#and it's not going to be the guy who had like 10 seconds of screentime. that's for another day

[beeholyshit]

errmmmm

[iam93percentstardust]

one of the things that really bothers me about modern franchises, and in particular over the last 5 years or so, is their refusal to commit. what i mean here when i say this is that it's not uncommon for a major franchise to make a decision, whether about the plot or the characters, that should have had huge, world-changing consequences... and then just never address that again or worse, immediately go back and undo it. and i'm gonna pick on star wars and the mcu here because those are the two big franchises i'm into at the moment (and i think they're kind of the worst at this), but i don't want you to walk away from this thinking that this is solely a disney thing. i've seen this happen with game of thrones and supernatural and plenty of other non-disney franchises. spoilers ahead, you've been warned:

in ant-man & the wasp quantumania, scott and hope make the life-altering decision to stay behind in the quantum realm and defeat kang instead of going through the portal to return to their world. this should have been a huge meta decision for the mcu, and when i first saw it in theaters, my immediate thought was wow, what is this going to mean for the mcu going forward? are we going to get a movie/miniseries about scott and hope helping to rebuild the quantum realm? how are cassie, janet, and hank going to react to the losses of their loved ones (in some cases, for the second time)? is cassie going to become the "first" young avenger because she has to take her father's place among the team lineup (and i only say first because as of this moment, none of the other young avengers introduced to the franchise are official avengers yet)? except nope, because less than 2 minutes later, cassie had fixed the portal that had broken way back at the beginning of the movie and brought scott and hope back.

and it felt like such a cheat. i was so disappointed in that theater, not as someone who was invested in these characters on a personal level (because yay, cassie gets her dad back!), but as someone who has spent years investing themselves in the story of the mcu. what was the point of wasting screentime on scott and hope accepting their new lives in the quantum realm if it was just going to immediately be undone? the entire scene could have been cut to scott and hope making it back bare seconds before the portal closed and it would have had the same emotional impact. there was nothing added by making scott and hope (and us) think that there was no way back only to rip the rug out from under us and go "gotcha! you really thought we were gonna give this movie a sad ending? haha! you're so dumb!"

and this isn't the first time the mcu has done this. one of the biggest complaints about endgame was the decision to set it five years in the future with no consideration for how that would actually change the setting of the mcu. characters were brought back to the exact place they disappeared from with no consideration for how things might have changed in the interim five years (like planes that weren't in the air anymore, buildings no longer standing, even just something as simple as a chair being unoccupied). and then the mcu didn't even really have the courage to address how this would have shaped the world other than a few jokes and making the bad guys in the falcon and the winter soldier people who cared about how the world had screwed them over during the blip.

and things like this happen over and over and over again. the accords are put into place in civil war, but by the time we get to she-hulk, they're gone with no explanation because, as best as i can tell, the writers didn't want to have to deal with the worldbuilding that went into the accords. gamora is killed in infinity war, but heaven forbid quill not have an emotional investment in a film he appears for maybe 10 minutes in so now she's back in endgame. steve got to go live in the past with his ex-girlfriend (which is in itself a refusal to commit after the mcu both gave her a different husband and had the woman herself tell him to move on) but we need to establish that messing with timelines is bad because that's what the entire next phase hinges on so actually his ending was predestined and it's only everyone else who can't change time. whoever took this entire town and also wanda hostage and forced them to live out a sitcom fantasy is bad and needs to be stopped but wait, it's actually wanda and she can't be the bad guy yet, we need her for doctor strange 2, so actually everyone's going to defend her now and say that no one else could ever possibly understand her grief. thor has decided to accept responsibility as king of asgard, but we can't use him for any more movies if he's stuck in asgard, so actually he's decided to pass it on to someone whose entire leadership capability is developed offscreen. i could list more examples but this is making me angry, so let's move on to star wars instead.

with star wars, i look at first the oft-quoted meme, "somehow palpatine has returned." yeah, i shouldn't really need to go into detail on how that counts as a refusal to commit but. the last jedi was a study in how johnson refused to commit to anything that abrams had laid down in the force awakens, but rise of skywalker was almost like abrams had looked at the franchise and said "screw you for taking it away from me, i'm going to come up with the most bullshit stuff just to spite you for doing that in the first place. and i'm going to start by undoing the most important plot point of the first trilogy: the emperor dies." and yeah, disney's kind of tried to salvage this by dropping hints into the bad batch and the mandalorian about cloning, but that only really works if you're watching the franchise chronologically and not considering that both of those series came out after rise of skywalker.

and then there's the mandalorian, my sweet summer child, who is, in my opinion, the worst at backtracking their plot points. i'm not entirely convinced that any of the higher ups for this show really knew what they were doing when they started working on it and i'm not convinced that they know what they're doing now. yeah, there's the tie-in to the last season of clone wars, but the mandalorian has managed to walk back pretty much every single major plot point it's had. din is this legendary warrior who can't be beat, but no one will watch this show if he defeats everyone too early, so he's constantly getting beat up (tbf, sometimes some of the fights he loses makes sense like the krayt dragon and the mudhorn, but a lot of them don't. at all). moff gideon is dead, no wait no he's not, now he's imprisoned, no wait no he's not, now he's definitely dead, you can totally believe us this time guys. grogu can use the force and must be placed with the jedi, but wait, the only person still actively teaching the way of the jedi is luke and all of his students will be brutally murdered ten years from now, and we can't have that, everyone will be mad at us for killing off such a cute character and no one will buy baby yoda dolls (and also we have to set up luke's character degradation from hopeful, believes-in-love cinnamon roll to "i'm going to kill my nephew") so in between seasons let's have grogu decide to go back to din (and don't even get me started on how frustrating it is that a casual mandalorian watcher also had to watch book of boba fett to understand why grogu is back). din has the darksaber now which makes him king of mandalore, that's totally going to be important and what the entire series has been building up to, right? wrong! he might have spent the first two seasons making connections, learning about the world outside his sheltered upbringing, and demonstrating the various qualities that would make for a good leader, but the entire third season will be about din realizing that actually he's super unworthy and the darksaber should actually go to someone who... saw an animal in the water.

and it's really, really frustrating as a viewer! because how am i supposed to get invested in any of these plot decisions when they almost always get reversed? why should i care that mj and ned have forgotten peter when ant-man 3 has shown me that they'll remember him the next time they're all on screen together? why should i care that tech is dead when half of the last season of clone wars was about how echo was actually alive? if none of these decisions have any permanence, then where are the emotional stakes? why should i watch your movie if all you're going to tell me is that nothing matters?

[hexhomos]

oh god I'm freaking out now. I did not watch the leaks, but I had read some (similar) opinions and choose to ignore it because I don't trust the general media analysis capabilities of like 70% of tumblr. But I do trust you and I like reading your vikjayce and doomreed thoughts... is it really that bad? Isn't there anything salvageable?

Don't click readmore if you don't want vague spoilers.

I genuinely have no emotional investment in much, if not majority of what happens in s2. Maybe this is because I'm an industryperson and not exactly awed by the idea of 'inversion' for pointless inversion's sake, maybe because the past year of publicly televised USA-backed genocides have made arcane's fraught politics more detestable than ever. I abhor how married this show is to the message that every atrocity, no matter how vile or senseless, is 'committed for love' as an easy way to sidestep discussions of capitalism, exploitation, imperialism, and all the systematically-enforced evils that make up the reason Why this world is so brutally unfair. They literally took a guy whose entire deal is building human centipedes in his basement, making weapons of war, and inflicting as much pain as possible for the sake of a laugh and said 'oh... he does this for love,' and i felt like throwing rocks at the screen for how stupid that shit is.

The episodes I've seen feel shallow, limited and empty in their writing; the world has a raindrop's depth. There are maybe 10 people total in these cities and everyone else is a nameless, vapid NPC, functionally indistinct outside of how they rack up morale for a certain character. The animation is still kinetic, the music videos are still certainly a big part of the flashing lights, but i feel nothing for any of the characters onscreen except for contempt or mild disinterest.

It feels like a first draft put to animation. It's to the point where i believe season 1 should have closed without continuation and let You decide how the uncertainties pan out. (Have you ever seen Wicked? Do you know how everyone tells you that it completely falls apart in the second act so best pretend act1 is the whole thing?) The 'twists' it tries to pull aren't clever. If you're a game fan, you're left confused as to why some of this shit is included in this show and not some other region's show, if you know nothing of the game, you're going to be namedropped on lore buzzwords that get little explanation, give you no reason to care, but are placed as if they are a big deal anyway. Kind of feels like you're cheating both demographics. Parts of this season feel like backdoor pilots to greenlight a Noxus show -- the region who most thrives in the edgy aesthetics of cool awesomesauce grimdark fantasy imperialism -- and i just want all of these characters to die. But they end up getting all of the sob-story justification screentime while the poor people are either stupid kids or drug addicts. every single main undercity character is a drug addict of some kind, war-on-terror propaganda style, and the one who isn't has been surgically removed from the plot for majority of the runtime. I have to laugh.

The things some people were looking forward to - the gay romances, the gay divorces - will probably make more than a few fans go on to say threats of terrorism, but i still felt like i could see right through the script's flaccid bullshit. You're not getting a rise out of me like this. You barely fucking tried.

'Salvageable' is a dangerous word around me I'm notoriously obsessed with taking shit that sucks and recycling it to see if it can be improved like 'there is always hope' and all that gushy heart bullshit but like... that is between you and god. that is magic that happens inside your mind. it's work that you put into it, and that I predict people will be putting into it, out of their own volition. Or as a way to ignore what just happened.

[campbenji]

CHAOS THEORY TRAILER THOUGHTS UNDER THE CUT

i have very mixed opinions on everything but after watching the trailer like 5 times:

-the tone of the show is going to be SO much darker than the original, maybe even darker than s3, which has me so excited but also so scared for the kids

-i might be stuck on the denial stage but i'm starting to firmly believe that Brooklynn is not dead. i'll make a separate post about it but i don't think she'd get killed that easily

-also, such a slay character design for 10 seconds of screentime? i refuse to believe it.

-talking about character designs, most of their timeskip looks are pretty cool?? Sammy's is my favorite, she and Yaz finally got done justice. Kenji is ok, i guess??? there's nothing really bad about it, but idk, it's just not as interesting as the others

-if i had a nickel for every time Darius had survivor's guilt over the "death" of a loved one, i'd have three nickels which is more than fucking enough please let him rest he's so tired

-BUMPY SHE'S THERE SHE'S THERE ASJKJAAJFJKDFD

-at first i thought most of the action was going to take place either on Darius's cabin or on the road, but some frames look like we might also see Sammy's farm?? if so, i'm going to be so happy we've been waiting so long for this

-if Daniel Kon is behind all of this chaos i'm going to bite something. STAY IN JAIL AND LEAVE THEM ALONE. IT'S BEEN 6 YEARS AND YOU'RE WASTING RESOURCES ON GETTING REVENGE ON A BUNCH OF KIDS WHO KICKED YOUR ASS ONE TIME. GET A LIFE.

-Yasammy is alive and well can i get a wahoo 🎉🏳️‍🌈

-who the fuck is that glasses guy i feel bad vibes from him

-DARIUS MIMICKING THE T-REX SCENE CAN WE GET A LITTLE COMMOTION FOR THAT 🗣️🗣️🗣️

[izunias-meme-hole]

Since I already posted my favorite Sailor Moon Villains but I didn't exactly rank them, so here we go.

My Top 10 Sailor Moon Villains (From Both The 90's Anime & The OG Manga/Crystal & Eternal)

Number 10. Wicked Lady - No, I will not be calling her "Black Lady," but aside from that, this is Chibi-Usa at her undeniable worst, no matter the version. Though execution-wise, the anime wins out purely because of her resolution, and the showcase of some level of good still being in her.

Number 9. Mistress 9 - Ah, pure evil done well. She didn't exactly have a lot of screentime in the 90's anime (and she was sadly kinda basic), but in the manga she's an entirely different story. Mistress 9 is the child and herald of Pharaoh 90, and is hellbent on eradicating all life on earth because she sees them as inferior lifeforms. Oh, and let's not even bring up her possession of Hotaru Tomoe, the fact that Chibi-Usa's pure heart was used to give her power, and overall she's just heinous as hell. In short, Mistress 9 was definitely something in both the 90's Anime and Manga/Crystal, though her appearance in the latter elevates her into the 10th spot on this list.

Number 8. The Shitennou - Ah yes, Beryl's servants. The loyal supervillain Jadeite, the passionate Nephrite, the ever so underhanded and insecure Zoisite, and last but not least the "cool" Kunzite. Surprisingly, Crystal botched these guys really bad, while the anime basically expanded upon the other 3 and gave Kunzite, the best one in the manga, the literal shit end of the stick after a good run. Still, all four of these guys are absolutely phenomenal minibosses.

Number 7. The Amazoness Quartet - God, they look absolutely ridiculous, but that doesn't stop them from being great minibosses like the Shittenou. Between their unique personalities, relations with Chibi-Usa, and overall just how solid they are as a group just sold me on them.

Number 6. Crimson Rubeus - Ah yes... the second most consistently heinous member of the Black Moon Clan. Rubeus is selfish, cowardly, sadistic, arrogant, manipulative, loyal to the literal worst people ever, and overall he's just a very hateable villain on so many angles. Though this hateability, his effectiveness as a villain, and just how much of a good addition he is to the Dark Moon Clan cements this guy's placement on here.

Number 5. Queen Nehelenia & Zirconia - Life is funny sometimes. In the manga/Eternal, Zirconia has nothing going for her aside from design and the fact that she's Queen Nehelenia's other self, while Nehelenia herself is almost like Snow White's Evil Queen mixed with Maleficent and its genuinely great to see. Yet in the 90's anime, Zirconia is expanded upon so much more to the point where she's legit entertaining, while Nehelenia gets expanded upon too before being brought back from the dead with a tarnished character. Still though, in both of the mediums where they're at their best, this evil queen and the personification of her inner ugliness are great.

Number 4. Prince Demande - What a delightfully twisted, vile, yet tragic villain. Granted the 90's anime take on him falls short because the guy had a half-assed "redemption," but it doesn't neuter all of his best qualities, nor does it ruin the OG Manga/Crystal's take on him, where he fully commits to that bit.

Number 3. Queen Beryl & Queen Metalia - Nothing wrong with a classic wicked witch. Especially if said wicked witch is an envious and hateful woman that's in service to pure unadulterated evil as a means to get what she wants most. Granted Beryl alone could've made the list, especially since Metalia doesn't have a lot going for herself, but the anime had the perfect resolution for these two by just fusing them together.

Number 2. Death Phantom/Wiseman - No matter the iteration, no matter the medium, Nazgul Charles Manson here is pure, unadulterated, unrestrained evil done right. Death Phantom is a manipulative monster who sees no value in life, who's made it his personal mission to become a dark god of death and nothingness. He's not a complex character, but he has substance, his evil deeds remain significant across the entirety of the Black Moon Clan's arc, and he leaves an impact as the most evil villain in the franchise and its best final boss. TL:DR: Death Phantom is objectively the best villain.

Number 1. Professor Souichi Tomoe - I shouldn't even need to explain this, but I will. Tomoe in the anime is hammy as hell, an amazing boss, shining with personality, nuanced as hell, carried the Infinity Arc on his back, and surprisingly enough gets a shot at redemption after his evil Daimon side, Germatoid, is split from him. Meanwhile, Tomoe in the manga/Crystal is initially shown as a somewhat shady figure who possibly cares about his daughter, before slowly being revealed as just a nicer looking Professor Hojo, complete with him making his own daughter the vessel for Mistress 9 all for the sake of becoming the god of an entirely new race of super-beings that will inherit the remains of the earth. It doesn't matter if this man is a corrupted magnificent bastard or a complete megalomaniac, this man is a stellar Mad Scientist who's undeniably human.

[straightfacedstrangeness]

Thought I could just quickly finish episode 30 this morning before work without pausing every five seconds to screenshot and check the manga, cus I thought for sure it would all be sexual tension/misunderstandings/angst (you know, the boring stuff 😂) but turns out A) they cut a LOT of stuff out for time and B) My Dude has a scene I thought was added to the anime but actually I just forgot it was in the manga, so here’s another anime-manga comparison no one asked for

I had to take out some images cus of the post limit, so opening context is that Godai’s at a pachinko parlor, stoops down to pick a pachinko ball off the floor, and sees that the other person reaching for it is Yotsuya.

Anime staff REALLY wanted this episode to be fully 1/2 “the gang mopes around thinking that Kyoko got engaged without telling them” and for it to end on Kyoko finding a scantily clad woman in Godai’s new apartment, so they cut out a ton of scenes. The main thing is that it reduces the amount of screentime for the freeloader couple, so they just seem more annoying and less threatening (for example, the manga version of the pachinko scene has Godai at the parlor with the husband, who’s A: gambling away money he could be using to move out, and B: trying to bully Godai for more money). But a side effect is that the anime also significantly shortens this scene where Godai runs into Yotsuya and they go talk at a cafe. In the manga they sit and stare for a second before the typical “Oh, it’s you, what are you doing here?” kind of small talk, but…

…in the anime, it’s so condensed that the first line is Yotsuya going “Buy me a drink,” and he starts saying it basically the moment they lock eyes 😂 These guys haven’t seen each other in 10 days (a month in the manga) and no “Hello” or “Oh it’s you,” just straight to hitting him up for food. In the manga it’s possible they both went for the pachinko ball and didn’t recognize each other til a moment later, but the anime makes it seem like either Yotsuya being surprised and just blurting this out OR that he already knew it was Godai and bent to get the ball as an excuse to talk to him.

The anime also heavily condenses the following scene to allow it to end on a dramatic note before cutting away to Kyoko finding the mystery woman in Godai’s apartment

Again the scene is very condensed, so Yotsuya just quickly teases Godai (it’s unlikely he would have forgotten WHY Godai moved out) and calmly reveals it was a misunderstanding, that Kyoko (~ “Ms. Manager” subbed phonetically here as “Kanrinin-san”) isn’t getting married. Without anything else shown onscreen, it’s easy to read it as Yotsuya genuinely reassuring Godai, possibly having invited him to the cafe specifically to have this conversation.

The manga plays it VERY differently

Yotsuya goes out of his way to make Godai feel stupid and unloved, telling him everyone’s fine without him, no one misses him, and explaining the misunderstanding by way of “you’re an idiot for taking it so seriously.”

In the vein of my last rant about the anime’s voice acting choices adding a LOT of nuance and clarity to Yotsuya’s ambiguous character (being fairly expressionless and often speaking in vague phrases or teasing/lies, it’s hard to know how to interpret his manga lines), this scene is difficult to interpret in the manga. He often says cruel things to Godai, is he being cruel here for fun? Then again, a following chapter has Kyoko angrily lying to Godai that all the apartments are full and he can’t move back, because she’s so hurt and jealous believing that he moved away from Ikkoku to live with another woman. Yotsuya’s opening line of “I didn’t expect to ever see you again,” and the existence of an earlier chapter where he gets upset about Godai trying to repair the hole between their walls—publicly humiliates him in retaliation—then bothers him for attention when Godai gives him the silent treatment (not even counting his worried tone of voice when he asks if Godai has somewhere to stay in the anime version of the scene where Godai moves out), could mean that he’s behaving the same way as Kyoko, being cruel to Godai because he’s so hurt that Godai left without even keeping in touch, or from worrying about him in the meantime.

I suspect Rumiko Takahashi wouldn’t have talked much about Yotsuya’s character in interviews, partly since he’s a side character and partly to maintain his air of mystery, but I’d LOVE to know what she was thinking about his motivations when she wrote for him, or if she had any secret backstory in mind to explain his actions. It’s entirely probable that she just wrote his character around whatever she thought would be funny in a given scene, though.

[tobiasdrake]

Madame Web was good, actually

I should probably qualify that. As a superhero film, Madame Web doesn't hold up. There's extremely little superheroics in it. The big colorful superhero costumes look like bargain Halloween outfits, save for Ezekiel's Edgelord Spider-Man getup. The main villain is a fucking cartoon character who is impossible to take seriously any time he opens his mouth.

But the superhero stuff that the movie isn't very good at takes up only about 3% of the film. The bad costumes only appear for like 10 seconds of combined screentime across the entire film. It's not really a superhero movie.

Madame Web is a horror thriller. It's closer to Final Destination than Spider-Man. It features an asymmetrical conflict of three powerless teenagers and their Found Family adoptive mom trying not to be murdered by Evil Spider-Man. That's what kind of movie this is. It's not a power fantasy. It's a horror flick.

At the heart of the film is Cassie, the film's main protagonist. Immediately likable from the second she steps onscreen, Cassie carries the film whenever she's onscreen. And she's onscreen for like 80% of it.

The way the film introduces her powers is fantastic. Cassie can see the future, something the film makes great use of. This is the one superpower that our protags get; Cassie gets advance warning when Evil Spider-Man's about to show up to rip the girls apart with his bare hands. And it's played to incredible effect; The film uses jarring cuts and cinematography to make you feel every bit of how intrusive and disorienting her powers are from her perspective.

Ezekiel, as noted, sucks as a character. The dialogue he has to read is 100% cheesy "Guy Who Knows He's The Movie's Villain" dialogue and he's directed as the most over-the-top "I AM THE EVIL MAN THIS IS MY EVIL VOICE".

But as a horror monster he worked for me. The fact that he could rip these women in half with his bare hands is never in question, which keeps him menacing and dangerous throughout the movie. He's effectively the film's Terminator, showing up with blood in his eyes whenever it's time for an action sequence - and the film avoids the mistake of having him do something stupid and softball his attacks to give the protagonists more of a fighting chance. He always feels like he's going for the throat.

The heart of the film is its Found Family dynamic. Specifically, this is a movie about mothers and their daughters. That's the central idea the film wants to explore. Cassie's relationship with her mother is placed under a microscope and even managed to make me cry at one point. Meanwhile her Found Family daughters all come from various parental troubles. The bonds they forge with each other and with Cassie are expected to carry the film - And in my book, they succeed.

I don't really know what else to say about this movie. I had a great time.

[celestial-blight]

Just finished season 3 episode 9 of the Orville, and can I just say, thank fucking god that Charly died.

I feel like she was a terrible addition to the show. Her only contribution was xenophobic one liners, stealing screentime from the rest of the cast, and dying so she can't return in another season.

She's not really a character honestly... She's just this entity that everyone on the bridge crew has to tolerate so she can remind everyone that the Kaylon are bad.

She was an ENSIGN who CONSTANTLY talked out of line, CONSTANTLY mocked and insulted a SUICIDAL MEMBER OF THE CREW, and NOBODY called her out on it!!

I don't hate complicated characters, I would have loved someone who was traumatized by the Kaylon attack, but this show treated her like the second in command of the whole fucking ship! She took over command one episode, has archeological expertise, she's the only person in the universe capable of seeing in the chess dimension, she was one of the first Union members on Krill, and she made the MURDER KAYLON bomb! Why was she an ensign!? She was in front of KAYLON PRIMARY and making SNIDE REMARKS while the Union was trying to make peace with them! That is unacceptable for an ENSIGN to be doing! She should have either been a captain to justify her outbursts, given less responsibility, or just... transferred off the ONE SHIP with a Kaylon on it!

Like... I really don't think I can overstate that Isaac is SUICIDAL and Charly kept HARASSING him with zero repercussions! And maybe I don't remember the episode that well, but did Isaac personally do anything that bad?

Her character resolution is her deciding in the last 10 minutes of the episode to stop being a fucking bigot advocating for GENOCIDE and sacrifice herself so she gets to join her dead girlfriend.

I'm not going to pretend there aren't weird takes about her on the internet (because, you know, scifi nerds have a history of hating women...), but her character was genuinely awful.

(Enterprise spoilers ahead!!!) Star Trek Enterprise is the best series in Trek canon. When the Xindi took out millions of people during their attack on Florida, the entire Enterprise crew was out for blood. Over the course of the season, the Enterprise crew learned more and more about the Xindi, about their motivations, their ideologies, their history, who they are as a people... And towards the end, the Xindi join with the Enterprise crew to tackle a bigger threat. Even Tripp, the guy who had his sister murdered at the hands of the Xindi, lost his rage and gained an understanding of them. It wasn't easy, this wasn't a quick transition, the Enterprise crew and the Xindi themselves had to work towards mutual understanding... Peace takes work, but it's worth it, and even your enemies will become your friends in time. You know, the point of Star Trek, and kinda what the Orville was going for with the Kaylon plotline...

Charly spends 9 episodes refusing to grow or change, then dies. The end. Maybe if the show actually took the time to have gradual growth for the character I wouldn't be complaining, but they didn't, and that sucks! She had ONE moment in a previous episode of coming to understand the Kaylon, then went right back to harassing her suicidal crewmate.

I'm not criticizing anyone for liking her, obviously. Your opinions are your own! This was a pretty darn good season! It has some of the highest highs of the show... but, y'know, some of the lowest lows... Looking at YOU, Isaac becomes neurotypical episode... I know some people hearing me criticize a woman character might immediately go on the defensive, but I promise you, I'm not mad that she's a woman, I'm mad they gave her a poor character! I want women in media to be well written!

ALSO PEOPLE COMPARE HER TO WESLEY CRUSHER!? Wesley, was a child??? Charly is an ADULT???

[takaraphoenix]

Ok so I just finished watching Shadow and Bone for the first time and I knew you had watched it before so I came to see what your opinions on some of it was. Didn't really see anything for what what is probably my favorite ship is but I don't really care about that right now. I think I'm more interested in knowing what you're Top 5 favorite ships are (Top 10 if you feel like you're having a hard time narrowing it down to just 5 but from what I saw, I don't think that would be a problem???). Also, if you feel up to it, any favorite headcanons for the various characters or ships you might want to include. Much love to you Phoe!!! Now I'm off to go consume for content because I need my pretty men... gods, why are there so many pretty men in this show 😭😭😭 a lot of pretty women too, though I'm gay so it's just aesthetically pretty on their part, lol

oooh you watched ot for the first time! I hope you liked it! And well now I'm cirious what your favorite ship was.

Since I only have exactly 10 ships in this fandom, I will give you a top 10! lol Though since these are all the ships, they actually do span the entire spectrum of "I am obsessed with this", "I've written for this" to "it's a nice sidepairing! I liked when they were on screen but don't really think about them when they're not".

Aleksander/Alina

Inej/Alina

Kaz/Jesper

Genya/Alina

Tamar/Inej

Nikolai/Mal

Nikolai/Alina

Tamar/Nadia

Jesper/Wylan

David/Genya

+ bonus: Tolya/poetry

because I definitely came out of this headcanoning Tolya as aroace and I want this softest of boys to find someone who will platonically share his love of poetry with him. Please. He deserves it.

Not a secret that Darklina is my OTP. I'm not exactly quiet about it. They make me feel all shades of unhinged. I gotta get onto writing about them, honestly, can't believe that hasn't happened yet, but I guess that s1 left me too satisfied with canon overall to want to write just yet. Currently nose-deep in fics about them.

Alina and Inej is a solid second. They didn't have much interaction but what they had was gold. The blade protecting her saint. The worship and awe. These two badasses. I love them. And, much like Alinej, both Kaz/Jesper and Genya/Alina were also ships I came out of s1 with and wrote for after that.

Honestly, Tamar/Nadia would rank higher if the show had dedicated more time to them, but they happened so much in the background and I'm genuinely mad about that. I had to sit through so so so much straight drama especially in this season, but the only wlw ship in this entire show and they barely got screentime. They were cute together, visually, but... I didn't get enough of what made them click, or of Nadia's personality in general to be quite honest, to be as invested as I wanted to be (because I did. I knew that Nadia was a wlw and I knew that Tamar would be introduced this season and I was looking forward to this). So, with what the show gave me? I was like "daw, cute" when they were on screen, yeah.

On the other hand, I love both Tamar and Inej, and the potential of Inej now on the ship makes me think of the potential of those two together. Now, I am a lover of poly so I would not be opposed to just mashing these two ships together either. But I'm really intrigued by Tamar/Inej primarily here.

Nikolai and Alina worked surprisingly well. Didn't think I'd end up with another guy for Alina aside from Aleksander. But I really liked their chemistry and the fake marriage plotline absolutely ended me. He could be her trophy husband, I wouldn't mind.

Jesper and Wylan were honestly a positive surprise to me! You know me, you know my track-record with canon mlm ships! I usually do not like them. So that they made the list at all is great. I'm not super invested, but I thought they were adorable.

And Genya and David were cute too. I don't get why they killed David off? From what I gather, they don't in the books, so that was weird. But I thought they were nice.

Headcanons? Mostly sexuality wise.

Ace Kaz. Ace Kaz was the first once I had. I know his touch aversion roots in trauma but I recognize a lot of my own sex-repulsion in his behavior and am projecting hard so ace Kaz. Also definitely dom Kaz, have you seen that man rule his club, or bring Pekka to his knees (not that I want Pekka to sub for him, ew, but the power Kaz radiated in that moment was *chef's kiss*).

Nikolai the pan pirate who definitely should never have been a prince, like, I would love him so much more if he had just been a pirate but thoughts on the monarchy and how that plotline was handled are too much for this post. ANYWAY yeah I think Nikolai should go back onto his ship and pirate away with his boyfriend. Also, just, can you believe the Enemies to Lovers arc Mal and Nikolai had? I mean, they literally went from "I refuse to know your name" to "take my name", like that is explicitly something that happened in canon. Wild.

Lesbian Inej, which I know, not a popular headcanon in the fandom since the fandom seems to unanimously ship her and her endgame romance. I just... don't really get romantic vibes there at all, even after season 2. I like them as friends, a lot. But I'm getting huge lesbian vibes from Inej and will be clinging onto that, even more so after how little wlw love s2 gave me.

Mal as a suppressed gay would be fun. Like, his thing with Alina was annoying. He didn't give a damn about her romantic feelings for him until she had a boyfriend and suddenly he got jealous. I don't like these types of writings. So I'd love to see that more as Mal never having been romantically interested in her at all, just friend!Mal afraid to be abandoned. The cheeky pirate is his gay awakening. All the girls - and apparently book!Mal was kind of a slut - were just him trying really hard to be straight.

Alina is just a bi queen. And queen literal. That's where the "Niko should go sail with his bf" part comes into play, because... the monarchy needs to go down. She should rule, she should have never supported the damn royal family that's been enslaving and oppressing Grisha for centuries, I just. I don't like that part. I really don't. Ship to rule beside her is optional (Aleksander, Genya, okay fine Nikolai but like she rules, he's just her trophy husband), but queen!Alina is a must. Though gotta admit for my Alinej I still love her as a part of the Crows - post s1, I wrote some where Alina and Mal just... stayed with the Crows after they left Ravka and I'm still fond of that. I still think that would be a fun take.

[veilchenjaeger]

Okay. After over a goddamn year, I have finally finished Couple of Mirrors. Consider me wrecked.

I don't even know where to start with this show? It's everything I've ever wanted, save for the censorship issue. (But I think I can read the manhua to soothe that particular ache.) It's so damn good. I watched this with month-long breaks between episodes, so I don't remember everything, but I still want to try to write up my initial thoughts bc it's fun to reread that kind of thing after a rewatch or some time of brainrot.

First, without getting into spoilers: I adore this show. The plot is incredible - dense without being overwhelming, unpredictable without nonsensical plot twists. Nearly every episode had me on the edge of my metaphorical seat. At the same time, the characters were given time to shine and develop. Especially Xu Youyi is just one of the characters of all time, I'm obsessed with her, but I definitely got attached to side characters as well. (Which is dangerous, considering the body count this show has.) I really appreciate the pacing, the little moments of downtime between the imo impeccably paced rush of revelations and developments. There are some things that could be seen as... soap opera-esque, in a way? Just because of the amount of family drama, but I think it all worked really well bc the show immediately tells you what kind of show it is and what the stakes are. None of the drama is out of place, is what I'm saying. There's a lot of murder.

There are complaints about Xu Youyi and Yan Wei not having a lot of screentime together, and while this is in some way true, I... didn't mind? They're both set up well enough as individual characters for their interactions to be meaninful, and it was more than enough for me to get invested in them. (Not to mention that there's a whole episode of domestic Yiwei in the end.) But mostly, and I think I've said this before somewhere, I came for the lesbians and stayed for the plot. Xu Youyi's story is about so many things, and it's important that each of these things was given the space it deserves. This is a murder mystery/thriller first and a romance second, and I honestly prefer it that way. The pacing felt right, and the central relationship still came across well.

Final non-spoilery verdict: PLEASE watch this show if you haven't seen it yet. It's so, so, so good. You can watch the whole thing on Youtube for free, and the subtitles are actually decent.

Spoilers under the cut.

There are approximately fifty separate things I'm obsessed with, but I'll only name a few.

First of all, the whole Thing between Zhou Heng and Xu Youyi, and especially Zhou Heng's character. Holy shit, this is well done. Zhou Heng is never portrayed as the good guy, but the sheer extent of his unhingedness is revealed so gradually that you're pretty much bound to underestimate him. He starts out as a bad husband who cheats on Xu Youyi, but for what it's worth, it seems like he does love her and wants to try to be better for the first episodes. He defends her from his family, he supports her, and while Xu Youyi is right not to let him get away with that after he broke her heart like that, he's sympathetic. He's not a cartoon villain or a cardboard cutout of an evil abusive husband. And he still isn't that when it's revealed that he fucking tried to kill her. That caught me off guard so hard! I didn't expect that at all, and then it just fucking kept going. It's in episode 10, during the dinner he has with Xu Youyi, that I realised that he's not only an utter dickhead, he's batshit insane. And it's the very fact that he was built up as a sympathetic character that makes this reveal as creepy as it is. Gods, what an asshole! Gives me chills of the worst kind! A superbly done antagonist.

(The same is true for Zhang Wan, too. She's a lot more obviously mean, but the extent of that isn't revealed all at once, and the relationship she had with Xu Youyi before is still meaningful. Zhou Heng's father, too - he acts according to his motivations, and whether he's with Xu Youyi or against her depends on the way she fits into his plans. Just, good antagonists all around.)

Second of all, I adore the characters so, so much?! Xu Youyi's development, her sunny personality, her heartbreak, and the way she gets more and more tired of being nice, are so [chef's kiss]. Detective Jiang was right, actually - she is someone who'd happily live with a murderer. She's so genuinely kind, she doesn't mean harm, but after everything she's been put through, she's ruthless deep down. I love how cold and collected she is when she demands the divorce, when she signs the papers, when she's in court, and especially when she finds out that Yan Wei is indeed the murderer of Zhang Wan and doesn't even hesitate to lie to the police to help her. Xu Youyi has had it and she will not be taking any prisoners.

It took me a little longer to get fully attached to Yan Wei, simply because she's not the main character, but the last episode really sealed the deal for me. She's grown so much because of Xu Youyi! She's started to live a life that isn't ruled by her past, she's capable of joking with Xu Youyi and she's a good mother and she's happy, which she didn't know how to be before! She even gets along with other people; she's on good terms with Mr Wang and has a bit of a teasing relationship going on with Detective Jiang. (Big fan of that, btw. I think they should be bros.) And yet, she's also presumably doing some very shady stuff to get money, and we haven't seen her find actual closure yet. I get why the last few minutes aren't the most popular ones - they're a bit of a shock, for one, and the pacing of the show fails here, although I assume that's all a set up for the next season - but they make sense. Again, Detective Jiang is right! Xu Youyi doesn't know anything about Yan Wei's past, and it's a past that's pretty important for who Yan Wei is! That's the one thing I was worried about throughout the show: that Yan Wei's past would just stay unaddressed, and that Xu Youyi wouldn't find out. So, yeah, I do like that they made that into a (future?) plot point. It's such a strong beat for Yan Wei's arc, I really hope we do get that second season and get to find out what she's been doing behind Xu Youyi's back and what those flowers mean. Yan Wei deserves some more development!

(That being said, I still think that season finale cliffhangers are bad writing and shouldn't be done, especially with the state of queer entertainment in China being what it currently is. Looking at you, Scum Villain season 2.)

And last but not least, I'll be listening to the opening song on repeat for the next lifetime, thanks.

[lola-andheruniverse]

So, I just finished a rewatch of seasons 9, 10 and 11 of TWD because I miss my zombie soap opera and accepted long time ago that I'm going to die on this hill.

And it was mind blowing watching all these episodes back to back because when you compare S11 to S9/S10? It's just evident that something or someone 😬 heavily interfered on S11! It sucks so bad it hurts my heart.

There are good moments, of course, mainly because the TWD cast is full of marvelous actors who turn shitty writing into gold perfomances, but, overall, S11 is bad and off-putting. There's so many weird choices timeline wise, things that were cut and should be there, odd camera angles and dialogue, weird soundtracks, flat emotional impact, yada yada yada. Just lots and lots of bad stuff.

I wish AMC never made the call of doing an extended final season. I believe if we had one regular season to deal with the Reapers/finding Connie/rebuild of ASZ, and another regular one for all CW/variant walkers, TWD would have had a much more suiting and satisfying ending (with no need for multiple spinoffs either). Everyone would have their story arcs completed with no rush and with plenty of screentime, including caryl.

Can you guys imagine? S11 would be for caryl to make amends, talk through their problems, like, actually talk, using words, rebuilding their trust and figuring out they love each other romantically. And S12 would be for dates and raising the Grimes kids and supporting Maggie and Ezekiel to end CW corruption. Richonne would come back in the end and they would be finally free to go to NM on a very deserved honeymoon.

Anyways, if anyone on this fandom ever finds out how to build a time machine, please let me know so we can go back to early 2020 and set things right. Actually, let's go back to 2016 and fix the second half of S6 onwards when things started to get disastrous under certain showrunner. Better to be on the safe side.

[bp-best-froggo]

Thoughts on Ep.5

I mean, there’s them, so it’s an instant 12/10.

...

Okay, so, while Texusiai screentime definitely elavated this episode (in my very subjective opinion), the episode overall was... fine.

It felt a lot slower than it was, because it was mostly “running from Reunion” but it had a couple of pretty cool and decent scenes. Texas fighting Skullshatterer definitely was a highlight for me, even though it was only like 5 seconds long. But it did look really cool.

That being said, the scenes were sometimes a little weirdly... put together, I guess? There’s that scene where the gang runs into a group of Reunion grunts and they just... appear in front of them (or rather: gangs runs, gang gasps and stops and then they stand like 1 meter before the Reunion guys, in the middle of the alley). Also there was this street brawl and in the center of the scene was a Reunion grunt just shaking a guy by the neck, like bro what are you doing that’s not how you fight -.

It’s small awkward scenes like that, that take me out of the show because it makes me think and god knows I don’t want to think about what I’m looking at. The animation per se is still very good, but I guess the... composition doesn’t match at times? (I forgot the word for it, anyway, moving on.)

It’s been a while since I read the first chapters, so I don’t really remember anymore what was so special about Misha that literally everyone and their grandmother is after her. At the beginning she’s just a random infected who Amiya is trying to help, who is conincidentally also pursued by the LGD (for being infected? not sure) and Reunion is after her, because Misha is Skullshatter’s sister (which by that point in the series we don’t know yet). Which yeah; I guess that’s alright and all, but we’re all going to pretty extreme lengths just to capture 1 girl - who was more or less introduced as one random infected and the gang just met by chance.

I’m fuzzy on the details so I don’t remember everything anymore (and my memory is like a sieve anyway) but I remember that also bothered me the first time reading the story. But it’s very possible I missed something here, early Arknights writing was a little hard to comprehend sometimes (at least for me).

[aryastark-baratheon]

I would like to take a moment and say CONGRATULATIONS to Turkish television industry. You guys know your shit. I recently started watching all kinds of Turkish tv shows and BOY ARE THEY GOOD. They’re really more like soap operas and I hadn’t watched any of those in YEARS but I am loving all the shows I’ve watched so far! Sure, the world of turkish tv shows is a little ruthless. Apparently channels cancel shows and also kill off main characters without mercy or simply give the shows poor endings and don’t give two shits about the viewers, but still, overall, it’s been totally worth it. I especially want to say that I am still completely SHOOK AND AMAZED by “mrs. fazilet and her daughters”.

This was a LENGHTY show, ok? I usually don’t have the patience for so many episodes, and LONG ASS episodes too, but I ate this up so fast, I barely slept for two weeks. Of course this is a MELODRAMA on STEROIDS, like seriously, the amount of drama and problems is literally IMPOSSIBLE and at one point I just felt sorry for the poor characters 😂 they literally don’t have one single minute of peace until the very end. But, oh my GOD, it is absolute GOLD. I adore this kind of family drama, it had everything I love to see: first of all, GORGEOUS PEOPLE, TURKEY I APPLAUDE YOU FOR PRODUCING SUCH BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE. Second of all, truly one of the absolute BESTEST love stories and love triangles I have seen in my whole life. Also, intrigue, family issues, fake and real pregnancies, dangerous secrets, a fair amount of angry/jealous psychopaths, ABSOLUTELY FLAWLESS AND PERFECT IN EVERY SENSE RESCUE SCENE, pretty damn good redemption arc, also a pretty fucking amazing and unexpected corruption arc (could have been better developed in the last episodes and had a better ending, but still pretty solid). I mean, it has so many good elements.

Of course the star of the show is without a single doubt Yagiz Egemen (look I don’t know how to use your Turkish letters k, so just bear with me). What a brilliant male characterization. Definitely one of my favorites EVER. This man is amazing and the reason why I’m 31 and single is because I am waiting for a man like Yagiz. He is such a lovable and REAL character. He is good, kind and honest. He has such an amazing sense of integrity, he’s loyal, he’s mature, he’s responsible. But he also has flaws, which makes him all the more amazing. Yagiz is a perfectly developed character in my opinion. A perfect hero. Obviously Hazan was just as much of an amazing heroine, which absolutely made me go out of my mind obsessed with this couple and their love story. I also loved Hazan’s character development and how she really grows into a more mature and confident woman throughout the show, without ever losing her essence. It’s truly beautiful and exciting to see how their story plays out. There are so many obstacles and it was truly high quality entertainment to see them overcome each and every one of them and end up together. I also loved that towards the end it’s Hazan who has to fight for them while Yagiz is pushing her away and not the other way around.

I have to say I also absolutely love what they did with Sinan. I mean, obviously Sinan is a despicable character and I went from sort of liking him in the beginning , to kinda disliking him towards the end of season 1, to straight up hating his fucking guts in season 2, but I loved that ultimately he became a villain. And a good one too. It was something that I really didn’t expect and loved to see play out, even though my first critic is that I think they dragged the show too much and left the best parts (i.e., Yagiz and Hazan finally admitting and confessing their love for each other and Sinan’s corruption arc) for the last 10/12 episodes, so I think they could have done a better job here, and given us more screentime of Yagiz and Hazan as an actual couple or at least trying to be a couple. My shipper heart was not so satisfied, but alas.

Now moving on to Ece. I love Ece. It’s really amazing to see how all of the characters really grew throughout the show. But I think Ece’s arc is the one with the most growth. She starts out as a weak-willed, way-too-naive-almost-kinda-dumb, also kinda shallow teenage, and ends up as a strong, kind, loyal and compassionate woman. I love Ece’s and Hazan’s relationship and I ADORED Ece’s and Yagiz’s relationship, especially in season 1. Things were rocky between them in season 2, but I loved the fact that Ece was the first one (after Yagiz, who already knew he was in deep shit at this point) to notice the HUGE, BLINDING sparks flying between Hazan and Yagiz and then obviously loved how she kept trying to bring them together and basically forced them to admit their feelings for each other. I MEAN SOMEONE HAD TO DO IT, AMIRIGHT? You go, Ece! I adored Ece’s relationship with Hazim. I don’t really like Hazim and think he was kind of a really shitty father in general (I feel empathy for him but he raised some SHITTY people man), but he was always pretty fucking amazing and incredibely kind with Ece and I found their relationship very sweet, however weird. I loved seeing their cumplicity, kindness and trust in each other.

Now, come @ me: I FUCKING LOVE YASEMIN. Is she kinda evil? Yeah. Is she totally ruthless? Yup. Did she cross all kinds of boudaries? Definitely. But, much like Gokhan, in the end, I don’t care. I don’t think she was justified, but her backstory just makes sense with her actions, alright? This is a woman willing to do everything to prevent herself from suffering what she’s already suffered in the past. Also she’s so fucking smart, beautiful and a baddass. And I always knew she truly loved Gokhan. I loved their ending.

Also, I really loved seeing how many things in common she has with Fazilet, who, last but no least, is an amazing character. She’s that sort of grey character that you simply can’t not love. Did I hate her and wish her dead when she started coming between Yagiz and Hazan? FUCK YEAH. But overall, I love her. She’s a strong and intelligent woman willing to do literally anything except killing, to achieve what she thinks is best for her daughters. Of course her mindless ambition and her ruthlessness becomes much more clear in the end. She is an extremely flawed, yet amazing character and the one thing I truly disliked in the ending was that there wasn’t a final scene with all them together as a family, and by them I mean Hazan, Yagiz, Ece, her baby and Fazilet. I’d really love to have seen that before her final scene on the boat which I thought was extremely powerful and the perfect way to end the show.

I felt like the ending was a bit rushed, like they suddenly decided to end the show and had to wrap everything up quickly in like one episode. I sorely missed a scene between Yagiz and Hazan actually saying “I love you” to each other like OUT LOUD and kissing. But overall, watching this whole show was an amazing experience and it was very much worth it. I loved every moment of it, it got me into the Turkish tv shows and it is right up there as my top favorite!

[twooowars]

claim to fame season 3 is driving me up the wall okay

i know for a fact a few of the relations so i wont count those as guesses but just to say "gracie-lou" looks So Much like jon cryer that i would have literally guessed that anyway

naomi is dumb as hell for wearing that pink dress like why is she Cosplaying her celeb relative rn

hud is maybe related to kim fowley, lita ford, one of the other runaways (cherie?) Or im ignoring the existence of another song called cherry bomb

the fact that i know this dude everyone is throwing suggestions like desi arnaz and mariachi singers out towards is jamie lee curtis' nephew ToT

wouldn't it be wild if we had two alicia keys siblings? probably not but-

this one dude is a jackson for sure. he's getting like no screentime so im blanking on his name (starts with a D) but im not blind theres no way that's not a jackson

SORRY THE SUPERCUT OF THE BANDERAS DECEPTION???

probably my wishful thinking but this hot big dude with the undercut could be related to mick foley- source; also hot

jill is giving Someone i recognize but i cant place it. like. celeb chef maybe? someone in a similar sphere like i can smell that that's the vibe.

i only remember women's names sorry but this other guy who Looks like his name is chris looks like a singer from the 70s but again i ant placr which one -

JOHN STAMOS??!?!?!?!?! I KNEW I RECOGNIZED THOSE EYES FUCK

anyway. chris? let's go with chris. he looks like neil from the grateful dead or something. i know im so close with that guess that im going to have to end it all when it gets revealed if i dont guess correctly now. oh holy shit his name is adam--- its chris now.

DUSTIN HOFFMAN LMAO WHAT A BAD GUESS I KNOW THAT'S WRONG I KNOW THAT'S WRONG OFF THE BAT

LMAO GOT EM

im literally on the second episode of this season. im going insane. also naomi is shitting herself to see jon cryer right now. have you ever seen someone be so conspicuous with a secret before? we get it you are related to molly ringwald we get it we get it we get it

also to be real Im Gay and Im Old but no one in this decade knows jon cryer as ducky anymore. like. sorry. also every time im forced to acknowledge that he was ducky i feel the shame of 1000 eyes upon me as i remember the unbelievable crush i had on him for 10 plus years.

[maribel-bat]

-Slaps the hood of the Gurjin- 1, 2, 4, 9, 10, 12, 14, 18, 20, 23, and 24

Also 3, 4, 7, 8, 12, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 23 and 24 for yusei (if thats okay)

back under cut because Long (also thank you for a dark crystal choice!!)

1. Why do you like or dislike this character? (Gurjin)

I fucking love Gurjin! He's got like a strict sense of honor and stuff but like also he's just a really chill guy? He's like. Unwilling accomplice to protagonist and he's not sure how to feel about it the whole time.

2. Favorite canon thing about this character? (Gurjin)

THEY HAD HIM HUG AN ARATHIM!!!

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character? (Yusei)

I think my personal least favorite canon thing is how in the second half they kind of erased any of Yusei's connections with his friends in Satellite and his problems with the city's authority and it really shows like a huge disconnect that I don't like.

4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in? (Gurjin and Yusei)

Gurjin: Monster Hunter

Yusei: Digital Devil Saga

7. What’s something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like? (Yusei)

I like it when they make him just really really openly autistic its fantastic.

8. What’s something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise? (Yusei)

I saw a take that said Yusei was aggressively heterosexual recently and I can't stop thinking about it where is it. What show were you watching. Also lots of people say Yusei is boring.

9. Could you be roommates with this character? (Gurjin)

Yeah absolutely. Fuck yes.

10. Could you be best friends with this character? (Gurjin)

He's so cool! Absolutely!!

12. What’s a headcanon you have for this character? (Gurjin and Yusei)

Gurjin: I like to think this guy secretly takes care of just an absolute hoard of fizzgig. Like. Just so many. He'll never admit it though.

Yusei: I tend to give him delayed echolalia. Just repeating things he's heard down to the exact intonation occasionally.

14. Assign a fashion aesthetic to this character. (Gurjin and Yusei)

Gurjin: Grunge for sure

Yusei: Listen I don't think he would follow any notable fashion aesthetic but I do want to see Yusei in a skirt sometime.

15. What’s your favorite ship for this character? (Doesn’t matter if it’s canon or not.) (Yusei)

Toolshipping! Bruno/Yusei is. My whole shit entirely.

18. How about a relationship they have in canon with another character that you admire? (Gurjin and Yusei)

Gurjin: his relationship with Rian. It's so good. He's so ride or die it's like. Man you were waiting to go on some big ass adventure with this guy huh.

Yusei: Okay repeating myself again but Bruno. Episode 80 exists.

19. How about a relationship they have in canon that you don’t like? (Yusei)

Literally the fact that he becomes friends with Trudge yo fuck that.

20. Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn’t matter? (Gurjin and Yusei)

Gurjin: repeating myself enthusiastically! Rian!! They're so good for each other!!!

Yusei: It's a solid tie between Bruno and Kalin. They're both good.

23. Favorite picture of this character? (Gurjin and Yusei)

Okay wildly different photos coming up

Gurjin looks like he's about to be a sad wet cat in this one. It's wonderful.

heheeh poncho Yusei with gun...

24. What other character from another fandom of yours that reminds you of them? (Gurjin and Yusei)

Gurjin: Crow from 5Ds. Specifically "Guy who gets dragged into his other more protagonist friends shit and is like hello???"

Yusei: Ichise from Texhnolyze.

[measuringbliss]

Spider-Man Read-Through 006: Spider-Man No More (The Kingpin is Here!)

MASTERPOST

Issues 50 to 52!

Peter makes me sad, man. But I think we reached the whump minimal quota!

Once again, MJ is great. She's a great character!

I feel like it's often overlooked, but Peter Parker is a stud. He's a stud! It's a part of the character. He's not just cute, he's not just handsome, he's hot. I think it's part of his appeal. Everybody wants to be Peter's friend/lover (among the readers!), or they aim to be like him. He's a model.

It's the second time in two issues that May and Anna go to the movies, they're just like me (gay and fond of movies)!

Gorgeous panels.

This issue is interesting in that we get to really see what impact Peter has on New Yorkers' lives, and we get some nice material. Having seen Spider-Man 2, there's moments where I thought "huh, that's neat". However, I really couldn't care less about the mafia B-plot. And as it happens...

Issue 51 is just about that. And it's only now that I'm noticing it's the first appearance of the Kingpin! His design is the best part of the character - although his version in Into the Spider-Verse is enjoyable.

Foswell is a very intriguing character, with his notable design. I had to check to see if he'd actually appeared as the Big Man and yes! I think I didn't read issue 10, I must have started skipping around 8. I wanted him to appear more, because I wanted to see what he'd do. However, my check also spoiled me on what happens next issue...

Foswell's involvement in the mob plot gives a bit of screentime to Ned Leeds, who's also a favorite of mine at least partly to his pretty little face. No wonder Betty married him in no time, I would have done the same!

In other news, MJ and Gwen are just as savage to each other as usual. "Gwendolyne"? Mary Jane is *not* kidding.

Aside from Foswell himself, the plot isn't exactly entertaining... at least, until the mob gets to Jameson. Now THIS is fun!

This is a great final panel.

And to open the last chapter, two great pages!

And amazing colors!

And outstanding advertisement!

And moving friendships!

I love the first panel.

So Foswell dies, sacrificing himself to protect Jameson because he was grateful for him. This is a very compelling character arc.

So what could have been a dud ended up being very fun! It's been fascinating to observe Foswell in the last two issues - he's what made the mob plot interesting! Of the three issues, my favorite was definitely the last one. It's colorful, it's emotional, it's funny, it's amazing!

Next time: Dr Octopus?!

Hey guys, remember when he tried to marry Aunt May? Hmm, it's in a few years, isn't it? Oh well, let's hope it's just as goofy!