#I've only ever seen this kind of plotting in some of the very best episodes of Doctor Who

[danmeidiaries]

Ranking Cdramas

I've seen 10 cdramas and I decided to rank them all. If the cdrama is based on a book, I will only be taking the drama into account and I will not be including donghuas in this particular ranking. These are all my personal opinions but I would love to hear some others! Let me know if you agree or disagree.

10. 'Love Game in Eastern Fantasy'

Plot: After a rough day at work and being disappointed by her favorite author's latest web novel, Ling Miaomiao finds herself transported into the story as the villainous Lin Yu destined to meet a miserable fate at the hands of the protagonist's brother Mu Sheng. Tasked with making Mu Sheng fall in love with her 100% in order to return home, Ling Miaomiao tries to change the novel's original tragic ending.

Episode Count: 32

As a Scum Villain fan, I love a good transmigration plotline. This show had all the potential and the first half is excellent. However, after they get to the Capital, it all starts to unravel and although there's still a few funny scenes and some great action, it's nowhere near as good as the first half of the show.

5/10

9. The Story of Yanxi Palace

Plot: Historical drama about the rise of Wei Yingluo (the Qianlong Emperor's Third Empress) in the imperial harem. Beginning as a palace maid investigating the murder of her elder sister, Wei Yingluo must learn to naviagte the machinations of Qianlong's consorts as they all vie for favor and power within the palace.

Episode Count: 90

The first cdrama I ever watched. Wei Yingluo is an excellent protagonist and the show has many intriguing mysteries and plot lines. The long episode count does mean that some of the middle has a lot of filler, but there is a lot to enjoy in this fun show. Although there is a love triangle element, I really enjoy Qianlong and Wei Yingluo's interactions as they have a very atypical love story.

7.5/10

8. A Familiar Stranger

Summary: Painter Shi Qi is forcibly face-swapped with the Prime Minister's daughter Shen Qin who doesn't want to go through with her arranged marriage.

Episode Count: 18 (10-12 minutes each)

This webdrama available on YouTube has an intriguing plotline and some great chemistry between the leads. However, in an exact opposite problem to Yanxi Palace, the short episode count and length leave some things unexplored that could have been interesting in a longer show.

7.8/10

7. Guardian

Summary: In Haixing, the SID led by Zhao Yunlan investigate mysterious deaths related to a subterranean alien species known as Dixingrens who possess powerful unique abilities. As cases become more frequent, Shen Wei, a professor at the university, seems to have some kind of connection to them.

Episode Count: 40

This might ruffle some feathers. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Guardian and Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei are one of the best cdrama couples out there. (Chu Shuzhi and Guo Changcheng also have a cute side relationship), but i think the amount of censorship and having to rework parts of the novel ended up harming the cohesiveness of the show's over-arching narrative. Still a great show and the final stretch of episodes are some of my favorites in cdrama overall.

8/10

6. Till the End of the Moon

Summary: To save the world from the Devil God Tantai Jin, Li Susu travels back 500 years to when he was human with the task of killing him and preventing him from becoming a devil god. Unexpectedly awakening as Tantai Jin's abusive wife Ye Xiwu, the two begin to develop real feelings towards one another.

Episode Count: 40

Now we're getting into the home stretch of cdramas I genuinely don't have any issues with and it's just coming down to personal preference. The chemistry is amazing, the CGI is the best I've ever seen in a cdrama, the plotline is masterfully done. But by god these biches need to work on their communication issues and misunderstanding plotlines make me want to claw my face off (there's quite a few).

8.5/10

5. Love Between Fairy and Devil

Summary: Xiao Lanhua, a low-ranking flower fairy in Shuiyuntan accidentally and unknowingly frees Dongfang Qingcang, the Moon Supreme devil god imprisoned 10,000 years ago. After a bond is formed where Dongfang QIngcang can feel all of her physical and emotional pain, he is forced to keep her safe as he tries to work out how to break it.

Episode Count: 36

Another show with fantastic chemistry between the leads, a villain reveal I genuinely didn't see coming, and has some of the funniest and most tragic scenes I've ever seen. Did I cry watching this show - yes. Unashamedly. Dylan Wang is too good of an actor. And I'm a sucker for a good Hades x Persephone romance.

8.8/10

4. Fangs of Fortune

Summary: 8 years after attacking the Demon Hunting Bureau, the demon Zhu Yan shows up on the doorstep asking to work together with them.

Episode Count: 34 + Bonus Episode

This show has something for everyone. Great CGI, bisexual polycule (or GL and BL, or just het) vibes, a great story and some of the best stunt work and action choreography I've ever seen. I wish there were more episodes and that it had fully committed to the ZYC + ZYZ angle.

9/10

3. Justice in the Dark (ongoing - could jump in the rankings dramatically if the ending sticks the landing)

Summary: In the futuristic Xinzhou City, 1.3% of the population are affected by a radiation caused genetic defect that leaves them unable to empathise. These 'Apaths' are considered prone to criminal behaviour and their crimes are investigated by Luo Weizhao's Special Investigation Division (SID). Pei Su, a young millionaire at odds with Luo Weizhao due to events in their past becomes connected to a series of unusual crimes with thematic ties to classic literature read aloud by a mysterious broadcaster.

Episode Count: 30 (25 aired as of this post)

Thank you Japan for releasing the rest of the episodes. Excellent chemistry between the two lead, the cases are all fascinating and I'm a sucker for a good literary reference. If this show sticks the landing with the finale it could very well jump to number 1 on this list. I can't wait to see how this show concludes.

9.5/10

2. Word of Honor

Summary: Former assassin Zhou Zishu quits the Window of Heaven and goes into hiding. With only a few years left to live, he plans to live out the rest of his days alone until he meets Wen Kexing - a mysterious man who sees through his disguise and proceeds to follow him everywhere he goes.

Episode Count: 36 + Bonus episode

Insane chemistry, great stunt choreo and a great story. The show that made everyone say "hey, doesn't China have censorship???" This show was meant to have 45 episodes originally (cut down to 36) and it does show a bit in the second half, but Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu are my 2nd favorite cdrama couple for a reason.

9.5/10

The Untamed

Summary: 16 years after his widely celebrated death, demonic cultivator Wei Wuxian is suddenly resurrected in a new body. After reuniting with Lan Wangji, a man from his first life, the two work together to solve the mysteries of the present and the past.

Episode Count: 50

The one, the only. The TV show that changed my life. PERFECTION. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji remain my favorite cdrama couple ever. The directions this show took altered my brain chemistry and changed my outlook on so many things. The gold standard of cdramas.

10/10

Reminder: These are all my personal opinions but I'd love to hear other people's!

[comicaurora]

hi red!! just listened to the newest episode of the ospod and i have one question: did you and magenta enjoy sonic three??

TREMENDOUSLY

(spoilers below)

Maria playing a soft acoustic cover of Live And Learn on the guitar was Incredible

We both lost it when Sonic looked directly at the camera and quoted "talk about a low-budget flight!" word for word

Almost every Sonic vs Shadow scene in the trailer was from the very first action scene in the movie, which was absolutely the way to do it. They didn't spoil anything important AND they didn't drag out the opener.

That first action scene was KILLER. They hit every single beat they needed to establish exactly who Shadow was.

The pacing overall was fantastic. When Blue and I watched sonic 1 and 2, we concluded that sonic 2 had More Fun Stuff, but sonic 1 was far more tightly paced. I think sonic 3 got back to the pacing of sonic 1 - not an ounce of fat on there.

CHAO GARDEN TOURIST TRAP

Magenta called the movie cowards for not letting the GUN soldier actually shoot Maria

Extremely elegant way to take Tom and the ancillary humans out of commission and motivate Sonic to have his obligatory "I must go alone and Take Vengeance" darkest hour, BUT I really respected how they let Knuckles choose to back off and trust him, even if narratively we know Sonic is making the wrong choice. My boy Knux got a shockingly good showing this movie, considering all he really had to do was get worf'd to prove how badass Shadow is. They do some careful work making sure he still feels like a powerhouse even though he's outclassed by both super hedgehogs.

Making Shadow's motivation in this movie raw, fresh, suicidal grief was absolutely the right call, because that makes this whole Destroy The Earth thing the equivalent of an extremely understandable but short-lived temper tantrum caused by "from my POV my best friend died in my arms like YESTERDAY" and that means it feels like he could conceivably be talked out of with a little empathy and compassion, which is exactly what Sonic gives him, after the COOLEST FUCKING FIGHT SCENE I'VE EVER SEEN

This Sonic is cleanly growing from a good-hearted kid into exactly the kind of relentlessly compassionate paragon hero they're portraying him as in the IDW comics and it is Rad As Hell

And on the flip side, making Gerald's villain motivation slow and calculated and locked in over the course of fifty deliberate years was a very clever way to convince us that Shadow just needed kindness and a good example, but Gerald had made his choice and could absolutely not be redeemed.

"You're no Maria" is cold as ice and I'm still thinking about it days later

everyone's acting like Robotnik's dead but my man was wearing a nanotech suit that could turn into anything like if they want him back he'll be back

excited for Shadow to just Turn Up at some point in the future during a risky fight scene and for literally only Sonic to be happy to see him, As Their Dynamic Should Be

Magenta really likes Metal Sonic as a character so hopefully he's not just relegated to Interchangeable Army Of Minions status forever

A M Y

I predict that in Sonic 4 we will get Silver as the main first-half-of-the-movie misled villain and Shadow WILL reintroduce himself into the plot by kicking Silver in the back of the head and I WILL lose my mind

[madlori]

"The Pitt"

If you needed a reason to watch "The Pitt," consider this it.

Tonight I binged the available 5 episodes (new eps are released Thursdays on Max). This is not only the best medical drama I've ever seen but maybe one of the best shows I've ever seen, period. I wasn't expecting the structure - each episode is 1 hour of a continuous 15 hour shift in this ER, so it's kind of like Dr. 24 - but it's super effective, as some patients carry over and some don't.

Noah Wyle is really, really good in this. Dr. Rabinovitch is...a really fantastic character. I love the hints of his post-traumatic stress from Covid and that they're mentioning covid at all. He is knowledgeable, gruff but personable, and mandates a level of humanity for his staff that they all really seem to value.

And yes, this was originally supposed to be his character from "ER," Dr. John Carter, but an agreement couldn't be reached with the Crichton estate, which owns the character. So he's not that.

All the other characters are great, too. Second year resident Dr. Mel is definitely autistic to some degree. The running gag about 4th year med student Whitacre constantly having to get replacement scrubs is a touch of levity in what is really a very serious show.

They are doing a great job having shorter cases that can be featured and then finished with what are clearly longer plots being planted, like the frustrated guy in the waiting room and the ethical gray area of a medical abortion for a teenager.

I'm completely enthralled. Highly recommended.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Granted, tumblr’s search function may broken but I can’t find a post on your blog centered on Alya’s writing. As a person constantly on the look out for critical examination of Alya’s role in the narrative and the compromises on her principles, relationships and competences made to artificially engineer the episode’s story, I’d be very interested to see your thoughts

I use Alya's writing as an example of a character done dirty all the time, but I don't think I've ever done a sugar post focused on her and I totally should. Before we get into it, I will openly admit that her bad writing bothers me more than Marinette's or Adrien's because she is best girl and we stan her. What can I say, I'm a writer whose best friend is an artist with a diagnosed anxiety disorder. I like characters who are writers and with artsy, anxiety-ridden best friends. They are my people and that gives us a great starting point for this post.

Marinette is the unambiguous main character of the show, so it makes sense to design both her hero partner and her best friend around balancing her out, giving them strengths to fill out the spots where she is weak. It's how you make a strong cast. When Alya is allowed the shine, she fills that balance role wonderfully and I love it! Some of my favorite moments are when Marinette goes on one of her rants and cool-headed Alya drags her back down to Earth:

Marinette: We're gonna stroll over there real cool as if we just happened to be passing by. Alya: Then what? Marinette: Then? I'll invite him out for a fruit smoothie at the end of the photo shoot! Then, we'll get married! Live happily ever after in a beautiful house and have two kids? No, three. And a dog! Maybe a cat? Nah, forget the cat. A hamster! I love hamsters! Alya: Let's just start with just happen to be passing by and see if we can get to that smoothie.

This banter from Stormy Weather is fantastic. It's exactly the type of thing I want to see from these two as it gives Alya a very different flavor of supporting role from Adrien. While Alya and Adrien are both card holding members of the Marinette hype squad, Alya is more of a voice of reason while Adrien is there to validate Marinette and follow her crazy schemes without question.

This brings us to the first issue with Alya's writing: when the plot demands it, they make her a gullible tabloid journalist even though it goes against everything her character should stand for. The reasons I'm comfortable saying this are many. The first one is that Alya is very clearly supposed to be seen as a serious journalist. That's why you get scenes like this one from Feast:

Alya: Now you know back in the day sculptures were painted, right? Most of the paint vanished over time, but tiny microscopic pigments still remain. Thanks to this special app, witness how it originally looked. But here's the big thing. All these works of art have something in common. It's the same symbol! Look, everywhere. It's like some kind of secret society emblem. As if a kind of Order of the Guardians has been watching over the superheroes since the beginning of time!

This scene would not exist if Alya was supposed to be the kind of person who only cared about getting blog hits because this type of content isn't where the money is. But money and clout aren't what Alya cares about. She's just a passionate reporter (or fan girl) who wants to know everything she can and who is having fun sharing her obsession with the world. This is an extremely important aspect of her character because it brings us to reason two that she clearly wasn't meant to be a clout chaser: if she was a tabloid journalist who only cared about hits, then she should have never been given a miraculous.

I could go on a rant her about how poorly Alya's blog is used after she becomes Rena Rouge, but I'll spare you the word count and just say that, as soon as she joined the team, she should have stopped sharing secrets on the blog. It makes sense that a blog would initially fill her need to share the fine details of her obsession, but once she's on the team, the blog should have been replaced by her teammates. She could still have the blog, but it shouldn't have things like the freaking guide to how the miraculous work that we see in the season four episode Gabriel Agreste:

Alya: The Miraculous are magical jewels that give powers to superheroes, like Ladybug's earrings and Cat Noir's ring. But supervillain Shadow Moth also has two Miraculousbrooches in his possession, and they will give him his powers. We can figure out from this that the Miraculous can either make a superhero or a supervillain. It's all riding on who wears it, which is why these jewels can't fall into just anybody's hands.

Alya, you are supposed to be Marinette's sole confidante at this point. Why are you giving the world this information? The writers are doing you dirty, my dear, and I'm so sorry. The best I can do is to promise to never treat you like this in my stuff.

Now, to be fair, there is some nuance to this. Alya is a human being. She's allowed to have flaws, so I can absolutely forgive her for getting caught up in the moment and posting scoops to her blog without thinking (see: Oblivio). That's honestly a great weakness for her character to have as it makes perfect sense for a fan girl to fan girl. At the same time, if you want to have a fan girl character who becomes part of the things she's a fan of, then you usually need to give that character something that will tone them down and make full fan girl mode something other than the standard setting.

Making your fan girl a serious reporter is a great way to do that! It allows you to have that initial bust of fan girl hype that quickly switches into serious get-the-details mode. Without that kind of complexity, Alya would just be another Wayhem and one Wayhem is already one too many.

While I will give Alya some grace on this topic and even call it a good thing for her character, the same cannot be said for her writing because the writers fail to embrace her hype as an in-the-moment weakness and it ruins her character. To put it another way, a lapse in judgement about posting a photo is excusable as a photo is quickly acquired and posted. A lapse in judgement about a full interview with a total rando who is claiming to be Ladybug's best friend is not excusable (see: Volpina). It's a completely different flavor of poor judgement as - at a minimum - it requires Alya to stand there talking to a person for several minutes and never once question what that person is saying. Those are not the behaviors of a good journalist.

Of course, this brings us to the most glaring example of Alya's character assassination: the Lila thing. Almost everything about this arc paints Alya as a terrible friend, which is a massive missed opportunity as Lila is the perfect antagonist for Alya! Who better to take down a liar than a truth seeker? It's such an easy way to give Alya her own mission to focus on, especially if you make Lila more subtle. You don't even need to have Alya believe Marinette without question. Just have her be an investigative journalist who is like, "You know what, this new girl clearly bothers Marinette and I know Marinette can get caught up in her own head, but it doesn't usually last this long. I think something is up, so I'm going to use my skills to see if Lila is telling the truth that way I know if I'm supporting the right person here." Don't have your character claim that she checks her sources and does research if you're going to turn around and have her believe whatever she hears without checking any of it!

Even outside of the Lila thing, I wish we saw more of Alya's research skills! They were such a good thing to give Marinette's best friend as Marinette is great at focusing on a clear task, but research is the kind of thing that would overwhelm her, so it makes perfect sense to make her best friend a researcher as that lets the team have someone to help track down whatever Gabriel is calling himself this week. The writers even understood this to some extent as we saw in Mr. Pigeon 72:

Alya: Marinette, how long have you been working on this? Ladybug: I dunno, six-seven days, maybe ten. Now that we're on spring break, I finally have time to put my whole heart into it! Alya: When was the last time you worked on one of your own designs? Ladybug: I do loads of designing! Look! (pointing to the contraption at her door) I designed a security system so that nobody can enter my room when I'm not in it. And if I put on this hat (puts on modified hat) I hear everything that's going on in here, even when I'm out of the room. Alya: I'm gonna have to break it to you because I'm the only one who can. THIS IS TOTALLY INSANE! Girl, trust your BFF. When I'm researching something obsessively and I can't think of anything else, that's when my mind can get really blocked. You know what you need most right now? A break! Ladybug: No way! No breaks until I find out how to keep Shadow Moth from reakumatizing people!

Remember who ultimately figures out how to keep Shadow Moth from reakumatizing people in this episode? Alya! Because her creative style is all about researching and looking at the evidence. You know, the classic skill set of a reporter?

I really do mean it when I say that the show has a fantastic setup for telling a good story. Alya's character should have been a perfect addition to Marinette's team. My favorite lineup is the line up from season two with Kagami and Luka in non-love-interest bonus roles that I won't get into here since it's a little too deviant from canon to make sense without explanation. Instead, I'll just give you the clear roles they perfectly set up and then squandered for the original miraculous five:

Ladybug: Battlefield commander

Rena Rouge: Big Picture Strategist (basically Marinette excels at reactive thinking/leading during a battle while Alya excels more at proactive thinking/long-term tactics)

Chat Noir: Peacekeeper/Heart/Hype Man

Carapace: Protector/Stop Button (much like Alya and Marinette, Nino and Adrien should have been two sides of the same coin with Adrien being focused on making everyone happy while Nino focuses on keeping everyone safe)

Queen Bee: Wild Card/Chaos Element (I love a good chaos element who is there to suggest the options that won't occur to people who have been raised to follow the rules.)

I'll also point out that this lineup would show that the characters weren't interchangeable and make the two main couples feel more unique and meant for each other. For example, Nino's tendency to encourage others to stay safe would pair terribly with Marinette's need to not get too caught up in her own thoughts. The second Nino second guesses one of her plans she'd fall apart, so she needs Adrien to be her Chat Noir. Similarly, Alya's impulsivity weakness would make her a terrible match for go, go, go Hype Noir! She needs a partner who makes her take two seconds to second guess herself. There was so much potential here you guys! So much potential! It could have been beautiful! Instead, we got canon...

There you go, my broad love letter to Alya. I could keep going, but you didn't request a specific topic, so I'm just going to end it there. Feel free to ask for more, but please do it in another ask as this is already super long and - out of kindness to my followers- I try to avoid essay after essay on the same post unless they really need to be connected.

[ashsirens]

Now that Oshi No Ko is over and the fandom is slowly starting to die down, here are three of my controversial opinions:

Aqua's ending is no surprise.

I know many were disappointed with Aqua's ending, but honestly it didn't really surprise me. I've seen a lot of revenge plots in the media, so when Aqua said he wanted to avenge Ai in episode 1, I immediately understood how this story was going to end.

Also, there were some foreshadowings in the season 1 ending and in some manga panels that showed how Aqua would end up. Of course, that doesn't mean the ending is well written, I just mean that the ending wasn't completely unexpected.

However, it remains cliché with the sadness pushed to the extreme that it is difficult to feel bad for the characters.

Kana's stans ruined her character for me.

Long story short, I knew a bit about ONK's plot before watching the anime via TikTok edits. I knew there was a love triangle and that Kana was the most popular character, but when I looked at edits about the other girls, especially Akane and Ruby's edits, there wasn't a single comment that said "Kana is better".

Then I watched season 1 and honestly her character didn't really appeal to me. Even after finishing the entire series, I never understood what was so great about her, other than the fact that her abandonment issues and insecurities were relatable.

The more I looked at the fandom, the more I felt like this Kana hype was cult-like. In fact, Kana fans on Twitter and TikTok are the biggest condescending gaslighters I've ever seen.

Always saying: "I feel like I'm the only one who likes Kana", "Kana is underrated", "She doesn't deserve all this hate", "Kana haters don't understand the story"... WHILE ABSOLUTELY NOBODY HATES KANA! On the contrary, you say a single wrong word about the best girl in ONK and you get blasted by @kanasolourfav who will write you paving stones about why you are wrong, how much he understood the story unlike you and how much Aqua loves Kana (when that is not even the subject).

This kind of behavior made me end up liking all the girls in the series except Kana. Plus, I absolutely hated how the fandom excused or even admired her despicable behavior at times.

I understand that her bitchy attitude is part of her charm, it made me laugh sometimes, but there are still times when Kana was really a bitch with a capital B for nothing.

Like that scene where she makes fun of Akane in front of the entire theater troupe. As someone who has already experienced public humiliation in front of my class, I really found that moment disgusting on Kana's part.

What I also find ironic is that Kana fans have often called Akane a pick me for imitating Ai, yet the time Kana made fun of Akane in front of everyone and bragged to Aqua that her relationship with him is special while reducing Akane's worth, is much more pick me behavior than simply imitating someone to survive on a reality show.

Because yes, today we use the term pick me to designate a woman we don't like, but the real definition of a pick me is a woman who pulls other women down so that men understand that she's better.

(if that's not pick me behavior, then I don't know what is)

In short, aside from the fact that her attitude is sometimes borderline, objectively Kana's character is interesting and relatable, but this girl really deserved a better fanbase.

In Ruby’s defense.

I know that after the reveal between Aqua and Ruby that they are Goro and Sarina, there was a massive surge of hatred for Ruby's character as she started to see Aqua in a more romantic light.

But I think many have forgotten that in her first life, Ruby died at the age of 12. Which is very young, and it is reflected in her attitude throughout the series. For example Aqua read complex books while he was still in kindergarten because he was an adult in his old life, so he has the mentality of an adult. Same thing for Ruby, need I remind you that she literally rolled around on the floor stamping her feet so that Miyako would pressure the music producer to give them a song.

Because that's what Ruby is: a child.

Also, since she was seriously ill to the point of not being able to move, her former family literally abandoned her and she found herself isolated with no one. Isolation causes great mental damage, so imagine in someone young.

With Goro being the only person who cared about her at the time, hinting that she might have a chance with him when she's 16, and promising her that he'll be her #1 supporter when she's an idol, I understand why Ruby changed her attitude when she realized that Goro was still alive through Aqua.

Ruby, in both of her lives, never grew out of childhood. Childish immaturity combined with Ai's death must not have helped her be reasonable about her feelings towards Aqua.

There's also this: a lot of people underestimated the impact Ai's death had on Ruby. Now, it's understandable because the show didn't explore Ruby's trauma as much as Aqua's, but Ruby also hadn't moved on from Ai, hence her obsession with becoming an idol. Also, Ai was the only person who gave Ruby some joy when she was lying in her hospital bed, she gave her a purpose to accomplish in life, gave her love and affection by being her daughter, she helped her surpass herself (the scene where Ai and Ruby dance together). Ruby lost all of that.

Imagine: your family abandoned you because you were sick, you died at 12 without having been able to realize your dreams, you reincarnate in the child of the idol who gave you hope when you were at your lowest but who ends up dying before your eyes, you try to find the only person who gave you affection in your life but you learned he is dead, but in fact no he is not dead he was your twin brother from the beginning, who ends up sacrificing himself to save you from your psychopathic father who wanted to kill you.

So yes it's true, we can blame Ruby for a lot of things, but I don't think she deserves so much hate, because in the end she's the one who suffered the most in this story.

[reiderwriter]

Thoughts on unsub spencer reid fics?

Hi! I'm not sure if you wanted more of a general answer or meant this as a headcanon or gen request, so I'm just going to go purely on vibes and answer this as a question.

Spencer as an Unsub - Thoughts

Disclaimer: Anything negative said here is absolutely not an insult towards any specific writer or fic. I don't really read unsub Reid fics, due to facts I'm about to get into, so I'm really not knowledgeable enough to be throwing shade 💀 This is personal opinion!

I personally would need a lot of convincing to believe in an "unsub" Spencer Reid.

In Criminal Minds, it's clear from very early into the show that Spencer is very empathetic with certain unsubs. The entire team have their own types of cases that they get more personally involved in (Morgan and cases involving child victims, JJ and apparent suicides, Emily and quote unquote battered women cases) but Spencer is the only one whose personal attachment to cases leaves him empathising with the unsub instead of the victim.

He's the only member of the team who could have seen himself committing violent acts the way unsubs do had his life veered down a different path. And, based on Spencer's background and the psychology of the show, he's probably right to be concerned.

He's a white male, at the peak of the show in his mid to late thirties, with a background of abuse and a family history of mental illness. By season four, we know he's highly skilled with a gun, and by season 12/13, we see that he can be pushed to violence when he is at the very edge of his limitations.

And then they make his character so intrinsically moral that you never question him ever again.

To a certain extent, Criminal Minds is about the perpetual cycles of abuse that human kind can inflict upon itself. Many of the unsubs were once victims, some of them perhaps still are. The heroes of the story are characters who have been able to break the cycle.

Spencer is neglected as a child. He has an absent father abandon him, a mother with schizophrenia who does physically beat him when she is having an episode. He is bullied heavily in school for his high IQ and his lack of social skills. But he is shown to deeply care for him mother and empathise with her deeply instead of coming to resent her like many of the unsubs in that situation. He resents his father, for sure, but instead turns that resentment into drive, leading him to "just keep getting more PhDs." And his personal experiences with bullying allow him to empathise with the unsubs that have gone through similar circumstances.

So I don't think canonically, Spencer is ever in danger of becoming an unsub. He deeply cares about the world and the people around him, and whilst he does have a kill count on the show, he either expresses deep remorse at having to oull the trigger, or it is in the best interest for everyone involved.

Basically, all that to say: I think Unsub Spencer Reid in fanfiction has to be written incredibly carefully, or it runs the risk of being very out of character. To be clear, I'm not too bothered about characters being slightly out of character in fics because it happens. I've probably written a lot of stuff where Spencer is OOC, too. And that's fine.

I do kind of draw the line at grabbing random unsub traits from the show and giving them to Spencer for a fic. For example, Spencer would never end up as a sexual sadist. He probably wouldn't be a spree killer, either. Not that anyone wants my writing advice, but if you're writing an unsub Spencer fic, think about his background and the profiles they generally give for the kind of signature/ crimes you're about to give him.

If this was a request, I apologise for the misunderstanding. But here's a little hint at what I might do with a general "unsub Reid" request.

☆ It would most likely take place after the events of Season 12/13.

☆ It's angst or nothing.

☆ The basic plot: Reid's headaches come back after taking a blow in the field. He tries seeking help for it but can't find any relief. On his next case, because of his chronic pain, he makes a mistake that gets his teammate, the reader, shot. The unsub escapes, but the reader falls into a coma. When it looks like reader is not going to pull through, he tracks down the unsub and beats his to death after a brawl. Massive overkill. The reader pulls through that night, and he feels no guilt for getting that monster off the street. But each time the readers health takes a turn, or they require a new surgery, he is compelled to go back out there and track down and kill another serial killer until the reader finally wakes up.

☆ I don't think it'd be very well received because there would be no morally grey smut. This is some tragic angst shit only, lmao.

☆ please don't put a request for this in my inbox. If I feel like writing it later, I might, I don't have the brain power right now, though 💀

That's all I've got right now, but I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on unsub Reid :)

[cyberdragoninfinity]

wild dana spotted howling and barking about yugioh arc-v out in the parking lot

oh BOY oh boy it's bout that time again. i can't believe it's been OVER A YEAR (?!?!?) since i last did one of these 'i just finished a yugioh here's my little rambly retrospective about it' posts but we are BACK!!! Finished my first ever watch-through of Arc-V last Tuesday after some 8 months of it putting me through the spin cycle and now as it's wedging itself permanently into my psyche i need to talk about its Everything or i will explode. so LET'S SWING INTO ACTION!!! I'M TAKING CONTROL OF THIS DUEL STARTING NOW!!!

[SPOILERS ahead for this decade old anime, of course]

WOW. YUGIOH ARC-V, HUH. before i started it watching it, I knew two things: A.) every single bit of knowledge I'd learned about it from Duel Links events or otherwise had me so, so, unbeliebable fucking hyped. I was absolutely certain this Yugioh was going to be so full of Danabait and completely fry my brain like an egg on the griddle. I had to physically restrain myself for TWO YEARS to keep from jumping the gun and watching Arc-V before I'd finished all the series before it (a decision I'm ultimately thankful for--Arc-V hits kind of fuckign crazy as a chaser to four other yugiohs.). And also, B.) when people Talk About Arc-V they always talk about it in a Very Particular Way. like. it's hard to describe. I feel like you know it when you see it. There is the full range of human emotion in the way people talk about Arc-V. People talk about Arc-V like its a confusing, malicious specter haunting their living room. And this admittedly got me even more hyped to watch it.

And then I watched it and here I am and I KNOW NOW. I KNOW NOW WHY PEOPLE. TALK ABOUT IT LIKE THAT. FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART: WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. SLASH POS. SLASH NEG. SLASH SECRET THIRD THING.

Arc-V is a fucking MESS. It starts out SO strong and then it starts setting plot threads on fire and writing conceptual checks it absolutely cannot cash. It falls down the narrative stairs like it has a goddamn death wish. It introduces 342052805 characters and then forgets to do anything with 99% of them. It does things to its girl characters that makes the back half of 5Ds's girl writing failure look like the height of feminist theory. If the stories I've heard about its deeply troubled production are any indication it is some kind of MIRACLE this show got made and aired at ALL. IT'S LIKE WATCHING A CAR WEAVING THROUGH TRAFFIC AT 90 MPH ONLY TO PLOW DIRECTLY INTO THE SIDE OF A PARTY CITY.

and goddamn if I didn't have a FUCKING BLAST watching it. GODDAMN IF I DIDNT HAVE SO, SO MUCH FUN. goddamn if Arc-V might very well end up being my FAVORITE yugioh out of ALL of them when all is said and done. WHOOOOOPSSS!!! 🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴

like. imo Zexal is absolutely from a quality/art direction/narrative/everything standpoint leaps and bounds better than Arc-V. Definitely one of my favorite cartoons I've ever seen period, and most people should give it a shot. Such a beautiful work of art. But Arc-V....... girl they put something In this one. My pre-show hype was absolutely warranted. This show is just one blast of Shit That Makes Dana Crazy after another. Every character absolutely delights me and is my best friend. I'm going to be losing my mind over Yugioh Arc-V for the rest of the year and maybe forever.

As usual I primarily watched the dub, with some sub episodes sprinkled in if I got tipped off about a big change, or just if I wanted to see what was going on back there. (glad I did, of course, for a number of reason--least of all that Arc-V's OPs and EDs are SO fun and so charming!!) (THOUGH SIDE NOTE: THE DUB OPENING SHREDS SO HARD IM SORRY. IT'S UP THERE WITH THE GX DUB OPENING FOR ME. CAN YOU FEEL THE FUCKING POWER!!!!!) Anyway, gotta say, really was blown away by this dub!! It's tied with Zexal for what's imo the 'best' yugioh dub--the majority of the voice performances were just fantastic (truly all the love in my heart for Michael Liscio Jr.'s performances as the yuboys, they all have such unique and charming voices and im OBSESSED WITH THEM.) and having watched some sub eps side by side with the dub it's really cool seeing a dub that genuinely tried to faithfully translate Most of the Original. idk it's just a really solid localization to me!! I loved it a lot!! ALSO IT'S EXTREMELY FUNNY. I SAY THIS ABOUT EVERY DUB BUT IT'S TRUE. there are line reads in the arc-v dub that have me SOBLAUGHING.

anyway. I like to do these little subsection breakdowns in these little retrospective roundups, so let's get into the weeds with it:

Stuff I Didn't Like: loooooooooong inhale through my nose. looks at you with mildly pained eyes. alright. let's get this one over with.

though I did really try to go in as blind as I could/avoid most spoilers with this one, I did inevitably get spoiled by some things from Duel Links, but in the case of. uh. Riley Getting Turned Back Into a Baby At the End. 👶🏼 I AM glad I had that spoiled for me, so I knew it was coming. Because if I didn't know that was going to happen and that clocked me over the head I would have been on the NEWS. I WOULD HAVE BEEN, SO MAD. HEY, YUGIOH: WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 👶🏼👶🏼👶🏼👶🏼👶🏼 WHY DID YOU DO THAT TO RILEY!!!!

"character gets permanently turned back into a baby for Critical Plot Reasons" has gotta be one of my LEAST favorite tropes in anything, it's NEVER GOOD. AND IT'S ESPECIALLY BAD HERE!!! Riley is such a good character, he's got such an interesting arc going on, and THEY JUST RIP THAT TO PIECES. SO RILEY'S JUST FUCKING GONE NOW I GUESS. COOL. ALRIGHT. SURELY THERE COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER WAYS TO DEFEAT ZARC. SURELY. just. good GOD. it was a small miracle to me when this happened like 8 episodes before the end, it was like ripping the bandaid off early, it was like "oh thank christ i got past that. ok well whatever happens it cannot possibly be as bad as the shit they did to riley"

^ (and imo it wasnt. thank GOD. actually let's talk about that)

LIKE. MAKE NO MISTAKE ARC-V'S ENDING IS CONFUSING AND CLUMSY AND SO STUPID AND NOT GOOD. WHY ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH DOES THIS SERIES NEED EIGHT EPISODES AFTER ITS BIG BAD DUEL.WE COULD HAVE WRAPPED THIS UP IN 2-3!!!! it feels like watching Chopped and the contestant has 20 seconds on the clock left and theyre like "i gotta make my whipped cream" like WEEEE DONT NOT HAVE TIMEEE FOR THAT!!!!! WHAT ARE WE DOINGGGG. why are we dueling jack AGAIN. FOR TWO EPISODES. EVERYONE IS YELLING AT YUYA LIKE ALL OF THIS IS HIS RESPONSIBILITY AND FUCKING IS IT??!?!??! HE'S 14. AND THEN THOSE EPISODES HAVE THE GALL TO THROW SO MANY COOL IDEAS ON THE TABLE (Gong fully exploring dueltaining, the Dimensional Highway, etc) AND IT'S LIKE. COOL!! WISH WE COULDVE HAD THIS ANY OTHER TIME THAN THE LAST POSSIBLE SECOND!!! WHAT ARE WE DOINGGGG

BUT all that being said, the way people talk about that fucking last episode I was expecting some genuinely godawful 'zuzu is yuyas mom again like in the manga' tier absolute nightmare scenario. i literally made a secret prediction chart of what insane plot twist i assumed the last episode was going to drop on me.

AND THEN THE LAST EPISODE WAS JUST. FUNNYBAD. just a run of the mill whimper at the end of eight episodes we KIND OF REALLY DID NOT NEED. THE SHEER AMOUNT OF RELIEF I FELT. like absolutely i think going into it completely blind/encountering that ending watching live I would have been pissed, folks are rightfully frustrated with it, but I WAS TRULY. EXPECTING MUCH WORSE. IT ENDS LIKE A FAKE TUMBLR POST. "AND THEN EVERYONE CLAPPED" ASS ENDING. I DO HAVE TO LAUGH

^ YIPPEEEE SIX CHARACTERS HAVE EFFECTIVELY STOPPED EXISTING YAAAAAYY (😬😬😬😬)

ALSO, IN GENERAL. SPEAKING OF. GOD. THE BRACELET GIRLS. YALL ARE SO COOL AND THEN POOR LULU AND RIN DIDNT GET TO DO A GODDAMN THING EXCEPT HAVE WORMS IN THEIR BRAINS!!!! HELL ON EARTH!!!!!! WHY DID THEY DO THATTTT GAHHHHH again!! show that introduces SO many characters, so many FUCKING COOL CHARACTERS, and then does NOTHING with them. Or hits them with PARALYZING NERVE GAS FOR 20 EPISODES. CHRIST!!! WHY DO ARC-V GIRLS SUFFER MORE THAN JESUS. LEAVE MY GIRL ZUZU ALONEEEEE

TO THAT END, ARC-V JUST MAKES; SO MANY CONFUSING CHARACTER DECISIONS. AND CHOICES. why is Yuto just out of the picture for like 60 episodes!!! Let him be Yuya's brain buddy!!! WHY WASNT HE. DID YOU NOT WANNA ANIMATE HIM FLOATING NEXT TO THE DUEL RUNNER??! BE REAL. It's like. GRAHHH In general Arc-V has a pacing problem that is like. Atrocious even for yugioh's bad pacing problems. This series needed to be 400 episodes long. I like the IDEA of a yugioh with a big cast, spending episodes cutting between different groups of characters like some kind of bulky YA fantasy novel, but in practice it got. Real Muddy. RIP Xyz dimension arc you shoulda had so much more to you. And then there's that combined with this way it's trying Really Really hard to ape the themes of the past yugiohs ('dont forget to have fun,' grief/moving on after loss, classism) but it's hitting every damn branch on the way down and just completely fumbling ALL of them, it's not actually doing much to Earn being able to have those kind of themes resonate properly. IT'S SUCH A BAFFLING SHOW. IN THE THEMES DEPARTMENT. AMONG OTHER THINGS. "DONT EVER BE VISIBLY PUBLICLY SAD" IS A FUCKING INSANE MORAL. AND IT TAKES THAT SHIT WITH IT TO THE BITTER END. WHY IS THE FATE OF THE WORLD HINGED ON YUYA MAKING A BABY LAUGH. WHERE AM I!!!!

god. god. ok. ok im calm now. im sure in the coming weeks i'll have more barking about arc-v's various fumbles. but i'll leave it at that for now, i wanna talk about stuff i DID like now lol

Favorite Season/Arc: ok well. this actually is a hard question. um. hrm. LIKE. I'LL GET SHOT BY SNIPERS IF I SAY IT WAS SYNCHRO ARC BUT ALSO

IM SORRYYYYYYYYYYYYY I GOT THAT DOG IN ME (A BACK HALF OF 5D'S LIKER'S SOUL.) and unfortunately I WILL go in there and think about it that hard (the absolutely fucked to hell sociopolitical situation happening in Arc-V New Domino City and how it contrasts with the NDC in 5D's) (one thing about me I love weird fucked up yugioh old people I love those bitchass old centrists apparently governing the entire dimension and doing a piss poor job of it it's just like contemporary American politics!!!!!!) ROGET WAS JUST REANIMATING DEAD PEOPLE AND PUTTING MIND CONTROL CYBERNETICS IN THEM AND WELL YEAH SURE I'LL BE NORMAL GRIP ABOUT THAT. NORMAL. i need to make an arc-v AU Aporia so fucking bad THEN YOULL ALL SEE *talking to empty room*

YES synchro was way too fucking long. but regretfully i love turbo duels and will never not be charmed when yugioh puts guys on motorcycles that have no business being on motorcycles. DAMN I JUST FUCKING WISH YUYA AND YUGO GOT TO ACTUALLY TALK AND MEET IN THE SAME ROOM THOUGH!!!! BUT ANYWAY!!!!

im. kidding at least a little, I actually thoroughly enjoyed like...all of Arc-V's seasons/arcs at least a little (barring a lot of the Weird Post Zarc Duel 8 Episode Dead Zone.) The first 50 episodes really are just peak banger Yugioh, I do love action duels to absolute bits (though Action Spells. Uh. Need Some Workshopping 8| If I See Evasion One More Time Im Gonna Lose It) and the shit especially that first season does with the crazy Action Fields is AWESOME. GENUINELY. GO DUEL IN THE VOLCANO. DO A FLIP. RIDE YOUR MONSTER. it's practically running on Pokemon universe logic i cant NOT love it. And well Fusion Dimension arc does just have a whole lot of episodes that make me go cuckoo bananas crazy. Truly something for Dana in every crevice of Yugioh Arc-V.

Favorite Characters: god I do think like a solid half of why I think Arc-V may be becoming my top fav Yugioh is that the cast is just, really Really fucking good. Like yes so many of them are underutilized but the time we Do get with them really just shows off what delightful characters they all are. Half the reason it took me so damn long to finish was I was having so much fun and was going to miss seeing them!! IT'S GENUINELY HARD TO PICK A TOP LINEUP OF FAVS. THERE'S SO MANY DANABAIT GUYS IN YUGIOH ARC-V. YES EVEN THE SYNCHRO ARC GUYS. LUCAS SWANK I MISS YOU SO FUCKING MUCH.

The Lancers alone are SO good, theyre up there with Team 5D's in terms of Favorite "Main Yugioh 'Friend Group'/Organization". Group of guys who kind of have horrible synergy and only like 3 of them are actually competent. Declan came up with it when he was 13. Funniest group of teenagers imaginable, I love them all. LIKE .YUYA MAY BE MY FAVORITE YUTAGONIST??? IM NOT SURE YET BUT. I DO LOVE HIM A LOT. HE'S A PATHETIC WET PAPER TOWEL AND I WANT TO GIVE HIM A NOOGIE. SLASH POS.

And I mean I'm always gonna be Z-one biased but I do like Zarc as a Big Bad a lot too... damn if I don't love Just Some Guy Has Become God and Is a Huge Tool About It <3 WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM WHY ARE YOU ACTING LIKE THIS!!!!

ah. but. of course. i'd be remiss if i didn't bring up. Rainbow Carrot Rock Your World.

hey guys. why'd it happen again. why'd the Yugioh Carrot and Company get in my head and completely fry my brain AGAIN!!!!!!!! ORANGE CARROT. PURPLE CARROT. YELLOW CARROT!!!!🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕 YUGO ISNT EVEN MY TOP FAV BUT HE'S IN MY HEART AND IN OUR HOUSE FOREVER NOW. meanwhile i dont want. to talk about what yuri is doing to me. if i think too hard about this little purple freak i'll start going bonkers ballistic chewing my leg off. I like all the yuboys but he is especially. Gripping Me. La Cucaracha Loca. My shithead gay son.

dennis needs his own post he's just. a Lot. may very well be one of the funniest yugioh characters ever. Among Other Things. his dub VA's performance needs to be marked as culturally significant. AND THEY JUST KEPT BRINGING HIM BACK.

IN GENERAL, AS I WAS COMPLETELY EXPECTING, FUCKED UP AND EVIL DUEL ACADEMY REALLY DID ME IN I love you Fusion Dimension kids I love getting sick in the head thinking about card game child soldiers.My Actual favorite Arc-V character may just straight up be Sora..... I just like him a lot. He's got a really solid character arc, his deck rules, he's a little fucker AND an absolute real one. Just 10/10 little guy.

GOD WHAT EVEN IS MY TOP FIVE FAVORITES. UHHHH Okay Sora and Yuri for sure, and Declan, I love Declan. Yugo..... god. GOD IS THE FIFTH ONE DENNIS FOR REAL. I FEEL HIM IN MY BRAIN SO BAD. AAAAUUGHHHH (Runners Up: Yuya, Yuto, GONG MOTHERFUCKING STRONG!!!!!!, Rin my girl my badass mechanic girl IM ON MY WAY. I'LL THINK ABOUT YOU THAT HARD., Riley, Arc-V Aster unfortunately a Dana Guy ever. Why Is He Here. He Didnt Even Go to DA in GX. But all of this is subject to change in coming months as the entire cast continues to hit me with weapons. An honor and a privilege to induct these characters into my Blorbo Hall of Fame)

Favorite Duel: HEY QUICK QUESTION: WHY ARE ARC-V'S DUELS SO FUCKING WEIRD. LIKE. NARRATIVELY. There's like 4352984589 ties and duels that get cut short and DUELS WE JUST NEVER GET TO SEE THE FULL OUTCOME OF ON SCREEN?!?!? WHAT WAS GOING ON THERE. It feels like another symptom of arc-v just desperately trying to bite off more than it can chew 😭 Frustrating!! And god I LOVE the zaniness of Action Duels, but we neeeeeed to do something about Action Spells... GRABBING AN ACTION SPELL SHOULD NOT BE THE CRUTCH OF YOUR WHOLE DECK.........

coughs. anyway. My actual honest to god favorite Arc-V duel is Yugo vs. Celina in the Friendship Cup <3 IVE ALREADY TALKED ABOUT IT BEFORE BUT IT'S JUST SUCH A FUN ONE. It's got some great character moments on both sides, a yugioh girl Getting to Be Cool, the colors are gorgeous, it's SO funny, I just get such a kick out of it....I think part of what I Do like about the Friendship Cup is it really shows this sense of kinetic energy that the WRGP in 5D's really needed. I also really like the Shay vs. Dennis Friendship Cup duel for just going completely off the rails. Blow Up This War Criminal and The Whole Stadium With the Giant Bird Satellite Cannon. DOES NOT GET MORE YUGIOH THAN THAT!!

for all its weirdness Arc-V has a LOT of really fun duels that i enjoy--Shay vs. Sora is beloved for a reason, it also goes hard as hell. So many Season 1 duels are just a goofy blast, I really need to rewatch the quiz show one. For as much of an unnecessary mess as those last 8 episodes are, I DO really like Yuya and Dennis's duel too (THAT GETS REALLY REALLY GAY AT THE END???!?!? ARE WE ALL SEEING THIS.)

Hell even the Zarc duel started making me kind of sick in the head--watching Yuya's friends passing around his pendulum necklace while trying to save him makes me turbo emo WHAT CAN I SAY!!!

Arc-V also has the thing I had with Zexal where there's just some individual episodes that are absolute bangers for me. i love the Prison Break episode, it's fucking INSANE. HIP HIPPO SAID FUCK COPS FUCK THE PRISON SYSTEM!!! I love the episode where Gong and Dennis duel. FOR HOW LONG IT DID DRAG SYNCHRO HAS SOME REALLY FUN ONE-OFF EPISODES which I just really enjoy. Also love when Zuzu and Sora beat the shit out of a pack of cops. Based for that for real.

i do also love Yuri and Yuya's duel. Of course.

Other Miscellaneous Gushing/Shrieking/Losing My Mind About Yugioh Arc-V For Good and Bad and Everything in Between: arc-v arc-veeeeee yugioh arc-fiveeee theres just so MUCH. TO TALK ABOUT. THIS ONE'S GONNA BE IN MY HEAD FOR EONS I FEAR. THINKING ABOUT THE EVERYTHING. The sheer amount of narrative traits that make me specifically lose my mind (in a good way. as opposed to. the babyfication making me lose my mind. in a Real Bad Way :////) that they crammed into this. It's like digging in the treasure chest of elaborate fanfics I was writing in my brain in freshman year of high school. The Sick and Twisted Evil AU Version of Duel Academy. The Trained to Be Weapons Child Soldiers. Mind Control Reanimated Corpse Brain Chip. Alternate Dimension Selves. All of the Split Different Dimension Bullshit. Soul Splitting and Soul Fusion Framed as Fucking Terrifying. It's good I didn't have Arc-V growing up it would have been doing IRREVERSIBLE THINGS TO MY DEVELOPING CREATIVE BRAIN. INSTEAD IT'S DOING THEM TO ME NOW.

(side note, re: terrifying soul fusion: Arc-V is SO FUCKING SCARY SOMETIMES?!?? Like "ohh i wish yugioh was still a horror story" DAWG ARC-V ROUTINELY HAS SOME OF THE MOST DREAD-INDUCING CONCEPTS GETTING FLUNG AT YOU AT 90 MPH. SKIP BOYLE FORGETS HIS DAUGHTER EXISTED AND IT'S ONE OF THE MOST HEARTBREAKINGLY HORRIFYING THINGS IVE EVER SEEEEENNNNN )

The shit Arc-V does with Yugioh's themes of identity, these "when does a piece of yourself stop being you and start being their own person?" "what happens when multiple free standing people are one person" type ideas, you KNOW that makes my Aporia Turbofan ass go CRAAAZYYYY. AND THEN IT HAD RELIGIOUS MOTIFS TOO <3333 YOU'RE ME AND IM YOU AND IT DOESNT MATTER WHO DOES WHAT THE DEVIL WILL COME BACK REGARDLESS 😊💞💞💞

Arc-V takes such bold swings at things and 95% of the time it misses the ball entirely and spins up and out and directly into the fireplace but that 5% of sheer genius and thematic weight hits like a truck. Is Arc-V good? FUCK IF I KNOW. PROBABLY NOT. BUT ALSO YES IT IS. BUT ALSO IT'S NOT. BUT ALSO IT'S SOMETHING SO SPECIAL, AND I LOVE IT. That first like 50 episodes makes for such a good yugioh starter course tbh, the way it goes over different summoning methods and is very engaging and energetic, and then the rest of the show is an 18 car pileup of Card Game War that makes me automatically like DONT. START WITH THIS ONE. WATCH ANOTHER YUGIOH OR TWO FIRST AND THEN COME MELT YOUR BRAIN IN HERE. AND THATS SUCH A WEIRD DICHOTOMY TO HAVE WITH ONE YUGIOH. weird like everything else with arc-v i suppose. :,)

For all the mess and all the madness there truly is so much I love, though. I love the character dynamics, even when the show isnt doing much more with its cast--Yuya and Gong's friendship may be one of my favorite 'yutag and best friend' bonds, it's SO sweet and I'm going to be mad forever that Gong isn't more popular in western ygo fandom. I love the DUEL MONSTERS!! Performapals are SOOOO sillygoofy I have to adore them, the dimensional dragons all kick so much ass I love you Clear Wing my big legless weirdo. I love Shay's increasingly bigger Bird Guns. I LOVE FRIGHTFURS!!!! I LOVE D/D/DS!!!!! SO HAPPY TO SEE THEM ON ESPECIALLY SCREEN AFTER PLAYING THEM FOR MONTHS IN DUEL LINKS. MY FREAKY DECLAN DEMONS. I love the miscellaneous callbacks to past iconic monsters and funky weird AU retrains of the Legacu character's decks. Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend my friend Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend

I also do love that Arc-V in theory is trying very hard to be a celebration of past Yugiohs, but it's also instead being completely fucking insane with its 'tributes.' Oh you like Heartland City from Zexal? It's a carpetbombed warzone now! LIKE... HUH!!! When Lazar showed up at the end of season 2 i SCREAMED. I WANT TO KNOW THE LOGIC OF THESE CHOICES. THEY DONT MAKE ME MAD OR ANYTHING REALLY IM JUST FASCINATED BY THEM. i cant really be too angry at arc-v I'm just. transfixed. at every baffling choice it's ever made. I've really truly never seen a show that's so thoroughly felt like some kids doing a roleplay on a forum somewhere, players dropping in and out and mods not really knowing what to do with the lore anymore as things become more and more convoluted. I watch arc-v scenes and i can picture the text RP in my head, the players' forum signatures and all. It's truly some kind of feat to achieve that inherent vibe, that's for sure.

ok im running out of steam i think... what else. god. Yugioh Arc-V is just.... such a teetering Jenga tower of a show, a complete nuclear meltdown of clumsy writing and fantastic vocal performances (dub and sub) and confused handling of its own lore and occasionally some of the fucking coolest most intense expressions and gorgeous shots of any yugioh

I held out on watching it for so long cuz i just fuckin KNEW it was going to grab me by the brain and swing me into the wall and WELL!!! I WAS RIGHT!!!! SHES A MESS BUT SHES MY MESS BABEYYY!!! IS ARC-V GOOD? MAYBE NOT BUT, BROTHER, I FUCKIN LOVE WHEN YUGIOH IS BAD ❤ ive been a disciple of Bad Yugioh for 20 goddamn years and im not stopping now!!!!! I love you Pendulum summoning you insane busted ass mechanic. I love you all four completely fucked up dimensions. I love that they localized Maiami to Paradise City. I love the little nods to past yugioh things (like fusing with a motorcycle <3 Primo Moment...2!) I hate you Leo Akaba explode and die forever (though 'parent going mad trying to bring their child back' do also go me a little bananas.) I love the kickass shots of Yuya's monsters being set in the pendulum scale.I love Sora's relationship with Yuya and Zuzu. I love every fucked up crazyass expression Yuri makes. I love the sense of character design in this show. I love the Action Duel start chants. I love seeing the Synchro Math again and the Overlay Units and the deeply unsettling fusion hand gesture kids use with Polymerization. I love that third ED thats just the Lancers dicking around in different locations and having fun. I love Declan and Riley's complicated but deeply loving bond. I love when characters RIDE THEIR DUEL MONSTERS!!! AND I LOVE THAT DESPITE EVERYTHING I ALREADY WANNA SEE THESE CHARACTERS AGAIN. THEYRE MY FRIENDS!!!!! THEYRE IN MY BRAIN!!!!! MY KIDSSSSS

I KNOW NOW. WHY PEOPLE TALK ABOUT ARC-V LIKE THAT. AND IM ABOUT TO START TALKIN LIKE THAT TOO. YUGIOHHHHHH!!!!!

[fallloverfic]

@richislittlecircus replied to your post "Thoughts on the live-action adaptation of The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, Episodes 3: Risk Assessment . . . ":

Idk i started the book but i kind of dont like the writing style? At least now at the beginning. I cant really immerse myself into it. That said ive only read like two pages so far but usually if i dont like the first few pages i dont enjoy the reading of the rest. What do you think about the writing style of the book? Does it get better (or am i judging it too hurshly)

This doesn't really have to do with my comment that the books are better than the show, which is a subjective opinion anyway, but it's cool you're giving (I assume) All Systems Red a shot!

It depends on what you didn't like and your own mileage when it comes to reading. Generally though, my rule of thumb is, if there's something you're not into in a story at any point to the point you don't feel like continuing, it's fine to quit, no matter how deep into it you are.

I don't specifically know what it is you don't like about the writing style, so I can't tell you if something you don't like is going to go away/change, particularly in a way you like, especially since you've seemingly read so little of it. If you don't like first person narration, that doesn't change. I'm not a fan of first person myself, but I think Wells does a good job of writing it to the point that I'm comfortable with it. She's one of the few authors I can stand doing it, and I think that in itself speaks for the writing quality.

If you don't like reading an anxious, unreliable narrator's perspective, there's no getting around that. If you don't like critiques of capitalism and somewhat gritty dystopic science fiction, or you don't like the humor, the story may not be for you. Or maybe the story just isn't grabbing you for whatever reason. I have no idea.

Personally, I think The Murderbot Diaries is one of the best pieces of science fiction writing I've ever read. It's not perfect, but it is incredibly well-written. It is also one of the most approachable examples of hard SF, which again speaks for the quality of its writing. I've read other hard SF that we call doorstoppers because they're so huge. Murderbot's beauty is that it's so short and yet so dense while also being approachable by a lay reader. The writing doesn't "get better" at some point to me because it's already excellent from the beginning of All Systems Red. I first read the novella in one sitting (well, standing, as I opened the book as I walked into my bedroom and then stood in the doorway until I'd finished reading it). And after the first trailer for Murderbot dropped last month, I reread All Systems Red in one sitting. It has one of the best openings I've seen in a story. The overall novella and series is funny, fun, and just extremely well-written from start to finish. The cast is fun and plots are very enjoyable. Murderbot is an extremely relatable character. I actually think the earlier entries are the stronger part of the series, though I enjoyed System Collapse, the most recent entry, well enough. And I liked Murderbot enough to pick up some of Wells' other works, including Ile-Rein, Raksura, and The Rising World, though I think Murderbot is the best written (followed by at least the earlier parts of Raksura). I've even written fanfiction for Ile-Rein, and I'd like to write some more for the series, and I have one ship I'd like to write for in Raksura (though I don't recommend anyone read Ile-Rein, honestly; if you want more Wells, read Raksura).

That being said, Murderbot will not be for everyone, for any number of reasons, and what I enjoy is not necessarily going to be what you enjoy. If the opening is turning you off, then it's probably not for you. I don't love all of Wells' works (which is why I don't recommend reading Ile-Rein, even though, after Murderbot, it's maybe what she's most well-known for, as The Death of the Necromancer won a Nebula award), so I can understand not being a fan of at least some of her writing (though style wasn't my issue in Ile-Rein, nor was style the core of my issues with The Rising World).

[mostotherthings]

Food, Love Language, Love Scout

With the work I do, i fully believe that carbs and sugar is a way of defeating stress (some days, i hit 15k - 20k steps Mon to Fri, and work from 7am onwards) I cannot explain how many long days have been saved by delivery of bubble tea and fried dough fritters with soy milk.

So this show, where eating, EATING and talking through problems as you eat or talking about your feelings as you eat, or discussing matters as you eat or have coffee- is really making me very happy.

I've also seen some comments saying, that as a secretary, Eun-ho is beholden to the person who pays his salary, that's why he works so hard and does all those extra things for Ji-hyun.

I agree that he works very, very hard. But there's a lot A LOT of things he does where he crosses the line first because he's not thinking of Ji-hyun as a job, he's thinking of her as a human he wants to take care of. (And THIS is Eun-ho's love language from the get go)

Look. No male colleague in the office has ever done the following things for me, whether he is my boss or my subordinate, no matter how close we are because THERE ARE LINES, YOU KNOW

He holds his hand over her head to protect it as she digs for documents (this causes him to be very close, a little bit too close a distance between a boss and subordinate)

He placed a plant right in her line of sight when she's working. Not flowers. a PLANT (that needs to be watered;fertilized; pruned)

He takes care of her belongings- including the bags she's tossing always, her pens, her shoes etc.

He buys her new hair ties (in one of the scenes, he gives her a hair tie that obviously Byeol's. Later on, he gives Byeol a hair tie that's obviously NOT Byeol's.)

He buys her things that he knows she likes to coax her to eat (this is a big one for me, even Mi-ae doesn't do this and they've been best friends forever! Mi-ae is at the point of friendship where ok you're a disaster, I can't fix you and I'll nag you to death but here's a secretary to save our personal AND working relationship before I stop working for you, which was very adult of her)

And of course, the latest episode where he puts himself and his career on the line by telling a very influential person - no, my boss is not going to do this for you. Or is it, my woman is not going to do this for you, huh?

And I know this is just a tiny tiny tidbit, but this got me

His rabokki is regular spicy. Hers are FIRE level spicy. That cartoon is literally on fire.

Look there has only ever been one person I've worked with who remembers exactly what my bubble tea order is and which kind of curry puffs I prefer (fish ones)- and even she has to think a bit before she remembers it. I myself had a boss who liked level 5 spicy things, I honestly WOULD NOT remember if I was buying ramen for her, I'll just end up buying the same 2 cups of ramen and that's done.

The point the show is telling you is not that he's working hard because he's beholden to her- he's mixing up his private and work thoughts together and it's meshing together into the "special" way he treats her. (He doesn't treat any of the other ladies, including Mi-ae, who he has known for a long time, like this, or Jung Writer that way)

It's going to the start of the angsts now that the makjang plot line has set in (fire, father, survivor's guilt) but BOYYYY does this show hit all my buttons. I really like this show at the moment. Hope it sticks the landing! (unlike, coughcough whenthephonerings)

[chrismcleaneatspants]

General season 2 opinions. MASSIVE TDI 2023 season 2 spoilers ahead (as well as a huge wall of text.) You've been warned.

Ok, so here's everything I like about the season (I can count them on my fingers)

-There were some funny jokes

-MKulia was entertaining and it's now in my top 5 favorite ships, but it's not perfect, as I'll explain later

-Hockey dudes were a joy to watch I suppose

-Bowie stole the show as usual

-There are a lot of neat challenges (The canoe, slide, and dog challenges was a particular stand outs to me)

-MK herself was really funny

-MacArthur's cameo was a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one, and she bounces off of Chris really well

-Duncney is still broken up lol

Honestly that's about it in terms of positives, cuz I have a million other negatives for this supposed sequel to (imo) the best written season of the show.

-The Relationships were the single worst aspect about this season full stop. Ripaxel and Praleb are probably the worst couples the show has ever subjected me to. For Ripaxel, they basically removed anything interesting Ripper had going on and Axel wasn't allowed to live up to any kind of hype she created because one lame ass poem turned her into Ripper's girlfriend for the remaining duration of her run, only for the both of them to be tossed aside in episode 7 in perhaps the worst double elimination in the entire show.

-Praleb started off ok. I thought it was gonna be a one-sided crush plot initially before Episode 6. They had a couple cute moments before episode 8, of which their screentime became suffocating because afterwards is was this painful back and forth where Caleb tried explaining himself and Priya would be mad at him, then ally with him, then be mad at him again like it was so tiresome. By the time they got together in the finale again, I was wishing they had just followed up on Pramien instead. Caleb by himself was funny in the first half of season 2 and Priya was great in season 1, but the two of them together were insufferable

-Speaking of Priya, she went from one of the best characters in season 1 to one of the worst in season 2. Why did she have to make it all the way to episode fucking 12 after winning season 1?? Just for some generic heterosexual romance? They also made her so dumb with shit like knowing Julia is manipulating her but then getting a surprise Pikachu face when Julia manipulated her??? You spent your entire life preparing for this show, how the fuck did you not see this coming???

-Segwayying into Julia, she's the worst antagonist full stop. I've never seen such an absolute downgrade of a character. She was a goat in season 1 who was aware of her situation and acted accordingly because the stakes were real. Here? Reality basically warps around her just to keep her in the game. She does things characters would never fall for in season 1 and they just go with it?? They insist on keeping her in the finale and do basically nothing interesting with her. She's not even as funny as Island Heather at the end of the day.

-I mentioned MKulia earlier, so I'll just get to it here: I like it in concept. Two evil sapphics causing chaos together is really fun. My main issue is that it was very sudden. They both were not fans of each other at the end of season 1 and now I'm supposed to just believe they became friends off screen? I mean, I guess, but it's kinda cheap. I would have really liked it if it was straight up enemies to lovers ngl. Also the fact MK had very little agency outside of being Julia's lackey doesn't help either. I want to point to the fake contract thing, for instance. Why did Julia do that? That sounds like an MK thing to do.

-Time to dive into other characters: Damien is an absolute fucking tragedy. At the end of season 1, Damien had one ambition: win next season. They kinda did that, sure, but they regressed Damien into being a complete coward to do so, not to mention he didn't even go all the way either. Damien didn't get a W until episode 6 and tbh that was his only W. By the end of his tenure, I was left confused on what the point of his run was. (I'll come back to this later.)

-What was the point of Nichelle? Like seriously, what did she contribute to the season at all? They didn't do the ironic underdog story with her, and considering she was getting all egotistical and aggressive, i thought she was gonna be the antagonist for sure...until Julia got rid of her in episode 5 in a way that really shouldn't make sense cuz like Nichelle is an actual celebrity that stars in blockbuster movies, I'm pretty sure she could sniff a fake contract a mile away, right?

-Hockey dudes were great, but I felt like they were very dumbed down at times? Like they were just generic dumb dudes that just meandered around a lot of the time (Wayne in particular just straight up floated away from a challenge at one point)

-Bowie was alright too. His line delivery is great as usual, but let's not kid ourselves: In a well written season, he'd be going straight for Julia the next time his team lost. Bowraj was nice to see even if the season didn't really do a whole lot with it

-Am I the only one who thinks this season is a tad bit misogynistic? Like this is the shortest them phase the show as ever had (to the point where i'd argue teams don't really matter) and 4 of the 5 team phase boots were girls. Millie and Emma in particular were really bad. Like, you could make Millie a team phase boot without like shitting on her that hard. And Emma got like fuck all closure outside of breaking up with Chase off screen like wow, way to utilize such a high potential character, Fresh. And this is saying nothing about how the girls that did make it to the merge had plots basically dominated by romance and like nothing else. And then there's MKulia which is apparently intended to be a friendship but like is written like a romantic one at times. It gives me all-stars gwourtney vibes and (as a fan of gwourtney myself) not in a good way. At least MK and Julia were somewhat in character I guess, but they had their edges really sanded off and honestly as a friendship (situationship?) it's a complete downgrade from Millie and Priya in so many ways

-And another thing: who's the protagonist this season? Outside of Praleb, who am I supposed to care for? Who am I supposed to root for? By the halfway mark, the show doesn't really make any convincing arguments to root for like anyone there outside of maybe Damien? And he went gone in episode 10, so like, hockey dudes? No one has an interesting enough narrative for me to care.

-The immunity idol stinks as usual. Like, why did Damien do THE SAME FUCKING THING HEATHER DID IN ALL-STARS?? That actually pissed me off so much holy shit. The immunity idol as it stands in the show is basically a shitty plot device made to keep characters in as there's no real strategy revolved around it.

-Oh and another minor thing: Owen's cameo sucks, and that's entirely due to him not being physically aged up at all and just being a vehicle for the same dumb jokes they always make with him. so stupid

-Anyways, I spend an entire season with two shitass straight relationships taking up screentime, a whole multiude of potential plotlines from last season (pramien) and this season (scary girl's revenge, millie being the new ripper, damien's comeback, julia having internal conflict over her friendship (feelings?) for MK) being set up and just nothing being done with them, and characters in general just being nerfed or borderline out of character (Ripper) and what am I rewarded with?

-Soar Losers. The most boring nothing finale in the entire show. The choices for finalists suck, Wayne, while being the least bad option for a winner (and i do still like him a lot), is still a mid ass winner in the grand scheme of the entire show. And more praleb drama? fuck off I hate them so much. The challenge did not feel finale worthy at all, and honestly it was the worst challenge in the whole season. On top of being a bunch of nothing, the show decides to bring back the worst trope it ever had: losing hair as karma. I almost ragequit the episode on the spot that shit makes me so irrationally mad. I think it's even worse here because Julia still had hair after the fact, which makes it seem like they were aware it's not a popular TD trope but wanted to half commit to it anyways for the sake of tradition or something. Terrible finale to an already decently sized letdown of a season, but it has some ok MKulia moments I guess. The finale was just emblematic of the entire season, where things just happen and you're just expected to go along with everything. (Also side note how come Chase wasn't the one to jump off of the cart for pizza immediately?)

TL;DR reboot season 2 imo was a step down in every conceivable way from season 1 apart of i guess comedy and it's left a very sour taste in my mouth. I'm probably missing a few points that I'll add onto later but man it feels nice putting my opinion out there.

[tobiasdrake]

I've been loving your Digimon Adventure recap series! I've actually never seen Digimon or really interacted with it much before, so I've been learning about it/vicariously watching the show through your recaps. Now I've started playing this fangame, Digital Tamers 2, that I'm hooked on! I just evolved my MachGaogamon to a MetalGarurumon, and now am starting to raise a Tsumemon (now a Keramon) - I guess they're the antagonist of one of the movies? Question-wise, I have 2: -When you were first watching as a kid, did you ever notice any of the inconsistencies or errors the dub made? Not the translation differences, of course, but the times where even within the show it didn't make sense, or they didn't include some important piece of information. -What Digimon series and/or movies have you seen (besides original Adventure) and what would you say is the best of them? I know there was some kind of reboot-type series in Adventure:, right? Was that good?

Ah, yes. We'll see them pop up when we get to Our War Game, a movie that takes place after the first Adventure series concludes.

*google google*

...I should check out this game.

Anyways, on to the questions.

1 - I don't remember very well, but I do recall being thrown off by certain things. There were a lot of minor "Huh?" moments but we couldn't exactly pause and think about a show back in the day so I'd often just wind up moving on to the next hype moment.

I didn't understand the plot very well but I didn't really know that I didn't understand the plot very well.

Since we're in the area of it, one thing that sticks out in recent memory is that I always found Puppetmon to be a boring villain and didn't understand why so many episodes were spent on him. My least favorite episode of the series was the one where he kidnaps T.K. to a house and then they just... run around and do nothing.

Which I now understand to be the result of everything they did in that house being impermissible on Fox Kids. Now, I am super enjoying Pinocchimon's arc.

(I also found T.K. himself to be a boring character in the first show back in the day, which I now understand to be the result of the dub overemphasizing his Kid Sidekick-ness and underemphasizing his strength, conviction, and personal growth.)

2 - I've actually never left the Adventure series before. ^_^;; Of the Digimon shows and movies, I have seen original Adventure, Adventure: Our War Game, Adventure 02, Adventure Tri, and Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna.

I got really hooked on this particular cast of characters, so as a kid when they announced that Tamers was going to be a whole new continuity with a whole new cast unrelated to the Adventure series, I took that as my jumping off point. Then I only ever came back when they announced new material for the Adventure cast.

I've heard a lot of good things about Tamers, though, and I'm looking forward to finally seeing it.

[mono-blogs-art]

Alright, I finished GAP the series. I can't lie, I finished it in 2 days so, it was very addictive. I liked the first half more than the second, in later episodes it all just kinda dragged out a bit and the arguments felt a bit cyclical. But overall, I really liked it! Plus, the show is entirely on YouTube, I love the accessibility of it!

It's my first time watching a Thai drama, and I was somewhat aware before that GAP was one of the most popular lesbian shows coming out of the genre (and also one of the first Thai lesbian shows ever??). It's the kind of show everyone just knows through osmosis or has at least seen a few episodes of. And now that I've seen it I understand why that is the case :D

Overall: I will give the show a 6/10! It definitely has more of a silly, telenovela type edit and structure which is great, but not necessarily always for me. But because of that it also hooks you in immediately. Over time, the pace really starts to show however and it's just too slow for me. The shots are also sometimes a bit inconsistent, some of them look like a straight up painting and others are baffling to see in a finished product. I definitely laughed a few times because of that, but I find it more charming than anything else. It's a silly show after all.

The Plot: Is barely relevant to be honest, the main plot (Sam's company being in a tough spot) is just kind of abandoned after a while in favour of the love story. I didn't mind it. The romance is what I'm here for anyway. It has a very "my parents sold me to one direction" fanfic vibe, and I mean this only in the best way. Getting to intern at your idol's company, then becoming her personal assistant and eventually conquering her heart is a classic. Lesbians need that messy shit too. And brother I ate it up. I also understand now why people were comparing Chaser Game W (2024 lesbian jdrama) to this show, it has a somewhat similar vibe and is also about an unhealthy relationship in the workplace. However, GAP does literally every single thing better than Chaser Game did, and I still thought CGW was fun.

The Characters: I love them. They're simple but well executed.

Mon is understandably a bit boring, suffering from being the protagonist, but she does have a few key moments that were either really fun or really made me emotionally connect, so I like her. She's cute! And I loved her boldness and rebellious nature in the first half of the show, sadly I think it got lost a bit in the second. Overall this show isn't really interested in exploring sexuality that much (even though it's very steamy), so Mon just kinda goes from "Don't be silly, she's a woman, I'm not interested in her like that" to making out with Sam. Like girl, I get it but also... I wish we could've seen a bit more of that discovery and exploration (we do see it much more on Sam's side though). Mon also doesn't have a ton of agency, she's kinda powerless in a lot of situations because she's just a normal girl, not an... insanely rich noble lady CEO with powerful connections. You know, unlike her boss.

Sam is the true main character of the show, driving pretty much the entire plot in one way or another. She is also by far the most entertaining and charming character and I'm obsessed with her. She's a horrible person, wildly inconsistent, toxic and emotionally immature in every way, and seeing her ice-cold facade thaw every so slowly throughout the episodes is just so much fun. Underneath it all she's just a Weirdo who is so deeply traumatized by her upbringing that she's still just a kid at heart. I say all these harsh things because they are true, but also because despite it all the show somehow pulls it off to make her really likeable. Sam is funny, mean, extremely cute, pathetically down bad and horny, and just going through all the emotions ever, and her actress Sarocha Chankimha really pulls it off and I can only be impressed. Sam's development in the second half of the series also really works because it's surprisingly consistent, her falling back into her bad habits and eventually accepting her tragic fate made so much sense. She couldn't have achieved her freedom on her own and I'm glad the show didn't go that route either.

As for the supporting cast, Sam's friends are definitely the most interesting. I just wonder how Sam, a cis "straight" woman, ended up in the coolest queerest girl gang in town. Only because they were friends in elementary school? Honestly that's the most unrealistic part of the show for me LMAO. Sam's fiancé Kirk is The Man in the lesbian show, he's alright. Mon's friend Nop turned out to be surprisingly sweet in the later half of the show, which was a delight. The big villain of the series, Sam's grandmother, is ... Well, it was certainly a choice to have her end up where she did in the end. I wish they'd have done something a bit more bold with the character - I found it a bit of a cop out. Not all villains need to turn out to be nice in the end, especially not this one. But I can respect the choice, and I'm ultimately more in favour of a character working to become a better person than a villain succumbing to more evil.

One thing that's undeniable about the show is that it's hot. The leads have some insane chemistry going on and you can't look away, every scene with them feels electric, especially in the beginning. I was also surprised at how sexy the show is overall, like okay, we just dedicate an entire episode to Sam and Mon wanting to fuck. And there is an honest-to-god eating out scene that made me go 😳 I appreciate the show for that :D

Overall, I'm glad this was my introduction to Thai GL, I understand why it's a somewhat foundational text and I really enjoyed my time with it. I'm also happy to hear that it's been a kickstart for the actor's careers, and that the two girlies are doing more sapphic shows together now. I'm actually already watching The Loyal Pin (trying to watch and stay up to date as it's currently airing!) and that show is much more my style, even though it's also quite slow. But it's fun to see the same actresses play completely different roles. I loved Sam a lot, but overall I think I will enjoy Anin and Pin more.

[zimithrus]

10 Shows (gifs), 10 People 📺

Tagged by the lovely @isleofair, thank you so much for including me! This one looks like a super fun one! 💚💚 These aren't going to be in any particular order, just 10 shows that I liked enough to incorporate into my personality or just really really liked growing up 😆🌟

1 Inuyasha

My very first anime I watched with the actual knowledge of what anime even was. Shout-out to my big bro for getting me into it when I was 10. Helped me make one of my very best friends to this day and I have such fond memories of this anime. 💗

2 House MD

My favorite medical drama to watch! Some episodes had me thinking 'I can't believe my mom was okay with me watching this show' 😆 I still remember so many episodes vividly and I really want to re-watch it all again now that I'm an adult XD

3 Chrono Crusade

Oh lord the things this show did to my teenage brain 💗 I shit you not I would finish this series and then REWATCH IT ALL OVER AGAIN ON THE SAME DAY, I was hardcore obsessed with this show!! Permanently altered my brain chemistry, and unfortunately in the process I watched it so much I ruined it for my older brother 😂😂 To this date this show has one of the most powerful shows of intensity coupled with the most bittersweet ending I have ever seen 😭 Like literally, hmu about this show because there's no one else I know that even KNOWS what this show is and I am always down to talk about this one any time!! (This gif of Chrono was too cute not to use!!)

4 Tiger & Bunny

This show. These two. Holy shit. 💯 they've definitely altered my brain waves too XD This show has some of the most dynamic characterization, design and storytelling I've seen in a long time! I definitely got into it later in life but I'd say I got into it at just the right time. An anime about the nitty gritty of superhero life specifically made with adult audiences in mind 💚

5 Code Lyoko

I was obsessed with this show when it first launched on cartoon network! A unique blend of 2D and 3D animation with all kinds of dangers and hijinks. The 3D is definitely a little aged but I think it still holds up well for a show made in '03. Me and my brother used to quote this show all the time and giggle over the dumb jokes so much that my mom dropped the rule of needing to be excused from the dinner table for reasons I can't remember XD Shout-out to Odd for being my first introduction to a cat-like person with his 3D model 💜

6 Case Closed / Detective Conan

Murder mystery anime for the win!! Still ongoing even after 28 years of airing 💯 I'm going through and trying to complete an entire series watch!I didn't get into this one until 2011 with the 6th movie (they played it at our library's local anime club meeting) and only watched the dub until recently, but at least I have a lot to watch! 💚

7 Xiaolin Showdown

I loved this cartoon! Fun, exciting, well rounded characters and villains, amazing plots and fun times all around! I remember they even had a contest for this show to design your own weapon that would be later added into the show! Jack Spicer is a hilarious villain and shout-out to Chase Young for being my first fictional crush ever 💚

8 Pokemon

Raichu my beloved!!! 💚💚Aside from Raichu, I loved this show growing up. Ash was such a fun and likeable protagonist for me as a kid and heck this show is even the reason why I have my irl nickname in the first place. I legit teared up when Ash was finally no longer the main protagonist of the series anymore lol!

9 Avatar: The Last Airbender

Ironically, we did not have cable at the time this show was at the height of it's popularity, so I was only able to watch it when my parents took me and my brother over to our friends house. (Our parents were friends so naturally all us kids were friends too!) But we would all get super excited when this show was on, especially if the episode was new! I think we used to pretend to be the characters? XD And I remember the eldest sister of our friends came by one day with avatar fruit snacks for us all, it was awesome 💯💚 Zuko still has one of the best redemption arcs I've seen in a show 👌

10 Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles

A middle school favorite!! For months I wanted everyone in school to call me Sakura 😅 Still have my DVDs and a few manga books for this series. Loved it a ton even if the anime itself never did wrap up the story completely. The OVAs were bad-ass though, and a lot of the OST is still downloaded to my ipod 💯 (Yes I still use an ipod in 2024 lmao) (Looks familiar? The Manga artists of Cardcaptor Sakura, Magic Knight Rayearth, and Chobits also made this one - CLAMP!)

Holy fuck this took way longer to pull together than I thought it would! I think I spent over an hour?? XD But it was super fun anyway!! I will see if these cool cats would also like to do this one! (I can't think of 10 sorry! XD)

@prismaticpichu @up-sideand-down @kazeshxni @thatrandomartistyoufound @aerislei @enide-s-dear @waifujuju @nicoroni

And of course no pressure if you aren't feeling up to it!! 💚💚

[darth-noona]

Completed Dramas - Action/Thrillers

A full list of the action or thriller dramas that I have completed and my rating out of ten. Scroll to bottom to see dramas I DNF'd or am currently watching.

Reborn Rich - 10/10 There has never been a better revenge drama. Succession meets time travel fantasy meets enemies to lovers romcom meets 90s period piece. Song Joong Ki absolutely nails it once again.

Favourite line: "There are 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year. They say time is fair to everyone. However, time isn’t fair. Just like everything else in this world."  Tags: revenge, enemies to lovers, time travel, 90s

My Name - 10/10 Despite being traumatized by the ending, this is still one of my fave dramas. The acting. The fight choreography. The romance. 10000/10. Pil-do might be one of my favourite male leads ever. I love me a soft boy who would do anything to protect his strong, independent woman.

Favourite line: "Is life supposed to be fun?"  Tags: revenge, action, enemies to lovers, gangs vs cops

Flower of Evil - 10/10 So good that I had to stop and take a break at ep. 14 because I didn't want it to end. The closest I've ever seen to a truly romance thriller genre. The romance between this married couple - despite one of them potentially being a psychopath murderer lol - is literally one of the most adorable and authentic in any drama I've seen. This drama has definitely given me an unhealthy bias for Lee Jong Gi soooo...

Favourite line: "He is the father of my child. He is my family. He is my person. He has a wife who will stand by his side no matter what happens."  Tags: married couple, serial killer thriller, detective drama

When the Phone Rings - 9.5/10

Absurd. Insane. Absolutely incredible. A masterpiece from beginning to end. Even the outrageous webtoon ending felt super fun even though completely random. It's a bit too insane to be a 10/10 for me, but it was super addicting. One of the best revenge thrillers I've seen!

Tags: revenge, contract marriage, skinship

Vincenzo - 9/10 Very addicting, plot is crazy fun. Leads have so much chemistry. Some episodes ran on a bit though. 

Tags: revenge, legal drama, workplace romance 

Happiness - 9/10 Really really good. I always thought it would be interesting to get a zombie story post pandemic. I just think some of the directing wasn’t great near the end. Some of the scenes just needed to hit a bit harder for me, considering I know how good this cast is in other dramas.

Tags: zombies, friends to lovers, fake married, cohabitation 

The Judge From Hell - 9/10 Incredibly captivating show, best role I've ever seen the FL in. I think the romance was a bit wasted, they set up something really epic and kind of let it fizzle by the time they were together. But I'll forgive them because the plot of the show and the villains were all so compelling that I'd love to see a season 2.

Tags: thriller, mystery, gods and demons, murder plot, judge and lawyer stuff

Money Heist - Korea - 9/10 I’m such a sucker for a heist narrative. Really great found family of robin hood thieves. Great action, romance, drama. It’s got it all. Seriously underrated. Also loved all the interesting political unification stuff. Hoping for another season, I need my slow burn Rio x Tokyo plssss

Tags: action thriller, bank heist, political drama, Korea unification, romance sub plots, found family

Alice, The Final Weapon - 9/10 Perfect little action thriller. Sweet teen romance on the stage of brutal violence. Both the leads are incredible in this, both in the action and drama and in the humour bits. Easy watch as its only 8 episodes, 30 min each. 

Tags: mature rating, assassin’s, teen romance, first love, mental health and suicide, badass female lead

Gyeongsang Creature - 8.5/10 Incredible acting. Compelljng story. Good action. Lead just had no chemistry whatsoever, so was hard to feel the stakes.

Tags: horror, monsters, japan annexation, historical setting, heist

Marry My Husband - 8/10 (I'm not sure this fits in this category but I wasn't sure where else to put it lol) It's good, but kind of burnt out on revenge dramas with time travel. Villains were great though and Na In Woo is adorable. 

Tags: time travel, revenge, ml falls first 

Revenge of Others - 8/10 You know I love a good revenge thriller. Very good series, incredibly gritty for a high school drama. Twist at the end was kind of meh though. And also wish there was more romance as the leads were so cute. 

Tags: little to no romance, high school drama, revenge 

Vagabond - 7/10 Great action thriller, the political plot had me the whole time. Suzy never misses. But it ended on a cliffhanger and I wish I’d known that before. Especially since Season 2 hasn’t been announced ? Otherwise the romance is great, ML is incredible. 

Tags: action romance, enemies to lovers, spy thriller

Currently watching:

Lawless Lawyer

Again My Life

Mouse

All of Us Are Dead

The Light Has Left Your Eyes

Squid Game

Extracurricular

The Glory

Sweet Home

Bloodhounds

DNF/Abandoned:

Come and Hug Me

Blood Free

Vigilante

See my other reviews and lists here.

[centrally-unplanned]

Since I discoursed about some very specific stuff in Frieren my general stance so far is that it really does have excellent work in the tone department. Its "time" theme commitment is strong, the core crew has fun chemistry, and Frieren herself is a good balance in her interpersonal dynamics of being both wise and silly. And it imbibes its individual elements with a lot of heart - the Church of their world seems like a real organization aesthetically; the legacy of the heroes really does flow everywhere; the mages and elves and such we see have old roots in deep magic systems. All these things have "set piece tonal moments" that have a ton of care put into them. And of course the art really is beautiful; particularly the background work is top 10 best I've ever seen in a TV anime of this type.

But all of that tone and care is put into pretty shallow plots and flat world building. The tone of the church & the dukes and such is there, but their social roles are barely specc'd out, it doesn't congeal into a real society at all. Frieren's story is she wants to - this is unclear right now, which is fine its plot - do something like apologize to Himmel's ghost for never being clear about her feelings and telling him how much he meant to her. Which, you know, is something she can only do at the end. And Fern is gonna...tag along? And Stark is here too? They all get these little mini arcs but its repetitive and doesn't progress much. Their personal journey would make a decent 13 episode show, and the After-The-End world setting could make a good 26 episode fantasy political drama. But its kind of doing both without committing to doing either well. It fills this gap with tug-at-heart-strings sentimentality stuff, which is fine the first few times because the thematic heft of the stuff it has done well, with time and wide scale social change, is there to support it. But only the first few times, its not putting in the work needed to set up new, truly interesting stakes.

It does have great art, great character designs, Frieren is charming and also she is like Elf Ruri from Nadesico, who doesn't want that, etc, so its fun to watch. But it has very strong wasted potential vibes.

All I am saying is I could definitely write it better, my zero years of fiction writing is no problem I would totally fix this up stand aside Kanehito Yamada-

[thegeminisage]

i've only seen the aos star trek movies and know like,, minimal stuff about the og series (my sister is a BIG trekkie. actually, i KNOW she used to straight up read me fics when i was younger, maybe she read me trek fic??? idk) so it's really fascinating to see your posts about the series with zero context.

also i love Jadzia. i know almost nothing about her but i love her. also also i know nothing about Janeway but i agree with your transfem headcanon about her.

WAIT fave eps about your fave women in star trek. i haven't watched any of, well, ANY star trek shows but i absolutely should. i already know i wanna see the tarsus 5 episode, mirror verse ep(s?), and spock-and-kirk's homoerotic death match.

- dl anon

HI sorry it's taken so long to answer. i wish you had asked me back when i was neck deep in the 90s trek bc i would have had such strong opinions but unfortunately my mind is porous like limestone. thank you for loving my trans janeway headcanon also. i'm just gonna list a few off the top of my head because i know if i do what my instincts are telling me and deep dive it i'll be making you wait three weeks on the answer. i have a skip/watch list but it's incomplete because i lost steam like i always do, thanks adhd! still better than nothing though. sorry, these arent in order

tos: somewhat shy on big moments for women (i'm so sorry, janice rand...), but uhura and chapel do have their moments once in awhile and the ever-turning revolving door of space babes also spits out a fairy decent woman now and again. here's the list:

what are little girls made of? - this plot involves some sexism, but chapel also plays a major role because it concerns her missing fiance

the trouble with tribbles - really funny and lots of uhura in this one

return to tomorrow - the woman here is not too bad and chapel has some scenes

assignment earth - this is a backdoor pilot that was otherwise quite lackluster but it has what may be my favorite girl of the week in tos. idk she's so funny

the enterprise incident - one of the more complex women of the week in this ep, she's even technically the bad guy

is there no truth in beauty? - major flashing lights warning but she's also a contender for my fav space babe of the week

for the world is hollow and i have touched the sky - not their BEST work with the woman of the week but still pretty good

the empath - maybe. the woman here technically has no lines, and her part is kind of minor, but she does such good work (interpretive dance). also, bones episode of all time.

the cloud minders - mixed feelings on this episode but it has TWO space babes. one of them is insufferable though. sorry women

all our yesterdays - this one will fuck you up and technically the woman is only there to create conflict for the men but idk i really liked her.

the movies - 2 & 4 are the ones with the good one-off women, but uhura generally has more moments in them than she does in the series proper and she's very hot. the only one i really don't like is 6, and i have mixed feelings on 1 but part of my issue is the sexism. 5 is also pretty sexist

tng: does this show even HAVE good episodes for women? i'm going to spend exactly four minutes skimming my spreadsheet and if i don't find any i'll delete this paragraph. ok wait i found some

yesterday's enterprise - justice for tasha yar, though it doesn't last, and maybe it doesn't matter as much if you havent seen other tng eps

the high ground - first episode where i liked bev. she gets kidnapped by freedom fighters and gets sooo mad about i love that she gets to have a Voice here

remember me - another great beverly episode where she's the hero

night terrors - deanna and data save the day together

the loss - about deanna losing her powers and also her filter

disaster - deanna is captain for a day, essentially

ensign ro - so named for ro, who's a great introduction to bajoran culture and a very cool lady

dark page - also very heavy, but it made me enjoy lwaxana troi after dreading her every appearance for 6 seasons

preemptive strike - another ro episode which may not make sense without ds9 context, but good for her

sub rosa - the episode where beverly fucks a ghost. is it good? no. but it's worth it.

ds9: mostly likes women, even when the ferengi are involved because quark's mom is a feminist. but don't watch the ferengi episodes unless you're going all in though because most of them are not great. anyway i love jadzia too, but to me, kira is the most complex and lovingly-written woman on the show, and she's my favorite by far. any kira-centric episode will feed you:

the emissary - has nothing to do with women but watch it anyway because it will fuck you up so bad but in a good way

past prologue - kira caught between new & old loyalties

duet - episode of ALL TIME also for kira

rules of acquisition - this is about a cross-dressing female ferengi. i don't know if it's girl power or if perhaps this ferengi is trans or what but there's something lgbt going on here and if you HAVE to watch a ferengi episode i'd make it this one.

necessary evil - great episode for kira/odo which got done dirty later and the plot twist is surprisingly complex

meridian - sad little love story for dax, who is lacking on this list (to be fair, she takes awhile to come into her own)

shakaar - lots of kira moments and backstory here

facets - dax meets her previous hosts

the forsaken - a great episode for lwaxana

the darkness and the light - more war backstory for kira

the sound of her voice - woman of the week is just a woman of the week and also mostly audio, but i liked her!

voyager: best woman eps are gonna be with seven, but janeway is also good when paired with seven, tuvok, or chakotay. however we have MORE THAN TWO WOMEN we also have b'elanna, seska, kes (poor kes! but we have her), naomi, the borg queen, etc. lots of goodies, so it's impossible to list them all, but:

the caretaker - this is the pilot but a good intro to janeway

eye of the needle - not janeway centric but she has some great moments and it made me cry

prime factors - great moment for janeway and morals at the end

the 37s - this one is just ok but janeway does get to meet amelia earhart

resistance - this one is saaad but janeway has many good moments

dreadnought - excellent b'elanna episode

coda - janewway timeloop with a side of janeway/chakotay

resolutions - janeway/chakotay m,ostly but i love janeway in it

scorpion - introduces seven

the gift - goodbye to kes, hello to seven

the raven - MAJOR seven ep

year of hell - you really see what janeways made of

night - janeway depressive episode

dark frontier - GAY GAY GAY

counterpoint - i cant tell you about this w/o ruining it

latent image - technically about the emh, but sparks FLY between janeway and seven

macrocosm - im gay

workforce - big compelx janeway emotions

one - seven has to pilot the ship alone essentially

infinite regress - SEVEN IS HAUNTED I REPEAT THERE ARE GHOSTS IN THERE THIS IS NOT A DRILL

drone - seven as a mother, kind of

child's play - seven as a mother, more than kind of

relativity - seven time travel adventures

dark frontier - borg queen hot. seven hot. janeway hot. dyke drama. tongue out

imperfection - seven gets a terminal diagnosis, tho obviously gets better

enterprise: there are no good episodes for women in enterprise. eeeuuugh the scene where hoshi has to go topless. eeeeugh t'pol constantly hanging out with archer. god. ok let me try

vanishing point: good hoshi episode. rare w

E² - this one has t'pol talking to her older self...but it's mostly about romance, so...?

carbon creek - this isn't even technically t'pol, the same actress just plays one of her ancestors, but i liked it

ok i literally googled and i can't find more. just don't bother with enterprise

jury's out on the rest of it cuz i havent seen it yet. discovery, despite its many other flaws, does have women who talk to each other and should kiss (STOP daughterzoning michael and mirror georgiou) but i havent got far enough yet to list the best ones. ok have fun!!