#even tho again. i quite literally do not care about the characters or source material

[wyrdoh]

it's so bizarre to me that people publish hate comments on ao3

[bimbosupreme]

mephistopheles love post

the equivalent of a mental breakdown tangent is all going under a read more

yes believe it or not that freaky ass literally not even human clown in fgo gets love, and love from who? me and like 3 other people

first off

ok and with that out of the way,

i’m not even familiar with their lore. Reason why i stopped caring about the lore behind faust and mephistopheles is that an interlude happens that shows that mephistopheles is just some homunculi made by some mage nobody named faust. and even then the interlude doesn’t talk about the lore behind the novel, its just you helping mephy kill faust

that being said though i would hope the developers expand on their origins more and potentially even release a “true” mephistopheles (a girl can dream)

So, they’re not even the real deal demon known as Mephistopheles in the first place, and i can hear u going “well that’s lame” and like, no, we just need to redirect our feelings from appreciating a demon to appreciating a homunculi who has a weird characterization in the fate universe

Design tangent:

Fgo was actually my first gacha, and so when I came across this servant I kinda instantly fell in love with their design, I love the colors used in their final ascension and overall appearance. The hat that has horns but they're not quite horns, theyre these weird colorful pointy twisty things, the large garish butterfly ornament on their chest (which isnt ugly at all and somehow works so well with their everything on them) is cool, the tights are so cool to look at, i mean look -- a checkered pattern with golden lining on the shorts portion, the tits out look like yes we get it youre insane, the gloves??? purple and also cool, plus theyve got this gradient thing going on? and the fingers have this line going through them, thats so cool. actually the only other servant that comes close to this in terms of “out there” colorful designs is probably final ascension kama and qsh ( i love them both). Also, mephy has this scissor weapon?? thats so cool lol i dont see any other servant wielding giant scissors (for the love of god give mephy an animation update i need to see them use the scissors while doing flips) and they also have this bomb obsession going on? cant relate, but the bombs designs are so so cool i mean its a fucking centipede -- no idea if centipedes are a thing in the original faust but thats something Ill have to look up at some point. ALSO mephy is wearing heels oh my god anytime people wear heels is an automatic win. No clue whats going on with the hair but its kinda cute (dont question me on that) and it has curls and the hair colors are cool i mean its like a lavender thing with darker purple highlights? i love colorful things and i love people with wacky personalities so. Oh my god their tail how could i forget that its so cute and dumb i almost forgot it was there, like what is that even a whip? i dont.. but its got these little purple tips to them that are kinda cute/cool but more cool because tails are fucking up there alongside heels in terms of cool stuff on characters. and of course their fluffly cape -- again no idea what the designers were going for i mean look its a mess of a design i have no fucking idea what any of it means and i hope they explain it someday because that hair and the butterfly and the tail and the hat and the fluffy garb and a bomb obsession?? and this got the go ahead - yeah lets add that to the game like what

ALSO LETS TALK ABOUT THEIR EYES

appreciate these with me for a second

god.

oh and the blue lipstick and face paint god thats a cool design ugh

they can be normal too or at least as normal as possible i mean they even trimmed their eyebrow here lol but you can see the not so well hidden insanity/goofiness peaking through with the inside of the suit at the bottom being highlighter purple and a green shirt with gold accents underneath the black coat at the front <3, fuckin hate that hairstyle tho bro we gotta get that middle part hairstyle outta hereeeee--

TAKE A DETOUR AND LOOK AT THIS LINK THOUGH THIS IS THE MOST NORMAL AND BEST IVE SEEN THEM IN FANART. THE POTENTIAL IS THERE. WE CAN HAVE NICE THINGS AND THEY LOOK GREAT ITS POSSIBLE. I HAVE TEARS STREAMING DOWN MY FACE FROM THAT DRAWING.

anyways this is me going off all about why i like their design! but we haven’t even touched the nitty gritty of it all. their personality! what personality you may ask? havent they always been some weirdo laughing a lot and saying dumb shit all the time? well yes and no

Characterization:

True to their dumb little clown design mephy also acts like one.

Some servants bond 1 lines are like “fuck off” and some actually talk to you, nah this bastard mephistopheles’ just laughing. and for the second bond line it seems to imply theyre fuckin with you more (showing up and dissapearing and saying ‘afterimage’) so thats nice that theyre actually making some effort to mess with you in a way? some servants take a long time to actually interact with you so this shows theyre not afraid of interacting with you and thats just at bond 2. and of course the third bond line implies they were probably trying to betray you, its stated in more than 1 place that mephistopheles (actually isnt this a caster class thing?) will betray you or attempt to do so. So the third bond line seems to imply that their attempts have been stopped by you and that’s what they say after some failed attempts. So after stopping this freak from doing some shit their next bond line is actually doing a confession! a jester being honest who couldve seen that one coming but theyre 100% not lying, they really arent a demon but a homunculi made by faust

speaking of faust we’re going to backtrack a little into their interlude that i brought up at the start of this post, its one of those dream interludes and it starts with mephy asking you to help him plant bombs for their eventual reuinion/showdown with faust -- in the meantime faust keeps sending golems in an attempt to kill both you and mephy

When you track faust down, it’s shown that faust was your typical mage, inhumane and uncaring. It’s also pointed out that this faust killed innocents, but this typical mage behavior is boring to mephy, and they say that boring typical behavior is why they wanted to kill them

 so i really cant blame mephistopheles for being the way they are, being raised by this type of guy, even if mephy was always messed up and wacky from the beginning its no reason for faust to attempt to kill him.

Mephistopheles also shows up in salem, cu alter’s interlude, and of course the knk crossover event, and some other things im most likely forgetting but those 3 are ones that i find notable

anytime they show up theyre actually helpful, in salem mephy points out that the nature of the being responsible for the salem epic of remnant is something alien rather than a typical foreign god, mephy also tells you that time is also being sped up and in their weird way they try to cheer you up by spouting some nonsense at the beginning (guda needed some kind of distraction from the grim events that had just transpired at that point in the story), i cant quite remember what mephy did in the knk event but they were a part of your group and were helpful the whole time, actually @/zeravmeta does an amazing analysis of their role in the knk event as well as some extra character analysis here

mephistopheles is kinda cryptic in a weird way though,

like overall i mean theyre a jester homunculi in appearance so yeah its to be expected but come on i love morally gray characters, despite their supposed betrayal hints scattered around here and there

they have this one line that always gets to me

and this line is said with a completely serious face too

the rare serious mephistopheles face! its kinda grim to see that line, no laughs, no nothing, their voice is kinda serious and monotone too. of course this could be just to get you to lower your guard but its still kinda out there that they have this rarely used portrait and that line, so i like to take it as being said to you when youre by yourself and with sincerity

and at least sei (with her wacky outfit and all lol) seems to get along with mephy and thinks theyre nice woohoo

so at the end of the day you have this guy that laughs a lot and gives mixed signals

and they fuck with you

and will most likely try to kill you more than once but hey thats just another tuesday at chaldea

Before I finish last thing I want to point out is this snippet from the fgo source material book which provides more information on servants, and this specific translated bit under mephistopheles

at the core of it all this homunculi....can be your friend! you just need to not go into despair i guess

of course this entire post is an overanalysis into an underwritten character, quarantine + all online college classes have done this to me, i have a douman icon what did you expect

OH...BEFORE I REALLY SIGN OFF AND FINISH THE POST HEY CLOWN LOVERS CHECK OUT THESE FANARTS AND FANARTISTS...

THE FIRST ONE IS HASENDOW YES THE DOUMAN DESIGNER... <3

i cant believe they drew mephy

twice !

and for those of you on twitter check out @cuz_pb and @L0VEYAMA003

[vaguely-concerned]

The Mandalorian Chapter 13 reactions

Well, that was... well. in short I quite enjoyed some of what happened while din was there and I didn’t really care about what happened while he wasn’t there lol. I think it’s becoming increasingly clear that I just don’t care for the episodes dave filoni writes for this show, which is simply a matter of taste I guess. 

(if you loved this episode wholeheartedly -- probably look away now, I’m going to be a bit of a downer about it and I don’t want to shit on your joy haha)

- let’s just get this out of the way first: there’s a lot of stuff around rosaria dawson and transphobia in real life and yeah, of course that affects how I watch the show. I don’t even want to talk that much about ahsoka in this because of it. she was not that good in the role, after seeing how it played out I don’t think the character needed to be in this show at all, and she should never have gotten the role in the first place and that’s about it for what I’ve got to say. 

- dave filoni consistently does things with din’s characterization that feels off and weird to me, subtly out of place with what we see in other episodes (he’s... ruder? more short tempered/cocky/actively or aggressively interpersonal? more prone to express himself directly than he is usually? idk how to describe it but filoni!din always feels one step to the left of what he should be and I’m so hyper-attuned to this character that when something’s a bit iffy with him it throws everything else off haha. it feels like a shallower, more convenient read on him and I don’t like it)  

I also think filoni is almost too familiar with and in love with the source material sometimes? “A Mandalorian and a Jedi? They’ll never see it coming” is undeniably a great line that echoes in decades of deep lore and so on, but dave my good man din had no real idea what a jedi even is until literally this morning. we, the audience, know about this long and storied history, but unless ahsoka spent the afternoon explaining it to him din still only knows the faint outlines of it, he has no personal experience of or attachment to it. it’s not bad, as such, it just rings false to the character based tone of the show for me personally 

- positivity break: baby sitting perched on the dashboard to be close to papa while they’re in hyperspace........sd sdfskdjhfdsakjksdhfkasjd  

also this is some full on madonna and child in the manger shit and I am LIVING for it (odds he’s crying quietly behind the helmet here? pretty damn good if you ask me). the mundanity of what’s essentially the shitty spartan bathroom of the razor crest on one side contrasted with the light and tenderness and love on the other? amazing, a perfect microcosm of what this show does with combining the grittier everyday down to earth stuff in the star wars universe with myth and wonder and magic and through it elevating both

 - the idea of having an iconique samurai/sword duel standoff and a western standoff going on simultaneously is genuinely inspired, but in action it didn’t really work for me. (the sword duel stuff needs these moments of stillness with sudden outbursts of violence and then stillness again, the western standoff needs mounting tension until it’s nearly unbearable, and cutting between them the way they did you sort of didn’t get either to its full potential. again it’s a cool idea, though, I hope someone picks it up and does it better at some point)

- seeing a jedi and a mandalorian wander together through a burned out wasteland left desolate by greed and warfare should have hit me harder than it did but for some reason it didn’t, idk. thematically sound, though, I like it a lot on the metaphor level

- I LOVE that pure beskar makes a specific sound, and that it’s an almost ethereal noise like the high clear chime of a distant bell. also now din has something to fight light sabers with that isn’t the dark saber which makes me so happy because you guys I do not want him to be the mand’alor. keep that funky laser sword away from my dad, apart from killing him at the end that is literally the most boring way to end his arc pls do NOt 

- wow they really went in hard on the samurai stuff in this one huh! there is a part of my mchanzo-loving heart that thrives on seeing a space cowboy and a space samurai team up, *wild otp-fuelled whisper* they’re twin genres inextricably entwined okay they belong together if you see this spreadsheet I’ve made over here -- 

- even knowing it was just a trick I felt such intense distress seeing the signet pauldron away from din. like the attachment I have to these pieces of metal because That Armour Means Dad... wild  

- they really chose the dumbest name possible for the baby huh fsajdfhsaj I agree with din his name is ‘kid’ now (eh just give me a while to get used to it probably I’ll come around)

also... you know what I’ve said before about shrinking the big unknowable galaxy ‘the mandalorian’ has been setting up? wow did they do that big time in this one, and it makes me feel decidedly :/. why does the baby have to come from the jedi temple, is there truly no other tradition of force users in the entire galaxy he could be from? WHY do you have to pull thrawn into this when most people watching this show won’t even know why he’s such a big deal? is this a stealth tease for a rebels sequel? if so why spend an entire episode of this show that only gets eight precious episodes a season on it??   

- on a more fun positive note: baby’s clothes are clean again, so it’s confirmed that din does wash them (and I guess that he does have some means of washing clothes aboard the razor crest!). I loved... most of the dad and baby stuff in this one, but then don’t I always I’m easy to please that way haha (the ‘playing catch’ sequence felt a bit off to me but I don’t know why. din being like ‘he’s so stubborn’ wasn’t... eh. didn’t land right. “that would be a first” was fun tho lol) 

- having ahsoka state the baby’s feelings out loud like that felt... weird? and also kind of unnecessary in parts, like yeah he’s a baby who’s been passed along to different groups of strangers and experimented on by empire scientists, you don’t need to spell it out for me that he’s been scared and lonely, or at least spell it out more interestingly? it’s such blunt force storytelling where it didn’t need to be? there are more elegant ways to get the same things across, I am absolutely convinced 

- ...wow while I was watching the episode I was mostly like ‘okay this is Fine I can go along with it’ but seeing what I’m thinking about in hindsight... yeah probably my least favourite episode of this show full stop haha, it took the spot from chapter 5 which was also a filoni ep

- I did 100% genuinely adore the whole part of din approaching the town and meeting the magistrate. consistently hiding the baby behind his cape and his arm? being deliberately, teeth-grindingly dispassionate with everyone, just giving them nothing? getting to see a bit of professional bounty hunter din again? wonderful in every way, I love this man  

- lots of meaningful shots of baby in the middle with a mando on one side and a jedi on the other, it’s almost like they’re setting up some Themes here lol 

- ...do you think din told ahsoka about either the rhino-levitating or the force choking. because girl I don’t think not training him is going to make this just go away haha, he just won’t know what he’s doing  

- it makes me so sad that baby connects his force powers with being abused :( (also a heartbreaking sign of just how much he cared about din from the very beginning, since he used it on the mudhorn to save him anyway ;________; was that like. literally the first time he sensed kindness and affection in anyone in like twenty five years or... ) 

- I understand why ahsoka would feel this way because of her past and specific traumas, but tbh attachment in a baby? probably a good thing, he doesn’t really have the higher brain functions to cultivate non-attachment yet and needs a safe figure because again. he is a baby. 

good on her for realizing it’s not a task she can take on both for the baby’s sake and her own, and also that din is that baby’s Dad though. the way she smiled at the end watching them leave seemed vaguely hopeful/had a little bit of wonder in it, like maybe she felt the potential for something good there, something she couldn’t conceptualize from her background but could sense the tentative outlines of anyway?  

(also so much pressure on a lil bb to decide his path... his dilemmas should be limited to what colour socks he wants to wear today not the course of his entire life :( I know he’s a magic baby but.......) 

- idk maybe I’ll find more affection of this episode through rewatches, you never know

[my-artblog-is-ssjumi]

Thor/Loki, Catra/Adora, Devil/Constantine, the Killing Eve gay enemy to ?? thing

Thor/Loki

I personally don’t go there but I watched both Thor movies and the first Avengers movie was pretty cool, and jumping off of that as what I know about this ship:

A+++

Thor’s loyal love and desperation to make his brother see he can literally just Stop Ruining Everything For Everyone and how that would maybe stop ppl from being rly fed up with him

and Loki’s refusal to accept that bc it doesn’t align with his feelsies of being Other and also he wants power but not in the Good Guy way and oh, if his brother would REALLY see him for what he is he would stop following him around to tell him he still loves him, or worse, it would change him and Thor is too good for that, also power, power sound good, mmmhmmmmmm, if only i’m powerful enough i won’t have to think about any of that anymore for sure :) :) :) :) :) :)

also rly into the potential of the angsty outcome of Loki having faked his own death and impersonating Odin now. Imagine how interesting it would be to explore the emotional fallout of Thor not only finding out his dad is potentially/probably dead but that Loki has been alive after all and had no problem lying to him under the disguise of their father! there is so much to unpack, not just in the grief department but also in how all nice things “Odin” said to Thor were lies and surely none of them had a bit of sincerity in them in a “Loki actually sometimes enjoys being able to spend time with his brother again without having him see him for all the ways in which he fucked up” way

so much potential

only a fool who didn’t like those characters would not make use of it when getting the chance to make a 3rd Thor movie

can’t imagine how anyone would miss out on that potential or why anyone who doesn’t even like the source material would be given a say in these things in the first place though....

so yeah. shame there never was a 3rd Thor movie

*

Catradora

Ok so disclaimer: I only watched the first season of SheRa.

It’s a cool show and as a kid or maybe young teen I might’ve REALLY gotten into it - as a kid mostly bc I would’ve made up my own probably at least partly Self-Insert princess and as a teen because of Catra’s and Adora’s relationship.

(side note: ok now i’m lowkey ecstatic about the possibility that I would’ve probably also made up a 2nd OC to pair my Self-Insert with and that it would’ve likely been a girl bc that’s just the vibe of the show and wow, what a power move for an 11yo (that i would’ve been completely oblivious to, bc i was always the “everyone is a little bi and everyone knows that, ppl just say otherwise for reasons i don’t care about” bi kid))

I always loved resentment as an emotional theme in the fictional relationships I like to explore, and this pairing has it plenty!

“If you cared about me enough you’d stay!” “If you cared about me enough you’d leave, too, and join me!”

Love it. 11/10. Great basis to write a shit ton of angsty songfic to (and then be surprised you’re not the only one in the fandom who chose LP’s Numb for that).

No one ever show me what ppl do with this pairing or say about it, I don’t trust fandom these days with things I like.

*

Devil/Constantine

.................. （￣∀,￣）

Only one of the main reasons I (re)watch this movie.

I mean, it’s a fun movie in general, I always enjoy it from start to finish, but When That Black Tar Stuff Drips On The Floor, I always get excited goosebumps and feel like that’s what I was actually waiting for the whole time.

Peak. Fucking. Aesthetic. Love that energy. *chef’s kiss*

*

Villanelle/Eve

Ok, so I watched the first season of the show and read the books. What I’ve seen of the show is better imo btw, in the books the author dude was just a little too into his own excitement over having come up with The Coolest Edgy OC In The History Of Ever which, i mean, bless his soul, especially given what he used this OC for but. I didn’t rly vibe with it, u know.

The aesthetic of it is great.

Sandra Oh/Eve is hot and such a fucking mess and Villanelle is an OC teen!me wishes she had come up with first lol

Love the potential of that obsession and like. Overall potential of everything.

Something was missing tho. Idk if the second season delivered it, I think I read something about it not quite living up to s1 in between the lines of posts about it, but could just be ppl not getting things I don’t want anyway. I’m just too lazy to hunt down s2 tbh.

But yeah.

Very neat aesthetic.

If it was two dudes and the queer was more baity and less Probably/I Think/I HOPE?/i legit can’t remember canon it would probably have a massive fandom. Or would’ve had in 2013. Idk.

[chromsai]

i didnt want to answer this using the actual ask because since the full, untagged name is there, i just know that tumblr will find a way to get it into its main tag and just out of courtesy to its fans, i don’t wanna be that person.

that said, and out of courtesy to any of my followers that like it, i’ll put my actual opinion under the cut as extra precaution because, again, i dont wanna be that rude ass person.

(long rant ahead tbh)

it’s my least favorite ygo. i mean, setting vr aside for now just to be fair since it’s still not done yet, it is without a doubt my least favorite ygo because its writing is just that piss poor. 

tl;dr: it’s a fucking mess of a show, it doesn’t appeal to me, i find it to be (ironically) superficial (in terms of themes and messages), i dont like the decks, character arcs? god they’re wasted, the writing is just a bunch of asspullery nonsense, and “foreshadowing” is actually just spoon fed self-fulfilling prophecies. it’s my least favorite show and it almost made me quit yugioh altogether. but i still don’t discourage anyone from watching it. because maybe it didnt appeal to me or click with me, but maybe it would for someone else, and i’m not afraid to admit that. because people have different tastes.

its characters overall get little to no development, what little development most of them get (like shark and ........i wanna say kaito, but i dont wanna include kaito in here because i think his development was the only one that was actually decent, but idk who else to put here since... most characters didnt actually get development? as/t/ral, i guess?) is completely ruined sooner or later when the plot decides to inevitably asspull. i will admit i did like where shark’s development was going but the fucking moment he was revealed to be na//sh is when his development went completely down the fucking shitter. oh so JUST cuz some “destiny” says you’re “destined” to fight against yu//ma you just... go with what it’s telling you? you don’t even like your own destiny or some of the people you’re working with but... like... just cuz you remembered some memories of your past life you gotta finish the mission? even tho... 1) you didn’t actually want to, 2) you can just talk this all out (seriously this plot CAN be resolved with just talking things out, the card games are notably forced up this plot’s ass), 3) wtf happened to yu//ma being your friend??? you don’t wanna fight him but you will because you must, it’s your destiny?!? what kind of fucking non-explanation is that. fygdshbjkl honestly there are so many more questions that can be asked about just na/csh’s logic for fighting ALONE and i am still left dumbfounded. the amount of utter STUPID going on in this writing is incredible, honestly that i’m left without words.

ze//al’s plot & writing is NECK DEEP in allll that kind of stupid nonsensical logic, literally i could probably go on all night asking so many questions about where the fucking common sense went while writing this show. like i have so many fucking issues with ze//al II’s writing i just don’t understand how people think of it as legitimately good? it was all drama for drama’s sake with no real consequences since everything was reversed back to normal anyway??? fuck, i have less issues with ze//al’s first season and i actually liked it better. but anyway, moving on....

the aesthetic... is ... well before vr, i would say it was horrid, but at the very least ze//al gives us colors... it’s very colorful and the animation is pretty nice, ngl... but do i care? not really. not when i didnt really like almost any of the character designs... IV, Kaito, Mi//sael, and A//lito, Du//be, Rei/Vec//tor’s designs imo are nice... the rest... “what about the other arc//ights or [insert character here]”. no, if i didnt mention them by name just now, i didnt like their design. Yu//ma’s design... it’s... it’s very generic shounen protag. he is definitely, imo, the worst design of all the ygo protags, but i don’t think he’s HORRIBLE to look at. at least not most of the time, anyway. and actually you know what, i’ve never been into alien stuff but As//ral’s pretty, i’ll give him that. i guess perhaps that’s why i didnt like the aesthetic... too... alieny for me (gross, imo....... i just... absolutely hated the Ba//ians).

the little foreshadowing it gives us from the beginning through the end is spoonfed to us, and you literally gotta be foolish to not understand what it means straightaway. not only that, some of it uses retcon as a mechanism to seem like it’s foreshadowing (that fucking door from the first episode telling Yu//ma that he’ll lose his most important thing... and then at the end it turns out it was As//ral?? did Yu//ma not have anything important to him at the time he dreamt of the door??? or like... wtf is this door a prophet or smth or is it trying to make a contract, which is it??? make up your damn mind!!)... so yeah... it doesn’t actually give us any real “foreshadowing” as much as it uses self-fulfilling prophecies...

leading us to my next ironic point: this show is superficial af. as i just said, everything is literally spoon fed to you. literally all of its themes are plainly spelled out to you and laid out on the surface, you don’t really need to actually think to to get its message, and there is certainly no point in digging deep to find richer subtext... because there is none. there literally is none. and you know what? i know this is a very subjective preference; i personally love to delve deep into the symbolic and get analytical with the stories i enjoy because my brain is just naturally curious like that... but... even with a naturally curious brain... i just... no matter how much i try... this show is all bones and no meat. there is an established foundation of a message and it’s nice but it’s... way too straightforward and, as i said, spoon fed for my liking.

if you like that kind of story-telling, that’s completely fine, i get that. we’re not all here to watch YUGIOH, of all franchise, trying to give us some deep, meaningful message. hell, that’s not even the reason why i’ve enjoyed yugioh ever. i’m here for the same appeal that everyone else is here for: teens saving the world with stupid ass card games. but i just strongly prefer when a story, ANY story, shows enormous amounts of attention to detail and hints at deeper meanings in its context that i can use my brain to work around with and delve into. ze//al doesn’t give me even a hint of this. past ygos have, but ze//al doesnt even try. it’s meant for a younger audience tho, even for ygo’s usual demographic, so i get it. but... it’s because of this that i find it so lackluster.

speaking of the card games.... this show literally... has my least favorite decks. i’m not so into the OCG/TCG that i’m an expert about it so i dont wanna delve into something idfk much about, but just... that’s my taste... this show’s decks are terrible for the most part. the card effects are all too particular and disturbingly OP (one OP card after another... it always happens and it always makes the duels a drag to watch, even if they’re just one or two episodes long at the most)... plus... aesthetically... i guess they’re not all terrible, but still none of them wowed me either...

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again... this show nearly made me give up on yugioh. my logic was “if they’re just gonna keep making ze//al after ze//al, i’m just gonna stop.” thankfully... well i think you know what happened next...

even after all that’s said and done and i’ve pretty much ranted and ripped this show a new one, I STILL DON’T WANNA DISCOURAGE ANYONE FROM WATCHING IT IF THEY REALLY WANNA TRY IT. because i know that maybe this show just wasn’t for me and it didnt click with me, but it might for someone else. i’m not here to tell you that it’s a piece of shit abomination that should never have happened and it should be whipped out of existence and you should go watch something else instead (HUR DUR GO WATCH VANGUARD INSTEAD) . i’m not here telling you what you should and shouldn’t like. if you like this show, that’s awesome. tbqh with you, i still enjoyed some of it and i’m not afraid to admit that. but overall? it was super lackluster and unimpressive, IMO. at best, i’d say it’s forgettable so for the most time i’m just like... “oh ze//al? yeah it happened i guess” and move on without a second thought and let its fans enjoy it as if its the best thing in the world even tho i personally do not see it that way at all. 

but again, i’d say watch it and make up your own opinion over it. i think that’s honestly the best course of action for any media that might even slightly interest you. don’t let people spoon feed their opinions to you. this was all MY experience of the show. go have your own.

p.s. (more of my opinion) i LOVE music and soundtracks of things. they’re always also a big factor of my enjoyment of the media i consume. the soundtrack for this show is decent at best. no track really stood out to me (like maybe one did) but for the most part... the soundtrack is just... i wouldn’t say it’s bad, it’s just... again not memorable... not my style... and my biggest gripe is that a lot of the tracks have this pseudo-grandiose feeling to it that just ultimately fall flat and don’t convey actual emotion. it mostly just seems like it’s music for music’s sake. personally, i think good soundtracks should be able to tell a story or convey an overwhelming feeling without the context of its source material being present. i... i just never got that with ze//al’s soundtrack. maybe once, as i said, but... even then i dont remember it.

on a more positive note tho... i have to admit all of the ED themes are really good (Challenge the Game was literally too good for this show, who the fuck allowed this). i’d listen to them way more often if i didnt associate them with ze//al tbh. not a huge fan of any of the OPs tho. no, not even the second OP. like it’s nice for the first few times but then, to me personally, it starts getting really grating and wangsty.

[spotlightsaga]

Kevin Cage of @spotlightsaga reviews... I Love Dick (S01E05) A Short History of Weird Girls Airdate: May 17, 2017 @amazonvideo Ratings: Privatized Ratings @amazon Score: 9.75/10 TVTime/FB/Twitter/Tumblr/Path/Pin: @SpotlightSaga **********SPOILERS BELOW********** The more I watch television... The more I write, review, observe, soak in, and immerse myself into what I'm watching the more I drop certain series, and cling to ones that stir up a thunderous rumble of emotions inside of me. Like Dick's art, sometimes those emotions don't have a name. Maybe they're new, maybe their not, but I feel those emotions with such a surging intensity that I know what I'm watching is beyond just a tv series and literally a piece of moving art, cinematic wonders that maybe aren't for everyone, but sure as hell should be. Amazon Studios' 'I Love Dick' is a special series, one of those rare entries that match and sometimes even surpasses its original source material. This series is literally the equivalent of females embracing their very fiber, their sexual being, and shouting out loud on the top of a mountain, echoing through a massive valley, stirring up birds and wildlife... As if to say, 'I'm here and this is who I am. I will not be shamed.' Although I'm a male, and my sexuality is of a different multi-colored variety, I connect with these women and somehow understand them on an enormously supreme level. 'A Short History of Weird Girls' is 'I Love Dick's masterpiece. As you may have noticed, and as I mentioned earlier, Ive changed the way I watch television. I've been holding onto this series, as I have with others... I actually have watched, documented, and written nearly a hundred unreleased articles. I review them, tweak them, add to them, sculpt them... Because much like this show, my writing has evolved, the way I watch tv has evolved, and the way I release these pieces I've written on these shows have evolved. This episode is somewhat in the vein of last years 'B.A.N' from Donald Glover's FX masterpiece 'Atlanta', in the sense that the core narrative takes a back seat and we are given a whole new point of view from the female characters within the series. Not everyone will see this for what this is, and some may even ridicule my interpretation & impressions, but 'A Short History of Weird Girls' is high art and should be viewed, handled, and studied as such. The more I watch 'I Love Dick' the more I see it's many different layers... It's hyper-feminine POV is Jill Soloway & Chris Kraus' alternative to HBO's hyper-masculine lens we see the show 'Ballers' through. Both shows are under appreciated, and besides that fact, the only thing that they have in common is their extreme opposite handling of how we see their worlds. Maybe 'I Love Dick' is actually less of a feminist masterpiece and more of a honest, existential, tribute to an open, bold, unchained and aggressive look at female sexuality... Sexuality in general, and where embracing it can take us. It makes me long for a truly honest look at the male take on sexuality, but 'Ballers' and it's earnest admissions that masculinity can so easily drive towards toxic levels with a snap of a finger, I know my wish is probably losing its way in the wind... At least for now. What if everyone wrote Dick letters? Chris Kraus (Kathryn Hahn) poses an interesting question at the very beginning of the episode and then suddenly that reality comes to life in one of the most vibrant, sexually charged and sensual episodes of television not only in 2017, but ever. Yes, people are throwing around the word 'Revolutionary' when it comes to 'I Love Dick' because that's exactly what it is. People as a whole never quite grasp 'revolutionary' at first do they? Chris starts off her letter at the beginning, as all characters do, and we join them on their individual journeys of sexual awakening & personal drive. She talks about her time in high school, her willingness to literally give herself to anyone, male or female, but never having any takers. Finally during her College Years, she's taken, fucked. That first encounter intoxicates her... What is it that made this man want her so badly? What was it that he found beautiful? Her mind wonders to all the things he doesn't mention, after all, we are insecure beings... Even the most confident person in the room has something in the back of their mind that they compensate for. We are imperfect... But for me, that's exactly what I find so perfect about the human form.... Imperfections, Sadness, a little bit of crazy, 'cuz, aren't we all? Chris, Devon (Roberta Colindrez), Paula (Lily Mojekwu), and Toby (India Menuez) all share their letters to Dick, chronicling his particular effects on their lives... Sexually and otherwise. They recall past lovers, current ones that they feel strong disconnect with, and that disconnect is chronicled with images of both positive and negative experiences. As the experiences head into more heartbreaking territory, or difficult memories to interpret, their sexual escapades are shown and the women are erased leaving a fading, cartoonish like presence of each woman as they are entangled with their lovers or the confusion with their burgeoning sexuality... Much like the short film 'Removed' that this very episode opens with where Tribeca Film Festival 'Jury Award' Nominee & experimental filmmaker, Naomi Uman, creates a series of clips of vintage porn and erases the women's images using fingernail polish remover. Each women's entry is captivating for separate reasons and encapsulates the Bright Eye's brainchild and this generations' Bob Dylan, Connor Oberst, idea that 'every heads a different world'. Sexuality is unique to every one person, male and female, and it's so goddamn refreshing to see, hear, and feel the lusty, powerful force of honesty in approach when it comes to sexual identity. Chris strikes up the dialogue as straight forward as it gets, "Dear Dick, I've been horny since I was six. I used to press my crotch into the belly of my stuffed rhino in the family room of our duplex in Cleveland, Ohio. I loved to hump him in front of our sitter Karen Harris. I used to say that Rhino was hungry and that I needed to feed him... And then Karen went away to college and I didn't feel like doing it anymore." As humans, we ARE sexual beings... Aren't you tired of feeling ashamed of certain impulses that occur naturally within your body? Even before I was six I had these feelings. My situation may have been unique and incredibly polarizing to the majority, and most likely this isn't the show, or should I say segment, to discuss every detail as to how I got to that point so early. It wouldn't exactly be considered a natural occurrence... But even my situation is more common than most people would like to admit, or flat out refuse to admit. All I know is that children should not be punished for acting on these impulses in an innocent manner. We should be asking more questions as to how they got there, but unfortunately people don't want to hear that answer. We are not disgusting or wrong for thinking about sex. Creating a taboo around certain subjects just catapults those very subjects into a high number of internet searches and 'behind-closed-doors' fetishes. Relationships are not as easy as everyone wants them to be. Monogamy might not exactly be obtainable the way most will it to be. Our desires for inclusiveness may just stem from a melodramatic inherited human trait of selfishness, an unwillingness to let those grow around us, because we want to own something. Whether its a relationship or a person within that relationship, the idea that it's "yours" is actually absurd. We can devote ourselves to someone, but in the end we are human. There are certain voids that exist in this life that we need to fill, as animals, as human beings. That's not to say someone can't sustain a healthy relationship with another for 50+ years, its just to say that we all have our own paths. Even if as people our paths are destined to intertwine... Like Devon and Chris... We still must continue to grow and move forward at our own rates, careful to not become codependent. Devon talks about Dick's strong masculine energy as something she embraces and emulates (unlike Chris who wants to take it in any which way she can), turning bits and pieces of it into her own. She uses that 'Dick Swag' to woo other women for sport, but when she falls in love away at college and her heart is broken she drops out of school and tosses her dreams out behind her on her way back to Texas. But it's there where Devon meets Chris and suddenly becomes inspired, tho briefly distracted by the free spirited, India. It's India who sees Dick as or through yet another color of light, Chris' is glowing red, Devon's an iridescent indigo, India's color is much more difficult... A damaged, slightly cracked, creamy shade of yellow... She had an intellectually and creatively stimulating home in New Mexico but her father, John Willis (played by People of Earth's Luka Jones) is a writer of children's books, so therefore felt like he could touch her. India doesn't seem too affected by this as she rattles it off like a cold, but natural fact of life. And here is where I once again am inspired to tell you, the reader, who may or may not know what that feels like... Suddenly the place where I talk about 'my situation' and deem Chris' experience close to mine, but an insufficient place to explore even a second of my experience becomes much more real... And much more appropriate. You see, like India, some of us are taught how to act on sexual behaviors at a young age. We all don't just experiment naturally like Paula, who talks about how seeing her mother's tampon string suddenly pushes her away from her youthful obsession of her mother or how masturbating at a young age became uninteresting once she learned there was a name for it... Hence Paula's infatuation for Dick's massive protruding, structural masculine art that has no name, no specific identity, no title... Some of us have a bit of a push, or an inappropriate 'class', if you will. India seems to be a 'victim' of non-violent sexual abuse as a young child. This is where things get very fucking confusing, because you see... As I mentioned before, India quickly rattles off this fact and sweeps on to the next. Why is that? In my own personal experience, it's extremely difficult to decipher just what sexual abuse is, especially when one isn't physically hurt or 'traditionally forced' into anything. I've written on the subject before and was met with polarizing responses. One young woman asked if she could take me home recently and drove me through the busy intersecting freeways, highways, backroad byways, and long winding ramps & roundabouts from the west end of Miami all the way to the tip of coastal Miami Beach, all the while with tears in her eyes relating to my written experiences, giving me a vivid account of her own. No one wants to see themselves as a victim, not REAL victims anyway. This idea of 'victim culture' is scoffed at by those who have been through it. Some of us may be victims, but we refuse to let that define us, or use it to try and gain sympathy or attention, applying it to causes or whatever it may be, because then suddenly we are admitting defeat or are forever trapped in those moments. The same moments we rarely tell anyone, or ever express. So when my words were recently met with disdain and accusations that I was trying to define sexual abuse in any way, I simply had to laugh. Once again, 'Every head is a different world'. The spectrum is huge, but I personally will not allow myself to be a victim, just like India it's a passing fact, it happened, it's part of my story... But you can't have it, it can't be more than what I'm giving it now... And my experience is simply one example, as is any other. Although slightly damaged, and beautiful in that fact, India captivates all in her presence... Unfortunately she leaves them a bit broken, just as she is. Trudging on, she turns porn into art at Columbia University, even centering her final undergrad thesis around the shapes of a woman's face as she sucks two cocks. For her PHD, she presented a written & visual presentation of what's known as 'gaping' in pornography. If you don't know what that is and you haven't watched the show, I'll let you explore that one at your own discretion. Her professors are a bit horrified and one even suggests she moves towards Gender Studies, much like India I would have laughed that off. I've always found such subjects to be pretentious and divisive, but hey, that's me. As a male, and according to one troll on the #BoilerRoom's comment section who took offense (and hammered down my context) to comments I made during an Oakland, CA show where one of the worst DJ Sets I've ever seen took place on a grand platform (that most people would kill to have) by some wealthy, frankly bored looking hopeful (whose passion and talents self-admittedly lie elsewhere), "I'm a 'washed up raver cis-male' who can't accept females in positions of power" (boy, he got that one comically incorrect, welcome to the 2017, age of the Internet). My comments were light and I was even trying to be supportive, saying that maybe that DJ could get better in time, my point was that she had gained that opportunity through either knowing someone or good looks. Men have created that opportunity for women to use, and I'm not saying that it isn't a legitimate way in... But my comments were taken out of context. You should be able to perform however you want, looking however you wan... But without passion, you are simply taking up an opportunity for the next person in line. A bit of research indicated she has had the opposite road of some of my strong, female musician acquaintances and friends of whom I list as fierce inspirations of my own work (however I do not and would never take away the common denominator of the grand, all-relatable human struggle). I have called upon & channeled the inspirations of women like long time Indianapolis & Midwest treasure, Techno Powerhouse, DJ Shiva, or now worldwide success and frankly G.O.A.T. House Music Legend, The Black Madonna. These women worked so hard & sacrificed so much & never rested on their laurels. I am inspired by strong females, but I don't necessarily see them as just females, I see them as human beings, who like me, have had to work a little harder to get where they're at. No one has handed me anything, and many times when I had something, I blew it. We are all working against something, someone, ourselves, time... My inspirations in life are a direct product of my environment, just like the different presentations of myself over the years. And no one will take away my freedom of speech, right to an opinion (whether it's agreed with or not), or use a term like 'cis-male' to insinuate that I don't understand what it's like to be discriminated against, to be confused about who and what I am, the complexities of human sexuality, and so on and so forth. I often tell people about my first experience in Chicago at the age of 12. I went to the Art Institute of Chicago with a large group of my fellow schoolmates, but i broke free from the pack and wondered into rooms unaccompanied. I found myself suddenly surrounded by 'Impressionist & Post-Impressionist' Paintings, peppered with Medieval & Renaissance Art. My eyes centered on this massive painting that literally popped out of the wall, surrounded by a low lying rope, to keep people away from its magnificence, but their view unobstructed... It was Georges Seurat's 1884 pointillist painting 'A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte. I felt small and insignificant, like one of the pinpoint dots that made up what seemed like a million little dots that made up the painting. I've always had trouble describing that memorable moment, but Paula knocked it out in one line while describing how Dick's art made her feel, "It evoked in me a feeling of boundlessness... It was fucking terrifying." Yes, that's exactly it. 'Dear Great Man, Genius, Loner, Cowboy', India lists off Dick's accomplishments in the most condescending tone she can possibly channel. India had previously known of Dick through the Art History books her parents had lying around the house. Dick's was her favorite, not in the normal sense. She is young. She has known pain. She has worked hard to get where she is at. India is beautiful, but she doesn't use that to her advantage to succeed. She takes the hardest route possible, because she simply doesn't want what everyone else wants and she knows that anything worth having in this life doesn't come free... And that's something I can connect to. 'Dear Dick, We are not far from your doorstep.' Yasss, Queen! Jill Soloway just directed a fn' knockout... And the all female writing staff, this one headed by Annie Baker and Heidi Schreck deserve a Spotlight Saga nomination for Achievement in Writing... And Soloway for Directing. India's final words to Dick sent a surge of electricity through my body. This is exactly how I look at the AV Club. Knock Knock.