#but like goddamn you don't even want some commentary on the match?

[not-a-space-alien]

The number of Twitch streamers who I play a game with and then I go to their channel and they're never even talking about the game is shockingly high. Like I would have though it would be instinctive that to be an entertainer you would want to like. Comment on what's happening. So many people are just dead-eyed staring at their webcam not saying a goddamn thing. I played killer against someone and I watched his VOD and he literally jumped and shrieked because I took him by surprise and then there was NOTHING, literally no comment on it, he went right back to whatever braindead off topic unfunny stuff he was saying before. like bro don't you think your viewers are a little bit entertained by watching you struggle. don't you want to like. idk say literally anything to make them feel like they're along for the ride with you while playing a game. idk it just seems like the most successful streamers are the ones who like, actually engage with the game and get excited about it instead of like. practically ignoring it ajdklsjd;jal

[emblazons]

a post in defense of (a very much alive) S5 Jonathan Byers

under the cut b/c this is more frustrated commentary than strict analysis, and you shouldn't have to read if you don't want to.

I feel like it must have come from the dry spell between seasons, but I have to say it: all of this “Jonathan is gonna die and that means Stancy could happen” stuff lately is not only giving "I just like angst for its own sake," it's lowkey nonsense if you look at it thematically (in context of the Jon/Nancy/Steve madness yes, but especially in context of the Byers family).

—like? Friends.

Given the Duffer’s track record of refusing to fully kill off major characters even when it could have made sense to (cc: Hopper and Max), I don’t think anyone is actually meeting their end, but let’s be SO serious about who is actually likely to get axed: the boy with a mom, brother, step-sister and girlfriend who have been central to every single moment in this show…or the one they've put into a triangle we all thought was over until S4, who they’ve honestly written into a corner, & whose primary drive in four entire seasons was getting a girlfriend and protecting a bunch of teenagers?

I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's just talk Jonathan.

The Duffers (Matt especially) have openly gotten upset at even the notion of Mike dying because "that's depressing" AND "that's Nancy's brother" (showing the familial ties are a HUGE part of what would keep them from ending someone), in addition to them saying they've thought through every imaginable scenario" on who might die—

—and you think its Jonathan whose meeting his end? King of championing "not liking what you don't have to" and the outcasts in all areas from music taste to being queer...after all the Byers have been through and knowing The Duffers write toward championing the outcasts and those who embrace their differences?

That, combined with the fact that the only "evidence" I've ever seen for him potentially dying has been that speech he gave to Will in the SBP somehow being connected to (you guessed it) setting up angst for Will...I'm gonna take a hard and wild educated guess based on the entirety of the rest of the show and say that was literally written so Will could catch a goddamn break, not as a death tag.

The fact that Noah confirmed it wasn't in the Duffer's OG script, was written day of filming + was done because "it was important for people to see will wasn't alone" is evidence enough for that.

Even so, the fact that there are still at least 4 unresolved plots Jonathan is part and privy to makes his death even less likely, because it wouldn't make sense for resolving anything for him to die at all, never mind in the episodes before our supposed timeskip.

Jonathan's messy relationship with Nancy, the fact that he's the only one who actually knows Will is gay, and the fact that he's the only other character who saw & understood the ULTIMATE Chekhov's gun in the form of that painting (on top of also having a longstanding relationship with Mike )should make it clear he isn't going anywhere from a narrative perspective...and I'm not even sure where the idea that he would die popped up, other than fandom warping the canon and projecting onto the plot.

The Duffers have always been clear about not doing things solely for the sake of surprise + not liking things that don't make narrative sense...and Jonathan's death would be both of those things, done solely for shock value.

I just. Be so serious right now. if you want to imagine the weight of Jonathan dying SOLELY for fandom angst DO THAT...but don't pretend like his death in the show wouldn't be the most poorly foreshadowed thing in this entire show, on top of not matching a single theme of the ongoing Stranger Things narrative. ☠️

Put some respect on his name lmao

Bonus: If you really want to talk about character's dying (and not just jump into angst for its own sake): they haven’t given Steve a proper love interest EVER outside of Nancy, made Dustin cry over Eddie instead of staying close to Steve S4, and haven’t ONCE referenced that boy’s family properly more than a few times in passing (and only by Steve himself).

He is the only character who craves normalcy despite this show being about championing the outcast, was supposed to die seasons ago but stayed because Joe Keery was so beloved, and has now been written into a corner where every single person who is central to him (esp Dustin and Robin) either have a new love interest or are worried about something else more than him, which...if you want canonical evidence for a possible death, you're looking in the wrong corner of this love triangle.

[myreygn]

If you're still doing the First Impressions Character ask game:

Askeladd; Tanizaki (bsd); Tendou (haikyuu!!); Akaza (demon slayer)

-soda

uaaah so many characters at once :D thanks for asking soda!! already did askeladd here

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Tanizaki

First impression

aw man he's cute too bad he's a terrorist

Impression now

i'm so soft for him i'm not even kidding, he's adorable to me and i'm so invested every time he does anything remotely out of his comfort zone because i just want him to succeed

Favorite moment

hands down when he threw himself out of a moving car and kenji caught him i'm so normal about this scene

Idea for a story

i really really really wanna write some atsutani, this ship took my heart by storm and just anything cute and fluffy for them is on my writing bucket list (also i have this nsfw draft of soukoku ft tanizaki sitting in my drafts that i'll never finish but psht)

Unpopular opinion

despite some of their scenes being uncomfortable af his relationship to naomi is actually really sweet and i wish they left the creepy stuff out so i could enjoy them without having to explain myself 💀

Favorite relationship

love tanizaki and kenji actually, they're besties in my head

Favorite headcanon

strikes me as someone who stress bakes

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Tendou

First impression

funfact tendou and makoto tachibana from free! have the same german voice actor and because i watched both of these shows in german my first reaction was turning to my sister like "holy shit is that makoto"

Impression now

he's so fun to me, i never have a bad time watching tendou do anything. i'm reading the manga rn and his commentary throughout the karasuno vs nekoma match is my favorite thing in the world

Favorite moment

it doesn't matter if you don't understand what he's saying it's all about the delivery

Idea for a story

oh hmm... good question actually lol. something tensemi idk i don't write him often

Unpopular opinion

he deserved to be bullied for that bowl cut (I'M KIDDING)

Favorite relationship

i mean we all love the ushiten dynamic but honestly tensemi will always be special to me, i live for their dynamic

Favorite headcanon

with haikyuu i never know what's canon and what's headcanon- i like to think that he got his buzzcut on a whim and then spent 10 minutes crying in front of the mirror, cradling his hair in his arms

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Akaza

First impression

i was so scared for kyojuro lemme tell you but his soundtrack was too cool i couldn't resist the epicness

Impression now

there's rarely been a character that's both so funny and so sad to me. everything about him cracks me tf up but if i think about him for more than five seconds i will start crying

Favorite moment

the moment when he sinks into koyuki's arms kills me. every. time.

Idea for a story

i really wanna do a character study with him at some point and focus on his relationship to humanity/monstrosity i just need a scenario i can weave this into

Unpopular opinion

idk what to put here so i'm just gonna say PUT SOME GODDAMN SHOES ON I DON'T NEED YOUR FEET IN MY FACE EVERY OTHER PANEL BY GOD

Favorite relationship

i fuck so hard with him and douma because douma holds all the cards in that relationship and i live for toxic imbalanced dynamics

Favorite headcanon

idk why but i like the idea that he sleeps every now and then just for the heck of it. and when he does he dreams but he never remembers them when he wakes up

[feline-evil]

To try and make my memory issues less Annoying i'm going to start cataloguing what i watch and my opinions on said things, i forgot to do it fresh after watching these first few things but in the future ill try and do it more soon after. You can block the tag jay tv time if you wanna filter this out and not see it!

POST NUMBER ONE: THREE THINGS WATCHED IN JANUARY 2024

YURI ON ICE

I'd heard vaguely about this way back when on tumblr and hadn't had any interest at the time; this was back when i was more interested in getting involved in discourse than really taking any media recommendations from my peers around me lol, older days on tumblr were a dark time huh. Anyway, watched this with my boyfriend this year because i have an interest in ice dancing, i like the sport, i wanted to see some sports anime drama around it!

So, my opinion and review. The show's opening credits are nothing to write home about, very clean looking yeah but kind of bland in a sort of mid 2010's corporate fashion- the show itself though starts with a boatload of charm and a very likeable main lead! The atmosphere was charming and fun and bubbly, everything felt very cozy; LOVED our main leads internal little monologues with little diagrams, loved his family his mom is like peak platonic ideal of an anime mom, loved the tongue in cheek nature of it! Aaaand then we hit what i would call the lowest point for the show, and one that i fully understand if it would be a complete deal breaker for people. That's right folks, we get fatphobic comedy! Whoo. This isn't the WORST i've ever seen but in those first two episodes or so it was prevalent enough to have me rolling my eyes, feeling uncomfortable and saying yeah, if this continues on we might drop the show. If not for how charming the rest of the show was I'm sure we would have dropped it right then and there! But what i am glad to say is that yeah, it drops off; of course it comes with the caveat that it only drops with the main lead losing the weight he was being mocked for, SIGH, but it at least started to feel less like we were going to have to sit through endless weird attitudes towards NORMAL WEIGHTS FOR A GODDAMN HUMAN BODY TO BE, and more like 'oh yeah these hardcore professionals in these fields have shitty attitudes towards bodies. That makes sense. Wish we didn't have to linger on it still because i dislike it thoroughly.' So anyway. Moving onto the next episodes the show really started to pick up for me and got me invested in the ice dancing; while a lot of characters come and go during the lead up to and the competition itself i found so many of them likeable and charming that i was rooting for them each time they took to the ice! I adored the 'rival' of sorts, fifteen year old yuri (not the titular one, different yuri) and we were cheering him on a lot; he's just a little angry kid that loves cats and wants to be the best!!! We wanted him to do good and have fun!!! And we found we were rooting like this for so many people, really feeling the vibe of watching a sport you enjoy and feeling the love for the art of it all.

Now speaking of art i will say i found myself not always totally in love with the animation during the skate segments; this show is really pretty looking for sure and certainly TONS of hardwork went into it so i don't wish to say anything against that- i don't even know if there IS a better way to animate this but. Well on occasion it felt as if the background slid at the wrong speed or angle or direction and didn't fully match the figures skating, making some of the speed and elegance of ice dance evaporate. A lot of animation also felt a little reused, a lot of the same motion being done with little variance aside from what the commentary dialogue says over top, but again i respect a ton of hardwork no doubt went into this and i'm sure animating competitive ice dancing is a daunting task so i'm not making any statements against effort or skill on part of the animators!! Just stating that i myself wasn't too taken with the animation during these segments.

Of course, at its core, what yuri on ice is really about is a blooming relationship; and oh my god. Okay so i'm kind of used to things tumblr called gay back in the day being....mmmm metaphorical, subtextual. Sometimes even not gay at all. So i wasn't prepared for how openly gay this was! There is clear romantic and sexual intent shown from JUMP, it is not shied away from nor shown as something to be demonized or to bring doom on the characters they are just Gay. Like REALLY gay. And maybe you're going 'well duh of course' but hey. I didn't grow up watching anything with gay characters or people in it, i still am not used to seeing open and happy gay people in media. Its still fresh to me! And it makes me happy! I don't know how they got this show to be SO gay, i would be surprised at something gaining mainstream popularity with 'THEY STRAIGHT UP GET ENGAGEMENT RINGS' level of gay nowadays never mind back then so i'm just sort of taken aback! That's cool!! That's still new to me!!

Now my overall review is: This show is a good fluffy watch, nothing too complex or complicated, might not blow your socks off but if you want something feel-good it's worth a try! Obviously with the understanding that if those first few episodes leave too bad a taste in your mouth i compleeetely understand and would not begrudge anyone switching off at that point, you'd be well within your rights because good lord we didn't need that put in. But yeah! Show's gay! Show's got ice dancing! Someone should take Yuri Plisetsky to the rainforest cafe!!!

DUNGEON MESHI

OK SO THIS WILL BE A SHORTER REVIEW BECAUSE WE HAVE ONLY SEEN ONE EPISODE VERSUS YURI ON ICE BEING A FULL SEASON, ALSO DO NOT FUUUUCKING SPOIL DUNMESHI STUFF MY BOYFRIEND HAS READ THE MANGA BUT I HAVENT.

Dungeon meshi is something i've known about for ages and known that i'd like, but i also knew it had a plotpoint adjacent to something that (genuinely depending on the day, its like a damn coin toss) can squick me out OR trigger me a bit, SO! I'd never read it, which i know is a damn shame! But my boyfriend really wanted to watch the first episode of the new dunmeshi anime and i really really wanted to watch with him and i'm really glad i did because it is SO good. It is so fun and witty and bursting with charm, every character is so likeable and it feels like you've known them forever from jump they settle so easily within your fondness for them! I adore how much they do not shy away from Laios being a very passionate weirdo, i love that the guy who is pretty much our main lead in our cast is. A PECULIAR MAN WHO YOU JUST REALLY CAN'T HELP BUT HAVE A SOFT SPOT FOR. I've been this man before, the guy who's really into something nobody else gets!! I get it Laios i get it! Marcille Chilchuck and Senshi are all absolute delights too and each has their personality show vibrantly different from each other, feeling like individuals all with so much to like about them all; Marcille as the person to constantly be unsure about the CLEARLY PECULIAR THINGS THEY ARE DOING is especially great!! Not only is this show a romp so far but it looks DIVINE, the animation knows exactly when detail and motion is needed and when a minimalist approach is needed to sell a gag; each character is rendered PERFECTLY from manga to anime, they are translated over with an expert touch that loses none of their charm- and according to my boyfriend this anime is a very straight forward adaptation, beat by beat following the way things are laid out in the manga's panels the way they are presented within that medium, and that's SO cool to me that they're managing to make precise things that worked so well on paper work just as well in motion! I can't say too much about this story-wise or plot related just now as again, we've only seen the one episode, but it has left me hungry for more and really excited to watch the rest of it, and that's fantastic!! PONYO

Oh wow this is three for three animated entries for the jay tv time list; not intentional but that's pretty cool co-ordination! Animated January..... ANYWAY!

CAN YOU BELIEVE I HADN'T SEEN PONYO YET! I've seen Spirited away and My Neighbour Totoro, but this was my first time watching Ponyo and ohhhhh my god it's wonderful. Every character is a joy, the world around them looks gorgeous, its all so sweet and nice and aaaaaaa Sometimes small kids can be. Grating in movies, or the plot can be moved along in ways that are annoying to watch a toddler progress through, but not with this movie; the kids are SO cute, Sasuke is such a sweet lil kid and Ponyo is so fun- also the line early on at the daycare where the one lil girl says 'you don't have a job you're FIVE!' KILLS ME! This movie portrays little kids in a way that never crosses into the annoying small child thing that a lot of movies can do; and that's not all it does right! It's conflict never feels contrived or irritating, it always flows nice, it's characters never feel boxed into Bad or Good everyone is just a person trying to do what's right, the world never feels Too hostile or Too cosy it just feels nice and balanced! It's a joy to watch it really is, it's not a complex nor complicated tale but it doesn't need to be, its a movie to watch when you want to have a big happy smile on your face; it makes you want to clap and go yayyy!!!! So often because you love what's happening so much! Sasuke's mom is SO FUCKING GOOD. Spoke about platonic ideal of anime mom earlier but Sasuke's mom takes the award for Coolest mom; she's driving fast and furious, she never once judges Ponyo for being a fishy, she's cool!! Ponyo's dad is equally good, i love a well meaning man who just can't help but come across as a Total Weird Asshole because he is just so much of a tired grumpy mess; and i love that he's not portrayed as evil or mean, just protective and misguided in places but ultimately just as kind as everyone else in this movie! And that's something i really appreciate, so much kindness flows through this movie, so much love for your fellow man (or fish); the community feels like a community because of it, families feel like families because of it. Kindness is so wonderful and the kind of kind, gentle understanding in Ponyo makes it's characters come alive! The final moments when Sasuke accepts Ponyo makes so much sense, he's a sweet lil five year old, he doesn't have any prejudice engrained in him, he likes his fishy friend!! And the world is saved by that!! And isn't that just delightful! Also hey if we may get unprofessional Sasuke and Ponyo's moms had a little something going on between them, i think they could've had a lil something something. I'm just saying. I also love Ponyo's dad SO Much. I couldn't fix him but. well. nay, i shan't say. ANYWAY!!! REALLY GOOD, SWEET MOVIE! Definitely one i'll revisit on days when i want a nice sweet pick me up! It's gorgeous, it's heartwarming; oh my god and the ANIMATION!! THE ANIMATION! Every frame a delight, i appreciate so much of how well done the creatures of the sea are and how much are filled into every scene, making it feel bustling and alive, i appreciate how unafraid to make Ponyo look WEIRD they are it really adds to the charm, and the animation in general is just so perfect, its a work of art... I REALLY ENJOYED THIS MOVIE! AND I THINK THAT'S IT FOR NOW, STAY TUNED FOR UH. MORE THINGS I WATCH I GUESS.

[thefirsthogokage]

So, after that last commentary I made on someone else's Leverage Redemption post, I really can't get these thoughts out of my head and need to get them out:

•The writers made Eliot, Hardison, Sophie, and Parker incompetent as plot because they didn't have the ability to write them as competent because they just weren't capable of doing so. I'll say it again: It's an insult to the characters, an you know what? It's an insult to the original writers and creators, and an insult to the actors who love their characters. It's such a goddamn insult to the competency and intelligence of the characters because the writers clearly weren't up to the task of writing characters that most certainly are all smarter then them. I mean, they were created by Mr. Basically Was A Real Life Harry Wilson, Chris Downey, and of course Mr. Literally Has A Physics Degree, John Rogers. I'm not calling Rorick and Devlin idiots, I'm saying their backgrounds don't match what is needed for this show to make it function like the original. Well, ok, that's not entirely true. I don't want to call them stupid, but they clearly don't have what it takes to pull of what the original did. Devlin is rusty as a writer, and Rorick clearly wasn't suited for this show, along with most of the other writers they had.

•They took The Librarians and put in into Leverage when they absolutely shouldn't have done that, and they used a lot of it because they were lazy as writers who were not competent enough to do their job. They literally put magic in this show when it had no right to be there, nor place in its world. As stated by the OP in that post linked above, it was ok to put some Leverage into The Librarians, but not the other way around. Leverage had it's own way of functioning and storytelling and mechanics - and none of that involved magic. Sure, it involved suspension of disbelief, but that is not the same as using magic as an excuse for things happening. Again, it felt like an insult.

•There were so many messy episodes because the writers weren't competent enough to do better. Again, the way that they worked would have been fine on The Librarians, but Leverage is very much not that.

•They put Maria in there for what? Because they needed a way for them to get that key at the end? Well that's some typical, cliche, lazy, unnecessary storytelling has has zero place in Leverage. And it made OT3 feel like something that wasn't ... Non-platonic. Like, Eliot can go off and fuck people, and even develop feeling for them, but what happened on the other end of that, the way the dialogue about her felt, with Eliot's chats with the rest of the team about her, made it feel like there was nothing non-platonic between him, Parker, and Hardison. Just, what the fuck was that? Like, the ending thing between OT3 did reaffirm OT3 in a way, but from what I remember, it felt like it removed and romantic interpretation you to have as to them being in a polyamorous relationship, regardless of if how you viewed Eliot and whether or not he was sexually active with the others. I could be remembering it wrong, or interpreting it wrong, but in all honesty, if people have to go digging to find a meaning that aligns with the OG creators' initial intent, some one fucked up in getting a point a cross and not making it easily readable.

So, I guess the TL;DR of it is, this show unacceptably lacks competence in its characters that used to be competence-porn-level good at their jobs because the writers weren't up to the task of writing them as fully capable individuals because they didn't know how to work plot around competency. They also mixed the show with another show it had no business being mixed with because the writers had no idea how to separate Leverage Redemption from their past project that involved magic, and absurdly inserted that element into this show. And I'm mostly mad at the Eliot Love Story not because of it's presence, but because it was mishandled writing-wise.

[ariyadaivaris]

HEY here's smth i've been thinking about lately: who on 205 Live would u like to see turn face and how would u like to see them do it? i been thinking about this and it's hard because the heel boys are all so close to each other and i don't wanna see em split up...

now–okay. 1) im sorry i took forever to read this im very shy and 2) im gonna be THEEEEEEeeEEEEEEeeeeEEEeeE most biased person on earth about this but this is SUCH A COOL QUESTION and i’m living for it, thank you cat for my life

and like. i mean the answer that’s easiest is OBVIOUSLY ariya. i mean. like. let’s be real here, especially if i’m the one answering, like, who else could it be, but ariya? he’s never had a face run in his career, iirc, and i want to see it, with my eyes, and live it forever. 

and YEAH splitting up those sweet terrible heel boys is a bad time, and that’s something that always gets me when i’m thinking about turns, because ideally everyone remains friends, face or heel, but like…i think that with ariya that’s something that could be accomplished WHILE the rest of the heel boys stay heels. and i know this is a topic i am on about a lot, or at least it feels like it, but i think it would work if you had ariya turn face against brian, specifically. 

jack’s not involved in this yet, i know that’s like, HI HELLO IT’S ME BUZZ INTERNET, but this turn doesn’t have anything to do with jack. okay it might have a BIT to do with jack but that’s not the most important part of it. it’s a subplot and not like, the main conflict driving this turn. the main conflict driving this turn is VERY much between ariya and brian, and there are a few points of interest here: 

brian betraying tony in the contendership elimination match, which is a relatively small insignificant betrayal, but still a betrayal of one of ariya’s friends

brian outright allying himself with enzo and ariya, but not to convince enzo to leave wwe entirely (which, until proven otherwise, has to be ariya’s goal here because jesus christ) and instead either for manipulation reasons or because he sincerely relates to everyone being jealous of the cruiserweight champion. because he’s brian kendrick

brian not only fucking with jack but fucking with him to the point jack is ALLYING with him; ariya might be a bastard but he’s really loyal to the allies and friends he has, even noam, who ariya was never EXACTLY FOND OF but to whom ariya’s remained loyal and is pretty straightforward with

and just like…ariya’s a brutal guy and he takes pleasure in fighting people in the ring, and he’s pragmatic and not afraid to bend the rules to win, but as a person, he’s fundamentally…pretty genuine? genuine isn’t the right word, but. he’s blunt and what you see is what you get with him for the most part. he’s sneaky and tricky, but he’s also a pretty bad liar beyond playing a wounded gazelle gambit in the ring! like, his alliance with enzo? he’s of course a very sweet boy but he’s got a reputation as well and he’s very VERY much just…pretending it doesn’t exist and hoping that’s convincing. ariya is…pretty sincere, at heart. he doesn’t Perform unless it’s for the greater good, he doesn’t try to be anything he’s not, and who he is MIGHT be a pretty rude and sharp person but that’s who he is. and he’s fine with that. 

brian kendrick kinda spits on every single idea of that! 

ariya believes he’s an honorable person, but like, ariya will back down and admit he’s outmatched when necessary (that’s kind of a running thing he does, with neville, with braun, etc), where brian is just a dirty coward who cheats and lies and plays dirty all the goddamn time. he’s the man with a plan and his plan is despicable from the beginning! and ariya doesn’t trust that, no one trusts brian, obviously, and i think that they could butt heads in a way that easily transitions into a face turn for ariya. 

i think that could happen in a tag team match? not one where they’re pitted against each other, but put on a team. brian’s usually paired up with jack but jack’s got his own shit going on this particular night, so brian needed a new partner, and he came to ariya. and ariya doesn’t trust him for a goddamn second but he doesn’t have anything to do tonight, so he agrees. and then he discusses it with the rest of the gold standard, and tony’s clearly Not Happy that brian would even consider coming to one of them, even if this IS what ariya’s gotta do, and that definitely stays with ariya. because ariya is a dick but he loves tony and drew a lot and he isn’t the most forgiving person of slights against the two. 

but brian and ariya team up for the night, they’re taking on, who knows…OH no wait i know, they’re taking on mustafa and akira, ding ding ding! ariya and brian both have past rivalries with akira, but ariya’s got a weird frenemies thing happening with mustafa over twitter at the VERY least, and ariya’s still thinking about how much of a manipulative lying motherfucker brian is. and while they’re in the match, brian pulls some SKETCHY SHIT that results in akira getting pretty fucked up on the turnbuckle, and ariya’s no akira fan but he knows that was fucked up. akira recovers and tags mustafa in and the match moves on, and ariya is stuck on this moment, and he looks back at brian in the corner and thinks, man, i fucking hate this guy

and he makes a decision, to get back at brian for tony’s sake at least and now for akira’s sake as well, because if brian can play dirty, ariya can too, and maybe it’ll teach him something about not being a HUGE SHITHEAD ALL THE TIME. he tags brian in for a double team move and makes a surprise transition; instead of whipping brian into mustafa, he catches brian up in the hammerlock lariat he does! and he takes a moment to kind of process “oh shit, oh SHIT this is happening”, before coming back into focus. and he just shakes it off, nudges brian towards mustafa and gestures to the top rope like “hey i set up your dumb flip for you, you’re welcome”, and just rolls out of the ring. before he starts up the ramp, he catches akira’s eye and nods, and then he’s just Outie, and then it’s just. okay! it’s an ambiguous move and he doesn’t break apart from his heel faction, of course, but it’s a start. it’s at LEAST a move from “allies with monster heels” to “allies with goofass heels and tweeners” territory, and it’s a start. 

another opportunity for an ariya face turn, and like, if we’re following this same thread, a CERTAIN, CONFIRMED face turn, is ariya turning on enzo! i will die on the hill of “ariya is trying to get enzo out of here”, but if it happened for real after the above moment, that would be a pretty clear turn into face territory. it’s like…to expand more on ariya’s previous rivalries, it’s like a smaller scale version of what neville did. it’s no secret that drew and tony don’t get along with enzo, but ariya’s working with him because GOD everyone wants enzo to leave wwe. not even just 205, but wwe. please god. and ariya’s thinking that at any rate this COULD mean he gets a friendly title shot opportunity. it won’t. he knows it won’t. enzo’s a cruel stingy son of a bitch he’s never gonna give anyone a title opportunity if he can help it, but ariya thinks he could break ground if he just tries hard enough. 

and then that hope is buried for good, because enzo goes after drew, like he’s wont to do. tony starts shit with enzo, and drew steps in to get a match with enzo and finish it, because Of Course He Does, it’s very noble even though tony and drew are both the worst. drew gets a match with enzo, and tony chills on commentary and ariya’s sitting in the back watching and ariya’s just fuming silently, but tolerating it. and then enzo cheats to win, because of course he does. and then for no good reason, he grabs a steel chair to attack drew, because he’s a dick! and tony comes after him, and enzo’s not afraid to attack him, too. 

ariya comes out as soon as the steel chairs get involved. it looks for a second like he could be out here to back enzo up. tony and drew get fucken worried for a second that the plan’s gone wrong. but ariya wouldn’t dream of betraying either of them. not ever. if he’s got beef with them, he settles it, he talks through it, that’s how they’re good friends STILL. he doesn’t let things stew, he doesn’t fume over imagined slights silently. ariya’s a lot of things, but he likes to think he’s an honorable person. and there’s no one he’d honor more willingly than these two. 

he convinces enzo to give him the chair, and at the last second, he turns it on enzo instead. he chases the rat out of the ring, back up the ramp, and barely spares him a final look before going to check and make sure drew and tony are alright. it doesn’t lead to those two chucklefucks getting a face turn, they’re still VERY embroiled in their own heelish pursuits, but ariya’s given up his pursuit of the title and his attempt to earn enzo’s trust, because he cares about his friends. and he really does consider the tactics he uses that he can see enzo using, too, and he actively starts working to stop using them. he’s not like enzo! he isn’t. he’ll never be like enzo. 

and in that, ariya earns his face turn. 

also, this isn’t the best argument for it, but ariya’s pretty well learned in high flying, which is a style he hasn’t gotten to use as much as a heel, and the style change from heel to face could be a good factor in that turn? that sentence was worded like DOGSHIT but i hope it made sense haha

also HOOOOOLY SHIT THIS GOT LONGER THAN I EVER WOULD HAVE EXPECTED I KIND OF THINK ABOUT FACE ARIYA A LOT IM SORRY