#I love seeing everyone’s designs for Jj’s character! it seems like a lot of us have done a green dinosaur 🦖

[sshaw0l]

Happy 16th Anniversary to SHINee!!! 🎉🩵

Birthday cake, smiles and sparkles all round✨

SHINeeWorld, you are so so special to me - my wonderful familee 🩷💎

[behindyourbarrette]

like you a latte - matcha latte

← previous | series masterlist | join my taglist | next part ->

pairing: spencer reid x fem reader

a/n: SURPRISE i felt like dropping this a DAY early!!lololololol but here it is! i appreciate the love on the last two parts so so soooo much :) can’t beliEVE WE ARE HALFWAY DONE!! reblog if u enjoyed

—

Needless to say, Twilight Time isn’t very crowded on Thursday afternoons. 

You rarely pick up closing shifts anymore—for reasons totally unrelated to the doctor who almost exclusively arrives in the morning—but you’re covering for Sally, and it’s a nice day out. The rain has let up in favor of mild weather, the sun just barely peeking through the clouds as people drift past the shop. Despite the fact that there’s more foot traffic on the street, not many people come in to order. You don’t blame them. Why have hot coffee on a day like this?

Your back is turned when you hear a group enter, and your heart soars at the prospect of tips. For whatever reason, most people are more inclined to tip when they know their friends are watching. You call out to let them know you’ll be right with them, and after you’re done fidgeting with the settings of the coffee grinder, you turn. 

It’s Spencer. But he’s not alone.

There are a total of four people before you, each intimidating you in slightly different ways. They’re all agents, as evidenced by their not-so-concealed carries. You recognize a few of the characters. Spencer’s told you about JJ, who you assume to be the friendly blonde, and Penelope, who is a vision in fuchsia. That leaves Emily, who’s whispering to JJ, eyes fixed on you. You try to absorb the sight, them together. Spencer looks at ease, a wide smile on his face as he looks between you and the group.

“Hey, Spencer. These your coworkers?” You crack a nervous smile, knitting your fingers together. He nods, introducing them each in turn. JJ grins in your direction, and Penelope waves at you with a fingerlessly-gloved hand. Emily reaches across the bar to shake your hand. You get the sense that there’s something Spencer hasn’t told you.

“What can I get you guys?”

Spencer shrugs, defaulting to JJ and Emily. Penelope pipes up, eyes bright as she peers at the menu above you.

“Do you have matcha, sweetheart? I’ve been meaning to try that. It’s great for your skin.” You nod, pulling a cup out and inscribing Penelope’s name on it. JJ and Emily both order americanos, exchanging a sheepish grin. After setting their cups aside, you turn to Spencer.

“Genius, you should really try the matcha. It’ll give you brain power. Not that you need any more.” Penelope does jazz hands to emphasize her excitement, and Spencer shrugs. You watch them interact for a moment before you realize he’s turned to you for your approval.

“Oh. I really like matcha. It’s green tea, and a matcha latte tastes light and sweet. I think you’d like it.” He nods, and orders it hot. Penelope orders iced; you smile as you consider that they compliment each other, eventually turning away to prepare everyone’s drinks. They’re all relatively simple, and you manage to include latte art in the hot drinks. Spencer’s is last, and you flick your wrist to finish the design. Crossing the bar, you hand each agent their drink in turn. 

Penelope sips at her drink first, the bright green matching one of her rings perfectly. Spencer eyes his dubiously, poking at it with a wooden stirring stick. 

“It’s very green.” He whispers to Penelope, who cackles in response. 

JJ catches your eye as you watch, lingering between the bar and their seats. With a smile, she waves you over. 

“You’ve totally ruined other coffee for Spence. We had to come try it for ourselves.” She whispers, leaning down. You aren’t sure how to feel about her tone; there’s a glint of something in her eye, something playfully secretive. You’re not sure what part of this you’re not in on.The idea of Spencer mentioning you at all is foreign—sure, you’ve told your roommates, and your coworkers found out that you do, in fact, have a favorite regular. Still, you never considered the idea that you bleed into other parts of his life. You steal a glance at him while JJ compliments her americano. He’s sipping at his matcha, a green mustache left behind. 

“You have a magic touch, Y/N. I don’t think I’ve ever had coffee this good in the states.” Emily flashes you a grin as if she can sense your nervousness. You relax a little, asking her about her work abroad instead of getting lost in your head. She strikes you as a diplomat, and a compliment from her feels like something to be savored. Penelope raves to you about the health benefits of matcha, and you immediately feel welcomed by her. If you were to run a study comparing the approachability between pink polka dots and pantsuits, you're sure that polka dots would win.

“Are you an agent, too?” You ask, stirring your own iced coffee with a straw. Eyeing the clock, you’ve decided that this counts as your break. Tyler be damned. Penelope giggles, shaking her head.

“Oh God no. Well, technically. I’m a technical analyst, so I work on the computer and tech end of things.” She explains, and you nod. It makes a lot of sense. While both JJ and Emily exude the energy of most cops—authoritative, with a critical eye—Garcia does’t fit that mold. It’s this that draws you to her.

You learn that JJ has a son named Henry, a surprisingly Southern boyfriend to match, and that Emily has a cat named Sergio. Despite their highbrow titles, you don’t feel out of place. It’s easy to sip at your coffee, the cup cool against your fingertips, and listen.

“Are you in school? Spence mentioned that you majored in literature.” JJ sets her cup down, flexing her fingers against the air. You feel yourself flush now that the attention is on you. The fact that he chose this detail to divulge sticks between your ribs. You haven't told him much about your work—he insisted on reading your thesis, and even reread the source material to better discuss it with you—but apparently, what you have discussed has made an impression.

“Yeah, actually. I’m in my second year of law school.” You admit. Emily nods in approval, reaching out to high five you.

“Damn. With all the assholes you deal with in customer service, you’ll make a great attorney.” You high five her with a small smile on your face, stealing a glance at Spencer. He seems elated, clearly enjoying the dynamic he’s observing.

“Do you want to go into criminal law?”

JJ asks, eyes wide with curiosity. You shake your head ruefully. They take it well, shrugging their shoulders. To their credit, their branch of law enforcement deals with the process prior to prosecution. You shudder at the idea of what happens after they catch the bad guys.

“No, not really. I’m looking at either the entertainment or environmental sector.”

The group murmurs, and the conversation devolves into small talk about law. You look to Spencer for an escape, and he suggests that they take a walk. Once the girls have trickled out of the room, each hugging you goodbye, you’re left alone with Spencer.

“Hey.”

You laugh at the simplicity of his greeting, turning to toss your empty coffee cup into the trash. Spencer flushes a deep shade of red, raking his hands through his hair.

“Your friends aren’t how I expected. Really cool, though. Especially for like, Quantico professionals.” You wipe the counter down, and the reality that you’re on the clock hits you, a little dizzily. Did his coworkers really just want to meet Spencer’s barista? The realization tastes a little bitter, and you bite back any further questioning in favor of looking up at him.

“Yeah. They’re like family.” He looks out the window, hands deep in his pockets. His whole demeanor is stiff, and you resist the urge to reach out and force his shoulders down from his ears.

“Did you like the matcha? I wasn’t sure you would. I used the oat milk you like.” Slowly, he relaxes. With a small smile, he nods.

“It was good. I like most teas, I’m finding. It wasn’t too sweet.” You add matcha to the mental list you keep, of drinks he likes. It’s become your mission to expand it. In the months since he started branching out, you’ve managed to add a few drinks to his core rotation. 

“You know you’re one of my friends too, right?”

This catches you off guard. You pause in the motion of sweeping the floor, carefully raising your eyes to meet his. While nervous, he sounds sincere. When met with your silence, he continues.

“I just wanted you to know.” 

You nod carefully. The implications of this are something you’ll consider later, when you’re alone. He’s only confirming something you’ve already known, but something about it stings. The word crosses your mind briefly, but it sticks. It’s bittersweet.

“I know.” Your voice is low, soft against the din of the coffee shop. Spencer doesn’t look satisfied, opening his mouth to say something then closing it again. He glances between you and the window.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

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[caitsyoi]

I made a post about the Seraphites, so now I want to make one about the WLF. This post is mostly about the WLF's home base, aka the stadium and the area immediately around it. I've included some of my favorite pictures, and my thoughts and observations about where they live and their culture.

Under the cut again to keep things nice and clean.

I gotta say, this blew my mind when I first saw this as Abby. The WLF really have their shit together. Multiple power sources, a bunch of the resources FEDRA left behind, and multiple food sources. The field has cattle, sheep, and chickens plus some farming. On the steps they have even more areas for farming. They have a way to collect water, and even people to design and string up their logo everywhere.

It makes sense, supposedly thousands of people live here (you can't see it unless except via glitch, but there is also baseball stadium immediately next to this that they might also occupy).

We only see where Abby and other soldiers (perhaps squad leaders?) live. They have a pretty cushy life, two per luxury box (the rooms NFL teams overcharge for that run along the upper level of stadiums). Mel also mentions a special area for young families, I wouldn't be surprised if these areas were further divided. Perhaps there is also housing for larger families and single people who aren't soldiers or squad leaders. I very much wonder if those who join the military get better housing than those that work as farmers (or dishwashers, teachers, laundry washers, cooks, etc.). As mentioned earlier, Abby and Manny live in a luxury box, and there are 112 of those in the stadium this is based on. That's housing for 224 people, if they all live like the people in Abby's hallway. That would mean there has to be more housing in other parts of the stadium.

This stadium was once used by FEDRA, and you can see the concrete barriers they left behind along the edge of the field. They have to have more cattle than this, to feed all the people that supposedly live under the WLF. There is farmland around the stadium (more on that later), so maybe they mostly let them graze out there, then move some in when they plan on slaughtering them soon.

I love that they have wind turbines AND solar panels. You can see the influence that the Fireflies had on Issac and the WLF, they really focus on stability and restoring what was lost (at least when it comes to comfort). So they have electricity, sustainable food sources (and multiple kinds too), and a way to collect water (you can't see it in this shot, but they use a system similar to Jackson's, just on a much wider scale).

They teach a curriculum similar to what was taught to kids before the outbreak. We only see two classrooms, but from what I can tell they try to give the gives the type of education they could have received in the old days (as best they can, at least). Both the teachers you see are pretty young, which makes me wonder who taught them.

Most of the kinds you see in class are pretty young, like less than 10. These look a little order (they are outside the stadium in the market area, which I will talk about more a little later). I wonder how long WLF children are required to attend school (I think I saw a sign for 1st through 6th grade, so at least that?). I imagine they get a basic education with some broad looks into various topics, and maybe the ones most apt for study are selected to do specialized careers like teaching or meteorology. Other children are probably pushed into farming or the military portion of the WLF. Regardless of what they study, they probably also get a heavy dose of WLF propaganda. That aligns with how gung-ho many of them are to fight.

I wonder if military service is compulsory, like everyone has has to do at least so much time and then they can do other things if they want. Or maybe they make it so you don't have to fight if you don't want to, but those that do get better perks.

Most of the WLF you see appear to be in their 20's or 30's, or at least the fighters. That would mean they have spent most (if not all) of their lives under military rule, and they would have a special allegiance to the WLF since they manage things so much better than FEDRA did. Plus, you know, all that propaganda. I imagine they are told a lot about how the WLF is restoring society and how the WLF saved them from FEDRA/Scars/infected.

Sorta related, I thought of an WLF AU. Ellie grows up in Seattle under the WLF, perhaps with Riley and Dina and the other characters from canon. So many interesting things can be done with this, but that's for another post maybe.

This is one the cafeteria's the WLF use. I believe this is one of a few, although this is the only one you see. There is also a butcher and small market for clothing and items here too. They prepare food here, but I think the majority of cooking is done in an area set up for it in the stands.

They have posted meal times for groups A-F, and separate meal times for children and the late night patrol. So maybe this is the only cafeteria? Each end is blocked off, so maybe they use some of the corridor that circles the stadium for more living quarters.

This is also community space where they can play games, chat, or read. There also seems to be a mix of soldiers and other workers eating together, as well as young families (there is at least 1 or 2 women with young babies in here).

This little detail was super cute to me, but it also tells you a lot about WLF society. Everyone has a job to do, there is a role and place for everyone to contribute.

I'll talk more about this in another post (titled "It's Silly to Call a Post-apocalyptic Group 'Fascists', but Still the WLF Is Pretty Messed Up"), but an important thing to remember about the WLF is that everything comes down to Issac. He has the final say on everything, he makes all the major decisions, he picks squad leaders, he decides who needs to be punished, he's basically the Supreme Leader. Issac has been shown to be somewhat progressive with some things (you can follow whatever religion you want or none at all in the WLF, the WLF has no problem with LGBTQ people, you can get medical waivers for military duty, they provide support for pregnant women and parents, etc.), and in other ways he is very much the opposite (he punishes anyone who disagrees with him - this could be a relatively light punishment of a crappy assignment or it could be a beating, then there's the whole attempted genocide thing). Anyway, my point is that there are good things about the WLF, but also there is a serious darkside.

Anyway, when I saw this lady and her baby I immediately thought of Dina doing this with JJ while she gardens.

I absolutely loveeeee this little detail. A mural for the fallen. This really reminds me of some stuff you could see today, just replace the wolf with an eagle and make the uniforms camo.

There are 46ish names on this wall, so I wonder if it is continuously updated or if there are multiple murals, because they definitely have lost more people than that over the years. Also, there are about 150 people at the FOB (the amount of bodies at the FOB, yes I counted) that will need to be added. Maybe the war with the Seraphites just really exploded in the last few weeks (or maybe longer) leading up to Ellie's arrival.

I love that you can pause during the ride with Abby, Mel, and Manny to look around the outside of the stadium. Immediately outside there are train tracks and what appears to be a large market running along side of it. This is on the west side of the stadium, I believe. A major highway intersection is also nearby.

The market has all sorts of goods, food, gas, clothing, cleaning products, TVs and other electronics, records, and even more. I wonder if this is some sort of intake area for any goods they bring back to the base. But who runs these little shops? From some notes you can find we know their economy runs on trade, so how does this work?

Once you get past the market area, you see a pretty vast section of farmland. I loved this shot because it also shows one of their rain water storage areas. They mark this water as to be used only for irrigation, so they must use something else for people to drink and bathe with. Or maybe they just filter some water for people to use, and the rest goes to the plants.

In the background you can see the wall and a guard tower. There is a larger wall (like much larger, I'm talking maybe 5 stories) around the QZ, and a smaller one that runs around the stadium.

This is labeled "Checkpoint #4", so I'm not sure if that means there are other gates, but this is the only one we see in game.

The wall is pretty thick, and you can see these guard towers spaced out all alongside it (much like in Jackson). Once you leave the walls you are immediately surrounded by the wasteland that is post-apocalyptic Seattle.

[imagining-in-the-margins]

Hi! You often give alot of insight into anons like this and your my fave CM blog so that's why I'm here! So I'm finishing up the last seasons (and lord it is hard to get through) and they just introduced Max and I cannot stand her. She was just so rude and it felt like she had 2 different personalities the entire time she was on screen. And I worried that this meant I was like hating women because I don't like other female characters like Maeve, JJ, Hailey, and Seaver. But then I started thinking and I honestly think it's cause these Characters are women poorly written by men. But then I wondered how they created likeable Characters like Emily, Kristy, Blake, Tara, and Penelope (leaving out others like Savannah because they're under developed in my opinion) I don't know what's the difference in the writing for these Characters or of there isn't any at all and I'm just being hateful in a way. What are your thoughts?

Ah, I think about this a lot. Thank you for thinking I’m interesting enough to answer this, also!

I think you’ve really hit the nail on the head with the writers doing a poor job at most of their female characters. However, I think it’s possible (and very common in this fandom) for people to dislike any character Spencer showed an interest in, which is also problematic and rooted in internalized misogyny. To me, it all comes down to why you dislike the characters.

(A LOT More Below - Bit of a Rant)

The first step I took when reflecting to see if this was my problem was rewatching and seeing which female characters I loved. Along with the ones you listed, I also found a number of side characters I greatly enjoyed, including Lila, Austin, Dr. Linda Kamura (from Amplification, the anthrax episode), Einstein, Megan Kane, and a few other random case characters. So, right off the bat I found multiple characters who Spencer showed an affinity for. I also greatly enjoyed Cat’s character, although I found her to be underdeveloped in canon (Fanon has done a good job, IMO) and often contradictory in her character design.

If you didn’t like any of these women, and your reason is related purely to Spencer’s reactions to them, chances are you might be suffering from a bit of jealousy rather than improper character design - not that you need to like them all (or the ones that I like), but because they are all very different. You should, theoretically, find something to enjoy about at least one of them.

But the CM Writers have a TERRIBLE habit of writing women that are easy to hate.

There’s a bunch of controversy I see over Haley Hotchner, but the truth is that they wrote her to be hated. That was her sole purpose. Her character’s decisions were poorly thought out and she was shown to be malicious 80% of the time. This was intentional. She was written to personify the trope of the nagging housewife. If you dislike her, you have done nothing but follow the narrative.

That being said, you should also criticize why they wrote her this way. Because it didn’t make any sense. She married a prosecutor - a dangerous, time consuming job. She had Jack when she knew he was with the BAU. Why did she randomly change her tune? Why did she suddenly demand he gives up on his dreams that she was fully aware of for years? I’d argue they wrote it like this to further the narrative of “the wife who traps you with a child to force you to do what she wants” which is garbage writing. I wish people could look at the potential she had if they hadn’t written her like... that.

Maeve, I find, is problematic on multiple aspects and I’ve talked about it before. Her narrative was poorly thought out because as soon as they pitched the idea of a long-term love interest for Spencer, everyone (most notably Gubler) rejected it. They didn’t think it was necessary for his character, who already had a lot going on with the ignored plot lines of his drug addiction and mother.

There were multiple problems associated with her character that were never addressed. The fact she essentially just took advantage of a patient because she was bored, she seemed to “correct” his interests and show annoyance when he disagreed with her, she lied about having a fiance, she was shown to be considering breaking up with him... there’s a lot.

Her character is poorly written. It had a lot of potential, but they just kind of stopped caring once they decided to kill her off. She had more faults shown on screen than redeeming qualities. For many, they liked her because they see there was a potential that we’ll never see (fair). But for people like me, we interpret it as a idealized fantasy of what could have (but probably wouldn’t have) been, which is not healthy for Spencer.

JJ is an interesting character because you can feel the constant struggle between AJ Cook and the writers. They really sabotaged JJ at every step of the way. I’ll be honest and say that I think there are some reasons to hate JJ, but they aren’t the reasons I see most often. Almost all of the JJ hate I see is surrounding the idea that JJ is an evil, manipulative, jealous bitch. But.. she’s not. Even in Truth or Dare, when she pulls that asshole move that was wildly OOC for JJ (in my opinion), she isn’t shown to be jealous or cruel about it.

I think she’s the most likely target for people who’s hatred is driven from jealousy or disliking conventionally attractive women and assuming them to be bitchy by nature of looking “beautiful.” I think Lila Archer* also falls into this category.

But as I said, JJ was also written with a lot of flaws. I think it’s fair if you don’t like her character or the way she treats Spencer, but I also hope that you similarly criticize the whole team in the same way, and don’t just pity Spencer because he is smol uwu babie who needs protection.

(* Yet another reminder that I ask everyone to not message me about J Depp or Amber Heard. Reactive Abuse is an extreme trigger for me and I will block you if you try to get me to talk about it)

Seaver got a lot of hate based off one line of dialogue. I think it was a bad line. If they had left it out, there would be essentially no reason in my mind to dislike Seaver. I used to dislike her a lot, but the more I rewatch the show, the less she bothers me. She was just a young student who wanted to learn about her father/herself. She was MASSIVELY underdeveloped because they kicked her off just as quickly as they invited her in.

NO character was developed that quickly. Her scenes were a bit cringey and the plotlines were bad, and her character was mediocre. I don’t think she deserves the hate she gets. She is a lukewarm character.

I hate everything Max’s character represents. She was introduced to show that Spencer could be trained to be “normal” and it’s anti-autistic bullshit. She had no personality besides “I hate my low-brow job as a teacher and couldn’t be fucked to change it until a man told me I was smart.” She was cracking high-school-clique jokes while her family was about to be murdered. She immediately abandoned said family to make out with her boyfriend who just admitted to enjoying kissing the woman who tried to murder her family.

Her character makes absolutely zero sense. I do not understand how she is so liked. I really don’t (other than the fact that RLC is absolutely wonderful).

If they had left her character out, I think we would have been better off for it. We could have seen Spencer wrestle with defining himself by the women in his life and learning to love himself (without just replacing those women with... another... woman...)

That being said, those who cling to Max for hope of a happy ending for Spencer... I felt that. Fanon and fanfic can solve all character deficiencies. I believe in you.

So, yeah. I’d say if you’re worried about why you dislike women characters, you’re probably on the right path. I’d just reflect on why you dislike the characters you do and whether they are written as misogynistic stereotypes. It makes complete sense to reject characters written for the purpose of making you hate them, but we should all pour one out for the brilliant actresses that had characters with so much potential if not for men ruining it.

[mayraki]

CHAPTER THREE

“community service can suck my dick”

CHAPTER TWO

SERIES MASTERLIST

MY MASTERLIST

who is max belinsky?

concept boards for the new characters

summary: Max Belinsky and JJ Maybank are the two troublemakers of Outer Banks. Going to parties, getting into trouble, having an attitude and being the two people you don’t mess with are the perfect ways to describe them. What would happen when the two people who seem to have trouble follow them around meet? One thing is fore sure, they didn’t expect this outcome.

“It was not like that Fred!” Max yelled for the third time on the conversation with her big brother.

“And what? What was it then? Max! You brought a guy home with our little brother on the house!” Fred said.

After Cody accidentally talked about JJ and how he wanted to go surfing with him, the conversation took a turn and Fred ended up finding out that he was at the house the night before. He didn’t like it not even a little bit, even if Max told him the truth multiple times.

��So, let me get this straight, you bring home the guy that almost got into a fight at a party and is doing community service with you? Great taste in men that you have Max!” Fred said sarcastically.

“Oh! And you have the greatest taste of all time! Have you forgotten about the annoying Alice?! Oh, no! Baby girl that’s not how girls dress! Fred! Would you like to take me shopping?! I need a driver! Girls don’t curse!” Max was saying with a high pitch voice and moving her hands dramatically, pretending to be Fred’s ex-girlfriend.

“That’s not my point!” Fred shouted.

“Yeah, I know! Mine either! Because I didn’t brought JJ here for the reason that you dirty mind thinks! Nothing happened!”

“It better!” Fred said pointing at Max.

“Don’t point your dirty finger at me.” She grabbed the tip of his finger and quickly moved it backwards.

Fred let out a big sigh after Max walked away to put on her shoes. A fight between these two was common, since he had to be the head of the house meant having Max and Cody on their best behaviour, but with Max’s attitude was difficult not ending the conversation with a fight. Of course, that didn’t mean they didn’t love each other or that they didn’t had a good relationship, but sometimes it was their opposite personalities that would cause a huge fight.

“I have to go, I’ll come home late tonight.” Max said dryly. Fred nodded while following her sister with his eyes. Once she was on the door, she stopped and turned around, locking eyes with her big brother. “I love you.”

He let out a little smile. “I love you too, Maggie.”

“There she is!” JJ said when they both arrived at the beach at the same time.

“Hi Maybank.”

“Hi princess.” He said with a smile. Max looked at him with the ‘seriously?’ expression but JJ shook his head not regretting it at all. “C’mon, I know deep down you like it.”

“No, all I’m feeling right now is that I want to punch you. It’s too early for this shit.”

“C’mon! It’s a beautiful morning, the sun is shining and I have..” he pointed at his boot. “For later.” Max understood what he was saying and immediately shook her head disgusted.

“Believe me, I’ll never smoke one that came from your boot.”

JJ shrugged his shoulders. “Your loss.”

“It’s not much of a loss, JJ.” JJ winked at her but she just rolled her eyes, tired of the conversation.

“Maybank. Belinsky.” They both turned they heads to the left to see Officer Johnson standing up with his uniform and a cup of coffee on his hand. “Are you two ready?”

“Yes, sr!” They both said at the same time and then looked at each other surprise by the coincidence.

“This is my worst nightmare.” Johnson said before walking closer to the shore.

“JJ! Stop throwing trash to my designated area!” Max said once she saw a new piece of paper on the area she cleaned more than two times. She would move on and then later find another piece trash and a JJ trying to hold his laughter. “Dickhead!”

“Belinsky! Language!” Johnson said, but when he looked back at his phone Max flipped JJ off.

“Real mature of you!” He yelled before letting out a loud laugh.

Max turned around to try calm herself and not get into more trouble with Johnson, when she saw two preteens walking next to the shore. Her eyes went wide open when she recognised her little brother and some girl, they were walking pretty closely and he was making her laugh a lot.

“JJ!” Max whispered after ‘calmly’ walking towards JJ.

“I didn’t throw anything this time, don’t kill me.” He said but Max quickly shook her head. She walked next to JJ and pretended to be looking trash with her little stick, to not caught Johnson’s attention. “What are you doing?”

“See those people next to the shore back there?” She asked pointing with her head to where Cody was. JJ looked back and nodded.

“Is that your brother?” He asked and Max quickly nodded.

“He’s with a girl!”

“So?” He asked confused.

“What do you mean so? He’s in a date! The beach, the walk under the sun, they’re very close!”

“So what? He’s in the age of starting to go and like girls more than ever, you know, horm-”

“Oh, don’t even say it...” Max complained. “He’s my little brother!”

“Yes, and it’s not cool when your big sis interrupts a date, is it?” JJ started. He grabbed Max’s arm and walked her to the other side. “Now, we’re going to continue with what we’re doing because the asshole back there,” JJ pointed with his head at Johnson “is already starting to think a new way of ruining our lives, so, go back to your designated area, so we can leave as soon as possible, princess”

JJ was expecting for her to say something about the ‘princess’ nickname, but instead, she didn’t say anything, she was trying to get the idea of her little brother with a girlfriend out of her head.

Max didn’t realized how much time had passed since she put on her headphones and started to pick up the trash from the beach. She looked over to JJ and he looked bored as ever, Johnson was looking to his phone and that’s when an idea came into Max’s mind.

She punctured a peace of paper that was on the sand with her little stick and walked closer to the shore, she then paused the music but kept the headphones on her ears. JJ was trying to punctured a cup into his stick but was struggling because of it’s thickness, that’s when Max walked closer to him and waived her hand to caught his attention, she pointed at her eyes and then mouthed ‘watch this’ at him. He nodded confused but didn’t say anything, since Johnson looked up from his phone once Max started to walk away.

“Hey! Belinsky!” Johnson said walking closer to Max, she took the opportunity and started to ran farther away. “Belinsky! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” He started to run after her and JJ let out a loud laugh when he saw Johnson struggling by keeping up with Max. “Belinsky! Stop right now!”

Max thought that it was enough since she heard Johnson running out of breath. She stopped and quickly turned around. “Sr?” She took off her headphones and looked at the Officer confused. “Are you alright?” She asked innocently.

“Why were you running?!” He asked trying to get his breathing back to normal.

Max lifted his stick and showed the piece of paper stuck to it. “The wind blew it away...” she shrugged her shoulders and then walked back to where JJ was, trying to control his laughter.

“Oh my god! His face was hilarious!” JJ said between laughs. “When he realized that you started to run was priceless!”

After finishing with the hours of community service for the day, JJ talked Max into walking to Kie’s restaurant, The Wreck, he was sure his friends were going to be there and he wanted to tell them the funny anecdote. That’s when Max thought that she hadn’t seen Sam all day, so she texted her and told her to meet her there.

JJ introduced Max to John B and Pope, they both looked like most Pogues around Outer Banks. John B was rocking an open shirt and Max liked that outfit, he seemed like the guy who would always be up for an adventure. Then it was Pope, who Max immediately recognised him as the brain of the group. He started to talk about his future and what he wanted to do. Kie was also there, trying to keep everyone on their best behaviour since it was her family’s restaurant and she didn’t want any mess. But then she calmed down when Sam and her started to talk about some documentary about turtles they were both watching.

After a while, Sarah Cameron walked into the restaurant. Max immediately recognised her since she cleaned the Cameron’s pool a while back. Sarah was the only one who would check on her on those hot days and offer her some water. She then added her to the list of ‘Kooks I don’t hate’, wich only had two names in it: Kie and Sarah.

“So... you two are dating?” Max asked pointing at Sarah and then at John B. They both nodded and Max just stayed in silence for a little while. “Huh.”

“My words exactly.” Kie said. “Hey! I almost forgot! Are we doing the competition this year?”

They guys shook their head simultaneously.

“No can do, you’re invited this year, remember? It’s not fair.” John B said.

“But it’s so fun, c’mon guys!” Kie complained but the guys still shook their heads.

“What competition?” Sam asked and Kie turned to her.

“We have this thing... every year the Kooks have this fancy party, it’s less fancy than the midsummer, but the Kooks still love it.”

“Them and their privilege ass.” JJ complained.

“We made this two years ago.” Kie continued ignoring JJ’s comment. “The team who can steal the most alcohol from their party without being caught, wins... Wait a minute, Sam and Max can do it! They can go against you guys!”

Pope shook his head. “Count me out, my dad’s making me work at the party with him.”

“That’s even better, now the teams are even, two against two.”

Max turned her head to Sam and a little smile appeared on Max’s face when her friend nodded with a smirk. “Count us in.”

“This is going to be fun.” Sarah said looking at John B, who gave a little nod to JJ.

“Are you sure you want to go against us?” JJ asked.

“You clearly don’t know us very well.” Max shook her head.

“Alright then, may the best team win, Belinsky.”

“Bring it on, Maybank.”

CHAPTER FOUR

chapter 3 is here! I would love to know what you guys think of the story so far! sending you all the love and thank you for reading❤️

TAGLIST

@iamaunicorn4704 @onceinagenerationrage @lasnaro @k-k0129 @x-lulu @oopsiedoopsie23 @baby-pogue @roamingmarauder @ponyboys-sunsets @agirlwholovescoffee @thorsangel @sunflowerbabe81 @scandalousfemale @deviouscharitos @badbitsh13 @thehomeiknow @cilorawr

if your username it’s like this for some reason I couldn’t tag you, I’m sorry :(

[uncloseted]

what a levels did the skins characters take?

Generation 1

In gen 1, all the characters take an A-level in psychology, which we know because they're in Angie's psychology class. Sid, Jal, Maxxie, Anwar, and Chris take history with Tom. Jal and Michelle take Spanish, and Michelle also takes French. Anwar, Maxxie, and Sid take Drama. Chris and some combination of Sid, Michelle, Anwar, and Jal also take Biology in their first year, since Chris uses it as an excuse for why Tony can't come over.

We actually don't get a great idea of what subjects Tony took other than Psychology. Based on his reading habits, I would guess some combination of these subjects: Philosophy, Ancient History, Classic Civilization or Classical Studies, Economics, Government and Politics, and Law. He got A, A, A, B and goes to Cardiff University.

Sid took Psychology, History, and Drama, and in the first episode it's also mentioned that he has Sociology as a class, which it seems like he may have dropped after the first year. He got B, C, C and goes to New York to find Cassie.

Maxxie took Psychology, History, and Drama, and then dropped one after the first year. He got B, E and moves to London to be a dancer.

Jal took Psychology, Spanish, and Music. She got A, A, C, with the C being in Spanish.

Michelle took Psychology, French, and Spanish. She got B, A, A and goes to York. Presumably her B is in Psychology, as Michelle is said to have a "head for languages".

Anwar took Psychology, History, and Drama. He also has a book called "A Level Business Studies" in Jal's series 2 episode, so he dropped one of his classes after the first year. He got E, E, U.

Cassie takes Psychology and Philosophy at minimum, and possibly also Drama. We never find out Cassie’s grades, although I think she got an A on her philosophy A-level.

Chris got expelled before he could take his A-Levels, but before that happened he was at least taking Biology, Psychology and History, and possibly also Drama (as he says "Drama teachers man. 'Pretend to be a tree,' 'But I'm not a tree.' 'Well pretend.' Fucking perverts, the lot of'em.")

Generation 2

In gen 2, everyone takes English Literature with Josie.

JJ took English Literature, and presumably also Math and Physics. He got A, A, B.

Naomi takes English Literature and Politics. Maybe her third A-level is in law? She got A, A, A.

Emily took English Literature and presumably also History, since she could take Katie's history exam for her in series 3. I'm not sure what her other class might be. Maybe photography, since that's what she ends up doing in Fire? She got B, B, C.

Pandora got a C in philosophy, as well as taking English Literature, some sort of Dance or Performing Arts class, and French (which we see on her A level results). And she also took History, which we know from her Unseen Skins episode and subsequent going to Harvard to study history. She got an A, A*, A*, which I guess are for English Literature, French, and History. Ridiculous.

Katie took English Literature, History, and French (since Thomas helps her with her French in series 4). She got B, C, C.

Freddie definitely took English Literature. Maybe he also took history, since one of his assignment prompts in series 4 is, "the future is history repeating". I'm not sure what the third one would be. Maybe Maths, to be with JJ? Alternatively, I think it would be interesting if his other A-level was in Psychology, given his mother's experience with mental illness. He got A, C, C.

Thomas gleefully says “I got expelled!” when talking about grades (but somehow also got into Harvard). Maybe he took French, since it's a language he already speaks and would be easy for him.

Effy takes Maths, English Literature, and French. She got A, A, A grades, but they’re fake.

Cook doesn’t have grades because he was in jail, but before that he was taking English Literature and perhaps also Politics.

Generation 3

In generation 3, we don't actually hear anyone's grades, so we don't know how many classes any particular character is taking. I'm going to assume it's 3, which is pretty typical.

We know that Alo, Grace, Nick, Rich, Mini, Liv, and Franky all take English Literature. We know that Mini, Franky, and Alo take Geography. Franky, Mini, Liv, and Grace all take "Sports Foundation" as a class, but I can't tell whether that's a class for an A-level (such as Sports Science or Physical Education) or just a school requirement, so I'm going to assume it's a school requirement. Mini, Grace, Liv, and Franky are also involved in designing for the charity fashion show, which makes me think at least Mini is taking Fashion & Textiles, since she's in charge.

Rich gets into Bradbury College to study English Literature and Philosophy, so those were two of his exams. He also takes an exam in History.

We know Grace takes English Literature and Drama, and she seems to also take Dance, given that we see her practicing ballet. I can imagine she probably has a fourth course that's considered appropriately "brainy" for the daughter of Principal Blood. But of course, she doesn't actually sit her A-levels.

Mini takes English Literature and Geography. Maybe she has a third subject in something like Fashion & Textiles.

Franky takes English Literature. In series 6, her study materials indicate that she's also taking Physics and Art History, and she's also in Alo's Geography class. So she seems to be taking 4 A-Levels, which is unusual for a character who doesn't seem particularly academic. I would have guessed her classes would have been more along the lines of Art or Film, given her love of stop motion animation.

Liv is one of the only characters that actually mentions going to uni, but ironically we know the least about her studies. She's not in Alo's Geography class, she's not taking History with Rich, and she wasn't taking Drama with Grace. Like the other characters, she takes English Literature, and she mentions studying for it in series 6. So the other two are total guesses, but maybe Psychology and maybe an Art of some kind?

Nick takes English Literature, and I think we can also assume he took something like Sports Science, Physical Education, or Physical Science.

Matty re-enrolls at Roundview in episode 5 of series 5, but then he's gone from episode 1 to episode 8 of series 6, so we can safely assume he didn't take any exams. It seems from his paperwork that he was at one point taking Geography.

Per his paperwork in series 5, Alo takes four courses: English Literature, Math, and Geography for sure, and the other one I think is Science.

[you-have-made-a-fatal-error]

Could you rank the Nancy Drew games from your least favorite to favorite?? I’d love to know!

ok! in the form of a tier list bc otherwise i’m sitting around arguing w myself about whether i should rank game x at 22 or 23 or 24 etc etc- and that’s just a mess tbh

untouchable tier: scarlet hand and shadow ranch - tbh i enjoy scarlet hand just a little bit more BUT. on the whole. these two - all the elements that make up these games work together to create a whole greater than the disparate parts. and also having a ‘super extra god-tier’ would be dumb. so we have two.

real güd games: ghost dogs, deception island, blue moon canyon, castle malloy (fight 🔪🔪🔪 me), shadow at the water’s edge, alibi in ashes - all build a strong atmosphere but each for whatever reason doesn’t make me see god. alibi in ashes maybe a touch lower than the rest but only just.

(you might have noticed that i have crystal skull straddling tiers 2&3 - look i know that i like it but it has been a long long time since i’ve gone back to it - for no reason really except that it’s not currently installed on my pc and installing it would involve.. you know.. waiting until it’s installed? anyway it’s there bc i don’t trust my memory on this)

tier 3 games i enjoy but know are flawed: og secrets can kill (self-explanatory really), treasure in a royal tower (because honestly i’ve played it so many times the atmosphere doesn’t really build for me anymore, it’s too automatic and too easy to race through now i know how it’s progression works), blackmoor manor (i just - this game has a lot of elements that don’t quite come together nicely for me. some of them are just a bit too much i think. it’s not even that i don’t enjoy them - but maybe silly ghost hunt AND serious gaslighting AND witchy alchemical shit AND a snarky parrot are too much for just one game?? i understand WHY there are huge tonal shifts bc don’t wanna get too dark n scary in what it ultimately a kids game - but they can be. a bit much.), kapu cave (which i tbh kind of love, but i’m not gonna argue it’s top-teir quality - aside from quigley i mean), and trail of the twister (lot of fucking annoying characters, little to no snooping - but i kind of enjoy just about all of the tasks)

‘meh’ teir: haunted carousel, secret of the old clock, danger by design, phantom of venice, captive curse. captive curse could honestly be lower, but thing is anja is by far the most memorable bit and she’s also far and away the best bit? danger by design could maybe be higher, and then i remember it went ‘nazi romance’ with it’s historical backstory? but jj and the catacombs and honestly the vendors and weird minette- but nazi romance. also every time i play it i’m forced to contend with the fact that i absolutely owned heather’s brown-with-pink-pinstripe pants in ~2006 which is not something i like to revisit. haunted carousel, secret of the old clock, and phantom of venice are the games this tier was made for. there are good elements, sure. but there are also elements that are jarring and/or annoying as fuck.

if this tier list was a pass/fail course, this would be the line separating pass from fail.

‘nah bro’ tier / the ‘i could probably split this into several tiers’ tier: stay tuned for danger, message in a haunted mansion, the final scene - all feel weird to me, they don’t really jibe with the rest of the series. they very much yell “we’re still figuring this shit out”. which is fine and neccessary - but not what i’m looking for most of the time. at the time they were made stay tuned for danger and haunted mansion would pass, but we’re not there anymore. icicle creek is, well. honestly it’s ‘meh’ in it’s truest form, even though i called the last teir meh. the characters all kind of suck, tino the douche shows up again, you have to cook at specific times and that’s a bitch and a half. and there’s no big, stand out element that might bump it up a tier. i don’t actually hate fox and geese though. waverly academy is ass honestly, and if i had added a tier below this waverly would be in it. it’s not quite the worst, but ohmygod it seems to hate teen girls - who are also the target audience for the game, which makes it even worse tbh. and all the puzzles are shit. tomb of the lost queen just kinda sucks. i like it marginally better than waverly, and I do enjoy the hierogylph-decoding puzzles even though they’re absolute NONSENSE bc that type of puzzle appeals to me, but the characters are bad hotchkiss is bad the new interface is bad and i can’t use any of the 800 million oil lamps when nancy needs a light. bad. thornton hall and sea of darkness would be in the waverly tier below this one if i had added that extra tier. thornton hall has atmosphere but absolutely fucking nothing else and the writers straight up did not do their jobs, nothing makes any sense at all. the definition of fake deep tbh. but... atmosphere is enough to save it from the ‘utter shit’ tier below. sea of darkness has nothing going for it and then it had the gall to add chrismas bullshit as though it wasn’t a game released in MAY also I oppose the holidays in general, BUT at least they got a new fucking writer. still not great though.

THROW IT IN THE TRASH tier: secrets can kill: remastered - obvious trash. ransom of the seven ships - no suspects, terrible game mechanics, shittier version of loulou who was honestly already skating on thin ice with me - trash. deadly device - deirdre is shitty, the new interface is still bad, i can BARELY interact with the environment, the characters are nonsense, nothing is appealing, everyone has weird stick-thin gumby arms - TRASH. silent spy - TRASH and also NONSENSE, get your spy/international intruigue/terrorism out of my nancy drew game. alibi in ashes is prime nancy is personally involved in a case material, and spy is the fucking anti-ash. TRASH. labyrinth of lies - TRASH and NONSENSE and peak fake-deep nic-era dialogue - hopelessly up its own ass and doesn’t realise it actually has nothing to say. TRASH. shattered medallion - awful fucking nonsense, somehow nancy cares even less about her friends than she did in ransom, nothing means anything and no one has any clue how tv shows work. also, and i feel like this isn’t stressed enough, turns fuckin nancy into the type of person who would appear on a reality tv show. and why is bess even there? why would she be literally anywhere near this tv show production? it’s bad, it’s nonsensical, and it’s TRASH! throw all of these in the garbage, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

...and i left midnight in salem and the two dossiers out of the ranking bc i haven’t played them. (haven’t actually played secrets can kill 2 either but lbr i don’t need to in order to know it has no redeeming qualities)

erm. ta-daa?

[meteor752]

So...I just watched The Rise of Skywalker

And it was...a movie

Now, if you don’t want it spoiled, then don’t click keep reading, because I will immediately start after that.

Got it?

Good

Now that that’s out of the way

THERE IS A CANON LESBIAN COUPLE IN STAR WARS AND THEY SHARED A KISS, I AM DEAD

Sorry I just had to get that out of my system

I am not a movie critic, and for the most part I just enjoy a movie unless it bores me. But I have been saying that I will do this review, and I will, so I will just go over important part by important part.

Good?

Good.

The first scene

This is, hands down, my favorite scene in the movie. The way they introduced Palpatine and that we never really see his face in the scene is really menacing, but still oddly hilarious.

I mean, the man is hanging there quoting himself. He later literally said do it!! I’m surprised he didn’t start to tell the story of Darth plagueise the wise.

Plus, the fact that Kylo doesn’t want to join Palpatine and become his apprentice, but just kill him, is really cool to me. It shows a little different side of his character, that he wants to be his own and not just the next Vader.

Also, after Palpatine saying “I created Snoke”, there’s a blink and you’ll miss it moment of a deformed looking Snoke in a cubicle, so that’s that character's backstory. He was a failed clone all along!

Poe, Finn, Chewie & the Spy

The start of this scene is just pure fluff between our dear space husbands and their mom’s, husband's dog.

The revelation of the spy was cool, but I kinda immediately guessed that it would be either Hux or Phasma.

I really liked the chase scene, plus the banter between the characters. Character interaction is a thing I love in franchises, and this movie does a good job with it

Master Leia

I LIVE FOR LEIA TRAINING REY TO BE A JEDI

The Rey training scene though was...unnecessary, dunno why it was there.

Rey’s always been a kinda on-off character for me. I like her when she’s loose and chill instead of a “badass”. In this movie...I mean she has her moments, but for the most part I didn’t want her there

C-3PO, R2-D2 & BB-8

The fact that BB-9e wasn’t in this movie is a crime

I like Threepio, like most other fans, but he’s just like always been...there for me. In this movie though, holy shit did he shine!

To be quite honest, he was probably one of my favorite characters in it, just because he kept that lightheartedness in an otherwise angsty movie, with some occasional fluff.

What I really like about him is that they made this his movie! Artoo and BB-8 were barely in it, and when they were they didn’t do much, so Threepio could really shine! Literally, he’s made of gold. The latest eight movies he’s basically been bullied by every character on screen, no one really seems to like him (Poe did it in this movie, so it’s still a thing) but they gave him a lot of screentime and I like that!

I don’t like BB-8. He’s mostly there to sell toys, and I get that that’s what Star Wars is all about these days, but don’t make it obvious!! Cough, cough PORG!!!!

Artoo was underused as kriff in this movie. He did basically nothing, despite being one of the franchises most popular characters. My favorite moment in the movie however is when Wiped Threepio And Artoo reunite, and he actually sound HURT when Threepio doesn’t recognize him!! He calls him his best friend okay!?!?

Lando

!!!!

His introduction was so fricking cute! Chewie just went to hug him instantly, because that poor fluffy boy has lost enough!!

Threepio going to explain who he is, and Rey just going “We know who he is!” Is so heartwarming, like he’s a war hero! People idolize him that’s so cute!!!

Knights of Ren

Will get more into them in another section, but look really cool but really underused

Stormpilot, Jedipilot, Stormjedi & Stormjedipilot

Let’s get this over with

All three of the first ships are evident in this movie.

Rey and Poe arguing about BB-8 and The Falcon at the start of the movie...is basically all we get for Jedipilot but what’d you expect?

Poe making Finn general, their banter throughout the movie, the little very unnecessary fight they had, the reunion at the end of the movie-

THIS

Rey: So what were you going to tell me?

Finn: We’ll take it later

Poe: What, you mean when Poe’s not here?

YOU JEALOUS BRO???

Finn wanting to tell Rey something was most likely confessing some feeling for her, but then they survived and yeah, and it was fucking dropped?! Did JJ just forget about that???

Plus, I’ve never noticed this before, but Finn yells Rey’s name a lot.

The reunion hug between the three of them at the end of the movie is what kinda made me like Stormjedipilot. Poe and Rey holding their hands over Finn’s back while he buries his head into their shoulders, like yeah I like that.

Chewie’s “death”

I, to be honest, kinda wanted Chewbacca to die a little here. It would have made Kylo’s turn so much more compelling.

So it is my personal headcanon that Kylo did not know that Chewie wasn’t on that ship, and for a few minutes he actually thought that he, Uncle Chewie, had died. Because I couldn’t be the only one who saw a bit of pain on his face.

Kijimi

I first did not like Zorii, mostly because I thought she and Poe would have had a “relationship”.

Though, when Rey held a lightsaber against her throat, and she just impressively said “Not that it matters, but I like you.”

Gal, you GAAAAY

And also that twice, twice, Poe asks if they should kiss and she dismisses both tries, that I like. Good job movie, god job.

During the raid, you can hear female Stormtroopers, and I think that’s really cool. We’re in movie nine and first now does there exist female Stormtroopers that isn’t Phasma!!

Threepio’s wipe is sad and I liked it, but I feel that they made it a little too sad, considering it was afterwards mostly played as a joke and then they gave him his memories back

Hux the spy

Again, Chewie should have remained dead, but whatever.

I have no problem with Hux as the spy, I was just sitting in the theater mumbling ‘Fulcrum’ while my brother was looking at me weirdly, but what I don’t like is what they did with it.

For Hux just to be shot by some General we’ve never met before is just the equivalent of a letdown, especially since so many people like his characters. Including me, he’s one of the best parts of the Sequels!!

Rey Palpatine

Just so everyone knows, I saw this coming. I mean sure, I still liked the Qui’ra theory more, but when Palps started talking about how he knew who the girl was, then I was just like okay she’s a Palpatine.

What I don’t like is how they don’t talk at all of how this came to be. Like, I don’t even know which one of Rey’s parents who’s Palps child. Who the hell did he fuck?!?!

So yeah, whatever twist, bad execution.

Endor’s Stormtroopers

THIS SCENE IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WHY I DON’T LIKE REY

They often do this in movies. Heroes have to do something, they can’t do anything at that moment so they have to wait, main Hero does it anyways.

IT’S ANNOYING AS HELL

Finn and the Ex Stormtrooper I can't remember the name of’s bonding moment was cute, but I just kept thinking to myself “Are they siblings? Because it wouldn’t be the first time this has happened,”

Finn getting mad at Poe is weird as shit and I don’t like it.

Dark Rey vs Rey

Huge letdown didn’t like it next

Rey vs Kylo, final battle

It was...fine, I guess. I like that Rey fucking stabbed him, that was cool.

Leia dying to redeem Kylo was dumb! I get that they needed to kill her off in a natural way and not just off-screen but come on!

Plus, if you would ask me, Kylo didn’t need a redemption arc. I think he should have died. As a bad guy.

Han Solo And Lightsaber Toss

Han Solo talking to Kylo was cool, though how does it work?? Was it a vision? Luke manipulations the force? Kylo only saw what he wanted to see?

That Kylo just tossed his lightsaber was symbolic and stuff, but a really stupid decision from his part. How are you gonna protect yourself now, huh? THE FORCE?!?!

Rey going into Exile

THIS SCENE WAS FUNNY AS SHIT!!

Just, Rey, thinking that every Jedi goes into exile, when they don’t feel like dealing with it anymore, and she’s fucking right!!! Yoda, Obi-Wan And Luke would be proud!!!!

Luke’s force ghost also has nearly identical hair to Anakin, which is adorable. Dunno how many that noticed that, since the people I’ve talked with about the movie didn’t, but that was literally all I could think about.

Knight Leia

When Rey picked up her lightsaber, my brother beside me was like “That’s Luke’s green one!” And I got mad because that’s not his lightsaber design at all. Know your facts bro!

That Leia was a Jedi is understandable, I mean was Luke not going to train her? But I’ve always seen her that she could use the force, but didn’t use a lightsaber because she’s badass.

I kinda also wanted her blade to be purple? I think it would have fit her much better, as she is probably the most balanced Jedi we’ve had for a while and she’s got a lot of anger that little Skywalker, but blue works fine I guess. Better than green.

Star Wars Endgame

I liked this scene, it was cool, Artoo got something to do, and Finn and Rose riding those horse thingies is an inside joke between those two at this point, convince me otherwise.

Lando And Chewie arriving though, and the First Order stating that they are “just people”, was really beautiful. Cool scene all and all.

Rey and Palpatine

Palps is still quoting himself! He fucking said “Do It” JJ knows what’s up!!

One thing that I’ve been trying to figure out since I saw the movie was what the hell was Palps’ goal? He said for Rey to strike him down (Said the same to Luke, is he suicidal??) and then he would become? Apart? Of her? What?

I’m sorry, but that doesn’t make any sense.

Kylo vs Knights of Ren

So these are Kylo’s guys, right? His inquisitors, per say.

Except these used to be Jedi, his clanmates, his friends.

So why the kriff did they all turn against him like that?? AND WHY DID HE JUST FIGHT THEM BLINDLY DUDE THESE WERE YOUR FRIENDS!!

If I could have changed anything in this movie that has nothing to do with ships, then it would be that at least ONE of the knights would have supported Kylo and not just blindly turned against him.

Though I must say, Rey giving Kylo Luke’s lightsaber through their bond, was pretty badass.

Palpatine steals Kylo and Rey’s bond

The. Fuck.

WHAT KIND OF FORCE POWER IS THAT?!?!

IF YOU CAN JUST STEAL A JEDI’S FORCE BOND, WHY DIDN’T YOU DO THAT WITH ANAKIN AND OBI-WAN PALPS?!?!? HUH?!?!?!

But for real, stupid decision, could have gone without it.

Jedi Rey vs Sith Palps

It was cool, a cool moment, I sat excitedly and whispered to my brother all the voices I recognized, I think Ahsoka could be heard??

...

I looked it up and yeah her voice is there, which means that she’s dead R.I.P Snips.

One of the better scenes of the movie, though I think it’s cheating because of nostalgia and love for these characters.

(I LOOKED UP WHICH THE VOICES WERE, AND WE’VE GOT FRICKING AAYLA SECURA, LUMINARA UNDULI, ADI GALLIA AND KANAN JARRUS!!!)

Reylo

*Sigh*

Ya know, I really hoped this wouldn’t happen. I almost wanted to skip this, and really make all the Reylo fans mad.

But I have to talk about this.

This kiss, should not have happened.

Now if you are a Reylo shipper, that’s good for you, I ship way stranger things than that, but to actually make it canon?!?!

Kylo having a crush or something for Rey? Sure, I can understand that’s he’s pretty much obsessed at this point. But for Rey, badass Rey who is pretty lesbian, to have feelings for Kylo? THIS IS NOT A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP PEOPLE!!

And that they made a toxic relationship canon, but not a gay one, really says something about Star Wars doesn’t it.

Death of Kylo

I laughed out loud during this scene. Not joking, people around me were annoyed. And that his clothes didn’t disappear? Is Kylo a naked force ghost? Did he do that for Rey?

Wait

Don’t answer.

Happy Rebels

The Lesbian couple that kissed was obviously queerbaiting, and you should never praise that, but that is probably all we will get Gays, so let’s just take it and cry on the inside.

Is that Stormtrooper gal Lando’s daughter? Because my brother whispered that to me, and I got those vibes too. Or is she way older than what she looks like and we were supposed to see her as a love interest?

The hug was cute.

Rey Skywalker

I will never accept this as canon ever.

To see the moisture farm again was nice, I liked that.

And for Rey to finally have her own lightsaber, and a yellow one too (I read a fanfic where she had a yellow one, was that like pre-seen??).

But the Skywalker thing...eh.

I would have found it cute if she’d said Rey Palpatine, as if she’d embraced her origin and decided that the name Palpatine isn’t just to be afflicted with the emperor, but also with her, the last Jedi.

Also, did she go into exile? Because damn, those Jedi do that a lot!

All in all, I liked this movie! I wasn’t bored a single bit while watching it, as there was always something going on, and I like when that happens. I don’t think that had happened since Empire with a Star Wars movie.

It isn’t in my top three, but it’s up there, and better than The Last Jedi.

Though I must say, they did take some things from Return of the Jedi and put it in this movie, specifically the ending.

Though I must say, and don’t hate me for this, it was better than Return of the Jedi okay bye

[mrspettyferr]

Finally got my thoughts together regarding Rey, Kylo, and their relationship. Spoilers below, obviously.

Adam was so underutilized--is that the theme for this movie? How did everyone feel so underutilized with such a cramped movie?

But anyway, I needed more of him. And damn, his physicality alone....especially that Death Star sequence like Daisy took some hard hits man. He is a beast. (And I was glad he had her beat in that fight. She’s a good fighter but let’s be real, he has more experience.) I really liked this sequence though because he’s mostly on the defensive and it’s almost like he’s letting her vent/get it all out, and then he just starts to dominate, almost like to say “Had enough? We’re done.” Let’s be real even if Leia didn’t interfere he wasn’t about to kill her.

He has ONE word after he becomes Ben Solo. One. “Ow.” That’s it. How can you do Adam like that. And I will say the “ow” was one of the few laughs from the audience. C3P0 got a few too and I will say I’m glad he was included more in this movie. I liked Babu too. But...one word? That’s it? Did they cut some of his lines? There needed to be more dialogue during the DS sequence. During the fight, and after.

The only cheers in my theater were when Rey and Ben kissed. A few people clapped when the credits rolled. It was...honestly very quiet for a SW opening night. Compared to Endgame, where people were cheering the whole way, this felt super flat.

But there really needed to be more Force bond interactions. They were too short and brief and considering that’s really where the heart is, there needed to be more. The story suffered overall to shoe in the video game like quest sequences. Even Ben’s “redemption light switch” scene felt a bit abrupt due to the pacing. We needed more of him, period.

The mask didn’t need to be there, either. (And I even like the mask!) It’s there because it looks cool and sells toys. That’s it. I really thought it would have some sort of purpose, but nope. (Though I did like Rey’s line: “I can see through the cracks of your mask.”) He should have tossed the mask into the ocean, not the lightsaber. That was a cool design boy what are you doing.

Ben needed closure with Luke arguably more than even Han and I’m annoyed that didn’t happen.

Ben. Doesn’t. Pilot. The. Falcon. Or even step foot on it. I....I can’t.

The Jedi of the past can reach out to Rey PALPATINE while Ben SKYWALKER Solo is literally climbing out of a damn pit to get to Rey I am FURIOUS. And I am furious we’re supposed to smile at the end when Ben just died and his mom and uncle just smile on at Rey and I’m sorry I felt so insulted. Even Dany--who was murdered HORRIBLY--gets mourning. We get nothing for Ben and the only rationale I can come up with is 1) the scenes were cut and 2) he’s not really gone so they left it open.

Rey unfortunately doesn’t have much time to process anything because the pace won’t allow her to. It’s go, go, go and so quest-forward instead of being character driven. Had JJ cared more about Rey and less about the forced trio dynamic, it would have been more successful for her arc.

Now let me talk about the reylo dynamic. HIS SMILE. HER FACE WHEN SHE COMES TO AND REALIZES IT’S REAL. ZEE KISS. It was the best scene in the movie, hands down. Also can we talk about Ben “I’m coming to save my girl” Solo running through the temple and slaying his way with only the Force and a blaster? What a scene WHY did they give him no lines though. Adam is such a good actor that he didn’t need them, but I wanted some Ben Solo sass. Even a dorky, out of breath little “Hi” when he comes face to face with Rey. SOMETHING.

Her face when she sees he’s come for her, after Palpatine told her she had no one, was...I have to give Daisy props for that look. If she didn’t love Ben Solo before, that look right there 100% confirms it. Even when she kisses him and smiles full teeth, it can’t quite top that look it was so beautiful I wanted to cry.

I am heartbroken their happy ending was snatched away. It was cruel. Because the pacing doesn’t allow Rey to process, we don’t even get much of her mourning. He just...dies and that’s it. I truly can’t believe they set up a character we’re meant to root for, only for them to die and then not even have the decency to give him a send off.

Let Rey clutch his shirt to her face and cry. Let her bury his shirt with the lightsabers. Let her have a line or two that’s vague, but we know exactly what’s hurting her. Let her choose the name Rey Solo. Show us force ghost Ben. SOMETHING. The fact that they don’t, I honestly, truly can’t imagine they are that bad at writing or that heartless, it makes me feel it’s left this way intentionally. 

There’s just no sensible logic to it, not even “it’s just bad writing.” Even that doesn’t seem right.

They planted a lot of seeds for this one. The dyad, the force bond, the transfer of life, Leia not disappearing until Ben dies, not treating Ben like he died, etc. So I’m going to hold out for hope. Let this movie be about the damn trio adventures and let the next be about Rey getting her soul mate back.

[starwarshyperdrive]

The Rise of Skywalker - adding my very important opinion to the internet.

Opinions are like **holes, everyone has one. Just that this isn’t true. People rarely substitute theirs with someoelse’s **hole. 

Looking back at some of my predictions I was wrong about some major plot points. I always said that the Bendemption and Reylo would make me walk out of the cinema. I thought it would be the two things that would ruin Star Wars for me and quite arrogantly assumed it’s ‘too stupid for Star Wars’. 

Now.. I stand corrected. To be honest, after the premiere I didn’t know what to think. Like everyone else I had this idea what the movie should be in my head. All the puzzle pieces I put together to a picture I liked. All the clues that lead my to my own personal conclusion. And like everyone else I saw the movie through this filter. 

I have to divert a bit to explain what I mean.

A Zen master was asked about Zen by a critical guest. Instead of answering he filled the guest’s teacup but did not stop pouring when the cup was full and the tea spilled out and ran over the table. 

"Stop! The cup is full!" said the guest.

"Exactly," said the Zen Master. "You are like this cup; you are full of ideas. You come and ask for teaching, but your cup is full; I can't put anything in. Before I can teach you, you'll have to empty your cup."

Letting go of our expectations is hard. Very hard. There is comfort in the familiar. There is stubbornness in wanting to be right. The unknown is scary and we want to be in control of our own narrative. So I watched the movie again and saw it for what it is. I’m gonna be honest. I am a ‘true believer’ and apologist. I will find goodness in every bit. If you want to find mistakes you will find them. Psychologically we mostly make up our minds whether or not we’ll like the movie before we see it subconsciously. Then we just look for proof we’re right. I didn’t really want to see Joker. I expected it to be a pretentious attempt to make a Scorsese 70ies movie while lacking substance. And that’s exactly what I’ve got. Knowing what to expect in the 2nd viewing I was able to appreciate it more. There is so much depth and love for Star Wars in it that’s not apparent if you walk out of the 1st screening snubbed about what you don’t understand. I sound like a broken record when I say Star Wars is not a Comic Book movie, not everything has to be explained or tie into everything perfectly. Just look at the Original Trilogy. Nothing is 100% clear. Obi Wan is twisting the truth and nothing aligns perfectly. Star Wars is like a Greek myth. WHY did Thetis dip Achilles in the river Styx? What was her motivation? How could she forget to dip his heel? That’s stupid. That’s RUINING Greek mythology.   

I liked the movie, very much. I’m not even sure if it might not be my favorite sequel. Before I go into my thoughts here is what I didn’t like.

I liked it, yes, but that doesn’t keep me from agreeing that it seemed like a mash-up of fan-service. And with fan service I mean the kind of parents who have no idea would give their kids. ‘You like your Nintendos, right? The man at the shop said this is as good.’ It somehow felt like a panicked corporate decision to undo the backlash after The Last Jedi (a movie I have seen 13 times in the cinema and now consider to be the weakest installment since Attack of the Clones), so they mistook the loudest voices on the internet to be the most representative for all fans. So they had to include Bendemption and Reylo because ..fanfiction.. ?! And people have long asked for ‘bring back Legends’ so throw in a bit of that. And then we need Han Solo and the Emperor to save this trilogy after we made the mistake of not overseeing what these film makers actually do and have an overall idea for the trilogy and Rian Johnson wrote the story into a corner. The Last Jedi felt more like the 3rd movie of a trilogy, so what are we gonna do? Rey has to be SOMEONE, right? How about the emperor is suddenly interested in his bloodline for some reason despite the Sith never having cared about that (what is her midi-chlorian count?). 

But I can live with all of that and I have my explanations for everything. Palpatines son who must’ve been born after his face got all f**ked up. So was he a clone? Some sort of attempt to create life like Anakin? An artificially created baby like the Nazis did to get a super soldier, just to be able to possess his body and when he ran off and fled he was more interested in his ‘granddaughter’ because her body was even younger? Did the force skip a generation like some diseases.  Not everything has to be answered, but it’s fun to think about these things. I find this to be more Star Wars than the thought he had a wife all the time, which is absolutely not in character. 

The one thing I didn’t like was the super cringy, cheap jump-scare with monster teeth during the Dark Rey scene. We have seen this too often. It’s not ‘worthy of Star Wars’. It didn’t even look good in IT or any other movie. 

And the kiss? Would I have cut it out if I’d have something to say. YES DEFINITELY. Do I think it’s romantic and actually hints to romantic feelings? HELL NO! In my opinion their bond is different. Calling it romantic undermines their connection and ridicules something that could be very deep. Kylo/Ben even says it, they are a Dyad. Whatever that means, it surely doesn’t mean something straight-out of Twilight. I see the kiss as relief, burst of emotion. Not unlike a kiss a mother would give a child that has been missing or rescued from peril. Affection yes, romance no (aka ‘no tongue’). The beauty of it is that it’s ambiguous. If you want them to be in love, then you can think that for yourself, probably wondering why she is not really grieving.

I said I’d hate Bendemption and many people have stated that Ben should’ve survived. No offense but this is completely missing the point. The way his redemption is portrayed is absolutely beautiful. The shame and regret in Ben that leads him to the realization what he needs to do is what makes his who he is. He says it himself. He can’t go back to his mother. She sacrificed herself for him. He killed his father. Everything is lost for him. He made so many mistakes. But he can do the right thing for once by saving Rey. And this is why he disappears. This is why he became one with the force. If it he’d have survived there wouldn’t have been a redemption. Ben Solo was ‘weak and foolish’ which led him to the dark side. Ben Solo is flawed, the good in him understood that to kill the looming darkness he has to sacrifice himself. Like the Terminator at the end of Judgement day. This is what made the scene so powerful and mirrored Vader. Ironically you could say he finally became like Vader in the last moments of his life.

As for the emperor being alive. Why not. If you’re that sort of badass and considering that Maul and Vader both survived major injuries with the aid of the dark side of the force it’s not that unlikely. And here is something some people seem to miss. He is desperately looking for a new vessel to transfer his spirit into because he is a corpse. He is a corpse on life support. As hinted at in the movie and as explained in the visual dictionary he is being kept ‘alive’ by a mixture of medical aids and Sith alchemy. One might argue that ‘we never heard about Sith cultists and all that’ but that’s not entirely true. Even outside of the books, comics and what not there are things you can easily retcon to fit the narrative. Just look at the emperors advisors in Return of the Jedi. At the time of The Force Awakens there have been theories that Snoke is nothing but a puppet. I have used the Wizard of Oz comparison before. When we got to see him ‘in the flesh’ in The Last Jedi we were nothing the wiser. So that somehow adds up.

Chewie got a medal now? Well that just serves to show what I always say: no one in the cinematic universe cares a great deal about books and comics. A lot of fans are always so eager to see stuff from canon in the movies and get upset when there are contradictions (also see S-foil from Lukes X-wing being used as door) but I think it’s best to consider whatever is not in the movies as ‘soft canon’ and take it with a grain of salt. This might change in the future now that Star Wars is free of the shackles of the Skywalker saga and it;’s very likely they learned from the lack of consistency, but it also opens it up to mediocracy and weird stuff like the world between worlds and space whales.

If you only watched the movie once there are many things that might have slipped by you. Which is a shame. I think some f the outspoken critics will change their minds about the movie over time. A lot of the emotional backbone of the movie was in these tiny moments, such as the scene in which Rey feels that she won’t see Leia again and has to say good bye. It is in the open whether or not Leia feels it too and just taunts her by saying ‘tell me when you're back’.

Let me just say that Rose is absolutely cool in this. I always maintained the position that the backlash against her character was mostly based on the weak costume design that made her more like like a cosplayer. Now that she looked the part she was fantastic. It’s not about quantity. Her screen time was impactful. The argument that JJ cut her screen time in favor of his buddies is ridiculous and uninformed. Everyone had their specific parts to serve the story. According to the visual dictionary Dominic Monaghans character was a former teacher and served as the ‘Sith’ expert to explain why the Resistance wasn’t collectively going ‘umm wut?’ when they heard about Palpatine being back and all that. Greg Grunberg was the link to the fleet and Rose was at the heart of operations. I can't understand how this isn’t obvious. 

And in conclusion let’s talk about the impossible task to end a 9 part saga, with the additional challenge of having lost Carrie Fisher. Can you even imagine being in that predicament? How did JJ Abrams say yes to this? Well knowing that he’d get shit from all sides. RESPECT! It is a miracle the movie turned out the way it did. I liked it and if we look at the numbers of things I didn’t like in the other movies despite liking them it might become my favorite or close 2nd of the sequel trilogy over time. Only this blade tells.

[xtremedespair3d]

Happy New Year 2019 - 2018 Review: My Worst Year Yet

The end is near...

The end of the year and almost the end of the decade, we’re going to be at least one year away to enter 2020.

This was a good year, but as the title implies, there were some severe downs, but before I talk about my really long story about my experience with 2018, let’s start this post with the good old top 10s, but this time, I’m finally going to start from 10 to 1 because I’ve been doing the other way around for years and that’s not how it works. Not everything will have comments because I almost have no idea on what to write in some entries and don’t want to make more repetitive and simplistic than some of the entries of each list are.

This is indeed my longest Tumblr post yet, so I hope you enjoy:

Top 10 Best Anime: This list was honestly really difficult to make compared to the others, mainly because I watch a lot of anime and can’t choose which ones I really liked the most except for the final top 3. I would have liked to extend the list to Top 20, but I want to be consistent with the other lists (Sure there are shorter lists but I don’t want to go over 10).

10.- Toji No Miko: I’m highly indifferent with this series overall, the characters, the universe, the world building, etc., at least this was successful enough to spawn a game and now a spin-off series for Winter 2019 (Looks like they could be shorts but who knows), not the biggest franchise in existence but it’s got potential.

Despite my mild interest, my jokes that this looked like Kancolle (Because it features one of the character designers) and Touken Ranbu (just sword wielding) had a baby will live on.

9.- Fate/Extra: Last Encore: Another controversial Fate “adaptation” in recent memory. Yes, I was surprised and yelled like crazy in confusion with the changes from the game on the first episode alone, but despite this series turning tables from the game but still following how things went linearly, it’s not worth the hate or anything.

Some people have called it confusing, which... parts of it were but Last Encore is not worth the hate. It’s not by any means bad, you have to understand that it’s its own thing and what not.

Fate/Extra is probably my only Fate/Type-Moon media I got into before even getting into their anime adaptations, which I’m happy for it.

 8.- Darling in the Franxx: Alright, call me out on this one, but it did nothing wrong!

When it first started, there were mixed feelings for its fan servicey start with naked Zero Two, in the middle of the series, everything seems like it was going fine and I liked where the story was going, but then there was the Bitchigo controversy, it’s probably not the series’ breaking point, but at that point it looks like the hate was carried until the end.

Why do people hate Franxx? As if people were expecting too much on how should the story be or anything.

Trigger and A-1 may or may not sound like an interesting combo, but it looked like it was more A-1 than Trigger. As a Trigger fan (I’m more into their originals, adaptations don’t work for me), I really hope people don’t hate Trigger forever for Franxx, but who’s actually to blame here?

 7.- Steins;Gate 0: This one is a little controversial to add considering there was a lot of hate on it, I don’t get why, if the first season is considered a masterpiece, how could Steins;Gate 0 fail to follow the formula? (I’m an animeonly fag, what do you expect?)

 6.- Zombieland Saga: This one gets a big seal of approval as a birthday gift of mine (it came out on October 4th), and one of the best originals too.

Really hoping for a second season. (Don’t care if it’ll be as shit as Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul)

5.- Cells at Work! / Hataraku Saibou: This one wasn’t on my Summer 2018 radar until I saw the first two episodes and I immediately loved it.

Seems like those Osmosis Jones/Ozzy & Drix jokes got to convince me to watch it. (I actually only grew up with the Osmosis Jones movie, I never saw Ozzy & Drix in my entire life ;_;)

4.- My Hero Academia season 3.

3.- Devilman Crybaby.

2.- Pop Team Epic.

1.- Today’s Menu for Emiya Family / Emiya-san Chi no Kyou no Gohan: Another one of Ufotable’s visually departive series (Meaning that they’re different from their usual productions (God Eater also comes into this territory but not as visually different than Himuro no Tenchi and Emiya-san. Sure, Ufotable had different and the common solid color visuals back in the 2000s but nowadays seeing Ufotable taking this direction is amazing).

Since it’s a cooking show, I would definitely love to copy the recipes as told in the show (wonder if they’re good enough to make the food actually taste good), and I also had this tradition with a mutual of mine of watching every episode when they came out monthly (it’s a monthly series).

Honorable mentions:

Yuru Camp

B: The Beginning

A.I.C.O Incarnation

Golden Kamuy

Aggretsuko

Castlevania season 2

Touken Ranbu Hanamaru season 2: Since Winter 2018 feels like a long time, I genuinely forget this existed. 😂

Violet Evergarden

Dagashi Kashi 2

Overlord II, III

The Ryuuou’s Work is Never Done! / Ryuuou no Oshigoto!: I haven’t seen this Day 1, but I binged it a few months later.

Citrus

Lupin the 3rd Part 5

Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card

FLCL Progressive, FLCL Alternative

Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs

Senran Kagura: Shinovi Master Tokyo Youma Hen

SSSS.GRIDMAN

Ace Attorney season 2

Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san / Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san

Goblin Slayer

Gakuen Basara

High Score Girl

Top 5 Worst Anime:

Caligula: I always didn’t like the game, haven’t played it myself, but looking at it, the art is unappealing, the characters, the universe, pretty much everything, not even Persona 1 writer Tadashi Satomi would make the game any favors. (That’s mostly on the game, anime may differ but I just don’t care at all.).

Grancrest Senki / Record of Grancrest War: As someone who’s not really into the fantasy genre, but let’s be real, this one’s probably the most boring fantasy anime I’ve ever watched in my life.

Parts of it, like the political drama, was great, but everything else? I felt like I didn’t care at all, well, not always super ignorant, I dunno, it’s just that I wasn’t the biggest fan of this show.

Persona 5: The Animation: This one may be the worst Persona adaptation yet, the pacing was all over the place, animations on the fight scenes are weak, a gratuitous ending to the base series leading up to the special for New Year’s.

What about the surprise the director teased a while before the series began?

P5A was bad, but it wasn’t offensively bad, I’m not mad at it for being bad.

The time when the OVA, Dark Sun has come out, apparently they decided to announce ANOTHER OVA for March 2019 to conclude the story... Seems like there’s no end.

I’ve also been waiting for the surprise the director teased for so long and I don’t think as of the writing of this will ever get paid off.

Junji Ito Collection: At first I was intrigued on how they would capture the Junji Ito horror, but weeks later, as I kept watching it, it was feeling a bit boring, like it feels slow. Then I heard that it’s one of the worst anime of 2018 so far, that’s... actually quite exaggerating, well, it’s bad but it’s not THAT bad.

Tokyo Ghoul:re: Pierrot once again ruined Tokyo Ghoul, no surprise, but maybe even worse. From the obvious rushed story to the lackluster fight scenes, even the first Tokyo Ghoul season had better animated fight scenes.

Top 10 Best Movies:

10.- The Shape of Water: Technically it was 2017 film but it came out in Mexico like in January 12th iirc, I thought it was a good film, I’d need to watch more Guillermo Del Toro films, particularly the Hellboy films now that the reboot is coming out next year. 7.5/10.

9.- The Cloverfield Paradox: Quite optimistic that there’s a new Cloverfield movie since the original (over 10 years) and 10 Cloverfield Lane (2 years ago), but it turns out that it’s quite a flawed movie, It did nothing wrong! 7.5/10.

8.- Aquaman: Definitely my favorite DC film yet (GTFO Wonder Woman with feminism and everyone complaining on the final fight scene with overuse of CG (if it hurt the film that badly, then the film is not worth a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes), I definitely loved the VFX on Atlantis and the final fight with Ocean Master. Speaking of Ocean Master, I love that they animated his helmet eyes a la Deadpool. 8/10 - Rank: A.

7.- Overlord: Whether this would have worked as a Cloverfield movie or not, I love me some World War II zombie film by JJ Abrams. (Speaking of non-Cloverfield film, I would have liked to watch A Quiet Place.) 8.5/10 - Rank: A.

6.- Mission Impossible: Fallout: My first interaction with the Mission Impossible franchise was with the first film when I was at the English school I used to study, I would have liked to watch Rogue Nation when it came out in 2015 but I haven’t developed my habit of absolute moviegoer until 2017, now that they announced Fallout and will have Henry Cavill (with his mustache, the main reason for the Justice League mustachegate), I would not hesitate to see it.

Even if I have only seen the first film, this is already the best Mission Impossible film yet, definitely felt the thrills for the action and it make me like Henry Cavill more, especially the fucking arm reload.

Too bad August Walker died, but I couldn’t help to say “Superman died again but permanently.” Now I’m definitely looking forward for more Mission Impossible films. 9.5/10 - Rank: S+.

5.- My Hero Academia: Two Heroes: Since MHA is so popular, even in Mexico, there was always bound to be quite the mouthful fanboys in my theater, may be the most annoying experience yet but I wasn’t really annoyed as much as the next entries.

Just a heads up, the loud crowd in my cinema don’t really ruin my experience on seeing the movie. 9/10 - Rank: S.

4.- Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple: Our second anime movie experience and the one time we get to see an anime film on the afternoon because with My Hero Academia and Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel have been on the night.

The best thing about Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple is that it came out exactly on my sister’s birthday, August 25th.

My sister hasn’t seen Bungou Stray Dogs but she didn’t mind and accepted my request to go see it together, and I couldn’t be happier to see it on her birthday.

Not much to add on the loud crowd but the loudest ones were a bunch of fujos fangirling out at this Dazai x Chuuya scene and this part where the Shibusawa fight from the end of the film ended, someone sneezed, another guy replied “bless you” loudly and everyone else laughed. Didn’t ruin my experience, but come on... 9/10 - Rank: S.

3.- Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel I. Presage Flower: Like The Shape of Water, Heaven’s Feel I was a 2017 film and came out in Mexico in January 2018, but that aside, it was the first film I’ve ever seen in a cinema and seeing anime visuals and animation (especially Ufotable’s) was pure eye candy and it was a dream come true.

This kickstarted our (my older sister and I) hobby of seeing anime movies to the cinema with the previous entriesI (sorry but we won’t allow our mom to watch anime with us, we’d rather have the annoying people in the cinema than hearing her whine about every bloody scene she sees). 9.5/10 - Rank: S+.

The second film, Lost Butterfly, was supposed to come out, but it got delayed until January 12th, damn, so close, so I think I had a perfect chance to watch the first film this year because at the time I didn’t trust much the disributor, Konnichiwa Festival, for bringing anime films I’d like to see the most, or anything from series like My Hero Academia and Bungou Stray Dogs (They also brought A Silent Voice and Your Name).

(For some reason I’ve always been typing “Passage Flower” instead of “Presage Flower”, in what universe have I made that up?)

The fact that the second film comes out on January 12th is almost exactly like about the same time the first film came out on Mexican cinema on the 19th, that’s quite an amazing (or disturbing) coincidence.

2.- Ready Player One: I’ve been optimistic about this movie and heard a couple of good things about the book and its concept, but it was full of controversial hate, but... why?! IT DID NOTHING WRONG! The film did well, whether you’re a bookfag or not, but even some bookfags didn’t like how the film turned out, but who cares? It was still fun. 9.5/10 - Rank: S+.

1.- The Incredibles 2: I’m happy The Incredibles 2 is finally here, continuing the cliffhanger from the first film and everything, my life is complete. 10/10 - Rank: S++.

Top 6 Best Marvel Movies: I always tend to make my normal movie lists a bit Marvel heavy, because they’re all so good, so I decided to make a separate list of their own.

5.- Black Panther: It’s probably a bit more popular than Avengers: Infinity War for its cultural impact and everything, but it was still a good movie, to say the least (I’m probably the more big team-up type than standalone). 8.5/10 - Rank: A.

4.- Ant-Man and the Wasp: It’s still worth watching, but I feel like it’s the least relevant MCU movie of the year, except the quantum realm stuff and... the post-credits scene. My sister and I lowkey laughed our asses off that Hank, Janet and Hope vanished from the snap. 8.5/10 - Rank: A.

3.- Deadpool 2: Worthy sequel, and pretty weird for Fox to release a PG-13 version, Once Upon a Deadpool, just when people were skeptical that Disney with the Fox purchase would PG-13′d Deadpool when Fox themselves are the ones doing it first, but for a good reason...

(I made this image myself)

Well, that too but most importantly... THE X-MEN AND THE FANTASTIC FOUR IN THE MCU!

Speaking of Once Upon a Deadpool, it will come out on Mexico on January 1st but I’ll go see it on the weekend. Anyways, the score for DP2 is: 8.5/10 - Rank: A.

2.- Venom: The best movie birthday gift I’ve gotten, AND IT’S NOT TRASH, OKAY?! I’ve seen plenty of fan arts and they make up for the fact the film is trash, and it also represents people just simply like shipping Eddie Brock and Venom. 9.5/10 - Rank: S+. (Want to fight me about the score?)

1-B.- Avengers: Infinity War:  YES! Infinity War is everything I wanted! I love the film to death, and I’d really love to own the Blu-Ray like I do with Civil War. Too bad THERE HAS TO BE SOME PEOPLE WHO DISLIKED THE FILM!

Some people complained about the plot structure for being hard to follow, some for the CG, and some simply because they were like “ehhh, I didn’t like it.”, BUT..... RRRRRRRGGGGGGGNNNNNNNHHHHHHHHHH!!! 👀💢 

IT’S A BIG MOVIE, THE ENDING MAY HAVE BEEN SHOCKING BUT IT WAS MEME-TASTIC AND EVERYTHING, IT’S SILLY FOR HATE TO EXIST ESPECIALLY WHETHER FROM CASUAL MARVEL VIEWERS AND SUCH.

THE PEOPLE WHO DIDN’T LIKE THE FILM, THEY DESERVE TO BE SNAPPED BY THANOS. QUE SE VAYAN A LA CHIN--

Alright, enough rambling, I loved the movie, I was definitely shocked by the ending (It’s not a bad ending that would ruin the film, don’t even dare to say that, please), but it’s a good set up for Avengers: Endgame. 9.5/10 - Rank: S+.

But... I gotta admit that it was my #1-A movie of the year, but there’s one movie that absolutely dethroned Infinity War...

1-A.- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: This film... THIS FILM, THOUGH, this is legit the best Spider-Man movie ever, with really awesome animation style, reminiscent of a comic book, the best easter eggs and everything.

Also, at the Stan Lee parts, from his cameo to his quote and a thanks to him and Steve Ditko, I legit cried at thiose parts for a small bit. I don’t even want to think about it. 😭

Some random notes before even seeing the film include buying a lot of the promotional items from my cinema (pictured)...

Out of all these items, I got...

...This cup when my older sister and I went to see My Hero Academia: Two Heroes on November 30th.

I did not hesitate to buy a keychain, let alone TWO (one for me and another one for my sister), there was a different keychain, the one with just Miles but I prefer the Spider symbol because I love symbols.

This popcorn bucket. I had a Spider-Man 3 plastic bucket, but it seems like I can’t find it somewhere in my house, sadly. But at least we needed a new bucket.

Along with the bucket, I also bought this cup (which I forgot about to take a photo of it and took it at home as you can see here).

So I got two of the three cups pictured way above, I also wanted to buy one of the wristbands but my family wouldn’t let me and it was too much to buy, they even told me I wouldn’t even wear them all the time. Oh well, at least I’m satisfied with the keychains, the cups and the bucket.

Happy to hear that there’s a female spin-off in the works, so my body is definitely ready to see more of the Spider-Verse with animation this beautiful. 100/10 - Rank: S++. Sorry Avengers: Infinity War but GTFO, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has easily won my heart and it’s my #1 movie, not just for this list, it’s my definitive #1 movie of 2018!  👑 (Yes, I know I put The Incredibles 2 on the other list, consider it as #1-C)

Since it came out on Mexico on December 25th, it’s the best Christmas gift I’ve ever had in my entire life. (next to my new Huawei Mate 10 Lite, I needed a new phone really bad)

There’s an all-female spin-off in the works, so my body is definitely ready to watch more Spider-Verse related films with this beautiful animation (if there could be a different visual style than Spider-Verse, I’m probably fine with it, but it seems unlikely to happen (please don’t, the visual style from Spider-Verse looks damn fresh to change))

I’m still in awe from what I just saw...

I really need the Blu-Ray to come out faster like Venom did two months after it came out theatrically so I can own it and watch it a billion times! PRONTO!!!

(Also, to any critics or haters, get the fuck out of my sight, please)

Top 10 Best Movies (Definitive): I may have mixed things up by making two separate lists, one for Marvel and another one for movie, so I had to make a PROPER list of my movies of the year to avoid inconsistency.

10.- The Shape of Water

9.- The Cloverfield Paradox

8.- Overlord

7.- Mission Impossible: Fallout

6.- Aquaman

5.- Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel I. Presage Flower

4.- Ready Player One

3.- The Incredibles 2

2.- Avengers: Infinity War

1.- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Top 10 Best Games:

NOTE: I honestly don’t like making the best/worst games lists because it’s all based on “experience” and there are so many games released every year and I don’t have the money to buy every single one, and most important of all, I have neither a PS4 and a Switch, nor a powerful PC. I still make this list anyways because I like acknowledging some of the games I’m the most interested for their existence, I still wish I can play them, but they’re there. Enjoy the following entries:

11.- Fate/Extella Link.

10.- Valkyria Chronicles 4.

9.- BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle.

8.- Soul Calibur VI: I’m not really much into Soul Calibur but VI has picked my interest mainly because of the character customization and every tweet I’ve seen of it, and 2B.

7.- Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight / Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight: At first I wasn’t really fond on the idea of Persona dancing games since Persona 4: Dancing All Night, but when both P3D and P5D were announced, I redeemed myself on the concept.

6.- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

5.- Girls’ Frontline (English and Japanese versions): My only disadvantage with the EN version is the censorship and that really bothers me so bad. I hate the topic of censorship in general. Too bad I haven’t been playing a lot of it lately, and I feel bad for it, haven’t even picked it up back with my new phone... But I can still appreciate the cosplays and fan arts.

4.- Dragalia Lost: I played it for like a week but I stopped because I ran out of space in my phone. This is my biggest problem with Nintendo mobile games, they’re always constantly asking for mobile data and they’re space consuming. It has potential to become Cygames’ next big franchise, though.

3.- Deltarune: Haven’t played Undertale myself and this was an excuse to get myself into it, even if it’s some sort of an alternate universe or whatever the many people who played it just experienced. And the game is free to play, so there’s nothing about money to worry about.

2.- Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth.

1.- Spider-Man PS4.

Yes, I included two gacha games. What? You don’t think gacha games are “games” and instead they’re just money making machines? I can tell you’re making fun of my decision, and it’s true, but they have rights to be games whether you decide to spend your money or not. I don’t have much time to rant about gacha games and stuff, so let’s move on.

Honorable mention:

Detroit: Become Human: Call me out on this one because I gotta talk about this game.

Sure, David Cage may be a divisive developer among the gaming community but there’s something about Detroit that I’m hearing praise from the media and other YouTubers and then there are my “friends” who definitely hate him and his games.

This is one of those cases where I really can’t even bother to choose a side. (but I’d definitely be one of those who do like Detroit, I mean, the fan arts of Connor and his actor himself can make up for it, besides, I still got my copy of Heavy Rain)

Worst Games of the Year:

I mentioned that I don’t have the consoles to play most games, there are games that are so bad even to look at that are exceptions for me to play:

4.- Radical Heights

3.- Fallout 76

2.- The Quiet Man

1.- Metal Gear Survive

Everything mentioned this list are 0/10 - Rank: E-.

Artists Of The Year:

Ogata Tei: Finding this artist was like fate. I first found Ogata on Pixiv with this illustration on December 2017, and at first it was like any other artist I follow, I have to check their gallery and if it’s good enough, they deserve a follow, but when they started doing the Childhood Friend series (pictured below), I feel like my life has changed.

For safety reasons, I tend use Chapter 0 as a better way to show everyone the start of the Childhood Friend series without using the very first tweet, because... I don’t know what to make out of it, it’s not too graphic, but take a look for yourself. It is chapter 0 after all.)

The moment the reservations of the doujinshi went live in June, I did not hesitate to ask my older sister to buy it for me and finally received it on December 6th (technically it should have been on the 5th because the mailman came home but my mom wasn’t there to sign the package, but we do not talk about that part of that day ever again. The reason why is that the mailman thought I looked too young to get and sign a package (I hate my genes)... That is until Ogata decided to open reservations for the sequel the moment I got the doujin ), it was a long wait but it was worth it... That is until Ogata decided to open reservations for the sequel for C95 the moment I got the doujin, worst timing ever.

To be honest, this series is the only thing that makes me happy, ever, everything else I love is always being ruined by assholes and their heartbreaking traumatizing opposing opinions. Thankfully there’s no hate in this.

This series is very dear to me, I really hope it keeps going because I occasionally get scared for the series to end and I’d be forever sad if it does (I’ll eventually move on but my heart won’t change).

Maybe the saddest thing about the series is that I’m the only one who makes fan arts and a Custom Cast/Custom Order Maid 3D2 recreation of the Childhood Friend character. It’s a good thing that I show my pride for the character and all, but it’s only me and I can’t be the only one with that pride, I’d love to see other people do shit, even some of the artists I follow that are friends with Ogata.

Souryu: Not the first thing (have seen a bit of his pictures on Pixiv before), but I was brought to this artist more with this web series I also love to death. (NSFW)

I’m also happy to see his manga, Machimaho, has an English release now.

Sakiyamama: The list was originally going to be just Ogata but I wanted to include Sakiyamama because not only his recent bunny pictures (as of the writing of this post) are really really good, he’s actually a really fun person to talk with and he’s gained my respect more than I already have. MAX!

(Would Sakiyamama be a good candidate to make a cover for my novel? Maybe, maybe not...)

Song Of The Year:

Casey Edwards - Devil Trigger: Even for a 2019 game like Devil May Cry 5, Devil Trigger just rocks. Now, when DMC5 comes out, we all can’t wait to pull our devil trigger.

The following part is my really long review of 2018, if you don’t care about what happened to my life in the year and my personal problems, you can skip to the very end until you find the following sentence: “You’ve reached the end of my long review of my 2018 experience.“

Now, let’s talk about why did I consider 2018 the worst year yet. Everything continues with the same problems as last year and some new ones that are even worse. This year was full of disappointments and few ups which either matter or get ruined.

Starting with what’s essentially the most horrifying experience I’ve ever been in my life and it’s all got to do with my older sister. First off, on February, we were hanging out with my aunt on a shopping mall, we were eating ice cream and for some reason, my sister and my mom were arguing and something made my older sister rage quit the plaza we were. We slowly followed her where she was going, later we returned to our house, my sister later came back home and everything went normal.

Then, comes the worst of her moments yet, two months later, everything was going fine on home, until I heard my mom calling me and I started hearing my sister’s very creepy yelling, my mom was holding her on the floor and she ordered me to call my aunt and ran to go buy medicines, my aunt came home to hold my sister down with my mom to give her the pills I had to bought, etc. A lot has happened in that afternoon. Even my mom has called the cops.

A few hours have passed, the cops came home just for a talk about the situation, and I guess that’s about all I witnessed because I didn’t do nor payed attention much on there other than shaking a cop’s hand.

I really wish I shouldn’t discuss about this on a wide public like the internet considering that my mom told me I shouldn’t tell this to anyone... “ANYONE”. Not even my BFF classmate on WhatsApp (at the time when I was at school), not even on Twitter nor Discord, which I talked about what was happening at the very moment and that made me feel like a genuine social media addict, tweeting and telling my (not-so) friends on Discord as if social media has become my life journal or something.

As for what I told on my classmate, I told him afterwards that I shouldn’t have told him about what happened with my older sister when my mom told me not to tell about this to anyone, at least he kept the secret.

Speaking of school, the situation that we went through, my mom decided I wouldn’t go to school for a week.

I think at the moment the cops came to our home, I heard that my sister has depression, and with that, my sister eventually started going to the psychologist.

Then on October 15th, it happened again, except that my mom straight up sent me to my aunt’s house to sleep there for tonight because my sister was going crazy again, hopefully I didn’t get to witness her meltdown... Except the next day, early in the morning, when I arrived home on taxi, I saw my sister’s right arm with blood and a few hours later, her arm is full of scars, ouch. (Her arm is probably healed by now because I don’t see the scars lately).

Aside with all of my sister’s creepy anthics, I’ve had a few share of problems, mainly at school.

The problem is that I harmed two girl classmates in different occassions, I know I wouldn’t hurt women and I normally wouldn’t be the type to hurt women, but Mexican schoolgirls are just the worst. One instance was that I was being yelled at because I wasn’t into the teamwork enough and hadn’t done anything and I just went all out, I was gonna choke and even bite her neck off. The other one was where I was gonna slap a chubby one but I slapped another girl next to her unintentionally and we were arguing about it.

After a while I forgot about it but now I dare to bring these school memories again...

Anyways, I think that’s the end of the stories of my older sister’s madness, even I get flashbacks of those moments and I everytime I typed everything down, my head always twitched, and done with my brief stories about my problems at school.

You may have already gotten sympathy for what I’ve been through, but it seems like I’m about to ruin the moment.

Now, let’s move on with my problem with personal opinions, again. Yes, I know you may be sick of me talking about this topic over and over, but trust me, I’ve been given enough tips and some of the same ones, so let me give one last rant so I can get my last laugh on my friends, this may be like a rewritten version of this post I made last year (make sure to read it before reading this, if you like), but this one features recent events and a better conclusion. Time to end this by going all out. Enjoy.

My 2018 in a nutshell.

Where do I begin? This entire year was still through my usual problems with my obsession with personal opinions, but I can’t tell if it’s equally bad or worse than what I went through with 2017. I think it’s the latter because it all comes with the “Franxxgate” (That’s how I dub the hate around Darling in the Franxx as a whole) and it’s probably one of my few breaking points this year.

Pretty much every anime “gate”, from the Apocryphagate from 2017, to 2018′s Franxxgate and even FLCLgate from a group of friends lead by a certain person with a P on their name I interact with (while there’s the opposing side of the fandom where Toonami-fags still love watching FLCL), completely breaks me. (Everything needs a “-gate”, okay?)

With that being said, in late September, I jumped to the conclusion that anime in general has become my most sensitive topic yet, and I wish I wouldn’t talk about anime with anyone, and I also declared to fuck anime as a whole. I mean, let’s be real, what’s even the real point for anime adaptations to exist? For the money? (I’m using this excuse to every industry or even art itself), Most adaptations don’t even work, and they don’t get fans or something.

If you’re really THAT badly disappointed by these shows or anything else in general, the first thing that comes to your mind is deleting them, right? but before you do that, you should at least consider what would you do to rewrite those shows, like, how would you make them good? If you’re a heartless cunt without any soft spot for the creators and intentions (unless they really make some outrageous shit), then delete is indeed your only option.

I’ve always seen these sorts of situations as “Aw, the performances and the music (and occasionally the well written characters) are so good but the overall story SUCKS.”

Also, if I answer what do you like and you come up with “good”, don’t come up with such bullshit at my face, it’s impossible for anything to be “good”, define “good”. I don’t want subjective answers, try to give something more detailed.

Anime aside, let me talk about how people criticize in general, based on experience.

I just never understood how there are people who are fans of something but dare to say some flaws despite saying that they like it, that it’s great, etc. That’s fucking ironic and downright stupid!

For example, there’s a guy who likes, uh... Game X, but they find like a couple of problems, but they still think they like it and what not, fucking ironic.

(I probably would like to use Persona 5 as a proper example instead of “Game X”, but it’s too much of an offensive example for me to use, to be honest...)

I saw this tweet that says “It’s okay to criticize things you love.”, and while it’s true, and there are times I criticize things I love, for example, the MCU for lack of crossovers between the TV shows and the movies (probably my biggest problem would be the Marvel Netflix shows, they still reference the Avengers, I see no relevance for their existence), but most of the time, I never give a fuck about the flaws from everything I love.

One of my friends replied me that it is and proceeds to talk about his “tough love” for Dragon’s Dogma. Keyword: Tough love, this is one of those words I’ve honestly haven’t heard in a long time, but applying it here is not something I asked for, I just don’t have tough love for everything, I’ve mostly never been the type to spot flaws and criticize them, I’m the type of person who blindly praises or hates anything, without having to explain in detail what I like or hate (occasionally), I’m never going to be a critic like you, I’ve always been a blind fanboy and will continue to be, whether you like it or not.

Speaking of critics, I never liked people who are still being critics, they could bring fair points but at the same time what they say it’s always clichéd, they throw words like “predictable”, “clichéd” and stuff like that.First of all, I can’t even tell what’s predictable, well, there are times that I know what’s going to happen next, but I actually have fun guessing rather than criticizing, it’s actually good for me, same goes for clichéd, I have no idea what are people even talking about when they say “clichéd”. Sure, people may use tired tropes, whether for seriousness or satirical purposes, it all depends on the execution, for the better or for worse. If you’re looking for some form of art that’s not predicatble, that’s not clichéd and everything, it’s impossible to find one because every single creator makes the same mistake of making their series with, you guessed it, tired tropes. Hell, I may even do the same mistake too, because why the fuck not? Whether for seriousness or for satirical purposes.

(I always have the guilty pleassure for everyone to hate me mainly because I’m a blind fanboy and accuse everyone and calling them supremacists or something. I saw this Comicbookcast2 video a long time ago titled “FUCK BLIND FANBOYS” or something. The video has been deleted, and when I saw it, it was offensive for me, but I actually want to watch it again. Sorry for being political at the supremacy part, but that’s how I always feel. Speaking of supremacy, despite my anger at everyone’s opinions, I’m never right and don’t have the power to change their minds, fucking weak-ass knucklehead me.)

The point is, there’s a game/show/movie that you’ve been excited for it for so long, and in general it turned out to be a really great product, you try it yourself, you think that it’s really good but then you come out and explain that there are some severe flaws and everything else to criticize either some aspects or the entire product, do the flaws really ruin your hype? Does it ruin how you wanted it to be? Pathetic.

Okay okay, I know I know, I get that nothing is “perfect”, I get that a lot, but if you want to be like a true fan about a particular product or even a franchise, without all of the ranking from best to worst and vice versa type, don’t give a shit about their flaws, just ignore them, just enjoy everything that’s going on, that’s my definition of a true fan. That’s my motto I’ve been following for a long time. But alas, this definition of “fan” is dead, and the meaning has never been this way.

Well, there are times that I even say the same things, I can detect some flaws too, but most of the time, there are things that I care about in my life that I tend to ignore their flaws all the time. I can’t criticize, I can’t hate some aspects, I almost just don’t know how to do these things.

There are times that people tell their opinions as if they’re facts. There’s that same dude who told me about tough love, he started that sentence with “It is.”, he also told me those same words a few times. But still, I don’t fucking care if something is trash, I don’t care if even if it’s your opinion or if it’s an actual fact, don’t try to brainwash me or even anyone with your bullshit!

It’s like people don’t know how to enjoy things anymore, well, it’s always been this way but I’ve never been this deep with this level of hypocrisy, cynicism and intransigence. With people not appreciating art sometimes, I can even go far to think that Art is Dead. (I’d write a blog post about it but I mainly would love to write a book about it and point out every single types of criticisms I can gather from experience and memory)

This isn’t about toxicity, SJWs or anything, some of them must be intellectual people who think they’re “right” on what’s bad, it’s bad.

My biggest problem is that I ALWAYS happen to start a topic and let everyone bring their worst opinions possible, I always takes opinions by heart and I always go compusively defensive about everything and try to justify what happened while having a “Oh, I get how the creators feel about this, I feel connected” kind of mindset or something.

I just happened to be sensitive about everything, even the slightest negative word, once I hear words like “okay”, “bland”, and everything else, I lose brain cells, always.

Even WORSE is that I′m friends with some people with the worst opinions possible. (Probably would like to call them out here, publicly on Tumblr, but nah, whoever reads, I’ll tell them.). Talking with these people has been my largest waste of time I’ve ever had. I’m sick of talking to you, you disappoint me.

Everything I’m saying is pretty much beyond autism, bipolar or multiple personality disorder material, I’m genuinely like some criticism censorship madman, please, accept it.

Everyone always told me “it’s just their opinion” and everything but it’s the same thing when I got bullied, everyone always told me “Just ignore them.” and ignorance was never in my motto, I just want everyone to stop. I also get told a lot that I need to tolerate and respect them, I kind of do that but at the same time I always get headaches, like my brain is always going to explode, I’m always trying to resist the pain like this. (This video also depicts my procrastination on writing my novel). Even if I were to ignore their opinions, their words are stuck in my head and can’t stop thinking about them, it’s like I’m a magnet, like I’m traumatized by your words.

This is also going to affect my life as an author, sometimes I’d definitely consider taking feedback on plot points, characters and writing mistakes, but when I get comments like either my works or what I’m doing in the future flat out suck, things could get complicated.

I could rant about how “creative freedom” is dead, from trying really hard at complex narrative and “original” ideas to even sexual content, by always being ruined by negativity and I almost don’t believe criticism can’t help but it’ll be for another post, if I actually can depending on my mood.

Suddenly, on September 18th, I found a video talking about the personal opinions by SrPelo, not only it was really hilarious, it actually depicts pretty much everything that’s wrong with me.

(There are English and Spanish versions of this video, but I recommend the Spanish version, it’s funnier. There are English captions, though.)

But has the video taught me anything? Kind of, I got some of the points but eventually I’m still defensive.

Going back to the topic of fanboy-ism (Not fandom, it’s a specific thing), what happened to the passionate people and their rage when I say something like “I’m not into Franchise X.”, “I don’t care about it.” or anything? Why won’t YOU be mad at me when I say such things or some worse shit? Actually, that doesn’t matter, because that’s into toxic territory, you do have a sense of “I don’t have a problem with people enjoying what they like.” instead of “Why do you have to enjoy it? Don’t.”, at least you do have some mental stability unlike me.

Okay, this has been really convoluted, I ran out of ideas and it feels like it’s getting nowhere that I lost you, so let me jump to the conclusions:

PLOT TWIST! PLOT TWIST!

It’s time to confess that nothing in life convinces me anymore, there’s a lot of things I see and when I finish, I always say “I liked it”/”it was good”, but in reality, I feel nothing, NOTHING. I can’t simply say “It was okay” nor even “I didn’t like it.”, I just feel neutral about everything, I’m indifferent and shit.

When I see new things I might get into, I experience it, some say that it’s bad and stuff like that, I’m always neutral in the end yet unnecessarily defensive, well, I am defensive for their existence in “art”. I’m just someone who always defends art by thinking that every creator put their efforts into. (Of course, it doesn’t mean “every single” creator in existence, there are some who are absolute assholes.)

There are things that seem new to me, sometimes I got high hopes to like them when I experience them but at the same time I’m kind of neutral about it, I probably don’t have that much high hopes to become part of my life compared to my existing interests, if there’s something really interesting from something I really care about my life but some may be getting hate from it, I get really triggered. I don’t get disappointed in most things, sometimes I can’t really tell if I actually like them or hate them.

There are also things that normally aren’t part of my life, or stuff I don’t care but may intrigue me someday or in a different Earth, yet I’m gratuitously defensive on their place in art.

What have I been gaining from all of this? Power for being right myself and be capable of shut your mouths off. But, like I stated, it’s not like I could brainwash everyone with my own words based on experience of offending people sometimes.

I’ve had this sort of existential crisis for 2 years and I don’t think I’m ever gonna stop, no matter how many times people tell me to stop.

Before I go detailed with my resolution, let me say this: Either people should say something that don’t (indirectly) piss me off or should I not take their words by heart ever again.

(Crowd yelling at me for what I just said)

Okay, it’s a little weird but it’s true.

I’ll make a list of my worst features that you still may or may not interact with me ever again at a later time too, if I feel like it, but in conclusion, let me say this:

I’m a self-centered person who refuses to listen to anyone’s opinions on certain things (or pretty much everything) and refuses to accept the reality, the facts, and has a distrust agenda (or I claim to say that because I still trust some people), doesn’t have identity of his own and relies on others, doesn’t feel bias and can’t share the same logic, thought-process or even common sense (?) than you have. I just want to have my own opinions, my beliefs and everything but I’m feeling like I’m surrounded by opposites.

But even if I hear a different group with one unanimous opinions and another one with an opposing unanimous opinions, I can’t choose sides nor I would like to do so. And I’ve never been on your side nor would like to be in it. (This goes back to my brief discussion on Detroit: Become Human).

Let me tell you something: When you have a conversation with a friend you respect the most but comes up with opposing opinions, that they don’t like aspects of them, etc., your first instinct would be respectfully disagree and talk it out, but that aside... do you know how it feels like?! I’ve been through that pain a lot! And not a single time I could learn to get a grip on such conversations!... At least the one thing I can do is boycotting conversations where opinions and criticims get out of hand for my views.

Let me give you a life lesson: You should have a digree of distrust, everytime you ask one person that they should try X and they give their own opinion, you don’t need to buy it 100%. You have to learn to investigate things yourself, and when you see the general reception for the X you’re seeing, you should be unsure and should check X out yourself. When you hear different sources saying different things, you shouldn’t trust any of them and investigate yourself, that’s the basics of my life experience.

I may sound like I’m manipulative, like I want people to be exactly like me or that I want to meet new people like me, basically forming a legion with similar mindset or something, I can confirm and deny on wanting to achieve such goal. It’s really strange that I can say yes and no to something I don’t really think about.

The thing is, I’m just loyal to art, attached to everything, well, not 100%, there are things that do look like trash trash, when there are things look good but people say they’re trash, I’ll never forgive them, depending on their attitude based on experience, I’m never gonna forgive anyone.

Also, (this next part may go into artist (as in illustrator) territory, but still), let me tell you this: I HATE criticizing artists! I’m not the type of person to mock or downright criticize anything they do! Well, I do have rights to express mixed feelings about some things they post online which I don’t feel convinced from a previous picture I was heavily invested or something, but I can’t say those mixed feelings in front of their faces and I should reconsider! I have absolute pride for artists no matter what they do. And if you dare to make fun of them, comically or not, you can shove it.

I’m not always supportive of “every” single creator out there, there are some who are scumbags or corporate bullshit.

I’m also optimistic, unlike you. Not at everything, but there are things that sound intersting, but too bad there has to be some haters. I know I’d have to adjust my eyes to take a proper look but there has to be some sort of potential somewhere.

You think you’re critics? On a Gordon Ramsay/Master Chef kind of scale? I’ll tell you what, try to put on a creator’s shoes, or try to imagine a different Earth where you’re an artist (illustrator, writer, etc.), even if you tend to criticize others, and when you create something, I won’t hesitate to Gordon Ramsay you’re ass off.

Whenever you bring negative comments from something good, I always, ALWAYS, want to counter your opinions very offensively like this, but sadly I can’t, but I think it’s fine because I am scared of getting blocked or banned from a Discord sever. (Discord has ruined my life lol)

But alas, with all of the bias people show, mainly negative from something I find interesting, seeing this happening everyday and telling right at my face, I happened to become a broken person now, no thanks to you, yes, as ridiculous as it sounds, even indirectly.

I’ve had this thing with personal opinions and trying to bear them up my ass. I’m just tired, I’m sick of everything. Either everyone needs to stop or better, I should stop because I’m always the one to start causing trouble by a disagreement.

One way I would like to stop what’s happening to me is to break up with the people I talk with (mainly Discord severs because they’re the worst), or even better,  retire from the internet for good, but I don’t think I’d have the ability to do that. Perhaps the only way is just to have some more mental stability myself, to learn to actually calm myself.

People have even told me to take a break from the internet but I just can’t, there’s lots of good things I don’t want to miss.

Here’s my final strike to end this long rant to relieve my 2 year long stress once and for all (hopefully):

You all must be good at parties.

At last, that’s the end of my life experiences, sorry to make you read through that pain that was my emotional ride you wouldn’t even care because, while it starts creepy at first, later it just fell apart with my obsession with opinions, let’s move on to some other negatives from 2018 in general and let’s go with the ups.

There’s no shortage of celebrity deaths and yet it managed to be worse than 2016, the one death that got me hard was Stan Lee. That instantly made 2018 much worse than it already is.

Without Stan Lee, there’s not gonna be any more Marvel movie cameos and I wished I could meet him in person one day, now my dream is dead.

Stefan Karl, Stephen Hillenburg, even the youngest musicians, many more.

With Stan Lee and Stephen Hillenburg both passed away in November, it reminded me of Roberto Gómez Bolaños, better known as Chespirito, which he passed away in November 28th 2014, that made me think that November is a cursed month.

This shit is really sad.

Now that we’re done talking with the negative, let’s talk about the positives, sorry it took so long with the negative, but here we are to change the mood.

The best thing that has happened in my life that I can think of is that I get to travel for the first time, I traveled to Irapuato, Guanajuato to meet my uncles (relatives to my dad), and the place itself was great. We stayed with my uncles’ for a week, the week of E3.

When we first arrived, the weather was cold, even at summer, there was a really nice shopping mall and it had a restaurant with genuine ramen we ate, everything was great.

The worst part of the trip, and by sleeping at my uncles’ house was that my body was always itchy and I couldn’t stop scratching and always put mosquito repellent.

Another best moment of my life, well, it may sound dickish that I did it, but I didn’t get to go to study to a new school after I ended preparatory school. Mainly because I wasn’t entirely sure what to study, I needed a break from my underwhelming experience at the prepa and because my mom wouldn’t pay us, my older sister and I, both schools for like hundreds of thousands of pesos.

Next year I’m gonna start studying plastic arts, maybe I’d like to learn more about drawing than my current skills, I just want to improve but at the same time, to be honest, I don’t really feel motivated to study art at all, mainly because I want to focus on outlining and writing my novel for real.

There are minor complaints I had this year and it’s got something to do with the TV side. Right at the end of watching every show from Agents of SHIELD to Westworld, I’ve been a little burnt out on watching TV shows, so after Legion and Westworld ended, I wasn’t feeling like watching TV anymore, not even the Marvel Netflix shows (let’s be real, they’re all super boring anyways, they even put me to sleep; but I feel bad for some of them being cancelled, though.).

Despite my lost interest on watching TV now, I’m still going to watch Agents of SHIELD and The Blacklist when their seasons 6 come out.

You’ve reached the end of my long review of my 2018 experience.

FINALLY!

Let’s finally talk about my resolutions and we can end this year once and for all!

Some of the resolutions are like last year’s and some may be new but I hope, I REALLY HOPE, to achieve them, and after that, we can finally talk about what I’m looking forward the most in 2019!

Resolutions: I may have fulfilled like at least one of the resolutions I made last year, well... half of it, and it’s going to the gym, because, I really need to get in shape before I turn 20. I’m not fat, it’s just I got the belly. I gave up on the swimming part because I wasn’t interested and motivated, especially at this weather right now.

Anyways, that gym talk aside, I really haven’t fulfilled my resolutions at all, the worst offender being my resolution of writing my novel because I had a year long writer’s block (yep, that long). As for the “try not to be a jerk”, from what you read from my long rant, I hope that should be the last time.

Let me rephrase my resolutions and then add some new ones, I really hope I could have the mental energy and the will to fulfill them all.

If I can’t fulfill at least one, most or even all of the resolutions, I’m pretty much fucked.

Write my novel for real: I’ve been wanting to write my novel this entire year but I’ve made little to no progress at all, I was struggling on finding a way on what kind of story I would make, but my bigger problems were that I was focusing on wanting to make a pen name for myself use that to start my social media accounts and everything, I did it but I felt like I wasted it. I may give up on the pen name idea and use my real name, unless my family or anyone else would find a perfect pen name for me and hold off until I get my novel written halfway.

I also need money ready, have a PayPal and a Patreon, the money to pay for stuff like cover artist, domains for my website, ec. I’m still waiting to get my hands on a credit card so I could make money because I haven’t gotten any.

I didn’t enter to a new school right now so I could have had the time to write my novel, but I just wasted that opportunity.

I also got this fear that I may run into identity problems or something, when it comes to my edgy shitposter self and my author self, I don’t want to run in the same problem James Gunn did, I want to become separate entities (that sounds like some sort of multiple personality disorder like I lowkey have (not really)).

Even worse is that I had at least one person who I’ve been talking and talking about my dream project, the characters, headcanon-ing(?) random events and everything for YEARS. I also had different people who I talked about the project, but not as much as that one person who I’ve been doing it for a long time. I would ask the people I explained about my project and everything for a while to forget about it, but it seems like it’s such a harsh request, maybe keep everything I said a secret would be better. Speaking of which, that’s why I tend to be secretive about what I want to do and everything lately, this goes full circle to the previous paragraph about identity. The one person also went far commissioning art of my characters, while I was honored for that, I feel like it’s a little too soon... Well, if it’s like a normal artist commissioning OCs and stuff like that, it’s fine, but the problem is that I’m making OCs with the sole purpose of them existing into a real novel and everything, and it could be dangerous.

I got lots of ambitious goals and ideas and I can’t really explain everything, I’d love to handle everything by myself, I can find my own innovative ways to market my novel and everything.

One thing I can say about what I want with my novel is pretty simple:

I need my stories to exist: Commissioned fan arts of my characters aside, I want my stories to exist for real, I just can’t leave my dream universe to collect cellular dust and simply use my imagination, occasionally draw those ideas, etc.

Money: No surprise, that’s quite an obvious thing to do, but depends on how much royalties do I get with Amazon or I simply make my money with PayPal and/or Patreon.

...Did I say Amazon? That’s right, I’m planning to self-publish my novel with Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.

Wanting my novels to becomea franchise: Okay, this is a little too much, and there’s a weird pattern I noticed that if you say “This is going to be the next X franchise” or “I want this to be huge!” or something like that, you’re bound to fail, and if you say “I don’t think I might make it” or similar statements that you wouldn’t be successful or anything, you’re bound to succeed. I know I’m escalating things up but it’s what I want the most, but I don’t want it to be adapted into Hollywood and that kind of shit, I want it to be adapted into a video game series, which I originally planned to make this into a game series, but since I would never figure out how would I study game design or anything, I gave up on the idea and chose something easier, writing a novel.

I wasn’t kidding that I have ambitious goals and ideas...

I don’t have a lot of motivation to write my novel, the only thing I’m motivated to write are Tumblr posts...

I’m always like “Gotta write” and I just can’t. There’s something about trying to structure sentences something that always throws me off, it’s just hard.

I haven’t been in the mood to continue trying to outlining the plot and the characters, I’m waiting for the right time to continue, and that time would be starting 2019.

I don’t want any more excuses and I need to find a way to motivate myself to write, I need to write for real, I don’t need to worry about writing garbage words or anything, I just need to write. X_X

Anyways, moving on to the next resolution.

Change my behavior (for the better or for the worse): After I made you read through my psychosis (If you read all the way through the end, good job. If you skipped it, why would you do that? It’s important), it probably should be time for me to change because even I get tired of the way I’m acting right now.

What do I mean to change for the better or for the worse? In one hand, I do want to act like a good person, I need to be more understood in a few cases and try to be more honest, but that honesty sometimes could be rude. As you can see, sometimes I could rude, I tend to make insulting comments and sometimes I delete them because I’m scared that I might end up being blocked and/or banned, even if I intended to make jokes. Basically I’m not gonna delete my comments, as rude as they may be, I really hope anyone won’t take them very seriously.

If I can’t manage to be more respectful towards others’ opinions and be a good person through the entirety of 2019, you pretty much know that I’m quite an angry, trigger-happy person like I’ve already been this year. Or maybe I can be kind of a tsundere, right! I sometimes even I was a bit of a tsundere this year! :3

Despite my good behavior and actions, I’m still going to have my trust no one motto. Sure, I can still understand some people’s opinions, but sometimes I can’t 100% take them. Sometimes you just gotta find things out by yourself when you hear different sources with different opinions, that’s the basics.

(God, talking about basics make me sound like I’m Genjou Kakouton from Ikki Tousen)

I dunno why but I’m already imagining that my behavior change would feel more like personality disorder (why am I so obsessed with personality disorders?), anyways, I really hope I could definitely change the way I am and everything, hopefully.

(Be nice with me or else we’re done, okay?)

Draw very often: I’ve pretty much given up on drawing at this point, and I’m even going to enter art school soon and, to be honest, I don’t feel like I’m really interested in art school at all.

On one hand, I do want to learn to draw better, but on the other hand, I really don’t feel like going to school right now... even I don’t know why my head feels like it doesn’t want to do shit.

I just lost patience in drawing, I really struggle on how should I do the roughs and my inking always go wrong. Don’t even get me started on digital art, that one’s my absolute worst nightmare. Layers, brushes, brush sizes, everything about digital art drives me crazy now.

Drawing has always been my favorite hobby, it’s not like I got a slump, I can randomly do sketches of my OCs or even my favorite characters, the problem is the willing to draw.

I’m 19 years old and I expect to draw better right away...

I was originally going to make an Infinity Stone variant New Year drawings, with each stone representing a character from their colors, I realized that I wasn’t going to have the patience to do everything right.

Besides writing my novel, I would like to draw very often so I could improve. I’m more on the traditional side, so learning about digital might be a pain in the ass but it should be worth it. Well, maybe I don’t need to draw literally every single day because I could get carpal tunnel, but that’s the point of learning to improve your drawing, by doing so everyday.

Anticipations: My favorite part of every New Year is talking about what I look forward the most. For the most part, I’ve seen plenty that will come out next year, but maybe not everything will come in 2019, so delays would eventually happen, but in the mean time, we can acknowledge some upcoming things.

Anticipated anime: When new anime seasons come closer, my anticipated anime will always differ, depending on what announcements I see, they’ve always gotta be in the same year or next year (2019), but alas, here are some of the biggest titles I have in mind:

(Note that some of the titles mentioned here are from Winter 2019, so close and I already addressed some of them on my previous post, but I feel like rewriting what I said here in case if you don’t want to read it all)

One Punch Man season 2: This one I’m genuinely cautiously optimistic, or perhaps I’m 50/50, I don’t have the highest hopes to be good (at least visually), but I’m strangely happy to know if it’s going to look like crap because I want to see it burn and everything (I’m a little insane), I’m never going to forgive the studio change shit move.

On December 21st, the first trailer has finally dropped, and even with the little animation shown, but the main thing that matters to me is how it looks, and it looks... not really what I expected but it could be a mixed bag.

On one hand, it still looks a bit like the first season, which I’m happy, on the other hand, they added filters and the character designs (especially King’s) look a little off, even if it’s supposed to have the same character designer from the first season, but I thought the designs may differ from animation or something.

I saw a comment that OPM S2 appears to be made by the Prison School staff, while I’m not entirely sure if it’s true but I figured since Prison School is made by JC Staff, no wonder why OPM has similar visual filters or something.

(Can’t properly upload GIFs to Tumblr and the GIF button sucks)

Madhouse’s animation style will always hold a special place in my heart, and as I previously stated, it still looks okay, may change when it comes out. Can’t give a seal of approval yet, but there’s potential.

Mob Psycho 100 II: Unlike One Punch Man, I’m glad Mob Psycho 100 is handled at better hands and I’m happy season 2 is happening. I still wish OPM S2 could have been aired on Winter 2019 with Mob Psycho 100 S2 to have a ONE combo but OPM S2 being on Spring when MP100 ends is the closest I could get (I’m never going to stop repeating this, because it’s true)

Enough OPM talk, looking forward to MP100, I’m still wondering if it’ll go two-cour a la My Hero Academia to adapt every chapter until the very end or it’s still one-cour and wait until a third season gets greenlit and then it’ll adapt the final chapters.

Kemono Friends 2: Like One Punch Man season 2, I extremely don’t have the highest hopes for Kemono Friends 2 at all, especially after you know what happened.

Whenever people see something Kemono Friends related, they can’t help but always, and I mean, always spam “No Tatsuki No Tanoshii” or a difference sentence but with the theme of “bring Tatsuki back” or something, from the two trailers and even some things that are not intended to spread the hate. (Seriously, why would you do that? It’s just the artist, Mine Yoshizaki, drawing, why even go with the “No Tatsuki No Tanoshii” mood into something innocent as this?)

Speaking of the trailers, the second one is the worst that has come out, besides from the thousands of dislikes, to no one’s surprise, the worst offender has got to be the new human character, Kyururu, immediately leading me to believe that Kaban-chan got retconned... That is until I got an anonymous message that she wasn’t retconned, she was referenced at some points or something, based on screenings of what I assume to be the first episode, don’t know any more of the screening stuff, but let’s wait until the first or later episodes to see if it’s true.

Perhaps Kemono Friends 2 could be a prequel? One of my friends told me it could be a soft reboot after I showed them the message, but it doesn’t seem likely. And the fact that it’s another prequel would cause any sort of problems. For one, there’s already a prequel, which is the Welcome to Japari Park anime series (not to be confused with the manga of the same name because it’s completely different...?), it may not show much but there’s Mirai and Caracal, unless it could be a sequel to Japari Park after what happened to Mirai or something, who knows.

Despite all the negative press that it’s getting, I’ve been seeing a lot of comments that express excitement, which I don’t mind, actually. I’ve also seen comments that the animation looks better than the first season’s, while it may be true, but it’s a bit disrespectful for Tatsuki.

Once it comes out, let’s see how it’ll go.

(Wow, there’s S2 after S2...)

Kemurikusa: After Tatsuki got fired from the Kemono Friends franchise, I wonder what would his future be, and it appears that he started making shorts and posting them by multiple parts on his Twitter, which is fine, but what about any full fledged anime series? Well, that actually happened, and it happens to be a remake of one of his old web series.

I don’t remember when have I scrolled through Tatsuki’s old CG movie portofolio, but I’m sure it was definitely when the initial teasers for Kemurikusa (or simply known as “Tatsuki’s next anime” series at the time) on Comiket were revealed.

I’m still wondering if this is an all-new reboot, a prequel or a sequel of the original web series, but the answer lies until I see it.

Kimetsu no Yaiba: I’m so looking forward to this one, Ufotable’s next big TV anime project, and it happens to be a Shonen Jump series, which makes things much more surreal than Katsugeki: Touken Ranbu.

Yeah, I’m pretty much a big Ufotable fan right now. (though the only disadvantage being Girls’ Work nowhere in sight)

My Hero Academia season 4: I’m surprised to hear that it’s going to come out on the Fall season compared to the usual Spring release. And I was immediately begging for it to come on my birthday but I realized that My Hero Academia is a Saturday show and the first Saturday of October is the 5th, which is sad for me.

Azur Lane anime: As much as I love the game, I’m definitely excited for the anime, I even went so far to make a predictions post, but at the same time, since I rambled that adaptations are worthless of existence if you’d prefer the source material way better, I’m scared that it may turn out mediocre (maybe as or not as much as the Kancolle anime (which I dunno why I started developing mixed feelings since I liked it when I saw it back in 2015 ;_;))

It may or may not be a 2019 release, depending as time goes on and see if there are any new trailers or any announcements over the course of the year.

When the anime comes out and it becomes subject of a disappointment, I feel like it could be kind of an understatement, either from people who don’t play the game or the ones who do, I dunno, I’m relying on my beliefs on how it’s going to do for the moment, it’s a strange situation where I would like it at first but I get mixed feelings eventually.

Fate/Grand Order Babylonia TV series / Fate/Grand Order Camelot movie: Sometimes I forget which of the two FGO anime projects are a TV series and a movie. Anyways, I’m looking forward to these, but I feel like no one is accepting these Fate adaptations lately and it’s making me angry and sad.

As to why are Babylonia and Camelot the most popular chapters in FGO, I asked on a Discord server I frequently interact with, and they said that the previous chapters are bad and forgettable, I was like really speechless and turns me off, I mean, real talk: Why does FGO got a bunch of chapters and you either like none of them or the entire fan base agrees that every chapter before Babylonia and Camelot are... bad?! You can’t do that, they’re... there! If so, what’s even the point of these chapters to exist?!

Alright, that’s enough rant and I ran out of ideas.

Anyways, I’m more curious on the Camelot movies because if they’re released theatrically, I really wonder if they would come out internationally too, especially in Mexico. I really wonder if there are plenty of people who play FGO like my sister and I, either the Japanese version, the North American version (which seems unlikely because it’s region locked). I’m also curious about the releases since it’s a two parter, if it’ll be yearly release, it’s fine, but if it’s like the K Seven Stories films which come out months and months, I’ll definitely run out of money (not much than the game (if I had any money for the game)), but if it’ll be TV films, that’s much better.

To be honest, I can’t really see the appeal as to why are Babylonia and Camelot good in terms of writing because I haven’t looked up on translations and I don’t play the NA version at all... I hate Camelot so much because it was so god damn hard, Babylonia not so much iirc. And I’m lazy to look up said translations or even watch videos of the NA version.

NOW, WHEN THEY COME OUT, DON’T YOU DARE TRASH TALK ABOUT IT, PLEASE DON’T BE FATE/APOCRYPHA 2.0 TO BRING IN THE HATE OR ELSE...

(Source)

Anticipated games: Even if I still haven’t owned a PS4 and a Switch, I’m stll looking forward to the games, nonetheless, though I’m sad that there’s plenty of games that came out for years and I’ll never get to play them all, especially since we’re getting into next-gen console territory. Anyways, here are the biggest games I’m looking forward:

Devil May Cry 5: I’m happy to see there’s finally a new Devil May Cry game after 10 years since DMC4 came out. I only played DMC1 and DMC3. With the reveal at E3, the song Devil Trigger is the second best thing to come out of it (the first being the reveal itself) because I couldn’t stop listening to it for like a week and occasionally a couple of days, etc.

Every gameplay footage I’ve seen of the game and it’s looking damn fresh. I’m also happy to hear that DMC5 is taken place after DMC2 in the timeline, that’s one of the things from the DMC lore I always wanted because I didn’t want prequel after prequel.

Seems like my sister is really thirsty to get a PS4 to play DMC5 (because she was the first one to get into DMC after all, and when she asked me to play DMC1 for a little bit, I played the rest of it (and she never got to play DMC1 again and DMC3, unless she gets to play the HD Collection)).

Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes: I genuinely have mixed feelings for Travis Strikes Again. In one hand, I’m happy there’s finally a new No More Heroes game after a long time, but in the other hand, it’s not No More Heroes 3, like I always wanted, which that’s part of my disappointments with this game.

The more I look at it, the more I started to feel like I’m not really fond of the direction Travis Strikes Again is taking, particularly the one element I like the least is all of the indie game stuff. The game doesn’t even look good too, for a game made in Unreal Engine 4, looks like crap.

The biggest thing that completely hurt me is that Robin Atkin Downes is NOT reprising his role as Travis. He tweeted about it on September 2nd, 2017, a while after the game was revealed. Although, based on newer footage, it seems like Travis does sound like Robin Atkin Downes, if my ears can’t deceive me, but I can’t jump into conclusions 100%.

Suda has also stated that there will be No More Heroes 3 if Travis Strikes Again is successful, but given the timing of the release, January 18th, that’s a week before big titles like Kingdom Hearts 3 comes out, even if it’s a week, Travis Strikes Again probably won’t succeed in sales, if it indeed happens, there will be no No More Heroes 3, seems like my hopes and dreams are shattered. Travis Strikes Again will have similar problems to The World Ends With You: Final Remix, which sold poorly and a sequel is now unlikely.

I think I started to hate how developers always bring these “We’ll make a sequel if our product does well.” excuses, they don’t know if their product may turn bad critically and financially.

Despite my skepticisms with how the game looks and everything behind it overall, I’m ironically still rooting for Travis Strikes Again, I still want the game to succeed somehow and to live up my No More Hero spirit. I want it to either make or break a good comeback for a series I love the most.

But gameplay aside, my main priority is the story, it may or may not answer a few things about what happened to Travis and Santa Destroy in 8 (or 9 as it’s released in January 2019) years since No More Heroes 2, I JUST WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING. I may have high expectations from said things, that aside, even if the story is crap (or rather the whole game) is crap, it seems like Travis Strikes Again could be my biggest dealbreaker ever, if I’ll be 100% sure about that. (Like how Danganronpa V3 brought one of the worst plot twists yet, I’m not 100% sure if I should be disappointed or just deal with it despite having mixed feelings).

I can’t hate Travis Strikes Again, I can’t feel disappointed on it, I want to like it and everything on it, etc. (Since I’m an indecisive person, I can’t even decide which feelings should I choose?)

While I don’t own a Switch (yet), I may watch some playthroughs if I can, but this is something I’d really love to play the game myself, I wouldn’t mind reading spoilers, but at the same time, I’m conflicted on what to do.

Anyways, it’d better be successful or fail, if it fails, say no more to No More Heroes 3, my hopes and dreams for a real NMH3 will be forever shattered and lose faith in Suda51 for good, and I poured tears of joy (I legit cried) from the Travis Strikes Again announcement from the Switch reveal in January 2017 in vain.

...That is until December 20th, I was watching the Famitsu presentation but my mom turned off the internet 30 minutes later, but when I woke up that morning, literally the first thing I saw on Twitter was a tweet by Grasshopper where they tweeted that... ROBIN ATKIN DOWNES IS RETURNING AS TRAVIS AFTER ALL! Then I saw the Gematsu post about the season pass and HOLY SHIT, SHINOBU AND BAD GIRL!

I’m happy that they both got revealed (and their returning voices, double yay), but I’m more surprised on Bad Girl because ISN’T SHE DEAD, THOUGH?! Ahem, yeah, isn’t she supposed to be dead or there may be some sort of simulation from the Death Drive, I dunno, but hey, at least Badman (which he’s voiced by Steve Blum, which is nice) can get to have a reunion with his daughter... kind of.

There’s also this new character as one of the stage bosses, Brian Buster Jr., I don’t think I would find anything to add to the character (haven’t seen him much at all), and I’m not much familiar with the actor, Greg Ellis, but I checked his portofolio and I am somewhat familiar with his works now.

With all that said, my faith in Travis Strikes Again has restored, but I need to see how would Henry and Sylvia look like after all this years and my life will be completed.

Oh, but when his translator announced that Travis won’t be in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate LIVE, THAT I won’t ever forgive! ¡Pero qué vergüenza que se sirvan de este tipo de trampas!

(This is worse than the FFXV anniversary stream which it was basically a funeral for the DLCs)

Code Vein: I was so looking forward to this one this year, but months before the game came out in the September release date, it got delayed until nexr year, I don’t know why but if they got some stuff to improve, let them take their time. Besides, I already got God Eater 3, anyways.

Azur Lane: Crosswave: If the anime wasn’t enough, there’s also a PS4 game of Azur Lane already. Seems like AL really has escalated quickly.

It’s developed by Felistella and Compile Heart, which the latter is known as the makers of the Neptunia franchise. It’s a love it or hate it kind of situation with their games, though I’ve seen more hate on the Neptunia series from one person (sorry for calling you out if you’re reading this) than... Erin Fitzgerald’s Noire, but that won’t stop me from trying to play Azur Lane: Crosswave.

However, some of the games from their portofolio may be mediocre at best, I may expect AL: Crosswave to also be somewhat mediocre or maybe even New Gundam Breaker level garbage (okay, my expectations are outlandish), but I still hope it’ll turn out to be a good game.

I definitely like what I’m seeing so far, especially the character models because it feels nice to see the shipfus brought to 3D.

They also teased that there are two original characters, they haven’t revealed them yet, and when they do, I’m sure they’ll look great, they may be exclusive to the game, but that won’t stop me for wanting them to appear in the base game. (It’s a similar situation on how I want Charlamagne from Fate/Extella Link to appear in FGO eventually)

Unlike the anime, this one is indeed planned to release sometime in 2019, though a delay may eventually happen, but we can still count it as a 2019 release for now.

By the way, both Granblue Fantasy and Azur Lane are getting console games when Fate/Grand Order hasn’t gotten one yet. ;_;

Anticipated movies: When it comes to anticipated movies, my top picks are always Marvel movies, because why the fuck not? As in for anime movies, my top pick would be Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel (the FGO Camelot movie too but if it would be a theatrical release, which matters for me the most), but there may be other non-Marvel, non-DC movies

Avengers: Endgame: At last I’ve been waiting for trailer AND the title for the long called Avengers 4. Really hoping for Endgame to top Infinity War.

Spider-Man: Far From Home: Still waiting to see the trailer right now, but it seems like it would create problems of spoiling Avengers: Endgame or something, for the moment, the synopsis and the trailer description from CCXP are enough for me to get hyped for the film...

...Give me the god damn trailer, Sony, Marvel, whoever (certainly not Disney).

Between Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home, I’m debating on which one of these films are gonna be my #1 film, it’s the same problem I faced on the last minute before seeing Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, I was like “which one should be my #1? Infinity War or Spider-Verse?” and it turned out to be Spider-Verse, no surprise.

Captain Marvel: This one I feel like I’m the least hyped for Captain Marvel compared to Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home, but I’m still gonna see it, anyways, I just want to see what happens to Carol Danvers to not be around in the first Iron Man movie and The Avengers.

Dark Phoenix: I wonder if this could be the last X-Men movie made by Fox because of the Disney-Fox deal, depending on the success.

I’m also surprised that they dropped the “X-Men” on the title, but it’s still being used internationally (including Latin America).

Not that I think X-Men: Apocalypse was bad, but I do acknowledge that it was bad, I hope Dark Phoenix could be better than Apocalypse.

New Mutants: It still baffles me how would Fox drop the first trailer of New Mutants ages ago and then delay the film for a full year.

I heard they would capitalize on IT’s success and I feel like it would be copying someone’s success and it could fail very badly. I still want New Mutants to be succesful, somehow.

Speaking of IT...

IT Chapter 2: Just want to say definitely looking forward to Chapter 2.

Joker origin movie: It’s a movie coming out on my birthday! This time, coming out EXACTLY on the 4th, instead of the 5th like Venom. I’m really interested to see how will Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker would be like, he certainly looks way better than the Jared Leto Joker.

Also, I thought the one DC movie coming out in 2019 was Wonder Woman 1984 but then I realized it’s coming in 2020, so in 2019, I got the Joker movie and I also forgot this one was coming out too...

Shazam!: There isn’t much I would talk about Shazam, though, just that gonna see it, I don’t have much thoughts on the film itself. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Star Wars Episode 9: After The Last Jedi and Solo, I really hope Star Wars could win fans back, sure, they did part of it with the revival of the Clone Wars series, but the hate still lies around the movies.

The Last Jedi sure caused a lot of backlash, maybe everyone has been relying on fan theories way too much to be disappointed on how the film turned out, even if it’s not that, then who knows how the backlash came from. Solo, sure, kicking Phil Lord & Chris Miller was a dick move from Disney (but firing James Gunn was the ultimate dick move), but the final film turned out decent enough, sadly it’s a financial failure, though (like I care about financial successes or anything).

This is one of those cases why I hate fandoms so much, contrary to what critics believe that TLJ is a great film, with high scores and everything, and then everyone else just call it an ultimate disaster.

I’m not that passionate with Star Wars to believe if I like TLJ or I hate it (I’m sure there’s an Earth where I do hate TLJ when I’ve been a life long Star Wars fan), despite having a bit of history with Star Wars (with the cartoons and even got a Lego; I’ve never seen the films ;_;), I’m indifferent with the franchise, but I’m on a mission that I’m going to watch the new films starting with The Force Awakens, I’m just liking the newer films without having to pay attention to the entire lore and everything (don’t worry, I do watch videos about easter eggs and references). I’m not the type of person to hate TLJ.

There hasn’t been much Episode 9 news lately, but by the time being in 2019, there will be trailers and everything.

Glass: Split was probably like my very first M. Night Shyamalan film, or maybe I’ve seen parts of The Last Airbender but in the form of promos or something, I can’t remember but Split was definitely my first Shyamalan film.

I really loved Split, and I heard that it was a sequel to Unbreakable, which I got to see it recently, which now I’m ready to watch this interesting trilogy.

Despite having a rough year, having a lot of issues, being an asshole, and everything else, I still had a lot of fun. I also made a lot of new friends from Discord, sometimes they can be tolerable, other times can not, not just my friends, anyone else too, but that’s just me.

I really hope to achieve new things, obtain new interests and habits, I’m going to do everything leading up to become 20 years old. Though, I’m still expecting a genetical change like I’ve always been and nothing happened, but I’m sure I’ll kickstart a new life starting at 20.

Let the new year begin, 2019, also known as the year set in Akira, Blade Runner, The Running Man and other few movies taken place in 2019, but the previously mentioned are the biggest ones. We still don’t have the technology that’s straight out of the future, but it’s getting close.

Thank you for the support, I love you all and let’s have a great 2019 together.

Twitter: @HKomaeda.

Discord: XtremeDespair3D#8157.

[c-bulletaftermidnight]

Ok I said I wouldn’t ask but your TFA answer was so awesome I’m curious - things you liked/disliked about TLJ?

Oh boy, oh boy

Liked:

_ Uuuh. Kylo becoming Supreme Leader and cementing himself as the true villain I guess since it’s interesting to work on it’s gonna the political & military landscape of the FO??

_ Kylo being shown off again as a good tactician when fucking up the Raddus.

_I’m glad Phasma’s gone. 

-Finn & Rey hugging at the end of the movie that’s it.

That’s it. 

Dislikes:

_ The worldbuilding has been fucked up just to respond to Rian’s whims when he have barely any explications about the context.

_ Fucking bad designs everywhere. 

_Boring cinematography except a few times. 

_ The fucking zooms-in and Kylo looking like he’s stuck in a washing machines when he barrels rolls around the TIE Silencer. 

_ The FO is suddendly overpowered with money and personnal. The loss of SKB has like no impact on the organization. This episode should have explored to their backstory but Rian simply didn’t care.

_ Everybody in this movie shut off their brains. 

_ Hux went from “officer didn’t had not much battle experience” to a total joke. His traumas due to his upbringing are ignored and his sufferings are reduced into supposed moments of comedy .And it’s not like Rian didn’t knows his past, he even gave him a first name. Hell he didn’ even bother explain Hux’s past to Domhnall and he discovered that his character had a first name when an interviewer asked him about it (Domnhall seemed pretty angry about it since he invest himself a lot in reserches and stuff for the characters he plays.) Knowing how Domhnall had to improvise the blaster scene, i’m sure he would have objected even more of Rian’s decisions.  His purpose half of the movie is to do Huxposition on the bridge, being totally incompetent and thrown around. It’s gonna be hard for JJ to repair this and have the audience take him seriously as a villain. 

 _ Poe, well, I never cared much about his character. I even tried to read the comics but I felt barely nothing about him. But I was hoping TLJ would help but instead they managed to makes me hate his character. The Poe/Holdo arc was badly written. There was many ways to make an arc like that make sense but also more emotionnal for these two characters. I hate how one second they makes him this macho man who keeps understimating lady officers but a second after, the female characters are “haha, I like him ;)”   Yeah sure. 

_Finn’s arc who is reduced as total coward and a joke and where war has to be explained to him (a fucking child-soldier) by a woman that constantly think about hurting him when he mentions Rey, the person he is close to the most and then is forced as a potential love-interest to him for some reasons. The DJ explanations are just bad (of course, the Resistance has to buy weapons. We knows that Rian, thx) The suicide run was also pretty stupid. Also the fact that him and Rey didn’t reuniting on the Supremacy screams so much Rian wanting them to interact as less as possible in the movie. Finn deserves better.

_ Rey’s arc. Can we even talk about an arc? Her character regressed. As if she didn’t dealt with years of abuse and survival on Jakku and as if Kylo never tortured her and hurt her closed ones. Hell she even get tortured twice in the space of two days because of Kylo. The Force-skype stuff feels so forced. Adam & Daisy only have good chemistry when their characters are set against each other. Rey talks about how she is scared of the Force within her but we see her then has no problem to deal with it and master everything in one second (rendering the existence of jedi school pretty useless like you just have to download the Force-powers of a master jedi and that’s it. The Force.exe is installed. ) The small training scene where she cut the rock looks pretty stupid, her sword fighting position is pretty bad during it. Going to the dark side has no consequences on her. She has no agency. Replace the word “Force” by the plot and you’ll see what I mean. 

_ Luke. Has someone who has to deal with depression, I think showing Luke as irritated and stuff can makes sense. I kinda relate since my temper changed a lot. I had a lot of patience & kindness but now, everything irritate me (from a member of my family intruding in my space to hearing the ringing of the phone) I’m scared to see my friends, I feel like a walking failure that I will never be satisfied about myself or will satisfy my parents, I just want to be left alone & if this lead me to die that way, then so be it. The problem is how wonky the writing leading-up to this Luke is bad. Everything is about to make us feels sad for Kylo (I don’t). Kylo’s turning against his family upon learning that he is the grandson of one of the most dangerous war criminal would makes senses. Luke blaming himself because he felt he failed to help his nephew after years of work instead of randomly popping his lightsaber would have made more sense. Luke’s grieving all his others students would make more sense. Luke attempting to reason Kylo after the massacre but still failing would make sense. Luke looking for a solution on the island and then failing to find one, thus made him feel unable to see his sister face to face would makes more sense. There’s is barely any emotionnal moments for Luke and the Final holographic showdown feels like they absolutely wanted to avoid Kylo to kill Luke directly (like c’mon, he’s been committing war crimes since the first minutes of TFA)

_ Kylo. TLJ is a bad attempt at Kylo’s pity fest.It’s interesting that his traumas are acknowledged while the other character’s are pretty ignored despite having a tragic’s past that should impact them as well. Everything is about him. Most of his actions are pretty villainous, he’s no grey character like people are trying to force us to believe because he looks sad. This is an humanized villain arc (which he didn’t need after seeing TFA), not a redemption one. At least he is now the main villain too, so there’s tha (But the “Uwu save ben solo” stuff going around spoil my liking of him as a villain. I’m not here to see whether Kylo is gonna turn LS for a third time in ep9. It would be too repetitive at this point) I just hate the “ You are truely Han solo’s son”line because it is obvious he is more like his mother. Only father figures are important to the characters in SW, it seems. Also the goddamn scar being moved on his eyes but it doesn’t impair his vision despite being cut by a freaking lightsaber. Like Rian could have gave us a legit explanation why Kylo was weakened & needed Rey to fight the preoatarians guards: Losing an eye would be an huge handicap tha het is not used to yet so he needed help to take the throne. 

_ Leïa is only here to looks sad and for Kylo’s momentarily manpain (and Marry Poppying around space). Like really, you reduce Leïa fucking Organa too that?? The woman ready to move time and space just for the sake of saving freedom? the princess of Alderaan who saw her planet being destroyed but kept up on? the woman who was mainly in charge of the strategizing of Hoth’s evacuation? The woman who was willing to stay on Bespin just for the sake of massacring stormtroopers because Vader gave Han away to Boba Fett & would have stayed if Lando didn’t pulled her off to the Falcon? The woman who had to face the galactic backlash of her being Vader’s daughter but still kept on? A woman full of anger but also sense of duty?

_ Rose, rose, rose… I was excited to meet her so imagine my disappointment upon discovering she was just here to lecture & push around Finn & being forced as another love interest that doesn’t even work. It’s like she forgot that her sister died the same day and that she should still be grieving. We don’t even get to see her use her mechanic’s skills in the whole story. The message about her character makes no sense between her last line in tlj and all the destructions she is willing to provoke (not all the ppl working at Canto bight are rich, has it show in the Canto Bight book) or let happens. KMT doesn’t deserve that. 

_ Yoda’s appearing bcos I hate this hypocrite of a gremlin and was expecting for Luke to dunk him in the sea. 

_ Chewie, the glorified cab driver.

_ The battles are a huge clusterfuck & the most badly written space battle I have ever seen. 

_The way Poe’s piloting skills feels to OP when you compare to other pilots, in particular in recently RO. 

_D’qar’s battle is a fucking tactical mess. Everyone has been conviniently dumb down. Same during the slow-mo chase. What’s even the point of bringing the whole fleet of star destroyers if they are just useless.

_ Bad infiltration scene on the Supremacy on the same level as RO’s one. I’m just tired of infiltration scenes in SW. Please stop that shit. 

_ The preotarian guard fight is a choregraphic mess that has no stakes for the characters. Everyone is just waiting for their cue and twirling around. It’s like it was shooted in one go. And there is a difference between Luke in ROTJ kicking a blaster out of the hand of a foe looking bad due to technical problems of the time. And a knife suddendly being edited out at the last minute because the mc would have die then

_ Crait. A good example on how not taking in account the worldbuilding that could be used in battle. So you’re gonna tell me that the Resistance decided to hide away in a base with no issue other than big metallic door in the front? Sounds like a good plan.

_ Leïa never taking command of the battle and strategizing and letting Poe deal with all that despite that she is the general that Poe is a demoted member of the Navy who caused a shit-ton of mess among the Resistance like 30 minutes ago

_ Hux is still depicted in a idiotic way & using bad tactics again. If this is supposed to be a movie about the characters learning about their mistakes,well it didn’t do its job.

_ What is even the use of the third cannon of the gorrilla walkers??

_ What was even the point to use these old speeders besides for being destroyed?

_ Rey shooting down 3 TIES in one shot seems to break a lot of SW physics. Her disappearing of the whole fight shows how much Rian didn’t care abt her character beyond having her interact with Kylo.

_ Y’know, I have Battlefront 2 and in the game there is mining tunnels on the battlefield that you can use to hide. In the movie they are not present, the whole Resistance sit dumbly in trench and just wait to be massacred. I was hoping those tunnels would re-appear in the movies & would be used to sink the walkers by bringing them down with bomb used for mining but nope. The image of walkers falling in a sinkhole, provoking a storm of red dust, coloring the outfits,armors and vehicles in red would have been pretty badass to see.

_ The ramming canon trained on like 10 kilometers instead of using the gorrilla walkers designs and adding to them the mini death-stars canons. They can’t use it all the time tho bcos it would need to cool down before shooting again. Aren’t these supposed to be artillery vehicles ffs???

_ The Resistance not even rigging their escape ships with bombs so if the FO penetrated their base, they can at least cripple them by exploding them. So much for a group that is supposed to be specialized in guerrilla warfare.

_ Talking about guerrilla warfare, i was expecting at least a pursuit and firefight in the mines. No use of the worldbuilding during battle scenarios once again. 

_ Leïa should have been the one to confront Kylo, not Luke. Showing her willing to fight her own son and dies during it for the freedom of the galaxy would have been a good way to send her off and building her as this strong, resilient, legendary leader willing to fight her own family for the good cause. It would have been a good middle finger to people who slandered her upon learning she was Vader’s daughter.

_ Rey effortlessly levitating these rocks. Showing her struggle would have made the ending scene more rewarding.

_ The news of the Battle of Crait spreading super fast despite that the Resistance official journalist, Suralinda Javos wasn’t even present during it for documenting or something.

_ Broom boy & the way it is implied that he might join the Resistance or something because of his Force-powers. A fucking child.Involved in a war. I thought Finn being a child-soldier was bad thing?

And I’ll stop there for now, because there is so many problems with this movie, i’m never gonna be finished with it. 

[bucky-smiles]

On the DL

Summary: You and Spencer have been in a secret committed relationship to one another and only JJ knows because JJ is Spencer’s best friend and whatnot. Well one day Spencer gets hurt in the field and this is the outcome of that…

Warnings: Mentions of injury on the field, hospitals, stress, mild angst, mentions of blood

Note: Two one shots in the same weekend? Wow I must be going crazy :P Know that requests are open and that I apologize for my inactivity.. School has been sucky and I’m starting break the week after the next so I’ll be more active soon!! Also, I made this set in season 10 because I love and miss Kate so much. She was one of my favorite characters ever. Lots of love ~G

You’d been cooking when you got the call. It was personalized to JJ, a good friend of your fiance. You picked up the phone immediately, a smile on your face as you answered the phone in a chirpy tone, “Hey JJ! How’s the case been going?”

JJ’s silence on the other end made you worry and you were about to speak up before you heard her speak in a worried tone, “Y/N, you’re going to want to get down to the DC Hospital.. Spencer.. He was injured..” Her voice was sad as you spoke and you dropped the knife you’d just been using, letting it land to the cutting board before hanging up the phone and moving quickly out the door, grabbing your jacket and keys on the way.

You were quick to hail a taxi, telling the cabbie to step on it as you stared out the window, tapping your foot rapidly. You felt a pinch in your stomach and you looked down to your forming baby belly, simply rubbing a hand over it with a sad stare, thinking to yourself to calm down because of the side effects that the stress could cause yours and Spencer’s baby. You were 6 months along now and are carrying an apparently fit and healthy girl (you can tell by the amount of kicking she does).

It felt like an eternity before the cabbie pulled up to the hospital. You quickly handed him the designated amount of cash before moving quickly out of the taxi and into the hospital. You were going as fast as you could, one hand protectively resting on your baby bump and the other one simply at your side as you found yourself in the waiting room. You say JJ immediately and she saw you, getting up quickly to approach you. You could see Spencer’s other teammates in the background and could almost instantaneously see the confusion on their face. You’d never met anyone except for JJ, and her finding out was an accident as well.

JJ was quick to give you a hug and you returned it tightly, holding back tears as you spoke, “What happened, JJ?” There were so many questions swirling through your mind and JJ simply rubbed your back comfortingly to get you to calm down.

“We had the unsub cornered and hadn’t profiled that he wouldn’t go down without a fight… Spencer was the closest and got shot in the area that his vest doesn’t cover.. He’s still in surgery and you need to sit down before you pass out.” JJ puts a comforting arm around your shoulder before leading you to where the rest of the team was sitting, “Guys, this is Y/N… Spencer’s fiancee.”

You could see everyone’s jaws basically drop to the ground at JJ’s words and you simply offered a weak smile, trying to keep back the tears but ultimately failing, a couple of tears leaking from your eyes. “I uh.. I really wish that we could’ve met under different circumstances…” You spoke in a quiet tone as you sighed a little. JJ had taken the seat next to you, rubbing your back comfortingly as you leaned into her, letting a few more tears out.

Eventually, a woman with medium length, blonde hair came up to you, “Hi, Y/N, I’m Penelope.. Penelope Garcia..” She spoke in a gentle manner and you simply offered a small smile. The same applied to the rest of the people who introduced themselves to you. There was an Aaron Hotchner, a Derek Morgan, a David Rossi, and a Kate Callahan.

You knew everyone, Spencer talked about everyone all the time.. But you just wouldn’t be able to talk without breaking down in a fit of sobs. Those damn pregnancy hormones had been driving you crazy for a long time. It seemed like an eternity but a doctor eventually came into the room, requesting for the family of Spencer Reid. You were the first to get up, looking to the doctor with eyes filled with nothing but worry, “Is he okay?” You hadn’t even let the doctor speak.

The doctor paused for a moment before eventually nodding, “He just got out of surgery… The bullet hadn’t hit any vital organs which was what saved him. You can go see him, but only one at a time..”

You turned back to the team and JJ gave you a small smile, nodding to say that you could go first. You let the doctor lead you to where your fiance was and at the sight on him bedridden, your hands went to your mouth. It was a terrifying sight, to see all of those tubes and machines attached and coming out of the man you’d fallen in love with oh so long ago. You simply sniffed lightly, pulling up a chair next to his bed before taking his hand, pressing a gentle kiss to the back of it. You stayed there for a little bit, simply watching the man. Your hand had traveled to the man’s face, brushing the curls out of his face.

At the feeling of your hand on his face, Spencer opened his eyes lightly, speaking in a tired voice and squinted eyes, “Y/N?”

You immediately perked up, scooting closer to him with a watery smile making its way onto your face, “You gave us quite a scare, Spencer…” You were speaking in reference to you, the baby, and the team.

Spencer simply offered a weak and sheepish smile, squeezing your hand as best as he could, “I’m sorry.. We hadn’t been anticipa- you met the team?” He was slowly waking up more and you knew that wasn’t good. He needed his rest.

You nodded lightly and simply pressed another kiss to the back of his hand, “Yes, I did.. But we can talk about that later.. For now, sleep, yeah? I’ll be here when you wake up with your favorite Indian takeout and I won’t be leaving here till you’re discharged..” You pressed one more kiss to the back of his hand.

Spencer smiled weakly, letting his eyes flutter shut but wasn’t done talking, “Come lay down with me..”

Your eyes widen lightly as you speak in a mildly shocked tone, “There isn’t enough room for the three of us.. And you’re hurt..”

Spencer opens one eye before scooting over to one side to the best of his ability, “This is my uninjured side… Please? You know I have a hard time sleeping without you and our peanut at my side..”

You sigh quietly, looking down to your baby bump before back to the man, letting out another sigh before getting up, moving to his uninjured side, “Only for a little bit..” With those words, you got into bed with him, enjoying the feeling of his arm wrapped around your shoulders, pulling your head to his chest.

You were sure to move very gently to not hurt Spencer and only moments later, you both were asleep. JJ had come to check on you to make sure everything was okay and when she was greeted by the sight, she simply smiled gently before taking her phone out and taking a picture of the scene in front of her.

[joysofbraindamage]

Interesting thoughts on “Speechless” from its creators. Unlike “Fosters” 5A the  “Speechless” writers seem to be paying attention and getting input from actual disabled people, and disabled writers. 

http://uproxx.com/sepinwall/speechless-great-family-comedy-season-2-preview/

Text from article. 

When it debuted last fall, Speechless was just the latest of ABC’s seemingly inexhaustible supply of distinct family comedies. By the time its first season wrapped, the series — about a special needs family where oldest son JJ DiMeo (Micah Fowler) has cerebral palsy — had become the best of them, deftly mixing at least two parts silliness for every one part reality, exploring how mom Maya (Minnie Driver), dad Jimmy (John Ross Bowie), and siblings Ray (Mason Cook) and Dylan (Kyla Kennedy) build lives that are always at least partially defined by JJ. It’s a story that on the one hand is deeply personal to Speechless creator Scott Silveri, who grew up in a family like the DiMeos, including a brother with CP, and on the other had to be figured out as he, fellow executive producer Daniel Chun, and everyone else in the creative team discovered what could be funny about their premise, what risked being offensive, and when it was okay to let things get serious. It’s a balance Silveri, whose previous show was the grief support group comedy Go On, keeps feeling surprised he’s working to maintain. “I told my wife, ‘I just want to write something funny for once,’” he recalls, “and she says, ‘For a guy who just wants to write something funny, you sure do an awful lot of shows about dead wives and disabilities.” Last month, I visited the Speechless writers office to talk to Silveri and Chun about how they decided on the rules for this show, what they’ve learned from talking to real special needs families, what’s coming up in the second season (which premieres September 27), and a lot more. THE FOUR BULLSEYES Posted on the walls of the Speechless writers offices are four “bullseyes” for the writers to aim at, as explained by Silveri: Funny “Funny should go without saying, but you certainly can imagine a version of it that isn’t. One must always be mindful of that. That’s the goal, not teaching anybody anything.” Rock Star Family “This is meant to broaden the action in the show, rather than being the ‘ramp of the week’ show where Maya is always taking on some cause. A different thrust for fun seemed like, these are people who come to believe they’re in a special, privileged position, a little bit above the law. ‘We don’t play by other people’s rules.’ Taking the chaotic nature of their lives and turning it into a good thing, on the cheap, oftentimes.” Comic Specificity of Disability “We have that, let’s take advantage of it. When you set up, particularly in the first year, you want to do stories that nobody else can tell. We’re in a block of a bunch of different family shows, but we’re about this type of family, so let’s lean into that.” (As the season moved along, they gained the confidence to do episodes — a Valentine’s Day adventure for Maya and Jimmy, a family trip to the supermarket — where disability was a minor concern at most, but they first had to establish the characters in the context of JJ’s needs.) Non-Cynical “I wanted to celebrate the bonds they share, their inclination to take being ‘different’ and turn it into a positive — the farthest thing from cynical I could imagine, and it was important always to keep an eye on that. So we looked — and continue to look — for other avenues to inject the bite we wanted. Whether it’s trading on the ignorance of others outside the family, or leaning into our characters’ brutal honesty and their choice to laugh in the face of adversity. (Take Jimmy’s ‘Having a disability is expensive. It’s almost not even worth it?’ from the hero episode.) It’s maybe the most fun part of the puzzle of making this show. Finding that tone where we can be frank, direct — the teeth — without being jerks about it. “The other reason is simply a taste thing. I kind of relish the challenge of making a scene funny when people actually like each other. Folks taking turns crapping on one another has its place, but I wanted this to be a family that gets along, and I thought there could be plenty of opportunity for laughs even given that scenario. People have at times described the DiMeos to me as dysfunctional. I kind of think they’re supremely functional. They have differences and they butt heads, but they work in my mind. They care about each other. And this is a network comedy. I love darker, more sinister stuff in different contexts, but for a network comedy, people with differences finding common ground (and actually enjoying those differences) is what I most like to see.” ADVERTISEMENT NOTES: 1. All tokens are represented by '$' sign in the template. 2. You can write your code only wherever mentioned. 3. All occurrences of existing tokens will be replaced by their appropriate values. 4. Blank lines will be removed automatically. 5. Remove unnecessary comments before creating your template.

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DRAWING LINES OF GOOD TASTE AND GOOD COMEDY Perhaps the show’s best, and certainly most quintessential, episode of the first season was the Oscar party show, which hit all the bullseyes, and particularly the ones about funny and the specificity of disability. Maya grappled with her jealousy of a much more put-together special needs mom, while JJ’s aide Kenneth (Cedric Yarbrough) tried to organize competitions for JJ and his disabled friends, which climaxed with the absurd spectacle of the kids beating each other up with padded sticks and cushions and wearing various improvised devices designed to put them on a level physical playing field. “We’ve shot stuff and not used it,” says Silveri, “but that felt pretty much within our power alley, because it was coming from a place of empowerment: ‘Okay, if anybody else can do this, why can’t these kids do it?’ If you have that sure footing, then you can go for it. I was surprised early on when JJ gave the finger, people were into that. When JJ got drunk, people were into that. We got clued in very early on that he could even misbehave and that was welcome in itself, because it was ‘normal behavior.’ So as long as he’s got a point of view in it, as long as he and these other kids with disabilities are not props in it, then we’re on sure footing. How wrong can we be? “We also have a lot of sensitivity in the room,” he adds. “We have a lot of people with either siblings or kids with disabilities. We now have a writer with a disability. We’ve bounced a lot of the stuff we do off of a couple of different foundations, including the Cerebral Palsy Foundation. We could be wrong, and we will be at some point, but we kick the tires a little bit. But if JJ has a say in the matter, if he he’s active, that helps us a lot.” An early cut of that same episode found the creative team crossing a line without realizing it, with a joke where one of the kids at the party kept repeating the same phrase over and over. “It had the crew in stitches,” Chun recalls, “but when we saw it in the cut, it felt a little like, ‘Which side of this joke were we on? Are we laughing with this girl? Are we laughing at this girl?’ It felt close enough to that, that we cut that out.” Another major line the writers have to worry about crossing is being so honest that laughter becomes impossible. The show is blunt about the realities of JJ’s disability — Kenneth helps him go to the bathroom, Dylan has to feed pizza to him, and he has virtually no privacy — and can do it very well as matter-of-fact material, occasionally taking place in the background of a scene about something else. But when they did an episode about JJ being briefly hospitalized — a periodic fact of life for many people with disabilities — Silveri found it was “a tricky thing to edit, because he got hurt and was in a little bit of pain. That was not fun to lean into.” At the same time, JJ’s condition not only gives the DiMeos license to be jerks (though Jimmy would contend that they’re idiots, not jerks), but gives the writers license to let them be as loud and abrasive as possible — so long as the loudness is specifically in service of JJ. “Early on, we had some stories in mind that were just Maya going on a tear for a tear’s sake, and it didn’t feel right,” says Chun. “That was the sort of thing that we executed and just went, ‘If she’s doing it for the kid, that’s funny. Crazy for crazy’s sake is not going to win us any viewers.’” WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW Silveri didn’t pull the idea for the series out of thin air. His brother’s CP is more severe than JJ’s. (“He’s non-communicative.”) And in Micah Fowler, who has CP, he has a star who knows the material even more intimately than he does. Where some showrunners want no creative suggestions from their actors, Fowler is an obvious resource, both for details about life with disability and for advice on narrative philosophy. “I had my pad out ready to take down a bunch of disability-specific ideas,” Silveri recalls, “but that’s not how he sees himself. He wants to talk about what any 17-, 18-year-old wants to talk about. He wants to get in relationships. He wants to put himself out there. He wants to think about his independence. That’s what we ended up doing a lot of, towards the end of the season especially.” At the same time, the show can’t always draw from real life. Fowler is working on walking, which at first Silveri wanted to make into a parallel arc for JJ. But when they spoke to some of their other consultants in the disability community, “They’re like, ‘Maybe not make it about him overcoming disability. Living with, dealing with, thriving with.’ When it’s ‘casting off the shackles of dreaded disability,’ it’s much thinner ice for us.” “We met a lot of people in pre-production,” says Chun. “Either parents of people with special needs, or the people themselves. We went to some places that do therapy for kids with special needs and got tons of material from that. Usually, in pre-production we’re sharing, ‘Oh, this show’s at a restaurant. Let’s go visit a restaurant for 30 minutes.’ Then, it’s just a huge waste of time. Here, we got tons of stories from talking to those people.”  ABC Zach Anner The season two writing staff has added Zach Anner, a writer and comedian with CP who worked as a technical consultant in the second half of season one — Silveri reached out to him after watching an online video where Anner discussed the show — and cameoed in one episode as a man Maya hoped could be a role model for what JJ’s adult life could be like. “In the first packet of ideas that he sent us [in season one],” Silveri says, “I think we used about five different stories out of it. We were just about to do the grocery store episode, and in my first conversation with him, he mentioned that thing of, ‘When I go to a grocery store in my chair, it’s just a string of, “Hey, buddy, you got a license for that?”’ I went, ‘Shit, change what we’ve got, get that in the show!’” Anner knows the subject, but he’s also funny enough to keep up with a room full of more seasoned sitcom writers, and at times outpace them. “The only problem with Zach has been typing fast enough to get what he’s saying on the screen,” says Silveri. “It does save us the added bonus of we don’t have to think, ‘How might this go? This process with the school board? Who would be involved in this?’ He knows. But that’s .01% of what we get from him.” ADVERTISEMENT NOTES: 1. All tokens are represented by '$' sign in the template. 2. You can write your code only wherever mentioned. 3. All occurrences of existing tokens will be replaced by their appropriate values. 4. 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SOMETIMES, COMEDY WINS OUT OVER TRUTH Nowhere is this more unapologetic than with the show’s use of Kenneth. Not only would someone with Kenneth’s (lack of) qualifications (he was the school groundskeeper) never be allowed to take that job, but he wouldn’t be hanging out at the DiMeo house on nights and weekends, or really at all. “Sometimes, we’ll do some mental gymnastics to justify it,” Silveri says, “like it’s right after school, so he dropped the kid off and got sucked into some DiMeo thing. Or, ‘This isn’t a Saturday, even though they’re all sitting around sitting college football. It’s a Thursday, it’s right after school.’ But it will never limit us, it will never keep us from putting him in a scene. It’s the unfortunate curse of having him be really funny. Sure, he could work for that family 25 hours a week, but it would be a lot less funny. We’ve all worked on shows where it’s like, ‘Why are they over there at that apartment? Why is he meeting the murderer for coffee at work?’ After a certain point, you just go for it. We have bigger fish to fry.” (Chun says they also justify it both in the writers room and in occasional dialogue by pointing out that Kenneth doesn’t have much else going on in his life, and is thus eager for the excitement and companionship he gets from the family.)  ABC Silveri and Driver HOW “HEY!” BECAME “OY!” In development, various executives kept pushing to make Maya an American. (TV executives are terrified of the idea that a foreign accent might scare off viewers, which is why Karen Gillan is somehow no longer Scottish.) So, for that matter, did Minnie Driver herself, who told Silveri that the Maya in the pilot script seemed very American to her. Silveri, though, wanted her to use her native accent. “Comedy is so delicate,” he explains. “Any time you see somebody trying to hide an accent, there’s this sense of, ‘What is that? Are her parents Dutch?’ It’s just a little off. It was clear to me, you didn’t want her to be playing vowel police off in the corner. We’ve got enough work to do without having to say, ‘No, that was really funny, but you were British.’” Driver and the execs gave in, and then she improvised one of the most defining bits of the character by inserting a demanding and very English “Oy, sea slug!” in a pilot scene where the script had her saying, “Hey, sea slug!” (The school’s mascot is a sea slug, for reasons best explained in context.) “As soon as she said it,” Silveri recalls, “we were like, ‘Throw some more “Oy!”s in there! It’s fine!’ Now, we keep writing ‘Hey’s and ‘Dude’s, and Minnie Britishes them up for us. I just wish she’d stop saying ‘bugger.’ It’s funny and we’re not allowed to use them.” Chun thinks Maya’s Britishness helps in another way: “It buys you about 10% more outrageous behavior than you’d accept from an American.” THE SHOW ALMOST DIED AT “THE COOKIE PASS” While Speechless has fit seamlessly into ABC’s family comedy machine, it was originally developed to air on Fox the year before ABC bought it. No pilot was ever filmed. There was no Kenneth character, since JJ in the first iteration of the script spoke with the help of a computer; while doing research later, Silveri met a woman who used a word and letter board like the one JJ has, with an aide who read aloud from it, and enjoyed their dynamic so much that he realized, “I don’t know if we can make a computer funny, but I know we can find a funny person to (play an aide), and that adds another flavor to the show.”(*) (*) Because the talking computers have become fairly common for disabled people with the means to buy one, Silveri decided to do a story midway through the first season where JJ inherits a hand-me-down device from a friend, only to realize that he prefers letting Kenneth speak for him. It was meant to answer the many fan questions they’d received on the topic, but, “We had to wait to find a version that actually felt funny, and wasn’t just like a Star Wars crawl at the beginning of an episode of, ‘Here’s why we do this.’” Silveri commends the Fox executives who read “70 different revisions” of the script, “each getting incrementally closer or way farther from the mark.” One of those is what he and Chun (who was developing Grandfathered for the network at the same time) refer to as “The Cookie pass,” in which Silveri attempted to transform the show into something that felt more appropriate on a network becoming increasingly defined by the success of Empire. That version featured “A lot of white fur coats and stuff. It was just leading into her being outrageous and her husband being a record mogul.” By the time Fox declined to make a pilot, Silveri was so dispirited that he initially wasn’t interested when he heard ABC wanted to revive the idea. “Then, when I looked at what ABC had, I thought, ‘Oh, of course. It was crazy ever to consider putting it anywhere else.’”  ABC WHAT COMES NEXT? When I visited, pre-production for season two was still in early stages, with only a script or two having progressed beyond the outline stage. But the writers already had ideas for the year as a whole, from small ones, like the introduction of a rival for JJ who gets away with being awful because he’s disabled, to big. One of those big ideas involves Maya’s initiative in getting JJ into this great school backfiring, as word spreads throughout the special needs community that Lafayette is open for business, resulting in so many families moving into the district that it runs out of money, which could lead to JJ losing Kenneth as his aide. From a less plot-driven standpoint, Silveri is interested in JJ’s aging, and what that means for both him and Maya. “It’s an interesting and true fact of life with kids like him, there’s so much that’s available to a kid with a disability,” he explains. “Then, the older you get, there’s a little less. There’s a little less infrastructure. It’s a little less cute to people. There’s less novelty and help. Now we’re feeling like, ‘What is this guy’s life going to be?’ He’s going to apply to college, he’s going to have to become realistic about what his options are while challenging himself. “For Maya, she doesn’t want to hold him back, but at the same time, ‘This kid’s been my life forever, what am I without him?’ It’s going to open up new worlds for her about where is she, what is her place in the world, in a world that’s already a little less dominated by him. Now he’s in the school, and he’s got an aide, and he’s going to be more independent, and she’s going to get more independent. We want to meet her family.” Other stories will be less profound, like a Halloween episode where Ray and Dylan swap bodies. The writers had to sell ABC on that one, since it’s so far outside the show’s usual reality, but Silveri looks at it as the kind of big swing that then allows them to get more grounded and serious elsewhere. THE “FUNNY” BULLSEYE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE Silveri spent years as a Friends writer/producer, but of late has worked more on shows that straddle the comedy/drama line like Go On. But rarely has he seen the line become as blurry as it is here. “Shows that I’ve worked on, it’s normally like, ‘This is a funny scene, this is a serious scene.’ In this show, we do a lot of banking recklessly from one to two. It’s kind of a fun way to write, not to have to quarantine the arc.” That said, the longer we talk about the series, the more he begins to fear that this story will make it sound like televised broccoli. “One thing we really want to get out there is, if you see the poster, if you see a still shot, it could read as this earnest and self-serious thing. It’s no documentary on disability. It’s comedy, and it’s not too good for you. He pauses after that speech, worried he still hasn’t made his point. “Just tell people it stinks,” he adds.

[fadedtoblue]

Recap of the Defenders panel at SDCC, pt. 2 (aka just a beat by beat recap of episode 1...)

If you missed, it you can catch part 1 here. I’m sure you can find videos of the panel out now, but if you wanted my additional commentary, there you go, haha :).

I’ve been writing bits and pieces of this since Friday night, so needless to say, I’m starting to get a little fuzzy on the order of the scenes and specifics b/c I was in such a state of shock while watching (and I don’t get the benefit of rewatching it right away 10 times in a row, lol), but I’ll try to recollect as much as possible, as best I can. I’ll also share some of my opinions and theories at the very end.

Some brief, non-spoilery thoughts: This was definitely a set up episode for everything that is to come, so as much as I know everyone wants answers to certain questions, you’re just not going to get to them right away. The show doesn’t hesitate to pick up the threads left from each individual series though, so don’t expect it to be slow at all. They also did a lovely job making each Defenders’ scenes look and feel like their own shows, while still bringing them all together into a new kind of feel and style for The Defenders. I was impressed by that. Anyway, if you have any more general questions, feel free to send me an ask or note.

And now...I shouldn’t have to say this, but just in case...HUGE SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST EPISODE OF THE DEFENDERS UNDER THE CUT! (Apologies for any mistakes, I wrote too much and just want to get it posted rather than spending even more time editing!)

Opening scene:

Very first scene opens in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. An unnamed man is being chased by a woman in black wielding double katanas and shrouded in darkness down some sort of sewer-like corridor, exchanging blows, and the man is clearly getting overwhelmed in the fight. Before she can land the killing stroke, Danny appears out of the darkness and jumps into the fight to draw the woman away. Danny is holding his own, but the woman is clearly a superior fighter, and lands a nice slice across Danny’s tattoo; in his shock, the woman gets the opening she needs and stabs the mystery man to death. Danny tries to chase down the woman, who is running away, and manages to land one Iron fist-packed punch on her, which sends her flying, but she disappears as quickly as she appeared. When Danny returns to the man, Colleen is with him, and we see that he’s clearly dying. After a bit of back and forth, the man tells them that their fight is not there, it’s in New York. Very mysterious, and Danny is extremely frustrated. This has apparently been one of their biggest leads in their search for the Hand, and just like that, he’s gone. Also, it’s pretty obvious this woman is Elektra, and the most impressive thing was how much her fighting skills had supernaturally improved. A small hint at the power of the Black Sky! (Note: there’s really no hint as to who this guy could be, and I originally assumed maybe he was affiliated with the Hand, like Bakuto’s faction or something? But the end credits mention Shaft, who was announced as a character on the show, and plays a big role in the Chaste, so that’s an interesting tie in!)

Opening credit sequence:

New song and graphic styles, I really can’t recall now, but think the instrumental had a kind of synth-y vibe. The backgrounds are basically outlined, lit up, 3-D maps of New York, but they form each of the different characters in their main color palette. It’s super cool. The names on the credits also utilize an effect on certain letters to make it look like a subway line design (i.e. Charlie Cox’s name has a C in a circle). It’s a cute touch and really drives the whole “New York is the fifth Defender!” thing home.

Okay, this is where the order of these scenes gets a little iffy in my head, not to mention we do switch between the characters pretty often this episode...I think I’m fairly clear on the details themselves though! I’ll basically try to summarize everyone’s scenes in one go and then summarize the closing act on its own!

Jessica Jones:

Jessica is (surprise, surprise!) passed out drunk in an empty bar and gets rudely awakened by the bartender, who helpfully informs her that it’s morning and she should probably get out of his bar. Next, we see Trish is running across the street to keep her car from getting towed, but the cop is an ass and refuses to unhook it. Suddenly, we see the car get pulled off by an inexplainable force! Turns out it’s Jessica, who snarkily asks the cop if he has a problem, and Trish has trouble holding back a smile. Now we see Trish and Jessica walking down the street with coffee cups and fighting over Jessica’s life state post-Kilgrave, one that involves a lot of drinking and zero working, which greatly concerns Trish. Trish lets Jessica know that she’s been getting a lot of interest in her story and wants Jessica to take some interviews, if only to make some extra money while she’s not working. Trish says something to the affect of, only you (Jessica) could take a personal triumph and turn it into despair, or something like that. Jessica tries to tell her not to worry. Trish takes a sip of her coffee and nearly spits it out -- turns out Jesica had handed her coffee to Trish and Trish finds out the coffee has whiskey. This got a pretty good laugh during the screening :). Jessica is then shown walking down the hallway to her apartment -- the window is boarded up and clearly hasn’t been fixed since JJ S1. There are two people standing outside the door as she approaches, a woman who seems well-dressed and pulled together, and her teenage daughter, who is snarky and disdainful toward Jessica. The mom heard about what Jessica did and wants her to take a case -- her husband has been missing for a week -- and Jessica flat out says no. As the woman presses her case, Jessica goes into mocking mode, and suggests that everyone thinks THEIR partner would never do anything like this, but usually they’re always cheating. The daughter lobs a few snarky comments at Jessica and the mom, and finally the two of them leave. Jessica seems to have a moment of remorse as she’s opening the door, turns around, and calls out to them. The woman turns around hopefully but Jessica only says that she hopes they can find him soon. The inside of Jessica’s apartment is still absolutely trashed from all of the Luke / Kilgrave stuff from S1 -- part of the scenes are shot through the hole in the wall, which is hilarious. She gets a phone call, and someone using a voice scrambler warns her not to take the case. Dun dun dun! We know what that means!!

Later on, you see Jessica sitting at her desk with her laptop open, using her expert Googling skills to learn more about missing mystery man. At this point, Malcolm strolls in, which pisses Jessica off -- she’s already told him to stop coming into her apartment, he says she gave him a key, she counters that he made himself his own copy of the key, he helpfully clarifies because he was helping her get her locks changed, banter banter banter. I want to know that Malcolm has beefed up a lot for this show. It was noticeable lol. He immediately notices she’s on her computer and absolutely lights up, asking whether she’s taken on a case? She insists she hasn’t taken it...yet, and he’s basically celebrating that she’s totally taken the case and runs over to hover over her shoulder while she’s researching, which pisses her off. They talk briefly about the guy who’s missing, and Jessica mentions that the only reason why she’s even doing this is because she got a call from someone using a voice scrambler who doesn’t want her to look into it, but surely they covered their tracks and won’t want to be found. At which point Malcolm posits the possibility that the guy is actually an amateur, and what if she could track the call back? So Jessica pulls a Jessica and calls the operator, pretending that she received a call from her grandfather who is missing from dementia and gets the number. They find the address the number is connected to, which Malcolm immediately recognizes as a super shady neighborhood that people generally used to get off the grid to use drugs, etc.

Jessica shows up at the building Malcolm helped her identify. Inside, it looks and sounds sketchy as hell -- flickering lights, sounds of people fighting and/or having sex, a real ball. She heads up the stairs to the specific apartment she seems to have identified as the exact location of the call. She bangs on the door, telling him (I assume she thinks it’s James -- the husband -- hiding out in there) that the landlord / someone already told her he’s inside. After getting no response, she does her patented doorknob breaking move (the scene we saw in the first trailer) and goes in. There’s a TV on, but the place is otherwise dim and abandoned. She slowly walks through, peeking into the bedroom and rounding back out to the living area. She spots some boxes, opens one up and inside is either weapons or explosives (I’m leaning toward the latter) -- the camera paused on it for a quick few seconds and I didn’t absorb the writing as thoroughly as I’d like, but it’s obviously something really bad.

Luke Cage:

We start out with the scene of him walking down the jail corridor, while the inmates cheer him on. It’s not super clear in the beginning, but we soon discover that Luke had his charges cleared, thanks to the excellent lawyering provided by one MR. FOGGY NELSON, who is clean shaven and sporting a very short haircut (gotta look the part at those big firms I guess!). Luke asks for Claire, but Foggy tells him only lawyers are allowed. Luke decides it’s time to hop on a bus and get back to New York ASAP. Before he leaves, Foggy gives him his business card and lets him know he can always reach out if he ever needs help starting over. Luke assures him he doesn’t need to start over, just need to move forward. Foggy helpfully lets him know that most people call him Foggy, to which Luke quips: “And you let them?” which earns a great laugh from the room :).

Now you see Luke on his bus ride back to NYC, and this scene is basically just the same scene in the first trailer with him looking out the window and seeing things like Pop’s barbershop as he drives by. He gets off the bus (which is plastered with a New Harlem Renaissance ad, so you can assume Mariah is still going at it) somewhere in Harlem and as the camera pans out, you see Ms. Claire Temple looking like her damn fine self, leaning against the wall, waiting for his return. They end up back at her apartment and immediately rock that cup of coffee, like wow, it was...physical hahaha. Think overturning furniture, going at it all over the place, I’ll admit to being slightly concerned for Claire b/c damn Luke is a strong guy, but she seemed like she was having a good time lol. In the trailer I thought they were leaning against a headboard - nope, it’s a table turned over on its side on the floor, haha. They have a nice chat afterwards, mostly focusing on what Luke might do now that he’s back in New York. He calls Claire out a little bit, saying that he knows she kept some things from him in the letters they exchanged while he was away. She confesses a lot of things happened and are still going on in the city, and she’s concerned about Luke trying to be a hero (cue the dialogue from trailer #1). At this point, there’s a knock on the door, and it’s...Misty! She’s bemused to see Luke at Claire’s place so quickly after being let out, and asks if he can take a walk down the street with her.

They exchange some small talk, apparently Misty has been made head of some sort of city-wide initiative, which is probably how they’ll take her out of Harlem and into some of the other neighborhoods in the Netflix Marvel world. They end up at a burnt out car that’s decorated with flowers, and Misty explains: there’s been a rash of somewhat unexplained deaths that bear striking similarities -- all young men from Harlem, who were recently employed at some sort of mystery job, moved their moms out of Harlem and into nice houses in what I presume is a more gentrified neighborhood of New York, but end up dead under mysterious circumstances. It could be drug running or it could be something more nefarious -- Misty doesn’t know. Luke wants to help, which Misty reacts to with skepticism (she makes a “Really? I’m going to send the guy who just got out of lockup?” kind of joke) but she mentions that this particular memorial is actually for the brother of Candace Miller, who died in LC S1. Apparently she had two brothers, so Misty tasks Luke to track down the last brother, who she last heard wasn’t exactly on the right side of the law, and talk some sense into him before the mother of that family loses her last child.

Luke heads over to the apartment building of the third brother, another interior with flashing lights, except this time with loud music. Luke encounters a group of guys in front of an apartment and asks them where he can find “insert brother’s name here b/c I honestly can’t remember it out” -- they’re about to snap at him for interrupting them and realize it’s Luke Cage, at which points their jaws snap shut and they direct him one floor up. Luke lets himself into the apartment, sees the brother, and walks up to an expensive looking speaker set up to turn down / off the music. The brother angrily exclaims, thinking that his friends are messing with his equipment and is surprised to see it’s Luke. Luke says he’s here to pay his respects, and the two have a conversation in which the brother pretty much stubbornly refuses to listen or provide any information on his brother who just died. Luke notices that for a kid between jobs, he seems to have some pretty nice things (the music / speaker system, spacious apartment, really nice shoe collection) and asks if he might have taken on the same job his brother had before he died. The boy is silent, Luke says something wise, and then leaves.

Matt Murdock:

His scene opens in his apartment, focused on some sort of Braille printer? Matt is practicing an argument for an upcoming case as the pages print off. Suddenly, he catches on the sound of someone getting mugged and you see him going into Daredevil mode and hearing the situation unfold -- Matt is visibly tensing and literally willing his body not to rush off. As he’s listening, he also hears the police approaching and containing the situation. He untenses his body and resumes practicing his speech. At this point, we switch immediately to the courtroom, where Matt is grilling a man on the stand. I couldn’t exactly follow what the incident was and what product the man’s company made, but whatever it was, it was responsible for injuring a young boy, putting him in a wheelchair. Matt is really in his element and manages to pin the executive on the stand into a corner and goes in for the kill. Then we are suddenly outside the courtroom, actually in the same courthouse we were in for the Castle trial, and the news media is there -- Matt won the case and the family of the boy who was injured were awarded $11 mil. The parents of the boy walk ahead to talk to the reporters, while the boy, sitting in the wheelchair, hangs back. Matt has a really lovely scene here when he steps back to talk to the boy, who is clearly having a hard time adjusting to his new circumstances, and gives him a Matt Murdock pep talk about handling adversity and very specifically, coming to terms with a life changing injury (wish I could share more of what he says, but I just can’t remember it and don’t want to butcher it!! It was good though). It does seem to get through to the kid, who then goes back to join his family during their little hallway press conference.

Matt turns around, and we see Karen, who was in the courtroom covering the case for the Bulletin. Karen congratulates Matt on winning the case and is complimentary toward him and what he did in the room. I think Matt also mentions Karen’s work as a journalist and she does her aw shucks Karen thing. She mentions that she needs a quote from him for the story she’s writing, and suggests that maybe they do it over a drink or a bite to eat, which Matt seems surprised at, but agrees to. (This suggests to me that they really haven’t spoken much, since the end of S2 reveal, though they’ve likely crossed paths politely since then.)

Matt and Karen are sitting in a diner, and while the atmosphere is a little awkward, it’s still friendly. They exchange some small talk about their jobs -- Karen asks Matt about his lawyering and I think this is where Matt reveals he’s doing pro bono work, although it’s possible he mentions it at the courthouse, and Karen talks about how she really feels like this is what she’s meant to do. She lowers her voice a bit and asks Matt whether he’s missed being Daredevil. He basically lies and says no. That he doesn’t regret it, but he doesn’t miss it either. Karen seems to be satisfied with that response. She has a whole line about how she really feels like they needed some time to figure themselves out and it sounds like she believes that both her and Matt are in better places now than they were before. She mentions she’s been covering the police beat and she really thinks the police are doing a good job handling the crime, at which Matt cracks a bit of a cynical smile, so maybe he actually did it...he was the hero this city needed and now they don’t need him anymore. But she thinks that right now the city needs more of Matt Murdock, and btw, she still needs that quote, and that’s just about how the scene ends. Very friendly.

EDIT!!! Didn’t realize a huge chunk of Matt’s section was missing from this recap. Damn it Tumblr, you’ve eaten parts of this post like 5 times already. This re-recap will be a bit of a rush job, sorry! Anyway, after the meeting with Karen, Matt goes to find Father Lanthom for confession. He says it’s been three days since his last confession, which suggests to me that he’s been going consistently, and often. He initially brings up the meeting with Karen, and talks about feeling bad about lying to her about not missing being Daredevil. In order to remain transparent, I will say he did use language to refer to Karen as someone he loves, but the impression didn’t come off as romantic, but more out of friendship / deeply caring for her. I really do believe he is sincere in wanting to become friends again. And nothing about the diner meeting or the conversation here feels like it’s moving toward anything more than trust building, which Matt already kind of fails at since he lies to her face there. Anyway, this part of the conversation didn’t last for very long since Lanthom takes the temperature on the situation and immediately gets to the heart of what’s bothering Matt, which I won’t bother recapping b/c you can see it in the scene below:

Danny Rand:

Since Danny was such a big part of the opening scene, he doesn’t get a traditional intro scene like the rest of the defenders in the first act of the episode, so after we’ve touched base with all of the Defenders, we bounce back into his story and find him flying back to New York on his jet with Colleen. It starts with him, alone in the bathroom, and this is where we get that dramatic scene of him wiping the mirror from the trailer. There’s little bit of editing trickery here, as he notices some weird blood splatters on the wall behind him, and he goes from the mirror to tearing off a piece of the wall? Or pushing aside some sort of curtain? And we segue seamlessly into Danny walking into some sort of eerie, abandoned hallway, all torn and tattered. We quickly notice the hallway floor is covered in bloody bodies, bodies of the dead K’un Lun monks. He passes through another doorway and there’s a whole group of them, standing in formation, covered in blood and staring down at him accusingly. He is clearly overwhelmed and confused, and turns around, only to see himself, dressed in robes and looking serious. He says something to real Danny (again, sorry about being spotty on the actually lines), which prompts real Danny to basically breakdown screaming. At this point we hear Colleen in the background, shaking him awake from what’s obviously a nightmare. She tries to get him to talk about the screaming, which he tries to shrug off as turbulence terrors, but she’s not buying it. They talk about the man they hunted down in Cambodia and it’s clear that he’s feeling guilty about his death, and is still feeling guilty about the not being at K’un Lun to protect his city. Colleen insists that it’s not his fault, but Danny remains unconvinced. Danny and Colleen return to the city and are taking a helicopter ride over the city. They’re holding hands. She’s marveling at the view and they’re discussing home -- New York is basically Colleen’s home but for Danny, even though he grew up here, he still doesn’t know if this is his home.

Alexandra:

Our introduction to Sigourney’s antagonist Alexandra lacks any bombast or fanfare, but you definitely feel...unsettled in a lot of her scenes. We first see her in some sort of nondescript building, and she’s waiting for an appointment, looking classy af. A person comes up and leads her to a really bare, empty room, and asks Alexandra to change into a patient’s gown. The nurse brings her out of the room and to a larger room with a CAT scan machine. The doctor greets her warmly but has bad news for her, which she seems to be expecting -- her red? white? blood cell count is precipitously low and her body’s organs are starting to shut down. She asks what the doctor is going to do about it, and he says there isn’t anything they can really do, which is an answer that clearly doesn’t satisfy her (“That’s not what I asked.”). When she asks how long she has, he guesstimates around a few months.

Edit: Embedded the released preview clip that corresponds with the below scene :)

We see Alexandra again in what I assume is Central Park (sorry guys, I don’t know NY!), sitting on a bench and feeding the pigeons. Again, she looks amazing. Madame Gao (woohoo!) comes into frame and says she thought she’d find her here, it’s always been her favorite spot. Alexandra muses about how surprised she is this place hasn’t already been razed to the ground and replaced with high rise buildings, she remembers when it used to be forest. She starts into a mini history lesson about New York City and how the Dutch bought it for 24 dollars -- then she drops a burn -- it was 24 dollars too much. She delivers it with such classy disdain, I love it. There’s also a hint of “Hey I was here when this happened” which tracks nicely with the hints Gao has given about her longevity / immortality...clearly Alexandra has quite a history herself. Anyway, they move onto discussion of more important things, like nefarious evil plans? Madame Gao updates Alexandra about some part of this plan and says in a few months they should be ready to make their move. Alexandra quickly shuts this down, which seems to take Madame Gao by surprise. Instead, Alexandra wants to make her move now, which Gao tries to talk her out of -- she doesn’t think it’s a good idea, they still need more time, etc etc -- but knowing what we know about Alexandra’s updated life expectancy, she obviously can’t afford to wait to make her move. At the very end of this scene, Alexandra quite flippantly tosses her bag of bird seed at Gao and orders her to finish feeding the birds. So there’s a really obvious and interesting power dynamic here...whoever Alexandra is, she’s quite used to calling the shots!

The last scene we have with Alexandra takes place after all of the scenes from the other characters, and on some sort of fancy rooftop -- it’s the one from the trailer, and I think it might be the same one Gao met with Fisk in S1? I’m not 100%. Gao lets her know that things have begun, which seems to please Alexandra greatly. And at this point, we start to see what exactly that plan is.

Closing scene:

It starts out with a rumble, almost like mild earthquake tremors. Matt is back at home after his confession with Lanthom, and his apartment is bathed in red. When the shaking starts, he freezes almost seems like he’s not sure what to do. The shaking intensifies, dust and debris flying off, and he seems actually scared at this point, kind of crouching over and covering his head. Jessica, in the mystery apartment she’s tracked down, is also looking around in a mixture of confusion, fear, and WTF as everything shakes around her. In the streets, you see huge tremors and rows of cars being propelled upwards with some sort of strange force before slamming back into the ground. At the memorial for Candace’s mother, you see her standing outside of the car and looking around in shock as the city shakes around her. A streetlamp breaks and starts to fall, but Luke appears and immediately bears the weight of the falling lamp and pushes it back up and away from her. Danny and Colleen have just gotten off the helicopter, unaware of what’s going on on the ground, but in just a few moments as they walk off the landing pad, the ground cracks beneath them and between them.

As everything crumbles outside, Alexandra calmly turns from the edge of the rooftop and walks over to Elektra in the black cloak, and says that iconic line, “It’s just a city. You’ll get used to watching them fall.”

And basically while the city is falling apart and all of our heroes are like WTF, the episode ends. I know, we were really disappointed lol.

Interesting things of note:

There’s a little scene transition device they employed, at least for the first episode, as you go into a scene for a specific character -- it was sort of a quick-cut style with visual snippets and ambient sounds and slightly colorized for each Defender. I haven’t watched Jessica Jones since it first aired, but it reminded me of that show. Not too surprising because the director for the first 2 episodes of Defenders is the same director who did JJ!

I wrote the heading for this section 2 days ago so while I may have had interesting thoughts then, I certainly don’t now, sorry lol!

[lia-nikiforov]

Omg I can't believe I found someone who actually sees the shit in Welcome to the Ballroom. I really wanted to like this show, the animation looked so promising and the character designs were nice but ???? I can't stand how they treat the female characters, it's disgusting and I can't believe how so few people are talking about it. The way they showed Marisa talking to one of the judges in the last episode made so furious I closed my notebook to breath. It's a total trainwreck.

Omg I’m so happy I’m not alone! It seems I’m yelling at the void here, everyone on tumblr loves the show and calls it “the best of the season”??? What???

Honestly I really, really wanted to like it. I used to read a BL manga called 10 Dace and since then I’ve always wanted to see ballroom dancing animated. Then after Yuri on Ice I was starved for other such performative sport anime. And the art looked gorgeous and the manga had a really solid fanbase and the production team sounded very confident and passionate about it. It looked like a surefire hit. The only point of dubiousness was all the fuckbois toting it as “it’s gonna be great bc it’s not gonna be gay shit like yaoi on ice [sic]”, but every show has garbage fans, so w/e, right? It’s gonna be good! The review for the first two episodes that premiered on AX were very hopeful too.

It was so disappointing!! Even the first two episodes had a very blah feeling because there was so little actual dancing! I really, really expected episode 1 to feature a show-stopping performance that sold the audience on how ballroom dancing can be beautiful and exciting, but instead of that we got that video Tatara was watching and that had like lots of CGI background dancers and then lots of still shots of dudes with creepy faces screaming “LOOK AT ME!!” Much awesome, such beauty *groan*

“It has a slow start, it’ll get better as it goes along”

It just keeps getting worse? Almost no actual dancing happening, and even when there is some, most of it is still shots. A lot of people panned Yuri on Ice because there’s a lot of derpy faces if you grab a screenshot of the skating, but at least the skating scenes were fluid and continuous in their movement! I’d take that over a 4 minute dance sequence of which only 13 seconds are actually animated dancing. And with no music either. I’m just gonna copy what I’ve said elsewhere because I don’t think I’ve really delved into the problem with the music, but it’s a big one:

People are probably sick of the comparisons to Yuri on Ice, and I get it because they are such radically different shows, but because they both focus on a similarly performative type of sport I think it's inevitable, so I'll do that comparison again: Look at how Yuri on Ice used the music, having over 20 new songs commissioned exclusively for the skating sequences and working the programs around that music, then making the music part of the characters' stories (like Phichit and his King and the Skater songs) or personalities (like King JJ or Chris's Intoxicated music). It really brought those skating programs to life. The dancing here, even the parts that are animated as opposed to a series of still frames, seems completely divorced from the music. There's music because there needs to be, but no attention is given to it whatsoever and the choreographies barely sort of match the music, which definitely doesn't help to make the show more compelling.

And then even that turned out to be the least of the show’s problems! The treatment of the female characters, as you say, is completely horrendous, and it’s been on a downwards spiral since Hyodo’s injury, first with Sengoku keeping SHizuku in the dark, then invalidating her anger and calling her a skank, then the tragedy that was episode 6, and then Mako’s hurr durr small boob insecurity. I haven’t watched episode 8, but I’m already worried. I’m probably gonna be bitching about it in my weekly ramblings if it’s really as bad as you say.

At least let’s take comfort in knowing there are more people who are suffering through this show’s missed potential. Tbh at this point I’m taking more enjoyment in hating it than whatever little moments of decent storytelling it achieves (and there aren’t many of them, it’s so narratively uninspired...) Hopefully more people will become aware of its rampant mysogyny that seems to be escalating for the past few weeks, or that, at least, the animators give us a decent dance sequence to make up for the horrid characterization.