#also the start of a major plot line whoops lmao

[jordemme-draws]

Time for another chapter of A Journey Begins!

Haruko has some heavy arguments, decides to make a change, and sees things in a different light!

[territorialufo]

i give in can you tell me about that little iphone binch

YESS YES I CAN TELL YOU ABOUT THE LITTLE IPHONE BINCH !!!!!!!!! this is literally just rambling im so sorry. There's a lot of text blocks in the beginning but the end has more pics and silly stuff 

Also ii spoilers but its hard to talk abt mephone without getting into the recent stuff so whatever 

Under cut cause this got. Really long. whoops

Context/background of II/mephone 

“Inanimate Insanity” (ii) is a web animation originally released in 2011, considered the second “major” object show after BFDI. btw an object show is a genre of web series that features anthropomorphized inanimate objects competing for some kind of prize. I am NOT the right person to ask about object shows cause the only one ive ever been invested in to this extent is ii and theres SOO many other ones out there LMAO. Ok sorry i sounded like a bot for a second there JUST PROVIDING CONTEXT!! Inanimate Insanity’s structure is kind of interesting because it starts out as a silly comedy in s1 and most of s2 before descending into a really drama heavy storyline, with tension caused both by mephone’s past haunting him and conflict between the contestants themselves. Then suddenly s2 goes on a four year hiatus and animationepic (main youtube channel) launches s3 with new characters and artstyle, seemingly completely ditching the plot they had in s2??? IM NOT GONNA GET TOO INTO ALL THAT but it all works out timeline wise so its chill the tone switch was just rly funny at the time 😭😭😭 

ANYWAYYYY mephone. Mephone4. Mister phone. Four. The one and only four. MeFon! MePhone4 (parodying the IPhone4) is the de facto host of the in-universe reality show “Inanimate Insanity”!! As the host, he has speaking lines in nearly every episode which is super awesome and epic for mephone4 enjoyers (me). His initial vibe was inspired by Chris McClean from TDI, and was even voiced by Christian Potenza in the first episode before being switched to Mark Katz, who is the father of the creator of II, Adam Katz, which is also pretty cool i think. Since Mark Katz is a grown ass dude, mephone just has. The same voice for like the entire series SHDHF everyone else’s voices are changing and stuff as the creators got older but mephone just sounds like a middle aged man for all of it 😭I love it tho this isn’t a criticism!!! As the years go by it gets more and more expressive :) s1 is. rough. considering it was made by a bunch of kids, its very much a product of its time lol

Lore/character 

Ok lore time cause the thing w mephone is most of his backstory was kind of just hinted at (or implied with the existence of Apple irl). Like in s1 there was the introduction of mephone4s and 5, but otherwise, not much (as far as I can remember. I watched s1 when i was a kid so its been a while lmao). Then there was s2e8 where the contestants go to headquarters and we meet steve cobs (yes, like steve jobs), who’s his creator and dad?? Again some hints are dropped but nothing concrete about their relationship. And then BOOM. SEASON 2 EPISODE 13. “Mine Your Own Business” was my fave II ep for sooo long (idk what my fave is now tbh) cause THE MEPHONE LORE DROP??????? IT WAS CRAZY and also the ending of the episode with fan’s monologue and the soundtrack “shell of a fan” is my fave in the show ANYWAY ANYWAY so begins the remembering of the Horrors. 

He was “born” in Meeple Headquarters, and PLEASE KNOW THAT HE WAS BORN AN ADULT OH MY GOD there are some clowns who think hes literally 14 years old bc thats how old the iphone4 is USE YOUR BRAIN USE YOUR BRAIN AAAAA right so he basically knows nothing about the world, confined to headquarters until his eventual escape. Cobs and mephone have a pretty interesting dynamic, where cobs has most of the power. The way Cobs praises mephone but later shoots him down is so AUHGHGHGH. It’s an oppressive environment he's living in, only expected to do assigned tasks and shamed for any genuine interests, while having the pressure to impress his creator on his shoulders at the threat of being discarded. Mephone grows to hate and fear cobs, but at the same time, cobs is the only person whos known him since the beginning.

The way literally every problem mephone has can be traced back to his origin/how he was raised is so crazy. Like even before the s2e16 twist, it was extremely prevalent??? There are a bunch of analysis posts that explain it way better than I could but MANNNN for a show that the crew started when they were literally 13, they were able to tie things together pretty well, i think! 

It’s been pretty obvious since s2e13 that hosting Inanimate Insanity is just one big escapist fantasy for mephone, one where he is free to do as he pleases while ignoring all the trauma he sustained in “childhood”. Cause it’s implied he escaped Meeple, deleted his bad memories, and then started s1 right after. I mean, it makes sense, since outside of the cold, mechanical nature of Meeple, the only warmth he got was from his enjoyment of reality tv shows. If s1 is an amnesia mephone, and s2 is a spiraling mephone, then I’d describe s3 as “escapism but worse” mephone. It doesn’t ever get as gloomy as s2, but s3 has steady background reminders of “hey guys remember mephone is running away from all his problems right now!!” until it all comes to head in the finale. Some ppl dislike how mephone-centric the show’s gotten, but honestly idgaf more for me

I do want to say that he is very flawed, though. Esp near the beginning, he is really fucking rude and does not respect his contestants at all and frequently belittles them and puts them in mortal danger. he tends to view them and everything that happens to them through the lens of “its just part of the show!!!!”. He tends to brush off everyone’s problems, no matter how serious, even when he’s the one that caused them.

His reality show host personality is all a very big facade to cover up how he feels about the past (thus further submerging him in the fantasy of Inanimate Insanity). Like previous users have mentioned, this is likely due to the fact that he had no one to learn HOW to be empathetic/kind from besides reality television (which is known to be exaggerated for drama) and cobs (who is his abuser) But I famously do enjoy characters who are kind of dickheads, the confidence being a mask is like a tasty bonus to me.

The dichotomy between his arrogant host exterior and paranoid/anxious interior is really interesting and fun to watch. Compared to his relatively sweet/naive beginning personality, it’s wild to see just how much he’s changed since then because of everything that’s happened.  His relationships with the rest of the characters is also interesting, cause despite being their host, he isn’t very close with a lot of them. Other than maybe Bot, who I believe he feels kinship with since they're both robots who freed themselves from the expectations of others. Same with Mepad, since they’re both from Meeple. 

He’s a robot, but in an emotional/psychological sense, is basically a normal person/object (person is synonymous with object in this case). He feels like a person despite being an AI. which makes cobs a lot worse imo, he mistreats all his creations, but at least the other newer mephones are barely “feeling” at all, unlike 4.

Basically, 

Cobs: i have engineered a machine that is functionally a person

Everyone: you fucked up a perfectly good phone is what you did. Look at him. He’s got ptsd. 

Not to get too into ii16/17, but they basically recontextualized the entire series and made what we initially thought about mephone’s escapist tendencies and origins a million times worse. Bro was so tormented he subconsciously made his OCs come to life 😭😭😭all while projecting all his issues onto them??? Psychologically sound individual activities. Additionally, the way he was created is also. Terrible. Cobs basically invaded an alien planet, kidnapped an alien kid, and then presumably used its energy to create mephone4. Outer space colonization? In MY object show? yes!

Ok now im just gonna talk about random stuff i like about him  

His powers are so cool.,.,,. Esp as a foil to cobs/mephonex, who could represent destruction, he represents creation with his generation ability. Also something abt using his powers for non violent reasons when his creation was built upon violence uhh idk. And I think the screen turning green and the sound effect is very satisfying dlsjkfg. Oh and the fact that he canonically had to practice to get better at it? In the flashbacks he’s shown having trouble generating even a simple tree, and now he can make pretty much anything with minimal effort. 

Also MeLife, which allows him to bring contestants back from the dead, is an ability unique to him, which is super cool!!

He can create portals as well and this is never explained. He can just suddenly do it KDLJFGH this kind of renders Mepad’s teleportation ability useless but it's still fun. 

I like when he uses his face as an actual screen :)

Something something robot related stuff

He is not waterproof and will malfunction or even die when wet

His speaking function can be disabled by other people

Glitches while talking sometimes!! Delightful 

Something that gets overlooked often I think is the s1 finale, where mephone4S (mephone4's brother) basically killed himself to save mephone4 by downgrading his own OS. Technically, mephone isn’t even in his original body anymore, he’s inhabiting his brother’s. Fun!

this is unrelated but he got shot in the face with a gun once. there havent been any guns since unfortunately

Get yoinked idiot 

In conclusion, 

I heart him and im sad ii is gonna be ending soon thx for reading

[calxide]

ABYSSAL LOVE ☆ ROUGH DRAFTS

these are the things that never saw the light of the day didn't made it in the story's final line-up. contains major spoilers !! also this is vv cringe and this is just me rambling

let's start off easy. they were originally supposed to be in highschool because i wanted scaramouche to be that 16 he/him typa guy on twt but i scratched that idea because it's stupid.

friend groups: ever wonder why y/n's friend group was named "explosive hoes"? that's because yoimiya (yoimiya, hu tao, and xiangling were all pyro characters so... ygwim??) was supposed to be included in their friend group but it was already big enough so i... kicked her out :((

the main conflict was supposed to be the miscommunication trope but i actually hate miscommunication and couldn't bear to write it (although, i will be doing that for my next smau/s) so i settled for the one you've read

scara and y/n were supposed to date then break up bc of a certain miscommunication/misunderstanding (i already considered the fatui high prob at that time but still) but i wasn't sure on how to execute it properly.

second lead — top contender *drum rolls* A L B E D O. i considered it, yk, i considered it but i scratched that idea because NOT EVERY FANFIC NEEDS A SECOND LEAD ig AND I'M GOING TO BE GIVING A CERTAIN CHARACTER THE SECOND LEAD SYNDROME IN MY KAZUHA SMAU (no, it's not albedo) but actually, its bc albedo was supposed to comfort y/n after the breakup with scara (yuck cringe ik) but i wanted the conflict to focus between scara and yn only so . . the idea was t r a s h e d

“WHAT WAS THAT AETHER X KAZUHA AND WHY DIDN'T THEY END UP TOGETHER?” ok, first of all, that was a last minute addition. i didn't made them end up together J U S T B E C A U S E. ok?? ok

the party childe held was also a last minute addition but i'm glad i wrote that lmao

also... have i ever mentioned that i didn't really thought of a title and i was playing spiral abyss atm so i thought, " why not a b y s s a l l o v e " yeah im p much stupid lol

i didn't even thought of this smau at all like ?? hellaur i don't even know how i finished this. but dw, i'm will be planning my next(?) smau veryyyy well because i will be hurting all of you with my kazuha smau.

i think that's all? not much rlly. here are my notes when writing abyssal love and yes they are very messy but i thought i should share them with all of you !

also dyk that i didn't even plot this shit because i didn't bother but like i said i'll do better on my next one mwa

after rereading my notes i am now shy and embarrassed but i will still post them here so i can delete them already. 🤩 also don't mind the small details like, "the sun rose" etc etc because that's just one of my way to piss myself of then actually write 'em properly Σ(Ｔ▽Ｔ;)

i never bothered updating the gdocs bc i was too lazy. and, i deleted some of my notes for the chapter outlines already because i might run out of storage :') yes i use very small fonts . . sorry

warnings: c r i n g e , the words "idk", "ok", and "listen" were used A LOT. i also forgot to remove the thingy that crosses them out whoops

[youranxiousnerd]

Second Chances Thoughts

bc what

spoilers below

i have...thoughts

ah no chaotic intro, f in the chat

it’s still a nice intro, tho

IM SORRY ARE THEY NOT SHOWING THE TRANSFORMATION?!?!

WHAT

THIS IS A HATE CRIME /j

i used the thingy

no bows either?!?!

this is called high school musical: the musical: the series not high school musical: the backstage drama: the series

wow they got changed fast

“Passable!” 

I’ll be the judge of that oh wait i cant bc they didnt show us

YES QUEEN ASHLYN GETTING THE LOVE SHE DESERVES

ashlyn is such a queen

the perfect belle, stunning

“A couple letters, actually” it’s a sign (literally)

flower touch

AWWW REDLYN

STOP THEY’RE ADORABLE

they love each other so much

east high kids be snooping

not me thinking about carlos’ hand on seb’s back we were robbed im taking what i can get

“You were the perfect Belle tonight. I was really proud”

“Evil genius”

they’re so happy

AWWW A REDLYN KISS WHOOP WHOOP

kourt and howie are so awkward 

“drumroll?”

howie and seb would get along

weird little playoff, maybe he is lying?

they’re cute, tho

sad that they didn’t really get any build-up

“happy now?” “yes”

“If it’s with you, always” MY HEART

just like a fanfic

kourtney just invited north highs beast to east highs cast party

OH MY GOD MAZZARA IS ACTUALLY GETTING A STORY ABOUT HIM

i was not expecting that okay

ej and mazzara are the best

gina is so happy too bad it wont last

gina is an actress 

gahhhh portwell drama

oh god rini let the drama begin

that was very calm, did someone possess nini and ricky?

i really like them as best friends. i was a hardcore rini shipper last season but with all their constant conflict i realized how much fun they are as friends

“we are literally on the same page” 

“just for a moment” I LOST MY SHIT

miss jenn no

oooo seblos please be good

Seb calling Miss. Jenn out on her bullshit since idk when

“That’s a hard never mind now” okay wow

Miss. Jenn is Carlos’ godmother 

This is theatre, not football

CRYING GINA

gini

GINA SUPPORT DAY IS A THING PEOPLE!!!!!

oh wow a plot line actually being addressed

season 1 callback im not ready

gina and nini people!!! 

very sweet scene

ahha jamie callback we all knew it

i would really like to see miss jenns batb audition notes

“I’m in a great place, mentally” if you were you wouldn’t be saying that

OMFG IS SHE NOT GOING TO APOLOGIZE!?!?!

like that was a big deal, a big effing deal and then nothing?

you told a kid to jump off something high and you can’t even say “sorry”?!?!

back to the miss jenn love triangle

“I think I’m happy, or gettin’ there”

ricky you don’t have to be there yet it’s okay

that line hit

SEASON 1 OUTFITS

CORE 4 SONG

killer harmonies

sofia giving us that alto rep!!

portwell duet! audition outfits

very good, very very good. this song kinda screams autotune but it still sounds very good. 

last song of the season NOOO but very fitting

Is it just me or does “Second Chance” look like a music video they show in Justice (the teen store) in 2014?

cast bonding yay!

PAUSE THE ONLY SEBLOS MOMENT WE GOT THIS EPISODE WAS A WRIST HOLD?!?!!

DISNEY WTF

LIKE EVERY COUPLE GOT THEIR MOMENT AND ALL THEY GET IS A WRIST HOLD

BFBLBFIWGFSDMBF

shit why does my favorite ship have to be the gay one on a disney show?

east high booing the lily and french boi has me on the floor

“Big Red, you were also in it” BEST LINE OF THE FINALE OMFG

i missed antoine 

sorry carlos has glitter on his face

seb’s smile and wave at north high why am i laughing?

off topic but i have unintentionally started doing the seb wave (you know the one) (with the fingers) in real life.

also gay chair sit

e.j is also doing the gay chair sit 

lily what

you have had like one conversation

ew

she says she likes his face but not his personality? 

im calling bullcrap

pause didn’t lily steal the harness? are we just going to forget about that

probably, the writers did forgot to develop seblos

Let Ricky be single challenge

ANTOINE MY LOVE

REDLYN I LOVE YOU

SHUSH EJ’S SPEECH TIME TO SOB

ummmm

so this season has been for nothing?

all the shit they went through (the self-doubt, relationship problems, the injuries, the death threats) is for nothing?!?

since when does Miss. Jenn not care anymore about the Menkies?!?!

I actually get the kids side of this, but not Miss. Jenn’s. 

I was surprised they took this route with the Menkies, didn’t even cross my mind 

“It was five”

Big Red x medicine 

bet your ass ashlyn would have gotten a nomination best actress

“We got a pizza oven” THE EAST HIGH KIDS ARE COMMITTING ARSON

is mazzara staying for miss jenn? they could do long distance but it doesnt have the best rep in this show

gini

ashlyn is the captain of the portwell ship and nini is her right hand man (or whatever second best is called in sailing)

NINI MAKIN THE DEALS

RICKY WHY ARE YOU CALLING HER

WHYYYYYY

“Will you be my first kiss” smiles

OH MY GOD

WAIT NOTHING

WHAT

OMFG THEY CUT IT LMAO

“this summer is about to get hot” SUMMER SEASON 3?!?!

ANTOINE

OMFG HE BETTER COME BACK

I LOVE ABF

WAIT THATS IT

FWBEGLEWG

THATS IT

hey they ended with andrew barth feldman what more can you ask for?

Thats...it?

Oh wait some cast stuff...brb ima cry. The ending has some very series finale energy...I’m scared. Natalie wouldn’t have done the “buckle up wildcats” if there wasn’t a season 3, right? But the bloopers at the end...

The cast ending was great. “You are the Music in Me” was so heartfelt and I’m a sucker for bloopers.

Wait so no Lily home? It was probably a cut scene. 

If we got Lily home, can we get an album with the cast singing all the BATB songs? 

I have so many mixed feelings about this episode. Here is the thing, if you love the core 4 then this was your episode. If you’re like me and prefer the side leads then this was probably a little disappointing since we barely saw them. This episode felt rushed and a little messy, but there were some great moments. Season 2′s writing has felt a little weird. This season lacked the chaotic theater kid energy season 1 had. It was one of the reasons I fell in love with the show. If/when we get a season 3 I really hope the writers find that energy again.

Let’s all give a round of applause for the cast and crew who filmed majority of the season during a global pandemic. That could not have been easy. They gave us a pretty good season under crazy conditions. They definitely had to change some things to fit the current climate. Overall, hats off the the cast and crew because you guys killed it. 

I’m really going to miss this show, hopefully it gets renewed. It has become a comfort show these past several weeks. My sanity says “no, don’t go” but my sleep schedule says “leave.”

To second chances!!

[saturnaftertaste]

I would love to hear your thoughts on YJS3

sure! fair warning, though, I'm a ranty person by nature so this might end up being a bit long. sorry in advance ♡

anyway! things I liked:

the humor: s3 was pretty funny lmao, theres that whole collection of outta pocket scenes from throughout the season that I find hilarious each time + the humor was a little more dirty which is nice bc the audience has also grown up from the kids they might've been when they watched it on CN

dickbabs!: I'm not a huge fan of dickbabs, I prefer dickkory (no hate to dickbabs stans btw I just vibe more with dickkory) but this dynamic between the two of them was so sweet and well-balanced I couldnt help but squeal everytime they were on-screen

Clark and Conner getting along: them calling each other brothers was so CUTE I canttt

FORAGER: an absolute legend 10/10 freaking love him

That Episode With The Hallucination: mmmmmmm I miss wally. SO MUCH. and the og 6 I was Super Mad about the first timeskip so it was nice to see them all together again🥰

yeah that's about it for things I liked lmao. now time for the Much Longer list of Things I Hated:

HALO: young justice the bar was so fucking low how are you still successfully doing the limbo what the fuck. you take a muslim immigrant in what is VERY CLEARLY a hijab and 1. infantilize her to an exceptionally uncomfortable degree (I KNOW SHE WAS THE MOTHERBOX, I DONT CARE) to the point where she resembles a five-year-old with every sentence she speaks or action she takes 2. you made a visibly muslim girl claim that she's actually no longer muslim, she's just wearing the hijab as some kind of security blanket???? I'm sorry??? what the fuck were you aiming for here exactly 3. why did you have to name her violet harper. what. 4. really?? the immediate romance with brion? What the shit was up with that...you make her Muslim in some aspects like victor not seeing her hair when she brushes it but her LITERALLY making out with brion like I'm sorry what the fuck are you doing??? you had one muslim character and you fucked up so bad holy shit...like...it could've been simple as hell, man, but no...Big Yikes.

M'gann: I've said this before but I really feel like once they introduced artemis m'gann immediately became a side character whose only job is to be villainised again and again even though it doesn't really vibe with her character. Secret teams?? Lying to Conner??? This isn't s3 but that whole thing with their breakup in s2...what the shit are they doing to M'gann, man. I loved her so much in s1, she's literally trying her best after having gone through so much and it's never fully explored...like we get half explanations every season but we're never shown half the shit that we were given for artemis. And by making her the Uncool Girlfriend at points it just looks like they're trying make her easy to hate like what the fuck. no. stop it

The Plot: too overcomplicated, too many characters. It's only season three, why are you introducing Apokolips already. Why are there so many characters?? what's with all the subplots yall were switching location cards every five minutes. And it's so convoluted...like...what was going on with Beast Boy and the monkey-god-doom-patrol-exposition stuff? I can't even remember if there were two granny goodnesses or just the one. All of those meta kids left over from the last season are a cute cast but like...I was so bored??? we know you can do well-written self-contained storylines a la s1, so hop to it, yeah?

THE ANIMATION: ok ok ok so. season 1 and two (one especially) had a very distinct feeling to them and that feeling was very late-2000s Cartoon Network Action Show - the base model for the males and females is the same (like Ben 10 Alien Force) the colors were not dynamic (stayed the same no matter the lighting, lots of cel shading, and generally were realistically colored in the sense that suspension of disbelief was not entirely necessary) CHEEKBONES, gritty textures and purple skies (Batman the Brave and the Bold). overall theres a certain Tone to the earlier seasons that spoke a lot to the animation capabilities of the studios at the time, as well as the general feel of the show. however, season three was a MAJOR downgrade in terms of animation. they made it both simpler and more complicated - they started using their DCAMU animation style which while it does give muscles to the women, adds too many unneeded shadows and a strange stiffness and dullness to every character. There are now extra lines and uncessesary shadows on the face of every character, and their eyes and facial features are almost identical. There's also less highlights, and the hairstyles are way too overcomplicated now to be appealing (see mgann and dick) - the hair is unspeakably dull and and the skin tones and hair colors are painful on the eyes. This isn't even taking into account the shitty backgrounds they've started using (AHEM AHEM ARTEMIS'S KITCHEN) because while the earlier seasons may have had unappealing, mostly empty settings, the characters still fit in to the scene, unlike now.

the lack of sisterhood????: apparently, only artemis goes to see zatanna for her Dr. Fate appointments. Apparently, M'gann barely talks to Artemis after the very tragic apparent death of Wally. the two of them, dare I say even the THREE of them, should be close as hell considering they spent their early years super-heroing together on a team full of boys. M'gann LITERALLY called Artemis her sister in the SAME EPISODE she was introduced, and neither of them had any real girlfriends other than each other at this point. M'gann who fell apart so hard Artemis died in her head that she almost killed them all in her grief. Like. You're telling me, you're SHOWING me that these two aren't each other's support system? Where is the sisterhood, bitch????

Lastly: the costume design. I understand that they're constrained by the need to make it simple enough to animate, but COME ON. if you're going to borrow Diana's DCAMU/JL: War costume, at least keep the metal silver. What the fuck is that green-gold. And Tigress? god DAMN that mask is ugly. Cassie looks like she robbed a goddamn supermarket discount clothing aisle for her outfit. Why is bart's outfit Like That it's so ugly it makes me want to cry. @ young justice costume designers Please Rethink Your Decisions

that's about all I can think of right now. it got REALLY negative whoops, but theres just so much I didn't like about this season :/ hopefully the next one will better ;-;

[infinitedeaths]

putting in this under a read more because its just me shouting into the void--its nothing serious, just some minor grumblings i have about some very specific AUs. especially for the dsmp.

okay i’ve been seeing a couple of star wars AUs start cropping up the past few months and Big Yikes all of yall Do Not Understand the Jedi at all.

i’m gonna firstly point yall to @/gffa here on tumblr: they have a HUGE resource about jedi culture and the order and how, hey, they actually DON’T deserve to be put through a genocide What The Fuck, People.

second of yall is a handful of nitpicks that i want. to correct.

Straight up, firstly, attachment by the Jedi’s definition is NOT the same thing as it is in the DSMP. Attachment as defined by the Jedi Order is a Possessive Relationship. An Obsessive, (abusive) one.

like idk how to put this other than: c!dream’s abusive relationship/treatment of c!tommy is what the Jedi define as an attachment. Not, for example, a close bond between people, like the clingy duo, or allium duo, or even the bench trio as a whole.

some of the jedi order’s main tenants are kindness, mindfulness, and compassion. kindness is self explanatory; mindfulness, so that one can be aware of their emotions and why they are feeling those emotions so they can resolve it without harm. compassion, because every person you meet is a Sentient, sapient being and Deserves to Be Treated As Such.

also, lmao, the thing everyone calls the ‘jedi code’? isn’t canon to the films. Nor is it actually canon for the majority of EITHER the legends EU or the disney EU. hell, its most often used as a fucking meditation mantra in disney eu??? that’s not a religious code/set of tenants.

furthermore: the majority of the films condemn NOT the jedi order but the inability of the senate of both the republic and the empire to Do Anything to Help People. literally the only thing we Ever See them Do in the movies is to Declare a Galactic War using Cloned People as their army.

an army that was, Actually, ordered by the Sith?? you know. Palpatine and Dooku. the Actual Bad Guys? the same army that they had implanted with chips that would supplant the wills of their hosts and worked diligently is ensure the jedi never found out about it? and when they finally did it was literally only Months before Episode 3.

(whoops moving on)

people will actively claim the jedi kidnap babies which is a) actively shown in canon to be untrue (there is literally an entire plot line about a bounty hunter who has to HYNOPTISE the parents to steal the babies) and b) they legit have a list of force sensitive kids. A whole Ass List that they Do not Use outside of going by and being like ‘hey do u wanna have your kid be a jedi? no? okay, well if u ever need any help we’ll send u some force baby manuals to help.’

that’s also not Getting Into the Fact that the order literally teaches their members about their home culture?? and gives them a choice to practice it if they want to? there are other force practices that some of the jedi are Also A Part of??

never mind the whole ass other force religions that the jedi Actively Protect or do not interfere with. the Only Reason the jedi fight the Sith is because?? the sith are constantly actively trying to conquer and subjugate the galaxy??

you guys ate up palaptine’s propaganda like anakin stabbed children and its Kinda Weird Actually.

jedi who leave the order are Actively celebrated until they, you know, reveal themselves to be a sith, DOOKU. because the order WANTS their members to think for themselves and if leaving is what’s good for that member, then you know what, that’s good! and healthy! and they’re happy for them!

....also, anyway, pls stop acting like the mandalorians are somehow morally superior than the jedi just because they throw the word family around more. seriously, yall are so Obsessed with the Nuclear Family that you’ll latch onto mandalorians but will reject jedi because they don’t have a Nuclear Family Dynamic.

which is SO weird coming from this fandom that was so intense on the idea of family dynamics that don’t adhere to the usual nuclear family thing, its such a Yikes from me. like m8 these kids get raised in clans of other kids and are taught to love and care for one another. to watch out for each other and to talk to an adult they trust if they think something is wrong.

these kids have the Entire Order looking out for them. How do you think those kids ended up in the council chamber, one of The Most Protected Rooms in the ENTIRE jedi temple during episode 3??

idk i just think its Weird that people will celebrate the mandalorians for adopting but shit on the jedi for....doing the same thing?? yall make no sense.

[andoqin]

K-Dramas of 2020

Well, like the general mood of 2020, the dramas this year were uh, certainly an adventure. I was going to put all the dramas I watched this year here, but uh. This turned out longer than expected so I’ll guess I’ll separate K-dramas at the very least.

Putting this behind a cut because Long.

Completed:

365: Repeat the year: I barely remember this one, but I gave it 8/10 on MDL, maybe I should lower that, because honestly all I remember are the time-travel meet up set and the main actors.

CHIP-IN: A short who-dunnit, which has interesting characters, although the show was very wise to be capped at 8 Episodes, because the “mystery” was pretty predictable and also starting to wear thin. Still, the younger cast was stellar and I hope we get to see them in more.

Diary of a Prosecutor: The cases in this drama were actually legit interesting to me and I found the politicking surprisingly not bad. People were flawed in very human ways, but the drama gave us enough time with our main characters to enjoy getting to know all of them.

Do you like Brahms: Contender for worst drama of the year for me, good lord I hated the way this tanked its story line, its characters and the romance. Is it believable that the main characters might act this way? ... Debatable. Is it entertaining to watch? Hell fucking no. Don’t watch this one, unless you like stupid misunderstandings and non communication. 

Extracurricular: Short action-y show on Netflix that makes me hopeful for what Sweet Home might be. 

Flower of Evil: Lee Jun Ki gets to suffer prettily. That is All. Okay Moon Chae Won and LJK were great together, but it got almost makjang-y by the end. 

Hospital Playlist: Delightful Slice of Life Medical show, that despite its delightfulness never quite got me. Very enjoyable and at 12 episodes it doesn’t overstay its welcome, but it didn’t stay with me either. 

Hot Stove League: Pretty entertaining and as a drama about sports management seems reasonably accurate? (Not that I’d know of course). 

Hyena: Flawed as heck in some aspects (the lawyer-plotting got lulzy and boring at the same time), but oh my god some of the HOTTEST chemistry this way from sunday. Joo Ji Hoon and Kim Hye Soo just crackled anytime they were on screen together and Joo Ji Hoon as the high powered lawyer who falls head over heels in love with KHS’s character who is more reluctant to act on those feelings is just *chefs kiss*. Also didn’t suffer the Dreaded Plot Denuement of 2020 (DPD2020). Sure the latter half wasn’t as tight as the beginning, but it stuck the landing and that’s all that matters. 

Into the Ring: Weird camera angles and sometimes overly sharp edited shots aside, this had a solid romance, great characters, great romance and almost made me want to get into community politics lmao. 

It’s Okay Not To Be Okay (Psycho But It’s Okay): The first half of this show is just *amazing*, the way the scenes transition is pretty much film-like and the main character trio is stunningly well acted. Sadly the story with the mom is resolved in the weirdest fucking way, but the drama decides to do the smart thing and just forget about it once that’s done and the finale made me cry ;_;. 

Itaewon Class: Sadly also suffered the DPD2020. I was really into the first half, loved the way the characters found support in each other, plus: a main trans character! Handled really well! Also iconic OST. I was one of the few people who was into the romance of the main couple, but the way the latter half of the plot developed was just completely nonsensical and felt like the writer was just trying to tie off the lose ends as much as possible. 

Kingdom Season 2: The first season was stellar and this continues the trend! Although it doesn’t quite reach the highs of the first season I am still so looking forward to season 3! More Joseon zombies please!

Money Game: I... apparently watched this, and looking at the logo there is some vague feeling of “Yeah this is familiar”. But nothing else...

Mr. Heart: Okay-ish BL drama that has it’s cute moments but nothing that made me go “Ooooh”. I am glad SK is getting in on this trend though!

My Holo Love: So all of those Robot/AI shows that came before that I’ve seen and had the premise of “Oh no, I’ve fallen for a ROBOT” when it either turned out their object of affection was either human or actually a robot, but their human counterpart was so shitty that no sane person would like them worked pretty well for me. This one didn’t. From what I remember the heroine does very much fall for the holographic version of this guy, but the human version is *different* and yet whoops the main couple is still human/human. Granted you can’t really do romantic kiss scenes between a girl and nothing, but the switch-over felt abrupt and the way our main lady just transfers her affections to the dude never sat right to me. 

Mystic Pop Up Bar: Quite a few dramas this year went with 12 eps, and were all the better for it. Hwang Jung Eum is incredibly hit or miss with me (mostly it’s miss honestly), but in this one she’s used really well and I liked the way the premise was used!

Private Lives: I recently wrote a longer post about this, but honestly another victim of terrible writing and maybe DPD2020. 

Stranger 2: Love! Not as much as Season 1, but man this writer is *so* good at writing smart and interesting plots and looking at things from many different angles!

Tale of the Nine Tailed: Flawed but man do I ever love the OTP. Like really really love it. Plus it stuck the landing for me in a way few dramas did in recent months.

The School Nurse Files: So weird. So fucking weird. And yet, so very entertaining. Thanks to its short length ( I think) some plot threads felt very much unceremoniously dropped, but it has a canon lesbian couple!

The World of the Married: Makjang to the Nth degree, got kind of exhausting by the end, but Kim Hee Ae is so good. 

Train: Yoon Shi Yoon gets to suffer prettily! 

When the Weather is Fine: Kinda mellow and sweet and I wish I could live like the main character does (just have a bookshop in the middle of nowhere and still no money issues??? The Dream) but for that also not super memorable. 

Where Your Eyes Linger: SK’s first major Webdrama I believe? Cute and as a foray into this genre not bad, but I hope this is just a taste of things to come.

Dropped:

Hi Bye, Mama: So many people loved this, I couldn’t get over the basic premise and the way my brain tried to tie the logic in this together made my head hurt.  The King: Eternal Monarch: Maybe KES dramas just aren’t for me, I didn’t like the plot or the main couple. Woo Do Hwan and Kim Kyung Nam were amazing though and please please I beg both of you do more stuff. 

18 Again: Nope. Lee Do Hyun is pretty, but the setup drove me bonkers and I pretty much liked no one. 

Zombie Detective: Yikes no thank you. Complete mismatch of tones I wanted and the drama gave me. 

Romantic Teacher Dr. Kim 2: Zzzzzzzzz. I found the first one mildly entertaining at least but this one just made me fall asleep immediately. 

Black Dog: Yeah I watched like 2 Episodes of this and lost interest. 

Search: I’ve watched like 6 eps and I know there’s zombies, but I couldn’t tell you much more tbh.

Start-Up: I watched 2 episodes in the beginning, didn’t think I’d want to live watch this and then just popcorned the tag until it got insufferable with the ship wars and this dropped out of my watch list pretty immediately.

Record of Youth: Pretty much the same deal as with Start-Up only in this case there wasn’t so much a shipwar as the tag showing me that this drama would *not* be my bag at all. 

Still Watching: 

Kairos: Hmmmm timey-wimey stuff. The FL is this close to losing me though. The fact I thought it plausible that she would murder someone just based on a TEXT from someone else says it all. (She didn’t, thank god, and seems to have found a few of her lost braincells, but by god she was frustrating). 

Birthcare Center: I like what it’s trying to say and the main character and her husband are very cute, but a lot of the side characters don’t really interest me. It’s only an 8 ep drama, so I might finish this.

The Spies Who Loved Me: Honestly I’m this close to dropping it. Only my intense love for Yoo In Na and fondness for Eric are keeping me going. But she might not end up with Eric and I’m gonna be mad. Honestly if they just went OT3 I’d be really cool with this, but despite the small advancements in dramaland, they aint ready for that yet. 

Lies of Lies: I watched 2 eps and I might continue (the premise seems hilariously makjang and sometimes I’m into that, but it’s *very* much on the backburner)

The Uncanny Counter: Delightful Webtoon vibe, with some great visuals and actually nice action. I’ve only seen 2 eps so far but at least they don’t want to make me poke my eyes out or make me fall asleep. Let’s hope it avoids the DPD2020 plague. 

[saerimm]

hello gang gang, this is joy again and i humbly offer you oh saerim, a former baek ho babe who is also baek ho’s head of house. she’s the professor of transfiguration and professor of art. prior to working at yosul, she was an auror for the ministry, specializing in stealth and tracking. for more information on this absolute unit, feel free to check out her stats and backstory (its still a wip since i deadass put this muse together in a day alsdfkjalsdfj ) feel free to add me on discord @ mrs. mothman#2804 for easier plotting. i’ll still be in tumblr ims tho ! under the cut is a not so short tl;dr and some wcs !

OH SAERIM

just starting off with this: out and in the open big gay. has been in a relationship with the same woman an npc named yoonmi since forever. love is real. 

33, baek ho alumni, baek ho head of house. #baekhobabes4life

her father ( half-blood ) and mother ( pure-blood ) met in scotland during beltane and succumbed to that ~ spicy magic ~ and proceeded to have 7 offspring 👶🏻👶🏻👶🏻👶🏻👶🏻👶🏻 👉🏼👶🏻👈🏼

saerim is the youngest child, and the only begotten daughter of the oh family. living, growing up, and competing with 6 brothers was not always good™️ but hey, they taught her how to fight dirty ✊🏼as well as how to stand up for herself and how to be brave. thanks oh bros.

was an active 🏃🏻‍♀️💨 student at yosul: was a chaser all seven years of attendance ( baek ho intramural team and varsity ), a member of the dueling club, and also the baking club. 

double majored in transfiguration and defense against the dark arts because she’s an overachiever and wanted to prove she could do it

her father passes away near the tail end of saerim’s last year at grad school. she takes a break after graduating yosul, and goes to a maeobsa university to attain an art degree with a focus in photography, ceramics, and painting.

returns and undergoes auror training. she passes with flying colors, excelling in stealth and tracking as an auror. she’s their ace in a hole due to her being an animagus, which is a borzoi 🐶, the russian wolfhound, known for being swift and persistent in pursuing and pinning down targets.

nearly died on an assignment in scotland and, at the request of her mother and brothers, retires as an auror. 

is asked by the current headmaster at yosul to join their staff as the professor of transfiguration lit rally a month after she retires 💁🏻‍♀️

she now works at yosul as both the professor of transfiguration and professor of arts. is also baek ho’s house master and the dueling club advisor lesgeddit 💪🏻

PERSONALITY 

she’s the epitome of what it means to be baek ho: brave, determined, competitive, a reckless dumbass who won’t back down when challenged. would jump off a cliff to PROVE a point. throws hands, won’t hesitate bitch 👊🏼

emphasis on bravery: came out to her family when she was 17 despite knowing how conservative they are. it caused a rift in their relationship for a long ass while, but they try being progressive and supportive of her since she is, after all, the family’s babie. 

she’s a social butterfly: tries to get to know everyone and memorize names and faces. is that teacher who knows who you are without ever having you in her class.

is really playful. loves pranking students, especially at night while in her animagus form. she’s been called the grim on many occasions, and uses this to scare the shit out of kids who’re out past curfew 🤡

the most loyal bih ever...deadass been with her high school sweetheart since the beginning of time. they lost count, no one knows anymore. that loyalty also extends to her baek hoes, friends, and family.

loves kids, is really good with them, hard pass on having any of her own tho. she’s happy being that cool aunt who gives the best presents.

super spontaneous and impulsive, over all really fun to be around.

PLOTS

baEK HO BABIES. who needs children when you’re responsible for 103581093581085 of them amriite ? saerim’s the housemaster of baek ho, and literally acts like a mother hen, constantly doting on them, whipping them into shape, and helping out whenever she can. don’t actually call her mom tho bc she’ll get an aneurysm 

hag line friends 😔

soft, art aesthetic frens. this is a super self indulgent plot bunny lmao

mentees ! ! ! ! saerim’s always down to teach young whipperschnappers a thing or two. she may be in her thirties, but she stays in shape and can give anyone a can of WHOOP ASS 

you run into saerim while she’s in her animagus form and you deadass nearly shit your pants because she looks like the grim lmfao

quidditch ! saerim played all throughout her time at yosul, and has a couple pick up matches with her friends in the ministry on that rare day off. need advice on how to get better/improve ? she’s always down to give a few pointers 

you got saddled with detention and saerim’s the wall between you and freedom. good luck tryna get past her. she gives the worst detentions: the humiliating and laborious kind.

more plots can be found here !

[terramythos]

My liveblog/commentary on October Daye #11 "The Brightest Fell" or "Friendship ended with Sylvester Torquill. Now SIMON Torquill is my best friend"

God if you told me that's a sentence I'd write when I read book 1 I'd call you fucking insane. We had this whole Cain and Abel thing going and Seanan McGuire had to go be a GOOD WRITER and make them COMPLEX CHARACTERS and shit.

Also featuring a "Resurrect Your Gays" novella at the end so.. that's nice

-Wow, this opens with a story so far section and everything 👀

-who would be like "gee the October daye series sounds interesting. Let's start with book 11"

-omfg The Luidaeg singing Poor Unfortunate Souls. Fucking hell yes.

*stares at my vampire crack theory* *stares at that line* *stares at the camera*

-(To be fair, it does parallel when Simon showed up in book 8, which is probably the actual intent, but uhhh)

-then AGAIN, half the foreshadowing lines in this series had double meanings in context

-Amandine calling Simon "your father" oh oof.

-oh my god Amandine is AWFUL. Jesus christ. Insults everyone in the room then kidnaps 2 people and just strolls out. This puts Tybalt, one of the more OP allies, out of commission for like the whole book lol

-Definitely Impossible Quest: find this character that disappeared over 100 years ago who Simon spent the last century committing misc atrocities to find

-This does lead me to wonder what motivated Amandine to show up suddenly and force October to find August. Is she just unstable/crazy as has been implied, or is it something more?

GOD shes awful!

-So oh boy we are actually waking up Simon! I'm glad we are getting more development for him cause holy crap he's an interesting gray morality character.

-Sylvester using the same binding spell Evening used on October in book 1, but this time to keep Simon from hurting October, sure draws some.. uh.. interesting parallels.

👀

-Amandine shows up again and is just fucking AWFUL. I'm trying to figure out if she has any real sympathetic traits. This is the first book she really shows up as a character out of flashbacks and the trippy shit in book 4.

- "Oh yeah Toby the reason I abused you and twisted your blood human as a kid was I wanted to mourn the daughter who disappeared and then let you die asap" like. Yikes

-Simon, established as an Arch Villain just being an awkward dad (at least toward October) is interesting. I'm kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

-oh hey saving the pixies in book 5 actually set up a Thing in this one. Huh.

-Surprise that random pixie you saved in book 5 is relevant and a full fledged character now.

-The Luidaeg is a sympathetic character and a consistent ally in the series but BOY does she have her moments. Egads. (Quentin, who adores her, was NOT amused. We'll see how that shakes out...)

The Luidaeg just.. resurrecting an extinct race here. No big deal. I'm sure this has zero future implications.

-oh fuck the Babylon Road is back. Oh shit book 3 vibes. Oh shit

-lmao they literally end up in Blind Michael's lands. Just fuck me up

-ok theres a line that basically implies Blind Michael wasn't even that bad of a guy at one point, that he did The Ride with the best of intentions and for the life of me I am trying to figure out what they mean by that

-also intentional parallel between Blind Michael and Simon with the whole "best of intentions" thing.. Simon started as like, the arch villain. And now look where we are. So what is that implying about Blind Michael? 🤔

-I mean Blind Michael is the closest this series has come to a Dark Lord character. He was fucking awful. I'm interested to see if we are going to explore from a different angle?

-Goddamn world tour here showing up in Annwn.

-Oh duchess Riordan.. she's so pleasant. I'm glad we get to see what the fuck she's been up to since being trapped there

-Oh fuck they found Officer Thornton. He is not Well. I remember speculating what we were going to do with that plot thread lol

Are you FUCKING kidding me

-That was book SEVEN. I fucking REMEMBER that part. August was a fucking throwaway background character??? Chekhov's missing sibling?

-And it was intentional because of the door thing! She was described in a weird amount of detail for a background character! What the fuck!

-AAAND we found August. And the first thing she did was attack and basically turn October almost human. Whoops.

-And she doesn't recognize Simon. Her father. Because the Luidaeg's price was her way "home". Which includes Simon. Yikes

-omg Simon's magic finally smells like it does in flashbacks before he got corrupted. Smoke and mulled cider. Maybe I'm kinda sappy but I like that that paralleled the whole redemption arc thing

;____; FUCK dude

-October accidentally makes herself almost entirely human to save Simon. Whoopsie daisy!

FUCK DUDE ;______; full redemption arc shit there I'm gonna cry

-OK so I'm inserting this after finishing the book. And I realize this sounds like a MAJOR "not as much of an asshole as you could have been" award. But Simon had NO reason to treat Toby well. And he certainly did not in the brief glance of him in the book 1 prologue. That's changed by his second appearance (book 8). She's a changeling (always seen as inferior in Fae society) and she's the bastard child of his wife. He has every reason to treat her like shit. Yet he doesn't. He seems to want to be a father figure for her, even though she isn't really his blood related daughter, and this book reinforces that attitude. He even gives up things he wants--on multiple occasions--in order to save October, simply because he wants to. Compare him to his wife, October's actual biological mother, someone who literally created her as an expendable coping mechanism and resents the fact she's still alive? Despite everything he is WAY more of a parent to her. Found family sure is a thing in this series, huh.

-i like how instead of going all emo that she turned basically human October's just like "oh yeah I was raised in a street gang" and beats the absolute SHIT out of August

-Simon: uh excuse me did you just hit my daughter in the back of the head with a CLUB

October: she'll be fine

Well SHIT. The other shoe dropped, but not how I expected it.

-Like Simon genuinely redeemed himself, saving both August AND October despite everything. And he just sacrificed all of it. That was the final price of redemption for him. Yikes. YIKES. Like I knew it wouldn't be that easy, but this SUCKS.

-And this basically states that he wont be back to normal until fucking Oberon returns. I know the series has been leading up to that but... when the fuck. That seems like it would be the endgame.

-this is somehow worse than killing him off. How the fuck.

-August might have some redeeming traits. Shes an asshole but she is genuinely distressed when she realizes what Amandine did to October. Amandine? I'm pretty sure theres nothing to redeem her at this point. Shes fucking terrible.

-Jazz and Tybalt come back.. completely traumatized. Yeah. Ok. This entire last third is just complete despair I guess.

And award for "bleakest ending in the series" goes to...

-i think "The Brightest Fell" is the most fitting title in the series. It works on so many levels and for multiple characters. Especially in the context of the Shakespeare quote.

-i have.. thoughts. I think I'm going to do a compilation of said thoughts when I finish the next book and am officially caught up.

For now, there is also a novella @ the end so I will read that!

-"Of Things Unknown" (the novella) can basically be summarized by:

It's cool to get April's perspective! And some good old fashioned "resurrect your gays" on top of it.

-The Luidaeg: hey toby you know how you brought me back to life? You probably should not have been able to do that. You probably should not make a habit of raising the dead.

Toby: *resurrects like 5 characters who got killed off in book 2*

The Luidaeg: *breaking down the door* What the FUCK did I just say

-I am sure that January (a fucking month name) being resurrected has absolutely no future implications whatsoever :')

-Oh god theres one book left then I'm caught up. At least the novella softened the gut punch that was this book a little bit.