#and yeah that's how it goes. that's. literally it. writers cannot keep their relationship consistent in the long term

[hood-ex]

I have seen you talking about Dick & Dami's relationship and Dick & Tim as well,but what are your takes on Dick and Jason actually?

Like how you wish their relationship should be portrayed today and where are them missing when it comes to making those two acting like siblings?

Do you think in the past their dynamic was better?

How Dick views Jason and how Jason views Dick?

This is difficult to answer because there are like 8 different stages to Dick and Jason's relationship with various dynamics. They also view each other a bit differently depending on which stage we're talking about.

The way I would like their relationship to be portrayed today isn’t necessarily possible thanks to Jason’s integration into the family and acceptance of the no killing moral code. For me, their ideal dynamic is portrayed in Outsiders #44-46. And I know people are gonna find that regressive as hell but, tbh, that dynamic is far more interesting than the kinda awkward thing they have going on now.

Although, I don't mind that they acknowledge their brotherhood in a serious manner now. Like before they'd kinda be like, "Eh... I mean... we were adopted from the same guy but... brothers? Eh..." And now they're more firmly in the, "We're brothers," camp. So that development is interesting.

Character progression wise, it wouldn't feel right for for them to be super close in the way that, say, Dick and Tim are (unless we saw a lot of trust and relationship building between them), but at the same time, there is part of me that kind of wants them to have that older sibling bond (except Jason is closer in age to Tim than he is to Dick sooo actually let's just leave older sibling things to Dick and Cass... not that Cass is much older than Jason though so LOL this is why Dick has to lone the oldest sibling thing by himself... which is funny because Dick is technically no longer the oldest sibling, he's a baby brother now... except Dick and Melinda's relationship really hasn't progressed much sooo you could say they share blood but don't consider each other family yet, in which case, Dick is still the oldest... I mean, regardless, Dick is the oldest sibling of the Waynes... god why did they have to make all of this so difficult 😫).

[miraculouscontent]

Kagami and Marinette deserve so much better.

Anyway, let��s just start literally where this episode starts, because it makes no sense. Remember back in my “Truth” critique where I basically said that the episode seemed like it’d been shoved through multiple drafts and no one checked the final one?

Same applies here.

Like--okay, ”Truth” and “Lies” take place at roughly the same time, which means that the same filler akuma/sentimonsters appear to interrupt Adrimi’s moments just as they did with Lukanette’s, giving its audience a clear timeline of how the episodes line up. The reason this is important is because the writers can’t even keep consistency within singular episodes and then honestly thought that they could do it within two.

“Lies” begins with Marinette talking to Tikki about the grimoire, because apparently she has the non-translated version and there’s a secret to figuring out the code that Tikki believes Marinette will discover eventually.

...Alright, I’m derailing here but I have to add how absolutely stupid Fu was when dealing with translating the grimoire. He was supposed to teach Marinette how to be guardian, yet he didn’t teach her how to read the grimoire (if there’s supposedly a “secret” to it, is he really going to bank on Marinette figuring it out herself eventually instead of just giving it to her and avoid the risk altogether??), kept the translated pages on his tablet without sending them to Marinette as he deciphered them, and took time to write a letter to her in “Miracle Queen” but left no guardian-centric advice for her to work off of, meaning that Tikki had to explain how the Miracle Box worked to Marinette back in “Truth.”

The show goes out of its way constantly to turn everything against Marinette even if it makes all the characters around her look either incompetent or cruel. It’s not that I’m not used to this by now but it’s just infuriating that it keeps trying to raise the stakes and tension when Marinette made such a tiny mistake to cause the issue in the first place, and now we find out that Fu had no back-up plan or strategy, apparently expecting this 14-year-old girl to act perfectly and cover for him.

And of course, instead of leaving the scene off on Marinette being encouraged by Tikki and Marinette showing confidence in herself (i.e: what would’ve been a nice scene), the kwami accidentally fumble with the keyboard in such a way to have Marinette’s computer bring up  a news story about Adrien, which leads to Marinette leaning towards her computer and sighing over Adrien and his “amazing life.”

Can I just point out how annoying it is that all the Adrienette moments so far on Marinette’s end have been forced, not just in general (because we’re used to that), but literally forced by the plot so Marinette would talk about him or other characters would bring Adrien up?

“Truth” had Alya insult Marinette to her face over her Adrien crush because Marinette was freaking over something non-Adrien related that they couldn’t have known about, Luka was sent a no-context picture of Marinette’s Adrien wall which led to him lowkey teasing her about it, and then Truth was forced to listen to Marinette’s friends and Tom babble about Marinette’s supposed crush on Adrien even when Truth points out that it’s not a secret, making the “joke” fall absolutely flat.

And now “Lies” comes along and has the kwami drop things and step on the keyboard in the exact way to pull up Adrien stuff for Marinette to fawn over. It’s at this point I’m realizing that - had the kwami stayed inside the box or just not been around in general - Marinette literally wouldn’t have brought up Adrien at all in either “Truth” or “Lies” and now I’m sad. I really don’t want to have a counter for “episodes where Marinette wouldn’t have so much as breathed Adrien’s name if the kwami/someone else wasn’t there to force it.”

So yeah, the episode had to force Adrienette into its Adrimi episode because the show can’t go five minutes without reminding the audience that Adrien exists even though this episode is primarily from his point of view, made worse by this scene’s lack of ability to exist.

See, from the timeline in “Lies” lining up with “Truth,” there is no possible way for this opening scene with Marinette talking about guardian stuff and then fawning over Adrien to happen. There’s an akuma scene in “Lies” that literally is just copy-pasted from “Truth” (it actually does this again with another scene later but that’s not important right now), so that means anything that takes place before said scene in both “Truth” and “Lies” have to line up.

Except they can’t. The akuma scene in question interrupts Marinette’s movie date with Luka in “Truth,” and before that, she had just opened the Miracle Box, wrangled up the kwami, talked to the girl squad over video call, talked to Luka, and then immediately had to leave. There are no cuts or wiggle room anywhere in there.

Therefore, the scene in “Lies” is impossible. Either the scene is supposed to go elsewhere in the episode (we don’t actually know how many days it takes up so it’s hard to say on that front) which just makes the episode even more convoluted, or this means that one would have to pick between the scene in “Truth” and the scene in “Lies” because they literally cannot co-exist.

“Lies” was supposed to coincide with “Truth” and they messed it up in the first scene of the episode.

Then comes Adrien himself, who really shows the series’ clunkiness in focusing on other characters. It’s not that I’m against the show moving away from Marinette to show other people’s point-of-view (I definitely didn’t complain during the Couffaine sibling scene in “Reflekdoll”), but Adrien cannot carry his own episode.

In Marinette’s opening scene, we immediately got details on the grimoire and lore about how reading it actually worked. I didn’t like it and it wasn’t good, but it was new information.

Adrien, meanwhile, spends a large portion of the episode being sad (a very grand and unique plot, my dudes) and giving us information we already know. “Truth” has to come first because “Lies” is half of a follow-up on it, meaning that the audience is already aware that Ladybug has been forgetful and has had to miss out on patrols. It’s just that now we get to see Chat Noir sulking about it and--okay, I am just going to go off, alright?

Firstly, Chat Noir tells Ladybug later on that he “understands” her guardian duties, but he previously mocked her behind her back by using air quotes when he was talking to her answering machine (since she obviously wouldn’t see that). We saw in “Truth” where he admitted that he doesn’t mind her being guardian “as long as it doesn’t change their relationship,” and that’s on display right here with his comments.

Not only is it extremely disrespectful, but for someone who claims to be so loyal and understanding to Ladybug, he sure doesn’t show it.

Secondly, he leaves her a message about how he’ll take care of patrol, then proceeds to slack off because she’s not there to keep him in check. He sulks around Paris, mumbling about how Ladybug isn’t around and constantly checking his messages to see if she’s replied to him. Chat Noir has shown his “priorities” in terms of heroism before, but patrol isn’t supposed to be about getting time with “““his lady”““ yet that is clearly all he cares about. He even ends the patrol unprompted, either giving up or just generally having not finished, because I don’t believe that the “end” of patrol just happened to be at the place Kagami was.

Patrol is about protecting Paris and scoping things out. Ladybug is trusting him to pick up the slack when she’s not around and he should be picking up slack, yet he has completely failed on that front. This is made worse when considering that the Season 3 finale had Ladybug breaking down to him from guilt and we know that Marinette had a breakdown before that to Luka, yet Chat is doing nothing to lighten Ladybug’s burden, putting up a falsehood on Ladybug’s answering machine to make him look better than he actually is.

Then, thirdly and most importantly/infuriatingly, Chat Noir knows that Ladybug is busy and he knows that she’s taking on a new responsibility, yet he not only jabs at her for “how hurtful it is when she leaves him to patrol alone” (one, cry me a river, and two, I don’t care if it’s a joke, it’s insensitive), but before that scene, he was actively hoping for people to get akumatized so Ladybug would be forced to show up and he could spend time with her. He egged Xavier Ramier on, even asking him if he “missed being Mister Pigeon,” and then looked on with glee as Chloe bullied Sabrina because he thought that an akumatization might happen.

And this is on top of so many other issues with this whole scene. Adrien complains all the time about his schedule and how restrictive his father is, but suddenly - in the episode right after Marinette had to break up with her boyfriend due to her cramped schedule - is lounging around and wasting time. It hurts to see Marinette suffering from all of her responsibilities while Chat’s biggest problem is how little time he gets with Ladybug.

Also, another point on Mister Pigeon is that that’s the akuma that had interrupted Marinette’s movie date and kiss with Luka. I’m not suggesting that Chat egging Xavier on led to him getting akumatized, but I am saying that Chat wanting akuma to happen with no regard for Ladybug’s happiness is yet another point on the list of why I hate the love square. Marinette genuinely forgot about patrol with him - genuinely was forgetting about everything, really - and as a “punishment,” her own partner whined, didn’t patrol properly, and egged on an akumatization that eventually ended up happening which then broke up the little bit of happiness that the universe was allowing her to have.

Oh, and did I mention that he’s also dating Kagami at the time as well because here we freaking go.

Now, I did not get on Marinette’s case for her Adrien wall and stammering because Luka is largely aware of where she stands in the relationship and she only brought Adrien up when someone else did, even when Luka wasn’t around or being mentioned. Adrien, however, I have multiple bones to pick with, starting with how utterly needy he is for Ladybug’s attention.

This guy has tons of friends, all these fans, and could get people to flock to him whether in or out of the mask, but he wants Ladybug, and anyone not Ladybug isn’t good enough. There’s a scene later in the episode where Kagami - his girlfriend, mind you - is pouring her heart out to him, and he gets distracted by Ladybug instead of listening to her. Even when he excuses the distraction, he then gets distracted again even though Ladybug is no longer in the background.

Lying to protect his identity is one thing, but what Adrien does to Kagami goes beyond that. He’s pining after and flirting with another girl and Kagami has no idea. She’s speculated before that Adrien likes Marinette, but she’s mostly left in the dark because Adrien hasn’t told her anything, nor has he confirmed with her whether it’s okay or not for him to flirt with other girls so long as he’s not pursuing them. He could’ve admitted that he was in love with Ladybug but that he wants to try things with Kagami, but he refuses to open up to her or put himself out there.

Except, he technically does, once, when Kagami tells him to pose for her and he strikes his transformation stance, but he caught her completely off-guard and it’s no wonder why she was put off by it or thought it was unnatural. Not only that, but when Kagami tells him that he’s acting like a clown in that scene, we can see by jumping back to “Truth” that Chat Noir fished for Ladybug’s compliments which then led to a line about him talking about how Ladybug enjoyed him acting like a clown; a direct connection.

Kagami didn’t validate him, so he fished for Ladybug to do so because Ladybug was both forced to answer the question and wasn’t able to lie to him. The show has Ladybug state that her most preferred trait of his is his humor but I am certainly not laughing.

Chat Noir even goes further after the fight with Truth (so another copy-pasted scene) by saying that he has the most fun with Ladybug specifically, and this is all while he’s still dating.

Then this guy has the gall to talk during his break-up about how his fun times with Kagami weren’t lies after apologizing to her for his constant lying, as if he’s trying to earn her sympathy when we know that he’s been pining after Ladybug and flirting with her like she were his number one when he already had a girlfriend waiting for him (and who, by the way, had covered for him earlier and was sitting sadly on a staircase outside, feeling abandoned). The episode presents the break-up as if Adrien’s problem was the fact that he had to constantly lie to Kagami due to being busy with hero work (which is already dumb when we also saw him lounging around and complaining about how nothing was happening, meaning he was inadvertently supportive of the idea of having less time with Kagami and more time with Ladybug even if that means Paris is in danger), but the real problem ends up being that Adrien neglected Kagami emotionally and wasn’t able to give her the attention she wanted.

It’s both sad and annoying that Adrien has always sulked about his dad not paying attention to him and then we get Adrien not paying attention to Kagami, looking for Ladybug when Ladybug had already left and Kagami is trying to tell him something very important.

This is what I mean when I say that Adrien can’t carry an episode on his own. He’s incredibly selfish and most of his dialog just involves him complaining about Ladybug or making excuses. Kagami carried the episode more than he did because more details were revealed about her - specifically the fact that she likes drawing - and she’s active in making things happen (being the one to make the excuse to set up their fencing lessons, deciding what they’ll do with their hour of free time, etcetera).

And regardless of what girl he’s interacting with, Adrien can’t respect either of them. I just talked about Kagami and I’ve already talked about how he treats Ladybug when she’s not even around, but now we get to how he treats Ladybug when she is around.

During the climax of the fight with Lies, where Ladybug requires a distraction to safely pull off her lucky charm, Chat Noir decides - without Ladybug’s input - to sacrifice himself yet again.

I have to stress that Ladybug is stressed and Chat has always talked about her plans and listening to her, yet he has a horrible habit of making decisions all on his own and letting Ladybug deal with the fallout. Whenever he has the chance, he’ll throw himself in front of her and take the big hit, presumably with the mindset that Miraculous Ladybug will fix everything so it’s not like it matters.

Ladybug even shouts at him when he hints at what he’s about to do and there was absolutely time for them to talk about it, but Chat Noir just lets himself fall and be bait, even throwing out what is a clear confession (again, while he’s still dating someone else) before he’s knocked unconscious by Lies’ power.

And when Ladybug yells at him for it when everything’s said and done, pounding at his chest and looking absolutely upset over the whole thing? He not only brushes her off, but he boops her nose and talks about how “irresistable” her “angry little pout” is.

He might as well have just said, “you’re cute when you’re angry,” because that’s exactly what he’s implying; that Ladybug’s anger is something “amusing” to him and not something he takes seriously. We’ve already seen it before in “Reflekdoll” and “Oblivio” as well, so this is just a continuation of already-annoying behavior.

Then, instead of Ladybug getting even angrier for it, the episode has her smile at him, which not only isn’t a normal reaction compared to how she’s reacted before, but now gives the impression that she’s being conditioned by the narrative to accept Chat Noir’s behavior in whatever shape or form it takes.

Because think about it: regardless of how upset Ladybug gets over Chat Noir, it never works out for her and she’s forced to either make up with him quickly or just get over it because she can’t be fighting with her partner (meanwhile, like in “Glaciator,” Chat Noir can be as upset as he wants and she’ll apologize first). She presumably would now have the authority to take away his ring by virtue of being guardian, but he’s also been her partner from the beginning and he’s had so much time to get used to the cat. Most likely, she would sooner blame herself for failing to reign him in than blame him for failing as an adequate partner.

There’s nothing she can do. She has to deal with the hand that she’s been dealt and getting angry at him has done nothing; rejecting him has done nothing.

And of course the episode throws everything under the rug in the ending with an insulting LadyNoir scene where Ladybug and Chat Noir talk about the secrets their forced to keep but also how they can trust each other.

Meanwhile, Ladybug has no idea of all the things Chat Noir has done behind her back. She still has no clue about “Copycat,” nor “Syren,” nor any of the stuff he did in this episode that she’ll probably never know about. Factor it in with “Miraculous New York” (whether one considers it canon or not) where she rightfully shouted at him because he betrayed her trust, and here we are one and a half episodes later (since “Truth” and “Lies” take place at similar times) where suddenly they’re all buddy-buddy and Chat Noir doesn’t have to deal with any consequences to his selfishness.

I’m glad that Kagami didn’t forgive Adrien in the end (even if I’m upset that she doesn’t know how bad it really was) because she had every right to walk away and not want to be friends with him. I only wish that Ladybug could do the same thing and never look back, but due to the love square’s status as endgame, we know that can’t happen, and Ladybug will eventually be forced to fall in love with a guy who mocked her responsibilities behind her back, disrespected her authority by opting to tease/flirt with her, continued pursuing her despite her rejections, and hoped for Paris to be in danger just so he could see her.

And... yeah, that hurts. It really does.

[ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is]

Hello! Love your blog. I was wondering if I could get some typing help? I have a general idea of what I am, but that’s not saying much since I have a tendency to hop between a few of them (INTJ, ENTJ, ESTJ specifically). Either way, hopefully you can help me settle it.

I’m 22 and about to graduate from college. It’s been a journey, because I’ve transferred twice and changed plans a few times, but that’s the proper college experience, I think. One transfer closer to home can be owed to depression and Covid, while the first was simply me not meshing with the campus. I’m not too worried about how it’ll affect my grad school apps due to good grades and valid reasons.

Despite the schooling-related indecision, I tend to get an idea of what I want, then fixate on it heavily. Example: I recently tried to publish a novel I’ve been working on for years now. Realistically, I know the odds of getting your first work published and making enough money to start a career on it are beyond low, but a big part of me thought “yeah, except I worked on this draft consistently all these months and this feels right, so it has to pay off” – of course, it didn’t. That’s not to say it wasn’t worth it, but I’ve come to accept it won’t be that easy, so I’m going to focus on a job with more security first lol. That means proceeding with law school. Some friends might think I’m selling my soul by putting my dreams on the back burner. I disagree, though, because if writing is meant to be I can still make it happen this way but with more security. Plus, I’m used to having some higher objective to motivate me through each day, and I don’t like feeling aimless. To me, that would be settling for less: wasting time working next to minimum wage at some place I can’t see myself staying.

I’d like to think of myself as spontaneous despite knowing I’m really not. When I’m with friends, maybe, but I’m more than happy to do nothing on Friday nights, knowing I’ll be able to wake up early tomorrow and do whatever I’m doing at a decent time. That being said, I would be happy to hop on a flight across the world if someone offered to pay the way. I love travel, so I’d hope to find a career that makes that possible. The same goes for whatever work I’m doing. Ideally, I could move from place to place as I do my job, because I fear being rooted will keep me from seeing everything I’d like to see.

I’m definitely an introvert dichotomy wise, but if group work appears, I’m happy to make a plan and remind everyone when a due date is near, and I expect them to follow through or provide some forewarning. I’m not outright nasty when someone inevitably slips up, but I’m not going to give them an excuse either. Can’t relate since I’ve never had a problem with procrastination. Like, I’d say I’m procrastinating, but to me procrastinating is choosing not to get ahead on the project due next week while I have spare time now. That makes me sound like a robot or a liar, but I’m mostly just very aware of my limitations and have learned how to manage work in a way that keeps me from having to stress.

I have no idea how to end this. Quick notes? I’m ambitious but not competitive – literally cannot relate to envy, because I don’t think someone having something means you can’t have it too – you just have to work on/for it. I’m not very curious lmao. Like, I’m as curious as the average person, but I don’t care about how things work (Ti slacking?). Uhh, fandoms annoy me. Like, seeing fans distort characters and needlessly project onto them in cringe ways makes my brain itchy. I’ve been called insensitive. I can easily cut someone off after finding, for a fact, that they’re being manipulative. Whatever baggage they have, I don’t care. I don’t see the point in fighting for a relationship when a “friend” is working against you. I’m also the “advice friend” because I don’t have drama and seem to know how to diffuse it easily or cut it out completely. Now that I think about it, all of my closest friends have a lot of anxiety, so maybe I collect them and care for them a little since I have none.

Hopefully that wasn’t too much useless info. I think I’m mainly struggling on differentiating between lower Ne vs Lower Se. My indecision comes in rare bouts, so maybe that’s the weak Ne manifesting. Or maybe I’m lower Se for forgetting the larger scheme by focusing on material things like getting to travel and making a high salary? Whatever. These are things most people prioritize, though. Let me know if you need any specifics. Also, thank you for taking the time to read this! I really appreciate how informative your blog is and all the resources you share.

Hi anon,

To be honest I am really not sure based on this, and it might be good for you to revisit this after a little bit of time out of school. I would rule out the Ti-Fe axis, but I can actually see arguments for either high Te or high Fi My guess is high Ni if you have high Te you don't really sound like a high Si user - and part of what is tripping me up the most is that you said a lot of things that make me thing of high Fi and the spontaneity of Se or Ne, but there's a lot here that really sounds intuitive but distinctly not like an Ne user. So I actually think there are arguments for either INTJ or ISFP, and I actually lean a little more towards "ISFP with good discipline/time management" than INTJ.

Here's my thought process, which hopefully can get you started.

I do feel like transferring twice is a little abnormal (not bad, just more than the typical college experience of maybe one transfer and changing one's major once or twice) but COVID did fuck with things more than usual so no conclusions there.

The fixation on writing a novel and the long-shot of gaining enough success to focus on that full time - particularly right out of school or even before graduation - is either intuitive or possibly high Fi. I really do not think an ESTJ would have that idea - not that they wouldn't be a writer, but I don't think they would have had the same expectations surrounding payoff and would have assumed from the start that this will not be their career initially. For that matter I have my doubts on ENTJ, but it could be possible for INTJ.

The part about spontaneity actually fits really well with auxiliary Se or Ne, in that those types at your age will have moderation from Ni or Si respectively and will often want a combination of stability but also the ability to travel a lot and move around. The example you gave actually still seemed very spontaneous; a lot of ExTJs for example might really dislike doing nothing on a Friday night and would instead have something planned. What you describe sounds very go-with-the-flow, just in a low-key way.

The part about procrastination indicates that Ne is probably off the table but Se is possible; some SPs are pretty good at being realistic about getting things done and it sounds like you don't have the high Te motivation of "I must get this done early" (not that high Te users can't procrastinate or do things on time but not down-to-the-wire).

I often tie ambition/competitive nature to enneagram more than MBTI, but I will say a lot of Te users and especially Te-doms tend to be both. They don't have to be (and if they're only one, usually it's ambition over competition), but it's pretty common. Curiosity is complicated but not caring about how literally everything works does seem like it would rule out Ti and I'd fully agree there. The part about being frustrated by fandom distortion of characters is relatable to me and I feel that comes from a place of sensing, ie, were you not paying attention to canon, so that seems like a point towards high Se for you. The parts about advice and interpersonal relationships mostly just reinforce that you sound more like someone on the Fi-Te axis, which you already suspected, but again...being the advice friend, particularly from a caring position, seems more high Fi to me than INTJ; a lot of IxTJs (and definitely ExTJs) at your age are just not emotionally ready for that level of patience with anxiety. I know I wasn't.

I would also say focusing on the material things (travel, a liveable salary) is more in line with higher Se! Te users do have a measure of pragmatism, so again, can't rule out INTJ, but the travel especially is what's making me think Se is pretty high in your stack.

All in all? My guess is an ISFP with good time management skills, possibly with an enneagram 6 adding to the stability/pragmatism. That said I wouldn't totally rule out INTJ (possibly also enneagram 6?); I just think it's less likely.

[keagan-ashleigh]

I have read Misha's post on Facebook and I didn't know what to say or what to think. I said it over and over I have zero expectations so on one hand I am satisfied with Castiel being gay and didn't think they were going to show more than that, but on the other hand... reading that felt bitter. And there’s a couple things I’d like to answer to that.

I am trying to sort of explain all of this to myself, I’m trying to make sense of things, but what is clear to me is that: the CW is at fault, the showrunners, producers and writers are at fault too, and I think Misha is being honest. He genuinely doesn’t believe the CW censored destiel and maybe they haven’t in the way we’d want to think they did. But they did. 

Also, let’s be clear that there is something fishy in him saying there wasn’t some cut bits from 15x18 and no alternative ending when he, Jensen and even the writers admitted there was. I think maybe he was saying “there is no alternative gay ending for Dean”, still... I don’t know. But I believe him when he says there is no destiel conspiracy in which a gay scene existed but was censored - like I for a moment believed there was (I even twitted that yesterday). I am not so sure now but what I think is that it doesn’t matter HOW they fooled their queer audience, it’s the fact they did at all.

There was a form of interference and Misha needs to understand that people are right to be angry nonetheless. 

I  know that CW is still not a lgbt ally, however they have some lgbt friendly shows. They are probably the network that has the most lgbt characters.

Just to recap things a little bit and give sort of a context, from my perspective - I think it’s really important to know what are their other shows in term of representation - it’s probably gonna be a long read but bear with me:

I don't know them all but I am also a DC fan so I know the majority of the arrowverse shows are lgbt friendly, plus there is The 100, there was 3 lgbt characters in Vampire Diaries, I didn’t watch those but I think there was a little bit of representation in Gossip Girl, Riverdale, the Charmed reboot, the Roswell reboot, Beverly Hills reboot, The Originals and Legacy - and some others I don't remember here.

So yep, there is some representation and they truly believe it’s ok, they pat their backs calling themselves progressive for allowing one or two characters in each show to be lgbt, and sometimes the writers are good enough to make it good on screen (which really is the case for Black Lightning for instance).

And actually we owe the representation in the arrowverse shows to a gay producer named Greg Berlanti,  the CW allowed it, they didn’t came up with the idea.

The CW is not an ally, they are a company and they show what brings them money. And if you watch the shows I cited you know they are familiar with the bury your gays trope, maybe a little less blatantly than in Supernatural. As far as I know, in only three shows they have couples that are happy and that haven't been killed : Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow (which is not that popular cause in terms of writing the first 2, 3 seasons were awful, it started being good when they got free to be more goofy and self-mocking) and Black Lightning - which btw has not been renewed for a 5th season and Supergirl has one season left too - with all the arrowverse shows ending one after the other I can only predict LoT won't last much longer - there would be Batwoman but we don’t see a settled couple, we see a broken relationship and since they chose not to recast the lead, they have made the subsequent decision not to give this relationship a satisfying resolution).

There is a number of issues with the representation in those shows, but yeah, the arrowverse is progressive because the shows producers, the writers and the CW were on board for that. It wasn’t the case for Supernatural who has had more BYG than all the other CW shows united - because CW had better interests in making it the way it is, and because the writers are not that good. I keep repeating it but it’s true, they also are to blame, THEY wrote the BYG in the show and they wrote that ending. It was possible for a better representation in spn if everyone tried. Only the actors tried, that’s the problem, and they don’t have much hold on what can and cannot be done. 

Supernatural is different in CW eyes - not because it is their most popular show in terms of audience - I know everyone says that but when you look at the numbers The Flash is actually their top popular show (and that is why it will be the last big arroverse show to go, what will stay will be Stargirl, maybe Batwoman for one or two seasons), it’s the one that has the most viewers, it was racking up 1.2 million viewers in 2019 against 1.1 for Supernatural (x) - without counting the illegal streaming and downloading), Supernatural only comes second in terms of audience in 2019/2020 (and it is important to note that) (it was also second best in 2017, this is not only true for 19/2020 (x) ). But it it special in terms of status and fanbase, it doesn’t have the most viewers but it a show that have a consistent audience; it is big to them nonetheless. Just as this article explains: “Supernatural’s linear ratings have faded. But its importance to the CW, however, hasn’t”.

 At this point you will note that The Flash has, in terms of representation, one (1) gay character that is a secondary one (David Singh, the chief of Central police) and he is mentioned to be gay.

Supernatural is important to them because Supernatural’s ratings influence their other shows and the network as a whole.

It is also because they have a contract with Jared for Walker and they don't want it to fail (Supernatural and the arrowverse shows are all coming to an end rn so they need a new golden goose), if they have had shown interest in being lgbt friendly with this show they would have done it earlier. This only means that it's not financially worthy for them. 

All of this only shows that the CW has monetary interests and that you need everyone involved to make it work. It worked for the arrowverse because the producer pushed and because it was actually a form of queerbaiting for the CW. This ensures that the lgbt people have what they want and they get to have their money, but they don’t loose their straight audience either. They don’t touch Supernatural and The Flash because that’s their big money makers. 

So, as a conclusion, what this context definitely show us is that they aren’t interested in progress in itself, they are interested in profit. They give us lgbt representation as long as it’s their interest to do so. Castiel was gay so episode 19 and 20 ratings could skyrocket, don’t let yourself think it was for the love of progress. No, Misha, there wasn’t the kind of conspiracy you describe, but the CW still wronged its viewers and weren’t well intentioned. And the showrunners did us wrong too because they wrote that and they wrote Dean impaled on a nail and Sam miserably codependent with his brother. I do believe they didn’t actually wrote destiel, but they cut out the possibility of it being written, mainly because they are the network’s bitches and because they don’t have interest in writing it. 

Misha might be well intentioned by saying what he said but he’s wrong, The CW did interfere and sort of censored destiel, if not by subtilizing a script for another by preventing it to be written at all. Whether he knows and he is coverint the CW whether he doesn’t know at all, but, he’s wrong to defend them - the network as well as the writers. 

I still think we were robbed and I understand why he thinks it's not a bury your gays because Cas goes to heaven but he's not sitting in our seat, however great of an ally he is, I am sorry to say he just don't feel it like lgbt fans do. Another point that has to be made is that not every representation is good representation, and it doesn’t matter that Castiel is alive and reconstructing heaven if we don’t SEE IT, if we don’t see him at all nor the effects of his self realisation, it might as well mean it didn’t matter, Cas is gay but it had absolutely zero importance. It has only shown the character being erased afterward. Sure he was resurrected but it still was wiped out of the writing, you’ve GOT to understand bury your gays doesn’t necessarily means the character has been LITERALLY killed, it means it has been taken out of the narrative. Like, for example, Claire has been erased from the narrative, we never see her again once she’s revealed to be a lesbian, even though subtextually she’s fine and happy.

Misha is sweet and the fact he is always on board to learn and spread love is amazing and I love him for that but he is wrong here and he should listen and learn what BYG effectively means. 

I kinda want to copy paste that into another post because it is important and I wish someone would say that to him, I am sure he is kind enough to listen.

What we’re also mad about isn’t only that Castiel has been erased. It’s that Dean has been erased too and doesn’t get to answer and give a full closure to this narrative. Castiel being gay is huge, I said that already, but it’s only half satisfying if he doesn’t get to be with the man he loves and who loves him in return, or if he doesn’t get an answer. Maybe it wasn’t written, maybe it was censored, no matter what, Dean’s love was there and it should have been acknowledged. And after all, I wouldn’t have been mad about them writing a platonic answer because it would have been an answer (even though I wouldn’t have been satisfied because in the whole context of television, there is not enough gay couples that are settled and not written in traumatic way). The fact no one acknowledges the fact Castiel was gay, it’s hurting, from our perspective. It’s like he spoke his truth but wasn’t heard. 

And that is a problem. Not every representation is a good representation and people need to understand how offensive it is to us to hear “well you should be happy we’ve given you that much” - especially when in the whole picture, there is like TWO shows that aren’t about homosexuality that shows a healthy relationship between two lgbt characters without one of the two be killed or erased from the narrative.

We deserve more than the bare minimum.

So, okay, no, the mexican sub wasn’t the proof of a manipulation (and nonetheless we just can’t tell because there is NO objective evidences), BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN ANY OF THAT IS OK.

I love Misha Collins, I think he is a beautiful human being, but he doesn’t possibly know why we are hurt and I am sad he didn’t think this further. 

[danwhobrowses]

Valentines 2020: A Celebration of My Ships

So it’s valentine’s day again, and...yeah it’s not too great when you’re single is it? Considering that I’ve already gone through a tub of ice cream...

But, it doesn’t mean I’m a cynic, quite the opposite. Most of my fandoms involves a ship in some shape or form, hell I shipped before I even knew what shipping was, so I’m gonna talk about some of them...the ones that still make me happy and didn’t crash and burn in heartbreaking and frankly insulting fashion (looking at you Homestuck ¬_¬), gotta mention that these are not all the ships I ship, they’re just some of the ones I’m quite consistently high on

New Entries So with new fandoms come new ships...as is the usual formula anyway, though my pattern of watching things is usually with some delay, I only watched Rurouni Kenshin and started My Hero Academia in 2019, I still hold off on Attack on Titan and My Hero Season 4 because if I get in, I get IN. So these fandoms may not be new, but they are new to me Steven Universe is very new to me, I’ve been aware of how good it is and their concepts like Fusion. I like it, particularly Lapis Lazuli I really relate to her, but ship wise the two I really like are the obvious ones; Steven x Connie and Ruby x Sapphire (Garnet)

Garnet is badass and chill at the same time, but when she unfuses we see the stuff that makes me smile, the pda between Ruby and Sapphire is adorable, the little pecks and whatnot softens me up like no man’s business. Steven and Connie also have the mushy dynamic with both of them deeply into each other but still being strong individuals. The love for each other is equally platonic as it is romantic as they gel together, both being strong willed in different ways. The laughter probably gets me the most with both of them, the genuine laughter is so sweet and so realistic it’s hard not to love. My Hero Academia seems to be our next wave of shonen anime and for good reason, it does high notes so well and the cast of characters are vibrant and exciting. I haven’t hit Season 4 yet since I’m waiting till it’s all done to binge so I may be a little behind on some stuff (sadly it’s hard to avoid spoilers, I know about Infinity and Unbreakable). While I do like Deku x Uraraka, Tetsutetsu x Kendo and Eraserjoke but the two that I find most enjoyable are Todomomo and Kamijirou

(artist nonoko135 btw, bit tough to find a single image with both ships) Fairly popular ships in their own right, Todomomo doesn’t get many hints but they are sweet, naive rich kids with their own confidence issues, it also feels like they look out for each other especially after the final exam they did together. With Kamijirou though it’s probably one I favour if I had to choose between the two, simply because it’s a dynamic I really like; she busts on him so hard to mask her enjoyment of his company and he takes it because he feels at ease around her, the best part is when Kaminari goes 0 volts, he makes her laugh and that’s kinda big for Jirou given how self-conscious and stoic she can be. Rurouni Kenshin was always on my list, I have often heard about the Swordsman with a blade that cuts no-one. The anime is a bit up and down, after Shishio it’s just filler, but as documented in my Redemption Arc post it is at its core a great story of redemption for the main character, and the driving force for Kenshin’s redemption is his love for Kaoru

While Sano and Megumi have a unique dynamic hinted to be romantic at times, nothing can really beat Kenshin and Kaoru, she literally became Kenshin’s conscience, a representation of his hope to be a good man away from the shadow of Battousai the Manslayer. It may be your traditional romance of the two wanting to be by each other’s side in danger but it works so well given the kind of danger Kenshin is often in. Kaoru still strives to protect herself and aid Kenshin in a way that doesn’t make her continuously wonder about being a burden and Kenshin does everything in his power to keep Kaoru from pain, physical and emotional, even if it meant leaving to keep her safe. The main part of what makes this lovely is the fact that not only did Kaoru’s influence make Kenshin value his own life once more but after continual torment in his past she still saw him as the person he wanted to be, and welcomed in a new home, a new family he was able to live a life he never imagined he could deserve. The Regulars Our Regulars are the ships I still consistently ship, they’re not very old but they’re still pretty great and they still stand the test of time. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has quite a few ships over its 6 (coming up 7) season lifespan, being the longest surviving MCU tv series and one of the most consistently great shows MCU offered - especially Season 4, some of the best TV was on Season 4. But while Philinda is close, Mack and Yoyo or even Piper and Davis (don’t, I don’t care if you believe she’s a lesbian with the hots for May these are my ships) there is one one ship in Shield you can all rally behind, Fitzsimmons

Even when canon it is a consistent emotional rollercoaster. One of those ships where the writers know you love it and decide to put you through as much pain and emotional torment as humanely possible. But you endure it, because these two smart kids are worth it. They have sweet moments, badass moments, emotional moments and even though they get brought apart time and time again, they still find each other, the universe cannot stop them - and it better end happily for them come next season. Overwatch was a phenomenon when it came out a few years ago, Blizzard may have caused it to have some heavily bad rep but I still look forward to its sequel coming out. Given its large roster and most of the characters’ sexuality and relationship status up in the air, it leaves a lot of room for shipping. I do still love Anahardt, Mercy76 kinda falling due to 76 being gay but I like Gency too, my rarepairs include McPharah and Symmzo but my favourite is actually Meihem.

Now I know, Mei’s only voice lines towards Junkrat are cold, they have differing views in terms of omnics and...due process of the law. But there’s a lot they do have in common; both are quite intelligent engineers having made their weapons by hand, both endured trauma and both love their puns. But even the stuff that make them different can compliment one another. You don’t have to like it, but I do, I enjoy the dynamic of Jamison being so head over heels that he embarrasses himself to try and get Mei’s attention, while Mei softens to the fact that his very nature is warped by his lawless upbringing and that deep down he is an exciting and in his own way sweet guy.  Back to anime, because what else do I do with my day, getting into One Piece was always going to be a long effort, keeping tabs on the Manga does make it easier and I’ve been able to catch up quickly. Ships are shaky territory with One Piece because Oda does make a point of not having romance happen a lot, not to existing living characters at least. But I still have the ones I like; Shanks x Makino, Sabo x Koala, Franky x Robin, Sanji x Pudding, Rebecca x Koby, the list goes on, but my favourite has to be Zoro x Tashigi

May not be up there with the ‘big ships’ of One Piece but I do enjoy them the most. Individually the two are characters I have deep interest in; Zoro is well Roronoa Fucking Zoro, santoryu swordsman extraordinaire, master of nothing happening and will cut you 8 ways to Sunday, but Tashigi is a character I like because she also tries, unlike Zoro she isn’t blessed with 2 years training with Mihawk and she’s at constant arms with this self doubt that as a Woman she won’t be as strong (and probably whoever of influence to her made her believe such a thing), people may get on her back for never winning a fight but she fights strong people without a second thought. But back to the pairing, they have an interesting dynamic; two very similar people on different sides of the law, I don’t think Tashigi continues to chase him simply because he refused to cut her in their fight and I don’t think it’s just her former resemblance to Kuina that gets Zoro so riled up about her, I mean Zoro is usually so chill to side characters to the point where he’s ready to throw down but with Tashigi, it’s different, they bicker but he also came to her aid. I still continue to hope that Tashigi shows in Wano for more Zoro interaction, and to prove herself to fans and to Zoro that she is strong and capable. One of my favourite anime of all time is Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, a combination of laughter, tears and deep philosophical character journeys in a 20th century world with the alchemy fantasy element drawn from actual legit alchemical sources. It just hits all the right notes for me, and ships hit right too; I love most of the ships from EdWin, AlMay and LingFan, but like Fitzsimmons there is one ship that stands above even the main characters, Royai.

Mustang and Hawkeye right from the bat have that connection that needs no dancing around, they care for each other but they work together. Like the rest of the ships they banter, argue but always have each other’s backs, to the point that they go into an insane rage at even the threat of the other being hurt. I don’t think anyone can not ship these two, that’s how strong their chemistry is, even if they can’t officially label it as a relationship because of their jobs it’s that line in the sand that everyone knows it, because it’s impossible to ignore. The Old Guard So we get to the oldest ships in my catalogue, the fact that they could stand the test of time is for a long time what shaped me as a shipper. I still ship these to this day so I ship them pretty hardcore Comics is probably the hardest place to ship something, because different writers will try different pairings at the drop of a hat. Even consistent pairings like Spiderman and Mary Jane, Batman and Catwoman, Beat Boy and Raven, Superman and Lois and more can end up being split in favour of Cindy Moon (I do love Silk), Wonder Woman and others. But I can’t ignore the fact that I’ve always loved Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon

I may’ve liked Teen Titans, but I was never on Team Starfire, it’s fine if you are but to me I have always been in with Dick and Babs. Not only do they have excellent banter but they gel well on and off of crime fighting, no matter how many times DC break them apart (like seriously, how many times do you have to try Bruce and Barbara until you realise that it creeps people out?) they always find each other again someway down the line, they are one of DC’s best couples and while they may never get a definitive ending because of the nature of comics, I still love that there’s a relationship of two strong individuals who can stand as equals and continue to keep their charm and wit after years of being together. When I was young, decades ago as it pains me to type, Digimon was the prime competitor against Pokémon’s tidal wave. Its anime had an awesome opening, more characters with some deeper themes and a quicker pacing. While many could quickly connect to Tai or Matt for their leaderlike attitude or Joe and Izzy for their intelligence or Mimi and Sora for their determination, I gravitated towards TK, a child who had room to grow and the greatest of potential, so when the Dark Masters came in we saw one of my oldest ships take form, Takari

TK and Kari’s pairing was popular that it managed to carry on into Adventure 02 and we got plenty of lovely moments in TRI (though they shorthanded both by having Ophanimon quickly fused and Seraphimon - one of the strongest Digimon - digivolve as backup in a Sora episode). 02′s epilogue is of course a sore spot we can hope Kizuna retcons because these two have been through thick and thin and their bond is clear. Even as they reach their late teens and TK has become master of hats and joined Matt’s band, they still hang out, banter and tease but they still are comfortable to hold each other’s hand and be vulnerable with one another too. Digimon may’ve been a contender, but Pokémon was still the clear winner, even to this day it is one of the most popular franchises in the world. The anime may be an up and down slope (current series seems a tad boring, 10 episodes before Ash caught a Pokémon, plus I don’t like that Ash won in Alola and now thinks he doesn’t have to try) but you can never take away the nostalgia, or the ships. I’ve shipped many in Pokémon in various media; Mallow x Lillie and Jessie x James in the anime, Ruby x Sapphire in the Manga, Looker x Anabel in the games (with Emma being their adoptive daughter dammit Looker you could’ve taken her with) among others and from Pokémon comes the oldest ship I’ve ever shipped, Pokéshipping

Before I even knew what Shipping was I shipped this, Misty may also be mostly the reason for my attraction to redheads but that’s neither here nor there. People may not like it, may prefer some of the softer spoken female (or male) companions Ash has had or feel they’ve grown out of it, but not me. I loved Misty’s feistiness and determination but also the fact that she could reign Ash in (sometimes) to make him think things through, as much as Misty was a companion to Ash she was a rival, a teacher and a supporter of his goal, but she also had her own goals which she fought for as well. They may bicker but they have also had tender moments as well and even with Misty’s return in the excellent Sun and Moon episodes they had their chemistry is palpable. To me, Ash and Misty were kindred spirits and the feeling has never changed since. So with another year of Valentine’s Day going the way it usually does, I’d like a moment to thank these ships, and all my other ships I didn’t have the space to mention, for being something that brings out happiness and a soft joy deep within my being, and for all the fanartists and fanfic writers that bring that love to life Happy Valentine’s Day

[alwaysspeakshermind]

Top 5 Anti-Varchie Arguments & Why They Make No Sense

#5: “Varchie’s so bland/there’s no chemistry between them at all.”

[Note: I would like to apologize in advance to anyone/everyone upon whose timelines I’m inflicting this series of semi-rant-y posts. Someone on Pinterest felt the urge to leave an outraged comment about why they hate Varchie on one of my pictures (clearly, they confused Pinterest with Twitter/Tumblr/Instagram), and it was so unnecessary and full of all the usual incorrect twaddle I see used on SM to discount A&V’s relationship that it annoyed me and made me decide to go ahead and start writing all the refutations I’ve been keeping to myself since S2 released its first trailer and the essay-length grumbles began. Because as much as I try to steer clear of entering this type of fight, I have trouble standing by when obviously-wrong conclusions are being drawn from obviously-misconstrued information and being presented as fact. And since it doesn’t take me long to write analysis-type posts, my usual ‘I don’t have time for this nonsense’ excuse is kind of removed.]

Right, so…chemistry. Two quick things:

Number one, on-screen chemistry is about rapport between actors, and just because a specific romantic pairing does not personally do it for you does not mean that they lack chemistry. 

Number two, in acting/performance art, chemistry is a tangible, quantifiable aspect necessary to any and all interactions between performers, so it is essentially false to state that any pairing that has made it to TV is utterly without chemistry. For writers to allow a couple to happen at all, for actors to even be cast in the first place, at least some chemistry must be present; it’s simply a matter of what kind of chemistry each pairing has, how much, and how well that chemistry translates onscreen.

Random example: Prior to Friends, Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe) was cast as Roz in Fraiser, but was subsequently replaced with Peri Gilpin because the latter’s onscreen chemistry was better with Kelsey Grammer (Fraiser). It was not a romantic chemistry issue. It was not a no chemistry, period between the actors issue. It was just that there wasn’t enough of the right kind of chemistry, which made the Kudrow/Grammar dynamic less compelling than desired.

Chemistry is, however, notoriously difficult to explain if you’re not familiar with most generally accepted forms of film-criticism, so I feel it’s useless to try proving anything with examples pulled directly from source material—for instance, anyone relatively adept at dissecting performance can see at once how the entire Riverdale pilot showcases the chemistry between Archie and Veronica so that the closet scene feels like a natural culmination of something that began the second they saw each other. If you can watch that episode from start to finish, pronounce “no chemistry” and actually believe it, providing textual evidence and defining terms is going to be a waste of time.

So instead, I’ll take the common sense route and just point out you may rest assured that with Riverdale, a show based in roughly half a century’s worth of comic history, everyone involved in the casting knew going into it that romantic chemistry between the actors playing Archie and Veronica was an absolute must. KJ Apa and Camila Mendes would not be playing the parts they are if they were unable to create any sort of romantic chemistry between them, and S1 would most certainly not have chosen to set up a Varchie relationship from the get-go—much less have continued to emphasize a budding Varchie relationship throughout—if that romantic chemistry had not translated onscreen. Ditto for S2 and S3.

Also, take my word for it: I’m here. It takes a *lot* of chemistry for me to get involved in a ship (to the point that nearly every ship I have ever shipped has involved actors who were married/dating at the time, or eventually married/began dating), and it really takes a lot of chemistry to get me involved with a teen ship because I didn’t like most teen shows back when I was a teen. Yet Varchie’s chemistry popped enough onscreen to reel me in. 

What does all this have to with anything?

Well, in short, claiming Archie and Veronica are “bland” or “without chemistry” is attempting to apply objective terms to a subjective opinion, so if you’re going to do that, it automatically opens your contention up to a couple of counter-arguments:

(1) You are objectively wrong, because by all acting terms/definitions/standards, Archie and Veronica have chemistry. 

(2) You are objectively wrong because you are in essence saying that you do not see/understand the verifiable evidence set before you. (In other words, you have metaphorically gazed upon the color red and announced “this is not red.”)

(3) You are subjectively wrong because you are stating your based-in-subjectivity opinion as fact which inherently implies that you believe subjectivity is allowable in an argument. And if you believe subjectivity is allowable in an argument, than you are essentially contending that someone else’s opposing opinion is just as valid as yours, meaning anyone who says “Varchie has the best chemistry” is just as correct as you are, and your entire point becomes moot. 

Although you may not like Varchie’s dynamic/prefer another dynamic over theirs, attempting to file your dislike under the headings of blandness or zero chemistry simply labels you as someone who either cannot grasp the concept of chemistry in relation to acting, or someone who is too stubborn to admit to its presence. (And to be frank, neither option paints your intelligence in a favorable light.)

Personally, I’d like to think this argument gets used so often because most people just don’t understand what onscreen chemistry truly is/how it can be platonic or sexual and what denotes platonic or sexual/how it can exist between actors who hate each other and not exist between actors who love each other/how it can be organic or crafted through sheer effort, etc. Or that it keeps recurring because people just don’t interact with enough different types of people to understand that certain actions mean different things depending on who’s doing them.

But while I get that people have different preferences when it comes to romantic dynamics and interpret certain actions differently, based on the always-solid-yet-consistently-underrated performances KJ Apa and Camila Mendes have been delivering since the pilot, I have trouble buying that the oft-repeated cry of “no chemistry” is due solely to a feeble understanding of what that term means. Based on the inconsistent scads of oddball scenes/out-of-context facial expressions I’ve seen cited as “proof,” it seems a lot more like this argument is a camouflaged complaint against storylines people would like to have for their favorite couple, or the fact that one romantic trope was chosen over another (both of which are other posts entirely).

So, yeah. Pro-tip: choosing an argument that puts you in the position of disputing readily-observable facts is never the way to go. 

If you hate the Varchie pairing and want to talk about how much you hate it, okay. It’d be a nice gesture if you didn’t do in the Varchie tags or on people’s pictures that were literally only tagged Archie/Veronica which means you had to search those terms to announce your dislike and who on earth deliberately goes looking for things they hate, seriously, go search happy puppies or something instead, I promise it’ll make you feel better. You’re allowed to hate things, and you’re absolutely allowed to irrationally hate things. Just don’t confuse your irrational hatred with reasonable dislike, because the two reactions are not at all interchangeable. 

Also? Maybe don’t try so hard to justify irrational hatred with the ‘Varchie has no chemistry’ argument, because any viewer with a working brain can see at once that the visible evidence simply doesn’t back you up. And citing a source (scenes from the show) that disproves your entire thesis doesn’t exactly lend credence to your assertion.

[des-shinta]

I been wondering, since I don't honestly know much about what happened to Hibiki. I know of the writer changes, but not much else. How deep does this rabbit hole go? Since the only thing I know was that a lot of character assassin happened and the plot changing massively. And I was looking forward to your review, but I understand the issues of Toei and other problems.

thanks for understanding on that.  Hell, I’m still failing to get the *Old* episodes back up without Toei’s abuse of Copyright claims rearing its head. It’s…well…yeah…  The rewrites aren’t just obvious in the infamously-scrapped-and-rewritten final episode.  I covered a lot of it in the originally intended review, but…it’s basically everything and every scene.  It’s so heavily NOT Hibiki, that the Hibiki AR world in Decade has more in common with first-half hibiki than post-staff-change Hibiki does.  To many fans, Post-staff change Hibki IS the AR-world, and the series ends at the ‘seven senki’ movie as it Actually DOES tie into hibiki’s canon and the continuity problems in that movie are explained by it being Asumu’s acted-out imaginary fantasy depiction of recorded historical events he spends the film reading about.

Basically every two-part arc had that feeling of the second half being forcibly changed and thus screwing over the potential of the first half…and usually by it being Kiriya’s inclusion in things fucking it all over.  Asumu suddenly has a complex about his absentee father, is a completely spineless loser and is all his own fault for being so (as opposed to being comparable to My Hero Academia’s Izuku Midoriya in intended storyarc (I am not kidding)), and any progress on improving himself is lost–thus further delaying him actually BEGINNING his oni training until it’s the final 8 episodes because the show failed to start that When they Should have (I.E: episode 16-24).  Akira abandons everything she’s done and trained for over the course of years and ignored Ibuki in the name of quick powerups and a desire for power now because of Kiriya and a woman Oni that comes out of nowhere only to be killed in a moment of complete idiocy as she loved Zanki’s dead mentor.  Hibiki outs himself as a Coward and that being why he trains so hard, instead of a desire for self-improvement and a clear-minded sense of self  to selflessly help people which an Oni was shown to need…all so it can make how Kiriya was portrayed more reflect the ‘truth’ of Hibiki.  A Truth which, incidentally, is that of A Hypocrite, as why he drops Asumu as a disciple in the first place BEFORE the finale’s timeskip was because Asumu decided to help a friend out–KEEPING with Hibiki’s previous teachings about there being a need for ‘balance in all things’ and to not abandon your normal life to be an Oni as those connections are what support you in tough times– and Hibiki condemns him and considers him worthless for it while they’re in the midst of a situation where the barely-trained apprentices being involved would result in them straight-out being killed.  So Asumu staying out of it would’ve been a GOOD THING as then he wouldn’t be pointlessly throwing his life away in a battle he could do nothing to affect.(I Honestly think it’s this scene in specific that led to Shigeki Hosokawa exposing how badly the show and it’s cast had been treated.)And Todoroki and Ibuki…become complete oblivious Idiots.  With no explanation.Hell, the ‘training’ the Oni do becomes far more half-assed.  instead of the thorough, intense workouts and regiments the Oni previously needed to stay in shape and grow in power…their workouts consist of basic fitness training you’d do in Gym Class, while their improvements take the form of sudden powerups.And to make that last one Worse?  KIRIYA COULDN’T EVEN DO THOSE BASIC EXERCISES!  By the time He and Asumu were finally accepted to train for the job he’d shown himself as completely incapable at any physical activity, and we were supposed to then feel bad when he had to cheat at them to keep up with Asumu who was giving his all, and got caught doing so.  Then, again to show how badly Asumu was screwed over, after the timeskip in the final episode? Kiriya’s still slacking at his training but can now transform without a problem a year after training (IIRC the normal time range is in the span of about 5 years.  Akira before she suddenly out of nowhere decided to just Fucking give up at it did it in about 3 or 4), while suddenly Asumu can’t even climb a slightly inclined hill that *I* could walk up the side of with no problem, even while helping out a injured kid as Asumu was showcased in said scene…and he had to call kiriya to help him do that.  All the more galling, as in a previous episode, in the EARLIEST days of their Oni training before they did any of the strenuous stuff, Asumu had climbed a steep graveled incline in a quarry without fail, which had far less of a foothold or ability to climb than a moderately wet grassy hill.  That one was ALSO made worse, as an even earlier episode had Asumu assisting Hibki in a task, only to slip down a sleek, slippery muddy hill and need to be rescued from injury, so him climbing up the rocky incline also worked as contrast to how Asumu had supposedly grown on his own as a person from his own experiences without explicit need for supervision…and then by the series end he’s worse off than when he started.  And we’re supposed to believe it’s a good thing.No-one that was actually paying attention bought it.Hell, that’s in turn why people then got so mad when the details got out about the show’s last episode being rewritten, and simultaneously why The recent news of the Hibiki tribute arc of Zi-O got people pissed off again.  Turns out, first draft?  Asumu became an Oni and Hibiki’s successor, Kiriya was to drop out due to him not having the character to succeed at this.  Later rewrites?  Asumu’s still the successor, but Kiriya now becomes an Oni as well.  It was ONLY the version that Producer Shirakura rewrote himself that excluded Asumu from what the entire series had been building towards, all so they could cannibalize the suit made for Asumu to make *Kiriya*’s better.  yes, the one they made special order because it wasn’t originally mean to exist had to be improved, by destroying the one which was always meant to be there at the end.  Kiriya, literally and figuratively, stole Asumu’s story, relationship with Hibiki and earned reward.It’s just…It really is that nearly every damn episode after the staff change that nor only makes the show more repulsive and unappealing,but retroactively makes all the GOOD things about the first half turn bad by proximity or how they’re ‘recontextualized’ in the newer content.  Nothing and no-One escapes.  Hell, not even the villains.  Turns out, we weren’t even actually following the major antagonists at any point in the series, but clones.  What was their big deal?  No Idea, they literally didn’t care at that point.  Which personally was a big tip off that the post-staff-change writers weren’t to blame on this, as both HAVE Written a litany of good antagonists even in their less well-received works.Cumulatively, It’s why, while I have criticised them a lot in the past for their bad content, I don’t really blame Toshiki Inoue or Shoji Yonemura for how bad it is (and in the latter’s case try to remind yugioh fans that ‘hey, a few really bad writers are on Vrains, that’s a big part of why it sucks so don’t go attacking Shin Yoshida for it ‘cause he’s repeatedly been shown to not be the cause when he was accused of such in the past’), for they clearly were not in control nor had the leeway that’s usually afforded to Writers on series like this to develop their stories how they like within reason.  I forget where, but I remember reading something about them apologizing for their part in this and stating they had no control, Decade’s Tribute episodes being reflective of that apology, and that arc being more in line with what they would have done had they had…well, any other producer.I really, really cannot understate how bad it is.  I feel this brief is once more only scratching the surface on how bad it goes.

[strictnoodle]

Sanjivani 2

Now that the show has reached the 30th Episode mark; my overall impression about the characters and everything else. (wonder how much has changed and how much has stayed the same from my first post?)

**warning: long post + spoilers ahead!**

The Seniors:

Dr. Shashank Gupta An amazing father/mentor. He's too good at heart to the point he believes a hospital can run on goodwill alone bless his heart, no wonder Sanjivani is drowning in debt The way he seems so understanding to everyone else except his own daughter baffles me. I did not like it when he slapped her. Yeah she was a tad out of line, but he could’ve just opened his mouth and cleared the misunderstanding. With the way he was trying to shut her up, I'm pretty sure that was not the first time Anjali said that to his face; why not clear the misunderstanding? I refuse to believe he actually has romantic feelings for Juhi. Honestly, ousting Juhi from Sanjivani just because Rahul asked him to is the most redicules reason they could come up with.

Dr. Juhi Singh Still the badass COS that she is, deserves the position no questions asked. I love it every time she takes charge. Whether it’s handling Vardhan, Anjali or the junior residents, she’s doing an amazing job. I was hoping she doesn’t interfere with the father-daughter relationship, but then again I understand her desperation to clear things up. And boy, did she get more than what she bargained for. Seems Rahul and her are no longer together but reasons are still unclear. I’m not a fan of the ego clashes she’s having with Dr. Shashank. I get the emotional shock she’s in, but why can’t these characters just talk to each other?

Dr. Anjali Gupta ice baby, ice. Very ambitious. Would do anything to prove her self to her father even if it meant stabbing him in the back that luxury ward meeting? yikes. For her Juhi is an obstacle that’s always been between them, which is understandable as i’ve explained here. She firmly believes her dad is in love with Dr. Juhi and he has done absolutely nothing to clear it up. She craves her dad’s recognition so much she seems to be projecting it towards Vardhan? Anjali baby, no. She holds a soft spot for Dr. Sid and I really wish they’d explore more of this. I still want to see more layers of Anjali other than “the insecure daughter”.

Mr. Vardhan Makhija Still a douche. He’s the only character that speaks sense when it comes to how to run the hospital business wise. He’s been obsessed about the Luxury ward since the first episode I expected something other than a... beauty spa? who goes to a spa in the house of death and deceases? Psychopaths that’s who  Seems like he’s using it as a cover to run some questionable/shady business Rahul is probably involved too. Can’t tell if he really has a thing for Anjali or he’s just manipulating her for his own means or both. I was honestly surprised he was worried about Sid seeing as he had no issues wishing death to Shashank? I can't with him.

The Juniors:

Dr. Siddhant Mathur A huge soft teddy bear. Very kind. Just when I started wondering why would they give him a playboy image, they shove a scene to remind me of his ways ugh, men are the worst! I love how he’s following Shashank’s footsteps with the mentoring. Very patient and understanding when dealing with people, especially with Ishani. Carries the weight of being an illegitimate over his head and he hides the pain really well. Still not a fan of his ways and can’t say I'm not glad they toned it down. I mean really punching that guy and taking his blood without consent? I’m pretty sure that falls under organ harvesting. Can't tell if he likes Ishani romantically or it’s because he’s just caring by nature, but he’s definitely attracted to her. I find it cute how bothered he is that she likes nothing about him. (Why did they change the actress who played his mom? And why was she hiding from Dr. Shashank? He better not be that idiot long lost father so help me god.)

Dr. Ishani Arora An Alien. An Alien from outer space who’s learning how to be human. jk, lol. or am I?. Socially awkward, doesn’t know proper human behavior and a diagnostic machine and thank god they toned that down. An emotional mess. Her germophobia stems from her background which she uses as a shield to keep people at a distance. Craves family and motherly love so much it honestly breaks my heart. Fiercely protective of those she calls her own slapping a guy twice her size for Asha? Absolutely fearless. An idiot, but fearless. Emotionally unstable; hence, the up and down behavior. Has been deprived of affection most of her life to the point she gets attached to anyone who shows her any form of affection. Can be self aware, as in did not hesitate to admit her mistake and apologize. A none believer and has issues with god. Life made her Cynical.

Sid/Ishani pairing I like the softness. I like how Sid respects her boundaries and tries not to touch her without permission. I liked the pace of their relationship but then the last two episodes happened and the level went from a soft 10 to a 100 in record speed, add the ‘L word’ they used for the promo and label me freaked tf out. I was very relieved when Ishani said “dost” in the episode even that was a bit of a stretch but i’ll take it. I’m hoping it’s just a developing of a crush thing and nothing else.

Dr Rishab Vaidya Such a horrible horrible person. If anyone deserves a slap from their parent, it’s this one. Watching his ass get handed to him by Ishani was the highlight of the week for me.

Dr. Asha Kanwar This girl grew on me so much. Very competitive and has a valid reason to be. She’s in a race against time and her family. Always has her friends’ back, be it Ishani or Neil or anyone. I’m hoping her competitive nature doesn’t land her in trouble one day. Desperate people almost always end up doing something foolish.

Dr. Aman Gehlot This guy is too laid back for a first year resident. Seems he went to Sanjivani to follow Asha. Very protective of her.

Dr. Rahil Shekhar My absolute favorite out of everyone! I love him so damn much. Such a sweet soft guy, would do anything for his friend. I love how he took charge being the Second Year Resident and guided the rest in the ‘rescue Sid emergency procedure’. The second son of the Mathur household. I would literally watch 20 full minutes of him just doing laundry Give me more of him!

Dr. Neil Lama Lau I still cannot wrap my head around how he managed to enter medical school when he faints at the sight of blood? Probably became a doctor for his dad.

Performance:

I didn't write anything much the first time because I wanted to give the actors a fair chance to settle into their character, and I supposed 30 episodes is more than enough time, no? I honestly have no complain from the senior cast. Rohit’s 3D glasses need to go tho, asap.

My main issue is/was with the junior cast, specifically Namit and Surbhi. Since we don’t see much of the others I'm not really bothered about them, Now:

Namit As much as he’s nailing the laidback carefree attitude, he’s really really bad in emotional/intense scenes. I swear that phone conversation with his mom on the bench gave me secondhand embarrassment and I hate secondhand embarrassment. Every time Sid cries, I'm reminded of that face babies make when they’re fed something sour you know, all crunched up and stuff?. What was that death bed scene? And what is the Director doing? Your actor does subtlety really well, use it. And writers work around your actor’s weaknesses and utilize his strength fgs.

Surbhi: Some scenes she’s a pro and the other scenes i’m watching an amateur leaving me a whiplashed. Ishqbaaaz was the first show I've seen her in never seen Qubool Hai and I’ve noticed then Surbhi is a director’s actor(?). This actor-director team need to set tf down so they can get their shit together and agree once and for all how they want to present this character. Volume wise, personally I don't fault her much because Surbhi’s voice tone is naturally loud. Having a loud family myself a best friend too, these people really don’t realize how loud they’re being unless someone points it out to them, in this case the Director. I’m just glad it toned down considerably from the first couple of weeks.

Anyways, both are getting a pass from me so far since I'm just watching the show for fun; hence i’m not that bothered. But acting wise, both really have a lot of work to do like, a lot a lot. The directors need to up their game as well, half the issues would probably be solved if there was proper guidance and a clear vision between Namit/Surbhi and the Direction team.

Editing & everything else:

Still all over the place. One minute the doctors are wearing gloves, the next it magically disappeared? There’s no consistency with the scenes most of the time. Thankfully they worked on the lighting. It is much better than the first couple of weeks where we could barely see anything.

Finally...

The overall plot started okay-ish toned down considerably from the melodrama of the first weeks but then it was Cliche City the last two episodes. I'm hoping they go back to their previous pace because I liked the overall mellowness of the show. I don’t like how they’ve cut down on the medical cases. I mean it is a medical show? Where the main set is a hospital? And all main characters are doctors? smh. I personally prefer one medical case running for the entire week. That way there will be no super speed diagnostic and no miracle one minute cure happening. 

I still catch up with the show on the weekends as i’m not yet heavily invested in the show I could sign off any minute. What I do like most is the grey shades of the characters, They’re not easy to like and makes picking them apart quite fun.

[gunnerpalace]

Thanks for being kind to my wallet man. Anyways, I'm sorry if I offended you in anyway by saying "you Ichirukis". I just came by your blog and you seem to be a pretty knowledgeable dude and thus I asked you a question. Hostile little shit? Really? I'm being called a godamn hopeless imbecile here. Maybe you've just read my msg in a different tone as there is an absence of non-verbal communication here. I didn't say anything about you owing me shit man, you just interpreted that way.

And when you are referring to normal people, there tends to be cross cultural differences sometimes. So whatever you consider as being a normal person might not be the same for somebody else. In your terms I sound and act like a hostile IH so I’m not considered a normal person right? I wasn’t paying too much attention to the Bleach media from start to finish so I don’t know all the nitty gritty details such as sales and such. But yeah you’re right. If you don’t want explain you don’t have to.

Oh my god, an apology. Well, now I’ve seen everything.

Alright, look. I’m having a bit of an experience at the moment, perhaps most accurately summarized by Jules from Pulp Fiction going “The truth is…you’re the weak, and I am the tyranny of evil men. But I’m trying, Ringo. I’m trying real hard to be the shepherd.” So I’m going to accept your apology, and take it for granted that you didn’t mean to come across nearly as condescendingly as you did. 

Given that, I too will apologize for my behavior. When I see aggression, I get aggressive. It’s just habit. Trigger-happy IFF. So, I’m sorry for insulting you with gratuitous ad hominem. Let me advise that you consider your tone more carefully in the future.

With that said, let me attempt to answer your original question sincerely in a compact fashion without writing a goddamn thesis, because I still don’t want to put in the time to do that. Bleach had exactly three things going for it:

The uniqueness of the IchiRuki relationship and their individual characters. Ichigo and Rukia are unique because they are somewhere between being deuteragonists and Rukia being a supporting protagonist. I would say that she is a “hidden deuteragonist,” in that her influence is constantly felt, even when she isn’t present. Ichigo is not a normal shounen protagonist, like Gintoki, Luffy, Naruto, Goku, or Kenshiro. He doesn’t have a vision or a goal, and he’s a terrible tsundere. Rukia, however, does. Rukia sets Ichigo on his way and enables him to do what he does, and she repeatedly keeps him in check when he flounders. She is what enables him to function. He is what enables her to influence things. They are two parts of a whole, and neither is operational or very effective without the other. This “split soul” phenomenon is unique to them, was a hallmark of the early manga, and echoed on throughout. Although its promise was by no means always lived up to, it was there, and it’s a major part of why IR is a thing.

Character design in general. I’ll give Kubo this: he’s usually good at fashion and drafting relatively memorable characters. (Even if he starts to recycle faces after awhile; it’s not like Dragon Ball/Z/GT/etc., One Piece, and so on don’t.) They tend to have unique designs, if not wholly unique or fleshed out personalities. He’s very good at creating the illusion of depth using them. Over the run of the series, pretty much everyone was able to find a character they liked, if not several.

Mystery. A lot of the shit that happens in Bleach is unexplained, or was kicked down the road for as long as possible before being explained. A lot of it was never explained, stuff like “What was Yoruichi’s bankai? / What was her zanpakutou? / Why can she turn into a cat?” “Who were the other two Great Noble Houses?” “What was the deal with the Soul King?” “How did Soul Society really get started?” “What was up with Komamura?” “What was up with Don Kanonji?” “What was up with Ururu and Jinta?” The list goes on and on. Mystery is alluring, as the writers of Lost quickly figured out.

You will notice what I didn’t mention: fighting, worldbuilding, and plot. So let’s go over those quickly.

Fighting: Bleach’s fights suck. Someone dramatically teleports behind someone else leading to a shocked expression. Someone slices someone else’s arm off. Whoever reveals how their powers work first loses. Everybody gets new, “hiddener, worser” powers. It wasn’t so bad through the Soul Society arc because it was still fresh, but the more power-creep set in, the worse it got. Bleach doesn’t use powers in interesting ways like One Piece or JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. It doesn’t handle a constant ramping up of the stakes as well as Dragon Ball/etc. It doesn’t have the technical interest of Naruto. It’s extremely boring and repetitive. As a battle manga, it’s shit.

Worldbuilding: Bleach’s worldbuilding is a shadow puppet show. It’s literally Plato’s Allegory of the Cave: the illusion of depth and meaning which you only process as such because nothing calls it into question. This isn’t to say Kubo didn’t plan some things (I would say that the theological essence of Soul Society and its cycle of reincarnation makes more sense than most organized religions, since it answers a lot of basic questions like “Where do new souls come from?”) but there were many things he simply couldn’t be bothered with.

Plot: It’s rather apparent, and has been for a number of years, that Kubo reshuffled the plot on the way to the conclusion of the Soul Society arc. That said, the plot was still good up until then. The Arrancar arc was serviceable, Hueco Mundo was bad, and things went downhill from there. The reappearance of the Quincy in Thousand-Year Blood War was a massive retcon and plot hole that makes no real sense.

Now here’s the thing. The Mystery aspect of Bleach was bound up in the Plot and Worldbuilding. The more the latter two fell apart, the more the former became threadbare and could be clearly seen as an effort to string readers along. So much of Bleach’s “promise” turned out to be a polar bear on a tropical island.

The Character design also became wrapped up in Worldbuilding and Fighting, as characters often had no other means to advance, grow, or define themselves, and were relegated to bit parts other than to turn up every two years in some insignificant tussle. The continuing cast bloat only made this worse, as did the dramatically skewed nature of fan favorites.

What didn’t change was IchiRuki. I would argue it didn’t advance as it should have, and rather more objectively, every effort was made to push them into the background in favor of the other five elements, but they were at least consistent throughout, which is why so many people looked forward to their interactions, no matter how fleeting. It was solid all the way up until the final 5 or so chapters, once Kubo had clearly decided to implement his subversive “ending” (what with Tsukishima taking Rukia’s primary role, and so on).

Anybody who wasn’t around for that reason was holding onto vain hope about the Mystery, because of sunk cost fallacy, or were just trying to support their favorite characters or other ships. That’s the god’s honest truth. Bleach’s numbers started to tank after Soul Society and were abysmal by the time of Lost Substitute Shinigami. The sudden end of Bleach was Shueisha finally pulling the plug and disconnecting life support.

Now, you can say that nothing I’ve said here is proof, and that would be true, this is all summary. The proof is out there though (although I cannot be bothered to assemble it all for you), and I think any honest reader would admit the truth of my analysis even without it.

tl;dr IchiRuki is the only consistent positive of Bleach, which is otherwise a subpar fashion manga which never deserved to be counted among the big three on any other merits.

[saras-almanac]

Plotting and Storytelling in the baby storyline on Emmerdale

I am literally just getting into this fandom so take whatever I say with a grain of salt--as in I spent the better part of last week watching Robert and Aaron’s entire story just to get to this point so I could make an informed decision. Now, I might not have watched before this, but I was a fan in the wings of these two for a while now because of people I follow on tumblr. I saw when they got engaged, married, and when Aaron was arrested. I was there when it fell apart when Robert cheated and I was there when it was revealed that Rebecca was pregnant. However, the true siren’s call didn’t arise until the debate over Rebecca’s victimhood and the character 180’s that had been happening on the show started popping up. Like a creature from the swamp I rose from the depths and am now fully immersed in this show and these characters.

I also completely understand where the frustration is among fans over the show’s treatment of Rebecca and how many characters seem to be fluctuating wildly from one extreme to another.

Honestly, this entire debate stems from one thing:  the showrunner’s desire to have Rebecca stick around for as long as possible. Maybe they haven’t said this yet, but it’s so clearly an attempt to embed Rebecca so deeply in Robert’s (and by extension, Aaron’s) story so they can’t get rid of her. (Why they couldn’t think of anything else is beyond me. Though this is the show that has literally everyone cheat on someone else because that’s the only way to have drama in your relationships apparently?)

You might be asking yourself, well how can you know that? I promise you it’s not because I know anyone there or have had conversations with anyone. It’s entirely because of the storytelling so far and how backwards it has been.

They need Rebecca to stay around, how? Get her with Robert. But how can she stick around after that? If she’s pregnant with Robert’s baby. How can we do that? Robert has to cheat but we don’t want Rebecca to come off looking bad. So what if Robert and Aaron have a fight that causes Robert to seek her out. Rebecca can turn him down (halfheartedly) and then immediately go along with having sex with a drunken miserable and sad man (Great choice team! What is consent if not Robert saying yes and immediately passing out anyways?). How do we have this fight be worse than the rest? Aaron cannot come to find him and the fight can’t be about Rebecca. So we need to get Aaron out of the picture--Prison. Obviously. It’s perfect. So while Aaron’s in prison he starts doing drugs and then him and Robert have it out and then Robert leaves and goes to find Rebecca. So far it’s perfect, team. So how does Aaron get in prison? He’s still on a suspended sentence so he attacks someone? After getting into a fight with Robert?

Brilliant team. We figured it all out. We are geniuses.

I’m not saying it happened that way, but it’s exactly how it feels because of how the show has started treating Rebecca and how everyone around her is acting.

First of all, the Saint Rebecca stuff is getting irritating. I’m not here to blame only Rebecca, but the show is consistently treating her like a victim that Robert did something too but that’s not the case. Not really.

From the start, Rebecca was someone who was desperately interested in Robert and wanted him back. She consistently flirted with him and kept trying to lure him away from Aaron, which didn’t work because Robert loves Aaron more than anything. But it didn’t stop her from trying, constantly. Enough that Chas tells her off and Robert tells her off and so does Aaron. But it doesn’t really stop Rebecca; she just changes her tactics by including Robert in all her business deals--like he doesn’t have two other businesses to be worrying about. She kept showing up “last minute” for all these deals and meetings she wasn’t prepared for to beg Robert to help her.

Overall not a horrible strategy because it gave her and Robert time alone and helped fuel Aaron’s insecurity and jealousy because Robert wasn’t allowing anything to happen. (But I firmly believe Rebecca was just sort of lying in wait. It’s her attitude toward Aaron that makes me think that but that’s not what this post is about)

Cut to the night of the Incident where she’s with Ross at the pub. She overhears Adam tell Vic that Robert’s in a state and drinking an entire bottle of whiskey by himself. Rebecca looks like she was already plotting her escape and then Robert’s text comes through and she drops everything to go and be with him. She sees the state he’s in and what he’s done to the room and decides she’s going to “help” Robert.

Yes, initially she rebuffs his advances because even if they are separated, she says that Robert still loves Aaron and says that they’ll work it out. But that resolve lasts all of like three minutes. Maybe five. So it seems like she just said those words to cover her back and making it seem like she had put up an effort against Robert. If she actually believed those words, she wouldn’t have slept with Robert knowing that it would hurt all of them (Aaron, Robert, and herself) in the morning.

On top of all of that is the issue of consent:  Could Robert who drank almost an entire bottle of whiskey (I think it was whiskey. If not, sorry) by himself and admitted to having passed out at some point really consent at all. 

After this moment, Rebecca is The Victim of Robert. And everyone treats her as one. Honestly the only person who actually gives Rebecca a bit of the blame is Chas.

Again, I’m not saying she’s evil, but she clearly knew what she was doing. She wanted Robert badly enough that she had unprotected sex with a married man who was so drunk he passed out during or right after sex. She made a choice and I wish the show would just let her own it.

Yes, Robert “lied” to her and used her, but as Chas said, she let him. My belief is that Robert had already made up his mind to go through with it as a punishment for both himself and Aaron and knew that Rebecca still wanted him and would let it happen. It’s why he drank the bottle before calling her. But that might be a whole other post.

This bleeds into the second part of this post:  how everyone around Rebecca is reacting. It’s completely against Robert. Full disclosure, I love Robert. God he’s done horrible things and has almost the worst judgement and can be so cruel, but I still love him. But I really don’t think it’s fair that everyone in the village, including Robert, keeps treating Rebecca like some innocent victim.

Yes, Robert lied to her. Yes, Robert used her. Yes, he knew what he was doing. But so did she! She went there after hearing how upset Robert was after his visit with Aaron and knowing that he had a whole bottle with him. She went through with it even after seeing how upset and drunk he was. This wasn’t a case of manipulative Robert so much as it was a heartbroken Robert who was desperate to sort of “even the playing field” against Aaron in some way and he had to get completely drunk to do it.

Then there’s Vic who… I don’t know what’s happened to Vic lately. Maybe she changed her personality when her and Adam broke up because this makes like next to no sense? So Vic, who’s been Robert’s support and judge in equal measure has nothing to say about the fact he slept with someone other than Aaron right after she split from her own husband for drunkenly kissing another girl? I know the situations are different, but she hasn’t even said anything at all about it. Not to Robert nor to Aaron, her (ex)husband’s best friend who she also claims to care for.

Not anymore because the only person Vic seems to care about is Rebecca and the baby. To the point that she shows up and tells Aaron that he needs to convince Robert to be apart of the baby’s and the woman-Robert-cheated-on-him-with’s life. That’s a lot to ask of anyone especially someone who’s had insecurity and jealousy issues in the past.

It’s just bizarre to me that no one is making Rebecca take any of the blame at all. But again, that boils down to the showrunner and his desperation to keep Rebecca around bathed in her golden halo. (Literally the only way this could have happened is if Robert was stone-cold sober as he was feeding lies to Rebecca while Aaron wasn’t in jail and not after they’d had a fight because then, yes, Rebecca would have been a victim. Though that’s even less believable than anything else.)

As an aspiring writer, this is a weak plot because you could have done literally anything else. Rebecca gets Robert to sign on with her company full-time which would keep causing Robron drama (not that we really wanted to see more of that). She could have cozied up with Vic and moved in and became a part of that friend-group. She could have convinced Charity to sell her half of the pub or a bit of it and started working there with everyone else to really shake things up--especially if it was before Aaron and Robert moved out. Her and Diane could have started a friendship and started traveling a bit together. The possibilities are endless as ways to keep her around that doesn’t include this garbage storyline that has zero bearing on anything.

The thing that frustrates me the most is how much potential everything had. Aaron’s storyline in prison and his ultimate recovery and reintegration back into his life was all for nothing because we’ll never bring it up again (I assume). Robert’s self-destructive tendency and break-down that we’ll ignore because Robert’s a cheater. Hell, even Rebecca’s goal in the entire thing could have been so much more interesting if she had either gone full soap villain and been like yeah I was waiting for this moment from the beginning, Who do you think convinced Finn calling the police would be a the best thing he could do for Kasim? Or even just played it straight:  You wanted this just as badly as I did that night; you literally called me so it’s not my fault that you messed up your own marriage (This one might a little more difficult to figure out because Robert was drunk). But hopefully you get my point.

This entire storyline feels under-developed because all they ever wanted was to be here, at  this point and in this moment, without any real thought of what happens now or what happened to get up to this point. And maybe I could be wrong about all of this and they have something up their sleeves, but I just...highly doubt it.

[aeroknot]

@yellowflasher​ said: tell me abt this show bc i have been thinking of watching it

ahhhhh!! i’m so glad you asked me to talk about this show!! haha

as usual I’m a fucking insufferable, over-talkative spaz!!!

ummmmm ok!! it’s kinda like... Jessica Jones mixed with Tombstone mixed with Grimm?? and X-files as far as Monster of the Week and agents who pine for each other goes? & i’ve seen peeps compare it to Supernatural but I never watched that so... SHRUG. 

so the premise is that our wonderfully complex anti-hero chick wynonna earp returns to her hometown of Purgatory (somewhere in the U.S. near Canada; I personally think Montana because it’s the most western state bordering Canada (in the first ep Wynonna asks a fellow bus passenger “your first time out west?”) that’s not Washington or Idaho, bc neither of those seem like its setting esp. since Idaho is just a sliver of the whole border, tho it could be North Dakota or Minnesota I guess?--  EH it’s kind of not been touched on as far as I know and anyway it doesn’t matter shut up aero just---). she is the great-great grandaughter of wyatt earp, the righteous 19th century wild west u.s. marshal raining down hellfire on USDA grade A Assholes. but then he’s cursed!! and his kills are actually cursed in hellfire!! even if they’re killed, they resurrect from hell the next time a new heir turns 27 if not all of them have been defeated, and they’re demons trapped within the borders of Purgatory (har har go figure), or in the show’s terms, also called Revenants. earp had a renown 77 kills, and the only way to break the curse is for his heirs to hunt down and shoot all 77 kills before the heir dies-- the heirs have the power to wield his mystical gun Peacemaker which sends Revenants back to hell. wynonna is our fantastically loveable resistant heroine because she was never meant to be the heir-- her older sister, the firstborn, was supposed to be, but shit went down (which got her ostracized and locked up in psychological institutions) and now she is the heir. and I’ll move on from synopsis to opinions because I don’t want to start spoiling anything and the show should just speak for itself!

reasons I’ve enjoyed it!!!:

Wynonna Fucking Earp. early on I described her as a “slightly perkier” Jessica Jones. That was wrong-- in the SLIGHTEST part. she is a WAY WAY PERKIER Jessica Jones. and I fucking cannot get enough of it. Like... Dark-haired leather-jacket-wearing harrowed-past-having orphaned-and-outcasted-as-children anti-heroes are mostly typically supposed to be deadpan, snarky, grumpy, sexily standoffish, and often secretive and hard to read, and only rarely invested in others. And she is that, often, yet SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT. She is: GOOFY!! CRASS!! EMBARRASSING!! PLAYFUL!!!! She smiles a lot!!! She celebrates victories! She cracks jokes! She expresses her desires upfront and unabashedly, and without games! She is emotionally vulnerable with loved ones and friends and grows even more in this throughout! She actually asks people for support and comfort!! & She busts balls endearingly! She’s courageous and helpful! She’s brash and brazen--and yeah, this gets her scolded by others, but rarely does it feel like she’s punished for her impulsive heroics by her writers, as I often feel (male) writers of female heroes (or usually side-heroes) tend to do (probably she’s not punished because mostly women are writing this story, gee isn’t that weird? hah). There’s consequences, yeah, but it usually works out and she’s still the hero ultimately. She’s basically the plucky hero wrapped in anti-hero fodder, and I have completely fallen for her. She makes me laugh so much with her dialogue and makes me feel represented with how WEIRD she ultimately gets to be. Plus, she is emotionally vulnerable almost every episode, and her sister even succinctly chides her with “for a lone wolf, you sure are needy.”

getting to that, HER SISTER!!! Waverly is amazeballs. I think she even used the term amazeballs in an episode, recently-- she’s that amazeballs. She’s still growing a lot, but she’s definitely quintessential underdog baby sister, and I’m here for it, because she’s also reinforced as an integral part of the story and gets her own romance even before Wynonna and it’s so wonderful. Waverly constantly has a new skill or tidbit of information up her sleeve-- she’s inventive, thorough, super super damn nerdy, and also social and kind and popular. Plus, she’s with Nicole Haught (and I just cannot get over the playfulness of some of these names in the story, lmao) and they’re just fantastic together and I’m so happy to see them together every time. So far it’s good lesbian content. My face honest to god always cracks into a smile when they’re together. also um!! i want her entire wardrobe!! 

The Earp Sisters are just... Their sisterhood is so rich and complex and SATISFYING. Like I actually feel like I’m watching REAL SISTERS. They are gross and raunchy with each other, and I laugh so hard. They are sweet and supportive to each other and I cry. They are competitive and jealous and conflicted with each other, and I’m relieved to see this-- to see all these layers to them. It’s great writing and acting for a sister bond and I’m just excited to see sisterhood being such an integral theme for a t.v. show. 

the SYFY effects are sometimes silly but I still enjoy it. the ENTIRE CONCEPT is actually pretty silly and sometimes goes cheesy, even, but I still am endeared by its approach just the same. The storyline itself is... often confusing me, and I LIKE that, believe it or not. I don’t mean “confusing” as in the plot doesn’t make sense-- it does-- I mean “confusing” in the sense that it’s, hm, how should I say... I guess kind of disjointed? There’s always a Random Revelation thrown in suddenly, or weird Twist that literally had NO foreshadowing, and often it seems like the story progresses with big chunks of time in between episodes which can be hard to place and pace the action and relationship developments... Usually I’d probably nitpick all this, but actually, it keeps me very transfixed because usually I can completely predict what will happen next due to a show’s use of foreshadowing, but this show often completely bypasses such a dance with the audience, and though I sometimes question if that’s effective storytelling, I honestly think I’m really starting to respect this method, and so I want to stick around for it. I could probably go into way more detail with this, but then I might start spoiling things, so I’ll leave it at that. Someone who constantly predicts the “reveals” in a show, even at an episode-by-episode pace, gives this a seal of approval!! Nothing “revealed” is particularly earthshattering and it’s often given away in such a matter-of-fact tone, but it propels the story in interesting ways without a ton of hoopla in trying to ever pull one over its audience, and I like and respect that. They’re like “oh fuck! This weird idea we had is A Thing now. Let’s explore that more together, viewers!!”

(I will say some of the deaths are not as effective as I think they could be because of the above evaluation of the approach to plot/pacing/twists/reveals, but I’m still interested in those choices. brings me to a legit critique tho: they should uh... stop killing so many Cool Women right after immediately introducing them. It’s starting to worry me. :\ but also...? I’m trusting? I think? still? anywho!)

I’m a Tombstone-loving Fuck and Doc Holliday is one of my favorite real-person enigmas of history and this Doc Holliday incarnation is supremely gratifying. He is consistently entertaining and intriguing!

I was initially all in for Holliday and THEN FUCKING DEPUTY MARSHAL XAVIER DOLLS CAME FOR MY WHOLE HEART. Go! Look at his special eyes! Look at his HEART EYES at my DAUGHTER WYNONNA. He has my whole approval. I’ll buy the ring for him. I’ll plan the proposal. DO IT.

-- ok aside from my shipping bullshittery also Dolls is just. An amazing guy. I love him. He’s a boss in so many senses of the word, and he constantly surprises me. I feel like he’s... A Capital-A Adult? You know? He’s mature, and methodical, and clever, and talented, and confident. It’s funny to me that he’s called “the stick in the mud” and yet through small tidbits we see he’s really not (he can be playful or perverted, too), he’s just Grown. A Man. Focused, with an Agenda and a Goal. It’s lovely to see him come out of his shell a bit and be cheeky and then at the end of S1 just like... OPENLY ADORE the people he’s around. But it’s also a breath of fresh air somehow to see An Adult Man. I don’t know, maybe it’s what the actors bring, too, because both Doc and Dolls really just strike me as assured individuals, each of them just really secure in their sense of identity, which makes them GREAT foils to Wynonna, and it’s just fabulous, really. I like adulthood being given this reverence and care. It makes someone like me, hedging out of her twenties, feel a little bit more like there’s still a space in media and storytelling for people over 35. lmao. (and admittedly 35 is still fucking young, but Hollywood would have us believe it’s time to go out to pasture at this age)

and on that note DOC HOLLIDAY AND DOLLS TOGETHER. I JUST. *clenches fist* THEY’RE SO GREAT. AND WITH WYNONNA I JUST. It IS A LOVE TRIANGLE, in the barest evaluation, yes. And I prefer Dolls with Wynonna, yes, and usually I, yes, Fucking Can’t Stand Triangles, but the way these writers are approaching this has me fucking bowing down to them. I am really enjoying the way they’re taking this so far. I laughed to myself the other day because the realization suddenly dawned on me like “oh.... Fucking Anciently Old Immortal Pale Guy + Mystically Endowed Outcast Brunette Girl + Man of Color With a Secretive Monster Backstory” is fucking..... Twilight. This is Twilight. If it had a Wild West spin and was written, you know, WELL, and the characters were a thousand times more interesting. Is Emily Andras trying to come for Stephanie Meyers? MAYHAPS. 

I’m gonna give some rapid fire thoughts to wind down: GREAT MUSIC SELECTIONS, fun shootouts!!, LESBIANS!!! <33333, mostly interesting villains, good cinematography, action!, mystery!, HUMOR!!! THAT DIALOGUE!!!! WRITE ALL MY LIFE AND INTERACTIONS W/ OTHERS W.EARP WRITERS!! 

I could go on and on which is in my fucking nature I’m so goddamn sorry look at this pit you’ve opened but ultimately my answer is: It is so fucking fun. It is a Delight! A DELIGHT I TELL YOU. I get joy from this; I laugh, I’m entertained, my brain thinks hard but not too hard, the characters have infiltrated my heart so damn quickly. DELIGHT. I’m so sad I’ve caught up but also I fucking bought a Season Pass on Amazon prime for s2 so even though I don’t live with cable anymore, I’MMA BE ON THIS.

[tessatechaitea]

Justice League #14

Just fucking great. Bryan Hitch is back to writing.

These asshole Green Lanterns can make anything they can think of and they choose to make Batman, Aquaman, Cyborg, and Flash squat uncomfortably in bubbles? At least create some kind of space stagecoach, you lazy jerks.

• The object shoots a green laser out of the part of it that isn't anything like a Death Star at all. It blows the Justice League back into Earth and into a huge crater in the city. That probably means a few thousand people are dead which means a few thousand super-villains were just created due to the Justice League failing to save their loved ones. • And just like that, we're back at where the comic book fake began, showing that opening the comic book in that way added nothing to the narrative. It's almost as if the fifth page was mistakenly printed as the first page. I suppose the first page was going to be wasted no matter what since Bryan Hitch obviously meant for the real story to begin with a double splash page. And most comic books never print any of the story on the inside cover.

Oh. So now Superman can be defeated by sticking him in a windowless room?

• Cyborg's GPS was obviously destroyed in the blast. "Twelve miles below Canada" is not an answer to "Where are we?" I mean, it's an answer, sure. But it's not a precise one and therefore meaningless to the spirit of Superman's query. • Just before Cyborg was shot in the face by a Death Star, he managed to hack that Death Star and learn all about it while also shutting down its main gun. So now he can fill in the rest of the League on what they're up against. The space object is a laser drill that goes from star system to star system strip mining everything in the system. It's too bad they always begin with the third planet out from the sun or else maybe the Justice League would have had some warning that they were coming. Or maybe all the planets out past Earth have already been destroyed because nobody believed the astronomers when they were warning everybody. They were just all, "I don't want to believe that so shut up."

Of course it took down Flash! He was in a stupid green bubble with nowhere to run!

• Oh, excuse me. Some of my snark needs to be corrected. Apparently the strip mining planet also breaks down red suns. That means part of its caloric intake is based on red sun matter which obviously means that any energy created from red sun energy is practically lethal to Superman. It's just science! • The Justice League treats the situation lightly, as if thousands of people weren't just killed in a huge blast from a space drill that's threatening to destroy the entire solar system. Maybe a little sense of urgency would be appropriate. This isn't Giffen and DeMatteis's Justice League.

Shut the fuck up. You're always out of your depth.

• By the way, Aquaman looks like he's coming after being fucked in the ass in that panel. Don't ask me how I know that look and why I own such a large mirror that rests on the floor. • It's times like this when I'm reading a comic book by Bryan Hitch that I think, "I really miss commenting on poorly written comic books!" • As the team regroups (see the title! It's all about regrouping!), Jessica Cruz needs another fucking pep talk because she's so fucking fragile.

Apparently Cyborg was even less precise than I realized. They're twelve miles beneath Canada! That's, um, uh, a long fucking way down! That's deeper than the deepest part of the deepest ocean. Aquaman was being literal when he said he was out of his depth! And according to the quickest Internet search I could manage, the deepest hole ever dug was seven and a half miles deep. At that point, the temperature in the hole was 180°C! And yet the Justice League seems pretty comfortable in their hole. Maybe they really are just twelve miles below the Canadian border and The Flash, who was unconscious and probably concussed when Cyborg mentioned where they were.

• Simon mentions how he and Jessica need each other to charge their rings. I forgot about that. Maybe that's why Jessica hasn't been allowed to quit like she wanted to. Also, maybe that time she quit resolved differently than I remember since she's maintained membership with the League ever since. • Being stuck in a hole while the world is on the brink of destruction gives the Justice League a moment to pause and reflect on their relationship as a team. They're all, "Do any of us belong here?" And then they're all, "Yeah! We do! Let's do it, guys! Save the cheerleader; save the world!" • But before the group hug, Superman brings up that thing about how Batman keeps files on every member of the Justice League and little boxes with weapons that will allow him to defeat them all. They all act shocked at why Batman would feel the need to defeat them. Batman is all, "Hello? Eclipso?! I just fucking had to defeat you all, you judgmental assholes. And how many times has Superman been turned against us in just the last five years? Too many to count, really! I'm fucking saving the world here!" • Also before the group hug, Superman has to point out that they need to think of him as the old Superman or Rebirth is never going to work. Forget that whole Preboot thing and the death of the other guy that was stupid but had to be done because New 52 Superman had way too many poorly written moments to keep him alive. They need to think of Preboot Superman as New 52 Superman but without all the times Scott Lobdell wrote him and without all the stories written by Greg Pak and without any of the stories written by Andy Diggle and...well, I'm sure there were others that told fucking stupid Superman stories which made him untenable. • Now that they're all buddies again and trust each other implicitly forever and ever, it's time for Batman to come up with a plan.

No. You cannot use that as an example for defeating this real life threat!

• Look, we've all known for years growing up that the Death Star having that flaw made absolutely no fucking sense. Which is probably a good percentage of the reason why Rogue One was written! To explain that nonsense! Which it did fabulously! Rogue One was like the corrections section of a newspaper but instead of admitting to the mistakes and correcting them, it just told a new story that effortlessly weaves in some new perspectives to explain away a bunch of stupid bullshit that has always plagued the Star Wars fandom. It was the best piece of fan-fiction I've ever consumed. Although I didn't jerk off over it like most of the other pieces. • What I'm pointing out is that Batman's reasoning is flawed. This space drill doesn't necessarily have to have a flaw or weakness in its design. The Death Star only had a flaw in its design because it was sabotaged! This thing might have been engineered by the third smartest man on whatever planet it originally came from. • Batman's plan is to have the strong, invulnerable members of the team punch the big gun while the others Boom Tube inside and punch the people controlling the gun. That sounds less like finding the space drill's weakness and more like just punching it into submission.

This is how terrible writers resolve conflicts. It's also how all writers utilize stupid Aquaman.

• Superman comes up with a better plan that's a bit destructive considering there are sentient beings aboard this laser drill. He's going to get the "world-breaking sphere" to shove up the "exhaust port" of the "laser drill." I got carried away with the quotes. • I wonder why Superman didn't decide to just put it in the Phantom Zone along with everything else he puts in the Phantom Zone? • The last page just shows that the Justice League won because this story was about them regrouping and not about them fighting. I hope the next issue follows the race aboard the space drill and how they float off to die now that they don't have the ability to gather resources to sustain their people. Superman couldn't have gone aboard to speak with them after destroying their drill? Maybe point out that they shouldn't strip mine inhabited planets? Or maybe any planets? Maybe they could come up with a more responsible way to get their energy needs? Maybe something renewable and more sustainable? I don't think Bryan Hitch meant for this issue to have that message. He was just happy to leave it at "The Justice League broke the space drill and the world is safe! Who cares where the Space Miners strip mine next? Or die before getting their drill repaired? Not the League's problem!" The Ranking! -1! Don't get me wrong! I don't mind the theme of this issue and what it tries to accomplish. The League needed a moment to tell the readers, "Look. We're done with all the bickering about trust issues. We're going to focus on saving the world now and put all those other tensions aside." It was basically an editorial mandate that the fans accept Superman as the real Superman and accept the new Lanterns as Hal's replacements since he picked them personally. Those points can't be criticized anymore because the team dealt with them! And that's fine with me. Writers need to shape their world by telling the reader what's what and stop feeling the need to constantly justify continuity shit. But the book drops in the rankings because it is full of terrible nonsense and also a lot of people in Canada died. Or people twelve miles below the Canadian border died.