#and also see if the weird new plotlines are affected by them at all

[tyrantchimera]

For anyone who's into FFVII, it's kind of fun to guess what the titles are gonna be. We had 'Remake' and 'Rebirth', and a lot of people are theorizing that the third one is gonna be called 'Reunion'.

On the latter note? If/when they do a Dirge of Cerberus remake, I hope they call it 'Requiem'.

[tomato-soup-whore]

obviously the entire concept of the x men universe is based on being a barely even veiled metaphor for discrimination. it can easily be compared to the civil rights movement, with xavier and magneto corresponding to mlk and malcom x and all that, and the clear plot points about segregation and slavery and general racism. but theres also many comparisons that people have made to some mutants being an allegory of homophobia.

one of my favorite plotlines in both the cartoons and the movies is the personal conflict some mutants face when offered the "cure" for their powers. i always thought it was super interesting to see the mutants who had always fought for equality and acceptance to be drawn to the concept of not having to fight for that anymore. like rogue, who was one of the most powerful x men, especially in the comics and the '92 cartoon. she was crazy powerful in so many ways, but was the one of the only ones drawn to the cure because of the side affects of her powers that took away a huge life experience for her.

anyway what im trying to say is that i think the difference of opinions between different mutants on how they should interact with the "normal" members of society, and how those opinions correspond almost directly with the discriminatory consequences of their mutations, is a really good analogy for the intersectionality between racism, homophobia, and transphobia.

If we look at characters whose mistreatment can be compared to racism, we have people like mystique and nightcrawler. they both have physical differences that clearly set them apart from the majority and subject them to judgement. raven especially has her whole arc in the movies about whether or not to live life unashamed in her natural form, or continue using her own energy to make herself more palatable for others. Comparing this to people of color consciously or subconsciously whitewashing themselves to fit in makes a lot of sense.

but then we have the homophobia element. characters who's powers aren't visible on the surface, but are still an integral part of who they are. asking them to hide their powers is like for others convenience is discriminatory, despite the good intentions that many of their human counterparts may have (think of bobby's mom asking if he's "tried not being a mutant" in x2) and rogue having a physical and romantic disconnect from all of her peers because of her powers.

and theennnnn we have the transphobia analogies, which i connect to the characters that have physically visible powers but are still able to hide them from society. this would be people like angel (he literally BINDS his wings like c'mon) and beast before the serum shit turned him blue and he just had weird feet. with those people, embracing their powers would have really cool benefits for them, like flying and shit, but its easier for them to hide it because of society's discrimination.

anyways this is a really long winded way of saying that thats part of the reason why the political dynamics of the x men is still so relevant and important and interesting. relationships like erik and charles are so much deeper from this pov, bc you have the group of people who see the hope and humanity in people and want to have everyone treated as equals (the x men) and you have the mutants who retreat into their own community and don't want the acceptance or the cooperation of regular society because if they're always going to feel "other" why not build a new society to erase that feeling (the brotherhood).

if i could write essays on this shit for school i would be acing all the humanities, trust.

[laylawatermelon]

70.6 - 7.07 Speculation/ Buddie Meta

I am a writer y'know hehe

So, Buddie is happening.

Now let me explain.

Bi buck always existed, but the problem is that most of his consistent emotional relationship one could argue realistically romantically has been with a man he's known for years.

But has always been bi yes, but he's also been in love with his best friend for a really long time.

Friends to lovers where Y'all at? I see y'all madney truthers

Anyways I understand but what has kind of been bothering me is the fact that Buddie the ship has been abandoned/negated as not an important past of the puzzle for bi buck realization despite the fact that Eddie is physically present throughout his entire relationship/storyline.

I could argue that because they're mirrors to each other (corny soulmate type shit is perfect for network tv) this is the best way to ease people into it.

Buck and Eddie are the two beloved firefighters (and respective sex symbols). They have an appeal for the straight audience for that reason.

Lou already spoiled it but he's only here for a while.

There's been almost blatant explanations and dialogue that leads to the fact that this relationship is going to directly lead into buddie one way or another.

Tommy has from the beginning suspected that Buck (I'm calling him Evan in my head in regards to him and it's so weird 😖) and Eddie have an unusual relationship or that Buck is in love with Eddie at least.

(MY attention? is the biggest example.)

My prediction is that their mirrors of each other, the parallels, and red flags pop up too often now.

I know they're still writing the show and are likely watching audience engagement and ao3 (I'm watching you Tim ik you're here I'm new but ik you got shooters out here) for where to go with the story.

In Eddie's (frankly oddly portrayed) plotline is related to his Catholic guilt and his nonexistent relationship with Marisol (no last name?). As the episode maybe suggests they don't know their partners well enough.

Shame to Eddie because it's been months in universe like come on man. In Buck's it's literally been a few weeks, and most of the time Tommy spent with Eddie and not with him.

I like them as a couple and find them affordable. I can't quite bring myself to ship them or be as enthusiastic as others and that's okay.

I still admire the relationship they have and won't bash others for enjoying it.

Hell they still have Taylor and Buck enjoyers and maybe even Abby (i assume I haven't met any honestly).

The reason why I'm a bit confused on why Buddie isn't being all that embraced as a vital part of the storyline is because in a way it is.

I think it spurred the writers on to lean into it heavily due to the actors chemistry and portrayal of the relationship.

Now I'm not saying he wouldn't be bi regardless, because he's always been written that way.

His interactions with worm guy, a gay married couple, Carlos (who I've been waiting to say this but I can't hold myself any longer is Latino, shorter than him, brown eyes, dark hair - Eddie lite/he had a bit of a type aka cute guys.)

I clocked him flirting with him with his cute fact spilling as a way of affection because I do it to to people I love. (🤗i love my ADHD rep!) When he saw him look at the girl he became more platonic in his interactions. Then there was Eddie.

And Eddie honestly is the biggest part of the puzzle.

Yes he likes Tommy, and I don't deny he likes strong confident (suspiciously Eddie shaped 😂) guys.

He has always been attracted to strong personalities regardless of gender.

I do think he did pursue him and I think because Tommy is gay he recognized the flirting Buck does with both men and women as that, flirting.

Eddie doesn't count cause he has a whole can of worms he gotta figure out himself.

If Buck had consistent scenes with an out queer man on the show he'd have been at least clocked. (Eddie was kind of in the way with Josh and the Dispatch crew/his gaydar pinged a lil around him)

I've been saying that now that he's canonically bisexual and it's a known fact, you can't deny he's quite literally been flirting with his best friend the entire show (as a coparent??? Idk man they both said they skip steps/impatient 🤷🏾‍♀️).

When new fans watch it it's obvious, when older fans recall it it's either enlightening or redefining that relationship regardless.

The red flags that are coming up is Eddie's statement of moving too fast and Buck literally moving to fast with his second date (i assume idk how in world time works it's a tv show 🤷🏾‍♀️) being his sister's wedding.

Realistically I know you only invite people to events like that if you're fully committed to each other for a long term thing.

I'm not saying that he's on his wheel but in a way I'm tilting my head at some similarities of Tommy and his past relationships and Buck's tendencies.

Buck will be Buck.

Tommy knows him as Evan, and calls him such.

Which didn't get me wrong cute or whatever but rubs me there wrong away, because we know he prefers Buck as it's his chosen name for a reason. It's defined him and been contextualized and even accepted by his parents.

I believe in calling people the name they choose to be called and I just don't like when that's ignored.

It also doesn't help that he continues to call him that in an episode called You don't know me (you can Even tie it in to Marisol No last name) that deals with identities and lack of knowledge.

Buck has spent most of his remaining twenties with that identity and has defended it so the casualness of him calling him that unnerves me.

It's meant to close the distance and be portrayed as romantic but it can also be interpreted as him seeing Evan, not Buck when with him.

But I did see a post that changed my perspective on calling a name with love instead can recontextualize the meaning of it and I found that sweet and fitting. In that case I can swing either way about it.

If it does make him more accepting of that side of his identity that's great that he's beginning to heal from a path when his name/personhood was used as a weapon or item.

But, I also still feel a bit iffy that it's not interchangeably used with Buck because his family and everyone he knows calls him that. Even his previous romantic partners did and I didn't mind him being called it but I would like it if both names would be used as that is the new part of him where Evan exists as well.

Also narratively they spent too much time on defining his name and what it means to him and everyone around him to not show the importance of his identity being acknowledged in a new unfamiliar relationship.

(whew i think I'm just mad at the writers or this may just be on purpose who knows 🤷🏾‍♀️)

I'm getting to the meta I promise I'm just finally processing what's been plaguing me about this relationship and i gotta let the monster out

That would also explain why he doesn't know the ADHD rants that Buck blabs on about.

But then again the episode is called you don't know me and they weren't even friends he just jumped into a relationship.

(ps you can just start dating someone and learn as you go I'm just saying 🤷🏾‍♀️)

The biggest problem with their relationship is that he's in love with his best friend.

He literally only began to open up and flirt when he realized that he wasn't a romantic threat to his family.

(Which trifling Buck! Your man can't get wined and dined?? He deserves love too!/j)

He literally relaxed/his shoulders open up when Tommy assures him that his son still loves and idolizes him and that Eddie still likes him and he's irreplaceable in his life.

After that's secured he begins to make his move and become more flirtatious (cough sexually open cough) to this confident man in his kitchen in the dim lights and glowy atmosphere.

Damn I'd kiss him too 🤷🏾‍♀️ (if I was a guy ofc)

I also didn't like the parallels of Buck being left (which has happened with his female love interests) and then Buck still having to reach out.

I don't think Tommy is bad for Buck, but I'm still not convinced that he's 100% good. But then again he's been here literally a two episodes and barely any screentime.

And the one he does makes it seem like he's interested but not too invested.

(which makes sense and I will elaborate a bit later in the meta speculation)

The Tommy that everyone is talking about exists solely in fan spaces and head canon and that's why I think I can't get into it. The facts of him are plain in the show but in the fan spaces he has a different image.

Which valid, once again he's almost a blank sheet of what we wish a Buck gets and deserves in a love interest but that's what he is as of now. A blank-ish sheet. Kind of like a projection sheet for movies.

Tommy seems like a caring partner and sure of himself. He's shown himself to be funny, considerate, and as unhinged as the rest of the 118 (ah the fruity fire badasses).

Also i wanna point your Buck likes em a lil older sometimes haha

But back on topic, I can see Tommy being like Natalia (which makes sense as that storyline could've been used) In the fact that he sees that the space in his life is occupied and respectfully backs out.

My meta for 7.06 is this.

Tommy helps out somehow. Buck is ecstatic rightfully so.

They kiss dance and are cute.

The family is very welcoming, the 118 is still loving, but then he sees something that affirms his suspicions.

It's a normal scene for us.

Either Buck is taking care of Chris and then talks to Eddie.

He sees the look in Buck's eyes and the fondness there. He looks at Eddie and sees the same on his face.

He notices how they work together and laugh, them at the family and life he's built all around him, and decides he can't be apart of this. There's no space for him.

It feels too real too fast and he'll only end to heartbroken because he's just interested, not invested yet.

So he gracefully bows out and let's him know that he has enough love in his life if he'd just look for it.

(i also found out he used the word interested in the cafe scene where i recognized it as the ana date. Also Buck was wearing a white patterned shirt and i had a heart attack because it wasn't great the last time he wore it 😬)

Then it leads into ghost of a second chance.

(now imma say this i will be posting more specs about the these episodes I'm just on my buddie storyline juice rn)

This is now Buck trying to salvage/figure out what went wrong and maybe try to contact him again.

In the case of Marisol it's safe to assume they break up, the reason why isn't clear.

It could be related to his sisters disapproval of their relationship (as they're supposed to be coming out did the show forget??) or apprehension towards her as they've been raised/watched him grow up.

They know what makes him happy.

For ghost a second chance I didn't have much buddie assumptions but I'm pretty sure that one is more in relation to other members of the cast most likely and maybe Buck trying to salvage his relationship.

7.08-10 isn't complete so who knows🤷🏾‍♀️ how they must switch it up for more drama?

But I will say, we gotta dive into the Eddie of it all.

Y'all thought I forgot about him?

The bi Buck storyline isn't complete without Eddie either romantically or platonically.

In real life their queer storylines were always interchangeable and they're both feeling out the GA and fans reaction.

Buddie not going canon doesn't make sense because realistically it's one of the biggest ships and the most talked about things for the online fans.

It's a good reason many fans started (me included🙋🏾‍♀️) and stay (if the beautiful found family didn't hit it for them).

The way that they were both discussed and Ryan is fine with Buddie still kind of matches his character honestly. Demi Eddie is a head canon and honestly Eddie would only be comfortable with dating a man at this stage of his life if it's someone he loves already aka Buck.

There could be other reasons but as a Buddie warrior truther (as they named it which is still so insane) as his old interviews alluded to the fact that he loves Buck so much he can't really see himself with another guy he just met like that.

He also maybe wanted a easier storyline as he had always been a bit of a heavy character.

For women it's easier as he's raised to do it and it's "natural" or right for him to do so.

His parents said it, the church says it, God says it so it must be right.

He loves commitment, has said he's a nester and constantly yearns for a family unit.

The only family unit he knows of it feels is acceptable due to his upbringing is man, woman, child.

Not that he's homophobic cause duh, HenRen is literally there, but his standards and pressure doesn't even let him fathom it for himself.

It's also likely if the demi part is true, he's highly unlikely to be like Buck and view others sexually and even realize he's able to have a family/relationship with a man.

I suspect no Buddie this season. I actually hope and pray for it.

Because from both a business and story point it's best to keep the will-they won't-they into season 8 to keep viewers engaged/tuning in and not to rush the story and get some really good emotional moments.

I won't lie I miss the angst we got in the other seasons and as a result the show's identity with Eddie has faltered a bit.

I didn't love episode 5 but I didn't hate it. I still enjoy the show and if they feel a bit unusual it's okay.

There were still some great moments in it.

Eddie's character is now happy but as a result he's also somewhat unfamiliar (that speaks to the whump heavy storylines he has) as he seems less mature. You can argue now that he has a stable support system he's able to let loose because he knows his needs will be covered.

That's also a great point and easy way of showing his development.

His Catholic guilt now that it's been introduced will have to be deconstructed as he will have to redefine his life, what he's looking for/allow himself to be and dare to dream of a life not given to him by someone else or pressure.

This season he's only just started to accept things that make him feel good (which for now is Marisol) and be open and honest about it.

I can argue it is a great sign of improvement of his character.

A bit ooc portrayal yes, but the message of looking deeper still applies.

This can apply to Buddie probably leading through the next half of season 7 by being ramped up and then going full speed ahead season 8.

At the time though since they're still writing they may take a hard right turn and keep it platonic (😭).

But what would be inevitable is Eddie's coming out/self discovery arc that isn't tied to the church or sense of duty.

Which yay! More self discovery I love the message of finding yourself lasts throughout your life and due to life's unexpected events you can change to be a better version of yourself all the time.

We got bi buck (which evidently was influenced by Eddie in some way) now let's free Eddie to even if they didn't do it for Buddie (once again😭😭😭).

Now that I've got it mostly off my chest I'm definitely gonna do an analysis of the parallels and the way it's played pt.2 (and more as seasons passed cause Ryan and Oliver 😘 muah 10/10 no notes).

Okay bye.

[bittrlys]

Season 4 ruined TDP for me and I haven't been able to drum up the interest to watch it since, so maybe this is an out of date take but...

Terry is kind of a pointless character. His role is sort of presented as being Claudia's last tether to her morality, but his actions are otherwise so ride-or-die it seems weird when he calls her out or gets upset about what's happening (especially since they've seemingly been together a while so he should be familiar with how Claudia operates). Plus there was already a character who could serve this role: Soren.

After season 3 I was excited to see their sibling bond evolve as their outlooks were beginning to diverge. And then with Viren resurrected I wanted to see how that affected things. I was deeply disappointed when the established familial relationships fell by the wayside in favor of a timeskip romantic one (and I usually LOVE romantic plotlines).

See, I get Soren leaving his family behind and hopping to Team Hero and thus becoming unavailable to Claudia as someone to bounce off of. I don't love the execution because I think he feels rootless and lacking in significant depth in his relationships with the main cast, but I think it works for his character. He's a prodigal young knight who swore vows to defend his king and his nation, and he's a very straightforward guy. He shares pragmatic qualities with his family, but at the same time, their pragmatism operates on an abstract level he doesn't exactly understand. Once he was forced to choose between family and what he's always known and how he's vowed to live his life, I can see him making the very hard choice to pull away from them. I think him staying as Claudia's morality pet would have been a disservice to his character, though he may have more interesting things to do just because Team Dark Magic are always doing interesting things ... but again, that's more to the execution than the conceit. I don't mind characters moving apart from people they were closest to at the start of the series, and like when they can bond with new people.

I think the limited number of episodes + breakneck pace of the plot does leave their lack of interactions more noticeable, but also more inevitable. Technically, we've seen all this: Soren and Claudia have met again and fought over their differences, and Soren and Viren got their chance to hash it out a little bit. We've been informed of the status of their relationships and their feelings for one another. For a nine episode twenty minute children's animated TV show, this is relatively decent screentime offered to their relationships considering they've been apart so long. I'm not necessarily defending it as 'good' because I'll gladly say this show has very weak screenwriting with my whole chest, but the Magefam would have to be proper protagonists and not just deuteragonists to the Main Three for the screentime to really shift in their favour. But they're not, and you can't even imagine stuff happening off screen because almost everything in the plot happens one after another barring the mid-season timeskip -- and not a whole lot of interesting things happened during that.

(Like, seriously, other than some romantic relationship statuses changing characters are basically the exact same post timeskip as they were before it. It's like ... okay!)

I hope this doesn't sound like I don't get your frustrations because I do; the Magefam are one of my favourite parts of the show and it's always better when some combination of them are on screen together. And it's like, sure Viren and Claudia were hanging out in the later seasons, but he was borderline comatose for most of that, so it doesn't feel like they were. The fracturing of a family is interesting, but you always hope for more of a resolution or at least a sense of poignancy this show is never quite going to master. I'll actually say that my feelings still hinge on season 7 or god forbid the final arc. If we see Soren and Claudia get more than one or two scenes as all our players move into place for the final confrontations -- if Soren were to learn what Viren wouldn't tell him -- if Claudia gets to have a properly satisfying confrontation with Aaravos about the death of her father if she learns the truth ... if Soren and Claudia get to mourn their father together, even if it's briefly -- if we have Claudia have complicated feelings if she were to learn about Soren asking Viren to do the spell -- of Soren offering his heart, but Viren sacrificing himself instead ... I mean, all of that could be really good, and for me it would serve as a kind of epilogue to tie together the seasons of separation and growing apart from each other.

How hopeful am I for any of this? Well, about as hopeful as I am for this show ever pleasing me. But hey! I do think it's possible, with the narrative they've already established.

Anyway, to get to the Terry of it all: I think he serves a purpose as not just Claudia's tether to morality but as someone to work off of, so I get why he's here. I also think Claudia getting a random elf boyfriend is still extremely funny and charmingly quirky of her. As I said in response to a previous ask I think Terry could use more personal development but I like his dynamic with Claudia. People call him an enabler but he does offer her some pushback, generally gently. He's just someone who loves Claudia enough to stick with her, and hey, I love Claudia too so that's nice to see. Honestly, even if Soren were around, you're obviously going to have a different relationship with a romantic partner than you would a sibling, so Terry could easily fit in the group that held Soren as well.

This season Karim (love him) was like "Janai is my sister! Of course I love her! But I'm still going to depose her violently!" and like that is great. That's siblingcore. That's I love you but I want to beat you up. That's no matter how far apart we drift you're still bound to me. Soren and Claudia are this. Meanwhile Terry and Claudia are your first serious relationship. They're young and passionate and desperate to make it work because who else would match their freak quite this way? But if they fall out there's nothing to keep them together anymore. They'll just be forced to move on. Soren can walk away from Claudia and know that on some level they are always close; if Terry walks away from Claudia he may end up meaning nothing to her. So, just like real life, there's a lot of stuff they're willing to overlook and rationalize because they WANT to keep wanting each other ... and Claudia can use someone like that on her side, as we see Soren and Viren both leave her in time.

I think Terry being down to clown but taking issues with some things is fine; he often frames his objections around the harm they will cause Claudia, and that's nice. The one thing I still don't get is his reaction to Claudia threatening the coins. I will preface this by saying I can believe he's more sensitive to elf death after he murked Ibis, and doesn't like reminders of the differences between him and Claudia when it feels very her, a human, against an elf. Yet whenever I rewatch it, I still find his censure unusually stern for him, and it's hard to shake the feeling that this is the writer's doing as they do best, that is not knowing how to write from their own established lore and character motivations.

Like, in-show it says, Claudia was cruel to mockingly threaten the lives of Rayla's loved ones, and trick her into thinking they nearly burned in agony, not offering her the real coins. Is that cruel? Sure, sure. What's the context? Oh? Rayla was THREATENING TO SLIT TERRY'S THROAT? Rayla, the Moonshadow elf ASSASSIN they have every reason to think would go through it, even if we the viewer know Rayla probably wouldn't? Hmm! If Claudia is cruel, Rayla is a monster. Rayla, who was offered the coins in fair trade as she THREATENED TO SLIT TERRY'S THROAT, but refused. Like, Terry? Are you this mad at Claudia because she did an actually extremely reasonable thing to save your life (+ her father's life) in as pacifist a way as possible, or are you mad because the writers need to tell the audience This Was Bad and ensure Rayla gets the real coins while not having to change that emotionally charged sequence they were probably really proud of writing? I still think this was Terry's characterization faltering just so they could get the outcome they wanted.

Ultimately, I see Terry as someone who is lacking in prejudice, maybe due to his own presumed desire to be taken at face value. He can date a human and not have a kneejerk reaction to dark magic, but he isn't amoral. Nothing he's really seen has been enough to push him away but he is cautious that Claudia may stop walking the knife's edge and fall off of it. He's realized even he can do terrible things out of love and this has bound him more tightly to Claudia. He's someone who is CHOOSING to join this life, and wasn't just pre-built loyal as a sibling would be. All of this does give him a role in the narrative that's pretty unique to him and their dynamic, and I like that. Again, I hope he gets more to do beyond just being Claudia's partner, but I really don't mind him existing.

Thank you very much for the ask! ♥ Really don't blame you for dropping the show post season 4 .... if I wasn't Virenpilled I would have dropped it after season 1 I think.

[danglovely]

Kim Possible Episode Tiers: The B-Tier

Don't overthink it. These are all pretty good episodes.

Pain King vs. Cleopatra: The introduction of Monique! I have a weird affection for this episode because I can distinctly remember watching it when it was released (and then playing the stupid flash game associated with it). One-off villain and meh plot makes it okay.

Number One: It's funny to know that Will was introduced as Ron's romantic rival. Obviously the show is much better for them not pursuing that storyline. This episode successfully introduces Duff and has one of my favorite lines of the series.

The Truth Hurts: The half-episodes are about laughs. I don't think this one does amazing at it (apart from the initial Drakken/Shego confrontation), but it's sort of a fun high concept episode that probably would have benefitted from a full length expansion.

The Big Job: The Jr. and Shego relationship is actually pretty fun and could have used a few more episodes. This one is highlighted by how good the fight while trying to park in San Francisco is.

Ron the Man: The introduction of the Pandimensional Vortex Inducer and Dementor is a bit of a drag, mostly because I'm not sure how poigniant this episode is anymore by analyzing Ron's masculinity. It may be dated, but there's a lot of good here (including Shego asking Drakken how many men he can handle in a fight).

Mentor of Our Discontent: I have previously expressed my love for Lucre, but this episode detracts from that. I want to describe it as "diluted" because there's too much stuff going on.

Downhill: I think this is a really solid episode and maybe the only one where the high school plotline outshines the spy plotline. I don't have any particular fondness for DNAmy as a villain, but the theme of recognizing your parents as actual people does hit true for me.

Sink or Swim: Good episode and the first instance of "Ron is actually valuable." MORE RON AND TARA.

Naked Genius: I think this marks the point where Shego's respect for Drakken begins to deteriorate. It's a good high concept episode and I love that Ron is successful at making some fashion of doomsday device.

October 31st: It's a solid episode, almost in spite of the "Kim lies to everyone" plot.

Job Unfair: Honestly, this might deserve to be higher. All of Shego and Drakken's weather machine manual talk is brilliant and Janitor Joe is a really likeable character. It's a real success at merging the A and B plots.

The Golden Years: Kim's nanna successfully completes the dance of going from annoying to awesome. It's also refreshing to see Drakken be such a proponent for the aged community. I also like the hint at his business sense from running the ice cream truck.

Motor Ed: Successful introduction of two good characters. It's a legitimately compelling problem that Kim doesn't know how to speak to someone that's paralyzed!

Showdown at the Crooked D: I enjoy that Shego takes interest in Drakken's high school bitterness. I could listen to Ron and Joss forever . . . it would be nicer if Joss liked Ron better.

Triple S: It's a very fun expansion of Senior's backstory.

Big Bother: I really enjoy the seemingly main story about Monkey Fist taking place in the background. I'm less into Kim being jealous of Yori and Ron hating his little sister.

The Cupid Effect: I am ignoring the real world implications of the existence of a "love ray." It's a fun Senior plot and I liked Ron giving Wade romantic advice (like, the dude landed Kim . . . he's doing something right).

Ill-Suited: I have nothing to say outside of Dementor attempting to convince Kim and Ron by wearing a house dress.

Grudge Match: There's a lot going on here with Zita, Larry, etc. It's just a decent episode.

Gorilla Fist: I think this is the first episode meant to make you realize that Kim is actually in on Ron. If I talked about it more, I could probably get sentimental enough to bump it up a few tiers (also the Monkey Fist/DNAmy plot line is hilarious).

All the News: Ron makes Kim suffer in high school and AdrenaLynn isn't the best villain. Should I have had this lower?

[knickynoo]

Back to the Future: The Animated Series, s02ep05 “Verne's New Friend” Review and Commentary

Previous episodes linked here.

In this episode: the obligatory kids' show "girls and boys can be friends" plotline.

We're back in Real Doc's lab for the opening segment, a rarity this season! Doc's got a lot of mysterious, bubbling liquids around him, and he takes a drink from a beaker, informing us it's water. However, he then picks up another one, which contains H2SO4 (sulfuric acid).

Remember when I covered the first season and kept making note of Doc's seemingly deteriorating mental state? The guy was a whole other level of unhinged in these opening segments. Zany, off the rails, and just plain WEIRD (said with the utmost affection). This live-action scene is no different, and it's not something that can really be captured properly in text. I feel I must include an actual clip to give you a taste of what Animated Series Real Doc is like.

What is. wrong with him.

The thing that really gets me (aside from the way he says, "Poisooooonnn...") is the way he smiles after.

If I didn't know and love Doc Brown, I would be terrified of this man. This could be in a horror movie. The last thing you see before the mad scientist takes you down.

Ultimately, the point of Doc's odd little display is to convey to us that things are not always what they seem. As many of our lead-ins into the cartoon part of the show, this one begins with Verne.

He and a bunch of buddies are gathered at a local baseball field and are ready to start up their game. It's guys only, though, and when two girls express their desire to play, Verne tells them, "Get lost. Girls can't play ball!" He and some of the other boys then start making jokes about how the girls should go fix their hair or do their nails instead. Oh, Verne...

I feel like this is a VERY common thing in 90s shows. The whole "boy discovers girls can play sports/be tough/enjoy the same things he does" was done over and over in TV.

During the game, the ball gets hit out of the field and is caught by a kid sitting on the sidewalk. The kid returns the ball with an amazing pitch, and Verne is instantly impressed. He asks the kid to be on his team, and they immediately form a quick friendship.

And with the whole "Verne doesn't want to play with girls" plotline having been immediately established in the first 20 seconds of this episode, let's really consider for a moment where they might be going here, shall we? Verne's just met a kid who plays baseball better than he does and who loves comic books as well. This kid is always wearing a hat. I'm thinkin' Vernie is in for a surprise when he gets to know his new friend better.

While at the comic store, the kids come across a poster for The Bob Brothers All-Star International Circus, and they want to go. The worker at the store informs them that it's an old poster, and the circus happened in 1933 and is now out of business. (Nice reference to "The Bobs" here!)

When Verne's friend (who we don't have a name for yet) expresses disappointment at not being able to see the show, Verne says maybe they can go to the circus. "Can you keep a secret?" he asks. Verne is about to spill the secret of time travel to a kid he's known all of two hours.

He and his friend sneak into the garage and hop into the DeLorean, programming it to the date of the circus and taking off on their little trip. Btw, Doc had been working on the car in that same moment. Doc is UNDER THE CAR when it's driven out of the garage.

As they drive along the street, a hand reaches from somewhere behind Verne and he panics, thinking it's Doc. (He hadn't seen him under the car) It's Marty, though! He'd been searching around in the car for something Doc needed in his repairs and has now been taken along for the ride against his will. He also shows absolutely zero concern at seeing Verne's friend sitting in the passenger seat. No "Who is this?" or "Verne, you told someone about time travel?!". Nothing.

The three of them arrive in 1933 and go straight to the circus. They're the only members in the audience.

They soon discover why the circus went out of business. It's awful. The band plays terrible music, the acts are boring (the "ferocious" lion is asleep during his performance), the tightrope walker is only two feet off the ground and terrified, and the Bob brothers running the show are a couple of clumsy goofballs. Verne, Marty, and Verne's friend are bored to tears.

When it comes time to see the human cannonball, one of the Bobs announces that the act has to be canceled due to a "slight occupational hazard." This is the human cannonball.

The only way the act can go on is if someone from the audience volunteers to do it themself. Sounds very legal!!!

Marty accidentally volunteers himself to be the cannonball because he picks that exact moment to wave his hands in an attempt to signal the guy selling peanuts. Good going, Marty. He's promptly launched into the air, out of the tent, and crash lands on the DeLorean, sending pieces of it flying.

(If you look closely at the sign in the background, it says "Tannen Farm")

After taking a look at the car later on, Marty informs his little buddies of some bad news: the carburetor is cracked. He says he might be able to fix it with a paperclip, though. Verne's friend, who we learn a moment later is called "Chris," is able to help out by offering a bobby pin. Verne is baffled. Why would a boy be carrying around a bobby pin??

As Marty works on the car, Verne and Chris sneak back into the circus, where they overhear a Tannen telling the Bobs that they'll have to pay him double from now on in order to keep using his land. The kids climb a nearby ladder up to a platform so they can get a better vantage point, and a series of wacky events follow. Verne and Chris fall from the platform but grab onto a unicycle and end up riding it across a tightrope, then they fling themselves into a clown car, a runaway tire crashes into a group of acrobats, and so on. Pure chaos.

Once everything is settled, Mac Tannen comes running over to one of his pigs, scooping it up and cuddling it and doing all sorts of baby talk to it.

"Cleopatra! Poor little baby-wabey. Did the baddy-waddy wittle boys frighten Daddy's itty-bitty piggy-wiggy?"

And you know what? It's kind of endearing seeing a Tannen acting all affectionate and loving toward something. Look at how happy that pig is. She has a bow in her hair!

As a result of all the shenanigans, he ends up telling the Bobs that he now wants triple the rent money, plus extra for damages. If he doesn't get it by the next night, he's going to take over running the circus. Verne and Chris are forced to stay and help out around the place in order to pay back the money for all the stuff they broke. Verne comes up with a plan to get the money rolling in quickly, and he and Chris ride an elephant into town to advertise and give away free tickets. That night, the stadium is completely packed, and Verne tells the Bobs that they'll make a ton of money selling food and souvenirs.

Unfortunately, the sisters who do the trapeze act have just quit, and it's their biggest act of the night. Verne says it's no sweat; he and Chris will do the act because "We can do anything any old girls can do."

Wearing some of Doc's "booster belts", Verne and Chris prepare for their trapeze act debut.

Marty says they look silly, especially wearing hats, and Verne takes his off. Chris refuses to do the same. Hmmm....

Also, I need to drop another screenshot of Mac with his pig as they sit in the audience.

The show begins with Chris and Verne, who fly around the air with ease due to their booster belts. The audience goes wild.

(this has nothing to do with the plot, but I want to draw attention to a scene where Mac's skin tone flashes back and forth noticeably)

I'm truly fascinated by the amount of mistakes and wonky animation in this series. People's eyes and skin change color out of nowhere and the character designs vary episode to episode. There's no consistency at all.

Returning back to the episode, the pair is in the middle of their most daring stunt when Chris's hat flies off and reveals....she's a GIRL! Who could have seen this coming?

Verne is so shocked that he falls from his own trapeze and begins plummeting to the ground. Chris swoops in and saves him just in time. Once they land and a crowd of people gathers in awe, Verne stalks off angrily.

Outside, the Bobs pay Mac Tannen all the money they owe him, followed by another very obvious mistake. Mac calls to his pig, who appears a moment later carrying an armful of food and souvenirs. A second later all that stuff is gone, and it's just the pig walking away. Holding nothing.

What was going on in the studio that animated this show??

Over at the DeLorean, Verne is ranting to Marty about how upset he is that Chris was a girl this whole time. How could he have shared so many things he loved with A GIRL?? Marty doesn't get what the big deal is. He says that some of his best friends are girls. "She's still the same person you liked before," he goes on to tell Verne, to which Verne continues complaining. Marty tells him he better knock it off or his friendship with Chris (whose name is really Christine) is going to be over.

With the car fixed, they all pile into the car, where Verne continues to give Chris the cold shoulder for betraying him or something. Idk. Verne is convinced girls have cooties. But the whole reason that Chris hid the fact she's a girl is specifically because it was the only way she could be included in those "boy activities." Verne never would have asked her to play baseball or read comics with him if he'd known from the start.

Once back home, Verne joins his buddies for a game of baseball. As he chases after the ball, he runs into Chris. She hands him the ball, and Verne awkwardly asks her if she wants to play with them. And that's where the cartoon portion ends.

All is well. Verne has come to his senses and realized that it's okay to have friends who are girls. We don't get to see any scenes of how Verne comes to change his mind, though. It just happens. He's angry at her one moment, then asks her to play 20 seconds later in the next scene. I get that there's very limited time to tell a story in a kids' cartoon, but it would've been nice to see Verne having that moment of, "Hey, maybe I was wrong."

We go back to Doc's lab, where he reiterates the lesson that appearances can be deceiving. For example, his elaborate setup of tubes and colorful liquids is actually an invention that creates the perfect water balloon. You see, he's preparing for his and Verne's semi-annual water fight, and he's discovered an exact formula that helps the balloons fly further and have the biggest burst ratio.

I love Doc being a dad. Establishing regular water balloon fights with his son and using the power of science to beat him is something he absolutely would do.

And that about does it for this episode! It was okay. Verne was annoying in it, but I liked Chris (I was very much considered a "tomboy" as a kid), and Marty actually came through with some common sense and good advice. Like I said, I feel like I've seen this same kind of storyline a hundred times from various shows and movies. It was a popular one in the 80s through the early 2000s, it seems.

Join me next time as I go into the episode without any prior knowledge, because it's called "Bravelord and the Demon Monstrux" which intrigues me so much that I don't even want to read the episode summary.

[ilikereadingactually]

The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles

The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles by Malka Older

i adored The Mimicking of Known Successes and was so excited to get to read the galley of this follow up!! and Older did not disappoint, this adventure has all the charms of the first book and then some.

what i loved best was the deepening and connecting of all the plotlines. the first book reads like a fairly light mystery and very lovely relationship arc, with just enough worldbuilding to give almost literal structural support (if you haven't read these books yet, the characters live on a series of rails and platforms above the gas giant Jupiter). this book could have coasted on just being a second case for these two compelling characters as they further their relationship, but it doesn't!

we get Mossa and Pleiti's nice relationship stuff, yes, with all the doubts and sweetness of that, but also we get more complex politics! we get Mossa background! we get more about the abandonment of Earth, and this new society's different ways of dealing with the loss and the longing for it! we get all of these things connected, in a more fully realized social structure than i was expecting, and i was thrilled by it. i would read a hundred more books about their weird social strata and Pleiti continuing to come to terms with the inequities of the system she's working in and Mossa's enthusiasm for her home and the two of them learning how to be together in more and more equal and solid ways.

also, this is a small thing, but the language of this book was interesting! there were a number of peppered-in loan words from other languages, most of which i was familiar with but some i wasn't, giving a fascinating sense of the evolution of language in a place where the national and cultural borders of Earth have been shaken up or gotten rid of or redrawn. (gotta say, i laughed out loud when Pleiti described an elderly faculty member as genki.) oh also also? there are some appearances by a character who uses the neopronoun "ta" which just feels supremely British and the best possible choice for Holmesiana in space, i laughed so much about it. a hugely delightful read all around.

the deets

how i read it: an e-galley from NetGalley. my NetGalley tbr for the spring is v long and exciting!!

try this if you: loved the first book obv, are into the current crop of sff about the new societies humans build after Earth goes tits up, have to yell and pace around the room when characters who are not easily affectionate show their deep affection, or delight in a good casefic

some bits i really liked: ✨Jewish Mossa?!✨ references that made me lol! hysteria!

"My father died some years ago--" ("May his memory be a blessing," I murmured, and she dipped her chin in acknowledgement).

---

The father of Strevan lived in a type of construction known as a hobbit house, presumably because no matter how vague your grasp of Classical literature, that still sounded cozier than bunker. It was built into an artificial slope in the plateau, and the door, I was disgusted to see, wasn't even round.

---

I insisted that they wire Mossa immediately. I insisted on this at length, with a fervor that would once have been attributed to a displacement of my internal organs, and to everyone I saw...

---

WELL DONE STOP OMW M Those few words proved sufficient to distract me for some time. Omw was an archaism, a Classical expression meaning she was coming back; I spent an inordinate amount of time wondering whether Mossa would have used that expression with, say, one of her Investigator colleagues or whether it was a nod at my interests. After some time I understood that this was a ridiculous question and indicative of exhaustion, and I went to bed.

pub date: February 13, 2024! at the time of this posting, TOMORROW!!! Malka Older is doing a virtual book release event with Tubby & Coo's, maybe check it out!

[pink-strawberry-kissess]

At least in the OG timeline, I find this running gag of Leon getting turned down by women as very funny, but I have to admit, it’s kinda weird. He’s conventionally attractive even at 21. Unless, the women find this attractiveness as some sort of a heartbreak trap, thinking he’s a player or something? LOL

Good thing the remakes are retconning this, making him act more like the traumatized individual that he actually is. And with DI, it seems like CAPCOM is sticking to this new narrative. This makes me really look forward to the new game titles which will feature aeon.

i mean- i think the problem is that WE as the audience do not live in the re universe. the audience FUCKING LOVES LEON and WANTS TO DO HORRIBLE SEXY THINGS TO HIM

but he canonically does not do well socially. he's awkward and says dumb shit. i mean- have we seen his "okay" when he sees sherry for the first time???

not only that- we have to remember that re4r leon is set in 2004. most of the characters that interact with him find him cringy- or uptight- or stuck up. it doesn't matter how we as an audience perceives him as sexy. sure he's maybe seen as a pretty boy- but i think his personality makes him less attractive to other characters in the same universe. he also seems just very quiet and kind of rude by the time it's re4r, like why would you wanna date that lol

i mean claire is canonically not interested in leon and finds him too uptight. ashley has what people perceive as a crush on leon but it's kinda just like a schoolgirl crush, and by the end she sees him more of a mentor than anything. (i dunno also this is heavily debated from what i've seen, people not interpreting literally anything that ashley does as flirting- while others do. but at the end of the day i don't really see it as anything other than one sided as leon doesn't seem to see her as anything other than a kid)

I ALWAYS FORGET ABOUT ANGELA JKSBFKJFSBKJ

uhhh who else. helena is sick of leon's shit after like 2 minutes of meeting him.

but also yeah when they were working on re2r, they specifically wanted a more realistic version of aeon, they "fell in love immediately, that's not right- there needs to be more interaction first"

i think the most MAYBE is with shen may but it's also just kinda weird- like he just wants food dude

i think that's also why aeon shippers see ada as like a moronsexual, he be saying dumb shit and she's like I LOVE THAT MAN. HE'S SO STUPID AND I LOVE HIM. (but not actually cause Ada thinks that he's very smart)

(anways all i'm saying is that ada seems to be the only relationship they seem to be writing with care. making it more realistic but also have a plotline and arc. there's a lot more emotions rooted in the betrayal and how it affects leon BUT ALSO ADA. it also just makes it seem like the pay off will be so much more rewarding imo)

anyways yeah i'm still kinda excited for re6r if they make it. it'll be interesting to see since the movies are still connected. i'd love a more emotional connection between them and something more substantial and more info about ada as well. she's literally one of the most interesting characters and is so under utilized

but yeah they wanted to remove the campy re4 leon YOUR RIGHT HAND COMES OFF? and make him more realistic. sure he still says dumb shit but it's more grounded.

(also forgot they completely removed the flirting with hunnigan cause it makes no sense why a government agent would be so fucking rude to hunnigan lol) "i was starting to get worried"

"DON'T YOU MEAN LONELY??"

tl;dr just because we think leon is hot- doesn't mean the in universe characters also think he's hot

[poisonedlemon222]

3 Beds, 2 Baths, 1 Ghost

Synopsis: Newly single Anna is trying to prove to her Father and herself that she can sell her first home! Unfortunately, the house happens to be haunted by a socialite Ruby, who had died in a car crash 100 years prior.

The movie opens with the Charleston record playing on a turntable. There are origins of the song in Black history. If you didn't know, Charleston rose to popularity in late 1923. It was in the Broadway show Runnin Wild. The song was created by African American artists James P Johnson and Cecil Mark. Running Wild was filled with Black talent and it ended up capturing national and international popularity.

3 Beds, 2 Baths, and 1 Ghost was set in the town of Seaside New Jersey. I wondered throughout the movie whether Seaside was supposed to be a small-town. Hallmark loves to set its stories in small towns to add a cozier feel to its movies and shows. There was nothing to suggest it was a small town other than her (Julia) doctor knowing about her breakup with Elliot. Which can I say is a little weird? She came in concerned after seeing Ruby for the first time. He mentioned that he'd known her for a long time, but it still didn't seem appropriate under the circumstances. It seemed dismissive.

This film was released on April 24, 2023, by Hallmark. Julia Gonzalo plays Anna in the film. Julia Gonzalo is Argentinian and played Miss Rojas in Supergirl. Madeleine Arthur plays Ruby, the fabulous ghost. She is probably best known for her role as Kris in the To All the Boys series. Their dynamic in the movie reminded me of Annie and Hallie's dynamic in the 1998 Parent Trap. It was very sisterly. They both had great chemistry together. You could tell they grew to love each other by the end.

Got to say wasn't a fan of the men in this film. Terrance, played by William Vaughan, did make a good antagonist. He was the perfect amount of a smarmy and power-hungry. Every time he was on screen, he annoyed me in seconds. I disagree with Julia telling her Dad to give the company to Terrance. Hallmark seems to have a habit of rewarding men's bad behavior.

Julia's Dad, played by Xavier Sotelo got off too easy when his controlling behavior throughout the movie had been problematic. He kept pressuring and underestimating Julia. He did not act as though she could handle the listing. He seemed more concerned with how her 'mistakes' would affect him than Julia's feelings. Anytime he thought she'd made a mistake, he was there to berate her and then rush away to deal with clients.

This could have been a series that expanded on some interesting points in the film. One is the reason why Julia was able to see Ruby. Instead of it being because of her connection with Elliot, I think it would have been cool if she was a medium, but she hadn't realized it until Ruby. There could easily be a familial origin, which gives Hallmark a reason to hire more Latine actors. I would love to see others come in to offer her guidance on specific cases even if that is through one mentor. The different insights from seasoned Spiritualists could be cool. I want to see her grow and come into her power. She found her true passion in helping Ruby and is just using real estate as a front to research and explore possibly haunted sites. Like Buffy and many supernatural heroines throughout film and television, she'd become a badass. The romance between Anna and Elliot could also be expanded on. One thing I liked about 3 Beds, 2 Baths, and 1 Ghost was that it didn't wrap their relationship up in a pretty bow. They acknowledged that there were still things to work through. The power of love didn't magically make them forget all their issues. I would like to see them gradually working on rebuilding their relationship. It could be a nice secondary plotline. I love the 'Mortal' and Supernatural partner dynamic. Think Samantha and Darrin from Bewitched, but Elliot treats Anna WAY better. There is a lot of possibility there. Hallmark dropped the ball by having the movie end in such a predictable way.

[sergeantsporks]

Writing request: post king’s tide, Gus and Hunter talking about the events in it and what they’re gonna do now (What Gus saw with the Belos thing. And also how Gus feels in the human realm now that his first experience with it is basically soured.)

(I hope you don't mind I changed the prompt a little bit to fit what we got from Thanks to Them)

“I knew.”

Hunter poked a stick in the fire Luz had lit with a glyph. “Hm?”

Gus drew his knees up to his chest. “I knew. That you were a Grimwalker.”

Hunter’s grip tightened on the stick. “Oh.” He poked the coals again, then jumped up. “OH.” He jabbed a finger at Gus, mouth fumbling and stumbling on the words he wanted to say. “You’re Captain Avery,” he managed to spit out.

“Hah. Yeah. I’m Captain Avery. I thought you were picking up on what I was trying to say when you made that O’ Bailey costume.”

Hunter ran his hands through his hair. “Cosmic Frontier—you were… ohhhhhhh.” He sat back down with a groan. “I completely missed that.”

Gus’ nose crinkled. “In hindsight, it was probably a liiiiiitle too nuanced as a way to let you know that I knew. I mean. Book code? How were you supposed to know that meant I knew?” He twisted his hands. “I just… wanted to let you know that it was okay. That you could trust me.”

“I do.”

“But… not with that.”

“I needed more time to find out more. About where I came from, about… how I related to Belos, who my ortet was. Caleb Wittebane.” The words were foreign in his mouth.

“Heh. Caleb, huh? That’s a weird coincidence.”

Hunter clutched at his chest where Flapjack had last been. “Yeah… weird…”

“He seems like he was okay.”

“Huh?”

Gus rubbed his arms. “When I… did that spell on Belos, I saw him. Caleb Wittebane. That was how I knew. I saw him, I saw your… birth…”

“Sorry about that.”

Gus chuckled. “It wasn’t so bad, you just crawled out of a mudpit. As far as how people are born, that’s probably the least traumatizing thing to see!” He settled back down. “But he seemed like an okay guy, your ortet. I know Masha said he got spirited away by a witch, but I think he went because he wanted to. And he stayed because he wanted to.”

Hunter tugged on the new strand of hair. Maybe Willow would cut it for him again. “He was still a witch hunter. He still brought his brother to a place where everyone was a witch hunter, Belos wouldn’t have been a witch hunter without him. He went to the isles looking for him, he’s the reason Belos was there. He’s the reason Belos didn’t leave.”

“Maybe.” Gus sighed. “Belos killed him.”

“Yeah?”

“They had a fight. I don’t think he was a witch hunter at the end. He was a witch protector.”

“Fat lot of good it did anyone.”

“Hey. Don’t be so hard on him. He made mistakes, sure, everyone does. But we’re not blaming Luz for accidentally helping Belos meet the Collector, are we?”

“No,” Hunter muttered, “We’re not.”

“So maybe be a little nicer about Caleb. Your ortet did the right thing at the end, and that’s what matters.”

“Hm.”

“And it doesn’t matter anyway. None of that affects who you are.” Gus nudged him. “Not… any more than who O’ Bailey was cloned from affected who he was.”

Despite himself, Hunter smiled. “Heh. Yeah. That plotline was a bit contrived, huh? It was the ‘enemy planet’ thing that mattered.”

“Ha.”

Hunter leaned back. “Would you ever go back?”

“Hm?”

“To the human realm,” Hunter clarified, “Would you go back?”

“I don’t know. I always wanted to go, I’ve loved the idea of the human realm for as long as I can remember, but…”

“Your first experience wasn’t under the best of circumstances?”

“Yeah.” Gus glanced over at the blanket lump that was Luz. “I’d go to visit Luz and Camila, I think. If we could make a stable portal.” He sighed. “It wasn’t all bad. There was so much cool stuff there! And the giraffes were… terrifying. But I just… I don’t know, I think I would have enjoyed it more if I wasn’t missing my dad the whole time.”

“So bring him next time,” Hunter suggested.

“What?”

“Bring your dad. Show him the things you liked. Let him see. Then the human realm won’t be a place where you missed your dad, it’ll be a cool place you showed him.”

“Yeah,” Gus said slowly, “Yeah! He can be the first Boiling Isles reporter to cover the human realm!” Gus’ ears wiggled up and down. “And I can be his tour guide!” Gus settled down, leaning against Hunter’s shoulder. “Thanks, Hunter.”

Hunter nodded, staring into the fire. “Thank you. For… being understanding about the Grimwalker thing. For trying to reach out, even if it didn’t work.”

“Hm? Yeah, sure. We made a secret handshake and everything, I’m not going to be put off by a little cloning and witch hunter ancestry.” Gus held his fist out for a bump. “You’re stuck with me.”

[blue-stripe]

ngl ive been wondering why tnb cour 2 has felt so weird to me even though the last couple of episodes really got me in my feels

i think ive figured it out so this is just me putting thoughts to digital paper - spoilers under cut

the reason i really really love tiger and bunny season 1 is because it is extremely character driven. Everything that happens is all because of either kotetsu or barnaby and this also includes any major plot points - even the big bads of season 1 was all because of barnaby’s backstory. Also if we look at the rising, the main conflict is really that kotetsu feels like hes holding back barnaby, and the main bad, virgil, is used a parallel to barnaby to show how hes grown as a character.

Season 2 was like, “ok we got through barnaby’s backstory, lets expand on the world a bit” but then its like the show forgot that it was character driven? so then we spend a lot of time on the villain’s plot and then a lot on the new heroes but the plot doesnt really tie into them that much? theyre treated as separate issues so with two different plotlines going, it doesnt really feel like kotetsu and barnaby get as much to do since their arcs are supposedly resolved. So then they sort of just act as mentor characters for the new heroes but then they dont really feel like it that much either bc we get pushed into more plot. I also feel as though theres some weird stuff that happened with subaru and thomas’s arcs in the writers room because in part 1 of s2 they were made to parallel kotetsu and barnaby but then in part 2 subaru and thomas spend most of it apart. And while yes it sounds like im complaining that kotetsu and barnaby didnt get enough screen time and then switching gears to say subaru and thomas didnt get enough screen time, its mostly because they spent so much time building up the characters in part 1 to connect them to kotetsu and barnaby and proceeded to sideline them in favor for the plot. Which speaking about the plot, none of the endgame stuff really holds up in terms of character motivations because we still have no idea what ouroboros’s end goal is. Like i get the body switching lady’s goal sort of? but like kotetsu im just like is that your only reason???and then suddenly kotetsu loses his powers in the last episode?? with nothing but a bit of foreshadowing when he talks to yuri like one or two episodes prior. This completely goes opposite to part 2 of season 1 where they spend a lot of the episodes talking about kotetsus declining powers and how it was personally affecting him. I get that part of it might be because at this point the viewer knows kotetsu knows that itll disappear eventually, but its only really brought up towards the end - i feel like we actually dont see him use his powers in fights that much in cour 2 but maybe id have to rewatch it to check

anyways tl;dr the s2 kotetsu vs barnaby fight shouldve been longer than 1 actual minute. also yuri shouldnt have died

[stillness-in-green]

Ever think Mustard was supposed to be a mainstay villain? He was introduced wayback in 57 alongside Dabi, Spinner, Toga and Giganto and compared to the other Captured M's, from his practical attitude to his disdain for 'one-note' Quirks , it seems as if there were intentions of a longer term role for him in the story. I wanna think lil'condiment was put on a bus because his Quirk might have been a tad awkward for fights compared to the others.

Man, I really don’t know.  Mustard is in a very weird place: he hardly seems as blood-crazed as Muscular or as unknowably monstrous as Moonfish (I say this with all due affection for them both, of course), and indeed if he’s meant to be on their level, he’d be a singular case of an apparently totally irredeemable middle schooler.  Which would be a pretty bizarre thing to have in a story that kicked both Toga and Touya off the deep end in middle school, but certainly isn’t treating them as unreachable!

I feel like I’d need some confirmation from Horikoshi or an editor or something before I'd buy that Mustard was originally meant to stick around but then got put on a bus last second because his power would be awkward to handle.  By all means, his power would be awkward to handle,(1) but the training camp attack was such a key event for the manga, laying the ground for Kamino and everything that would come after, that it’s hard for me to imagine Horikoshi not knowing exactly which characters were going to walk out the other side of that plotline as opposed to changing his mind right in the middle of it.

As to Mustard’s early introduction, I wonder to what extent the Chapter 57 characters were intended to be drawn to the League because of Stain, rather than being indicative of who was going to stick around?  Twice and Mr. Compress, after all, would go on to become core members, but they weren’t introduced in 57, only when they cropped up during the actual camp attack.  They also, along with Magne, Muscular and Moonfish—who also don’t appear in 57—never bring up Stain or Stain’s goals in their time with the League.(2) But Dabi, Spinner, and Toga, all shown as Giran talks about Stain's influence on the underworld, they all cite Stain as their inspiration.

It’s not a perfect theory: I don’t recall Mustard ever talking about Stain, though at least his beef with sub-par students being unduly praised just because of the school they attend resembles Stain’s rhetoric about unworthy heroes. Gigantomachia, for his part, doesn’t give a damn about Stain or heroes, but I could buy the Hosu incident being the point at which Machia starts perking up and paying attention to Shigaraki (assuming Shigaraki was getting name-dropped at all, given his place as the afterthought of the Hosu news reports, RIP).

I hope we’ll eventually see Mustard again.  I can (unhappily) buy that the bulk of the MLA is gone; they were in that weird space of being villains-for-the-villains, providing, in the boost they gave Shigaraki, the biggest turning point in the series.  But when even randos from USJ are turning back up, when Mustard and Moonfish both resurfaced, it would be pretty strange to just never get Mustard again at all.  (Ditto Gentle and La Brava, but they at least feel relatively self-contained and resolved at the end of their arc; you can’t say the same of the other captured Villains.)

On the one hand, there’s a very realistic edge to Mustard, the disaffected kid who shows up with a weapon and a superiority complex and an outsized grudge about school; he’s very grounded in the kind of self-absorbed aggrievance that I can imagine a lot of people find difficult to sympathize with, possibly including his creator.

On the other hand, to reiterate, that’s an extremely bizarre place to leave a middle-schooler.  Surely, if we can be asked to sympathize with people like Toga, who would have been around Mustard’s age when she went on the run, and Spinner, who with his hikikomori backstory is based on similar discomfitingly realistic youthful disaffectedness as Mustard, then Mustard himself shouldn’t be beyond the pale?

Hell, if nothing else, I feel like we deserve an answer as to what about the League he believed in so strongly that he refused to tell the police anything about them after his capture.  Mustard is, again, a middle schooler who’s up against a legal system that has very probably only gotten worse than its already-dire real-life counterpart; further, given the attitude towards Villains in this setting, there’s a decent chance that he’s been disowned by his family.  He may be a prat, but I have no choice but to stan a kid who’s gutsy enough to hold his silence in those circumstances.(3)

Thanks for the ask, @shockersalvage!

------

1:  Technically his power is relatively easily dealt with via an abundance of gas masks, but that would mean drawing everyone in gas masks all the time, and this is My Hero Academia, not Dorohedoro.

2:  I spent most of the manga ragging on Compress for villain gatekeeping, but he did, of course, eventually drop a nugget about being against sham heroes.  In his case, though, the stance is tied to his family legacy, not inspired by Stain.  Harima’s views and Stain’s are enough of a piece that it’s easy to assume the Stain association led Compress to the League, but possibly the difference is that Dabi, Toga and Spinner all cite Stain as an inspiration, whereas Compress merely saw him as an opportunity—or perhaps a reminder. 

3:  Which is why the counterpart to the “Geten jailbreaks Tartarus with a single ice cube” fic is the one where Geten gets sent to the same high-security juvie facility Mustard was, and the two have to get over, in order: each other, themselves, and The Wall. 

[bengiyo]

Ghost Host, Ghost House Ep 3 Stray Thoughts

Last episode I remember the daughter going to school and wanting to talk to a girl, the son being weird on the computer, the parents rehashing an old argument, and Kevin and Pluem flirting a bunch. Pluem is best boy. Also, some kids showed up and started performing some kind of ritual that affected the children.

I get the idea of checking out abandoned buikdings, but it's so easy to get hurt in them. I live in a city that has sustsinrd massive damage multiple times. I don't like kids roaming around abandoned buikdings.

Now we're in conflict with a shape shifting ghost. Thee seemed bound to happen.

Super cool that Kevin has learned enough about Pluem to be suspicious of the ghost, and sussed out who was the real Pluem. Nice way to reinforce their growing relationship.

I'm still not sure what the narrative purpose of all the ghosts will be.

Pluem is correct. Kevin's recklessness is endearing, but also terrifying.

Putting a helmet on the passenger is a trope I like more than putting on the seatbelt.

Lol, Pluem suggests changing the subject when Kevin is clearly uncomfortable talking about his mom's new husband, so Kevin asks, "You single, bro?"

Oh, Pluem is very smooth. The ghost shit is weird, but I like these two.

I like that Kevin is getting nervous even though as far as I recall he intiisted the flirting.

Okay, flirting in the live stream was adorable.

I feel myself becoming steadily more disinterested in the ghost plotline.

I feel like I missed something with the scene with Pluem and the cop. Was his dad murdered or died mysteriously?

Okay, we're seeing funky ghost powers.

Does Kevin not hear this robbers yelling?

Ah, Kevin ran.

Oooh, excited about a potential reveal that Kevin figured out the ghost thing a while ago.

[americangirlstar]

Now that both Courtney books are out and I’ve read and processed them both, I do want to say that I think they’re the least well-written of any of the AG books, but not through any fault of their own- let me explain.

(Note that for this discussion I’m ignoring the Doylist criticisms- Courtney and 3/4 of her friend group being white again, the lack of gay discussion in-text in regards to the HIV crisis, etc. These are valid complaints and concerns, but not what we’re talking about right now.)

The Problem with the Current Book Length

I think the main problem with Courtney stems from the fact her books are so short. American Girl has literally been doing the stupidest things in regards to their books lately, almost as if they’re trying to sabotage them on purpose. First they remove illustrations in 2015- when their target audience is about nine years old. I don’t know about you, but when I was six and getting into American Girl, the illustrations were the highlight for me. Not because I had no attention span and loved pretty pictures, but because it showed me firstly what the girl’s life was like, whether it be 1760s wilderness or 2001 Chicago. It was like stepping into their world, really helping you get into their heads, which was basically what the dolls were supposed to do, to let you know that girls like you exist throughout time and space.

As well as that, the illustrations were free advertisement. I can’t tell you how excited me and my sisters were as children to go to the American Girl place and look at the doll displays, shouting that that’s the dress Felicity wears to the ball! or look, Josefina’s goat looks exactly like the book! AG cut that from 2015 to 2020, as if they were trying to appeal to an older audience- while at the same time changing all the doll outfits, accessories and marketing to appeal to a younger demographic.

Now, this isn’t about the illustrations, as Courtney got those- it’s about what they did to the historical characters after the Illustration Outrage™ happened. See, they’d condensed the historical six-book format into two books- not necessarily a bad idea, parents would be more likely to buy two books for their kid than consider buying six. However, they then claimed that if they put illustrations back, they would have to abridge the books- literally my nightmare.

First of all, American Girl, we know for a fact you can fit all six books plus illustrations into ONE VOLUME, let alone two. You’re just being cowards here and trying to nerf your own stories for... some reason.

So that meant a lot of important things got cut- Rebecca’s Chanukah story, Melody’s cousin’s house search, Maryellen’s Christmas adventure... all things important to the girls’ histories and character.

The Problem with Courtney’s Writing

Now, Courtney was the first doll to be released after the abridging began, meaning her books were released, in their entirety, just as short as the abridged stories. So it basically means she gets four books while the others get six- and unlike the others, Courtney doesn’t even have mysteries or short stories to pad out. (And honestly, looking at her book’s amount of content, I’d even argue that she basically got two while everyone else got six, but I digress.)

The problem with her books isn’t that they have an author writing them poorly (I really feel like her author was doing the best with what limited time she had), but in how cramped American Girl made them. Because, well, Courtney has to deal with a lot in such a short amount of words.

Let’s compare her to Julie, for instance- Julie pretty much has a new 70s thing every book. In order: feminism, rising divorce rates, San Francisco’s Chinese culture, environmentalism, the country’s bicentennial, anti-bullying and deaf acceptance. And adding to this, we also have her own personal journies through her parents’ divorce and move, her basketball team, her friendship with Ivy (and later Joy), overcoming her fear of horses, student council, detention... It’s a lot, and yet her books don’t feel rushed or forced at all. It’s just a year in the life of a girl going through a lot of new and sudden events, and how she grows and changes throughout them. She may not be as deep a character as Addy or Kirsten, but not every girl goes through the trials and tribulations they do, and it’s a good series overall.

Courtney, meanwhile, does feel rushed and forced, because of the short timespan. Instead of fitting everything into a six-book format- or even at two-book format that is the same length and content as the six-book- everything has to be fit into two short books.   Everything Courtney has to cover includes the topics of divorce and stepfamilies, feminist and technological advancement, the Challenger explosion, the HIV crisis, Hands Across America, and the founding of Pleasant Company. And in Courtney’s own journey, she has to cover her learning to stand up for herself, her relationship with her stepsister and Tina’s own character development, her mother running for mayor and how that affects her, how much she misses her Dad after he moves, her friendship with Sarah (note on that later), her basically getting hate-crimed after standing up for her friend... that’s a LOT of stuff, and I didn’t even include the non-AG 80s product placement they shove into her collection.

But without the longer format, everything is pushed together to its detriment. Tina’s development and Maureen’s mayoral candidacy are two plotlines that are literally dropped and almost completely ignored in the second book. The Challenger and HIV issues were handled decently, but the Challenger only lasted a few short chapters, and the HIV topic was not as informative as it could be, leaving out several things like Reagan’s refusal to treat it for so long, and its effect on the gay community. Honestly, the HIV scare was more shifted to focus on the mob mentality of a new and scary disease- which, while needed right now, also ignores many of the bigotry-related reasons it became an epidemic. Pleasant Company’s inclusion feels forced in, and I think was the only resolution she had to her Dad plotline?

And don’t get me started on the Sarah plotline- every Girl of the Year since Kanani- sans Isabelle and Luci- has had the story of “oh no I’ve been ignoring my friend and now they’re mad at me :(” and it’s SO old. Seriously, I counted the contemporary dolls that have had that storyline, and it’s thirteen*. Thirteen times we’ve covered this issue- almost all of it in quick succession- and now we have to deal with it in a historical character book while much more important things are going on! Yes, it sucks when a friend ditches you while you’re being attacked and bullied for something you’re standing up for, but once again, with how much is happening in such a short book, it just feels like a forced-in plotline that we’ve seen a billion times, and with their falling-out happening mainly due to the attention Courtney was given Isaac, it serves to make Sarah seem closed-minded at best and bigoted at worst- it’s clarified that she’s not, she’s just scared and upset with Courtney, but when you put those events so close together, it leads the reader to lump them together and get the impression that, you know, Sarah is a worse person than she is.

*Full count: Nicki (book 2), Chrissa (book 2), Kanani (2), McKenna (1 iirc?), Saige (both books), Grace (2), Lea (3), Gabriela (1 and 3), Tenney (2), Z (1), Blaire (1), Joss (1) and Kira (1).

It’s a bit weird, too, that Courtney’s... what’s the word? Vibe? with her how her story is written and marketed Is closer to the Contemporaries than the Historicals. Am I the only one feeling this? My best explanation for it is that the author, Kellen Hertz, had only written contemporary books for American Girl before- the third Lea Clark book and all four Tenney Grant books, both of which contained the Friendship Issues™ plot. I’m not at all saying she’s a bad author- I honestly love the way the Tenney books are written- and I’m not saying she couldn’t write a historical book, but it’s clear American Girl didn’t ask her to change up her style or content from what she’d done for them before, as well as giving her way too much to cover in such short books.

Conclusion

Honestly, this conclusion should be obvious- American Girl needs to expand their books again. Whether they simply allow the books to be unabridged, or go back to the six-book format, Courtney's books are too cramped to tell an effective story, let alone the poor abridged girls.

The other girls were given six-book length, so if they went back to that length or format, Courtney would have to be rewritten, at least a little- and that’s okay! There’s a lot of things that could use expansion or connection, such as her Summer trip with her Dad that was given basically one sentence in the text. Her growth with her stepfamily could be acknowledged- and honestly? I think that if these books were expanded, her mother’s mayoral arc should either continue through the books, or Maureen should become mayor before the book 2 arc. I’ve mentioned this before, but having Maureen as mayor (or even still a candidate) would put a lot of pressure on Courtney to be perfect so that nobody can say “look at how awful this woman is for doing politics instead of raising her family right”- which means that when the Isaac stuff happens, it has even more stakes for Courtney and her family. Does her Mom still support her with her own reputation on the line, and what does that say about Maureen’s character, how does it affect Courtney and the D’Amicos... that’s all fascinating stuff that was completely missed out on.

And if she was turned into a six-book format- honestly, here’s how I’d do it, just off the top of my head. It would involve a bit of event shuffling, but honestly I think it would work!

Meet Courtney - pretty much the setup for everything happening, her starting to get her Crystal Starshooter plans and her mom’s campaign beginning.

Courtney Learns a Lesson - her relationship to Tina, culminating in the Challenger incident.

Courtney’s Surprise - we move the founding of Pleasant Company over here, since Molly’s basically her Christmas Present. We’ll probably need an additional plotline- maybe similar to Julie, she can have a story on spending the holidays in different places.

Happy Birthday Courtney - end of summer, aka meeting Isaac and her trip with her Dad.

Courtney Saves the Day - Beginning of the HIV arc, ending at her presentation to her class.

Changes for Courtney - Continuation of the HIV arc as things get worse for her and Isaac, ending where Friendship Superhero ends.

Is that a perfect sorting? Probably not, I came up with it in ten minutes. But would it give Courtney space to breathe and more time to explore everything happening to her? Probably!

The tl;dr of this is honestly that American Girl are absolute cowards right now, and need to expand their books back. Their abridging is only harming their stories- which, as Courtney herself points out, are the reason girls got into their company in the first place.

[fancyfade]

so to the best of your ability, whats the general plot of final crisis?

oh this is such a cruel ask to send me 😭 /lh

ok let me think. the problem is it jumped focal characters so much that it’s really hard to describe because there’s no coherent tone and no character arc. there’s not even a “main character” or real protagonist IMO. it literally just felt like a stream of people doing random things and the earth slowly inching towards near annihilation before somehow it wasn’t annihilated.

very short version: Darkseid is dying (due to that weird thing in the death of the newgods plotline where the source got bored of its toys and wanted to remake them). Somehow he set it up so that as he is dying, reality is falling into a singularity and dying with him. As this is going on, the anti-life equation is being spread across the earth. The characters have to try to find out how to stop the anti-life equation and stop earth and all of reality from dying with darkseid. eventually, they succeed in this albeit in a confusing and narratively unsatisfying way. the end.

long version:

darkseid is dead and so are all of the new gods and the gods of apokolips are being reincarnated inside random dudes (however you don't know WHY darkseid is dead unless you read the tie-in)

orion is killed by some bullet going back in time, which batman deduced somehow. (like they explained how he knew it was a bullet, but not how he knew it was going back through time). this is despite the fact that Orion already had a different death in death of the new gods.

lois is nearly fatally wounded in a bombing at the daily planet and superman has to stay w/ her to keep her alive with his heatvision somehow

a boring copdude from metropolis gets kidnapped by the re-incarnated apokolips gods. he's put through some horrifying ordeal and slowly morphs into darkseid as his will is degraded.

green lantern kraken who has been infected by the anti-life equaiton or something (which is an equation that strips your will from you and makes you work for darkseid) tries to kill john steward and nearly succeeds, then she frames hal jordan for his murder

meanwhile wally west is running really fast and finds barry allen in the speedforce. barry allen is being chased by the black racer (the god whose thing is killing the other new gods) despite him also having died in the death of the new gods story they run around and try to find the bullet that was travelling back in time or something

wonder woman is anticlimactically infected with (the anti-life equation? the weird evil virus that destroyed earth 51 in countdown?) and leaves the plot quickly

shilo norman, ex mister miracle, meets up with a bunch of new heroes and they figure out how to make themselves immune from the anti-life equation by painting a new god symbol on their faces

half of everyone on earth gets infected with the anti-life equation because it got delivered to everyone’s email at once and oracle shut down the internet to try to cut it off. there is the implication that the justice league got some type of resistance and assistance and safehouses set up but there was no buildup and it felt very anticlimactic.

batman, who was previously captured by the reincarnated new gods, is now no longer captured and shoots darkseid with a gun. this fatally wounds darkseid, who if you may have been paying attention, was already dead at the start of this story, and also simultaneously dying at the start of this story, and had been reincarnated into boring copman

checkmate enacts some scheme to try to save the earth but it is never explained what it is. renee montoya is on a team going around trying to find the supermans from all of the realities, but they don’t affect the plot.the plot is actually resolved by superman getting catapulted into the future and seeing a miracle machine braniac 5 had stored in suspendium (which isolates it form the timestream, duh). superman couldn’t actually take the miracle machine back into time with him because he was fading out of the timestream due to existence being slowly sucked down into darkseids singularity like a bunch of bathwater down the drain, but him looking at it for 5 seconds and memorizing it did somehow let him rebuild it. he builds the miracle machine and gives a speech about how the crisis let us see the best of us. then things are back to normal somehow.

oh also there was some subplot about the novice superheroes shilo teamed up with and also a plot about one of the monitors (i think the monitor from earth 51) getting turned into a human cuz he failed his duty protecting his universe. and libra was a bad guy trying to get together all of the other bad guys as part of this plan and lex betrayed him because he didn’t want to be libra’s servant or smething.

I am not kidding even a little about any of this.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 19, part one

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff) (Previous Post)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Chilling in Yiling

We start off with Wei Wuxian hanging out in a busy area of Yiling, which is a really dumb place to pick for a fugitive rendezvous.  

He's wearing a fashionably distressed brown robe, and a woven disguise hat, that makes him invisible to his enemies until the moment he takes it off, kinda like the mask he wears in his second life. Unfortunately he is a polite boi so he takes off the disguise hat when he goes indoors to get a bite to eat, and promptly gets smacked down by Wen Zhuliu. 

Xiao Zhan's stunt double is really good at this wire-pull+table-smash move; this is the second time Wei Wuxian goes crashing through a table (the first one being when Yu Ziyuan was beating him). This time he clutches his now core-less abdomen, in a move we're going to be seeing a lot of, going forward. Abdominal surgery is a bitch. OP can personally attest to this.

Wen Zhuliu provides some comic relief by looking at his hand in puzzlement; he clearly can tell Wei Wuxian has no golden core, but he isn't going to bother telling Wen Chao that.

Wen Chao gloats and steps on Wei Wuxian's hand while Wei Wuxian stares at his shoe and OP wonders, not for the first time, how they make rubberized zig-zag treads in Ancient Fantasy China.

(more after the cut)

This is all happening in the Yiling Wine house where Wei Wuxian will later share the most important meal of his life, the one in which A-Yuan lays claim to Lan Wangji, ultimately giving LWJ a reason to live long enough for Wei Wuxian to be resurrected. If that doesn’t deserve a good Yelp review, nothing does. 

Dream a Little Dream of Me

While Wei Wuxian gets ready for his big whump scene, Jiang Cheng is dreaming, and looking absolutely breathtaking in this deceptively simple robe, that's made of a really complex fabric, that catches the light all over its surface.  The lighting here is warm and romantic, giving everything a nostalgic glow.

He looks around the courtyard in his dream, and sees Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian come running in the gate carrying kites. 

A child fetching a kite was the first casualty of the Wen attack on Lotus Pier, so this image may already be a little fraught for Jiang Cheng. In this initial image of his family, Jiang Cheng isn't present as a child, but then his junior self comes running up, to be warmly greeted by his mother.

Jiang Cheng's reaction to the scene playing out in front of him is not a simple one. We've seen him externally expressing his trauma at the fate of Lotus Pier and his family - his anger and his despair - and this dream shows us his private, interior trauma. 

His body has been repaired by Wei Wuxian and the Wens, but his psyche has not.

This family interaction can't possibly be one that ever happened. It's too lively, too affectionate, too comfortable. The family he was part of as a young adult was cold, angry, cracked.  Families don't change that much in 10 years, unless there's a major trauma that alters things in a fundamental way.

Even the glimpses we got of his childhood contradict this image. This warm group is not the family of "I sent your dogs away" or "wait in the cold until Jiang Cheng lets you in" or "I won't tell Clan Leader Jiang what happened" or "I'm only 11 but I'm in charge of soup and bedtime already"

Jiang Cheng smiles at the affection he sees enacted in front of him, but quickly moves to grief. When a toxic person dies, you don't just lose the relationship you had with them; you lose the hope for a better relationship. Perhaps Jiang Cheng has always imagined this version of his family; now nothing like it can ever come to be.

The pleasant scene vanishes into nightmare, as his mother starts bleeding from her eyes, ew. This is like Nie Mingjue when he qi deviates, but dream Yu Ziyuan is perfectly chill about it. 

Jiang Cheng is not perfectly chill about it. 

He turns around to see Lotus Pier burning. When he turns back, his family has been replaced with Wen Zhuliu, who is particularly gleeful as he reaches into Jiang Cheng's chest and melts his core.

Jiang Cheng wakes up on the mountain, alone (as far as he knows), and quickly stands and boots up his new golden core.

It's purple, because of course it is. King. The nightmare is gone and he smiles, maybe for the first time since the attack on the pier.

In a moment that is probably going to feel really embarrassing in hindsight, he kneels and bows toward the mountaintops to thank Baoshan Sanren, who is totally not there. 

Wen Ning, on the other hand, is there, although we only see a little bit of his belt and robe as Jiang Cheng walks off to Yiling to meet his brother.  This entire plotline walks a very weird line in which the audience is told just enough about what’s really happening to be confused, but not surprised.

Do the Whumpty Whump

After some initial roughing up, Wen Chao has his dudes stand Wei Wuxian up so he can question him without actually getting any information out of him at all. They take turns calling each other dogs, with Wei Wuxian saying that when Wen Chao talks he just hears a dog barking. (Of course if he really heard a dog barking he'd be terrified) 

Then he says "isn't that right" to Wang Lingjiao, and Wen Chao gets super pissed; don't disrespect me to my woman. 

He has his minions do a Nancy Kerrigan to Wei Wuxian's knee and then kick him for a while.

Then they kick the shit out of the camera operator.

Wen Chao is really not about fighting his own fights.  He also keeps threatening to have Wen Zhuliu melt Wei Wuxian's core, and Wen Zhuliu keeps popping up his hand and then putting it back when Wen Chao changes his mind, which gets more hilarious every time I watch it. Feng Mingjing’s physical embodiment of Wen Zhuliu is endlessly entertaining, even in scenes where he has literally no lines. 

I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghost

Wei Wuxian continues to goad Wen Chao, telling him that more torture is good because then he'll die with loads of resentment. He says that after he dies, he will come back as a ferocious ghost, which is...almost exactly what happens, except he stays alive for the ferocious part. 

They go back and forth about the feasibility of this whole haunting plan. Wang Lingjiao is the voice of reason, for once, arguing the "ghosts aren't real and anyway fuck this guy" position.

Wen Chao thinks that he can’t haunt them because of cultivator security hardening procedures soul-calming rituals, but Wei Wuxian wasn't born into a gentry family so didn't have the anti-fierce-ghost treatment that other cultivators get.

This is the only time in the whole of the show when Wei Wuxian says, himself, that he's the son of a servant. He's using his reputation as a commoner to bolster his threats. 

Wei Wuxian is working hard to put on a scary-guy persona, which works pretty well on Wang Lingjiao but not as much on the rest of the group. Three months from this time, however, he will have become the scary, vengeful creature he's currently spitballing about.  He will also become way, way better at torture than the people who are currently mistreating him. 

Wang Lingjiao and Wen Chao go through a whole sequence of ideas about what to do with him. For whatever reason Wang Lingjiao doesn't insist on chopping his arm off even though she's been craving it for ages. 

She does gleefully burn his burn some more, causing it to bleed directly into the giant obvious bag he has hanging from his belt leaking resentful energy. Which the Wens do not take away or search.

Wen Chao, incidentally, starts calling him Wei Ying during this encounter, which is rude of him. Tch.  Finally Wen Chao decides on a plan, which involves sword-flying effects so terrible that no soul can survive them.

Jiang Cheng is looking for Wei Wuxian in town, wearing a woven hat like Wei Wuxian’s.  This...is not a disguise. If you want to be inconspicuous, maybe take that giant piece of silver off of your head.

He hears random people talking about the Wens being in town, and then he apparently looks up at the sky and sees the Wen dudes flying on their swords with Wei Wuxian, but it looks so ridiculous that Jiang Cheng's mind cannot process what he is seeing.

While they "fly," Wen Chao delivers a massive brick of exposition about the burial mounds, while Wei Wuxian looks genuinely frightened. The VFX of random, undifferentiated mountaintops and clouds do nothing to sell this menace, but the exposition is actually pretty good, creating a real sense of disturbance and threat.

Then they toss him in, and we go from the terrible VFX of sword flying to a visual effect that they mercifully did really well throughout the show - the black resentment smoke. This time it catches Wei Wuxian and holds him for a few moments, before dropping him the rest of the way to the ground. It also apparently pulls the turtle sword out of his belt bag, but we don't see that part.

They Say That Every Man Must Fall

Having seen Wei Wuxian at his lowest point (so far) and dream Jiang Cheng also in deep distress, we go to the Dafan Wen sibs, who have also reached a breaking point. Because they helped Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, they are traitors to their clan - unquestionably so - and are being punished for it, with Wen Ning having been tortured in addition to being locked up.

I see my light come shining From the west down to the east Any day now, any day now I shall be released

You know how Lan Xichen successfully argued for Wen-Clan-Member Meng Yao's life and status, because Meng Yao betrayed Wen Ruohan to help them? Even though Meng Yao killed a bunch of Nie guys? Wen Ning and Wen Qing also betrayed Wen Ruohan and helped the Sunshot Campaign, without killing a bunch of guys. They should have been treated as allies by the four other clans, but they got diddly.  

I’ve Been Dead Once

We return to Wei Wuxian in the burial grounds, where he's lying on the ground surrounded by resentful energy and by strained, desperate voices calling his name. This whole sequence is remarkable, since it effectively communicates the horror he's experiencing, through little more than Xiao Zhan's face and good sound design.

I hang around dying to be tortured  You'll never be alone in the bone orchard

The voices call four versions of his name. A variety of voices call him Wei Wuxian, Wei Gongzi, and Shixiong, which (I think) is what the young Jiang disciples would have called him. And in the midst of those voices, Lan Wangji's voice, low and calm, saying "Wei Ying." Upon hearing that Wei Wuxian starts to drag himself up.

For a show with definitely no zombies in it, they sure do use the visual language of zombie films for Wei Wuxian's first motions after hitting the ground. Starting with twitching fingers, then gradually pulling himself halfway up and crawling, lurching across the ground. Wei Wuxian comes slowly back to life, the very first member of his army of the dead.

He makes his way across the ground toward the floating turtle sword. Along the way he accidentally grabs the world's most bowlegged thigh bone; the lack of sunshine in the burial mounds puts the skeletons at risk for rickets.  All of the skeletons in the show are exactly what you would expect from the practical effects team that made the demon hand and the animatronic dog.

The turtle sword is roiling with resentful energy, and is talking to Wei Wuxian as he crawls toward it, asking if he wants revenge. And what a coincidence, he DOES want revenge. 

He grabs the sword and plunges it into the ground in an explosion of resentful energy. (Ground: why you gotta take it out on me?)

The sequence ends with the most compelling, ominous shot of Wei Wuxian's face...a new man. 

Soundtrack: 1. I Shall Be Released by Bob Dylan 2. Beyond Belief by Elvis Costello  

Writing Prompt: The Day Wei Wuxian arrived, from the POV of a Burial Mounds ghost.