#and i think it is a /wild/ premise for the heroes to have in [spoilers]

[aparticularbandit]

me: no, i'm not going to put junko with amnesia in this fic, kyoko wouldn't do that

also me: okay but you know the memory sucking machine has to be in the building somewhere because they'd already locked themselves in when junko took everyone's memories

me: sure, but i don't want to put all of the ideas into one fic. no

also me: okay but you know byakuya would totally find the machine at some point and just wait for the opportunity to get to junko to do that to her out of revenge right

me: ....

also me: especially since he can't kill her without setting off the purifier

me: ....

also me: and then you would get the fun of parallels. spend one half of the fic with kyoko having no memories and slowly recovering them; then spend the other half of the fic with junko with no memories

me: ....

also me: you know it's a good idea

me: i actually know the best place for that to happen, too, because it would coincide with the other plot with the remnants and could play out really well

also me: :D

[being-of-rain]

I listened to The Last Day, Big Finish's lead-in to the TV Movie. It was more or less what I expected from the fact that it's a sequel to Dark Universe, co-written by that release's author and script editor. Which is to say, it reminds me of a lot of Event Comics from DC or Marvel: bombastic and full of spectacle, has a Big Deal premise and lots of characters crossing over, happy to do a character-assassination or few to make the plot work, and ultimately not particularly good.

I think I'll just write down my thoughts in dot point form. Spoilers ahead. There's a few positives mixed in there somewhere, I swear.

In case you don't know, the plot is that the Doctor takes over the universe (using all-powerful creatures from another universe that have decided to whatever he tells them to) in order to solve everyone's problems by destroying species and rewriting people's timelines. Ace puts together an over-complicated plan involving many of the Doctor's friends and enemies to stop him.

-The premise of Seven finally going full control-freak might make for a good finale to a character arc (maybe) with a story arc and writers that really do justice to the character. These were not that. Unless I missed something, there's no explanation whatsoever why the Doctor took over the universe - no inciting incident, one day he just got tired of not taking it over I guess.

-And honestly, the vibe I got from basically every EU story I've consumed is that Seven was more of a master manipulator in the middle of his life, and as he grew older he mellowed and grew tired of masterplans. So personally, this feels far from "natural progression" the writers claim it to be for Seven's final days.

-The story really didn't act as a great finale to any arc, really. It didn't feel like a necessary continuation to any of the characters' stories. It didn't even really do anything with Ace's anger at the Doctor that bubbles over at the very end of Dark Universe, too late for that story to do anything at all interesting with it. To be completely honest, I'm not even certain if the hero Ace of this story (as opposed to the Evil Ace also in this story) is supposed to be young Ace or old Ace. I assume Old Ace since she's on the covers? (and a comment made by Roz that I wasn't sure which way it was supposed to be read). But to be fair the cover uses a young Hex and Sally when they're supposedly several decades older in this, a young Seven because for some reason they don't have the rights to TV Movie Seven, and a young Mel when god knows how/if this fits into her timeline.

-The covers are also just bland in general. Marvel movie poster disease.

-One positive that Event Comics have that this doesn't is that there isn't any fresh new story arcs starting from this story either. Given how utterly disinterested Big Finish is in creating any ongoing arcs or connected series or anything that's not as standalone as they can make it, they can't really do big Event Stories. The events of The Last Day will be lucky to ever get mentioned again - which is wild when you consider this is the time the Doctor decided to take over the universe. I saw someone online say 'it's hilarious that the Doctor will spend their lives being ashamed of the War Doctor for picking up a gun when Seven did THIS' and it's TRUE.

-All this plus the fact its set in a universe where timelines are altered in order to bring back dead characters (and presumably return them to the grave by the end although they didn't go into that) makes this story feel much more like an alternate universe What If style tale, with about as much impact on the franchise as that would suggest.

This is going to be a long post, I can tell. But I want it to be just one post so... take breaks if you need to. Drink water. Now, what else.

-The story was naturally presented as the bringing together of lots of elements from Seven's life, but I think it's far more accurate to say it's the bringing together of lots of elements created by these writers specifically. The majority of characters, species, and concepts not from the TV show were created or mostly developed by Guy Adams and Matt Fitton, and considering how iffy I find so much of their combined bibliography, that was not a happy discovery for me. The Quantum Possibility Engine, a story by Adams without much impact on the franchise, is honestly more necessary required reading than Dark Universe.

-Probably the most obvious example of this is Mother Finsey, featured on the cover of Part One, who previously appeared in a single Third Doctor story by Adams. She has a fun premise, being an ex-companion of the Master, but it wasn't necessary to this story to include her.

-Another example is Stenn the Sontaran, is a specific Sontaran from the random Fitton sontaran story Starlight Robbery (which I absolutely wouldn't have known if not for the behind the scenes interviews). And the real reason that annoys me is: do you know who else is in Starlight Robbery? Elizabeth Klein! A fantastic Seventh Doctor companion who feels tailor-made not only for a Seventh Doctor final story extravaganza, but for this story in particular!! I don't know why or who made the decision not to include her, but it's hard to feel cheated when she was left out and so many other characters weren't.

Okay, I know I'm getting nitpicky and personal but honestly... I want to be nitpicky about this. I try to be so objective and fair in my reviews sometimes, let me be nitpicky about this one.

That said, we're up to a few things I liked!

-I did rather like Ace in this story (mostly). She's the one leading the plan to stop the Doctor, and listening to her fly around in the TARDIS coordinating plots and pulling strings felt so right to me. I've always loved the idea of her taking after the Doctor, learning from him in the way the TV show started all those years ago, so in that one respect, this story felt like it was culmination of decades of build up. Other stories have definitely shown parts of that, but this one feels the most like Ace carrying on the legacy of the Doctor. It feels wrong to be complimenting this story on how it treats the Ace and Doctor relationship, for reasons we'll come to later.

-My favourite single episode of the twelve-parter has to be the second one. Episode one's cliffhanger of Ace saving someone who turns out to be the Master, happily asking him to help save the universe, and him laughing his head off, put me in a gleeful mood. And that continued throughout episode two, in which Ace puts together her suicide squad of villains. Not even the out-of-place Mother Finsey or the obnoxious Garundel being part of it could dampen my spirits.

-When Big Finish announced that Kane, from 1987's Dragonfire, was returning, I rolled my eyes. But damn it if he didn't become my favourite part of this story. Hearing a fully-realised Ace face off against her teenage self's first ever villain, this time with flamethrower to make him sit down and have a civil conversation, was delicious, and worked wonderfully as the framing story for episode two. He was also a surprisingly good character in his own right, fiercely intelligent and quick to follow everything going on, but without being loud and annoying about it like the Time Lords and their companions. His airs of respectability made it extra fun for him to be walking around in a cooling survival suit like Mr Freeze. I never thought I'd come out of this thinking 'that was kind of a better sequel to Dragonfire than anything else' and 'I wish we got more Kane' but here we are.

-The Master was also incredibly fun. Guy Adams sometimes has a way of writing characters that's very... I'm not sure how best to describe it. Abstract? Philosophical? Slightly off? It'll sound like he's trying to get the best quotes or thinking points out of them, rather than what they might realistically say (like how James Goss writes, but less so). And while I might not like it all the time, it works great for the Master, especially when he's not the main antagonist. Instead he'll skulk around the other characters, enjoying himself and having lots of the best lines. Geoffrey Beevers is, as always, a delight.

That was a lot of good things! You can't accuse me of not finding things to like. Remember to stand up and stretch, by the way. Relax the tension in your shoulders.

-Now, to talk about the end. I was curious how it was actually going to tie into the TV movie, and remained so for most of the story because it was not obvious. In the end... well I only just listened to it today, but first impressions is that I don't like how they did it.

-At the time it was announced that the Master was going to be in The Last Day, I was hyperfocusing on the Master's timeline, so I was incredibly intrigued by Big Finish finally linking the decayed Master they introduced in 2001 to the next incarnation. In the final episode, his bitter ex-companion Finsey kidnapped him and simply dumped him on Skaro, which did feel rather contrived considering how much she seemed to want to personally finish him off.

-What annoyed me more (and now I'm going to get mad at something very niche) is that just before dumping him, Finsey makes a comment about the Master 'looking healthier' and he says that he picked up a new regeneration cycle while he was on Gallifrey. Beevers voice doesn't really change at all, so I guess they're saying that he didn't properly regenerate but just grew skin and a goatee (and switched his ragged cloak for a sharp suit) and it was the Beevers Master that appeared at the start of the TV movie? A few years ago Big Finish put some hard work and a fascinating story behind giving the Master a new regeneration cycle after the TV movie, but now they're apparently saying before that he just casually picked one up, didn't even use a full regeneration out of it and then lost the whole cycle immediately. That's even stupider than the Thirteenth Doctor getting her life back from the Master then dying again twice over the next day.

-Now on to the Doctor's ending. I'll tell you what happened. As soon as Ace gets face to face with him, he gives the whole universe takeover up, which was rather anticlimactic, but rather more in-character than deciding to do the takeover in the first place, so whatever. He goes to have a drink at a cafe with Ace and then she 'accidentally' gets a drink spilled on him. He goes to change clothes in the TARDIS and gets a call while there- from Narvin, telling him the Master has been killed on Skaro and would like to be picked up. The Doctor muses that if he wasn't in the TARDIS at this exact moment he would've missed the message and someone else would've gone (because Time Lords don't have voice mail I guess) and outside Ace says "Manipulative people always become something dark. I'll have to watch out for that. Hopefully I'll have a friend who loves me enough to stop me. Goodbye, Doctor."

-Now, I like the idea of tying the very end of Seven's life to Ace, the most important relationship in that life. But having her have him killed because he was too dangerous sure is A Choice. My conception of Seven's life story was someone who got worse and then regretted it and mellowed. This story suggests he got worse and worse until his closest friend had to kill him. Yowza.

-This continues what I hated from Dark Universe: the idea that Ace and the Doctor's relationship is ultimately bad. I hate that! I enjoy some depth and some toxicity to relationships but Ace and Seven just don't seem THAT bad to me, and are both characters I want to have happier endings. And these two stories feel like they treat the topic with surprisingly little depth either, both of them simply finishing with 'and they were bad for each other, The End' before they could start an interesting discussion!

-There's an Evil Ace in this story, an alternate timeline Ace who the Doctor picked to take care of Earth for him- by being its authoritarian ruler, of course. And I think her only real purpose in the story, apart from being a reference to Ace's many canon timelines (again a reference rather than a discussion), is to show how bad the Doctor and Ace can be for each other and for everyone else. But it feels so flat for me, because neither character would act like that! "Manipulative people always become something dark" is such a boring and shallow thesis.

-It's made clear that part of the reason Evil Ace can be so cruel and callous is her time studying with the Time Lords and feeling superior with them, which she did early during her travels with Hex. I do hope this isn't suggesting that the 'prime timeline Ace' (if there could possibly be such a thing) didn't train with the Time Lords, or it would've been a bad thing if she did. I like Time Lord Ace.

-On another topic, Narvin being the one to tell the Doctor to go pick up the Master is funny. Put that man in vital parts of Dr Who lore. He hates it. And it just makes it funnier when Narvin and the Doctor reintroduce themselves every so often like they've never met before.

-Oh, and the scene that Doom Coalition and Dark Universe share has the Doctor being told that the president has one more request for him, implied to be that he pick up the Master. So I guess this story (which is, I again stress, the sequel to Dark Universe) just ignores that jskldjf. Dr Who would truly rather die than have a coherent canon in any parts of the franchise.

Anything else I want to say? Oh the other companions.

-It was nice to hear a bunch of the companions again. They probably didn't need so many returning characters, and by the end I had trouble remembering who was where, but I can't blame them for going all out (or as all out as they felt like, anyway.)

-It was cute how Hex and Sally named their kids for Hex's mum, Hex's friend from his first story, and especially Evelyn <3 I hope Sally got some say in the matter. Honestly their segments were slightly too Family Melodrama for me, but that's personal taste.

-Probably the most boring episode was episode four which was just Mel and Benny running trying to avoid Hob from The Quantum Possibility Engine (and the DWM comics, but none of Seven's). Benny's always at least charismatic with a good actor, and I was worried that this was her only appearance, so I'm glad she returned in the second box set for some more wisecracks.

-Given the TV show's recent retcons, Big Finish forgetting its own plotlines, young Mel being used on the cover, and this being something of a sequel to her previous appearance travelling with Seven and Ace, it's possible this could be the last appearance of the Mel who reunited with Seven in A Life of Crime and had more adventures with him. As well as, I suppose, an opportunity to explain it away as a changing timeline, if you want to do that kind of thing.

-Lysandra died and I assume she came back to life at the end. Quite a few characters died but she was one of the only ones who wasn't either brought back to life during the story or was dead before it started anyway. I suppose Vienna Salvatori also fits into that category? So yeah they're both probably alive again, it's fine.

-Roz's death in the novels was actually a plot point, which is yet another time Big Finish has tied itself closely to the New Adventures in some ways while contradicting them in others (I'm thinking of the Master specifically). I don't mind though, that's something that's been going on for 25 years now. One day the EDAs might get the same treatment.

Anything else?

-The incidental music was bad. I think it was just recycled from previous audios, but even if it wasn't it almost always felt really out of place and took me out of scenes all the time.

-Oh Brax got a mention which was fun. In the Doctor's new universe he exiled Brax who then died, much to the Doctor's distress. Big Rip moustache man.

That's all I can think to say about this set right now. So overall it had it's fun parts, but failed to be much of a big event, and had a really bad take on Seven and his relationship with Ace.

[skyloftian-nutcase]

For the fanfic writer ask meme: A & M

A: Of the fanfic you’ve written, which is your favorite and why?

Paradox is another big favorite of mine! I still love the premise of it, and the rush of just having the idea slam into me and I ran to the computer and wrote it while Van Medoh music played over and over was just so much fun. I cranked that sucker out in like forty-five minutes and I still think it’s one of my best stories. The scene where Time’s willing to hold the Master Sword just to help Sky brings me a lot of joy too haha.

M: What’s the weirdest AU scenario you’ve come up with? Did it turn into a story?

Haha I was wondering if someone was gonna ask this!

So currently, the weirdest AU playing through my head is from my idea of TotK: Hero’s Shadow. Essentially it’s “what if Ganondorf won?”

TotK talk below the cut because I know some lovelies don’t want spoilers.

So the idea is that Shadow escaped Gan’s clutches, ran into Wild, and the two were traveling together. Gan recaptures Shadow and takes total control over him (beforehand he’d only take control when he thought Shadow needed to be reeled in). Shadow fights it tooth and nail as best he can, but Gan uses him to help fight Wild and they defeat him. Shadow finally breaks under all the pressure and the strain on his mind, like full on mental breakdown - age regression, can’t function, is totally dependent on Gan.

Ganondorf is now faced with the dilemma that he has his kingdom but his family is kind of a disaster and, by his standards, weak. And it’s his own doing. He reshapes Hyrule in his image, kills the majority of the people in Central Hyrule when he creates the Gloom Field. The rest flee the kingdom. He brings the Gerudo to heel. He captures most of the sages and corrupts them to be his soldiers (Turin escapes, rescuing Wild and helping him flee because Turin is awesome and I love him). Many refugees go to Yona’s Domain, where she’s trying to guide and help the survivors and very much feeling survivor’s guilt and imposter syndrome as queen to a people who aren’t hers and a widow (she doesn’t know Sidon survived) right after marriage.

With the world as his oyster, Gan could just let the power corrupt him entirely and toss Shadow aside, but he chooses to try and help the broken kid. He hides him from the world, though, trying to protect him. At some point Shadow is aware enough that seeing Gan’s secret stone just triggers full on meltdowns, and Ganondorf actually takes it off and leaves it hidden so he can take care of him. Eventually, Shadow’s in bad enough shape that Gan summons Yona, who has to figure out how to heal this kid’s mind while also trying not to die while also realizing Sidon is alive and has to be rescued - and if Sidon’s alive, who else could be?

Shadow eventually recovers and he and Yona bust out while rescuing the sages. Meanwhile, Wild and Tulin are gathering a resistance (after Wild has his own meltdown over losing, that is). They all meet up and fight Gan, I guess… idk if Gan actually decides to be a decent person or not.

This AU is likely never going to get written, but it’s been lurking in my brain for weeks and I can’t say why lol.

[albertonykus]

Doraemon Movie Review: Nobita in the Wan-Nyan Spacetime Odyssey (2004)

What is Doraemon? The title character of the Doraemon manga and anime is a blue robotic cat from the 22nd Century who keeps an array of high-tech gadgets in a portable pocket dimension on his belly, and has traveled from the future to improve the fortunes of a hapless schoolboy named Nobita. Although relatively obscure in the English-speaking world, Doraemon is a Mickey-Mouse-level cultural icon in East Asia (and some other regions, too). The Doraemon franchise was a big part of my childhood, and there are still elements of it that I enjoy now.

Doraemon has released theatrical films almost annually since 1980, most of which involve Nobita and his friends (kind Shizuka, brash Gian, and crafty Suneo) getting swept into adventures thanks to Doraemon's gadgets. Despite being of potentially broad appeal to fans of science fiction and animated films, there are very few English reviews of the Doraemon movies, so I'm embarking on a project to write about all the films that have come out so far. Good luck to me…

Movie premise: Nobita does something about the local stray problem by sending abandoned dogs and cats to a safe haven 300 million years ago. The stray animals then start their own civilization.

My spoiler-free take: This film contains the right elements to be a great Doraemon movie, but has room for improvement in the handling of its story.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT

Review: This movie is a landmark, being the last film to come out of the classic Doraemon anime that started in 1979. All the remaining Doraemon movies from here on out were (and will be) released following the 2005 anime reboot.

Befitting the old anime series’ final cinematic hurrah, this film has an interesting art style that almost seems “transitional” between the visuals used for most of the classic series and those of the reboot series. There’s no other Doraemon movie that looks quite like it.

The storyline of Nobita in the Wan-Nyan Spacetime Odyssey has many ingredients that could make a great Doraemon movie: there are time travel shenanigans, emotional connections between the protagonists and movie-exclusive characters, and decent action sequences with creative application of gadgets. However, I thought that the execution of the story was not as fluent as it could have been. There are times when the plot simply moves too fast, leaving little time for major developments to sink in, and the reveal that Sharmee, a cat idol singer who Doraemon falls in love with, was working with the villain would have been more impactful had it not been shown to the audience before being made known to Doraemon.

In addition, the characters make a few strange decisions in the name of plot convenience. For example, at one point most of the protagonists and their allies escape from the villain’s base while knowing that Doraemon is still imprisoned inside, but only decide to go rescue Doraemon after they’ve already left the base. Luckily for them, the villain chooses that very moment to leave the base himself in his time machine, bringing the captive Doraemon with him, which saves the heroes the trouble of having to go back inside. What are the odds?

Also, Doraemon’s romantic subplot with Sharmee felt awkward considering that he was shown going on a date with his girlfriend in the beginning of the movie. (His girlfriend is a regular house cat, if you’re wondering.)

On a different note, it was hard for me not to feel a sense of wistfulness as this movie ended, not so much because of the content of the film itself, but due to its status as one of the last works from the 1979 series, which was the Doraemon anime I grew up with. I think the main voice actors on the current Doraemon anime are excellent, but this movie made me realize how much I’m going to miss the old voice cast.

It’s wild to think about how long this franchise has been going. A child who was the same age as Nobita and his classmates when the first Doraemon movie was released would have been 34 by the time this one came around! And though there has been a changing of the guard, this remarkable robot cat and his friends show no signs of stopping anytime soon.

Star rating: ★★★☆☆

[boku-no-anime-phase]

Sugar Apple Fairy Tale first season review

(with apologies to the friend who recommended this to me, for thinking way too hard about this piece of media like I do everything. Sorry friend. I'm incapable of being a casual enjoyer.)

Spoilers for Sugar Apple Fairy Tale S1 upcoming, as well as discussion of topics like sexism, discrimination and slavery.

SAFT follows Ann Halford, an aspiring sugar artist, as she enters sugar sculpture competitions, takes freelance work with unreasonable clients who don't know what they want, trains under sugar sculpture masters, and deals with politics and sexism in the workplace. Oh yeah, and falls in love with her man-sized gothboy fairy friend.

I honestly don't even know where to start with this show 😂

Let's talk plot. When I watch anime, I expect to have to swallow some wild stuff in the first episode to establish the premise. My Hero Academia said "suddenly everyone got powers, idk how." Fruits Basket said, "these boys turn into animals (literally) when a girl touches them." Once you get past the wild initial premise, you can pretty much sit back and enjoy the show. And those shows are kinda classic! So having a ridiculous premise doesn't mean you can't have a great show (especially in the case of FB, which has an absolutely absurd premise, but is a phenomenal and moving show once you accept that and immerse yourself).

With SAFT, I felt like every episode I had to accept some new aspect of the world that was difficult to swallow. I don't think it ever explained why sugar and sugar sculptures are so culturally important to this kingdom. That wouldn't have been an issue as long as they established how important sugar sculptures actually were - I was surprised over and over again by minor characters' investment in the over-arching plot. 🤷 The storytelling also didn't feel internally consistent. Certain plot beats or themes were introduced like halfway through the season, where they definitely should have come up before. And certain plot points definitely felt contrived - characters coming up with solutions to problems that felt like they could have been solved another way.

It's not like I didn't have a good time watching this show - I did - but also I'm cursed to never just enjoy something, I have to Actually Think About It.

On that topic, let's talk about themes.

This show seemed like it had a few thoughts about sexism, slavery, and minorities... But I don't feel like it really committed and delivered its message, at least in the first season.

Fairies in this are often enslaved to humans and at the beginning we see some distrust from fairies directed towards Ann because of this dynamic, which I thought was interesting; but she quickly "proved herself" as an ally and won their trust.

The other messaging about fairy slavery is super mixed. Ann is against it and frees the only fairy she buys as soon as she is able (actually before it's even feasible but whatever). Another character we meet is a benevolent master to a fairy who is only "technically" enslaved - he could claim his freedom at any time, but doesn't because he enjoys his situation (😬). In another situation, an enslaved fairy is in love with her master. But then we meet another character who treats fairies, including free fairies, as subhuman, and the show highlights how she treats fairies differently than humans because she looks down on them, and that's bad. But it doesn't seem to make a consistent moral stand on the slavery of fairies, and often casts humans who "own" fairies in a sympathetic light, or paints the relationship between the human master and enslaved fairy as a mutually-agreed-upon, mutually beneficial thing. That made me pretty uncomfortable. It seems like the show wanted to really grapple with slavery as a topic, but couldn't stick the landing.

Also, towards the end of the season we find out that female sugar artists are extremely rare (feels like this should have come up earlier tbh!), and the show introduces ¿¿Christianity?? Or like a religion that seems to borrow really heavily from Christian creation myths and their sexist undertones? Anyway. Ann experiences a lot of gendered discrimination at this point. It seems like a weird time to introduce such an important theme, but 🤷 it also feels like it wants to grapple with sexism as a topic, but imo it fumbles there too - sexism is a factor in the harassment Ann experiences, but it's not really the thing that ultimately puts her in trouble. Also around this time, the show's second significant female character is introduced, and she actually fits a bunch of sexist stereotypes so it feels like the show shot itself in the foot.

The way the season ended, it seems like slavery is going to be an ongoing Big Topic, but I'm concerned that it's going to be a plot point rather than something to be truly grappled with and dealt with on a moral plane. If I were gonna make a prediction, I'd say S2 will be mostly concerned with slavery in the sense that Ann will be upset that Challe is serving someone else, and the orders his new master gives him will hurt Ann's feelings bc she thinks he's doing it because he wants to. That feels like an icky way to talk about slavery, to me. I could be wrong though (let's hope so).

I don't want to be one of those moral purists that's like, "shows shouldn't depict XYZ", but I do think it's kind of irresponsible to depict stuff like chattel slavery without giving it adequate moral consideration, and this show just... Doesn't seem like it's the type of show to spend a lot of time challenging the morals of something. Maybe S2 will be surprising but 🤷 I also recognize that this is Japanese media and idk what their history is with slavery but maybe it's not such a sensitive topic there. I'm not sure.

Last thing, which is more of a generalized anime gripe - the main character is 15 (which she takes care to inform us is the age of legal majority in her country). She's in love with a 100+yo. WHY 💀 they could have at least made her an adult - 3-4 years is not that different! Why is it always teenage girls in love with powerful immortals?

All in all, it's a fun brainless show with a cute developing interspecies romance if that's your thing. I can't turn off my brain and I also do intersectional feminist analysis here so here ya go 😅

Did you watch it? What did you think? How is S2 so far? I don't know how to end this post help

[supercanaries]

Reply to Curious Cat (12/15 - posting here for character limit)

Hey Edy, welcome to curious cat! I love your art, it's so great to find someone who likes both DabiHawks and RenKaza. Could you recommend some of your fav fics for both the pairings? I've been in the DabiHawks fandom longer so I've read a few but not really for RenKaza. (Sorry if I sent this Q a bajillion times, curious cat wasn't working for me LOL.)

Hey anon ♥ thank you so much for you words 🙏🏻 so glad you like both ships as well, they're so great!

It's quite the opposite for me, I've been in the AkaRenkaza fandom for longer and I just got into MHA! I will go ahead and list some of my favorite fics, or the ones I'm currently obsessed with!

Please, make sure to check out all the warnings and ratings before you read them!

--

🔥❄️ AkaRen/RenKaza

FLEUR DE LUNE by Zyloa You've probably already read this one, but it's one of my absolute favorites! Slight canon divergence premise where the sun rises earlier at the Mugen train set and the entire story changes. I adore this story, I have read it a while ago and I still think it to be one of the best in canonverse.

DON'T FORGET TO BREATHE by Zyloa BEST!!!! I love this so, SO MUCH! For a change, Kyojuro finds out about Akaza's backstory right at the beginning, when they first meet at the Mugen Train because he gets accidentally sucked into his dreams, thank you Enmu. It's a lovely fic, some moments really got… to my… heart?? I was holding my breath and squealing asdfghjk. Just. Too. Good. No spoilers on it but just when you think it couldn't get any better… it does.

SMOKE & MIRRORS by emilieee A favorite! Demon Slayer set in modern AU with demons and demon slayer corps still being a thing! It's slow-build but it's such good romance!!! Also, Em is evil and she enjoys Akaza suffering so if you're into Akaza suffering, there's that! The updates of this story literally never miss!

WHAT I WOULDN'T GIVE by DragonsAndCryptids T rated. This is a very lovely fic revolving around the concept of Senjurou becoming ill just like Ruka, and Akaza offers demon blood, so it deals with Kyojurou struggling to figure out if and how much he's willing to compromise to keep his little brother alive. Author's also writing a new RenKaza fic but I'm yet to start reading it!

THE NEVERENDING NIGHT by apodis This is absolutely wild. I LOVE this story, it just!! goes!! so hard!! It's like it's a book of its own and not a fan fiction. I'm sure you already know about this story but in case you don't, rush to it!

LITTLE FIGHTER BOY COMES MARCHING HOME by VTheTrashKing ADORABLE. But also very sad. Kyojuro's left to deal with a child version of Hakuji/Akaza. I think about this story a lot, sometimes I even sketch it. It's so nice.

IT'S ALWAYS SO by Chesh_Ire Sadly… :( This story hasn't updated anymore :( But I really loved the premise and these two chapters, so I'll drop them here anyway :( I thought about it so many times since reading it. Childhood sparring AkaRen (and then in the future stuff happens lmao), my heart!!

🪶💙 Dabi Hawks / TouKei

BIG REPUTATIONS by phanatics I thought at my age, after all this fandom experience 'I am NEVER reading fake relationship again'. But this is TOO good to pass on lol. Both make music and they need this fake relationship for different purposes. LMAO I'm obsessed with this fic!!! I think about scenes from it all the time haha embarrassing! I love all the social media posts and also how it manages to perfectly fit the canon story and characters into this AU setting. A lot of work into this one evidently!

INTO YOU by EloFromMars EXTREMELY CUTE because they're both unbearable. Hawks and Pro Hero Touya. They tease and annoy each other A LOT. I loved every second of it.

THRESHOLDS by phanatics Shiketsu high school AU. It's really cute and it will melt your heart. I really like stories where it's, you know, the little things, not necessarily 'too much', that make you go awwww. And this one does it. I actually wanna reread it as I type this.

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These are the ones that are on the top of my head right now, but there's so so many, so if you'd like more or if you've already read all of these, please ask away! There's also many lovely oneshots I have not included yet!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the stories and to talk about them as well! Forgive me for taking two days to reply, I had forgot to download the CC app and so I didn't get any notification (dumb edy energy!) DW, you've only sent it once!

Have a lovely day and thank you for asking me! ♥

[cake-apostate]

Four Akiras in a Trenchcoat AU: Envy and Violet

[The premise of this AU is that Akira Kurusu of Persona 5 is his timeline’s version of Akira from SMT4. Before the start of the game, Big Bad had Black Mask kill “that stupid kid” out of sheer pettiness, leaving Akira an empty shell. To salvage their Wild Card, the Velvet Room drags in four parallel versions of him: Blasted Akira, Infernal Akira, the late King Akira, and Anarchy Nanashi. The four of them possess Joker’s empty shell.]

Given that the Four are the same person who made different decisions, I wonder if they’d relate to Violet? I can see how they could envy one another, especially since they could have been one another. 

Infernal Akira envies their character. He could have been clever like King Aquila, decisive and unrelenting like Nanashi, but most of all, he could have been charismatic and levelheaded like Blasted. He knows that he’s cowardly, weak, that he backs down and makes other people do the work for him. “Why couldn’t I be strong like them?”

Blasted Akira envies their circumstances. The other Tokyos had most of their resources unspoiled, and Mikado is a prosperous country. He envies Infernal Akira most of all, because there’s so much untapped potential with a completely unnuked Tokyo and Demonoids abound. Meanwhile, he’s stuck in a radioactive desert where God wants everyone dead. “Why couldn’t I be lucky like them?”

Nanashi envies their charisma. He knows full well how fickle public adoration can be, but there’s something about how the Samurai of Mikado were reluctant to break King Aquila’s code, how he was so beloved that the angels tried to erase his legacy. He’s jealous of how everyone looks up to Blasted, how no Demonoid wants to usurp Infernal because he’s doing such a good job as king. Nanashi sacrificed his bonds for the greater good, not because they were worthless. “Why am I alone at the end of my road?”

King Aquila, most of all, envies their potential. He’s long dead, and he saw how he failed. His legacy was misread, the kingdom he built waged war on his homeland, and right when he thought everything would turn out fine, some idiot monk starts wreaking havoc to the point where Nanashi murdering literally everyone in his kingdom is considered a mercy kill. “Why can they still change the world?”

Spoilers for the third semester

Since they all could have been one another, the Four understand how Sumire feels inferior to her own twin sister. After her cooldown, they wind up going to dinner and swapping stories about how they felt like they each got the short end of the stick. Also Akechi is along for the ride. 

Also, the new reality. I was thinking that the Four woke up during the third semester not because they had no desires, but because the new reality wasn’t built to handle their situation.

I was thinking that there’s got to be someone out there with a seriously outlandish wish, like, “I want to be a space ranger,” or, “I want to be a wizard.” I think the system usually deals with those by separating their perception from everyone else’s; for example, if Mr. Akiyama the salaryman wants to be a fantasy hero, he’ll see a mall as a goblin cave, while the shoppers see a small cute child waving around a toy sword.

King Aquila sees Tokyo as Mikado because his wish is the chance to fix Mikado, but the other three see Tokyo as Tokyo. Once they realize that he’s not seeing the same things as them, they argue over who’s hallucinating.

The next crack is Nanashi’s desire to be loved. Whether he wants to be worshiped or simply liked, he’s still a god and lots of people declaring their undying love for him qualifies as worship. Suddenly he gains the power to perform divine miracles, which is a huge crack in their ‘normal’ world. I’m not entirely sure if this is in character, but I do think that it would be hilarious.

Also, Nanashi finds the whole reality to be fake not because it’s poorly constructed, but because there’s a huge disconnect between his idea of normal and the current Tokyo. 

Blasted and Infernal’s wishes don’t really conflict with the reality; Blasted wants prosperity and glory, while Infernal wants to be strong, brave, and just. They break out anyways because when they all start arguing over what’s real and what’s not, they end up punching holes in each other’s ideal worlds to the point where the whole illusion shatters.

[averagewriter-inthedark]

Surprise Litter | Post NWH Series P. 7

Contains spoilers for Spider-Man NWH

Catch up on p.1-6 -> Series Masterlist | Marvel Masterlist

Characters & Pairings: Tobey!Peter Parker x female!reader/Black Cat (romantic), Benny Parker OC, Harry Parker OC, Mary Jane Watson x John Jameson, Gwen Stacy, J. Jonah Jameson

Content Warnings: fluff, mentions of sex, profanity. Mentions of violence. pregnancy, morning sickness & mentions of menestral cycle. flirtatious banter & sexual tension | female reader (she/her) | this is long like 5k+ words

Premise: A few weeks after their amazing vacation, married vigilante couple Peter & Y/n Parker come home to find their teenage sons have taken a box of stray kittens to nurse and find loving homes. It was quite the shock, but little do they know it isn’t the only surprise litter in store for the family.

Note: this is the second to last part of this series ! 😭 only one more chapter to go and then the bonus chapter! I can’t believe this is almost done, but I’m so excited to start the prequel series! Hope you enjoy this as much as I did writing it (this has a lot of love and fluff which is so fitting cause the day I posted this was Valentine’s Day 🥺)

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“I forgot how much I missed this,” Y/n hummed, leaning back into Peters chest while they sat on the rooftop of Chrysler building overlooking the city. Neither were in their costumed hero looks. “We used to do this all the time in the beginning—before the twins.” She felt his arms tighten around her waist, leaning his chin on her head. “All those nights after patrol where we would just sit here and watch the sun rise. Or even if we didn’t hit the streets and just wanted some quiet time to see the stars.”

“Those were the days. Just the two of us being young and free,” he mumbles against her hair. “City hasn’t changed much, but we sure have, Cat.”

She gives a sigh, “I know. A lot has changed—wish time could take a pause.” A smile forms when she feels Peter kiss the side of her head. “Especially now with what’s to come,” there’s a hint of amusement in her tone then Y/n playfully pouts, “I still can’t believe you didn’t let us swing up here, Peter.”

“Can’t be taking any risks,” he defends with a chuckle, hands moving to rest on top of her stomach—stroking it lightly.

It had been a wild couple weeks for the Parkers. The new year was rung in, the boys were back in school, and the couple went on an amazing weekend vacation—having just returned the previous Sunday.

When they arrived back in Queens, trotting their luggages through the door they were stopped short by a faint sound coming from the kitchen. They had told the twins when they landed and what time they would be picked up from their friends house, but something told them the boys decided to beat them home.

Which immediately made them suspicious considering the sounds they were hearing. “I’m told you we should’ve put them in the basement!” They could make out Benny’s whisper shout, “—now how are we supposed to hide this?”

“It’s too cold in there, Benz! It’s fucking January in New York for Christ’s sake.”

“Well you can be the one to explain since this was your idea.”

“You didn’t have a problem agreeing so don’t think you’ll get a free pass.”

The adults looked at each other perplexed—both thinking the same questions. What were the twins hiding? And why did it have to do with a faint meowing sound.

Y/n placed her purse on the table by the door, leaving her suitcase in the hall—Peter doing the same, and they both began walking to the kitchen. “Boys,” she tilts her head, “What are you doing? We said we’d come get you once we got situated.” Before she could enter the room, Benny rushed out and stopped her in the doorway.

“Hey mom!” He greeted, pulling her into a hug. “We missed you guys—did you have fun? How was the flight?”

Peter gave his son a look of ‘are you really doing this?’ “Flight was good. We had a wonderful time. Now what are you hiding in the kitchen?” Harry then popped in the doorway, trying to not look suspicious but was failing.

“Hiding?” He nervously chuckles, “we’re not hiding anything—we were just discussing some—.”

Y/n cut him off with a wave of a hand, “I know I did not raise my sons to lie—especially to me.” She watched as they both look down at the ground in shame. Her arms crossed over her chest, “Are you forgetting your father and I have heightened hearing? We could hear you from the front door—and I can hear the meowing from behind you. Drop the act and show us the cat.”

“Ooo that rhymed,” Harry couldn’t help himself which earned a slap on the shoulder by his brother. Y/n wasn’t humored either, “Boys…”

“Okay,” Benny started, “We’re not planning on keeping all of them—.”

“All of them?” Peter raised his brow, matching the expression of his wife, “You mean there’s not one cat back there?”

“Yes,” the boy sighed, bringing his hand to pinch his nose, “Yesterday Harry and I were heading to the school to tutor—like we do on Sunday mornings—and we came across a box of kittens who’d been abandoned.” Harry nods along while Benny tells the story. “There’s only four and we’re already talking with friends to see if they would be interested in having one—.”

“But we were hoping you’d let us keep one. Midnight can have a buddy.”

“—I was going to get to that,” Benny glared at him, annoyed for being interrupted. “Anyway we brought them in because it’s cold outside—but I was going to suggest keeping them in the basement and have the heater on, but Harry felt it would still be too cold.”

“It would be,” Harry rolls his eyes. Y/n and Peter just look at each other in a silent conversation like they were debating on what to do. Eventually Peter sighs and says, “Can you boys let us in so we can see the cats for ourselves?” The two immediately step aside allowing the adults to pass into the kitchen.

Their eyes fall straight to the cardboard box laying on the counter with a blanket covering the top. Y/n walks up, noticing how Midnight was eyeing the box from his place on top of the fridge—not sure if he was curious or threatened. Soft meows were coming within the box, so the woman brought her hand up to remove the blanket—Peter coming beside her so they both could look at the four tiny kittens staring up at them.

One tries to climb out, putting its front paws up to get closer to the parents. All the little animals had big wide eyes, meowing and glancing around their surroundings. Two of the babies were tuxedo cats with white socks, one was fully black with very green eyes, and lastly the last one was a grey tabby.

“Aww hey there fellas,” Y/n cooed, her finger coming up to stroke the tuxedo that had perched up on the box closest to her. She’s immediately met with its soft pours, making her eyes soften. “Do you know the sex of each?”

Harry came around the countertop to sit on a stool, “Both the tuxedoes are boys, and the other two are girls.”

Y/n then raises her brow, glancing at the twins, “And which is the one you two were hoping to have?”

The twins share a look, both debatating on if it were wise to ask. Eventually Harry is the one who speak, “We were…kinda hoping you would consider letting us keep both the tuxedos?” He then defends the offer before the parents could react, “It’s just that they are brothers—twins really so it’s fitting—and one can be mine and the other Bennys.”

Peter thinks, looking at his wife who was mirroring his expression while petting the tuxedo baby still desiring her attention. Y/n lifts her head, biting her lip and even her eyes look a little like she was hoping they would say yes. Knowing it would be hard to deny the woman, Peter sighs though he does chuckle a bit.

“I guess we can make that work—but,” he lifts his finger when the twins start to cheer, face becoming serious. “These cats are your responsibility, understand? Your mom and I are the ones who take care of Midnight, so if you want us to add two more to the family then you’re going to be the ones to feed them, clean their litter box, take them to vet appointments—.”

“Well we can do that, babe,” Y/n playfully scolds, “All we’d need to do is make their appointments the same as Midnights.” The man makes a ‘oh right,’ causing her to chuckle. “But everything else your dad mentioned is true. Think you boys can handle that?”

“Yes, mom.” “Hell yeah.”

Y/n laughs, lifting the kitten from the box to hold him her arms. The little baby purred, nuzzling into her sweater making Y/n coo with soft eyes. “Well then I guess it’s official. Didn’t think we’d have a surprise litter waiting for us at home, but we did say this year would be full of surprises.”

The next hour involved Peter & Y/n getting settled back in the home while the twins went to the vet to have the four kittens up to date on vaccinations. They both had laid their luggages on the bed to empty out while Midnight laid on Peters pillow, his tail wagging lazily. The tv was on playing a random playlist from Spotify while Peter started unpacking his clothes to hang in the closet and Y/n took her toiletries to the bathroom.

In the bathroom, Y/n had organized her makeup and hair tools in it’s usual place when suddenly a wave off nausea hit her, making her stumble. “Woah,” she mumbled under her breath, placing a hand on the counter to steady herself. Her other hand came to her chest before going over her mouth when the feeling became too much. The toilet bowl was uncovered in an instant—Y/n hunching herself over when the contents from her stomach poured out of her.

Peter was more than likely in the closet—and with the music it made it hard to hear if something was going on in the bathroom. Y/n stayed kneeling for a few minutes until confident the nausea ended. When the woman felt it was okay to stand, she flushed the toilet and went back to the sink to wash her hands—brushing her teeth as well to get rid of the taste and smell from her mouth.

Splashing some cold water in her face, her mind started to wonder on what possibly could’ve caused the sickness. She felt fine on the plane ride, and they had only had breakfast at the airport before their flight. Maybe her bacon wasn’t cooked properly? Or the coffee she drank had expired milk.

It confused her greatly.

Y/n continued to think while putting away the rest of her items. Questions continued to fill her brain. ‘Shampoo and hair mask goes in the shower—maybe it was the eggs, I haven’t had eggs in a while so my stomach probably didn’t like it. Razor goes there—loofa there—but then again I had eggs the same way I usually do when I have them. Body wash, face wash, sugar scrub—I don’t have a fever so it’s not like I caught a bug and I don’t feel like shit anywhere else.’

“You okay in there, darling?” Peters voice pulled her from her inner battle. Y/n opened the door slightly—forgetting she had closed it, to show she was still working on her personals, “Yeah I’m almost done in here, babe. Then we can switch so we’re not running into each other—although you know I wouldn’t mind that.” She winked and laughed at his blushing face.

Y/n went back to her side of the counter, opening the bottom drawers to kneels down for the last remaining things in her bags. ‘Extra toothpaste, eye drops, contact solutions—,’ her hands dropped them in the designated places before reaching in her final travel bag. ‘Cotton pads, regular pads—,’ her hand suddenly froze with the item in her grip, ‘and tampons—wait.’

Without thinking Y/n poured out the contents from the bag to the tile floor. They fell in front of her, eyes scanning over the several pads, tampons, and the packet of menstrual pain reliever. “Fuck,” her heart started to race, hand coming to her mouth. When was the last time she had her cycle?

Y/n remembered packing the items just to be safe—her period usually came this time. ‘Fuck, did I have it in December? Yes I did—no maybe I didn’t.’ Her fingers went to her hair, mind scattered as she tried to think back the past several weeks. So much shit had happened between the multiversal adventure, going straight to work—both at Oscorp & as her once crime fighting vigilante—plus the holidays. It’s not surprising keeping track of her monthly cycle was swept under the rug.

Not to mention, she and Peter had been a little more active in the past two months than they usually were. She wasn’t on birth control anymore and they always used a condemn—but recently the item had slipped from their mind with the heat of the moment. Especially on their anniversary night.

Realizing this combined with the sudden wave of nausea had Y/ns heart skip and she fumbled the items in her hands to place in the drawer. Sliding a bit to the left, she opened the cabinet door under the sink and reached back to search for a particular test. After having the twins, the couple thought about having another baby when the twins were out of the toddler stage, but unfortunately were out of luck.

During this time, Y/n would stock up on pregnancy tests. She kept them hidden in a corner under the sink and when the two gave up on trying for another child after four-five years of negatives, never once did she have to use them again.

Until now.

“Babe,” she tried to keep her voice steady, “I’m almost done in here—I just need to pee and I’ll be right out.” She found the box and carefully opened it.

“Okay, honey,” He called back, lowering the music a tad, “I’m pretty much done. I’m going to get a drink—do you want one?”

“Just a glass of water please.” She listened closely for him to leave the room before standing up and hurrying to the toilet. Pulling the cap off, Y/n relieved herself over the area intended to pee on before finishing up and flushing. She placed the cap back on, moving to the sink to wash her hands.

Now it was the waiting game.

This particularly brand only needed about three minutes—so she hoped Peter would find something to occupy himself for a bit until she came out. While tapping her finger against the counter, not looking at the test in fear of what it would say, she could faintly make out the front door opening. A breath of relief left her realizing it was the twins returning home from the vet.

‘Good,’ she thought, ‘they are probably giving him an update.’ Now she can focus on the reality of what could possibly happen if that test turns positive. If it’s negative, life would stay the same. They would live as they are currently—just adding two new cats into the picture, but it would be the same.

Y/n felt a little sad at that. This was something her and Peter had wanted for so long and were heartbroken ten years ago when they couldn’t get pregnant again. Having the nausea and knowing it had been nearly two months since her last period gave Y/n mixed emotions.

There was fear, but mostly hope and excitement. If the test was positive, life would change. But in a good way.

They’d get to be parents again and raise another baby. The twins would be older brothers which was something they had always wanted—even though they joked about the couple to not make them one anytime soon. They would probably need to move. Their little three story townhouse was big enough for the four of them and Midnight, but with two new cats and possibly a newborn it would be tight quarters.

They would be able to afford it—there wasn’t any doubt about that. The Parkers were very stable when it came to money and finances—for Christ’s sake the two ran a division at Oscorp—where they could easily find a home suitable for their large family. There was no issue on that matter.

Y/n would have to retire Black Cat again. It was a given—no hesitation. Did she miss the adrenaline and thrill the nights on patrol gave her? Yes. Was it fun swinging through the city while everyone was oblivious to her identity? Oh yes. Did she feel even more sexually attracted to her husband watching him kick criminals ass? Hell yes she did.

But being a momma cat meant her kittens were the priority. So if there was a baby in her womb, then this Cat was going to retire from the crime fighting life once and for all.

And she was okay with that.

The minutes ticked by and Y/n closed her eyes, picked up the test and turned it around so when she opened them the word revealing the outcome would be the first thing she saw.

3…….her hand started to shake.

2…….she inhaled deeply.

1……..the air left her the same moment her eyes opened. The test nearly fell from Y/ns hands, a choked gasp leaving her while tears brimmed at her eyes. She couldn’t believe what she was reading—having to read the tiny word over and over again.

It was positive.

“Holy shit,” her voice cracked, hand coming to her mouth to stop the sob from escaping. “Oh-oh my god. I can’t believe it.” She was pregnant. Y/n was pregnant again after so many failed attempts and letting the idea go when it seemed like having another baby was not in the cards for her.

Peter would be a dad again. Her sons would be older brothers.

Y/n felt the excitement and happiness soar through her—filling ever inch of her veins. She placed the test on the counter to step back and do a little jump of joy, silently clapping her hands before bringing them up to her face. The smile was so wide she felt she would give the Joker a run for his money.

“Wow—w-wow oh my—shit,” she cursed when she heard approaching footsteps on the staircase. Peter was coming back and Y/n still had the test laid out. If he walked in the bathroom unannounced he’d see it immediately. In a rush, Y/n placed it along with the box in her travel bag she had been emptying and zipped it before shoving it under the sink in the spot she usually put her bag. Peter never went though her stuff unless she asked him too, so she felt confident it would be safe there.

“Y/n, are you almost done?” She heard him say from inside the bedroom. “I have your water.” Brushing off her pants—taking a deep breath to calm her excitement, she stood from the tile and opened the door.

“Yeah,” she gave him a smile, pushing the door so it was wide open and stepped out. “I was just organizing my side a little bit so it wasn’t all over the place. Bathrooms all yours, babe.” A kiss was placed to his cheek and she moved to the bed where her suitcase was, taking a sip of the water Peter left her on the nightstand.

Not even looking in the bag, Y/n took a pile of the clothes before heading straight to the closet. She didn’t know how she would tell her husband and sons of the wonderful news, but it was going to be one hell of a surprise.

The next morning Y/n found herself seated on an examination chair. Knowing how traveling was, the couple had both taken Monday off to recoup after the mini vacation. Peter was at the house with the kittens while Y/n offered to run the errands since the twins were at school.

Little did her husband know she was making a pit stop at their local clinic.

It was surprising they were able to fit her in on such short notice—thinking she’d have to wait a few hours, but when her obstetrician heard she was in the lobby Y/n was placed in a room within twenty minutes. It had been a long time since the two saw each other, the last was when Y/n and Peter were having follow ups with the twins.

After introductions and small talk, they got right to business. Y/n handed over the test to Dr. Westbourne, still relishing in the shock and excitement, “I didn’t think this would happen, doc. Thought I’d come to you for confirmation before I tell the hubby.”

Immediately the female doctor got an ultrasound ready for Y/n. The jelly was cool on her stomach and tears filled her eyes again when Dr. Westbourne smiled while saying, “Congratulations, Y/n. It’s my pleasure to inform you that you are in fact pregnant.” The doctor printed out a picture, before setting up a new file for Y/n knowing they were going to have to do some things different than when she had the twins.

“Oh my gosh,” she wiped her face, “this is really happening. I didn’t think it’d be possible.”

Y/n watched Dr. Westbourne type away on the computer while explaining the circumstances of her pregnancy. “You appear to be roughly eight to ten weeks I would say. You said your last menestral cycle was November correct?”

“That I can recall,” Y/n confirmed, sitting up to adjust her top.

“So still in the first trimester,” Westbourne continued, “I’ll prescribe you the normal prenatal vitamins and we will set up a schedule for your checkups. You’re still young, but older than most who have children and I feel we should take every precaution necessary—so when we get closer to delivery then we will establish if a cesarean section is the best option.”

“Whatever you say, doc.” Westbourne scheduled her next appointment, gave her the prescription along with the ultrasound photo and the two said goodbye with a small hug—the doctor giving her one last congrats. Y/n tucked the picture in a safe place within her bag, walking out of the clinic with a smile to head to the nearest pharmacy.

After placing her order, Y/n had about an hour before it would be ready for pick up so she texted Peter to let him know she was running late. She ran her errands, making a pit stop at a craft store to get a few..special items, before picking up more cat food, little collars, and ingredients for dinner that night.

Y/n made her way back to the pharmacy after receiving a text her prescription was ready and packed up her car—hiding the prenatal vitamins in her purse with the receipt. She left the craft items in the car and only brought in the other bags containing stuff Peter knew she would be bringing home.

“Babe!” She unlocked the door, pushing it open. “I’m home—hey buddy.” Midnight was immediately at her feet, nuzzling up into her boots. Peter met her in the hallway, greeting her with a kiss and taking a few bags from her hands.

“Everything okay? Busy?”

“A little,” Y/n brushed some hair from her face with a now free hand, “Not bad for a Monday. How’ve the babies been?” she had a playful tone, although she couldn’t wait for when she’d be referring their baby instead of the kittens.

Peter gave her a look, placing the bags on the kitchen counter to empty. “They are rascals for one thing. The tuxedo Harry named Remus only stopped meowing once he heard you come in.” That made her laugh. “Bennys little Neo is the calmer one—which is so fitting when you think of our sons personalities paired with the cats.”

“Oh my gosh, you’re right,” she lightly gasped, “they’re perfect for each other.” Both laugh at the realization while the put away the groceries. “Benny said his friend Liza was interested in the tabby right?”

“Yeah,” Peter replied, “and I think his one teacher was looking at adopting a black cat, so he’s going to ask today if they’re interested in this one,” he gestures to the sleeping black kitten in the corner of the cat play pin they had. The two tuxedos were playing while the tabby just sat and watched everything go down.

It was pretty entertaining.

The rest of the day was went fast once the twins returned from school—Benny with the news his teacher would take the black kitten and his friend would talk to her parents about the tabby. They settled down for dinner around seven with Peter asking Y/n what time she wanted to go patrol for the night. The question made her slightly freeze, but she brushed it off before any of them could notice, “Umm I think I’m going to pass tonight, Spider. I’m still a little tired from the weekend so I’ll probably go to sleep tonight.” She threw him a wink, teasing, “Think you’ll be okay without me tonight?”

“I’ll be fine, darling,” he waved a hand, “You rest tonight, we still have tomorrow.”

Oh how wrong was he.

On Tuesday Y/n knew she had to tell Peter. She wanted to wait and make it a big surprise, but if she opted out of patrol two nights in a row after almost two months nonstop he may get a little suspicious. Plus keeping the secret was too much and she was excited for the love of her life to hear the news.

She didn’t know how she managed it, but Y/n was able to make the little craft project she set her mind to the moment she found out she was pregnant despite having a busy day. Peter was at the Daily Bugle for the day as part of his part time editorship with Jameson while she was at Oscorp doing what they normally did.

Instead of taking a lunch, Y/n worked through the day straight so she get off early. So once she got home she locked herself in the bedroom to focus on her little DIY project. The twins were tending to the cats as they did homework so she had time to herself without interruption.

A few hours went by before Peter arrived home so Y/n hid her craft in her nightstand drawer, but placed the positive pregnancy test and sonogram with it. She continued to act normal the rest of the night as if she didn’t have any life changing news for the family. Dinner went the same and she cleaned up with Peter before getting some reports done on her laptop.

Peter hadn’t asked about patrol, so she was anticipating when he would—her heart skipping a little when nine o’clock rolled by.

By nine thirty she closed the laptop and said goodnight to her sons before retreating upstairs to the bedroom—where Peter was getting ready to suit up for the night. When she saw him in the closet—pulling the suit out, Y/n leaned against the doorway to admire him.

All she could picture was their little baby boy or girl in his arms. Peter holding the baby while placing kisses to their tiny forehead. Y/n could see him swaying lightly so silence, whispering sweet nothings in their ear.

She could not wait for it to become reality.

“What’re you staring at, Cat?” His chuckle brought her out of the daydream. Heat filled her, but she hid it with a smirk—lightly biting her lip, “Just staring at the sexiest man I’ve ever laid eyes on.” Peters face goes red, a laugh falling from his lips as he tries to hid his flustered state.

“Bet you say that to all the guys,” he teases, pulling his suit of the hanger and walking toward her. Her hands come up to his neck, bringing Peter down to capture his lips in a kiss. Her responds immediately, throwing the suit behind Y/n to land on the bed while his hands go to her waist.

Y/n bites his bottom lip, asking for permission which he accepts and their tongues entangle as the kiss heats up. Fingers card through Peters hair, while his hands tease at her backside—pulling her closer to him so there was barely any space. It always heated up whenever they kissed, but something about this particular one felt different to Peter. A groan escapes him when Y/n tugs at hair—something he loved whenever she did it.

After a few minutes of kissing, Peter pulls away with lips swollen a tad from the hot make out session. He could see the lust in Y/ns eyes—the intensity making him gulp. “What was that about?”

“What I can’t give my man some sugar whenever I feel like it,” she smirks, leaning up so their noses touched. “You’re about to go off into the night to protect the city from harm—you know how sexy I find that, stud. I can barely contain myself.” He was about to laugh at her cheekiness, but something she said caught his ear.

“Wait so you’re not coming with me again tonight?” He raised a brow, stepping back a bit but keeping his hands on her hips. “Is everything okay, Y/n? Are you still feeling tired from the trip—you normally aren’t this affected when we travel—maybe we should go see a doctor in case you caught something—.”

Y/n brought her hands around to cup his cheeks, cutting his rambling off, “Baby I’m going to need you to calm down,” she giggled lightly, “I wouldn’t have kissed you like that if I felt I was sick.” Y/n then placed her hands in his, walking backward until they on her side of the bed where her nightstand was. “—There is a reason I’ve been feeling tired lately—and while the trip may play a small part, there’s much more to it. Which is why I can’t go on patrol anymore, Spider—you wouldn’t want me to anyway.”

Peter immediately looked concern, but was very confused by her cryptic context, “I’m not following, Y/n. You just said you weren’t sick—.”

“And I’m not,” she assured, trying to fight the smile forming but failing, “not really. But I’ll feel sick every now and then because it’s a side effect.”

Again, the man was confused as ever—his expression nearly making Y/n burst into laughter but she held it together. “I love you, but you know I hate when you speak in riddles.”

“Oh my gosh, Peter,” she laughed, taking one hand to reach behind and open the drawer. Without taking her eyes off Peter, Y/n grabbed the little figurine and placed it in his open palm. “If this doesn’t piece it for you, stud, I’m going to be very disappointed,” she playfully said, watching his eyes scan over the model.

On a grayish clay mold, laid eight tiny clay pieces. Four cats & four spiders. There were two fully black cats, one larger compared to the other three with the other two being black and white. Of the four spiders, one was black & significantly bigger—like the one black cat it was paired next to—while two were smaller in size and red, while the fourth was the tiniest and blue. The two tuxedoes were on either side of the red spiders, the little black cat was on top of the black spider and finally, the tiny blue spider was clinging on the side of the large black cat.

“W-what?” Peter couldn’t really get the words out, “Is this—is this our family, Y/n?” There was a smile of awe on his face, and the woman tried to keep her emotions together until he finally figured it out.

Y/n gave a slow nod, squeezing the hand she was still holding. “Yes, it is. I made it today while you were at work.”

“But—But this has eight,” he counted over, starting with the cats, “Four cats—which obviously the larger black one represents you while the smaller one is Midnight, the two black and white ones are Remus and Neo.” His eyes then went to the spiders, starting with the large black one, “That one is me—judging it’s bigger and touching noses with yours—the red ones are the boys and—,” his eyes went to the tiny blue one, crawling on the stomach of the black cat.

“Wait—,” the word comes out low from Peter, eyes fixated on the tiny blue arachnid clinging to the side of the cat representing his wife. If the small cats were for the family felines….then the spiders representing the children. “Y/n,” Peter finally looked away from the figurine and into Y/ns tear filled eyes. His own started to water, voice filling with emotion, “a-are you—darling are you—a-are we having another baby?”

The tears she had been holding could no longer withstand and they left her eyes, Y/n nodding her head while stuttering out a “Y-eah, spider, we are—you knocked me up.” Of course she had to throw in a joke, it was Y/n Parker for Christ’s sake.

“O-oh my god!” Peter shouted, gently placing the clay model on the bed before picking Y/n off the ground—making her yelp when he started to spin her. “OH MY GOSH! I-I can’t believe it!” He put her down and crashed his lips against her in a passionate smooch filled with love and adoration. She laughed when he started to place kisses all over her face, still overcome with excitement. “Baby this is amazing!! Holy shit—I didn’t think we’d have another—I thought the twins would be it for us. Oh-oh-oh my,” sputtered out, holding her too him while she kissed his cheek repeatedly with affection to rid his face of the tears—even though they were happy ones. “How—how did this happen all of a sudden?

This made her pull away with a cheeky look, arms still around his neck, “Stud, we have been a little more proactive when it came to our baby making skills as of late,” she giggled when his face turned red, remembering how true that was. “I mean I thought it was our anniversary that did it, but Westbourne said I’m about eight-to-ten weeks so…it could’ve been that or the day we got back from little spiders world. Maybe traveling to another universe hit a reset switch or something.”

Peters expression turned to the one he normally does when he was in depth thought, frowning slightly. “Eight to ten weeks? How long have you known?”

“Literally yesterday, babe,” Y/n said before he could think she kept it from him longer. “I was feeling tired, but usually I do after a flight. Then when I was unpacking in the bathroom I threw up—thought some food messed my stomach up, but when I realized my period hadn’t come I felt I needed to take a test.” She stepped away to grab the last remaining items hiding in the drawer, “came back positive, so I went to see Westbourne today—she confirmed it.”

Peter took the picture and test from her. His eyes read over the ‘pregnant :)’ on the test, feeling another tear fall from him but Y/n was quick to brush her thumb over it. They then traveled over to the sonogram, beaming at the little bean sized imagine resting in his wife’s stomach. “W-wow,” he felt himself choke up with emotion again, feeling Y/n bring her hands to his cheeks so she could press a kiss to his forehead.

“I can’t wait for you to be a daddy again, Peter,” she leans into him, caressing his skin with her thumb. “You’re an amazing one to our boys—and he or she is going to be lucky to have you as theirs.”

“And to have you as their mom—,” he paused to kiss her, “they are going to be the luckiest kid in the world.” He cupped her face in his hands, staring into her eyes with every loving emotion he could project. “You’ve blessed me with an amazing gift, Y/n. I can’t ever thank you enough—I love you so much I can’t even put it into words how much you mean to me. You’re my world.”

Y/n kissed him again, resting her forehead against his, “It takes two to tango, spider. You’ve blessed me with this miracle as much as I’ve blessed you. We’re in this together, my love—and I can’t wait for us to raise this baby.” Mischief fills her eyes, “even though the Cat has to officially retire for good. No more comebacks for me, stud.”

Peter laughed at her words, pulling her closer to him as he possibly could. “I think then maybe it’s time for the spider to take his place alongside his cat then, shall he?”

This came as a surprise to Y/n, the woman immediately rejecting the idea. “Peter, no. The city needs Spider-Man—.”

“And this baby needs their father,” he interjected, eyes becoming serious which made her close her mouth while he continued. “And you need me, Y/n. I wasn’t there too much with the boys—you practically raising them on your own while I tried balanced my double life. I missed out on a lot of things—yes I saved people and the city was safe—but when you miss your children’s first words or comforting them when they have nightmares, then maybe that’s a sign. I can’t do that to this baby, Y/n. He or she is going to need both parents to love and care for them—and if that means Spider-Man taking time off, even if it’s for good, then so be it.”

“Peter,” the woman was speechless, feeling another wave of tears forming, “B-but, darling you’re our hero—not just in this home. People are always going to need Spider-Man—to save them from the violence this city faces daily. That’s what I signed up for when I fell in love with you. You know I will always support you, Peter—you don’t have to give it up. You love it—.”

“And I love my family more,” he tells her, tilting her chin up lightly with his finger. “You’re more important to me. You, our sons, and this little one,” Peter brings his other hand to her stomach, rubbing his palm over her sweater. “You all are my priority—and I would do anything to keep you safe, you know that. New York may need Spider-Man, but this home needs Peter Parker.”

Y/n felt her bottom lip quiver, feeling overcome with emotion—plus her hormones were all over the place, typical pregnancy. “I-I love you, Peter. So much.”

“I love you, Y/n,” he kisses her without hesitation, feeling her tighten her hold around his neck. The sonogram and test fell from his fingertips, spilling to the floor so he could hold his wife in his arms—lifting her off the ground.

“So are you not patrolling then tonight I take it?” She asked once they pulled away, feet touching the ground again. Peter shook his head, raising a brow as if to say, ‘are you kidding?’ “Of course not, baby. I just found out my beautiful wife is going to have a baby—There’s no way in hell I’m going out to night. The police can handle on their own.”

A giggle left Y/n, shaking her head in amusement, “They may be a little rusty not having their trusty spandex wearing spider.” She squeals when he pinches her bottom, glaring playfully at him.

“Hey I thought you liked the spandex.”

“Oh of course I do, stud. Especially when I rub up on you and can feel what lies beneath. Leaves nothing to the imagination—.” Y/ns cut off when Peters mouth is over hers—making her laugh into the kiss. They stayed embraced in each others arms, sharing kisses of joy and excitement.

Their lives would change, but it would be so worth it. The reward: brining another life into the world that was an undying symbol of their love and devotion to each other.

Pulling away from Peter after several minutes, Y/n stayed close so their lips brushed against each other, “So, stud, should we let our boys know that this family of cats and spiders is having another surprise litter?”

………………

Tag list: @secretsthathauntus, @eternalharry

[popculturebuffet]

Digimon Adventure: V-Tamer 01 Review!: An Pro-Digious Lost Classic

Hello all you happy people and welcome to Pop Culture Buffet, where I review some of the best media around.. and sometimes throw some in the garbage bin.  Today we dive into a classic I just discovered, one tied to a staple franchise of my childhood, and one you fine people voted on. It’s time to give it 100% for Digimon Adventure: V-Tamer 01: A Rope of Sand. 

I first found digimon via the anime, which came over to the states at the exact right time. I was 8, I loved Pokemon, so my atttiude to ANOTHER cool show about raising adorable and badass monsters that had it’s own engaging worldbuilding, loveable characters, and cool as heck monsters was ...

I was hooked and the fact it was on FoxKids, which I watched every saturday, as I eagerly gobbled up both adventures and the first half of tamers, saw the movie and bought tons of toys I wish i’d held onto because shit’s expensive to rebuy.  While I sadly didn’t see much of late stage tamers thanks to poor scheduling and haven’t gotten around to watching the anime after (And in the case of Frontier actively noped out as a teen when I found out the premise and found reruns on jetix), I’ve always loved this franchise ,and only haven’t watched what i’ve missed nor revisited my childhood because my watchpile is a massive nightmare from which few things actually escape. It’s a creative spin on Mons as while it wasn’t the first on the block, it was the first to really codify the monsters being their own individual beings who chooose to work with the humans, instead of being essentially being pets who fancy a scrap. Instead their wild creatures choosing to fancy a scrap to save the world, either by desitny or just liking this human they found and thinking they’ll keep them. This idea has been used since but I feel Digimon’s the one who really codified this version of monster taming.. which is odd given they were originally virtual pets, but still. The franchise also often dosen’t sell short the danger our heroes are in: while it still keeps it within family friendly territory, digimon CAN die, and while they can also reincarnate, it’s not a guarantee you’ll come back.. and if your a leomon pre-2020 ,i’ts a guarnatee you won’t be coming back. When stranded in a digital world our heroes are often in deadly danger and while Surivive seems to be the work emphasising this the most, there hasn’t been a one i’m aware of that wasn’t a gag manga that didn’t make it deadly clear that as peaceful and kind as most digimon were, the digital world and what comes form it is often dangerous. 

So why V-1. Well as I said it won a poll I did last month to see which manga/manhwa i’d cover with my patreons having picked out the applimon manga and the manhwa adaptations of adventure 01 and 02. And to my shock.. this one swept it. Granted in hindsight I can kind of see why as V-01 is both something people who haven’t read it, while adventure, as loved as it is, has at the time of this writing gotten 2 series, 5 movies, and tons of merch and tends to be the most represented in various media. So it’s not a huge suprise people would instead go for something they don’t know as well, and those who do know it clearly love it. As for why I picked it it was for those reasons: It’s unqiue, I hadn’t got around to reading it, most people don’t know it and thus it fascinated me and i’m pleased as punch to say my curoisty paid off though as for why and how.. you’l ljust have to read on, and hopefully for those who haven’t tried it I can convince you too as unsuually for me I won’t be trying to go into heavy spoilers for my review. Normally I like to get deep into the analysis, but here I feel i’d rather more people get to enjoy it and those who do know it can nod their head or shake their fist at me accordingly. There will be a light spoiler here or there, but for the most part you can go directly from this review to the manga and still enjoy it. Let’s begin. 

                                                 What Is V-Tamer 01? For the uninitiated, V-Tamer 01 is a digimon manga. The Digimon Digital Pets were a huge hit in japan which lead to a one shot Manga , Come On Digimon! by Hiroshi Izawa, which debuted in V-Jump, and was such a hit it warranted a full series. Debuting in 1998 This was not only the first bit of major Digimon Media but predates Adventure by a year, though weirdly it’d not only outlast adventure but run through frontier, before being cut short because frontier nearly murdered the franchise.  As a result of pre-dating the anime, it thus dosen’t have some of the logic to the franchise that would later be popularized by the anime: For starters when a digimon evolves, it STAYS evolved. Digivolution isn’t reversible unless it’s done by Jogress aka Fusion. Not only that our heroes partner digimon STARTS the Manga as a champion, having already been raised up to that, so for the first third he has a champion as a partner and for the other two thirds he’s an ultimate, only becoming a mega at the very end. This also applies to any ally digimon as we see both big good magnangemon and his right hand leomon evolve as the manga progresses. As a result the main antagonists for the first third are Ultimates, to be a level above zero, and for the second and third parts we get Megas. 

The other big swing is that the digital pet aspect is used and much like Tamers after it, Digimon is an actual thing in the real world, if just as a v-pet line, with the various tamers being people who raised their mons as digtial pets int he real world first. As a result the digivice can be used much like a pokedex in pokemon special: It can check health, relay commands and check moves, instead of being a mystical super thing. I honestly prefer this as it give sthe digivice more weight as a tool and allows the tamer to be more active in fights. Our main heroes Tai and Zero are as strong as they are because they work as a team with Tai’s strategy and Zero’s raw battle talent meaning they can beat foes outside their weight class, and when they can’t work in concert , such as the enemy preventing commands, is when their at their most threatened. 

And speaking of Tamers, only ONE tamer here is a chosen one: Tai himself, who was brought here. The others are antagonists, all coming here to create a new world for themselves. Even with that a lot of the mainstays of the franchise were there from adaptation one: The hero having goggles (being an alternate version of Tai, which the manga itself later establishes in a crossover), digivolution often being based on emotions and done at a critical and dramatic moment, esclating threats that are usually esclating sets of quirky minibossses, and digimentals, which would be key to adventure 02. It’s still the same digimon I know and love. .just remixed a bit to fit an older verison of the franchise. So what kind of story do they tell with that?

                                                       100%  V-Tamer 01 is the story of Tai, a middle school fan of Digimon Digital Pets whose quite good at it but gets rejected from a tournament because his Veedramon, Zero, isn’t recognized by the tournament officals... who you’d THINK would have sympathy to a child who clearly didn’t hack this and it was clearly either a glitch or simply a digimon you guys hadn’t heard of yet but

So as a consolation soon after Tai ends up in the digital world and meets Zero for real. And yes that’s another weird thing here: while most digimon, like the rest of the franchise are referred to by species, Tai’s two companions here have names outside of it. Granted it’s probably less confusing when you have a pack of digimon to not have a three jims type situation and have to call them the agumon when you can just call one Jerry, or Frank, or The Lone Locust of the Apocalypse.

The two get along great and their partnership is one of the things that makes the manga special: The two are truly best friends which isn’t unusual for digimon, usually partners and their tamers are very close and it’s their bonds that allow them to grow and reach their true potetials. But  this may be easily one of the purest and most adorable friendships i’ve seen: The two work hard together, train and trust each other more than anything, and train hard to get stronger. Well at leats in the first third, but in the second and third acts things are esclating so quickly there isn’t really time, so it’s fair. They also have the endearing as hell habit of dork dancing any time they win. 

My friend Masked Maverick helped me with this, as he’s a huge fan of V-Tamer 01 and a digimon expert, and I agree with him this is just so damn charming. 

The two trust each other on a level that only the truest of friends do, in a way that feels real like I do with my best friends.. and it thus becomes their greatest asset in battle. Zero is a great fighter, but really isn’t a tactical genius, while Tai is but obviously is a squishy human. It’s explicit here that the combo of Zero’s raw strength and tai’s intellgent tactics, helpfully transmitted wirelessly after having to shout the mearly on is what MAKES them so effective. Their earliest opponents are ultimates, digimon a level stronger, and thus the two HAVE to rely on smart strategy or die. It’s another of the manga’s strong points: While ther’es plenty of your standard “Heart helping a hero pull through” and hot blooded action like all shonen, the real strength in the fights is tai using everything he can think of to help Zero win. They may have a limited moveset, simply using v-arrow on things and claws and once zero digivolves, flight, but the manga works it hard. Said limited moveset is also because digimon in the v-pet era only had a few attacks, with card and video games helpfully fleshing it out for future media. The tactics make each fight exciting as you figure our heroes will probably win.. but not HOW they will or what their opponents are going to pull. 

Not only that the true partnership and friendship... actually creates problems. Zero is so devoted to tai tha it’s revealed he hasn’t become an ultimate because he’s worried it’ll affect their friendship, and only does when Tai’s life is on the line. (Tai of course dosen’t care what he becomes, but is willing to let Zero digivolve on his own time), while we later find out the boost zero gets from emotions.. has some serious drawbacks. I won’t spoil them for you but not only does it cleverly deconstruct the emotinal boost but Zero KNOWS about it and was damaging his body with them for Tai’s sake. It’s clever to show that while said friendship is healthy our own doubts and nerousis can cause us to take horrible unecessary risks just to hold on to a friendship that isn’t in any danger. 

The two soon meet Gabo, a gabumon who thinks their little sobs but soon comes around and takes them to meet his master, MagnaAngemon, whose the big good here. As it turns out he brought Tai to the digital world as the Evil Daemon, who yes is indeed a digimon, is trying to take over the world. 

And Magna summoned our heroes to gather the 5 tags needed to penetrate his castle and stop him and stuff. So for the first volume and a good chunk of the first third, it’s simple monster of the week stuff: Tai fights one of Daemon’s general, uses clever tactics to get through, maybe meets a friend along the way, and gets a tag. 

What mixes it up and truly pushes V-Tamer 01 into greatness is the introduction of our TRUE antagonist, Neo Saiba. Neo is another tamer.. but Tai’s opposite, seeing digimon as merley means to an end, gladly discarding ones he finds weak and finding out their some form of real dosen’t remotely stop him from thinking this way, his first fight with tai having him curelly sacrifice a metalgreymon who just wanted to be strong for him simply to get scans of Tai’s abliities with his digivice. He is cold, will gladly throw away anything to achive his goal of making a new world, and he is every bit as clever and tactical as Tai. His first tactic is using jogress (Fusion), but having the fusion disolve to dodge attacks, and allowing him to replenish and he still uses jogress as his main tactic going into the second. It’s something you rarely see as the only other evil tamer around the same time , 02′s ken, uses far diffrent tactics and it wouldn’t be till xross wars (which i’m currently reading the manga for and is pretty damn sweet), we got other tamers/generals who could use the same tactics as our heroes, and to this day no one has really used fusion combativley like this that i’m aware of. It’s a completely unique and awesome techinque that requires tactics, the tecs weakness (both digimon split the damage so their still injured), and a digivolution to overcome. It raises the stakes by giving Tai an equal opponent to fight.

Neo is a truly intresting big bad, using strategy to overwhlem his foes and when the second act hits and he needs to grow the ultimate digital monster Daemon has been growing all manga and raise it, he enlists three MORE tamers, as while Tai can now enter the castle he has to get there first. That’s where things hit their peak as Tai must now fight three tamers who not only have stronger mons but each have their own clever tactics to fight  tai with and their own reasons for wanting “to create their own new world”: Sigma , a masked lad who felt ostracized in the real world and who uses his Piedemons ablities to itnercept tai’s commands, Mari, who is creepily selling pictures to older men depsite being in MIDDLE SCHOOL 

Ugh. Just.. no to all of that, and who pretends to be a ditz... onlly to reveal it’s a stalling tactic so Neo’s plans can go off without a hitch and Hideto, who has an utterly heartwrenching backstory that ties into zeros and who has a FUCKING OMNIMON AS HIS PARTNER. No I didn’t mistype that. OMNIMON. Yes Royal Knight, Tai and Matt’s ultimate trump cart, THAT OMNIMON. THAT HAPPENS. 

That.. really was my reactoin. I flipped out. There was also supposed to be a third phase, but it got cut down as Frontier nearly killed the franchise, so the manga had to speed up to the climax after the alias 3. This also leads to why the manga hasn’t been localized. JUST this one, the other ones have no excuse bandai what the shit, but this one.. had some legal issues with the writer. As such daemon and veedramon had to have vastly diffrent designs in other media and many of the manga’s original digis, including the ones that were originally going to be recurring but were reduced to cameos for time, have yet to show up again. The writer/artist of the manga has since reconclied with Bandai and has done some work on ghost game, so there is hope for them but yea, sticky legal issues left this out of print for a while and still out of print here despite digimon’s rising popularity again. It’s why while I won’t link to sites directly, I encourage you to look for a fan translation as I feel no shame in reading something online if it has no offical release or is long out of print. Sometimes it’s the only way to keep a work in circulation like the archie sonic comics. 

And I REALLY do recommend it as I loved this one: it is a quick read, only 9 volumes and the pacing is breakneck. It is fairly monster of the week: first the 5 devas, then the alias 3 and again there was going to be another before the final showdown with the big bad, and we get maybe THREE fights without zero in the whole manga, so it could be repittive.. but the slow escalation and clever tactics , forcing our heroes to constantly evolve their tactics or die, and the engaging characters really keep you hooked. I coudln’t wait to get to the next chapters each time and if you like a good fighting manga, this one is an outstanding one to check out. 

It’s only real weaknesses are the said lack of variety: It’s very much zero saves the day, and Gabo is there mostly to scream from the sidelines. He never evolves, only fights once and while his help as cook is useful and he’s still fairly likeable, it feels disapionting he never gets to digivolve into garurumon and pitch in. It dosen’t help the garuru line is one of my faviortes, and given we see Neo and Hideto both have multiple partners, there’s no reason Tai couldn’t of added Gabo to his digivice. It’s a mild disapointment. I also feel the later tritagonist added, while an intresting character, dosen’t get to do much of her own agency and just mostly wonders around a castle for most of her time in the manga. 

Despite these flaws though.. V-Tamer 01 is fantastic. It’s fun, heartfelt and never lets up till the end, only getting better and better as it goes and while it has a lot of the franchises cliches, it also has a lot of i’ts heart, unique scenarios you won’t see elsewhere and dork dancing. So much dork dancing. So check it out when you can as you prepare to surivive, and maybe if this does well i’ll visit the other digimon manga and the manhawa’s sometime. Until then, consider joining my patreon, and thanks for reading. 

[onlydylanobrien]

Dylan O'Brien - NME Magazine Interview

Dylan O’Brien: “I was in this transitional phase – close to a quarter-life crisis”

From YA heartthrob to legitimate leading man – how the 'Maze Runner' star hit his stride after a whirlwind decade

Definitely!” hoots Dylan O’Brien when NME asks if he still has to audition. “I’m not Tom fucking Hanks, bro.” He’s clearly amused by our question, but forgive us for thinking the 29-year-old actor gets cast on reputation alone. A decade into his career, and he’s making an impressive transition from teen TV star and YA franchise hero to charismatic leading man.

New York-born O’Brien cut his teeth on MTV’s hit Teen Wolf series, before landing the lead in the Maze Runner film trilogy based on James Dashner’s hugely popular novels. Leading a band of bright young things that included ex-Skins tearaway Kaya Scodelario, Game Of Thrones’ Thomas Brodie-Sangster and Will Poulter, he honed his craft while racking up nearly a billion dollars at the box office. “My career is a constant acting class,” says O’Brien. “To be able to do the Maze Runner movies simultaneously with Teen Wolf was amazing in terms of getting in reps and working my [acting] muscle.”

Now for the sometimes tricky bit. Many actors struggle with the post-breakout period, but O’Brien is making it look easy so far. This year’s Netflix hit Love and Monsters proved he can carry an old-school family adventure, and new film Flashback (out next week) reveals an appetite for weirder, more cerebral work. He stars as Fred Fitzell, a young man reluctant to buckle down to life as a nine-to-fiver with a boring corporate job and a long-term girlfriend (Mindhunter‘s Hannah Gross). When he runs into a freaky-looking acquaintance from his teenage years, Fred becomes obsessed with finding an old high-school friend he used to drop a mind-bending experimental drug called Mercury with. It’s difficult to say any more without entering spoiler territory, but Flashback is a wild ride underpinned by the idea that we can exist in several realities at once. Even if you follow every plot twist, you might not fully understand the end. “Oh, it’s definitely a headfuck,” O’Brien agrees. “There’s not totally an answer to figure out. There’s a lot of different things that people can take from it.”

Speaking over Zoom from his LA home, O’Brien is bright, thoughtful and really good fun to talk to, especially when he relaxes into the interview, but he clearly knows where his line between public and private lies. When he first read the Flashback script, written by the film’s director Christopher MacBride, his “mind was blown” by just how much he related to Fred. “I felt like I was in this transitional phase of my life that was, you know, sort of close to a quarter-life crisis type thing,” he says. “For whatever reason, it was like me and this script were meant to be. I remember reading it and thinking: ‘I am this guy right now.'”

“There were a lot of things in my personal life that were neglected for a while”

When we ask why O’Brien felt as though he had reached a “transitional phase”, he gives an answer that’s vague but not exactly evasive. For understandable reasons, he doesn’t mention the incredibly traumatic motorcycle accident he sustained while shooting the final Maze Runner film in March 2016. O’Brien suffered severe trauma to the brain and said in 2017 that he underwent extensive facial reconstructive surgery after the accident “broke most of the right side of my face”. Tellingly, he’s never really revealed what happened on set or how it affected him.

Today, O’Brien dances around the details of the accident and other issues he was dealing with at the time, but doesn’t shy away from discussing his inner conflict. “You know, it was a lot of personal things combined with at-a-point-in-my-career things,” he says after a brief pause. He says he’d have been going through some of this stuff anyway, simply because of his age, but it sounds as though success intensified it all. “It was like this whole fucking storm of shit,” he continues. “I was simultaneously so fulfilled and happy about these, like, otherworldly and surreal things that I had experienced in terms of where my career had brought me. I had all this confidence and fulfilment and beautiful people [in my life] – such amazing things to experience at a young age. But at the same time, there were a lot of things in my personal life that were unchecked and sort of neglected for a while.”

O’Brien says that in time, he realised he had to “stop for a second” and “re-explore how I wanted my life to look going forward”. In fairness, you can see why he needed a breather: his career took off while he was still a teenager. After his family moved from New Jersey to Los Angeles County when he was 12, O’Brien contemplated a career as a sports broadcaster – his Twitter bio still bills him as a “no longer suffering Mets fan” – then began posting YouTube videos as moviekidd826. A funny, slickly edited skit titled ‘How to Prepare for the SAT in 45 seconds’, shared when he was just 17, shows he was a born performer and storyteller. YouTube success led to him getting a manager, but his breakthrough role in Teen Wolf still came out of the blue. At the time, he was treading water at a local community college and taking auditions on the side.

Still, he has since taken a rather fatalistic view of this career-making moment. “It’s totally weird because, when I think about it now, I don’t see how it could have happened any other way. I can’t picture myself doing anything else now,” he told Collider in 2011. “It was really sudden and a little random, and not provoked by anything. It was just out of nowhere. It wasn’t my intentional doing.” Today, O’Brien summarises his skyscraper career trajectory succinctly. “I guess I just graduated high school and started acting,” he says. “And then I felt like I was just flying by the seat of my pants and never got a chance to stop.” Thankfully, straight-out-the-blocks Hollywood success hasn’t taken away his sense of perspective. When I say how easy social media makes it to compare yourself unfavourably to others, O’Brien jumps in: “Yeah, that’s very true. I was watching the Billie Eilish doc the other day, and I was like, I’ve done nothing. I’m not an artist at all!”

“No one thought ‘Love and Monsters’ was going to be good!”

O’Brien is also self-deprecating when he talks about being cast in Flashback, suggesting it happened because he had such an intense connection with Fred. “I was honestly like, ‘Who is watching me right now?’ That is the best way I can describe how I was feeling when I came across this script,” he says. “Chris [MacBride, director] and I had this conversation that went so well in terms of [my] understanding this script that I think he’d sent around a lot and [that] very commonly wasn’t understood. I think Chris has even said that the night before shooting, he suddenly had this thought, like, ‘Wait, do I even think he’s a good actor?'”

Though O’Brien has firmly ring-fenced elements of his private life, he’s actually pretty frank about his acting vehicles. He readily admits he was expecting a snobbish response to Love and Monsters, a CGI-heavy hybrid of post-apocalyptic action and romcom that dropped on Netflix in April and topped the streamer’s daily most-watched list. “It means so much that Love and Monsters has gotten the response that it’s gotten,” O’Brien says. “No one thought this movie was going to be good.” His blunt honesty makes me laugh out loud. “No one did though!” he says in response. “And so, fuck that. You know, most of the people who say something to me about the movie, they’re like: ‘I watched Love and Monsters, and it was… good?’ And honestly, that just cracks me up.” For obvious reasons, we hastily decide not to share our response to the film – namely, that it was a whole lot better than expected.

In Love and Monsters, O’Brien plays Joel, a survivor of a so-called “monsterpocalypse” that has bumped humans to the bottom of the food chain. Though he’s known in his colony as a bit of a coward, Joel sets off on a treacherous 80-mile journey to find his high school sweetheart Aimee (Iron Fist‘s Jessica Henwick), which means evading the hungry clutches of various supersize grizzlies including a giant monster-frog hiding in a suburban pond. It’s a simple but pretty out-there premise that wouldn’t work if O’Brien’s performance was even slightly condescending. Instead, his unselfconscious sincerity really sells a film that has as much in common with the family-oriented Robin Williams movie Night at the Museum as darker fare like The Walking Dead.

His obvious affection for the project really comes across during our interview today. “When I read the script, I just thought it was so sweet and funny and smart and unique, but at the same time reminiscent of all these movies that don’t really get made any more,” he says. That’s a fair point: Love and Monsters is neither a fail-safe superhero movie nor a slice of classy Oscar bait. “And when they were talking about how to market this movie, it was so funny hearing all these conversations like, ‘How do we actually get people to watch it?'” he adds. “But that’s a big part of the reason I wanted to do this movie: because it felt like something I missed seeing.”

“I’m lucky to be surrounded by people who want to make something out of love”

So in a way, Love and Monsters was a risk for an actor seeking to establish himself outside of a bankable movie franchise and a hit TV show. O’Brien has only made four films since his final Maze Runner outing in 2018, and insists he hasn’t been tactical with his choices. “I don’t have anyone saying, ‘We need to get you in an Oscar vehicle’, or any of that kind of shit,” he says. “I’m really lucky to be surrounded by people who think like me: that you should do what you’re drawn to, and make something out of love.”

He’s recently finished shooting a mysterious crime thriller called The Outfit in London with Mark Rylance. Directed and co-written by Graham Moore, who won an Oscar for his screenplay to Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game, O’Brien calls it “quite possibly one of the most special pieces of writing I’ve ever experienced”. He first read the script on a plane and says he “actually stood up and clapped” when he got to the end. Considering O’Brien probably wasn’t flying Ryanair, this reaction presumably attracted a few baffled glances.

Anyway, it must be pretty intimidating walking onto set with Rylance, a multi-award-winning actor revered by his peers – Al Pacino once said he “speaks Shakespeare as if it was written for him the night before” – but it sounds as though O’Brien took it all in stride. He says he’s confident in his abilities, but admits to having a slight wobble whenever he begins a new project. “I’m always sort of re-questioning everything – like, ‘Can I even act?'” he says. “But I think there’s something very natural about that. I think even Rylance could relate to that feeling. Acting is like starting a new year at school every single time.”

At this point in his career, O’Brien has made peace with the fact that some people will have preconceptions about him based on what he’s known for: Maze Runner and Teen Wolf. “People will put you in a box no matter what,” he says. “There was definitely a time when that would get to me, especially when it felt like somebody had a perspective on me that in my soul, I just felt wasn’t accurate.” Still, there’s no doubt he wants to show us what’s really in his soul with more films like Flashback. “If anything,” he adds bullishly, “it just makes me think: ‘Right, I’m really gonna show them now’.”

‘Flashback’ is out on digital platforms from June 4

[aion-rsa]

Do Star Trek Characters Watch Star Trek?

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This Star Trek: Lower Decks article contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 8 “I, Excretus.”

For Star Trek fans who worry that Lower Decks somehow doesn’t “count” because it’s a comedy, nothing could be further from the truth. Not only does Lower Decks count as real Star Trek canon it also actively explores Trek canon, constantly illuminating that what we think we know about the world of the Federation, Starfleet, the Klingon Empire, etc. The result? What we know is actually very limited by our perspective of what we’ve seen on the various live-action Trek shows. Lower Decks creator Mike McMahan has called Lower Decks a “rosetta stone” of Star Trek canon more than once. And, perhaps there’s no better example of this than episode 8 of season 2, the episode, “I, Excretus.”

Here’s how this episode lays out an entirely new way of thinking about how Starfleet thinks about itself. Does it feel like Starfleet is obsessed with the adventures of the various Enterprises? Well, what Lower Decks asserts is, maybe there’s a good reason for that.

The basic premise of this episode focuses on the crew of the USS Cerritos getting run through a series of holographic drills to determine how good the crew is at their various jobs. The bigger story is, at first, one about social class. The drill instructor — Shari Yn Yem — flips the ranks between the bridge crew and the “lower decks,” which means that each side gets to experience how the other half lives. To that end, the holographic drills that Mariner, Tendi, Boimler, and Rutherford endure are all huge ethical dilemmas, life or death struggles, or, stuff with horses and emotional plagues. In other words, the Lower Deckers do a kind of greatest hits of stories from The Original Series and The Next Generation. At one point, Mariner enters a simulation called “Mirror Universe Encounter,” in which she has to try to infiltrate the Terran Empire. This simulation is basically a remix of the TOS episode “Mirror, Mirror,” and everything Mirror Universe related on Discovery. Later, Mariner enters an “Old West Planet” simulation, which she calls “a Starfleet classic…yeehaw!” This references the TOS episode “Spectre of the Gun,” the TNG episode “A Fistful of Datas” and the Enterprise episode “North Star.” Later, Mariner enters a simulation called “Naked Time,” in which the crew succumbs to a virus that makes them, well, drunk and horny.

While it’s tempting to say that “Naked Time” is a long-hanging fruit joke that comes from 2021, the truth is, the title “The Naked Time,” refers to an episode of TOS in which the crew does succumb to a virus that makes them act drunk and horny. This episode was written by John D. F. Black and was later quasi-remade as the episode “The Naked Now” on TNG in which the crew encounters pretty much the same virus, only slightly different. (For reference, “The Naked Now” is the episode where Data mentions that he is “fully functional” for the first time. In the same episode, Data also corrects Riker about the proper uses of the words “suck” versus “blow,” relative to space problems. You can’t make this stuff up. It’s hard to believe Star Trek is real sometimes, you know?)

Anyway! The point is the simulation is called “Naked Time,” which is very close to the episode title in “our” reality. And, when we see a larger readout of all the simulations running, several, several of them have names almost identical to actual episodes of Star Trek. 

Here’s an example of one prominent moment, in which we see a bunch of the simulation names…

Time Trap (“The Time Trap,” TAS)

Tribble Troubles (“The Trouble Will Tribbles,” OST)

From Q to Q (Any Q episode?)

Borg Encounter (Obvious)

Cause & Effect (“Cause and Effect,” TNG)

Natural Selection (“Unnatural Selection, TNG)

Evolution (“Evolution,” TNG)

Chain of Command (“Chain of Command,” TNG…an episode Lower Decks can’t stop referencing.)

Hero Worship (“Hero Worship,” TNG)

Carbon Based Units (Star Trek: The Motion Picture)

Naked Time (“The Naked Time,” TOS, et al.)

Now on several occasions, Lower Decks showrunner Mike McMahan has said “people on Star Trek watch Star Trek.” The best example of this is when Riker runs a simulation of the NX-01 Enterprise in the episode “These Are the Voyages…” What Lower Decks has done, since Season 1, is take that notion, and apply it more broadly. In the Season 1 episode “Much Ado About Boimler,” a Starfleet officer who has been de-aged, mentions that he is “half a Rascal” which references the TNG episode “Rascals.” The idea here, solidified by the latest Lower Decks, is that various simulations, or logs from big Starfleet missions, become public knowledge to the rest of the Federation. And, most relevantly, all of these famous adventures have names that are very similar to the ones we are familiar with. (Though, in fairness, Barnes doing a simulation called “Whale Rescue,” probably should have been called “The One With the Whales,” right?)

Later in the episode, when Mariner and Captain Freeman figure out that Shari Yn Yem is trying to screw them over, she taunts, “You’re on a California class ship, most of the Federation doesn’t even know you exist.” Now, this statement hammers home the entire point of Lower Decks, insofar as the show is about starships doing less than glamorous work. But, what gets subtly, and smartly established in this episode is that the ships that may go unnoticed, all totally model themselves after the Enterprises, Voyagers, and Defiants of the fleet.

Why? Well, Shari Yn Yem did not invent these simulations. As she reveals, she simply “goosed” the difficulty levels, to try and make the crew of the Cerritos look bad. When the crew is supposed to “steal the Cerritos and rescue Spock from the Genesis planet,” the audience (probably) knows that’s a reference to Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Shari Yn Yem calls it a “classic,” just like Mariner called the “Old West Planet,” a “classic.” The implication here is clear. The adventures of the various Enterprises (or Voyagers or Defaints) aren’t just canonical to Star Trek fans, these adventures have been translated to other (future) media for a very long time within the Federation itself. People do know about the Enterprise in the big world of the 24th century. Even Seaon 1 of Picard proved that — in the very first episode, reporters were in Jean-Luc’s house!

Appropriately enough, this outcome might be what Gene Roddenberry intended. In the forward to Roddenberry’s wild novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Kirk reveals that he is aware of various forms in which the adventures of the Enterprise have been made available for mass consumption in 23rd century media. In the only Star Trek book penned by the creator of Star Trek, people in Star Trek apparently read or watch Star Trek. Before Lower Decks, the only examples of this meta-fiction were the Enterprise finale “These Are the Voyages,” and this vague assertion from Roddenberry in the TMP novelization. 

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But now, Lower Decks has made all of it very clear. The canon of Star Trek is comprised of stories from starships that have become famous over time. Even in the egalitarian world of Trek, in the far future, there’s still pop culture, which means some space stories are more popular than others. And it turns out, the true-life stories of people on ships called Enterprise are hits with the general public. Every. Single. Time.  Lower Decks airs on Paramount+.

The post Do Star Trek Characters Watch Star Trek? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

Me, throughout the entirety of 6x05:

And I suppose I could just leave it there but NO, we’re doing a LIST. Of all the excellent things from “Prom Night!”

SPOILERS!

AV Club reviewer giving this episode the first ‘A’ of the season: :D

AV Club reviewer still insisting that “Midvale” was filler: D:<

Forever destined to disagree with the AV Club reviews in some way or another...

Okay, so! We begin with a very helpful reminder from Alex that things are different, in this Post-Crisis World!

(I mean, on the one hand, am I slightly distressed that key aspects of the Pilot and the WHOLE of “Midvale” are now gone, along with Earth-38? Yes. 

On the other, Kara remembers her lived-experiences of everything that had transpired in the Earth-38 timeline, so they still sorta happened and have informed her characterization. 

So...it’s fine. It’s fine. This is fine.)

I do love that, ‘Kara punched a meteorite out of the sky’ is now a Thing That Happened, though. 

(Well perhaps NOT ANYMORE but I’m getting ahead of myself.)

KENNY LIIIIIIIIIIIIIVES!!!!!

“Scooby-Duo” listen, as someone who has already imagined all these kiddos in Hanna-Barbera cartoon style, running around Midvale, solving crimes and saving the day, I loved this description.

Alex being like, ‘DO. NOT. SCREW UP. MY PAST.’ ahhhhh we love to see that scary Older Sibling energy on full display.

And then Brainy and Nia are off to the past!

The only thing that could’ve made the utterance of ‘totes’ worse would’ve been the addition of, ‘magotes’. Thank goodness they exercised restraint in the writers’ room.

FORTUNATELY the terrible ordeal of reliving dated slang is offset by some truly excellent lines and line-reads throughout the rest of the episode.

For instance! Loved Brainy’s, ‘the perfect optical illusion’ and ‘off the dash, please.’ So great.

Other honorable mentions: ‘Damn it, Mitch!’ ‘That’s a LOT of exposure’ and I forget the line itself but when Cat’s like, ‘normal town my a--’ and then the cut to commercial break AAAAAHHHHHH so good.

Okay, back to the episode, Nia and Brainy, on the Legion Cruiser, AND THEN!

AND THEN AND THEN AND THEN!

OUR KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDS!!!!!

I love them. It won’t happen, but gosh, I want a Midvale spin-off so bad. 

Like, the Crisis retcon made some space in the girls’ past for a spin-off to actually...kinda work. 

(But sustaining the premise across multiple episodes/seasons would be tricky and there would always be the threat of running up against like. The current show’s continuity.

But hey! They could just ignore it, I guess! That’s what the Superman show is doing!) *insert frowny emoji here* 

So the kids have gathered with Alex for milkshakes, which is delightful.

But ALL IS NOT WELL! As Alex reads about the ‘luckiest town’ and is like:

(Except with a lot more anxiety and frowning)

I feel as though we already knew Alex went to Stanford but I can’t remember if Kara’s (terrible) resume revealed that she went to National City University?

*Checks* Yes it did.

Another thing I LOVE is just. Alex as the Responsible One, whose anxiety is perpetually cranked to a 9.5, driving the Scooby-Duo around in the suburban mom van for super-ing jobs.

Also, ‘super-ing’ is an excellent verb, 15/10

Young Cat Grant! ....More on her later.

Nicole and Jesse did such a great job with the comedy in this episode--their initial attempt at a cover story/lie is so good. 

And the masterful transition into an actual good lie that Nia knew would win Kara over...VERY NICE.

Kara being so obviously thrilled that there are OTHER ALIENS! WITH POWERS! HERE, IN MIDVALE! RIGHT HERE!

Fandom has ruined the whole ‘Kara has golden retriever energy’ as is their way but I must say...very much getting ‘excited puppy energy’ here. 

Nia and Kara comparing powers was so CUUUUUUUUTE!!!!

As was the picture on Kenny’s desk of him and Kara. D’aaaawwww.

(But OH NO SADNESS...BECAUSE A BREAKUP IS IMMINENT.)

Okay in addition to all of the incredibly adorable content we also get lots of FAMILY FEEEEEEELINGS, which: Yes, good, yes.

But Eliza is only here as a PICTURE on Kara’s nightstand and a NAME on Alex’s badge, I am sad. :C

(Hope Helen Slater is in this last season at some point...need that soothing mom energy after all the Phantom Zone angst)

I think I’m out of order now but Kenny wanting to help Kara help people is just. The most adorable thing. 

Spoiler alert: I use the word ‘adorable’ a lot in this list. Sorry...but also not. 

The Brainy music when he’s in the school computer lab watching the printer is really great. I think we’ve heard it before, but it meshed so well with the whole vibe of both the character and the episode, just stood out nicely, I guess.

Okay, so. Do we think that Jesse could always do the baseball bat tricks, and the writers wrote it in, or do we think that he learned them for the show? My money is on the former.

Either way, very impressive.

And now for the truck situation! I kinda thought it would turn out that it was Cat’s doing, as she was trying to suss out the ‘super’, but nope, it was the blue dudes.

(Which makes more sense, since they have no qualms about endangering other people.)

And ON THAT NOTE, the blue guys! They are the perfect level of ridiculous, and they are wonderfully straightforward in ways that the Phantoms are not.

Also, I love that one of them is named Mitch?

Nia and Kara save the day!

After Kara busts the brakes and is like, ‘uhhh....they’re not working’

I noticed the Metropolis license plate and while yes it’s a little strange that plates are...apparently city-based in this corner of Earth Prime, stranger still is that Cat presumably drove clear across the country to check out this story. Right? Like, that’s the only way she has that plate out in Midvale?

Wait, wait. Totally forgot to mention Kara and Nia’s EXTREMELY OBVIOUS ‘don’t be suspicious’ sunglasses gambit at the Midvale College campus you absolute DORKS.

Right, so.

Remember those FAMILY FEELZ??? WELL!

We’ve got Nia’s call to her mom, which, oof. OOOOOF. 

And then we have even MORE FEELINGS aka: The garage talk.

Okay. OKAY. So even though I’m a little sad “Midvale” no longer occurred in Earth Prime’s timeline, I am fascinated by the ways this new series of events have impacted Alex, Kara, and their past. (Also thrilled that Kenny lives, natch). Alex’s resentment and the burden of ‘protect Kara, PROTECT KARA’ have been left to simmer while Kara’s determination to help people has led to some...earnest but slightly careless secret hero work. The building blocks of the conflict introduced in “Midvale” are still there so while it might at first seem a little...repetitive, for Alex to lay all this out to Kara, it’s really just the reveal of a new boiling point; a post-crisis update on the scene in Midvale where Alex is like, ‘I had two parents before you showed up.’

AAAAAAAAAHHHHH IT’S EMOTIONALLY DEVESTATING I LOVE IT. 

And then like. The new, but also not-new angle, of Alex leveraging her world-weariness against Kara’s youthful optimism/somewhat reckless desire to help, and then Kara throwing BACK that she’s explored other solar systems. 

The LAYERS.

Also that Alex is like, ‘we need weapons, let’s tell mom and also call the DEO,’ classic Alex.

The garage talk ends with Kara determined to come clean to Kenny...BUT OH NO, THE HERO HIDEOUT IS SO CUTE, AND KENNY IS SO DEAR. 

And the reveal that the almost-kiss in “Midvale” actually happened d’awwwww these kids. 

Like. I am legitimately torn, here. I totally understand and support Kara in being honest with Kenny about the whole college situation--but also GAH. KENNY IS SO NICE AND CUTE AND EARNEST. 

You know what ELSE is nice and cute and earnest?

Nia singing “9 to 5″ to Brainy to cope with stress and boost morale.

Heckin’ adorable, gosh.

Aaaaaand some other stuff occurred as the episode closed out but I don’t have them in my notes and BASICALLY I want the next hour like, now. Right now. Because this was WONDERFUL. FROM START TO FINISH.

So some Overall thoughts!

I said we’d get to Cat ‘CJ’ Grant later, so here we are: I...think I liked her? Overall? It was a performance that gradually won me over, is how I would describe it.

Absolutely wild that Cat built a media empire in a mere six years. 

Also her whole, ‘I am going to find this extraordinary being and name them and kick Lois Lane into the classifieds’...I mean she eventually gets two out of three, there.

As I already started to mention, sad that Eliza wasn’t here! But it makes sense, since a lot of this, Kara is trying to keep on the DL.

Obviously, I am ALWAYS down for these flashback situations with the young Danvers. But it was also nice to take a break from the Phantom stuff. The plot here is simple/streamlined in a way the Phantom stuff...isn’t. I love the emotional character stuff coming out of the Phantom Zone arc but wow, the Phantoms are just. Needlessly complicated. 

The little episode recap where Lena is explaining that Phantom Prime is like a bloodhound was like, ‘oh right, they do that too...in addition to all the other stuff that they apparently do.’

So, yes. Welcome change.

The change of scenery + type of action was nice too!

Though RIP to everyone’s hair, fighting against the moisture.

This episode also handled the Brainy/Nia relationship really well, IMO. Like, due to the whole, ‘trying to fit so much in, always’ approach to Supergirl episodes sometimes results in a bit of...one-sidedness, for various characters. Think for instance of Kelly needing to cheer everyone on in episode 2, but not having space for her own feelings/emotional needs in that episode.

I’ve felt that a bit with Brainy and Nia thus far--one will sort of take up more narrative space, so the relationship feels a little lopsided.

NOT SO HERE! They are both going through some stuff, they are both struggling to cope, they both come to rely on one another for help. 

YES. GOOD. YES!!!!

Something I’m loving about season 6 overall is that so far, it doesn’t feel like the plot is stepping on character development too much. Like, it still isn’t a perfect balance, and some episodes manage it better than others, but compared to season 5? Leaps and bounds.

Everything was so nicely tied together and the dialogue was witty, the humor was delightful, EVERYONE WAS ADORABLE AND EARNEST AND DID I MENTION ADORABLE?* but they never lost sight of the themes and emotional through-lines and GAAAAAHHHHHH MIDVALE EPISODES ARE THE BEEEEEESTTTTTTTTT!

*Okay Alex was mainly stressed out but that’s to be expected.

TL;DR - Best episode of the season thus far? Best episode of the season thus far. 

[crowdvscritic]

round up // NOVEMBER 20

Hi, I’m tired. Actually, my friend Celeste created a piece of art that puts the emphasis needed on that sentiment:

I’m very tired. November felt like it was three years and also felt like it went by in a blink and also I’m not sure where October ended and November began—how does time work like that? (I’ve yet to see Tenet, but maybe that will explain it.) But like Michael Scott, somehow I manage, and lately it’s been like this:

Late-night Etsy scrolling. Browsing beautiful, non-big-box-store artwork is very calming just before I go to bed. I’d recommend Etsy stores like Celeste’s chr paperie shop, which I know from experience is full of great Christmas gift ideas. 

Taking a day off of work to do laundry. I’m not sure if it’s more #adulting that I did that or that I was excited to do that.

Eating Ghiradelli chocolate chips straight from the bag. I actually don’t recommend this as a healthy option, but this is also not a health blog.

Watching lots and lots of ‘80s movies. One day I’ll ask a therapist why this decade of films is so comforting for me despite its many flaws, but for now I’m just rolling with it.

Reading. Have you heard of this? It’s a form of entertainment but doesn’t require screens—wild!

Memes. All good Pippin “Fool of a” Took jokes are welcome here.

Leaning into the Christmas spirit by ordering that Starbucks peppermint mocha, making plans to watch everything in that TCM Christmas book I haven’t seen, and keeping the lights on my hot pink tinsel tree on all day as I work from home.

This month’s Round Up is full of stuff that made me smile and stuff that sucked me into its world—I think they’ll do the same for you, too.

November Crowd-Pleasers

Sister Act (1992)

If in four years you aren’t in an emotional state to watch election results roll in, I recommend watching Whoopi Goldberg pretend to be a nun for 100 minutes. (Though, incidentally, if you want to watch that clip edited to specifically depict how the results came in this year, you’ll need to watch Sister Act 2.) This musical-comedy is about as feel-good as it gets, meaning there’s no reason you should wait four more years to watch it. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 7.5/10

Nevada Memes

Speaking of election results, Nevada memes. That’s it—that’s the tweet. Vulture has a round up of some of the best.

SNL Round Up

Laugh and enjoy!

“Cinema Classics: The Birds” (4605 with John Mulaney)

“Uncle Ben” (4606 with Dave Chappelle)

RoboCop (1987)

I’m not surprised I liked RoboCop, but I am surprised at why I liked RoboCop. Not only is this a boss action blockbuster, it’s an investigation into consumerism and the commodification of the human body. It’s also a critique of institutions that treat crime like statistics instead of actions done by people that impact people. That said, it’s also movie about a guy who’s fused with a robot and melts another guy’s face off with toxic sludge, so there’s a reason I’m not listing this under the Critic section. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10

Double Feature – ‘80s Comedies: National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983) + Major League (1989)

The ‘80s-palooza is in full swing! In Vacation (Crowd: 9.5/10 // Critic: 8/10), Chevy Chase just wants to spend time with his family on a vacation to Wally World, but wouldn’t you know it, Murphy’s Law kicks into gear as soon as the Griswold family shifts from out of Park. The brilliance of the movie is that every one of these terrible things is plausible, but the Griswolds create the biggest problems themselves. In Major League (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 6.5/10), Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, and Wesley Snipes are Cleveland’s last hope for a winning baseball team. Like the Griswolds, mishaps and hijinks ensue in their attempt to prevent their greedy owner from moving the Indians to Miami, but the real win is this movie totally gets baseball fans. Like most ‘80s movies, not everything in this pair has aged well, but they brought some laughs when I needed them most.

This Time Next Year by Sophie Cousens (2020)

They’re born a minute apart in the same hospital, but they don’t meet until their 30th birthday on New Year’s Day. So, yes, it’s a little bit Serendipity, and it’s a little bit sappy, but those are both marks in this book’s favor. This Time Next Year is a time-hopping rom-com with lots of almost-meet-cutes that will have you laughing, believing in romantic twists of fate, and finding hope for the new year.

Double Feature – ‘80s Angsty Teens: Teen Wolf (1985) + Uncle Buck (1989)

In the ‘80s, Hollywood finally understood the angsty teen, and this pair of comedies isn’t interested in the melodrama earlier movies like Rebel Without a Cause were depicting. (I’d recommend Rebel, but not if you want to look back on your teen years with any sense of humor.) In Teen Wolf (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 5/10), Michael J. Fox discovers he’s a werewolf.one that looks more like the kid in Jumanji than any other portrayal of a werewolf you’ve seen. It’s a plot so ‘80s and so bizarre you won’t believe this movie was greenlit.

In Uncle Buck (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7.5/10), John Candy is attempting to connect with the nieces and nephew he hasn’t seen in years, including one moody high schooler. (Plus, baby Gaby Hoffman and pre-Home Alone Macauley Culkin!) This is my second pick from one of my all-time fave filmmakers, John Hughes (along with National Lampoon’s Vacation, above), and it’s one more entry that balances heart and humor in a way only he could do. You can see where I rank this movie in Hughes’s pantheon on Letterboxd.

Lord of the Rings memes

This month on SO IT’S A SHOW?, Kyla and I revisited The Lord of the Rings, a trilogy we love almost as much as we love Gilmore Girls. You can listen to our episode about the series on your fave podcast app, and you can laugh through hundreds of memes like I did for “research” on Twitter.

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson (2019)

Most adults are afraid of children’s temper tantrums, but can you imagine how terrified you’d be if they caught on fire in their fits of rage? That’s the premise of this novel, which begins when an aimless twentysomething becomes the nanny of a Tennessee politician’s twins who burst into flames when they get emotional. The book is filled with laugh-out-loud moments but never leaves behind the human emotion you need to make a magical realistic story.

An Officer and a Gentlemen (1982)

Speaking of aimless twentysomethings and emotion, feel free to laugh, cry, and swoon through this melodrama in the ‘80s canon. Richard Gere meanders his way into the Navy when he has nowhere else to go, and he tries to survive basic training, work through his family issues, and figure out his future as he also falls in love with Debra Winger. So, yeah, it’s a schamltzier version of Top Gun, but it’s schmaltz at its finest. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7.5/10

November Critic Picks

Double Feature – ‘40s Amensia Romances: Random Harvest (1942) + The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

Speaking of schmaltz at its finest, let me share a few more titles fitting that description. In Random Harvest (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8.5/10), Greer Garson falls in love with a veteran who can’t remember his life before he left for war. In The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 8.5/10), Gene Tierney discovers a ghost played by a crotchety Rex Harrison in her new home. Mild spoiler: Both feature amnesiac plot developments, and while amnesia has become a cliché in the long history of romance films, Harvest is moving enough and Mr. Muir is charming enough that you won’t roll your eyes. You can see these and more romances complicated by forced forgetfulness in this Letterboxd round up.

The African Queen (1951)

It’s Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn directed by John Huston—I mean, I don’t feel like I need to explain why this is a winner. Bogart (in his Oscar-winning role) and Hepburn star in a two-hander script, dominating the screen time except for a select few scenes with supporting cast. The pair fight for survival while cruising on a small boat called The African Queen during World War I (in Africa, natch), and the two make this small story feel grand and epic. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9/10

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

A young man’s (Dennis Price) mother is disowned from their wealthy family because she marries for love. After her death, he seeks vengeance by killing all of the family members ahead of him in line to be the Duke D'Ascoyne. The twist? All of his victims are played by Sir Alec Guinness! Almost every character in this black comedy is a terrible person, so you won’t be too sorry to see them go—you can just enjoy the creative “accidents” he stages and stay in suspense on whether our “hero” gets his comeuppance. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8.5/10

Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1937)

What would you do if you found out you were to be someone’s eighth wife? Well, it’s probably not what Claudette Colbert does in this screwball comedy that reminds me a bit of Love Crazy. This isn’t the first time I’ve recommended Colbert, Gary Cooper, or Ernst Lubitsch films, so it’s no surprise these stars and this director can make magic together in this hilarious battle of the wills. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8.5/10

The Red Shoes (1948)

I love stories about the competition between your life and your art, and The Red Shoes makes that competition literal. Moira Shearer plays a ballerina who feels life is meaningless without dancing—then she falls in love. That’s an oversimplification of a rich character study and some of the most beautiful ballet on film, but I can’t do it justice in a short paragraph. Just watch (perhaps while you’re putting up your hot pink tinsel tree?) and soak in all the goodness. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 10/10

The Third Man (1949)

Everybody loves to talk about Citizen Kane, and with the release of Mank on Netflix, it’s newsworthy again. But don’t miss this other ‘40s team up of Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles. Cotten is a writer digging for the truth of his friend’s (Welles) death in a mysterious car accident. Eyewitness accounts differ on what happened, and who was the third man at the scene only one witness remembers? 71 years later, this movie is still tense, and this actor pairing is still electric. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9/10

The Untouchables (1987)

At the end of October, we lost Sean Connery. I looked back on his career first by writing a remembrance for ZekeFilm and then by watching The Untouchables. (In a perfect world I would’ve reversed that order, but c’est la vie.) In my last selection from the ‘80s, Connery and Kevin Costner attempt to convict Robert De Niro’s Al Capone of anything that will stick and end his reign of crime in Chicago. Directed by Brian De Palma and set to an Ennio Morricone soundtrack, this film is both an exciting action flick and an artistic achievement that we literally discussed in one of my college film classes. Connery won his Oscar, and K. Cos is giving one of the best of his career, too. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 9.5/10

Remember the Night (1940)

Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in my favorite team up yet! Double Indemnity may be the bona fide classic in the canon, but this Christmas story—with MacMurray as a district attorney prosecuting shoplifter Stanwyck— is a charmer. I’ve added it to my list of must-watch Christmas movies—watch for some holiday cheer and rom-com feels. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 8.5/10

Photo credits: chr paperie. Books my own. All others IMDb.com.

[ayankun]

Got a lot done today, rewarding self with hsmtmts S1 (who am I kidding, this was going to happen regardless) just starting ep 3, thoughts that contain S2 spoilers below

It's not as awkwardly zany as I feared! I think its mockumentary style is certainly more stylized than it's become, but the jokes still land. Even though some of said jokes are based on their characters' archetypes rather than the people they're going to grow into. What can you do, it's only been an hour of runtime, everything's gonna be different by hour 10.

Gosh the kids are so young! But they're all doing so so so well. I've also now seen an hour or two of cast interviews, and the age differences of the actors is pretty wild. Like I think Frankie is one of the older ones, but for the first time I paid attention and found out Carlos is supposed to be a sophomore like Gina (but now it makes more sense that he's only just turning 16 lolololol)

I'm feeling really bad for Ricky, remembering that his home life troubles are specifically what are causing him to react and over-react and generally be a drama-maker on behalf of the plot. Like on one hand, it's such an interesting choice to have your leading man be the anti-hero of his own story, 'cause he hecks up ALL the time and is sometimes hard to root for, but taking a step back to observe that this is a fiction and everything is designed with intent, Ricky's character isn't really a hero or villain, he's a personification of a message, which is that sometimes you gotta dig deep and identify the root of your problems first before you can start applying beneficial solutions. And you might just keep hecking up until you get there. The stuff with his mom in 2x09 is sosososososo important and a long time coming, the character's going to have to be a different person going forward because he's finally been able to address some of his issues that have been festering since 1x01.

Semi-related, I'll always show up for a good redemption arc. Ricky, the hero, is going to need one! Nini might even get one (1000% I don't believe she needs one, keep self-actualizing, queen!), but anyway the S1 antagonist trio of EJ, Gina, and Mr. Mazzara is so fun/frustrating to watch, knowing that in S2 they're literally all going to become not just protagonists but also my favorite ones.

ALSO seeing evil!Gina and villainous!EJ interact keeps giving me chills. Those poor kids have NO IDEA what they're in for!!!!!

Similarly, Matt Cornett has grown on me a lot. Even first time through, I thought he was the weakest of the cast (lol he's the oldest, he's ridiculously old for that baby face) and just now in One Billion Sorrys I was like, isn't EJ supposed to be leading man material? Why is his performance so bad for comedy reasons? Oh... it's less comedy reasons and more Matt Cornett doing his best? Also why is he so white-washed this season! The makeup they've caked on him makes him look sickly. ANYWAY he's really come a long way, and especially with the stuff they've been giving him in S2, his scenes where EJ's successfully engaging with Gina as a human being are sosososo effective and I'm looking forward to getting back to that point.

Clocking some callbacks S2 has made to S1, like Kourtney talking to Nini about how she's avoiding talking to Ricky about something important and then Ricky comes up, or Nini needing to keep her phone out of the hands of her insecure clingy boyfriends so they don't jealously delete things. EDIT: just finished S1 and there was another major parallel I noticed but since noticing I have somehow forgotten :<<<<< OH COULD IT HAVE BEEN 1x08 is where Ricky and Nini rekindle things and 2x08 is where they call it quits????? (also Ricky getting earth-shattering home & family news on holidays and having to bottle it up b/c someone's on his doorstep and he has to perform Emotional Stability) (found another one, Miss Jenn's "Trust the process" vs Dean Patel's "Trust the outcome.") (Miss Jenn giving Nini a voice and YAC literally taking it away)

I guess also Ricky's mom problem and Nini's decision to put her dreams first were the inciting incidents for these two characters' arcs -- like, the narrative's inciting incident is "I think I kinda you know," and it plays out in the spaces where the Ricky/Nini romance storyline provides conflict for the success-of-the-show storyline, and vice versa, but the CHARACTERS' STORIES are about the mom thing and the dream thing, and are actually the root of all the interpersonal drama.

Not sure that I have a point, it's more of a comment of appreciation.

Another good thing about S2 is that it opens up to include more stories for the supporting cast, kinda like how HSM2 does and makes Ryan your favorite character. So even in retrospect, in S1 my faves are Gina and Mazzara and Seb & Carlos and Ashlyn, and Nini and Ricky are just Also There.

Different thought: my singular major complaint when I watched this the first time was that the show (accidentally? Due to unyielding adherence to the conventions of the genre?) uniformly conflates personal success with romantic success. As in, you know you've finally achieved your dream when you are handed a SO as a trophy. The sole SOLE exception to this in S1 is Kourtney, and look how that's played out in S2. :/ especially since one of my favorite favorite things was Start of Something New recast as Nini's romance-free self-actualization ballad, I really thought that was a premise that would make an appearance s o m e w h e r e in the show. SO IM SO HAPPY THAT'S FINALLY PAID OFF FOR NINI. LIKE IN 2x09 WHERE RICKY'S DROWNING IN HIS UNSHED TEARS AND THEN IT CUTS TO NINI SCROLLING COMMENTS IN HER INSTAGRAM HOLY SHIT. There's a read where she's the bitch or whatever for not being as broken up as Ricky is, but gurrrrrrl this has been her true character aim since day one!!! Her story is not! About! RICKY!!!!!

(I wanted my ace!Taylor HC to magically transfer into Kourtney, whose canon feminist self-affirming character core might prevent her from getting roped into a romance storyline. Like I don't want to begrudge a character a romance plot if that's what the character wants, but GOSH wouldn't it have been cool if this rom-com genre could find room to accommodate aspec stories. ALSO where my trans teens at!!! Fingers crossed, S3.)

In conclusion, I identify with Mazzara what with his autism and his robots and his AV club and his green gingham button-up that I also have; I love love love his look of consternation with himself when he sends that email. 10/10. But also, if we were in high school, I'd have been a grade ahead of his actor sooooo guess that means I'm just a crusty old grandpa

(Started writing this going into ep 3, now I'm headed into ep 6 lololol. HOMECOMING SEBLOS AND DONT WANT NO SCRUBS KOURTNEY CASTLES IN THE SKY MY BELOVEDS)

[gizkasparadise]

cdrama rec/review: le coup de foudre

KDRAMA AND CDRAMA MASTER LIST OF REVIEWS

Series: le coup de foudre / love at first sight / i don’t like this world, i only like you Episodes: 35 w/ a special Genres: then & now, slice of life, high school to adult life, romance, reunion/getting back together, working with the ex Spoilers in the Rec: for set-up/light ones for character backgrounds If You Like, You’ll Like: the reply series, sad-looking dogs that are loved very much, because this is my first life (VERY similar male lead), sibling love, my sunshine but if people were nicer and had significantly better hair, multiple couples that are all a lot of fun

Rank: 10/10

PREMISE

flashback to 6-8 years ago (because the OP here can’t remember lol): it’s desk selection day in qiao yi’s classroom! a very dramatic moment for all high schoolers, qia yi has to select who she sits next to. because she’s at the bottom of the class ranking, she gets last pick, which essentially narrows down her choices to that creepy kid who writes love poetry to every female student in the class and yan mo, the scary genius student who has placed 1st in their class since...forever.

taking a gamble, qiao yi goes with yan mo. yan mo eventually agrees to tutoring qiao yi outside of class and they become friends. then...friends? if you know what i mean. it’s very sweet and cute. only problem is that yan mo is both a genius and from a Family of Means, and so is already planning on attending cambridge (yeah, fucking cambridge) after graduation. not wanting to separate, yan mo asks qiao yi to come with him and she agrees to study hard so she can get accepted to a university in the UK, too.

but then, well, bad shit happened. 

qiao yi ended up staying in their home town, yan mo left for cambridge, and we got two v heartbroken teenagers on our hands.

4 years later, yan mo returns after studying in the uk, and by chance they end up bumping into each other. angry because qiao yi hurt him, yan mo puts up an ALOOF AND COLD AND I DONT CARE AT ALL front that she sadly buys. but after he leaves for the big city to pursue a business opportunity, qiao yi harnesses some amazing big dick energy to go after him, in a sort of inverse DONT LET HER GET ON THAT PLANE! move. very abba. 

the plot bounces between their (and their friends’) high school years, their lives as reunited adults, and their future lives as married folks. i love it very, very much.

MAIN CHARACTERS

zhao qiao yi

as a high schooler, qiao yi was a quiet girl with low self-esteem, who consistently ranked at the bottom of her class and was always attempting to retreat into her school tracksuit like a turtle. despite this, qiao yi has some solid friends and is always kind if somewhat shy or uncomfortable in certain situations. as a adult, qiao yi works as a television producer and is clearly more confident. 

she buys truly awful graphic t-shirts as thank you gifts that one feels obligated to wear. falls for scams easily. will help you fold 1000 paper stars for your boyfriend even if she hates your boyfriend because she’s ride or die like that. look at how cute she is no one is allowed to be mean to someone as cute as this.

yan mo / “frank”

if you liked se hee in because this is my first life, you’re in luck because here is a 10% angrier version. at first, yan mo seems cold, aloof, snobbish, pretentious, arrogant...

okay, but he’s ALSO got a lot of feelings and will help people out. well, at the start of the show, he’ll help two people out. but that expands to like 10. so, progress! in high school, he falls for qiao yi in the typical Cannot Spit It Out fashion, buying her sentimental cans of coke, PUTTING IN ONE EARBUD SO SHE CAN LISTEN TO THE BEATLES WITH HIM, feeling Weird about her tying his tie, and single-handedly ruining a for-profit afterschool tutoring business in about 30 seconds, because they weren’t teaching qiao yi anything, and he knew he could do it better. tbh he completely fucking destroys a lot of things and people in under a minute. #ruthless

he’s very protective of qiao yi and rather than explain it, here is a clip from the special episode where yan mo confronts another student who left a love confession meant for qiao yi in his desk by mistake (subtitles have to be selected under settings, but it’s subbed in english):

zhao guan chao

zhao qiao yi’s twin brother, who has always placed 2nd in their classes after yan mo. despite his high grades, he comes off as a laidback teen heartthrob and has a reputation for being a flake and a playboy. BUT he’s legit a chill dude and clearly popular for a reason--he gets along with (almost) everyone. he loves his sister and is extremely protective of her, especially since she’s so shy and has low self-esteem for Reasons That Will Be Explained in the Tragic Backstory. he’s such a good brother. the best brother. also looks out for qiao yi’s best friend, wu yi. understands the value of shoes.

hao wu yi

qiao yi’s best friend, and another classmate of The Crew. i say this with so, so much love, but she’s got a lot of chaotic dumbass energy. struggling along the bottom ranks with qiao yi during high school. she has the worst taste in men as a teenager, falling for the guy who literally bullied her in like. ep 2. thankfully she’s got qiao yi and guanchao.

the trio are close, and that doesn’t change as they grow up. wu yi ends up becoming a novelist who writes pop and steamy romance novels and has a significant teenage girl fanbase. it’s amazing. 

fei da chuan

my boy. another classmate, he, qiao yi, and wu yi make up the official Dumbass Trio of their high school class and have adorable adventures + solidarity in it. he’s also yan mo’s uncle. somehow. because rich people families are wild. while he’s got a place to live, he more often than not crashes at yan mo’s, who Does Not Like It. but da chuan does not notice or care. 

abrasive but 100% sincere about everything and toward everyone. people will think he’s an asshole or a gangster but then he’s secretly feeding abandoned kittens in the corner or something. as an adult, has the best business casual outfits. serves as a big brother figure to a lot of people, but qiao yi in particular. cannot, cannot fucking do math.

SUPPORTING

“alicia” / cheng youmei. an old family friend of yan mo’s who is very posh and rich and dignified. studied abroad with him at cambridge, and is cold toward qiao yi after arriving back in china. cosplays B)

teacher gao. everyone’s high school teacher who later owns a bar that seems to be there only for dispensing advice. seriously. there is no way this bar is economically sound as the only customers you ever see are gao’s students coming in one at a time for Wisdom and you never see them pay for anything. also the bar has no fucking roof and is directly above traintracks. i have hang-ups about this bar

lin shu. yan mo’s mother. very sweet and pretty and a ballernia turned program director. is almost never home but clearly loves her son. du chaun’s sister. somehow.

zhao suyin. qiao yi and guan chao’s mother. one of her kinks is roleplaying condor heroes characters? okay okay okay

tian weimin. qiao yi and guan chao’s stepfather who works as police officer. best dad award. he’s so sweet and corny and peak dad humor. he loves them kids & they love him back

grandpa. yan mo’s dog in high school. a very old basset hound with sad eyes:

dollar or d. i cant tell you anything about him, other than he used to be a stray and yan mo says he’s ugly, which, rude.

DRAWBACKS

plot...hm. there’s SOME plot, but this is about characters + romance + friendship + family. if you’re looking for scheming mothers-in-law or tragic car accidents or secret destinies this isn’t the one for you. similar in vibe to Reply 1988 (they even watch the show in the show :’D / make references to it)

OKAY SO every plot summary i’ve seen says that yan mo is in a relationship with someone else when he gets back to china. no he is not. i say this because it was a huge turn off for me/initially put me off watching the series. he is definitely a one-and-only type. there’s no cheating in this show. lmao, hell, neither of the mains are even interested in anyone else but each other

i liked du chuan and his love interest a lot, but they definitely didn’t get as much screen time as the others

while it’s clear qiao yi + yan mo are the mains, another couple gets a lot of screen time as well. this might be a skip if you don’t like multiple couples/secondary relationships in a show

i surprisingly enjoyed the high school storyline a lot more than the adult one? which is super weird for me, but idk i was sad when it was over because it was so cute.

some...weird technical decisions. every once in a while, the camera will have like a nostalgia filter and then it disappears and then the edges get a bit blurry and idk it feels very film school 101 to show that what’s on screen is a ~memory. the soundtrack/music is sometimes also too loud--to the point where it can drown out the actors (particularly janice wu in the high school arc, since qiao yi is soft-spoken)

REASONS TO WATCH

the lead actors (janice wu + zhang yujian) are legit two of my favorites and they have great/easy chemistry. all the actors are amazing. everyone’s loveable

SIBLING GOALS the zhao twins are amazing and they’re both each other’s biggest fans. gaunchao had some really heartwarming brother moments

i love love lmao. this spoke to a lot of my favorite dynamics: exes reunited/having to work together, childhood sweethearts reuniting as adults, “gangster” and princess, childhood friends turned lovers, bickering couples, cold man who actually has a lot of feelings, lots of people being overprotective, idk. everything was just great. 0 complaints on any of the ships.

i genuinely liked every character other than that one piece of shit poppa zhao. even alicia, who’s put into the stereotypical rich bitch role, was actually really fun and subverted a lot of expectations for this trope

it’s just. real cute y’all. probably my favorite cdrama and definitely in my top 10 (maybe 5?) dramas overall.

FINAL THOUGHTS

i love them ;;

[lianabrooks]

The Romance Of Tiger And Rose - Early Review

Title: THE ROMANCE OF TIGER AND ROSE Country: China  Genre: RomCom so far... 

Basic Premise: Scrappy script writer Chen Xiao Qian (XQ) (played by Zhao Lu Si) wants to get *paid* (like every writer does) but the production company won’t pay her until the lead actor, Han Ming Xing (played by Ryan Ding), signs off on the script. XQ goes in Ming Xing to discuss the role of Han Shuo (HS), the man XQ envisions as a noble warrior hero who falls in love with the virtuous heroine, Chu Chu (CC), simply because she is noble, beautiful, and kind.

Ming Xing rejects this and pictures a more ruthless HS, one willing to lie and betray people to conquer the neighboring city. 

XQ goes home to rewrite the script, gets sicks, and falls into her script... is it a dream? Is she really there? Can she die? No one knows! And now the fun begins... 

How Much Have I Watched? The first 6 episodes.

Rating: So far this is a 5/5. 

It’s tropey and cracktastic and exactly what I need. It comes across as very silly but it’s an intentional silliness. XQ is constantly editing herself. “Why would I write that?” “The logic here makes no sense. I need to rewrite this?”  

From a writer’s perspective, this is actually very well executed. I appreciate the art and skill that has gone into this script and the acting. 

A lot of the acting looks over-the-top, sometimes too exaggerated to be good. But that’s part of the story itself. XQ is trapped in her own fanfic (several people have compared it to Goodbye My Princess... we hope it gets a happier ending). XQ wrote exaggerated, over-the-top characters because she is a hopeless romantic and dramatic, but only in her own head. She wrote a whole world of people she wanted to be like: loud, brave, strong, popular, beautiful ... but she doesn’t feel she fits in. 

In reality XQ is kind of shy, easily ignored, pushed around by the producer and actors. We see her struggling alone, and being sick with no one to care for her. So it makes sense for her to write a drama where she can feel all these emotions safely. She writes about a loving family of devoted sisters, a mother who would do anything, a city where women are the leaders, and a hero who loves the quiet restraint of a Perfect Woman (CC). 

There’s a lot of meta subtext about what XQ feels a perfect life is, what a perfect romance looks like, and what an ideal woman is verse who she sees herself as and what she wants from life.

I’m excited to see how this goes because it could be really amazing. But... spoilers are below the break.

Representation: The major rep here goes to First Princess who is in a wheelchair. Chen Yuan Yuan (YY)’s legs were damaged/poisoned sometime in childhood and can’t be cured even by magical means. She feels cast off and overlooked because her mother and sister are both warriors. 

As far as rep goes, this is doing okay so far. Yes, YY is being ignored by people, but not by the writers. She’s given her side story, a full personality, goals, and at least one love interest. She’s being given enough screen time that I think she’s going to be a major player by the end of the show. We shall see.  HS also has a medical condition but his entire reason for marrying someone in the city is to get the cure for his condition, and he achieves that goal, so meh. Not everyone gets to be magically cured of their conditions. First Princess is better rep, although the discussion of how people treat HS and how they talk like he’s already dead is well done. 

SPOILERY REVIEW  FOR THE FIRST SIX EPISODES  & PREDICTIONS  BELOW THE BREAK

The Spoiler Filled Breakdown...

In XQ’s original script HS and CC fall in love, but not before HS meets 2nd Princess Chen Qian Qian. In the rewrite the brash, stupid, and wild Qian Qian kidnaps HS and forces a marriage. He poisons her on the wedding night.

XQ wakes up in the fantasy world as Qian Qian with no memories of QQ either than what XQ wrote in the script. It’s the morning of Qian Qian’s wedding (remind me to talk to XQ about cutesy repeating names), but XQ tries to rush everything assuming that dying will wake her up in her world.

But HS decides not to poison his new bride. XQ gets drunk and wakes up still in her fantasy world and very confused. She decides the best thing to do is live to the end and see CC and HS happily married. 

This HS isn’t the perfectly soft boy she originally wanted, he’s the strategist and killer who plans on marrying to steal the ancestral relic, a dragon bone, and betray his princess to conquer the city. He plans this knowing he will likely die, but is comfortable with it because he’s been diagnosed with a heart condition and will likely die. 

HS is used to being written off as dead already. No one is investing in him. They don’t love him. They don’t care about him. Except for XQ who still sees him as this perfect hero she wrote. She wants to keep him alive and get him married to CC... but every plan backfires, and with each misstep HS falls a little more in love with XQ. 

It’s very fun to see XQ struggle between the love she has for these fictional people (she tells the teacher she loves him most) and her warring desire to finish the script the way she originally intended. XQ is desperate to make HS and CC fall in love even when it’s obvious from the early episodes that CC loves the teacher that Third Princess is betrothed too. 

If you aren’t looking for it, you might miss CC’s longing looks, but it’s there. 

Second Princess is not the Queen/City Master’s biological daughter, but she’s a bad*** warrior beauty who is intelligent, kind, strong, and trying to be flawless. She feels overlooked by her mother who so obviously spoils Third Princess. It’s easy to see why XQ wanted to write her as the romantic lead... she is the Ideal Historical Drama Princess. 

It’s equally easy to see why HS doesn’t love her, she’s just like everyone else he knows and she’s quick to dismiss him.

XQ is everything CC is not. She’s awkward, she’s willing to embarrass herself, she thinks of herself as being worthless. It’s a thing that starts small but is building throughout the first six episodes, XQ’s has talked herself into believing she doesn’t have anything special: no martial skills, not a great student, and this whole list of things a Proper Person does. 

And HS falls in love with her for all her other good traits, the things that society tends to ignore: being self-less, being kind, remembering birthdays, making space for people who are otherwise left out. 

The big question that remains is: IS THIS A REAL FANTASY WORLD OR IS THIS A DREAM??? 

Because Han Shuo is played by the same actor as Han Ming Xing and no one wants to see this romance burn down.

Possibilities:  1) This is all a dream... XQ will wake up, write a better script, and see the man she fell in love with romance someone else. It echoes the original script but is my least favorite possibility because it will reinforce XQ’s belief that she is worthless. Even if the show is wildly popular she will be an afterthought. I think this won’t happen because the plot is building to XQ realizing she is amazing and the ending should confirm that.

2) This is a dream but with a twist... XQ will wake up, write the script, and HS as HMX will fall in love with her because she wrote complex characters and all will be well. This feels like a safe option and would be a classic Kdrama twist (surprise! your ancient lover is reborn! or traveled through time! ta-da! They are here!) in the last 3 minutes of the drama. But I would be a bit disappointed with this because it is so predictable.

3) This is reality... the script writing was a dream and XQ is actually Third Princess and will never see tampons again. That’s a horrible thing to wish on anyone so let’s hope not. Do you know what the maternal mortality rate was back then? Way. Too. High. No. Claire Beauchamp had it right, try to get modern medicine for pregnancies. 

4) HS is HMX... this one has gained some traction with the romantics online. The theory is Han Shuo is Han Ming Xing. He started in the fantasy/dream world and came to the real world searching for XQ and the reason he demanded to see the script writer was because he missed her. He’s hoping to goad her into writing the story “correctly” so she will fall in love with him again, and when XQ wakes up with all these memories she’ll recognize HS and understand how he got to the modern world and they will live happily ever after. Honestly, I love this one best. Let everyone have happily ever after. 

5) XQ will need to choose... both worlds are real but she can only live in one of them. She can return to being a lonely scriptwriter, but have a script she knows will be amazing, or she can stay as Third Princess and live with HS. This feels likely... or at least parts of it do. I think she’ll be presented with a way to escape again and be conflicted, making a choice she thinks will sacrifice everything. It sounds like a very solid third plot twist that will leave everyone agreeing she made the right choice but slightly heartbroken over what could have been.

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!

SHIPS:

Xian Chian x Han Shuo

Second Princes Chu Chu x Teacher

First Princess Yuan Yuan x Su Mu the musician