#but it connects with the rest of the episode

[lethalbutterfly]

I'd like to take a moment to recommend this really cool comic on webtoon! It's called 'New Magical Me' and the premise is basically this (spoiler alert for the first 3 episodes): A transmasc magical girl is, alongside his team, engaged in the final battle against their big bad evil sorceress. He uses the clash of their final blows to fake his death freeing himself from the public eye and social obligation to his friends and family, affording himself the opportunity to transition in privacy and peace. 8 years later, he returns to his home city, now a literal self made man, but finds that the threat of evil magic still persists. He knows that transforming again would be bad for him on a psychological level, and so has to reestablish connections to the rest of his old squad, who, without him to hold them together as friends, have all fallen out of touch with each other and are each pursuing their own adult lives and problems, with varying degrees of success as well as varying reactions to him still being alive and having transitioned. Drama, both heartwarming and heartwrenching, ensues, with a backdrop of high octane magical girl heroics to emphasize the grounded emotional notes.

[lady-sci-fi]

I picked "on-screen chemistry and important believable connection." All my ships fall into that, canon, and real potential for canon.

I ship by what I see, by what I am shown and told in the media. I like when I see more than enough "evidence" to ship. I like it when not much at all has to change for the ship to happen.

It's fun for me as a writer to work within canon with slight alterations. Where its believable the ship is happening in the spaces we don't see and in added extra context to scenes we do see.

I can handle a little canon-bending, because if the ship isn't explicitly canon, you have to do that. (Like saying a later one-off romance episode doesn't happen the same way if the ship gets together earlier in the show). But if you have to change the overarching canon context or make them out of character? No.

And with the rest of the choices, I need more than "they are co-workers or basic friends who look at each other with worry in dangerous situations." Interactions like that are normal and expected in the context. Do they actually have or develop a definite spark to make it deeper?

Hey, I wanna talk about how we do fandom! I've come to realize that I, personally, tend to differ from many others in that I highly prefer to only engage with a text as it's written, so I don't tend to really like fanon/extremely ooc characterizations and I find it hard to get invested in ships that aren't canon. My way of doing fandom isn't better or worse than anyone else's, but I am curious about how much of a minority I'm in! So:

*We've all seen ships of characters not from the same media and stuff like shipping the concept of ennui with the color blue, okay, I'm asking what you, personally, find compelling!

[put-them-thangs-away]

while i figure that out, not sure if anyone has done it yet, but i want to do a little dive into the basics of the tarot cards used in this jack & joker episode, now that i actually have a moment and can do more than just the basic off the top of my head readings. i’ll be using the golden thread tarot deck mostly because i like how concise it is and also its more accessible to me right now underneath my sleeping dog than my shelf of decks in my room lmao. this is gonna be,,,, real long probably so all the details will be under the cut, if you wanna join me for my rambling:

fun little sidenote before i get started: when i went to begin discussing why i love the use of tarot and nang’s characterization specifically, my card of the day that i drew was the Queen of Swords which is like 100000% The Nang Card™️ lol [complexity, perceptive, clear mindedness etc.]

“a woman of immense complexity, sometimes considered cold-hearted, but also sharp of mind and wit, independent and possessing great powers of organization and analysis.” i won’t go down the rabbit hole of sword suits as a whole bc that’s not the point of this post and so far the show hasn’t gone into minor arcana, so i’m just gonna say HMMMMM very inch resting timing,,,,, anyways,,,

now, of course i have to start with joke’s card and its myriad of double meanings. in just about any piece of media, if you see The Fool card it should automatically be flagged as a red herring. it’s meant for you to look at it and take it at face value based on the words and image…. much like our four little idiots did when first shown their cards. like JOKE YOU GOT THE FOOL BECAUSE YOU’RE A DUMBASS LOL! and he’s the joker so of course he would also be the fool, yes? unfortunately for our little baby clown, the actual symbolism of the card is childlike innocence and naivety, often to their own detriment. it speaks of blank slates, new beginnings, and the start of a journey. “he does not know the dangers that can beset him during his travels, and thus he stumbles forward with complete optimism, never suspecting that he may be walking in a thin tight rope.” oof yikes. sound familiar? nang rly read that boy for filth huh,,,, aside from the obvious heavy handed post-prison clean slate, we’ve also got the metaphor connected to jack’s forgiveness and starting their relationship over. there’s a lot more to be said here as well about how naive joke can be when thinking he’s doing the right thing and that his choices are for the sake of someone else, without clearly seeing the consequences their may be for that person as a result of his actions. at the risk of Never Shutting Up About It, i will have to make myself move on.

i’ll get into tattoo’s card next because it’s really interesting to me that he was assigned The World, which I kind of would have thought would be a card assigned to jack instead. i see what they were going for in this episode with it, i think, but it felt a bit shallow in comparison, so there may be more in relation to this that we have yet to see. as The Fool is the first card (0) in the major arcana, The World is the final card (21). this card symbolizes an ending of a cycle of life, specifically before the beginning of a new cycle of life. it’s an indicator of major and inescapable change. throughout this episode, we see the shift in tattoo’s heart and priorities being held up in comparison to their past heist through some pretty straightforward parallels, so from that angle, The World makes perfect sense. (especially since one reading of The World when in reverse is inertia & stagnation) tattoo wanting to run in and save joke when he thinks he’ll be caught in the heist is our window in to see The World changing. that being said i find it interesting that this card would be chosen for him since it sort of,,,, kickstarts the journey for The Fool and is generally somewhat,,,, final. so i’m just reeeaaaalllllyyyy hoping that this does not mean tattoo has to actually end his cycle in any way other than metaphorical for the other to continue. the man has grown on me, what can i say? 😭 we’re just gonna ignore all those warning bells in my head and choose to go with the “accomplishment and fulfillment from both inner and outer sources” reading. yup.

then we’ve got arun, whose card is The Moon, which is double fun because arun’s name means dawn/sunrise. there’s a lot of meaning that could be extrapolated here, but based on tattoo’s card seeming on surface level to be about the state of his heart and his involvement in this little found family, i’m going to guess that arun’s is the same. The Moon card symbolizes intuition, the unconscious, illusion, and deception. it can be read as a signal of something being not as it appears, a truth you cannot admit to yourself, instincts that we have buried in our unconscious, among other things. this card being chosen for arun actually actively makes me more nervous than tattoo getting The World lol. if we choose to read it at surface value, could just be that in this heist he had to follow intuition, and got himself turned around in the process (eagle statue etc), or just generally that he did not previously appear capable, but here he is helping this mission be pulled off. with the opening scene of arun crying about missing his dad and that,,,, not really getting resolved actually,,,,,, that makes me wonder about some alternate reading options, but like,,,,,, i don’t want to. so. Simply going to close my eyes on that one! no thanks!

then of course there’s everyone favourite head empty good boy, hoy, who was assigned The Star card. out of all the card readings, this boy got the most straightforward one and i’m trying not to read too much into that since they were all assigned by nang and my brain hasn’t quite caught up to [handwaves] whatever she and hoy have got going on over there. this card is symbolic of faith, optimism, and hope. so….. yeah hoy in a nutshell. not a whole lot more to add in there.

skipping The Heirophant card and The Tower card to come back to later because i have Some Theories there and they may make more sense after i go back and rewatch a few things

ANYWAYS if you read to the end of this thank you and i’m sorry please feel free to yell at me about it

[vladdyissues]

something i noticed and wanted a second opinion on but there's something really interesting i noticed watching s1 again: vlad has all the power and control as a human, we've seen that established over and over again but

he's kinda. not got that as a ghost. he's powerful, sure. and he's got all kinds of artifacts he's been hunting down. but then you have Poindexter and Skulker calling Danny the halfa, or one of a kind, respectively, when Vlad's been operating for nearly 20 years. no other ghosts seem to acknowledge him if they can help it, no one talks to or about him if they can help it, DEFINITELY no one would come to his aid freely if he didn't pass the ball to some other ghost (such as DANNY, the kid in operation for maybe a year and a half by series' end). especially interesting because Skulker works for Vlad more than once, we know they know of each other, but it's Danny who's the worthy prey. there are ghosts that seem to do regular work for him but they all seem notably weak compared to the ones Danny usually fights

it just really sticks out to me that this dynamic could be totally reversed as ghosts and it feels like Vlad is constantly trying to make it so Danny doesn't notice

goblinhoursinsomniaramblings asked: addendum to ask now the sleep gremlins knocked me out for an hour or two: -what i meant by power and control was mainly soft power (fame/connections/fortune/accomplishments) which all have RADICALLY different definitions in the ghost zone, seems like -what i mean by constantly trying to keep him from noticing is: every time danny catches onto vlad, the insults to his human side tick up (bad grades, age difference, being related to Jack, etc). of particular note is Reign Storm, with his parting shot about chess feeling like bluster given everything Danny had just pulled off

Those are some really poignant observations. I think a lot of it, especially this,

but then you have Poindexter and Skulker calling Danny the halfa, or one of a kind, respectively, when Vlad's been operating for nearly 20 years

just boils down to slapdash writing and planning, and if not that, then a need for Danny to be as special and unique and MC as possible. Although it opens an avenue for a lot of really interesting headcanons about Vlad's initial transformation when he was in college—if it even happened then, which I don't think it did. It's not like he was immediately turned into a ghost in front of Jack and Maddie; he didn't even lose consciousness, as was the case with Danny.

Maybe his transformation was more gradual, especially seeing as he was blasted by a much smaller portal—but it also could have been much more powerful, concentrated emission—and only from the neck up*. Did he look like Plasmius from the get-go, or was the look something he had to build over the next twenty years? Or if his ghost half immediately took on the appearance of Plasmius, perhaps that would lead the rest of the ghosts in the Zone to believe he was fully ghost?

*I think this is where a lot of the "Danny is the One True Halfa because he received a full-body dose of radiation and Vlad is only partial ghost" fan theories come from.

Of all the humanoid spectral entities, Danny still appears the most mortal, at least in terms of a normal skin tone, so maybe that's another reason why he received the label of "halfa" while Plasmius was able to keep his status more ambiguous. Or at least only share it with his minions and mercs.

Pariah was pretty surprised.

his parting shot about chess feeling like bluster given everything Danny had just pulled off

Exactly. I think he was impressed by Danny—after all, he successfully copied Vlad's duplication technique for the first time (come on, he had to feel a little bit of pride; the boy he wanted to be his son copying his moves? Implementing them successfully? A chip off the old block. Vlad was smiling and smug for the rest of the episode). The little gloating jab he made as Danny passed out was as mild as they come. Danny's taken worse insults from his friends and family.

He's literally making this face ⁀▽⁀ like, come on.

[unnaturalequilibrium]

Capítulo 2 & 3

- Mafin rewatch (Sueños de Libertad)

Watching the de la Reina siblings is a hoot. It's all so deliciously dysfunctional. Damian's three porcelain dolls, all dressed up and filled with generational trauma. How could that not be fun to watch?! I enjoy that Marta is the action oriented one of them. The boys bicker, but she refuses to play their game, instead tries for a solution and an action forward. It’s notable that both brothers turn to her as if her agreement, her word actually holds sway. They’re already making a point of this being a man’s world, but these men, even if it’s a means to play out each other, hang on her word and give it weight.

I’m kind of sad Jesús is such a right villain, because I enjoy him and Marta together. They play off each other well and you instantly get the nuances between them, making it super easy to envision how things were before Andrés return. The way they’ve kept that business afloat, probably stood side by side against their father on a number of occasions. I feel like they’ve kept each other alert, maybe a bit too guarded, but also with a sense of mutual respect despite all of the other muddled feelings of jealousy and resentment and old-fashioned sibling rivalry. In a world where Jesús wasn't such an evil man I think this could have been one of my favourite relationships on the show, if they'd taken the time to develop it more. Especially in the way she yields to him in the beginning and how her character growth comes into play later on.

Carmen is the boss you want to have before she’s even anyone’s boss. The way she is straightforward and stands up to Marta for her own and her fellow workers sake and safety. I wish she was my workplace Union rep. She’s such a competent lady and I'd gladly line up behind. But why throw fucking caveman Tasio around her neck like a noose I’ll never understand. Though I’m getting ahead of myself, or ahead of the show at least.

I mean seriously, what’s up with that opening credit?! Of all the characters, they get a two shot. In bed. The two of them who at this point in time have nothing to tie them together. A flimsy string of connection through fathers, through work. I wasn’t here from the start, but I assume they were shipped from day one? Granted by my arguing maybe Gaspar and Tasio should be shipped too, but at least those two aren't in bed together. And no, don't enlighten me if there are people who do ship them. Some things I'd rather go through life without knowing. This would be one of those.

Lol, Luz is so no-nonsense as she saves Damian's life. “Stop praying and let me stab him with a giant needle, you rich fools!”. Her and Begona sharing the medical field and a bit of empathy with each other is nice too. An ensemble cast that is balanced between men and women seldom leave room for a lot of female friendship, but this one does. I appreciate that.

Fina establishing from the very beginning what she thinks of men, and especially the fool ones like Carmen's deadbeat boyfriend. I feel you. And I am in love with the way she throughout all the episodes to date will be used as a way of voicing what the tired lesbian feminist in all of us wishes she could say, out loud.

If trolls exist, you know like proper giant ones, the kind that can be mistaken for a mountain, covered in moss and trees and then suddenly just opens its eyes and stands up to stretch. You know the kind of trolls you think of when listening to Grieg's In the Mountain King's Hall - yeah those. I imagine if they existed then they'd sound exactly like a sickly Don Damian, like a melodic stone avalanche. That said I’ve never envision mountain trolls to sound Spanish before now. But maybe that’s on me.

Joaquín is a bit of an ass, calling Fina (and the rest of them) lazy - my eyes are narrowed. It wasn’t actually something he developed when he got on my shitlist by flirting with the secretary while having a cute as a button wife or pointing a gun at Marta. Apparently the assery was a pre-existing condition. It’s interesting though that Luis is the one talking about taking over the company, yet he still comes off as the decent one of them.

“You don’t notice the boys?”- Petra, you blonde little snake, don’t call my Fina out like that. Maybe we're allowed to know she's a lesbian, but don't flaunt it in front of the entire canteen like that. It’s kind of funny though how Fina is so clear about Luis not being her type, yet there are so many common denominators between him and Marta both in personality and in physicality (except of course the most important one in this case, their sex).

I know he’s supposed to be one of the good guys, but honestly, Andrés is a bit of a douchebag, isn’t he?! Or maybe that's a bit harsh, but he comes across as pretty smarmy. He's like what the wall behind your stove would be if anthropomorphised, kind of greasy, kind of sticky and in constant need of being hosed down. But yay for not letting the roof drop on your employees, I guess.

[mixterglacia]

Content Warning: VIVZIEPOP CRITICAL/STOLITZ CRITICAL UNDER THE CUT.

TL;DR: The episode felt very disjointed, with an extremely weak opening and a decent end.

Biggest takeaway from this episode is how incapable the team seems to be at balancing themselves. Their humor is mediocre, but fine, with moments of brilliance. But when paired with the serious elements, it cheapens both to the point of totally undermining themselves.

The first half DRAGGED on, and got old pretty instantaneously. I am begging this writing crew to get better material than "haha tit dick swear word laughter pls". Often times, it takes away from a potentially great gag. Take the bellhop/igor guy. His initial reveal was hilarious, and got a full on belly laugh out of me. The moment he spoke totally ruined the bit.

You had it in the bag! You don't need to gild a lily! This is the penguins all over again. The decent end was so bogged down by the first half that it dulled all that followed.

The one through line that I enjoyed was Moxxie spiraling over the finances. Very well done.

I'm not particularly pressed about Blitz being this distressed over the breakup, but they're not focusing on what I feel is realistic for him? If you started it by having him panicking over losing his one source of income, that makes more sense.

Have money be the beginning, then transition into his deeper feelings. This way it doesn't feel at odds with his motivations in previous episodes. His meltdown is believable, but you've done nothing to show the path he took to get there. It was like a switch flipping, rather than natural progression. It wasn't earned. Especially when their relationship is nothing short of emotional abuse.

Abuse victims often go back to their abuser, but they're trying to frame it as something romantic. This. Is. Abuse. Financial, emotional, and social abuse.

Speaking of earning, the second half's payoff. As I said, the humor being so lackluster in the start tarnished the good writing at the back end. There's no balance. The jokes weren't strong enough to contrast the heartfelt parts.

I really do appreciate them actually putting effort into Millie for once. I wish it was more consistent, because often she's totally shoved to the sidelines. She's not a main character, but that doesn't mean you can neglect her until you need her to make the boys look better. I'm also a bit ???? about her saying that Blitz makes her life better? She's constantly in trouble and financial duress because of him.

If they really wanted to make the end feel more cohesive, they needed to spend time focusing on her relationship with Blitz in the rest of the series. There's practically nothing beyond him bitching at her. Or harassing her and her husband. You need to lay the foundation so your house doesn't sink into the earth.

Once again, the Helluverse's greatest flaw is them not wanting to spend time to earn their cool shit. It's nothing more than a series of loosely connected drabbles. That structuring can work, but you need to commit to the nature of it. The team can't decide what they want from their product and it shows.

What. Is. The. Point?

Is this slice of life? Is it telenovela? Is it the Office, but in Hell? What is the goal? Because it's getting EXHAUSTING to try and follow. There's nothing wrong with wanting to change the plot of your work. But you have to put in the effort to make that transition solid. This is something they don't seem to grasp.

Additionally, if this if going to be used to set up Blitz finally cutting Stolas out of his life, it would be a decent frame for that. The entire office is circling the drain because a rich, pompous, pathetic little prince formed a parasocial relationship with someone that never liked him in that way. This episode would hold a lot of weight to swing at Stolas. But I fear they're just going to use the "uwu he secretly misses him" aspect, and neglect the owl RUINING FOUR PEOPLE'S LIVES BECAUSE HIS FAKE BOYFRIEND DOESN'T WANT TO COMMIT TO A FAKE RELATIONSHIP.

Small bits:

The antagonist was fun, and honestly surprised me with the quality of his writing. If the first half was stronger, or not present, I'd consider this one of the best episodes overall.

I'm not entirely clear on why Blitz is so fixated on fucking a ghost? He has no issue getting dick/pussy in hell so what's the issue? Is he mildly addicted to the softcore he's watching? Dunno. It's just one of the bits that bogged down the start.

Rodgers and Nixon did a very good job with what they had voice wise. Major kudos.

[gayhenrycreel]

i hate that "adult" animation is.... like that. dont get me wrong, i like rick n morty, its mindless and silly, but adult cartoons deserve to tell complex stories with themes and good writing. there are many mature childrens cartoons but i cant name a single mature adult cartoon. imagine if something as good as adventure time was allowed to be for adults. the new fiona and cake show is sorta for older audiences and thats as close to mature adult animation as there is. western adult animation i should specify, because anime is great at being both mature and adult. beastars and dungeon meshi are the sort of thing we could have more of if adult animation wasnt always trying to rip off south park.

[egophiliac]

Hi it's just to let you know that the official romanization of Revaan's name is Raverne ! Also they have romanized Baul's name to Baur !

Twst coming back at us again with the least expected romanization! thank you everybody (oh god my inbox) (no it's great, I literally asked for this and the reactions have been INCREDIBLE, thank you all!)

I do like Raverne though, I think it's got a nice fancy sound to it! (I had kinda suspected it was going to be an R instead of an L, so the fact that it's SO close to Laverne except for that is hilarious to me personally.) and Dragoneye Duke is honestly probably the best translation for his title, I wasn't envying the localizers that one. :') Baur instead of Baul I was NOT expecting, but in retrospect I think his name's supposed to be a reference to the Bauru crocodile, so that actually makes way more sense!

someone else also said Meleanor has become Maleanor, which is the REALLY weird one to me, because I was so surprised it was written as Mel instead of Mal in the first place?! oh god no I can't decide which one I like better. 😭 (I wonder if they might change it to Mal...they have made romanization changes before) (like I remember House of Distraction being corrected to House of Destruction in Playful Land) (I did check and she's still Mel for now, but I dunno, they might Mal her up and some point and save me from having to make a decision about which one to use) (HECK I CAN'T DECIDE)

uhhhh thank you for letting me ramble about anime names, let's just say MONOGRAMMED SWEATERS FOR EVERYONE

[humanelemental]

I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said, and you pointed out a lot of things I hadn’t considered. For one, I was so mad about episode 6 as a whole that I didn’t really clock how much time the Ralph stuff took. I wasn’t as surprised by the Salem Seven going out like that after that episode though. I commented on a few posts while I was bitching about the episode that they really didn’t have time to tie everything together with only three episodes. I truly think that the pacing was this show’s Achilles heel. But I didn’t realize until you said it, but you’re completely right about Agatha not getting as much screen time as she should have, even taking out the Billy stuff. And if Rio was going to be the big bad, then she also should have had way more to do with the plot.

I also think a lot of the pace was decided by what big moment they were trying to hit. I may not be explaining this well, but it almost felt like each episode was a show unto itself. Like it was disjointed from the rest of the episodes. Obviously episodes 1 & 2 are meant to feel like that due to the hex in episode 1, but I think the others were meant to flow together better than they did. It ended up feeling like a bunch of big moments with little connecting them. For example, episode 4 had Alice’s big moment and Billy almost dying. (Which, wow, talk about the ol Maximoff dramatics. How do you almost get taken out by your own hex?) But then we move to episode 5 and all the character growth, across the board, seems to be out the window.

And to me most of the episodes were like that. They would hit these really emotional notes, the characters would grow a bit, and then hard reset the next episode. It was like they wanted to tell one story but to make the one we got work, they needed the characters to essentially stay the same the whole run.

I don’t know. The writing was really wonky at times. Which isn’t to say that I don’t love the characters, because I do. I just feel like they were written by one team, and the plot writers were on a different one.

Unless AAA is getting a second season that's going to be Agatha's backstory, I don't understand why Jac would say this. It should have been done this season during the salem flashback.

[spider-pete-man]

I've seen a lot of posts about the new episode revolving around Rio's reveal or a joke in the show that was incredibly funny, but I haven't seen a lot about Lilia herself, whose episode it was. This is by far my favorite episode of the show, and not just because Lilia is my favorite character. It was an episode about life and accepting death and a character out of time who just wanted to forget her visions and forget her past and all the tragedy she's witnessed from both her life and her visions. It also gave context to those, at the time, funny moments of Lilia randomly blurting something out, which was just incredible to see. Then the scene where she reads her own past and future, that was just so powerful. Each of the coven members played a part, and it makes me want to watch the whole series again with this context. All of this leading up to her beautiful and well-earned sacrifice. The cinematography of that scene was just incredible and tastefully done where we don't have to see Lilia's end. We just get to see her a girl again, happy, and with her coven. This episode really was a knock out of the park for me with Lilia and her character arc and a real standout in any Marvel show too. I loved it.

[lafilleestmorte]

I have been thinking about Q.

Falling in love with the person leaving him notes at the cafe throws him completely off balance. It's his final year of high school, his world must revolve around his art and getting into college. But he's sitting thinking about this person he has never met and how natural it feels to love them and how deep this feeling has settled into his chest and how little he knows how to deal with it.

So he leaves. He goes to university. He spends a year making friends, dating around, drinking. His art surrounds him again and if he ignores the memory of that milk frappe boy whom he left behind then he can return to the person he understands. He loathes that he is able to live with having left him behind. He draws and fools around some more. And so the year ends, and, walking into a new semester, he meets Toey.

Q's mentee is. strange. For a fine arts major, he has the most peculiar relationship to art. He doesn't have the faintest clue of the skills that, to q, are simple as breathing. Armed with blunt pencils and a conviction like none other, Toey paints beauty into the world around him

It's like I'm sitting in a vast grassy field, with a gentle breeze under a bright sky. It's like I'm watching a masterpiece of art.

Q recognizes the way he's starting to care about Toey, but he's still trying to learn how to show it. Small gestures, little invitations. Quite moments with just the two of them. He remembers the milk frappe boy and regrets what he didn't do then. But he likes the person Toey is showing him how to be.

You said I didn't take care of you at all, so I'm treating you to some desserts.

It occurs to Q all at once that Toey might just as easily slip away. Because of a love beyond his hands or someone else who gets there faster or his own lack of action. Q refuses to lose the person he loves ever again. He's never been in love with a boy. He doesn't even know if Toey has a reason to like him back. But he doesn't have the time to give thought to his feelings or his fears. He needs to run towards Toey, faster than he himself thought it possible.

So when he finds out the truth, the feeling of betrayal is difficult to describe. The love that he had kept concealed - from everyone and from himself - out on display for all of his friends. A boy who made him want to reach out and hold onto his own genuine feelings, working behind him to catch him off guard.

The boy he has been in love with loves him back. He has always loved him back.

But the person he has been becoming now feels like he might slip away. How easy it would be to let him go. How easily he had left him in pain and silence, two years ago.

[insistonyourcupofstars]

Once Upon a Time was so right for basically saying that the most miserable thing you can be is lonely

[doink-boink]

I feel like reducing him to a "goth twink" is sort of reductive - there's so much more to his character that I and many others find appealing! The recent seasons really don't do him justice. It's occasionally funny when he's just a dickhead for no reason, but he's become this weird bastardization of what he initially was.

Putting the rest under a read more because I YAP.

The earlier seasons actually showcased that he was somewhat competent of what he was doing, being just as knowledgeable as Aviva in tech, but lacking that necessary social skill or care for those around him (including animals), resulting in his constant down fall. They are two sides of the same coin; one who succeeds because of her perseverance and self control, and one who fails because of his laziness and LACK of self control.

Zach is such an emotionally driven character as opposed to rational. He wants his way and he wants it NOW. However, there are times where it comes across as though he is capable of changing! One of the episodes with the Amphi-Trek XT immediately comes to mind in which he almost compliments one of Aviva's inventions! Had Paisley not been there he absolutely would have said it. Connected to that, he is also driven by peer pressure and the want to conform, to be apart of a group, to be VALUED.

Except he never gets that validation! With the villains he makes attempts, in his own convoluted ways, to connect with them! Only to be treated as a pest. Like, they constantly make fun of him lol. In good ol' headcanon land, I feel like if Zach were to be redeemed, it would take some major betrayal or act of pure hatred from the villains. Otherwise he'll stay where he is.

Even from a non-Zaviva context, his relationship with her is so compelling when combined with every other factor in why he is the way that he is! If he'd make an effort to change and learn, like Paisley did, the Kratt crew would be the perfect opportunity for him to have a group of people who would care for him.

I can understand how he is annoying, as someone with what would be considered a whiney shrill voice myself, but everything about him is so interesting. Specifically trying to pick apart WHY he is the way that he is.

Honestly I have never liked calling him a "goth" or a "twink" lol. Though I am really biased against the latter, I feel like EVVVVERRRRYYYYONE calls any effeminate man a twink. Whether they're skinny or not.

TL;DR: Zach is compelling to me because of how complex he is/has the potential to be. Imo there are loads of reasons TO like him! Though I get why someone may feel the opposite.

Why do you hate Zach so much

What is there not to hate about him BESIDES being funny atleast

[aq2003]

i saw a post saying boom was good bc it feels like it could be done with any doctor/companion duo and honestly that was one of the things i felt was wrong with it

[qserasera]

i know it would have been absolutely a different genre for joy of life in an AU where fan xian Was raised in the palace with the princes (def more horror story feel in some of it, increasingly 6D levels of chess, more insanity), but the concept has a certain Fascinating appeal

(it's that one screenshot in the festival where he's just. walking with the rest of the princes in the center of a group as if he belongs there!! with the emperor talking about the flowers etc etc)

[hauntoblogical]

Watching Gunbuster for the first time, and I love how the show uses its sci-fi elements to examine the "traumatized soldier's return to a home they no longer recognize" trope from a new angle. Plays a similar role in the broader themes of the Horrors of War, but the relativistic space combat shifts the site of that change: the soldiers are stuck in their moment of trauma and the rest of the world has moved past them. A shift in reference frames, if you will. Instead of soldiers returning with forced maturity to an unchanged civilian world that only has space for lives they've outgrown, the solders return with extremely-recent unprocessed trauma to a world that has already forgotten the cost of their service. Whatever the extent people back home feared the alien threat before, they've long since known about each victory, had time to move forward with ordinary lives, while our protagonists lack even old ill-fitting lives to return to after giving their lives up to the space military more literally than normal.