liberties granted him, but I think the more likely option is this was studio interference. They looked at the audience Young Justice had developed, one that tended heavily towards older teens and adults, and made it a condition for the show being brought back on the new streaming service that they needed to up the age rating of the show itself to match. Specifically, they probably requested more violence and for it to be more gratuitous where possible. After all, this is DC, and we all know how much they adore making things far more graphic and violent than they have any right to be, all for the sake of making their properties look more ‘grown up’.

Now, clearly some of that violence went to other characters. Victor Stone’s transformation into Cyborg is easily the most gruesome version of that story yet, and several characters throughout get pretty terrible deaths. (Baron Bedlam, for example.) But Halo got the brunt of them. After all, they needed to have more violence on the regular, but Greg Weisman hates killing characters, especially in this show. It’s a huge sandbox with as many DC characters from various eras as they can possibly fit inside it, so they don’t want heroes or villains dying when they don’t need to. But they do have this main character, one who can die again and again and again, and who can come back every time. So, Halo became a gore magnet.

I’d also wager that her being non-binary was a late addition to her character, something they only threw in as a scene once they realized that, as a living machine in a human corpse, there was no reason for her to have an attachment to any gender, and when they realized they could use that to bump up their LGBTQ+ representation, they did the scene.

None of this makes what they did good, or right, or acceptable. It still isn’t. I really, really wish it hadn’t been in the show, it turns my stomach. But at the same time, I don’t think they wrote that element for the season in an attempt to sadistically torture a marginalized character. They absolutely should have hired some sensitivity writers to look things over and catch these things, and I hope the controversy all this caused means they’ll be more careful in the future. But I am still happy they created Halo as they did and gave her to us as a fanbase, even with those disgusting death scenes. If Season 4 does actually happen, I think there is a chance they’ll have heard our voices and work to do better. This is a case where ignorance, rather than cruelty, was the cause, at least from what I can see. If you still hate that part of the show, or the show itself, I’m not expecting this to change your mind, and I don’t want it to. I just wanted to throw out my thoughts, before I collapse into sleep from a long shift at work.

#young justice #season 3 outsiders #halo #spoilers

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vaguely-concerned · 5 years ago

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The Untamed Liveblog

Yes hello I watched the whole thing and wrote down some of my thoughts and feelings along the way so I wouldn’t fuckign EXPLODE! Only look under the cut if you’re prepared for a truly outrageous amount of rambling (...no really)

- I am elated to find that so far every adaptation I’ve seen has faithfully preserved the absolutely bizarre structure of the original book, I am appreciating the dedication haha

- the actor lends this version of lan wangji such an edge of youth and vulnerability right from the beginning, it breaks my heart. I don’t care how good he is with a sword, you can’t expose this pure sweet boy to the horrors of war!!!

- I am so glad I already know who all these characters are and wtf is going on, I can’t imagine watching this first time without that knowledge lol

- I love how they’ve made nie huaisang look so small and soft next to all the other cultivator, he looks like a floofy and eternally confused baby birb ;______;

- nhs citing the goldfinch as the reason he doesn’t want to die (presumably because no one will know to take care of it) TOT ur meant to be comic relief in this part of the story buddy you can’t make me cry like this yet!!!

(also the actor for wwx effortlessly sliding into being protective and reassuring and Good in a crisis. wonderful!)

- the actor for xue yang has chosen to go with the sexy baby school of evil acting normally associated with female villains and for that I can only applaud him

also setting up characters who are going to be important later on is something this show is doing better than the original haha, both the extra wen quing & ning and song lan & xiao xingcheng content is appreciated. (especially the latter suffered from ‘oh yeah those two -- actually wait who the fuck are these two again’ syndrome for me when I read the book. additional note: I am very sorry but clearly they are gay there’s no other explanation here)

- poor jiang cheng, they really haven’t given him much help in this huh. I would sort of have preferred it if they let him be ever so slightly less abrasive in the beginning, like in the book and the animated version; I’m not feeling quite as devastated over this relationship as I did in either of those.

- lan xichen’s soft knowing smile is a blessing every time. just a nice man. did not deserve this. protect.

- kudos to the actor for jin guangyao for the instinctive creeping unease I feel whenever he talks, even at this stage. he’s a wrong ‘un sir he’s a wrong ‘un

- y’know both the fact that nhs spent three days catching a bird and kept it with him undetected and that he’s the friend you go to for the good porn and managed to not only smuggle it into the cloud recesses but did so without getting caught... some wonderful subtle foreshadowing here (to make up for the very blatant visual foreshadowing that’s already been given out I assume lol)

- anyway lan ancestor lady and baoshan-sanren? gay. sad and gay. (I love how thoroughly wwx is getting to meet the in-laws btw lol how often do you have to meet your future spouse’s family from like three generations ago and take care of her rabbits for her after she’s gone, all before you even get to second base)

- fkadshfkasjdlhfsdjkfh the sheer consistency of nhs wistfully commenting on all the beautiful men surrounding him fsadfkjsdhfksd I think they might oh so subtly be hinting at some stuff here. HILARIOUS that this version, which has to maintain at least the veneer of some plausible homoerotic deniability, is a lot more overt about it than the book, which is free to be balls to the wall as gay as you please

- oh no nie mingjue just showed up my entire heart is on fire. BIG BROTHER!! so stern yet fair, so righteous, so worried y______y also can we talk about how his ‘hmmm I think imma stab it?’ approach to evil in general and xue yang in particular would have saved everyone a lot of grief later on? and he tells wwx the whole necromancy thing is probably not a good idea? (I really like how he does it too, he has so much Older Brother Energy it spills over when he talks to other kids around huaisang’s age lol. it’s good that they show his temper isn’t indiscriminate at all, he’s not angry at wwx even though his idea is provably incredibly dangerous) sole ornery voice of reason nie mingjue, also did not deserve what’s about to happen, I cry and my tears are blood

- ‘yeah okay I get that you’re mad but have you maybe considered... I didn’t do it?’ is an unusually weak opening move from jgy considering nmj literally did just see him absolutely 100% do it

- there should be a WARNING at the beginning of episodes where nmj cries so one could be PREPARED for the emotional devastation!!!!! tollest & stronkest man of the cast also stupidly pretty and heartbreaking while crying, it’s not fair

- I love how every cultivation sect’s home (except for the wens b/c they’re cartoon villains) is refined and beautiful and luxurious, even when it’s in a restrained way like the lans’... and then there’s the nie place which is like ‘please understand that this is a fuckn fortress’

- aww this doomed jiang cheng/wen quing thing is cute! too bad about... everything that’s about to happen happening huh

- oh wen ning. very hilarious that he’s known as the ~*ghost general*~ forevermore when actually... he is baby... cinnamon roll baby... too good for this world, too pure...

- how is this cgi turtle somehow less egregious than the one in the animated version lol. I quite like this bad little friend! long neck.

- oh NO lan wangji finally letting himself show that he’s in pain when they’re in private... i’m uwu

this beautiful boy is so long and lanky tho, I must admit he triggers my parental instinct more than the hot boy alert at this stage (but that’s fine I’m not the one who’s going to smooch him that’s wwx’s job lol)

the look of absolute disbelief and despair lwj gives when wwx thinks he’s in love with mianmian... this show is a cinematic masterpiece and I will hear no other opinion

- lwj looking at the love of his life completely missing the point: are you a joke to you (the answer is yeah)

- okay we’ve officially hit the point where everything’s about to go to hell for real, pray for me I’m not sure I can handle this again

- jiang fengmian acknowledge your other son who desperately wants your attention and affection challenge (unfinished)

- watching this scene knowing exactly what this promise means to jiang cheng and that wwx is going to break it... this is fINE

why the fuck did I do this to myself I know what’s about to happen when will I learn to quit while I’m ahead lol

- the change in subtext from the novel that EVERYONE sees wangxian coming from day one is so painful from jiang cheng’s side. this poor boy really has abandonment issues pelting him from every direction huh. tfw your idiot genius brother doesn’t even fucking realize he’s basically announcing he’s leaving your clan and your side to get married one day ;______;

- man mxtx is just so GOOD at peppering in the small private tragedies that somehow sting even worse than huge atrocities going on. the fact that madam yu and papa jiang never manage to reconcile and communicate except possibly in death... oof my friends. oooof.

- WAIT WHAT NO DON’T SHOW ME THE CHILDREN WHO’RE ABOUT TO DIE WHAT THE FUCK YOU MONSTERS

- like we’re right at the worst part now and she is an asshole... but damn madam yu’s last stand is epic tho. like a champ to the end

- wen zhuliu’s actor being able to uphold a look of tremendous boredom at all times regardless of what’s going on around him is Poetic Cinema Bitches

- jiang cheng and wei ying are holding hands on the boat... stab me in the heart... end my suffering

- you know what in this version we get to see that madam yu knew her husband came back for her and they died holding hands and not everything’s on fire yet, so far this isn’t quite as harrowing as the animated version. the dead children are fucking me up but the tone of the animated version is like a nightmare, this is less disturbing to me

also can we talk about how madam yu fought them off the whole day and night and her husband gets his ass owned within five minutes 😔 oh papa jiang

- oh okay turns out jiang cheng’s ‘I want my mom and dad’ gets to me in every adaptation good to know

they’re so young they’re bbs I don’t want to be here anymore haha

- wen ning. a sweet angel. just the goodest of boys. his sister raised him so well ;______:

- wen quing is so ethereally beautiful and also looks like she could stop a train with the force of one glance. like she’s my height but her presence is immense

- oh I see we’ve arrived at the tiny adorable flashback bbs part of this journey, let me just... just lie down somewhere huh

- outside of the central romance this is a tale about people who love their brothers very very much and it’s real sad for everyone involved

- me watching nie mingjue kicking down the doors to reclaim his own dang fortress: YEEEEAAAAH GO OFF DAGE!!! i um love him and his very handsome face

- jiang cheng dreaming about his family is EMOTIONAL WARFARE!!! how fucking dare!!!

- y’know what this isn’t a bad way of adapting the burial grounds thing! also pretty cost effective I imagine, gotta think about the budget when so much of it goes into fabulous wigs and robes

- credit where it’s due, the actor for wen chao makes his face do some shit I didn’t know human faces could do and he’s enjoyable to watch in the capacity as your friendly neighbourhood hate sink

- lwj consistently using wwx’s personal name even when talking to total strangers now... mhm this is also fine

- I can’t beliEVE this show is somehow less subtle about the gay stuff than the book, jin zixuan basically just asked lwj if he and wwx were... y’know... I guess cultivation partners would be the way to go here lol. between that and nhs more or less asking them if they were off fucking after the whole cold cave debacle... what a time to be alive even if they’re not going to kiss on-screen

- huaisang I hate to have to be the one to tell you this but your brother is an entire snacc. and yet I respect him way too much to ever proposition him, I know he is busy winning a war and being Righteous and slowly being driven mad by the ghost in his sword on top of raising his little brother, I’m not here to complicate things for him any further

I love this version of nmj so much though. this sense that he also sees the stuff that is genuinely good in jgy and has a real moment of grief that the dude just can’t seem to get away from his basic insecurity that causes him to do horrific things, even when handed other opportunities... the fact that he seems regretful and worried when asking jin zixuan how jgy is doing with the jin....... everything to do with his little brother...................... oh no he’s Soft in his private life this is awful

- poor lwj’s ‘I have a bad feeling about this’ face in this scene haha, he’s staring at this talisman like ‘I only know one person smart and dumb enough to pull this off’

- can’t wen quing just get one nice thing. one nice thing just for her. hasn’t she been through enough. give her her brother back and a nice quiet place to practice medicine and maybe some soft romance with jiang cheng eventually this show is kind of selling me on this.

- unexpectedly my favourite part of the revenge scene is just the camera switching back to lwj and jc watching in horrified silence like ‘...O___o dude this is fucked up tho right?? it’s not just me that’s messed up??’

- one is forced to wonder about wen zhuliu tho. this version reads as pretty explicitly depressed/suicidal to me, he’s kind of an interesting villain since his main traits are unquestioning loyalty mixed with unending indifference and also seemingly not too pressing a will to live

- oh nhs desperately trying to keep it together and pretend nothing’s different ;_____; this version is really driving it home that wwx is a lot of people’s only friend -- jiang cheng is mentioned to not have anyone but his sister to play with before he arrived, lwj was raised primarily on books and rules and his brother is ELATED that he has one (1) friend now, from the sheer depth of the attachment I’m willing to bet nhs hasn’t had many real friends in his life either. wwx gives and gives of himself and doesn’t know how to take help in return.

- foreknowledge is a beautiful thing; if you look at nhs when it’s revealed wwx didn’t bring his sword you can visibly see his brain kicking into overdrive haha. smart boy.

- big sister ;_______; I am an older sibling so I haven’t really had the feeling of having an older sister to look to, I see why it might be comforting now

- oh this is some real uruk-hai shit!! honestly the special effects in this aren’t half as bad as I’d been lead to fear, some of you guys just weren’t forged in the crucible of shitty sci-fi channel cgi at an early age and it shows

(honestly the weird fight stuff threw me much worse in nirvana in fire, because that series has such intricate, credible and realistic political world building and then people are flying all over the place through wire fu and it is so disorienting haha)

- oh nhs looking up at his brother like a puppy during the war council T______T baby bird boy

(between this point in the main story and fatal journey it’s very interesting how clearly nhs needs the emotional stability and safety of his brother -- who also seems to be his parental figure -- to function properly, even in his late teens. it looks like he needed more time to grow up than the rest of them even before they were all thrown into this awful bullshit. well he does have a lot of murderkitten brain to grow I guess that’s fair enough lol. wwx has some of the same thing with his sister too)

- whenever lxc and nmj look at each other it feels like the only two adults in the room meeting each other’s eyes like ‘...oh dear’

- aww lwj getting some advice from his brother. this poor kid really hasn’t been raised to handle the moral complexity of the real world huh, good thing lxc is here to lend some nuance to lan qiren’s unforgiving dogma

- oh lan zhan

- nmj’s plan to just idk somehow go in alone and fight the wen overlord mano a mano to avoid any more casualties... a spine made of steel, a heart made of gold, a head made of wood :’) truly a perfect man, good thing his brother got the brains in that family and he has some more sensible people around him

- in the face of inevitability I plead... jiang yanli... please don’t marry this asshole your son is going to be predictably insufferable

wwx has suffered through so much the last four months or so and yet his real breaking point is seeing his sister cry and can I just say -- relatable content

- NO! NO STOP HURTING HIM HE’S JUST GOOD AND HANDSOME AND DOESN’T DESERVE THIS

(could be applied to like 98% of these characters but in this case it’s nmj b/c I love him)

I do find it very funny and oddly comforting that nmj is literally so fuckn mad that it takes three times as many attacks for the evil sorcery stuff to take him down than we’ve seen used on anyone else fsdkfhasdkj too angry to die

wHY has my brain chosen for me to attach so deeply to perhaps The single most inevitably doomed person in this entire cast, at this point I’m just being cruel to myself lol

- I can’t describe how much I love the fanficiness of this story, in the best ways. the emotional fallout from the destruction of the lotus pier gets more screentime and attention than the entire sunshot campaign, and that’s exactly how I want it to be.

- they’ve been doing some great work to establish that the jin are also jeeeeeerks for such a long time, how’s that for foreshadowing

- equal opportunity traitor jgy gets his stab in lol one must respect the grift, though, he’s set himself up pretty darn good

*lxc stops nmj from killing jgy, hello darkness my old friend starts playing in the background*

fatal journey builds nicely on this fundamental thing that the nie boys take their responsibility to their people extremely seriously, it seems to be the fact that jgy so blithely talks about them as necessary casualties that really sets him off

- adlfsdfhsdkjh lxc and nmj meekly being like ‘...we could maybe... not commit war crimes? if that’s at all possible? no?’

*slaps ‘I don’t think you even tried at all’ stars on both of them* (I mean I actually do kind of see where they’re coming from a bit, they just came out of a pretty costly war and I wouldn’t feel too comfortable getting right back into it with arguably the wealthiest faction, who’s also been keeping back a bit and thus kept a lot more reserves. well played jin bastards well played)

- I could stop here. if I stopped here everything would basically be as okay as they could be and the world full of hope still. I suppose the question here is... do I love myself enough to quit while the going is good. and the answer is no I already started the next episode

- I think one incredibly endearing aspect of this version of nmj is that he has a look of faint but permanent worry about him. he walked onto the screen with a vibe of ‘...oh boy I don’t like where this is going’ and he’s just kept going ever since

in the book he’s kind of a flat character (whose one trait is Mad), I love that they’ve given him some depth and nuance here! probably partly down to the actor doing a great job, but this version has a real sort of warmth to him and also seems downright uncertain at times -- he thrives when there’s a clear goal and black and white sides, and is probably not t h r i l l e d with the weird tentative political situation after they take down the wens lol. thank god he has his little brother to make ‘bitch please’ faces over his shoulder when the jin get weird about things

anyway I’m always on the ‘nhs you are SO valid’ train, but in this version nhs is quadruple valid, in fact only mianmian is more valid in this entire world

- one of my favourite parts of this show is when wwx enters a situation and the camera takes some time to zoom in on the faces of his family and friends to convey their sense of ‘oh god what the fuck is he about to say now’ dread

- jiang yanli asking her little brother if he doesn’t want to stay with them anymore while crying is emotional kryptonite, help

this poor woman, she had to put all her points into emotional intelligence b/c god knows no one else in this family did

- hell YEAH lan zhan go break some rules!! treat yourself my guy

- hey sis if, theoretically, one hypothetically found oneself in -- for the sake of argument -- love with, as the case may or may not be, someone... how would one tell?? asking for a friend

- the whole summary of this fucking show is just ‘weaponized sibling feels’ everything hurts with foreknowledge why did I keep going

- aw no blindfolded kiss scene but here’s a scene with real earnest emotional intimacy stuff going on instead... I will joyfully take it your honor

- I do value and respect the translators giving us these subtitles so much... but they did also force me to read the words ‘bosom friend’ with my own two eyes right there and that was not very cool of them

- why oh WHY must jiang yanli, best person in the world, have been cursed with the horrible fate of being in love with the dumbest man on the planet

*jiang yanli juggling all the idiot men in her life* oh god my little brother is causing an international diplomatic incident again time to bUCKLE UP

oh ho ho you know shit is getting real when big sister gets mad I LOVE HER. suddenly you see she definitely her mother’s daughter after all lol

wwx crying because his sister just fiercely defended him in public... im uwu

- I hate jgy with all my heart but I do feel bad for him too. his barely faltering :) look while all his asshole relatives gang up on him sdfhskahf

- again the jin are dicks but when it comes to aesthetics they do go off, that’s such a beautiful shade of blue

- dsflhsdakjlfhsdakjfl sd this shot of lwj and nmj right before lxc drinks is the funniest framing imaginable b/c lwj is wearing a look of complete stonefaced

-___________-

and meanwhile nmj, who presumably has seen lxc drunk before since they’re longstanding bros, looks worried as fUCK

- awwwww I do love nhs capitalizing all of jc’s attention so the others won’t start shit with him/so he won’t get to say something publicly he’ll regret later because he’s (understandably honestly) mad at his brother for making his life even more difficult than it has to be (I have every sympathy with wwx but buddy... buddy must you make everything more complicated for your bro every darn time this is a real delicate political situation and he’s not suited for that even without your antics)

it’s a very nhs move because he comes across as slightly boorish and rude and thus leaves jc blameless and thus protected, you can get so far if you have no self respect lol

- showing us exactly how wen ning died is honestly a little too mean this is not fun

- good god this poor grandma has been through the wringer hasn’t she

- oh. oh wen ning, who never meant hurt anyone in his entire life :(

- listen okay the end is in sight just a couple more horrific tragedies to get through and then it’s the weird romantic comedy buddy cop antics of the current day timeline to ride to the end

- it cannot be overemphasized how much this lan zhan is Baby, I so desperately want to help and protect him

- I’m going to stop shouting out individual actors on this show they’re all goddamn brilliant haha (but am I tho)

- most valid person in the cultivation world mianmian

also enjoying the exemplification of nmj’s character that is ‘not sure how I feel about this dumb kid with the big mouth digging his own grave ever deeper but that girl’s got guts and I respect that’

- wen quing is getting a taste of the dangers and pitfalls of having wwx as a little brother dfhskdalfhsdaklj she and jyl should compare notes (he’s so good tho T-----T)

- how does wwx’s actor have such natural dad energy at such a young age, too powerful

- people give so little thought to how fucked up jc’s situation really is here, like he’s just being an asshole for the sake of it. spend three fucking seconds looking at it with some realpolitik in mind and realize that the clans around him have just shown that they can and will wipe out an enemy clan together if need be, and that his own sect hasn’t even gotten back on its feet after the war that almost wiped it out. like wwx is unquestionably morally right but has gone about it in such a way that it’s real fucking hard to support him without going down with him and how do you calculate that risk when you’re responsible for so many more lives than your own

also so sad about jc being so afraid this entire time that wwx would leave him like everyone else... and now he has :( jc doesn’t handle it well but then who would at this stage

- there is something so pure about a quietly horrified lan zhan getting Dad Advice from these guys (well he’s going to be needing it soon enough so)

oh the utter softness of his face looking at wwx and ah yuan ;_______; thank god, some fluff to bolster my heart before we set off into the last harrowing ordeal here

LAN ZHAN’S ENTIRE FACE LIGHTING UP AT WEI YING ASKING HIM OUT thank fuck there’s still some joy left in the universe

this poor love struck man, someone help him

lan zhan conscientiously grabbing ah yuan’s toys is fskhdfksjdlfhskjdhf

- lan zhan looking around the demon subduing cave: babe I love you more than life itself but this is tacky as hell

- crying because wen niiiiiing

- crying because sibliiiiiings

okay this is the last time the three of them will be together and nominally happy, need to appreciate it through my tears

- actually I take it back please just let the bad thing happen now so I don’t have to live in suspense anymore lol (...this probably says a lot more about me as a person than I’m strictly comfortable with)

- the fact that none of wwx’s little adopted wen family are AT ALL intimidated by him anymore is just... it’s too much to bear

again tho this book/show is so willing to let you dwell in the emotional stages of things in a very fanfic sort of way, I think it’s what makes the sad parts so much worse (and makes you feel so incredibly attached to these characters)

- I gUESS it’s a testament to jin zixuan’s character that he has any decency at all, considering who his dad is and where he was raised

I’m cracking up at their dad being the one who still doesn’t trust jgy tho lol snake recognizes snake

- jgy’s faint look of ‘are you fucking kIdDiNg me rn’ whenever all these jin douchebags talk is very entertaining. if he didn’t go on to do all that murder and incest and (probably) infanticide I’d sort of cheer for him no matter what kind of sociopath he is

- not to be a downer or anything but isn’t one month a little premature to be celebrating the survival of a baby in fantasy old timey china tho

sometimes I feel like looking back at history is just seeing a whole lot of dead children (and this is why I think that even if god did exist it would be morally inconceivable to worship him! sorry just a quick detour into my personal grudge against the inherent cruelty of the world there, let’s move on)

- it’s uncomfortable to watch even the outlines of the jin sect’s slow insidious stranglehold on power. even these random shopgoing nobodies know that nmj is Not Happy about these watchtowers and that it’s probably going to happen anyway. the jin are snakes but at least they’re clever about it and I do kind of respect that

- oh everything’s about to go so wrong I hate it

NOOOOO don’t make the zombie baby fight, nothing good will come of this

- man this is hitting me worse than lotus pier actually I’m just... crying haha

it’s almost cathartic tho... there’s something about wen quing’s dignity and certainty that really helps? I just really wish they hadn’t brought the whole little group, god I want them to be okay so badly and ah yuan will be all that’s left and. and just throw me into the ocean and let me sink tbh

- I know this is all so much black cgi smoke (pls let us see the red version again at some point btw that was cool as shit) but the emotional metaphor of wwx that you can’t take on more and more of other people’s suffering and trauma and not care for yourself because you will lose control of that at some point is just. very nicely done. (he’s a bit of an odd serial codependent for a lot of the story, isn’t he. thank god lan zhan is not a quitter)

- jin zixuan’s mom is breaking my heart a little here. this lady has been married to THAT GUY all this time and now this as well. sorry lady, I guess jgy probably Took Care Of You at some stage after this

- a) this is just real good acting for wwx. this is the perfect level of unhinged for this, even though I’m always like ‘just. just shut your mouth for one time in your life and stop digging this grave any deeper six feet should be enough for anyone huh’ at this stage of the story and b) I am cackling inappropriately at the shot-reverse-shots between wwx, jiang cheng and jgy. jiang cheng looks like everything he ever loved is falling apart around him and jgy is like ‘oh wow I didn’t even have to provide him any rope he’s doing an excellent job at hanging himself without me’

I love wwx so much but it did take him an unconscionable length of time to realize that when you set big enough things into motion you will not be able to control who it crushes along the way or who might steer it in the wrong direction. other people exist and have agency and a lot of those people are bad honey :(

- ah yes lwj being stopped by a barrier made of the physical manifestation of wwx’s trauma when he tries to reach him :’) this is okay and cool and fine

- it’s admirably obtuse of everyone to look at wwx at this stage and still think he’s in control of uh anything lol

- oh okay that went better than expected I don’t know if I’m just inured to sadness at this point

jiang cheng looking like a little boy clutching his big sister’s body is tugging at my heartstrings a bit tho

- ooooh this battle hardened intense lwj!!! I guess I can sort of see it now

- oh lan zhan 2, electric boogaloo

- finally! time for some comfort up in this hurt

- my man nmj still so fucking angry in the afterlife that anything even remotely connected to him is shaking with rage in sympathy in the real world. a mood

- fdsahfsjdklfhsdajk wwx being like ‘I can take everyone saying I was evil but how DARE you not mention I was also a snacc’

- when do you think nie huaisang really realized that his brother wouldn’t have children and that he was up for the sect leader seat next? nie mingjue seems to have known pretty far in advance himself and tried to prepare his brother accordingly, but that kid really didn’t want the job so I imagine he’d try to live in denial as long as possible

vaguely related: no other family is ever mentioned by either brother or anyone else, and nie huaisang straight out says that he is the only main disciple (I seem to remember and with the caveat that I might have misunderstood the translation) when there’s the talk of them being sent to the wen as hostages -- I suppose you sort of have to be very selective when your ancestral cultivation method is sketchy enough that you should keep that shit on the down low and you know people die young from it. so I think it’s possible if not probable that huaisang is the last of his family. isn’t that a fun little thing to think about? haha. ha. help me

- this random street vendor is an unexpected strong comedy performance, every face he makes is pure gold

- fkshafkjsdhfasd best introduction of adult nhs

- the quiet luminous love on lwj’s face whenever he looks at wwx in the present... give this man all the awards. it’s nice that wwx gets to be scared and childish and vulnerable with someone who loves him no matter what too, he’s been through some shit

- oh okay I see so the reason they chose to make fatal journey the way they did was because they already had the set built

- *nhs dropping one set of robes like that one gif from anastasia to reveal another even more luxuriously dandy-ish set under it* oh wow what a surprise to see you two down here, coincidences amirite (anyway here’s the testament to all the sins of my ancestors & a trail of breadcrumbs to lead you to the murderer of my brother)

no wait that’s slightly later isn’t it. well the point still stands

- dead!nmj is truly a mood -- “I don’t know where I am, who I am or what the fuck just happened but I do know that I am PISSED OFF”

(actually in the book I found that almost comforting -- at least the dude got to spend his afterlife doing what he loved (i.e. being angry), but this more nuanced and sympathetic version being trapped like that just. makes me very very sad)

nice of him to stick around to play a few rounds of hot or cold with his little bro’s friends tho lol. I mean from what I understand of this take on canon it’s actually the spirit of his sword and not him in person? but close enough, let me keep him as long as I can okay

- jin ling getting his dumb ass cask of amontillado’d within ten minutes of entering the tomb smh

look at your ROBES young man what is your (other) uncle going to say??

- hAH what did I say. pedagogic mastermind jiang cheng at it again

enjoying the fact that they chose the floofiest most benign-looking of dogs to play this ~*terrifying hound*~ so much

I have a lot of sympathy for jiang cheng, and the actor is doing a good job at aging him up here (not as good as lwj’s but then you can’t beat perfection). the way he’s calcified into bitterness and anger b/c he can’t express his emotions in a healthy nuanced way feels very... real I guess, people get like that sometimes

- I am somehow really endeared to this version of jin ling. a dumb baby, but a baby

- poor lan zhan lol “I LEFT YOU ON YOUR OWN FOR TWO HOURS AND YOU ALREADY MANAGED TO TAKE ON SOMEONE ELSE’S CURSE??? BABE!!!!!!!”

he consistently uses jiang cheng’s personal name too huh. well it is his brother in law I guess ETA: actually I’m an idiot ignore/forgive me, that’s jiang cheng’s courtesy name isn’t it. lan wangji is being salty/maybe-deliberately-maybe-not-(but-definitely-tho) distant/polite with him I think

- y’know... as I watch lwj carry the love of his life around on his back with all the tenderness in the world and I see people in the comments yell about why do you always need everything to be gay they’re just good friends you’re all crazy... I realize all over again that there really is no level of queerness they’ll ever find legitimate or acceptable. which like. feels bad, but there’s also the freedom in remembering they are always going to be assholes no matter what I do, there’s literally no need to listen to them at any time.

- I am CRACKING UP; watching this episode right after seeing fatal journey sure is a treat hahaha. nhs really must enjoy the acting on a deep level because he is hamming it up and I am living for it

“It’s nothing at all like unorthodox demonic cultivation methods!” he protests with his big innocent doe eyes, having yelled the exact same accusation at his brother within ten seconds of finding out about it dsfdskjha

- awww that’s such a sweet way of telling nhs who he is while both of them still get plausible deniability :’)

this show is making it a LOT easier to figure out nhs’ deal earlier just through visual storytelling and his reactions when lwj and wwx aren’t looking, but I guess you sort of have to do that without the benefits of selective POVs that you can do in written stories

- lan zhan’s little smirks are such a blessing

- can we talk about how INCREDIBLY rude lwj and wwx are being barging into other people’s ancestral tombs like they own the place. I know I said break some rules lan zhan but there’s such a thing as common decency too at least wipe your feet at the entrance or something

stop being big bullies!!! (nhs actually sounds a little salty at how debonair they are being lol he’s like yeah you’re doing what I want you to but you don’t have to be such dicks about it)

- nooooooo nmj don’t die ur so sexy ahaha (I jest so I do not cry godddddd my heart big brother come baaaaaaack)

I’m honestly finding it very hard to live with knowing that the last thing nmj saw in life was jgy having his little brother in his clutches D:D:D: looking at it like that... of course he came back mad as fuck, I’d probably do the same thing

- boys boys I love and support you but could you maybe not stand around talking about how this was totally a horrific murder like the murderee’s little brother isn’t standing right there?? i mean it’s useful for him but it’s kind of mean of you, I know neither of you were raised in a barn

okay there’s wwx irrepressible protective instinct that’s better. I just... nhs standing there looking small and sad and soft and lonely isn’t the whole truth but it is part of the whole truth, it’s nice to see wwx being like this even after all those years. (the physical closeness in their friendship in their youth in this version is so gooood. outside of wwx the only two people we see nhs consistently allow close or seek out closeness from is his brother and MENG YAO, who can frankly burn in hell even more than usual for the flute thing in fatal journey.)

- lan zhan contemplating the inherent impermanence of everything good in the world and then immediately getting blackout drunk -- MOOD. also I have never seen a scene where someone so obviously was about to press a soft kiss to someone’s forehead or cheek, don’t worry wwx I see you through the censorship lol

(it’s incredible how well they’ve adapted the love story considering the fact that they technically uh can’t)

- wen ning: shambles, zombie-like and disheveled with horror movie monster eyes, into frame

all of us: omg a BABY ToT

- live action drunk lan zhan is living up to the hype I am d y i n g

this poor repressed man

fjskdfsdkjhf he could do sword fighting in his damn sleep probably

I will say that leaving ‘wei wuxian was also here’ is going to scare the crap out of these poor people whose only crime was keeping well fed chickens

- they r so in love someone hold me

- this nmj!kid I am LOSING IT, this is so cute I want to lie face down on the floor and cry

- the yi city arc is my least favourite part of this story, so I’m fortifying myself to get through a couple of hours of sexy baby xue yang here

- Dad/troll teacher!wwx is in fact everything

- oooh wwx has the same weird crooked fingers as me when they’re extended! just some small Facts About Your Friendly Neighbourhood Blogger there

- this is not at all a bad take on ah quing! she qte

- ‘what’s your husband look like?’ song lan, crying: beautiful

- xxc you didn’t think it was a little weird the dude wouldn’t tell you his name -- even a name -- all this time. honestly

I know you’re in a bad place and this is sort of a rebound thing from your actual true love but stop letting him gaslight you like this buddy :(

- time for some MASSIVELY FORESHADOWING PARALLELS my friends

- I don’t know if I’m just a heartless monster but I honestly don’t care that much about anyone but ah quing in this little sideplot lol (probably my complete disinterest in xue yang tainting everything else)

- xue yang and jgy: the ‘sad backstory dude still inexplicably extra mass murder’ club

- godddd I’m so bored I’ve listened to this guy cackle ~*madly and evilly*~ for three episodes now when will it fucking end

- lan jingjy you are VALID

- fhsdkfhsdkj can’t get over baxia being like ‘OI you two stop gazing soulfully into each other’s eyes for five seconds and get on with avenging me’

must be annoying spending your afterlife in a pouch third wheeling the two most obnoxiously in love people in the world, I think this spirit sword is being admirably restrained and patient all things considered

- big brother I am so sorry you had to hang out under there all this time while this boring bullshit plot happened above you ;________________________;

I’m actually not clear on what the nie sect does with the bodies of the dead -- the saber tomb seems to be exclusively for the weapons/we see that some of the cultivators will go down there while they’re still alive to sacrifice themselves... maybe they go in the walls? I guess nhs is breaking tradition in a lot of ways tho so who knows!

- ‘from what I’ve seen he’s not so bad’ wei ying he smilingly asked you to use POWs for target practice I’ll allow lxc to be this dumb but you really have no excuse

- this duckling in red is a gentleman and a bro, one to watch

- wwx seductively arranging himself in the open window to cover his panic fsdkjfhsda

- lot’s wife WISHES she had the level of salt jiang cheng does

- ‘if they ask me any weird questions I don’t know the answers to I’ll have to pretend to be a total psycho’

lan zhan, dragging his husband with one deadpan face: I’m sure that is going to be a huge feat of acting for you babe

- NIE HUAISANG FALLING INTO FRAME AND LAUNCHING HIMSELF FROM ONE PERSON TO ANOTHER LIKE A GORMLESS WET RAG, I STAN ONE (1) BOY

‘but new problems appeared’ how is he such a mood

again tho you can give your unknowing accomplices so much space to investigate if you just don’t bother with self respect or dignity at any stage of the journey lol

- fjshdfkjlsahd that beat of lan zhan clearly taking a moment to contemplate the idea of wei ying confessing his love naked in public there

- uncle and nephew bonding time T________________T

- fsakfhsadkjlfhsad I can’t deal with this mission impossible ass music in the background as a little paper gingerbread man scoots around the palace

whoever animated this was clearly having a lot of fun, I love the little details like his dangling legs and him rubbing his lil paper bum after landing

- poor qin su, one of the most screwed over people in this whole show. at least in the book he didn’t mean to

- ah su, you’re being very unreasonable about this, what is a little incest between friends

- straight culture is this being chill to keep in the adaptation but god forbid anyone got a loving queer kiss at any point (not blaming the showrunners at all, they’re clearly stretching the limits as far as they will go and maybe a bit more at a few points)

- YES SISTER CALL HIM THE FUCK OUT I always felt like she’s known something was a little off for a long time but never could put her finger on what exactly

- ‘can you still not let me go’ hey jgy you piece of shit who’s keeping whose head in a weird serial killer cabinet here

- THANK YOU FOR BRINGING HIS HANDSOME ALIVE FACE BACK TO MY SCREEN IF ONLY TO MAKE ME SAD

- he’s so beautiful and righteous and strong 😭😭😭😭 dage come back to us

(makes even more sense that he’s so pissed off about what jgy did if he’s already shown clearly that he’ll shut down the people fucking with him if it’s brought to his attention. he gave you every opportunity you little oh-it’s-never-really-my-fault worm of a man)

- another nmj about to cry warning needed here help me

dON’T FUCKING TOUCH HIM YOU SLIMY FSKJLDHFKSJDHFSKDJLHF

the nie traits are undying loyalty, rage, and the intergenerational trauma of watching your parental figures succumb to death and madness through the same cultivation path you practice

- my cause of death: nmj’s eyes shining with unshed tears

this version has that edge of vulnerability to him, you suddenly do realize he was once just a kid watching his dad die a horrifying death and then having to take on all that responsibility and raising his brother

nie boys unfailingly devoted to the people under their protection I’m gonna go bury myself under a tree or something

- I’ve had to turn the volume down so I can barely hear anything b/c my emotions are too big to for my dumb body to contain already I can’t listen to this

- extremely sad but also a little funny that part of the reason nmj died was that he had no interest whatsoever in the arts. ‘music is music right?’ says local jock

- I’ve just been whimpering the last twenty minutes this is awful

- huaisang’s voice breaking on ‘big brother, it’s me’... sdlakhgsdjklfhsadjkghsdkjlfhdskljhgsdalkhgsdklgjhsdjklhgkdjslhgjskd I’m going to the bottom of the mariana trench and I’m staying there goodbye

- I can’t wait to watch nie huaisang end this putrid trash man’s whole career in the most devastating way possible tbh

- I’m just so SAD T______________________________T I hate jgy so much my heart burns with it I’m so glad he’s about to get some dramatic irony shoved up his -- but I digress

- haha poor jin ling standing there watching all this messed up shit like ‘O.O thanks i’m nine’

- I wish I was as good at passing the fuck out on command as nhs, I feel like it would solve a lot of my problems

- just some low key soulmate shit no biggie

- wwx is basically fantasy old timey naked again here the SCANDAL except no scandal they’re clearly married

- wwx is being so much more patient with lxc than I would have found it in my heart to be at this stage. he’s like ‘lxc you are my brother in law and I truly appreciate you and everything you’ve done for me but it’s sadly up to me to gently confront you with all the ways you’ve been a dumb ho just b/c you think jgy has pretty dimples 😔’

- “You’re not qualified to talk to me” oh lwj I love you so much. I thought committing murder was forbidden by the lan sect rules but there you go

- it honestly baffles me that some people think nmj would be the strictest parental figure in this universe when a) everything about huaisang suggests otherwise and b) lan qiren is right there

madam yu has that ‘super unforgiving to her son’s face but will also tear anyone criticizing him a new one’ mixed energy too

- lqr: I raised a perfect obedient righteous cultivator

me & wei ying: you’ve ruined a perfectly good boy is what you did look at him he’s too repressed to breathe

- well their dad clearly paid enough attention to worldly matters that two kids resulted from it, I’m not quite sure where we’re going with this lxc

one’s an accident two’s a pattern etc.

- wow I was so confused about ‘confidante’ being used here b/c it makes absolutely no sense in context, and the comments helpfully informed me that it’s more accurately translated to ‘soulmate’ or something like that; that does make a whole lot more sense yeah

- bb!lan zhan kneeling in the snow is more than anyone’s supposed to have to live with tbh

- lxc being like ‘so yeah my brother will keep loving people long after they’re gone and unable to give him love back! just a fun fact there, something to think about anyway here’s wonderwall’

- soft, ever-so-slightly messy haired at home lan zhan deserves the world

- oh wwx’s shift away from thinking the truth doesn’t matter at all to realizing the truth of you being held fully and with love by one person in your life is enough as lwj plays their song ;______________________________; this is almost more romantic than a kiss scene would be honestly jesus christ

- little apple is the best of us tbh

- apologies but they have 100% started to fuck off-screen at this stage, the looks wei ying is giving him dsafasdfhsjkd

- I take it back mianmian and little apple are the best of us

- imagine just finding the light bearing lord, second peerless jade of lan in his immaculate white clothes, peeking out from between your hay bales one day

- the exponential increase in lan zhan’s blessed little smiles lately: my oh-they-fawking thesis is validated yet again

- wei ying lying through his teeth: of course I remembered your face at once who do you take me for

(lan zhan: smirks in quiet satisfaction)

- walejhgskdjhgsjdaklfhsadjkflafhsjakdsf wen ning is so cute I don’t know what to do with myself

- wei ying this is where you first asked him out of course he remembers

- lan zhan is like ‘oh shit I forgot to tell him about our son and at this point I’m kind of embarrassed to bring it up’

- I am NOT thinking about the lotus pond they made for him here, you can’t make me

- ‘the worst time in their lives’ yeah, but there was such love there too. it h u r t s

- the actor for wen ning is so good at making his expressions look deeply earnest but also a little uncanny, like moving his face doesn’t come naturally to him anymore but his Good Boyness shines through

- DRAGGED in public by his own son. rip wwx he had a good run of it before his untimely murder

- wow thank goodness sect leader yao survived all this time, his death would as we all know have been a huge loss to society as a whole

- “I’m just here to round up the numbers” I love him more than I can convey to you in words

I’m a simple person, I hear nhs’ chronically befuddled voice and a burst of pure joy is released in my heart

sdfhjksadhfsad his soft little 😕 face peeking out from behind people’s shoulders fkjsdhfsdjal

- will I ever get enough of nhs masterfully manipulating a situation through his own apparent cowardliness and uselessness? no is the answer to that it’s always entrancing to watch

nhs as a teacher, nodding sagely as his disciples exchange glances: it’s never too late to go home instead of going big. saying ‘fuck this i’m outta here’ is always an option

- also nhs seemingly doesn’t use a saber at all anymore, where he at least used to have one back in fatal journey times. I’m very happy he’s trying some new things, time to break that very sad traumatic chain of dying young and furious

also him getting someone else to do the work of fixing the ward or whatever fskdfhaskdlf

teacher nhs, waving his pupils away b/c he’s busy painting or something: class dismissed. and remember, if at all possible, get someone else to do your homework for you. as long as you don’t get caught that’s an automatic A

- wwx is literally the cat surrounded by knives meme here lol

- lol lol lol wwx just removed his outer tunic thing to reveal lan zhan’s undershirt still under there and you can see lan qiren silently seethe with ‘that little hussy has seduced my nephew away from the righteous path’

(do I personally believe in slut shaming of any kind? nah it’s dumb as fuck. do I think lqr does? yeah)

- hahaha I can’t tell if nhs’ slightly glazed look here is b/c wwx did something he didn’t plan for him to do or if it’s because he’s for all intents and purposes half naked in front of them. (tbh I think there’s a case to be made in this version that he has a sort of wistful would-never-act-on-it-for-a-million-different-reasons-lan-zhan’s-furious-jealous-stare-being-foremost-of-them crush on both wwx and lwj from back when they were teens)

- WOW all these dicks inviting themselves to lotus pier!!! r u d e

- lan zhan flexing on lan qiren by raising a happy well adjusted child even while he’s mourning the love of his life: what like it’s hard

- wen ning kept that toy for sixteen goddamn years don’t touch me

- I’m crying about jin ling give me a moment. he is baby okay he’s even younger than ah yuan by at least four years

the image of him hugging the only thing he’s got left of his dad... fsdalkfhasdjlkfhsjdakhfsjdk

- lan sizhui has a crowd of good uncles/dads and poor jin ling has a crowd of utter disaster uncles and it’s very unfortunate (yes wwx is on both of those lists)

it is very sweet that it’s jiang cheng who consistently actually looks out for him, even in his feelings-wtf-are-feelings sort of way. the least disaster uncle, but only by comparison lol

- I think this ouyang kid might be duckling in red from before? LOVING the interspersed nhs reaction shots to him, anyway fsakdfh (I’m going to make it sad: how many conversations like this do you think he had with his brother as a kid? that’s fine we can both cry now I don’t want to be alone in this)

- ‘mr ning’ im Y___________________________________Y

- extremely Here for yet another full costume change from nhs hahaha (he’s changed at the boat already, god knows how he pulled that off but I’d expect no less from him)

- nhs must have been a sect leader for at least a decade at this point, and he still manages to exude such a powerful ‘kid at the adult’s table’ aura. incredible. mindblowing, inspirational

- ...oh they went with the same version of the previous jin leader’s death huh (but GOD FORBID that anyone should be openly gay amirite lol) O___O again though WHY is jin ling here, jiang cheng??????? he’s like sixteen, he’s never going to dare to even kiss anyone after this

- nhs has the look of a man who’s had to sit on this disgusting knowledge alone for years and finally gets to share that icky burden around, merry christmas everyone if I have to know about this so do you

- I don’t know if this is just me imagining things or reading more into it than what’s there, but I think nhs is actually sitting in the same pose his brother used to a lot in this part of the scene (the upright posture with palms resting at the top of the thighs/hips, fingers turned inwards/towards each other; it looks sort of... solid and self-contained, I guess)

- I would call jgy knowingly committing the incest character assassination if he’d had enough character to assassinate even in the book, I would never have put it past him

- y’know... god knows nmj had flaws (I think my immense depth of love for him in this version comes precisely from how hard he tries even while being deeply flawed. him dumb but him always trying :’) well actually he’s not dumb at all, he’s shown to be pretty darn politically savvy, I’m just having a hard time finding the right word here. ‘inflexible’ is maybe closer ), but the big defining difference between him and jin guangyao (and consequently xue yang) is that both of the latter are completely open about the fact that they see themselves as more important than anyone else -- xue yang considers one of his fingers worth more than fifty people’s lives, jgy kills twenty sex workers as a mere afterthought to his own revenge on his father. meanwhile nmj gets Messed Up by people dying under his protection to the degree that he came up with one of the dumbest plans I’ve ever heard just so he’d be the only one at risk, just so no one else would get hurt anymore. hmnghsjhfs.

- wen ning, proudly: my sister was the best doctor in the world

me, openly crying: she sure was buddy

- wwx: hey lan zhan are there any sweet patient lan ladies with an open mind around

lwj: ...why

wwx: I just think our zombie son should start thinking about getting friends, maybe even a real home

lwj, subtly relieved: oh

- JIN LING BABY BOY NOOOO D:D:D:

- nhs I need you to come in and end this man I cannot look at his awful face anymore

- ugh this garrotte sound effect is really unpleasant actually well done

- THERE HE IS!!! conveniently swooning his way into the scene again, my guy ;_______; smol and soft-looking and about to utterly obliterate a man on every conceivable level

I love every moment of the camera dwelling meaningfully on his innocent vulnerable face, this is going to be so great

it’s too bad he’s a behind the curtain sort of dude, I would kill for a poirot-style ‘I’m sure you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here in the library’ moment here lol

- tbh jiang cheng’s got a point about that whole ‘making huge sweeping decisions about someone else’s life and never telling them about it’ thing

wwx has sort of structured himself as a person so that you’ll never be allowed to really reciprocate his dedication and sacrifices (unless you’re lz lol), and while that is a very sympathetic trauma reaction essentially it is sort of a dick move interpersonally.

- the weight and wisdom that comes along with the scars of older wwx... you love to see it

- nhs, with effortless grace, rousing from his disney princess slumber just as the real drama’s about to begin... your honor he is simply the best

- T__________________________________________________________T big brother

- the tinge of coldness in nhs’ eyes while he watches jgy through this whole scene even as he keeps up the ‘im baby don’t worry about me’ act.............. fashdfjlksdahfslkadj, not to say askfksjhafkjsldhfkjsalhfksjaldhfkls

- to say that jgy has perhaps ‘gone overboard with this’ might be the biggest understatement of any century lxc

- watching him kneel by his brother’s coffin here I’d like to propose that Nie Huaisang has exactly the same capacity for all-consuming rage as the rest of his family, except he can’t just vent it by hitting something real hard with a haunted murder saber so he has to get creative and that was real unfortunate for Jin Guangyao

- one thing that’s always tickled me is that nhs did give jgy the choice. the people around him -- the people he claims to love -- could have been left out of it, no dishonor being brought to either his name or any of theirs... if he’d been willing to sacrifice himself. (probably a gambit where he knew that was never going to happen, but still!)

- nhs standing there in the background like ‘yeah yeah we all have horrifying family legacies buddy, we just don’t knowingly marry our sisters or arrange for mass murders over it’

- arguably killing the previous jin leader could actually count as a good deed if not for the horrifying way he did it lol. jgy all over, he could have done something helpful, *john mulaney voice* and then he didn’t he just killed nineteen innocent women while he was on a roll instead

- while it’s sort of bullshit that some responsibility is taken away from wwx in jin zixuan’s death here it’s also making a bit more sense to me like this -- seems like an uncharacteristic gamble from jgy to just idk hope wwx would lose control at exactly the right/wrong moment. wwx is still at fault for how casually he treated wen ning as a weapon when he didn’t know what the consequences could be, I’m okay with this

- jin ling and the terrible horrible no good very bad week :( protect him

wow lan xicheng let’s stand around some more letting this awful excuse for a person tell this sixteen year old boy that his parents deserved to be murdered basically, I’m sure there’s a lot more fruitful discussion still left to be had here

- talk shit about nie mingjue’s brother get hit su she hell YEAHHHHHH

big brother still looking out for him I’m fsdklfhajsdlhf 😭😭😭

- I’M SO FULL OF FEELINGS ;________________________________; at least in this version the implication feels more like he’s finally at peace? (hilariously wwx managed to purge/cleanse the saber spirit, which is the entire conflict of fatal journey haha, nhs really did get his best friend to do his homework for him yet again, INSPIRATIONAL)

- HELL YEAH FINALLY GET REKT YOU PIECE OF SHIT! PRESS F TO PAY RESPECT EXCEPT JOKE’S ON YOU I’VE GOT NO RESPECT TO PAY

They did do away with any and all ambiguity around nhs here and I’m totally cool with it, that was awesome

- I’m playing the world’s tiniest little violin right now, wow much sad fuck you and your dumb hat

- may I just say that the fact that jgy uses his last moments on earth to make lxc, a person he proclaims to love, feel as bad as possible about his now inevitable death even though it clearly wasn’t really his fault... is just proof that he has never actually loved anyone at all except possibly himself

contrast with wwx, who tells jc that he’s sorry, dries his tears in the here and now and says to let the past go because there’s nothing either of them can do about it now and there’s no point in hurting themselves over it again and again anymore. jgy has the opportunity to give a similar kindness here and instead twists and twists the knife, so lxc will be in as much pain as possible when he’s gone. he’d rather be kept alive in lxc’s suffering than let him, someone he ‘loves’, ever heal and be happy. anyway I hope hell is real shitty for you jgy

- jgy you absolute piece of shit you couldn’t let my man have TEN FUCKING MINUTES to nap in peace? after sixteen years of your fuckery? urgh bye

- nhs looking at lxc sadly when lxc can’t see him... one last ‘I don’t know’ finally closing out his arc... I love all of this so much, there’s such a nuance of... he is genuinely a bit sad about causing lxc pain but he also doesn’t regret what he did At All. (I guess most of what he’s done must be pretty easy to rationalize/justify to himself, since the vast majority of his work went into finding the horrible shit jgy has done and showing them the way home to roost, rather than creating fresh suffering from scratch. and then there’s also the whole mo family but uh well eggs omelettes amirite lol)

- lan qiren telling people not to run or talk loudly b/c they’re at a temple, even under these circumstances fhakjsldfhkjsdafhkjsaldhf

- god the casting people for this show have a perfect track record of finding heartwrenchingly cute kids my GOD

- jfdsafhaskdjfh I love how they’ve done the moment with the hat -- the way the flashback sort of indicates that nhs does recognize on a deep level that the dude he just killed was someone’s son, was after all once an innocent child, like anyone... and again, it doesn’t make him regret it. he looks tired and sort of empty, but not like he’d take any of it back. he’s seen jgy for all that he was, good and bad, and made his decision. his reaction to seeing his hands ever so slightly stained with blood is mostly ‘...eh sure’ (and he knows none of this will ever bring his brother back and I am HURTING) . just. I love him so much what an interesting character

- lan zhan raised a child who can talk about his feelings, unprecedented & wondrous

who’s chopping onions in here

- never getting over ah yuan being the best person in the world at roasting his dad

- okay okay okay I’m going to have some incoherent feelings here -- the expression on nhs’ face right after wwx asks him if he intends to be chief cultivator is just... hm. how do I describe this. it looks almost like he’s thinking ‘oh yeah I forgot you don’t actually know me anymore (yeah okay that’s my bad)’? the previous scene is about lwj and wwx, The symbolic representation of true love in this world, naming each other/knowing each other for exactly who and what they are. that’s the thematic victory in this story; to be truly known, accepted and loved for the entirety of who you are, if only by one person in your whole life. (notably all sorts of love, parental, familial, platonic etc., not just romantic/sexual) and to get his victory, nhs has had to completely forsake that because his whole plan hinged on it; he hasn’t been emotionally honest with anyone for well over a decade at this point. no one really knows or understands him, and if someone ever did he’s long dead now and never coming back. and in this one moment both wwx and nhs seem to come to the quiet understanding that neither of them are who they used to be as kids and it’ll never be like it used to be again, and reach a sort of live-and-let-live truce about it. d u d e this goddamn story

(after all part of the reason jgy is so incredibly terrified of nmj is that he’s the first person to see straight through his bullshit to who he is behind it, and that it’s u g l y back there. jgy + nmj = being known without being accepted or loved (b/c honestly he doesn’t deserve to be loved or accepted yeah there we go I said it), jgy + lxc = being accepted and loved without being known, which turns into disaster all around.)

- man this was actually a really solid adaptation, it was excellently done! they did rush a bit towards the end there (it was never explained why jgy didn’t kill sissi along with all the other sex workers in this version, for example, leaving a rather substantial plot hole, and they never reveal why exactly lan zhan had to take over as sect leader which breaks off lxc’s arc at the end), but all in all that was wonderful and even added some stuff I liked better than in the book! now please god never let mtxt write a sequel, just let them be in this happily ever after, all of them have been through enough ;________;

- also the music was truly epic! I don’t even begrudge them using some parts more often and blatantly than what’s probably necessary, I want to wallow in this love theme as much as the next person lol

- what am I going to do with hours upon hours of my life now? I don’t know either, I suppose I will just have to find some way to hobble on

#the untamed #mo dao zu shi #wangxian #nie brothers #(b/c predictably that's what most of my feelings boil down to lol)#meta #I think I might have outdone myself with this; this is a new height of aimless unproductive nonsense even for me lol #I did this instead of working on the edit of the fic I've got nearly finished because... I don't know either guys I just don't know

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tenya · 5 years ago

Note

I. I actually don’t have words how the in world did you not know the actual weakness of Sonic. Like I know you weren’t there for all things Sonic but at the same time,this is literally his biggest weakness. I’m pretty sure in one of the cartoons that it was a basic trait of his character for him not being able to swim. I’m not judging I’m actually shock at you not at least knowing that!

my introduction to the sonic franchise was snapcube’s fandub of sonic (2006). from there i watched the real longplay of sonic (2006) because i wanted to know how the actual story went. i watched the other fandubs from snapcube too, but the only other canon stuff i’ve seen in full is a longplay of sonic unleashed, the little animated short that came with the game, and the new sonic movie. i know bits and pieces of shadow’s story. i’ve never seen any of the cartoons. however, i have seen a single clip from one, with dark super sonic, because it was randomly recommended to me on youtube. probably because i was listening to a lot of covers of sonic songs. anyways, i want to read the comics but because i have school + work taking up most of my time, i haven’t been able to yet. i only found out about his water weakness because one of my friends, who is also my coworker, told me about it yesterday.

any questions?

#LMAO #YEAH I...#i'm new here #Anonymous

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gamerfansims389 · 5 years ago

Text

Characters I Think Can (and possibly can't) defeat Alastor

You know. Different characters in Hazbin going up against Alastor one day in a full on power battle with him would be interesting. But what about other characters from other fandoms?

Disclaimer: Some characters from some fandoms, I haven't seen all of (like movies, shows and anime). So please keep that in mind.

I will also categorize characters in the following: High Chance, Medium Chance, Low Chance

High Chance meaning they could most definatley defeat him easily without any injuries or within the blink of an eye, Medium Chance, they could defeat him but it would take a while to, may take some injuries, Low Chance, will most definatley end up with injuries, maybe even come close to dying.

Please note: I don't hate Alastor. He's a really interesting character in my book. This idea has just been in my head for a while. And I wanna see if other people will agree and or disagree. You are also free to reblog this and add onto the list if you want to. This is an open topic to discuss. As long as it remains peaceful and civil. If it gets out of hand, I will delete this post.

This post may also contain spoilers from other shows, anime, cartoons, and movies. I'm leaving game characters out of this because I haven't played a lot of games in order to put those characters on this list. But you are free to add game characters if you wish. You have been warned of possible spoilers!

Anyways. On with the list. This also will be in no particular order power wise so yeah.

High Chance:

1. Mob/Shigeo Kageyama (Mob Psycho 100) (As of this post, I have 2 more episodes left remaining in Season 2. Do not spoil for me and for others please!)

Okay. Maybe not when he's at normal power (0%). But when he's at 100%, that boy is an explosive depending on what emotion he's feeling at the time of a situation. Yes, he has his rule of not using his psychic powers against others. But when the people he holds dearly are in danger of possibly dying or not, he is not a force to be messed with.

(An example of when he's at 100%)

2. Bill Cipher (Gravity Falls) (Spoiler warning!)

We all know of how powerful Bill is. He caused a Weirdmaggedon on Gravity Falls in the Season 2 finale. He froze time, he can grow, he can change his form, and he's been around since the beginning of time itself. Sure, he was defeated by Mabel and Dipper themselves a few times already. But as a whole, this triangle demon is pretty much an unstoppable force to deal with if you really look at it.

He also has a lot of similar qualities to that of Alastor. He likes to make deals, he likes to cause trouble, a lot of the citizens fear him, etc.

3. Kurumi (Date a Live) (Spoiler warning!)

It's been a long time since I last watched Date a Live. But from what I remember, this girl is pretty powerful. If my memory serves me correctly, she can freeze time, she can make duplicates of herself, she weilds a shotgun, she's quite a handful power wise. I haven't seen all of Date a Live. Just the 1st Season. So idk if other seasons/spin offs/OVA's/movies explore more on her powers or not (please don't spoil if it does).

4. Gon (Hunter x Hunter 2011) (Spoiler warning!)

I honestly do think that Gon has a high chance of defeating Alastor. We saw him duke it out with Neferpitou and he won for the sake of a friend. Just like Mob, he may not seem strong appearance wise but this boy has taken on some people much powerful than he is and won. Sure, his battle with the Chimera Ants almost left him for dead but he still made it out alive in the end thanks to Killua's help.

5. Elsa (Frozen, Frozen 2) (Please note I have not seen anything else Frozen related such as shorts. So I'm basing all of this based on what I have seen from Frozen. Any Frozen shorts that may have development on Elsa's powers! I have now seen Frozen 2 on YouTube due to a link but that doesn't mean you can spoil it for others!)

As rediculous as this may sound to some, she probably does have a high chance of defeating Alastor. We saw this girl make an entire ice castle just from her powers alone in Frozen within the course of a 2-3 minute song that everyone has embedded in their heads at this point in time. She can also change her outfits via her powers as well and make animate snow/ice creatures with her powers as well. Heck, we saw her freeze an entire kingdom which was the plot starter for Frozen! Again. Others may have other opinions. But this is what I think.

Medium Chance:

1. Celty Sturloson (Durarara!) (Spoiler warning!)

Like Date a Live, it's been quite a while since I last seen the entirety of Durarara so just bare with me on this. For those that don't know, Celty is a Dullahan, a creature from Irish folklore which is basically like their version of the Grim Reaper. Dullahans supposedly carry their heads around in their arms after they die. But in Celty's case, she lost her head and she kind of gave up on searching for it towards the end of the series. She can make a black ball out of an inescapable substance from her powers, she can make web-like structures with them as well, and she also does weild a scythe. Her motorcycle can also transform into different vehicles such as a horse (which is default), a bike, a carriage, etc.

2. Lelouch Lamporouge (Code Geass) (Please note that I have never completed this anime. I had like 9 episodes remaining in Season 1. So please don't spoil anything in regards to Lelouch's power development!)

I kind of have my doubts with Lelouch on this one since his powers require him to look at someone directly in the eye in order to possess them so he can command them to do something against their own will. But if he plays his cards right (which he's pretty good at doing), he could have a chance of defeating Alastor. Like I previously mentioned, I haven't completed all of Code Geass so I don't know the full extent of Lelouch's powers outside of Season 1. I already also mentioned Lelouch's powers previously, too so yeah lol. But yeah. I kind of have my doubts when it comes to him.

3. Yuu Otosaka (Charlotte) (Spoiler warning!)

Yuu would most likely have a medium chance of defeating Alastor because of his ability to harness other's powers. Keep in mind. It's also been a while since I've last seen Charlotte so bare with me on this one as well. I do think he would come out with some injuries because of the fact that he doesn't know the extent of other's powers that he has harnessed from them, he only knows about his own powers very well. If he's not careful, he could end up injured.

4. Albedo (Overlord) (Please note that I've only seen Season 1 so don't spoil anything that's important to Albedo's power development!)

I personally don't think Einz himself would go out to try to fight someone that's as powerful as he is unless it posed as a threat to his life and or his kingdom. So, I would think that he'd send his servants to survey the area of any potential threats and to get rid of them immediatley before they become a big threat. He probably wouldn't send Albedo out first but maybe she could be his 2nd to last resort before going to investigate himself. Either that or she'd automatically volunteer herself out of the sake of her love for Einz. Which, he'd probably agree with once the begging gets annoying.

5. Chrollo Lucilfer (Hunter x Hunter 2011) (Spoiler warning!)

This would be before he got his powers taken away and restricted into a state of Zetsu by Kurapika. He has shown to be pretty powerful. He made it out alive when fighting against two members of the Zoldyck family. But I think the only disadvantage to this would be the fact that he needs his Nen book in order to use other's powers. Without his Nen book, he's basically powerless.

Low Chance:

1. Ganta (Deadman Wonderland) (Spoiler warning!)

It's been quite a while since I've seen Deadman Wonderland. Bare with me here. So much like Gon, Ganta has taken on some pretty powerful Deadmen while serving his time in Deadman Wonderland after being accused of a crime he was blackmailed against for. I don't exactly remember his Deadman ability since it's been so long. But I do think he'd come out with quite a lot of injuries after challenging Alastor to a fight.

2. Decim (Death Parade) (Spoiler warning!)

The only thing I'm aware of power wise for Decim is that he can use web-like strings to hold people down after they've realized they're dead. I've heard quite a bit saying that he's based on the Greek god, Decima. Idk if that's true or not tho. But the extent of his powers is unknown and I highly doubt Death Parade will continue as an anime series. So I would think he has a low chance at defeating Alastor with all that we currently know on his powers.

3. Sebastian Micaelis (Black Butler/Kuroshitsuji) (Spoiler warning!)

A lot of fangirls will probably hate me for this. Lol. But I kind of doubt Sebastian could defeat Alastor without getting injured. We don't know the full extent of his powers yet despite also coming from Hell in that universe. So, that's the reason to my doubts.

4. Magica De Spell (DuckTales 2017) (Spoiler warning!)

This would be before the Shadow War! I'm also not going to discuss the 1987 show or the original comics since I've never completed the 1987 show nor have I read any of the original comics yet. So I'm only relying on what we've seen so far in the reboot. Like Bill, she was able to start this apocalypse by taking everyone's shadows from them. She trapped Scrooge in his own lucky dime in order to execute her plans. But I doubt she'd be able to defeat Alastor in all honesty.

5. Lena De Spell (DuckTales 2017) (Spoiler warning!)

Lena De Spell is the niece of Magica De Spell. She was created as a shadow with the appearance of the real girl in order to unwillingly help Magica with her plans to take over Duckburg in the exchange for her freedom. After Magica is defeated and powerless, Lena now currently possesses Magica's powers via her amulet. So she undoubtingly has some of the same powers that Magica had. But since she hasn't really had much character development/power development as of this post, I kind of doubt she could defeat Alastor without being injured.

Aand that's all. If you want to add to this post, reblogs are appriciated. Thank you!

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ldybluerse · 5 years ago

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My Heart and Head Hurt.

So Very, Very Much

I am Asexual. I like cuddling, kissing, loving touches, I even love to make inappropriate sex jokes. Okay, I can make some pretty lewd sex jokes but that’s what happens when like 90% of your friends for the past ten years identify as pansexual. I just don’t feel sexual attraction and I am mostly repulsed by sex (ehhh it’s too much to explain).

At the first of the year, I moved to Texas from Michigan. Leaving behind all my friends, which with the internet isn’t terrible... but also my friends are shit at peopling on the Internet. Not angry or blame, they all have depression and anxiety. I get it. Just saying it’s hard to pretty much completely lose that connection with my friends. My friends are also the type where we would all pile into my bed and watch videos while cuddling with each other and my dogs. They spent so much time caring for me after my surgeries.

Being handicapped, and still learning how to live with it (it’s a relatively recent thing and takes relearning how to live life in a way that works for your limitations) I live with my parents. They are great but... they have their own mental health issues that really fucked me up as I grew up. It means that I don’t feel like I can open up or talk to them about anything because of what happened back then. I love them and I know they would do anything for me, but it’s just this thing I have. Heck, I have trouble opening up to my therapist for a long time. My therapist, who I also had to leave in Michigan. And Texas Medicaid? Kind of non-existent. Plus, I’m too old for my parents to be taking care of me, you know western standards and all, so I can’t have insurance through them.

Basically, I ran out of some of my medicine months ago, which means I live in near constant pain too. I can’t go see a therapist, because I can’t afford it. I haven’t run out of my depression medication yet, so there is that.

Since my accident (I will do another post on that later, because that will take a while), I haven’t been able to work. The accident was in December 2011, since 2013, I have had ten surgeries. I started back to school because it doesn’t seem like I’ll ever be up for any type of manual labor. But it also means I feel useless because physically I’m limited and mentally I am so fucked up I can’t do what I can handle doing. I graduated with my Bachelor (really proud of) but Texas has some different requirements that will add a lot of time towards getting my Masters, because Michigan didn’t have those requirements. This means I am going to enroll in an accredited online program, hopefully. Have to get accepted, fingers crossed.

To summarize, for ten months I have been isolated in a different state, dealing with body trying to adjust to different weather and medicine changes. Self isolation isn’t helping but the other problem is when I do reach out, there isn’t someone there...

Background info done, now to what’s troubling me:

My best friend and girlfriend is also Asexual. We’ve been together for almost eight years, but it’s always been long distance (we’re Ace, it doesn’t bug us too much) and I have gone to visit her. We started “talking” through Role Play and until recently, whenever there was lulls in life when a lot wasn’t happening, we could lean back on the Role Play to stay connected. There wasn’t a day when we didn’t talk to each other, even during the hospital visits we both went through, we stayed connected in some small way. And we talked about everything and anything. Our fandoms didn’t always match up, but it was fun listening and learning... I thought...

She was dealing with a lot of stuff, and for a few years was out of work, probably why she had so much time and energy for me. It was really bad for her for a while, where she even verbally attacked me on a few occasions. I know it wasn’t her but her mental illness, so I forgive her for it. But it was bad.

She was raised super Christian (DONT celebrate Halloween because it’s evil type Christian), and she has always been Christian even if she yelled at God a lot in her low days. Yeah, the good Christian girl is dating the Goth Pagan Celtic Witch... whatever you will call me. I’ve been Pagan for about 2/3rds of my life by now, so it’s not like she didn’t know she I was one. She’s never tried to shame or convert me.

My Bachelor is in Religious Studies, I know how good a religion can be for someone’s mental health if they are religious. I would talk to her about rekindling her faith. Finding a church she could at least go sit and listen to, so she could reconnect. She did! And it’s been amazing for her mental health. She has held a steady job for a while, actually is the poster child for the program that helped her move foreword and get her life back in order. I am so very proud of her and I do love her so much.

I just think... she’s outgrown me. The only fandom she talks about anymore is... Christianity. She doesn’t talk about LoZ anymore. She doesn’t talk about Tolkien. She doesn’t watch anime or cartoons anymore. She has no interest in Role Playing, as I said a big part of staying connected.

She talks about work, her cats, crocheting, and her religion. The thing is, I can’t fault her for any of it if it’s what’s best for her. She deserves happiness and stability. But...even when I’m back in school and when I get a job I don’t think I could leave the world of fantasy and fiction behind.

I grew up going to Ren Faires, my dad wearing tights. My first boyfriend I met at Ren Faire, while he was in tights. Labryinth and The Last Unicorn are still my favorite movies of all time! I collect Dragons of all sorts. I’ve watched the whole series of Fraggle Rock a few times, because it’s just wholesome and sweet.

My parents are Trekkies, my mom has had some of her fanfiction a published in old Starlog Zines. We watch fantasy, fiction, actions, cartoons... my mom has always loved the world of books, especially fantasy. She collects unicorns, so many unicorns. When I got into Anime, so did my mom. Kenshin is still her favorite, although to be fair she loved Ultron and Speed Racer when they first came to the states (she says Speed Racer was her first ever crush).

My brothers love the same thing, my oldest brother still fans for Jason David Frank. My other brother, well, he named his cat Pandea after WoW, we have his LotR sword collection, all his movie memorabilia...

We’re nerds and dorks and not afraid to be so.

Since the move the only thing making me happy has been my animals (Gods and Goddesses the fluffy bastards are clingers and just want to love you and be loved which is something I need) and fantasy. I’ve watched several animes I just want to gush about, but if you don’t have someone who is watching it too... you don’t want to ruin it. I want to just talk someone’s ear off about Steven Universe or Miraculous the Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir. Hell, even Ducktales and Tangled. Do you know how AMAZING they have made Ducktales?! I watched the original series when I was younger but...! And all the inside jokes!!!!

The books! I probably read about thirty or forty in one month when I went on a book binge. They were all trashy romance novels, and admittedly the sex scenes were... meh... I’m Asexual, what do you expect?! Okay... some Aces like sex and stuff. It’s not that important to me. What is, is the connection two people have to each other. The love. And trashy romance novels aren’t the best at giving that... but it’s something.

Oh and the Webcomics. I have always, always loved Webcomics. I used to have the folders on my old computer organized down to the day of the week the comics updated because I so many, that I had to organize them just to get the right updates! Right now Lore Olympics. OMG Lore Olympics. Be still my heart! I am reading several on WEBTOON. I have a few I follow through DeviantArt; Erma is so frikken cute! Daughter of the Lilies, ahhhhhh so amazing and the artwork!!! Pincushion! Constructs will always have a place in my heart!

I just got into the Good Omens fandom, because I’m a Whovian and Tennant is defiantly one of my most favorite of Doctors. He was just so beautiful in it. And when I took my Shakespeare course my teacher had us watch Hamelt and ohhhhh Tennant. Ohhhh you really can’t tell if Hamlet has gone crazy or it’s an act (which he claims it is!!). Sir Patrick Stewart was also just... oh!!! I entered Good Omens because my Instagram was all Ineffable Husbands (I think because of my Doctor Who love). Finally, finally i watched it.

That was like three weeks ago I got into Good Omens and I still am completely in love. The tenderness, the loving looks. I have to read the book! And the script book! (Depression, yay!). I need to listen to the radio adaptation and revisit Queen (I was raised on rock’n’roll. And I mean, David Bowie has probably been the only Rock Star I ever went heart-eyes for... also kinda sad he wasn’t mentioned in Good Omens because he did work with Queen and let’s face it, Bowie was so gender-nonconforming!). I just want to ramble and babble on and on about the series with someone. About all the hidden bits and pieces and theories and things in my head!!!

But... I don’t have anyone. My girlfriend sort of shuts down when I talk about any of the fandoms I like. She will just skip those parts of the conversation and comment on the animal videos I send her or something else. She will talk about work or God. Again, I’m know Religion and people. If there is something I know best is you can’t dictate what someone else’s beliefs are. So while I know the Bible and Christian theory, when she talks about it and tells me stories I can only “nod” and “smile” because if a persons religion isn’t harming themselves or others, and it’s helping them, I don’t think it would be right to argue theory and philosophy with them over what is mostly fairytale stories in a book. I’m not saying their isn’t a Christian God, or many Gods, or things in the Bible didn’t happen, but not all of it is factual nor was it ever meant to be seen as strictly factual. I try to show I am at least paying attention to what she says.

At the same time, with the state I have been in, I probably haven’t given her what she needs when she is telling me about stuff.

Fantasy and fiction has been the only thing keeping me afloat. Religion and work has been helping her. I just can’t see a world without the magic of make-believe but that’s not where she is anymore.

So... I’ve been thinking for a bit now maybe we’re no longer what we need for each other in our lives. Not that we don’t love each other, and not that we can’t still be friends... but maybe it’s time we adventure out? We were what we needed from each other for years... maybe we just aren’t that anymore.

#asexual #relationship #introvert problems #relationship problems #i need a hug #need advice #help #need friends #am lonely #grsm #lgbtq #lgbtpeople #lgbtqa #asexual relationship

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monkey-network · 6 years ago

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Good Stuff’s Best of 2018

WARNING: I just want to say cheers to you for making it through another year. I send you best wishes for next year to be fruitful. Thank you, take care out there, and enjoy.

Dedicated to Stan Lee, Stefán Karl and Stephen Hillenburg, the number ones of children entertainment

Bow Whacka Wow, playas and players. 2018 gave us quite a lot to consume while society continues to fumble like a Tumblr update. While hopefully the chaos has died down for the final weeks of the year, I’m counting down the best cartoons/animations I’ve seen and loved this year in no particular order. Only two rules, no sneak previews of future projects (sorry 101 Dalmatian Street and MP100) and no potential entries from last year’s list (sorry True). With that said, roll it....

10. UNIKITTY!

I love the Lego Movie. I’ll potentially like the sequel. I like Unikitty. She got a show, and it was a great show to start off the year. Upbeat, colorful, off the walls sometimes, perfectly capturing the spirit of the eponymous character. I’m glad the other characters are just as enjoyable, I never get tired of the theme song, every episode had me smilin’ one way or another, it’s just a quality bottle of positivity juice. Don’t know how else to explain it, Unikitty, the show and character, just makes and continues to make me smile.

9. POP TEA-- SIKE!

This anime ain’t nothing but unfunny randomness and skits with a forgetful arc in the first and final episode. I don’t get it, never gonna get it, so I don’t want to get it! MORE LIKE POOP TEAM EPIC, ‘nuff said. Which is why the actual number nine is....

9. BOB EPIC TEAM

Honestly, there is something endearing about the way Bob Epic Team presents itself. The simplicity and variety of its animation is remarkably good and makes it feel timeless sometimes. The comedy works in a way that gives you a clear grasp on the two characters while letting them do whatever they want. The surrealism of this is fun to think about, showcasing a hedonistic philosophy that rivals that of Epicurus. The duo’s chemistry is what especially got me, as they felt like the best of friends, potentially love birds *wink wink*. This anime was just creative in every sense of the word and, like Unikitty, it was a great anime to start of the year.

8. CRAIG OF THE CREEK

The ska is RAH. I honestly find this to be the loose spiritual successor to Hey Arnold and Recess. Like the playground, the creek is a well fleshed out setting with the many characters that hang there, from the TAZ trio to the loving witches of the creek. Though I will say the best episodes are when we get insight on the main three’s personal lives with their families and when the characters themselves go through a personal trial to understand themselves a little better. The shows thrives in the theme that the creek is a place where you can enjoy getting your hands dirty and work towards something you want, even if it doesn’t add to any concrete long term benefit beyond learning a thing or two about yourself and others. And I say for somebody that relates to Craig as a character, that’s a welcoming thought that the show has yet to perish. And the ska is a welcome choice of music, IMO.

7. THE EPIC TALES OF CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS

It’s funny in how a little over a year of getting a movie, Captain Underpants gets an animated series with not only original stories in lieu of just animating the already printed stories, but puts it all in a format similar to reading a book with a sardonic narrator and separating the plot of the episode into chapters with subtitle cards; one of the first I’ve seen do this. But really, a “Captain Underpants cartoon” is something I can’t say would turn out bad, and I’m right as this is a show that revels in what made CU great in the first place. George, Harold, Melvin, and Mr. Krupp/Captain Underpants are all great characters with the additional supporting cast providing welcome life to the world. Every Incredible Violence Chapter is brilliant in their own right, and while I wasn’t a fan of the ending they had for the season, it’s great that almost every episode is self-contained, boosting its replay value. Honestly, any compliment I have for this was already said in my review of this and the movie, so I’ll just say this too was faithful to its source material and benefited heavily for it.

6. GARY AND HIS DEMONS

Rick and Morty done better. BOOM, send tweet! It is safe to say that this was quite the sleeper hit and I can’t help but say it’s lowkey one of the best adult cartoons this year next to Ballmastrz and Final Space. And while I certainly appreciate the other two *hint hint* this one got a step above on the grounds that it works as a comedy and a solemn tale of a chosen hero that stumbles through years in the office life. It’s improv humor feels natural and it can be as melancholic as Bojack Horseman without making it all too deep like so; has a great balance of both. Main man Gary, unlike Rick for the most part, is a guy that’s both reasonably reprehensible yet pretty relatable. Not to mention, while it was bittersweet, it had a very satisfying finale to where I feel like this was a complete series all together. With a rough art style that compliments it’s tone, this was a series that surprised me in its sharp quality.

5. APPLE & ONION

I’ll admit. Initially wasn’t a fan of it as it felt like a knock-off to Regular Show (may it rest). Just had a duo of bros living together, doing mundane labor while coming up with impromptu tunes along the way. Then again, I was gladly proven wrong because the charm of it generally being a simple show, even with every person being food, somehow more regular than Regular Show. Every song they make is upbeat and catchy, all of the characters are endearing, and with only 10 episodes, each one was well paced and had quality writing to the point where I teared up a couple times. It stinks that this and Summer Camp Island have generally been receiving the shaft this year after their premieres, but I'm just glad that they haven’t been truly forgotten by CN and are getting more episodes next year. Plus, I love food and this show is about food. Debate over.

4. LEGEND OF THE THREE CABALLEROS

I was familiar yet never saw The Three Caballeros, ironic since Donald is one of my favorite Disney characters. But then, out of the blue, I found this and I was stunned, amazed, confused, nonetheless invested. It has a bumpy start, but it’s a joyous adventure from that start to end. The look of it is something I’ve rarely seen in animation since... freakin’ Wakfu. I love Xandra and I was glad to see her be an active player on the team. The villains are such a hammy delight. And Jose and Panchito were very lively and entertaining foils to Donald’s cynic nature while all three work as well together like the 3 stooges. Donald himself gets a great arc of his own throughout the season. And the theme, HO MY GOD I LOVE THIS THEME! It’s a damn shame Disney hasn’t released this already (since it’s all online already) because this series is much better than it has any right to be.

3. GOLDEN WIND/VENTO AUREO

I say, the beauty of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is that regardless of what part you start from, you’re enthralled into its world and ya feel compelled to dig into it more. Parts 3 was what got me into Jojo, like most I bet, but it was part 5 that got me “Oh yeah, this series [just] works on more than level”. The characters are what keep me hooked, regardless of Crunchyroll refusing to give their stands proper English names [Zipper Man, CR?], Fighting Gold and Freak ‘n You will never get old, and David Productions putting great effort into the small details and giving life and style to the original manga. I’ll just say, as one who’s read and loved the manga, this anime has not ceased to keep me impressed and guessing for more.

2. INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE

Funking superb, you afro having web-slinger. I hate to say it, but 2018 didn’t have the most impressive line-up of western animated features. Most were average, entertaining sure, but nothing felt like 110% was given. Until Spidah-Man came on the scene and I was like “WIG...

The only major problem I have with this film, besides a bit of slow pacing, is more of a missed opportunity where the stakes of getting the Spidermen back to their dimensions before dying felt like an afterthought. Then again, that’s ALL I have for problems. It looks fantastic. The action is smooth, coherent, and satisfying to see. The tiny details and comic book aesthetic of it was a blessed touch. I loved almost every character here. Nick Cage and John Mulaney. The fact that it has so much yet was able to juggle it all blew my mind. Even the post credits scene made this such a love letter to the wall-crawler. This film was refreshing to say the least and the central theme behind the idea of Spider-Man made this as great of a superhero movie as Infinity War and Lego Batman. Just saying, this better make its budget back and THEN SOME. It deserves it.

1. HILDA

Netflix, we’re not on good terms mind you, but ya done did it again. This is honestly one of the few shows that I genuinely took my time with as opposed to binging it, because binge watching is a devil in itself. Like the Spider-verse movie, it got the style of its source material down to cozy colored T with its autumn color palette and etched lining in the characters. Like the Captain Underpants series, while having a grounded arc of Hilda journeying through the city life and her colliding wildlife, each episode can be generally be enjoyed on their own. Like Gary and His Demons, it felt like a complete season and the fact it’s getting a season two made things all the better. But above all, it was a generally peaceful yet captivating fantasy cartoon to watch with incredible animation, an endearing main character, amazing looking folk creatures of all sizes and powers, and a cuddly deerfox for a pet. I say this is to the fall what Harvey Beaks was to the spring, and if I can compare a show to Harvey Beaks you know you’ve achieved greatness. Like True and the Rainbow Kingdom, gives you a moment of honest bliss and happiness that can influence your outlook on looking forward to better things because like Hilda herself, you push forward and have some fun exploring.

Just saying, I cannot stress this enough this is NOT my number one favorite show of the year, hell of all time. THAT goes to....

1. 👏TEEN 👏TITANS 👏GO, BABEEEEEEY!!

ONCE AGAIN, Teen Titans GO reigns supre-- Huh, what’s that? Oh my god, you’re serious?! The Number One is

TOTAL DRAMARAMA OUT OF NOWHERE! IT IS NOW CARTOON NETWORK’S ‘NEW FAVORITE SHOW’.

THE STREAK *DING DING DING* IS OVER

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maychorian · 6 years ago

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Hey, I just wanted to drop by to curse (thank) you :) you're such an awesome writer and a very kind person, and thanks to you I got into fandoms and shows I never would have on my own. I found you with haikyuu and followed your trail into knb, supernatural(i think my very first American tv show, plus very first tv show about ghosts), voltron (first cartoon that is not an anime that I watched regularly, except the last season) and now...I can't believe I seriously intend to read batman comics.(1)

I have never read comics, and it feels so weird. But I read your primer and explanations and just started reading you fic, I'm already hooked, and I haven't evem read a single issue yet! Tim is already my son, and I don't know how to deal with that, so thanks for that! (i love you) (you're awesome) (can i maybe ask, do you have an update schedule for yofa?) (have a nice day) sorry if I'm rambling, it's way past midnight (2/2)

Aww, thank you so much for this lovely message! I’m so glad that I’ve been able to show you several awesome fandoms! I hope Year of Fallen Angels continues to make you happy.

As for update schedule, there isn’t really one, no. Every few days I get a sudden urgent need to know what happens next and then I sit down and write between 2k and 3.5k words in a single sitting. It’s awful. I can’t help it. And then I spend the next 24 hours obsessing over what I just wrote and trying to figure out what will happen next. I’m a pantser all the way, it’s the only way writing is fun for me, but that does mean I’m on the same emotional rollercoaster as my readers and have no clue what’s going to happen five or even three chapters down the road, much less the ending.

#askbox #yofa #batfam #Anonymous

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roodle-things · 6 years ago

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Fandom Page (Update 10/22/2021)

So I know some people have not been able to see my fandom page for tech reasons, so I’ve decided to just make a post that lists all of them! If you don't see what you’re into on here you can still ask me!

Added links so you guys can see what I've done already!

This list isn’t necessarily stuff that I will 100% make for but rather stuff that I have been interested in at some point in my life. If you don’t see something on here that does not mean I won’t do it. If you do see something on here I might not do it based on what character it is for ex.

Bold means it’s newly added

Bold means the status has changed

:/ means bc of recent news i don’t like it anymore lol

Anime

Aggretsuko - havent seen s2

Bleach - only interested in minor characters

Eyeshield 21 - only interested in minor characters

One Piece - Never watched/read but I know everything

Fullmetal Alchemist 03 - never finished/dont prefer it

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Hello Kitty/Sanrio

Hellsing Ultimate

One Punch Man - not caught up/ not planning on it

Ouran Highschool Host Club - Gonna rewatch

Please Tell Me! Galko-chan

Pop Team Epic - not caught up

Puella Magi Madoka Magica - haven't seen in years

Vocaloid

Books

Fairy Tales

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, planning on reading CO series soon

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream - Short Story/Game

May Bird Series

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children - Gonna reread

Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Heroes of Olympus

The Kane Chronicles - Gonna reread

Cartoons

Adventure Time

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Ben 10/Alien Force/Ultimate Alien

Bob’s Burgers - not caught up/ not planning on it

Courage the Cowardly Dog - nostalgia

Ever After High - nostalgia

Gravity Falls

Hilda

Kid’s Next Door - nostalgia

Legend of Korra

Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir - not caught up/not planning on it

Monster High - nostalgia

Over the Garden Wall

Powerpuff Girls - nostalgia

Rick and Morty - not caught up/not planning on it

RWBY - not caught up

Scooby Doo

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Star vs. The Forces of Evil - not caught up/not planning on it

Strawberry Shortcake - nostalgia

Steven Universe - not caught up/not planning on it

Storm Hawks

The Dragon Prince - caught up to season 2, not watching s3 till show continues coming out

Trollhunters - not into the other shows

WordGirl - nostalgia

Comics

DC Comics - more into the Batman universe

Marvel - kind of into

Games

Among Us

Animal Crossing: New Leaf/Happy Home Designer/Pocket Camp/New Horizons

Apex Legends- haven’t played the quests/lore stuff yet

Bendy and the Ink Machine

Cookie Run: Ovenbreak/Cookie Wars

Cozy Grove

Cube Escape/Rusty Lake

Cuphead: Don’t Deal with the Devil

Dead by Daylight

Doki Doki Literature Club

Dream Daddy

Firewatch

Five Nights at Freddy’s

Ghost Trick

Gris

Hatoful Boyfriend

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Life is Strange/Before the Storm/Farewell

Little Nightmares

Neko Atsume

Night in the Woods

Overwatch

Ooblets

Oxenfree

Pokemon - games, anime, most movies included!

Poptropica

Slime Rancher

Smile For Me

Speed Dating for Ghosts

Spiritfarer

Stardew Valley

Super Mario Bros. - Completed Odyssey and LM3

The Amazing Adventures of Captain Spirit

The Arcana - not caught up/not planning on it

Undertale - not caught up/not planning on it

What Remains of Edith Finch

Where the Water Tastes Like Wine

Yearwalk

Movies

DC - Only seen Wonder Woman 1/Birds of Prey/New Suicide Squad

Disney Animated Movies/Channel

Don Bluth Movies - ask me which

Dreamworks - ask me which

Harry Potter - :/

Heathers + musical

Laika Films - ask me which

Les Miserables

Mad Max: Fury Road

MCU - hate it nowadays :/

Over the Moon

Pixar Animated Movies - ask me which

Star Wars - movies/EU/semi-clone wars + rebels + mando (not caught up on clone wars/not planning on watching rebels)

Musicals

Hamilton

Legally Blonde

Wicked

Other Stuff

American Girl Doll

LGBT+

Holidays/Seasons

Podcasts

Alice Isn’t Dead

The Adventure Zone - Halfway through Amnesty/not continuing

The Magnus Archives - never listened but know everything

TV Shows

American Gods - not caught up/not planning on it

A Series of Unfortunate Events - not caught up

Game of Thrones - oof

Lucifer - not caught up

Mindhunter

Preacher - not caught up/not planning on it

Queer Eye

Stranger Things

The Haunting of Hill House/Bly Manor/Midnight Mass

Web Series

Nyan Neko Sugar Girls

The Most Popular Girls in School - not caught up/not planning on it

Slenderverse: Watched MH/EMH/TT, but :/ on TT

Villainous - not caught up/not planning on it

#roodle speaks #fandom page

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dccomicsnews · 7 years ago

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This weekend marks the official launch of the highly anticipated DC Universe digital steaming service, and earlier this week they decided to run their beta version for those who have already pre-ordered the service. The beta is limited, so those of us who have it haven’t gotten the chance to see everything, but it did give us a great look at what to expect from the full version.

There are so many great reasons to sign up for this service, and below I list the TOP 10 Reasons to Subscribe to DC Universe. So sit back and enjoy the ride into the wonderful world of all things DC.

10. EXCLUSIVE MERCHANDISE

Not only will you get all sorts of great content to watch and read (as you’ll see below), there’s also a new DC Universe Shop within the app where fans can purchase some awesome merchandise, like t-shirts, statues, mugs, phone cases, and more, with some items being exclusively sold through the app. One of these exclusives is a new line of animated-style Justice League action figures, to complement the popular 6-inch Batman: The Animated Series figures the company has been making lately.

The first wave includes the full initial team line-up – Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern John Stewart, Hawkgirl, and Martian Manhunter – plus Aquaman, who was not a member of the team before they became Justice League Unlimited, but who did appear in several memorable episodes during the first two Justice League seasons.

9. DC COMMUNITY

In the all new DC Community section, fans can join other fans on a plethora of message boards covering all kinds of topics like comics, movies, TV, news, and more. There’s even a section called “Creators Corner” where fans can connect with DC talent.

DC Community shows trending discussions, popular tags, and even gives you the chance to create your own thread covering any topic that’s rattling around in your brain. Do you want to talk about the best Robin? You can make a thread about it. Do you want to discuss your love of the short-lived Birds of Prey TV series? Go ahead! The sky’s the limit!

And DC has vowed to work hard on moderating these boards in order to make it the best possible experience for fans everywhere!

8. ENCYCLOPEDIA

This comprehensive encyclopedia breaks down your favorite characters (like Batman and Superman), as well as some you may have never heard of (like Chaselon and Ferro Lad), with great detail, giving an introduction and history to the character, their origin, powers, essential storylines, team affiliations, and appearances in other media. Some characters are more thorough than others, but this encyclopedia will be always growing and expanding, so if there’s some info you think is missing, you’ll be able to submit it to be added.

There’s also a tab labeled “Related Content” that brings up movies and TV shows, comics, and even trending discussions about that character within the app. This is a great part of DC Universe as it will help to educate DC fans, new and returning, on the characters that live within it.

7. LIVE-ACTION FILMS

As someone who loves films (I even run my own film review site), the fact that the DC Universe app will include live-action films is something I was very happy to hear. Now, from what we’ve been told, there doesn’t seem to be very many live-action films available, at least not yet. We’ll have access to Superman 1-4, Batman (1989), Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, Batman Begins, and The Dark Knight.

Now, this is a great, albeit small, selection of films, but I’m really hoping they will put more than just Batman and Superman movies up here. Let’s get films like V for Vendetta, Watchmen, A History of Violence, The Losers, Road to Perdition, RED, RED 2, Swamp Thing, Constantine, etc. This would truly add some great value to the film library. And who knows, maybe they already have plans to add some of these. That would definitely push this farther up on my list.

6. ANIMATED FILMS

The catalogue of animated films based on DC properties is huge, with dozens of quality entries, from the 30+ DCUA (DC Universe Animated Original) films, to films like Subzero and Mystery of the Batwoman, and even the LEGO DC Super Hero films.

The DC Universe app will offer a large array of them, including some of my favorites like Justice League: War, Batman: Under The Red Hood, and even Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. But what shocked me the most was that their newest animated film, The Death of Superman, is actually available to watch on the app, even though it’s only been out for less than two months. And with a 3-4 films release schedule every year just for the DCUA films, this library will continue to grow.

5. DC DAILY

Within the “News” tab is a section for the upcoming daily news show, DC Daily. They recently did a live-stream (of which the video is available to watch on the app) breaking down what you can expect from DC Universe, while also introducing DC Daily and the hosts who will be bringing all the news to the fans. The live stream was hosted by Kevin Smith.

There will be several great and knowledgeable hosts including Tiffany Smith (DC All Access), John Barrowman (Arrow, Doctor Who), Samm Levine (Freaks & Geeks, Inglourious Basterds), Harley Quinn Smith (Yoga Hosers), Sam Humphries (DC Comics Writer – Green Lanterns), Hector Navarro (DC All Access), Clarke Wolfe (Collider Movie Talk, Film HQ), Brian Tong, Markeia McCarty (DC Movie News), and John Kourounis.

DC Daily cast (L to R): Samm Levine, Sam Humphries, Tiffany Smith, John Barrowman (in front), Harley Quinn Smith, Clarke Wolfe, Brian Tong, John Kourounis, Hector Navarro

DC Daily will be replacing DC All Access and will offer news related to the original series on DC Universe and other content that “ties back” to DC Comics and the DC Universe community. The program is scheduled to have the following segments: “Headlines”, for daily news briefs; “Reports”, for an in-depth interview or look at an upcoming book, film, or television series; and “Talk”, for panel discussions.

4. LIVE-ACTION TV SERIES

DC has some of the best live-action comic book TV shows out there, and a lot of them will be available to watch right through the app. We’ll get to see such shows as Wonder Woman, The Flash (1990), Birds of Prey, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and even more obscure titles like Human Target.

This would be a spot or two higher on the list if the current DC shows were included, like Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Gotham, and all of the others. Hopefully, they’ll eventually make their way to the app once their contracts with the other streaming services expire.

3. ANIMATED TV SERIES

I’ve got four words for you: BATMAN. THE. ANIMATED. SERIES!!!!

When it was announced that the greatest comic book TV series of all time was heading to DC Universe, I was ecstatic. And to make it even better, it’ll be released in fully remastered HD, and I have to say, it looks fantastic!

And if that’s not enough for you, we’ll also be getting a plethora of other great animated shows from the world of DC including Batman Beyond, Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, Batman: Brave and the Bold, Superman: The Animated Series, Static Shock, Teen Titans, Young Justice, and even the old Max Fleischer cartoons from the 1940’s. This is an amazing line up that will keep people busy binging for quite a while.

2. LARGE SELECTION OF COMICS

Unlike other streaming services, DC Universe will also offer a reading component through a large curated selection of some of DC’s best comics. You’ll get to read classic stories like Action Comics #1, Detective Comics #27, and The Dark Knight Returns, as well as getting the chance to check out some more obscure stuff like Doom Patrol and New Gods.

And the built-in comic book reader is fantastic, particularly the panel-by-panel option, which allows you to become fully immersed in what you’re reading, bringing these comics to life.

1. BRAND NEW EXCLUSIVE CONTENT

For me, the biggest reason I chose to commit to this service wasn’t the past DC content, but instead all the future content that’s on the way. There’s only so much previous content, so the fact that they’re developing several new projects exclusive to DC Universe will keep me coming back for more.

Right now, there are four live-action shows and two animated shows in production, with many more to come. I’m also hoping they will dive into original films for the app as well. The shows announced so far are Titans (which will premiere at NYCC, and then hits the streaming service on October 12th, with new episodes each Friday), Doom Patrol, Swamp Thing, Stargirl, the Harley Quinn animated series, and the one many have been waiting for… Young Justice season 3 (titled Young Justice: Outsiders).

Titans follows young heroes from across the DC Universe as they come of age and find belonging. This gritty take on the classic Titans franchise finds Dick Grayson and a special young girl possessed by a strange darkness named Rachel Roth as they get embroiled in a conspiracy. They’re joined by Starfire and Beast Boy to become a surrogate family and team.

Doom Patrol is a reimagining of one of DC’s strangest group of outcasts: Robotman, Negative Man, Elasti-Woman and Crazy Jane. Led by the mysterious Dr. Niles Caulder they’re called into action by none other than the ultimate hero for the digital age, Cyborg. These rejects band together on a mission that will take them to the weirdest and most unexpected corners of the DC universe.

Swamp Thing is a scary love story following Abby Arcane as she investigates what seems to be a deadly swamp-born virus in a small town in Louisiana but soon discovers that the swamp holds mystical and terrifying secrets.

Stargirl follows High School sophomore Courtney Whitmore who inspires an unlikely group of young heroes to stop the villains of the past. This new DC Universe series reimagines Stargirl and the very first superhero team, the Justice Society of America, in a fun, exciting and unpredictable series.

Harley Quinn tracks the lovable, raucous villain with a fractured psyche after she breaks up with The Joker and tries to make it on her own to become Gotham’s main queen-pin.

Young Justice: Outsiders features the return of the fan favorite animated series with a huge cast of DC’s most iconic young superheroes – plus brand-new characters, many of whom are just discovering their unique meta-powers and special abilities. Set against the backdrop of a rich, deep world that touches all corners of the DC universe, the season focuses on meta–trafficking, and an intergalactic arms race for control of these super–powered youths.

And there you have it folks, the Top 10 Reasons To Subscribe To DC Universe. If you haven’t already done so, be sure sign up and enjoy all of this wonderful content at your fingertips. Head on over to the DC Universe site and sign up right now. You can do the monthly subscription for $7.99/month or you can save some money and do the annual plan for only $74.99/year.

And be sure to share your experiences with the service in our comments section below or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter.

Top 10 Reasons To Subscribe To DC Universe #DCUniverse @TheDCUniverse @DCComics #BatmanDay #DCComics #DCComicsNews This weekend marks the official launch of the highly anticipated DC Universe digital steaming service, and earlier this week they decided to run their beta version for those who have already pre-ordered the service.

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tigerlover16-uk · 7 years ago

Note

Do you think that Dragon Ball Super is going to hold up better than Dragon Ball GT did long term? Or do you think it'll eventually fade into the background for most of the fandom as well and become a niche thing?

Part of that I think is going to depend on how the movie and the inevitable follow up series(s) are received… but most likely, yes.

Here’s where Super has the advantage over GT in that regard… it’s canon.

Or at least, it’s being treated as canon and is being used as the foundation from which modern Dragon Ball stories and products are going to be built off of for the foreseeable future. We can get into debates about semantics and this fandom’s rather annoying “There is no canon except maybe the manga!” mantra that I’ve never been in favour of, but Toei is treating it as the current canon for the moment and so does Toriyama, it seems.

The upcoming movie is going to be a follow up on Super. FighterZ, the recent fighting game that blew up and became a huge success recently to the point of bringing in a lot of new fans, has it’s story take place sometime during the events of Super, has beerus and Whis show up in the story, and includes characters like Hit and Goku Black on the base roster while Merged Zamasu and Vegito Blue are DLC, while no GT character has been added yet.

Even the Xenoverse games treated the events of Battle of Gods and Resurrection F as canon events, while GT was an afterthought in both, having DLC packs for the first game and it’s characters only appearing in side quests in the sequel, and it’s timeline treated as an alternate future on par with the old movies.

Even the upcoming PR anime for Dragon Ball Heroes is adapting an arc that’s more or less a follow up to the Future Trunks saga in Super. And when a ongoing “Canon” Dragon Ball show does get made (And it will. Toei aren’t going to keep it off the air for too long, Dragon Ball’s gotten too big and profitable again since Super started for them to want to let the franchise go dormant again for too long), it will inevitably be a sequel to Super.

Unless Toriyama changes his mind and decides to scrap everything from the last few years and start over with another new continuation of the manga (Which is unlikely considering how involved he’s been in Super’s production as well as the upcoming movie, and he’s shown no signs of wanting to stop putting out new stories), then it’s likely that for the foreseeable future, all future Dragon Ball series, movies and spin-offs are going to be made with the idea that Super and it’s follow ups are “Canon” events.

And that’s going to inevitably influence how hardcore fans, casuals, and the portion of general audiences who consume Dragon Ball content view things.

Whatever people’s perception of the Prequel Trilogy was initially, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that more people have watched those, and new fans getting into Star Wars for the first time are ENCOURAGED to watch them, than have watched, say, the Star Wars Holiday Special or the Ewoks cartoons and specials.

Why?

Because love or hate them, the Prequel Trilogy is, now and forever, a crucial part of the Star Wars saga and the foundation for a large, important era of the franchise that has spawned a large number of spin off works, from comics to at least two cartoons, one of which is basically the predecessor to the most current Star Wars animated series, Rebels, and a number of it’s events and characters are followed up on in that show.

The Prequel Trilogy is an essential cornerstone of the Star Wars franchise, and even casual fans who aren’t interested in all the expanded universe stuff are going to watch them, because they’re episodes of the main film series that are the backbone of the entire franchise and whom millions and millions of people watched in theatres when they came out. For all the controversy and handwringing about “MY CHILDHOOD IS DEEEEEAAAAAAD!”, there’s no getting around the fact that the Prequel Trilogy will continue to have an overarching presence over the rest of the Star Wars franchise going forward. And over time, the movies have also been increasingly vindicated with more and more supporters feeling safe to express their support of it publicly.

As for the Holiday Special and Ewoks cartoon and movies? They’re not canon, never had as big a presence and impact in the first place, and the former is especially reviled among the fandom and is treated as a laughingstock that people only watch ironically, and considering it’s reputation for being terrible, not a HUGE amount of people are going to be inclined to watch it these days or in the next few decades because of that. I’ve never watched it, for example, and I never intend to.

No one is going to tell you that you have to, or even should, watch those products if you’re getting into the franchise. The general public who only care about the most mainstream installments of the Star Wars franchise, I.E the films, doesn’t even realize the Ewoks HAD their own cartoon and made for TV films. I’ll bet there are going to be people reading this post shocked about it.

This goes for the rest of the Star Wars expanded universe too, the old one and the new. If you ask people on the street or people who are generally casual Star Wars fans for the most part, they’ll probably be able to tell you who Darth Maul and Captain Phasma are… but significantly less people will know what you’re talking about if you bring up Thrawn, Asajj Ventress or Savage Opress.

Not because they aren’t good characters who are memorable and interesting in their own right, heck they’re more developed and interesting than Phasma ever was. But because they’re not mainstream, and in Thrawn’s case he wasn’t even canon to the current EU anymore until Rebels introduced their own take on him (I haven’t seen the 4th season, so I can’t discuss how that worked out).

I think GT has, and is going to have a similar issue to a lot of those expanded universe and non-canon Star Wars works going forward.

Let’s not kid ourselves, while it might have had some support when it was first airing, GT came out at a bad time both in Japan and in the West, and here in the West especially didn’t leave a good lasting impression.

In Japan, franchise fatigue for Dragon Ball as a whole was starting to set in around the time of the Buu Saga. While the saga was well received there and is looked back on fondly, Z’s ratings were continuously declining after the Cell Saga, and they declined more sharply during GT’s early run because the majority of people found the Black Star Dragon Balls saga boring.

While GT did pick up momentum again with the Baby saga which restored some interest, it didn’t actually do a thing to help the gradually increasing sense of fatigue. Ratings still steadily declined later on in the shows run (Admittedly not much more than they were during the Buu Saga, to be fair), but merchandise and revenue for Dragon Ball was going down really fast, which caused Toei to hastily pull the plug on the series, recognizing the fatigue and that Dragon Ball needed a bit of a break. (This is likely why the ending felt so rushed and sudden, BTW).

So while it wasn’t viewed as a disaster or anything and a lot of elements from the series are still well regarded and promoted in merchandise and video games like Heroes (Super Saiyan 4, some of the villains, etc), it’s never been as well regarded as the rest of the series and certainly wasn’t as successful in terms of profit and renewed interest in the franchise as Super has brought forth.

In the West, it’s case is even worse. The Buu Saga was much more controversial when it aired in America to the point that for years a significant segment of the franchise ragged on it as being the worst thing to come out of Z. Buu was supposedly the worst villain, Babidi stinks, “THEY RUINED GOHAN!”, etc. (I personally always thought that was nonsense and I love the Buu Saga, and in recent years the general consensus has improved, but these reactions were common and a lot of people still resent the saga to this day or at least hold it in less regard than the previous ones).

Dragon Ball Z’s popularity and the initial hype the show had gained after finally catching on in America (And here in the UK) had started to wane by this point, and a large portion of viewers who had been watching jumped ship by that point. While GT enjoyed some acceptance by the fanbase at first, by the time it finished and in the years that followed, it became regarded as the black sheep of the entire franchise (Until Evolution came along, anyway), with loud and vocal hate thrown at it for years.

People were quick and eager to declare it non-canon and shoot down the possibility of it being so, to the point that even before the franchise itself started gradually downplaying it’s significance in favour of the newer works, pretty much the majority of people were in agreement over it’s non-canon status.

And the fact that it came out at a time where Dragon Ball Z was starting to slowly lose it’s hype among casual fans and the general public (And then became an internet laughing stock until roughly the start of the current decade when Kai’s dub came out and starting a gradual renaissance where the series regained a lot of respect in the West), means that GT, while a lot of people do know about it, has never had as much of a mainstream presence in the West (Kind of like the Original Dragon Ball, sadly), being mostly something the hardcore fandom was invested in enough to watch and discuss… and again, for years the consensus was that most people hated it.

It’s true that GT hate has calmed down in more recent times among the fandom, and while it’s still not well regarded it’s defenders are more vocal and comfortable about supporting the show than before. And there is a common consensus that the show had a lot of good ideas, even if most of them weren’t executed as well as they could have been.

There are definitely people who have revisited the series and appreciated it more nowadays… and people like me who used to defend it but immediately started hating it after re-watching it :P.

But here’s the thing a lot of those defenders might be surprised or try to smugly lecture me about how wrong I am over… GT these days is, like you suggested anon… a NICHE.

GT’s fans may be vocal in a lot of places online, but in the grand scheme of things… people generally don’t care much about it either way. And the fact that it’s non-canon and has officially been replaced as the “Official” Dragon Ball follow up means that in the years to come, it’s only going to become less and less relevant.

Regardless of how much of a broken base there might be over the series in the fandom, you can’t argue that Super isn’t a big success for Toei and the Dragon Ball brand in terms of promotion and profits.

Here’s one of several graphs I can find online demonstrating the revenue the Dragon Ball franchise as a whole has been bringing in for Toei over the last decade.

Notice how when Kai first aired, it barely made a blip in merchandise sales and overall income for the franchise, and by the time it ended it’s initial run in Japan revenue kept falling until the year after Battle of Gods came out, and then in 2015 after Super was announced suddenly everything started to explode and it’s become super profitable, peaking this year even with Super’s conclusion?

Heck, it’s Toei’s most profitable franchise again nowadays, bringing in slightly more than twice as much as One piece even in Japan, which is a longtime juggernaut franchise. And general enthusiasm from both the public and fandom is at a high not seen in years.

It’s certainly not to the level of when it first aired. Super is also significantly less of a mainstream hit in Western Countries that aren’t Latin America than Z was aswell, certainly (Probably doesn’t help that the Toonami Block it now airs in is a late night slot that only fanboys stay up to watch).

But it’s still popular and watched by a lot of people, and the fandom is especially deep into it.

Heck, bringing up Latin American countries again where Dragon Ball has historically been extremely popular and a staple of pop culture, Super and the movies it spawned from are huge hits, to the point that across various countries including Mexico, huge public events were held in many cities and community centres where large crowds of people, many numbering in the THOUSANDS, gathered to watch the streams for the last two episodes of DBS. Which were huge hits, of course.

All things considered, Battle of Gods, Resurrection F and Super left more of a positive impact for the franchise starting out since, regardless of Super’s… very bumpy start and production, these works have been big hits that caused a franchise renaissance that generally brought Dragon ball back to a level of prominence and success it hasn’t seen in a long time.

A far cry from GT which pretty much signalled Dragon Ball’s leave of absence from the mainstream, during which time interest in the series waned for years even with Kai helping to restore it’s rep a fair bit (At least in America, said series was met with more of a meh reaction in Japan).

The results of this can’t be understated. Worldwide, Super has brought in a number of new fans. For many children and teenage fans, it’s going to be their introduction to Dragon Ball, or at least a cornerstone of their formative experiences with the franchise.

Many casual fans who had long drifted off from Dragon Ball were drawn back into the fold when Super came out, many people becoming bigger fans of Dragon Ball than ever as a result of that. I’ve talked with a number of people on this site who have admitted that Super actually helped them to appreciate Dragon ball in general a lot more whereas they only had a casual interest in the franchise before.

And a lot of those people are probably going to stick around rather than drift off again in favour of other series, considering we have the movie coming up, potential new shows in the near future, and other high profile Dragon Ball products like FighterZ to keep them occupied.

For every fan who complains about Super or is put off by it, I’ve seen as many, actually more, express a lot of thanks to it. Right before my recent break I remember reading a post from someone who admitted to never liking the Dragon ball franchise, being a Naruto fan before that started to disappoint them later on to the point they felt nothing when it ended (A feeling I find tragically relatable).

Said person said they started watching Super at some point as a joke… and by the time of watching the last episode, they had become a big converted fanboy, loved the majority of characters, had watched the previous series (I think, I might be remembering that part wrong), and even cried at the last episode due to being so emotionally invested.

For as many fans as there are who like to pick apart Super (And to be fair it is a flawed series and I do think it’s fair to criticise it’s missteps, I have issues like anyone else despite overall loving it), it IS generally a well liked series.

It’s true that a lot of that could fade with time. Heck, I’m sure a lot of people will like it somewhat less with hindsight and the hype wearing down.

On that note, I think some people might also like it more after a while.

Did you know that earlier on in Super’s run, people actually complained A LOT about the Slice of Life episodes, finding them a waste of time and no different to DBZ filler? Even by the end of the Champa saga that opinion started to soften and everyone started realizing how fun the slice of life episodes were, to the point that everything between the Future Trunks and Universe Survival Sagas is some of the most beloved content from the show now.

Even the potaufeu arc, widely despised when it first aired, has a bit of a better reception now. it’s not considered particularly GOOD, mind you, but people generally regard it as okay and at worst harmless now, compared to the hate it got earlier on. Helps that Brian Drummond was cast as Copy Vegeta for the dub, I guess.

A lot of other elements of the show have been viewed more fondly over time too, in addition to the stuff that gets more flak.

So it’s highly possible that, if the upcoming movie and any Dragon Ball series that follow up on Super in the near future are generally well received, opinions on Super from people who are critical of it now might gradually soften over time, at least to the point that a lot of people complaining about how the franchise is supposedly being “Ruined” might stop and realize they might have overreacted a little.

The opposite could also be true, we could have another series that’s a complete trainwreck and that could sour the fandoms opinions over modern Dragon ball as a whole, lead to a great decline in public interest and probably put us back on a franchise hiatus.

Which would stink a lot, let me tell you, and Super probably wouldn’t be remembered THAT fondly in that case… but to be honest, I have faith things will turn out at least reasonably well. Everything I’ve heard about the recent movie and it’s production suggests that Toei have put a ton of care and effort into making it right, and giving us the best product possible for a milestone movie like this.

And that suggests to me that they’ve learned from their missteps.

The big issue with Super, both in terms of it’s production values and writing, was ALWAYS down to it’s rushed production. The show was rushed to be aired, and that had a catastrophic effect that the show never completely recovered from, even when it did mostly stabilise later on.

But between the big increase in it’s production quality later on, the care that seems to be going into the movie, and the fact that behind the scenes Toei and Shueisha seem to be restructuring a lot of stuff to better focus on producing Dragon ball content and planning out new directions for the franchise… it feels like Toei are making all the right moves to keep Dragon ball relevant, and more importantly, GOOD into the foreseeable future.

They seem to have learned from their mistakes. And considering Super DID have a number of talented animators and writers working on it who did do a lot of good even though they were in far from suitable conditions… I for one feel confident that Toei could produce a much better follow up to Super down the line.

And if that’s the case, and Super does continue to be the launching pad for future stories in the Dragon Ball franchise for years to come… that’ll help it’s image to an extent.

Because even if the series itself is continuously acknowledged as having problems, if Dragon Ball is still relevant two or three decades from now and still producing moderately well received series… fans are going to encourage newcomers and casuals to watch Super to “Get the full story”. Just like Star Wars fans these days unanimously agree that, whatever the quality, you should watch the Prequels and yes, they do count (Even if begrudgingly to a lot of people).

GT… will never have that.

See, as much as it’s fanboy’s like to pretend the support for GT these days is bigger than it is… most people who watch Dragon Ball either haven’t watched it, haven’t watched it in years, and probably aren’t going to watch it anytime soon.

Heck, half the people watching Super these last few years haven’t watched Dragon Ball Z since it was initially airing. I have a mutual who’s a BIG Dragon Ball fangirl, who writes fanfiction (Usually Vegebul related) and is one of the most passionate and positive people you’ll see on this site when it comes to Dragon Ball… she also regularly admits that while she needs to get around to it, she hasn’t actually watched Dragon Ball of Z since she was a kid, just clips of it and I think Kai. (On that note she didn’t watch GT because she couldn’t get into it, she did watch the first two episodes recently but seemingly hasn’t found the time to get further into it).

This is actually surprisingly common among the fandom. I remember when the first episodes of the Super dub were airing someone who had clearly only watched the dub of Kai before was confused while watching Super and Kai: The Final Chapters back to back, wondering if Elder Kai as seen in Super was the same character as Shin The Supreme Kai. There’s a ton of people out there who’s only experience with Dragon Ball was watching Kai’s dub years ago and getting back into it now because the franchise is putting out new major installments.

FYI, this is also one of the big reason that memes, particularly TFS related, have taken over the fandom and warped the perception of the series and the characters so much over the years. A majority of people who call themselves Dragon ball fans are actually casuals who don’t re-watch the series often and look to the fandom side of things to refresh their memories and base their opinions off of since they probably never thought too hard about the series other than “This show is fun, and these characters are my favourite!” before.

And no, that doesn’t make those people less of a fan than people who re-watch/read the series yearly and are obsessive about it, because screw that elitist noise. I’m just pointing out that… well… many people’s interest in Dragon Ball, as with many mainstream franchises, is very much in the “Here and now” variety. Especially in the age of Crunchyroll, Netflix and online streaming, where anime fans are constantly binging and hopping around from one series to the next.

Hardcore fanboys and people who have nostalgia for it are the only people who actually care about GT more than enough to casually acknowledge it’s existence from time to time. And while you might get the impression by browsing the internet, fansites, forums, comments sections, etc that the hardcore fandom is most of the people that watch and talk about Dragon Ball… they’re really not, in the grand scheme of things.

Going by Star Wars comparisons again, this video by Moviebob should explain what I’m talking about better than I can.

youtube

To sum everything up nicely though… GT is non-canon and hasn’t actually been relevant for two decades. It has long had a reputation as one of the worst things in the franchise, and while there are certainly things the fandom likes about it and plenty of people willing to go back and watch and then defend it (And people like me who re-watch it and end up hating it where we used to defend it, too), it’s status as non-canon and the fact that it has officially been replaced by a new ongoing continuity means that it’s only going to become more and more niche over time as the fandom grows and changes.

And about two or three decades from now, new fans aren’t likely to be encouraged to watch it when there are various other sequels to Z starting with Super to get through, even before you take supplementary material like the movies and video games into consideration than only people looking to go hardcore will want to look up.

However Super is viewed in the future, it seems highly likely to me that it’s going to be held in at least higher regard by a significant portion of the people who are really into Dragon Ball over the next few decades if only because it was the necessary flint that sparked the era of new content more ambitious than the occasional OVA we’d been getting every few years before Battle of Gods came out.

Heck, even in terms of content, I think people in the fandom are going to look back on Super more fondly than GT because it gives people more stuff that appeals to them.

Think about it, Super has given us a plethora of popular characters. Beerus and Whis and Jaco are holdovers from the movies sure, but the former two are easily more popular than literally any character to come out of GT.

And in Super itself? We have huge fan favourites like Hit, Caulifla, Vados, and various characters from the universe Survival Saga. Super arguably has introduced a lot more popular characters than GT did, which included… uh… Baby, Nuova Shenron and maybe Omega Shenron to those who don’t find him unremarkable.

And be honest… unless you intentionally go looking for it, when was the last time you really saw fanart or anything about Baby or Nuova Shenron floating around here? Now when was the last time you saw stuff for Frieza, Cell, Beerus or Broly?

There’s probably a big gap there. Sure is for me.

And Super did a lot more for the supporting cast too. Krillin and Gohan got their own character arcs, Android 18 was a highlight in the Tournament of Power and saw the most action she’s seen in any series (Plus a ton of extra insight into her and Krillin’s relationship and great shipping moments, plus new interactions with her brother and other characters). Frieza may have hit a rough spot with the RF saga, but the Universe Survival Saga showed him at his very best and made the fandom fall in love with his character all over again.

And Android 17? He went from being the least appreciated of the trio of him, 18 and Android 16 to being a huge fandom darling and is regularly agreed to be the MVP of the universe survival saga, if not Super PERIOD.

I could go on too, because for all it’s missteps, Super actually did go out of it’s way to do things with the characters and expand the universe in various ways, leaving tons of potential for new stories for years to come in it’s wake…

GT though? Let’s be honest, the most popular thing to come out of that was super Saiyan 4. And while I love that form… in the grand scheme of things, transformations are actually one of the least important things about the Dragon ball series, so that right there is a sign that somethings off there.

GT really is designed to be a series that appeals to certain subgroups of fans, and feels alienating to many others. It starts off with an arc that jettisons the majority of the cast in favour of a trio featuring Goku reduced to a kid again, a grown up Trunks, and Pan… who’s portrayed as an annoying brat who’s more of a detriment to the group than anything. Plus a cute robot sidekick to boot, and they all go on boring space adventures for a while.

It has all of one arc that’s all around good (…mostly…), followed up by what’s almost unanimously considered a trainwreck of a mini-arc that, as I’ve said before, looks worse than ever in light of Super due to it’s mishandling of Android 17′s character and the past villains, in comparison to how 17 and Frieza were handled in Super’s last arc. And then we get a final arc that had an awesome premise that devolved into a huge mess due to poor writing and most of the villains being annoying, underwhelming monsters of the week and the final boss being very unsatisfying, capped off by an ending that’s always been wildly divisive.

I’m not going to say that GT, as a what-if spin-off like it currently is, was a complete flop. But it’s definitely a series that I think takes a certain kind of fan to appreciate, whereas I think that Super, for all it’s own faults, in general is a show that captures a lot more of what gave the previous series their wider appeal and generally gives more people what they want.

Not everyone of course… but unlike GT, which really isn’t going to have any continuations anytime soon to do any course corrections or make up for any lost potential, a lot of Super’s missed opportunities can easily be made up by whatever series and movies come after it.

In general I just think that Super has more stuff that a wider group of people are going to be inclined to want to come back to.

Heck, on that note, a lot of people only like GT because it’s pretty much their only resource for Next Gen, post EoZ official Dragon Ball content. People starved for content about Uub, Pan, Bulla, Marron etc especially still use their GT designs as a basis for aged up fan art, and a lot of people who are fans of said character look to GT because outside of a few video games, they don’t have a lot of content for them.

I guarantee you though the minute a new series is made someday set past EoZ again which does more with those characters or otherwise portrays them better than GT did, those holdovers will gladly jump ship, because who in their right mind is going to buy bread crumbs from a shady street vendor when that new bakery across the street is giving away whole loafs?

I could really go on and on talking about this subject, because I actually find this interesting to discuss and speculate on, but it’s getting late and this is getting ridiculously long, so I’m just going to leave it here for now and give you my conclusion.

Yes. I think for most people, Super will be remembered more fondly than GT in the long run. Whether Super will be viewed particularly well in of itself years from now is another matter entirely, it’s probably always going to be a big base breaker at the very least. But on the whole… regardless of how you feel about the two series, I think it’s safe to say it has the advantage.

#dragon ball super #dbs #dragon ball gt #dragon ball #dragon ball z #dbz #dbgt

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