#but the vibes are all over the place

[zahri-melitor]

Robin 2021 by Joshua Williamson: I’m a few issues in, and I have such mixed feelings about this book.

Damian absolutely required a title by someone that loved him deeply and dearly to refocus and reboot his character. And it’s clearly doing that.

I’m not sure this title is doing anything good for any other character who appears or is mentioned in it, and through that it also makes Damian seem like a self-absorbed smug ignoramus who doesn’t stop to think for a second about anyone outside his own concerns, but that does fit Damian.

Bruce musing on Damian: “calling him entitled would be an understatement. To the role of Robin.”

Yes, well, Damian absolutely did believe he was entitled to the role of Robin. Whether he was actually entitled was another matter given someone else was already in the position, but oh boy did Damian and his writers think he especially deserved it because of being Bruce’s biological kid.

And what do I mean ‘he’s clearly ignorant?’

Stuff like this. Really Damian? You think King Snake knows nothing about your family? Edmund Dorrance? I mean he’s only a major member of Tim’s rogue’s gallery, tends to appear to die every appearance, and is by implication tied up in drama that Cass had in Hong Kong through the fact that Lynx I was his lieutenant, but go off I guess.

Defeating King Snake is not actually a particularly impressive fight, because he always looks like he’s died. Which just makes the League of Lazarus and their competition look like a bunch of wannabe tryhards

Also not helped by this:

So…cheating to win a fight against Ben Turner, Shiva deliberately kept out of this (but if ‘cheating to win’ is acceptable, Tim easily qualifies for this tournament as well, and he’s done it to Shiva multiple times), and if you don’t know that Richard Dragon would lose a fight to help teach someone because he’s more interested in teaching combat these days you don’t read Richard Dragon stuff.

This is not an impressive tournament. Like no wonder they’re all getting over excited about Connor Hawke being in it; he’s literally the only fighter who is near Shiva’s list who is present.

I mean, cmon, Double Dare and Lady Vic are here. They both are fundamentally irritations rather than actual big fights. Nobody is actually scared of Aliki’s fighting skills. NITE-WING is in this thing. Tad is a literal joke character whose entire purpose is to seem like a needy wannabe.

I can possibly see a route to interesting commentary coming out of Damian spending a lot of time beating up Dick and Tim’s rogue galleries, but that would require Damian to even be aware that he’s doing that.

I mean I’ll feel better about it if Connor even noticed that apparently a Silver Monkey is on this island, given their history, but the signals in this title are all over the place.

I have no doubt that Damian is going to have a bunch of personal growth and revelations over this story. It’s just…what the story is telling me and what the characters that are included in this are telling me are giving me very, very different narratives, and given what I know about Williamson’s character focus in his writing on Damian’s personal exceptionality, I’m not fully convinced the narrative of ‘you don’t have to measure yourself against Dick and Tim, and that you feel you need to is something you should work on’ is going to come through clearly enough, even though the seeds are there.

Also wow yeah ‘your son’ and ‘son of the bat’ is used with exhausting regularity in the early issues.

[kittick-art]

Royai art dump from the past few months :)

Last drawing is based on this iconic tweet

[luminarai]

dog owners vs cat owners: the immortal gay edition

[seance]

THE MUSKETEERS 10TH ANNIVERSARY REWATCH / fave episodes [1/?] ↳ SEASON 1, EPISODE 3 / commodities (x,x)

[buggachat]

To be clear, I goddamn hated the finale on first watch. I was withering in my seat. My heart had dropped to my stomach. I had no fucking idea what I was watching in that final scene lmao

and then Adrien said "when Ladybug gave me the rings—" and I was like— wait. LADYBUG? LADYBUG STILL EXISTS?

I THOUGHT THE ENTIRE TIMELINE HAD BEEN REWRITTEN 😭😭😭😭 I THOUGHT LADYBUG AND CHATN OIR DIDNT UFCKING EXIST uNTIL ADRIEN SAID THAT I WAS SO SO SO SCARED

and then I realized, oh wait. This isn't a complete utopian timeline rewrite. This is just a timeskip of a few months and Mme Bustier is just a kickass mayor. In fact, she's only mayor BECAUSE it's still the same timeline. And then I realized, hey, wait, if they didn't rewrite the timeline, then how tf is Emilie casually there with no questions?

And then I realized she was wearing black. And Félix was there. And I remembered Amelie exists.

Basically, I went into the finale chanting to myself "it's okay, it's okay... they probably wont bring Emilie back... they probably won't rewrite the entire timeline permanently.... right? please....", even though I didn't actually expect it to happen, but just because I was terrified that it could. And apparently that fear actually got to me so much that I misinterpreted the episode as being everything I didn't want it to be... when... it actually wasn't that at all

anyway, all of this is to say, everything in the episode happens so fast that it confused and terrified me at first. And when I realized what had happened, my opinion went from "my year is ruined" to "oh. well. okay. kind of disappointing, I guess". And then I kept thinking about it, and the ending, and all that is set up and rewatching the scenes and all the loose ends still in place and.... i realized I loved it?

like, every time I think about this finale, I love it more. every time i rewatch a scene, I get a little obsessed. this episode went from my nightmare to actually really really cool to me, and I'm still kind of reeling from it

Basically, this is why I've been kind of passionately defending the finale— not because I think people who don't like it are """dumb""" or anything, I don't blame people at all for that, and I totally get the confusion. I was confused too. And I know I'm not the only one who went in preparing themselves for the worst, or went in with very specific expectation on what will happen, because this finale has been long awaited for so long. I think everyone was shocked with how it ended. I think most people probably startled at Amelie's face (it's so easy to forget she exists....)

Anyways, I started this post basically as an apology for if I seem too aggressive or defensive about the finale. Because I get it! I get hating it! I get being disappointed or frustrated or confused! Part of why I'm so defensive is because I have all the arguments so ready on the tip of my tongue because I had the very same argument with myself already 😭 So I'm sorry if any of my posts came off as too aggressive and in advance for any future posts that might. I promise promise promise I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad for having bad opinions on the finale! I just think this episode is really cool and the fact I related to a lot of the nay-sayers makes it easy to feel so impassioned about it.

But this post is getting off the rails and I'm just gonna let it, because some of my regrets w my participation in fandom is that I find myself chickening out of actually talking about my thoughts on episodes a lot. I get kind of overwhelmed and overthink everything after I've posted it and I'm a shy person. But my inbox is closed and this is the season 5 finale and I want to ramble and ramble so I will allow myself this

Basically, I went in with some very specific expectations for this episode. We all know about the Hawkmoth defeat story. Many of us have read it in fics over and over again, it was teased in Chat Blanc, we all know what we expect, we all know our favorite beats from it.

And what actually happened....... met virtually none of those beats. (For me, at least).

Like, Adrien wasn't there for the final episode. At all. He was completely absent from the confrontation. He never found out his father was Hawkmoth. He got his rings, but he never found out he was a sentimonster. He is living in the dark.

Ladybug confronted Monarch... alone. Which is sad, when so much of the series is dedicated to the partnership of her and Chat Noir. Them against the world....... and Monarch was "defeated" with nary a Chat Noir in sight.

The whole entire "Gabriel is known as a hero" thing. I don't think anybody was expecting that. Absolutely shocking.

The fact Marinette would lie to Adrien like that. The fact she's keeping so much from him. The fact everyone is. SO MANY people in Adrien's life (Marinette, Plagg, Nathalie, Felix, Amelie, Kagami, probably Alya, maybe more I'm not thinking of....) are just... lying to him, now. He is so in the dark. He knows nothing.

But.........

I kind of like that I didn't predict nearly any of this. I like that it caught me off guard. I love how this show just completely baffles me at every turn, how it will present concepts and ideas to me that I've never read a fic about.

In retrospect, Chat Noir being absent from the final battle... makes sense. It actually makes a lot of sense, if I think about it, because... there is only one possible way that could've gone, right? Chat Noir would not be allowed to have the emotional implosion that he would have to have. This is devastating. This is SO devastating. This is the entire shattering of Adrien's entire world we're talking about, and Chat Blanc is the only real way for that to end. Adrien has an emotional implosion in front of Monarch, he gets akumatized, it turns into an emotion explosion, extinction event. The end. We've already seen it.

And........ even if it didn't end that way, even if he managed to avoid akumatization...... how could the finale satisfyingly end on that note? How could it end in any semblance of a "wrapped up" way, at the very start of Adrien's emotional breakdown? It couldn't. I wouldn't WANT it to. In retrospect, Adrien finding out his dad is Monarch and then.... what? The season ends on a close-up of him crying? The season ends with a time-skip to the new school year where they skipped his entire grieving period!? I would HATE that, actually. I would hate that. I thought I wanted it, but I would hate it. I would hate it so so so much.

What's kind of amazing is that the finale ended with Monarch being defeated.... but Adrien still has those realizations to make. He still has those betrayals to come to terms with. There is time for him to make these realizations, for him to come to these conclusions, perhaps one at a time, perhaps in a more controlled environment.... and that gets me far, far more excited for the seasons to come than an episode that tried to wrap it all up in the last 5 minutes.

Also, the reason Adrien didn't go to the final battle was because he feared becoming Chat Blanc. He didn't know the truth to it, didn't understand that literally, yes, that's what would have happened if he was there, even if he hadn't been under a nightmare curse. But he still knew. He still expected it. He willingly chose to sit it out, no matter how much he hated it, because he knew. And there's something kind of powerful to that, I think, of Adrien making a choice that is so unequivocally the Correct choice, even more than he realized. And the strength it took for him to make that decision...... damn.

As for the lies and the Gabriel statue? I... it's upsetting, but it's supposed to be. And I believe it. I absolutely believe it. I 10000% believe Marinette would keep the secret of Monarch's identity to herself to try to save Adrien the pain. I 10000% believe that the population could easily be led to believe a famous billionaire is a hero. I 10000% believe that Adrien would WANT to believe it. I 10000% believe Tomoe would take advantage of it.

And I can't wait to see that illusion crumble.

Also.... this is the beginning of The Lila arc.

And the Lila arc begins on........ Marinette telling the biggest, boldest face lie she ever told. The Lila arc begins on the most extreme city-wide illusion we've ever seen. It begins on such a huge fabrication and....

..... it's Marinette's lie.

............ and Lila knows that it's a lie.

I'm

!!?!?!?!

This is so fucking cool???? The irony here??? the deceit???? All these loose ends, all the possible confrontations, all the ways this could GO. I don't know where the show is taking this, obviously, because nobody ever can predict where this show is going apparently (and I love it for that), but oh my god. I'm imagining all the fics I could read about this. all the fics I could write. all the thoughts and scenarios that this finale has provided me with to daydream about as I go to sleep.

Adrien, going through the motions of life. Looking up to his father as a hero, despite the fact the last time he saw him, Adrien was sobbing, in tears, and cursing his name. Adrien, after all the abuse he was subject to, having to look up at a statue of his father and...... be forced to think that maybe he was wrong about his father. But he's not wrong. He WASN'T wrong. He just THINKS that he is. His father is going to continue to loom over his life in ways I never expected post-hawkmoth. Adrien's relationship with Gabriel has not ended, a new and terrifying and horrible new chapter of it has simply begun, and Adrien is still as manipulated by his father's ghost as he was by his father himself.

THAT'S. WILD!!!

also, Adrien now believes that MONARCH MURDERED HIS FATHER. Chat Noir now believes that his greatest nemesis KILLED HIS FATHER. CHAT NOIR, resident self-sacrificer, believes that HIS FATHER was a HERO who DIED FIGHTING MONARCH. Adrien thinks that maybe he should be more like his father— more like his father who died in battle. This is. Not Good. For Adrien.

And it's Marinette that started this. Well intentioned Marinette, who doesn't really understand the extent of the horrors. Marinette, Adrien's girlfriend, the person he trusts most. She did this.

And, I mean.... god. I totally get how this sucks for a lot of people, because it's objectively upsetting.... but I LOVE lovesquare tension. Season 4 is probably my favorite season for that reason alone (still mulling over if season 5 beat it for me). I love the relationship drama, I love that it's in character drama, I love how it fits everything we know about them sososo well, I love that it's horrible and it's terrible and it's awful and it's all because Marinette loved Adrien too much to want to hurt him.

I was worried no reveal would mean that season 6 would just be... what? adrienette fluff? not that I don't love that, but where's the drama? well. there it is. that's the drama.

I need to stop typing this. I know this is abysmally long and ranty and if you read all of this then I'm sorry. But I wanted to get some of my thoughts out.

But basically, I was expecting a lot of things for the finale.

In my best case scenario, it would somehow, miraculously tie up and address all the loose ends with Adrien's angst and character arc in two episodes.... and then end with me totally satisfied, ready to only half-heartedly watch season 6 like it was just a small dessert after the main course.

And I already described my worst case scenario (my first impression of the episode lmao)

But it wasn't that. I was expecting a series finale, but I got a season finale. And I love season finales. I love how they keep me wanting more. I love how excited I am for season 6, because in both my best and worst case scenarios, I honestly didn't expect to be. I love all the new ideas and thoughts and scenarios swirling around in my brain. And even if season 6 doesn't address some of the things I want addressed, I'm so excited to see the creative content in this fandom that DOES

[chancheols]

Hyunjin in every music video: District 9.

[spicyboelives]

Tony Stark Mopey & Drunk as requested on my Kofi :)

[poisonedfate]

bbc merlin - 04x04 Aithusa

never waste an opportunity, that's what king arthur always says

[bonneblah]

Daddy-daughter time at GeekCon!

[vivsicx]

Happy Birthday Ayn! (★ᴗ★)

I can’t stop thinking about his cn bday sr help

[eddienashtonn]

there’s something so autistic about the riddler as a character. the frustration of having no one really see you, the need to prove yourself smarter and cleverer than all of them to make up for the fact that you could never fit in with them, the compulsive joy of forcing others to play by your rules, the obsession with truth and answers, the comfort of having your own space where you’re in control, the fear of inadequacy, the isolation and loneliness, the need to be acknowledged in your reality to be satisfied but never able to reach that satisfaction.

[lavaflowe]

“I can't afford to wait

Life's a procession that begins around the corner from the grave

Absurdity is all it is and then we're gone too fast

Felicity I strive for but it always waits beyond my grasp

In a foggy haze a holy being intensifies

And I pray to her to take me

And I beg for her to save me from myself”

[lil-beanz000]

"It's him. The man of the cat walk, the ruler of the ruler and threading machine. Clad with his iconic pink taser Leo takes the front page of our issue this month to show off his continuing rise into the fashion world"

[sysig]

They’re both so cute, what’s up with that (Patreon)

[chirpsythismorning]

S5 opener REAL