#honestly the entire theme of my media for the second half of this year is “fucked up lil dudes (gender neutral) in corpo hell”

[kaxenart]

I don't know what it says about my current mindset that my top two games I played this year could both be described as "Questionably Legal Wage Slaves... IN SPACE! (also nameless and of indeterminate gender?)"

Though nothing sums up the difference in tone and focus that I get anxiety every time someone is sad in Citizen Sleeper and in Armored Core VI, I get all my serotonin from making sure everyone has having a bad day by my evil little crime hands.

[izurusstuff]

“I will fall in love with you over and over again…” (fem!user x Blip Bucky Barnes)

message from izurusstuff: so i started a marvel movie marathon with my bf and retapped to my addiction to my beloved james buchanan barnes… what better place to write about him than tumblr? i guess this means the MCU is on my whitelist now too, no complaints tho cuz i love u, tumblr marvel fandom!! also random but i realized there may be a recurring theme with my favorite characters from media… (bucky, izuru, shadow…)

summary: Y/N was a part of the half of the world that didn’t get written out of existence when Thanos snapped. However, being snapped away would’ve been a better alternative than watching the love of her life disintegrate in front of her… but with the help of an ex-conman, the Avengers found a way to bring everyone back… now, Y/N and Bucky get to pick up where they left off.

Y/N was the American Ambassador to Wakanda, appointed by King T’Challa after his decision to make Wakanda known to the rest of the world. By extension, it also meant that Y/N worked in close proximity to Bucky Barnes, being that he was an American refuge in Wakanda that T’Challa personally chose to save after he was framed for killing King T’Chaka.

Of course, Y/N became extremely close to the royal family of Wakanda— Ramonda saw her as a daughter, just like Shuri, T’Challa, and Nakia all viewed her as a sister. All of them plus Bucky lived their own fairy tale lives in Wakanda.

When Bucky (finally) asked Y/N out, Shuri and Nakia were the first to know. And boy were they happy. Both them were secretly shipping Y/N and Bucky ever since they met him and saw how he looked at her. And when he told them he was planning on proposing to her a couple years later, Shuri instantly offered to create Y/N’s engagement ring out of vibranium and Alexandrite.

But Y/N never knew those were the plans.

Y/N was instructed by T’Challa to hide in Shuri’s lab during the battle against Thanos in Wakanda. Before she went in, Y/N gave Bucky a quick peck on the lips, not knowing that would be the last time she touched him. He’s survived much worse, why would she have to say goodbye? She thought that at any given moment, Bucky and T’Challa would come back through the door to announce they won. That never happened.

Y/N stood next to Wanda in the lab while she watched Vision’s mind stone get extracted, holding her hand in anticipation. Honestly, if it weren’t for the fact Wanda was so distracted by Vision’s procedure, she’d probably yell at Y/N for her freakish gorilla strength grip on her hand. But it was different this time. They needed each other, both knowing their loves’ lives were on the line. When Wanda left to join everyone else fighting, Y/N stayed by Vision’s side. If she had supercool powers that could help, she would’ve joined Wanda and helped the rest of the team… but she couldn’t, she was just a diplomat. And she never felt so powerless in her entire life until she saw those creatures throw Shuri out of the way to kidnap Vision. Why they didn’t kill her in the process, she had no idea. Maybe it was to emotionally torture her by forcing her to watch everything with no way to help.

Knowing that the lab was compromised, Y/N ran as fast as she could to go find Bucky. Was he… holding a racoon with a gun? That could talk?! Y’know, she’s seen weirder. She saw that Bucky was safe and stayed back, trying to seek cover in one of the several huts. Then the fighting dissipated… was it safe to leave? She slowly walked outside and saw a lightning bolt… was that the Thor guy she’s heard so much of? Just what exactly went on outside Wakanda that she didn’t know about? Because everyone seemed like this was normal. Whatever, she had to find Bucky— she could ask him questions later. In retrospect, Y/N wish she stayed put for just a few more seconds… because then came the worst sight of her life.

Y/N’s legs took her as fast as they could through a Wakandan jungle until she finally reached Bucky and Steve. Then in what seemed like slow motion, Bucky turned around, running towards Y/N, calling out her name.

“Y/N-!”

It happened. Before Bucky could finish saying her name, he began to turn into dust right in front of her. The scream she let out still rung in her ears five years later. She fell to the ground, trying to collect all the dust of Bucky that she could. The next few moments were a blur, but she remembered seeing a watery Steve through the tears in her eyes and him pulling her away from the dust pile.

———

That was five years ago… but it felt so much longer; Y/N’s constant nightmares from reliving Bucky’s death made every day agonizing. The only time she could see Bucky again was in her dreams… she just wanted to sleep all the time so she could tell him one last time how much she loved him. This time when she woke up, Y/N received a text from Steve saying that they found a way to reverse the Snap and to make it to the Avengers Compound.

After a few hours, Y/N finally arrived and saw the devastation going on. The familiar phrase “Avengers! Assemble!” rang through her ears, then she turned around to see the portals behind her. Was that T’Challa?! She ran over to hug him with tears pouring from her eyes. God, she missed him and Shuri. Even though Bucky’s disappearance is what traumatized her, Y/N was equally as sad to say goodbye to her friends in Wakanda as she was Bucky.

“We missed you just as much as you missed us, Y/N.” T’Challa said, the rest of those who disintegrated in Wakanda appearing behind him. Did that mean—?

HOLY SHIT. IT DID.

Bucky also came out of the portal, not saying anything to her. Instead, he held out his arms for Y/N to run into.

It was now time to start rewriting the chapters of her life that Bucky missed out on.

i am so sorry if this is rushed 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 it’s so hard to write this in one single post but i feel tempted to make it a chapter book on wattpad

[backpackevil]

ok im here to confess that i always thought that ur username was blackpackevil and just yesterday i realized that it was BACKpackevil. .. wtf dude why is your backpack evil/j

The sound I just made was SO cursed I'M LAUGHING SO HARD

I'm actually wiping away tears this is so fucking funny

"wtf dude why is your backpack evil" GOT TO ME SO HARD IDK WHY AKXKJDJXJF

If you want an actual answer to the username question tho it's under read more lmao:

Ahem...this will take a while

I've only really had like 3 usernames in all my time on the internet: the first actual username I used (that I remember using anyway) has my dead name plus a silly adjective I liked back when I was in early middle school; second properly used username I had was literally just my preferred full name that still remains on some social media I haven't used in years and then there's my beloved backpack of the evil variety that I made up over 4 years ago.

It was originally evil.in.your.backpack but then I went to change my username on my socials and that simply wouldn't fit in some sooooo I improvised, narrowed it down to BackpackEvil and ended up liking it more than the og so I just stuck it on every social I use on the same day and yippee that hasn't changed

I can only say that I didn't even have a proper reason for the evils in backpacks kind of username, I just kinda accidentally thought of it while trying to decide on a new username and it stuck

"backpack" is also what I called my sona for the past 4 years (that thing was on most of my profiles the entire 4 years until literally less than a month ago when I picked up my current one of Kaito). I actually designed backpack right before sitting down to think of a name for it (so I guess the username was kinda inspired by this sona)

The sona was always very edgy and shit so idk, the "evil" part kinda stuck. Honestly bLackpackevil also goes into the edgy ass theme so yeah, you definitely got the vibe :D

Also here's some instances of backpack (their design has changed over 4 entire ass years, don't worry about it)

I don't really use them anymore tho, I just draw a chibi version of my irl self because I've grown to like it more than drawing an entire complicated design (sorry backpack)

Y'know, these little guys

(yes I have split dyed black and lightened dark blond hair and I love black and white half and half motifs in my clothing AND I'M NOT BEATING THE DANGANRONPA ALLEGATIONS I KNOW, THIS HAS BEEN MY HAIR AND STYLE SINCE BEFORE THE DR BRAINROT YOU GOTTA BELIEVE ME)

The only thing I can add I guess is that the want to include backpacks in my username kinda came from the fact that (IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY) this was around the time I first tried stitching pins for my school backpack and so my backpack looked sick as fuck because it was customized with nerdy pins from games and anime I liked and well, what can you do I am a nerd after all (some of those pins are still holding up and are on my current main bag lol)

What's funny about that tho is that I can't wear backpacks anymore :D I haven't been using backpacks for like 2 years

That's not a joke, there's some weird issue with the skin on my back and wearing messenger bag/shoulder bag style bags is basically my only choice of not giving my back any more permanent scars

But yeah, backpackevil is kinda catchy and I still like it so I haven't changed it in 4 entire years now and am not planning to any time soon :P

[theidiotwhowritesthings]

CONGRATS ON 2130! What better way to celebrate you than asking for you to write a drabble of whatever YOU want! Something you have maybe thought about but it's not your norm? Love it. A character you love and just want more of? Love it. Little side quest in a current running fic? Love it. Just super happy for you and love everything you put out there for us to enjoy! 💕✨🎉

[a/n: omg thank you! I got so excited to see this 'free reign' request and then spent the next like 12 hours agonizing over what to write lol. I went with this absolutely not 500 word one-shot. Oops. It seemed fitting to me though b/c the first fanfic I ever wrote was one of those kind where the reader like 'magically' ends up in the media with knowledge that they're in their fav tv show/movie/game. So, writing a one-shot in that theme kind of felt perfect since we're also celebrating the number 213!]

Joel Miller x F!Reader; Dean Winchester x F!Reader

Warnings: canon violence, descriptions of creepy ass clickers, language, gun use, mentions of injury and blood

Word Count: 1.7k (again oops)

Summary: You just wanted to take a break from the job while hanging out with your favorite hunter, but you instead wind up in the last place you thought possible. Honestly, it was your own fault for thinking you could have a normal day.

As you watched Joel Miller get mauled by a cordyceps clicker on the television screen you let out a laugh. In response, Dean barked out a curse. The eldest Winchester brother had been playing this game for the last day and a half. Though the phrase attempting to play might be more accurate. You snickered again. “Dean, I’ve seen you mow down an entire coven of vampires alone with only a hunting knife, but you can’t shoot a few infected?”

“This is different.” Dean replied firmly. He pointed at the screen accusingly. “Put one of those fuckers in front of me right now and I’ll take it down.” He picked up his beer bottle to take a swig. Then he motioned to you with the bottle. “With my eyes closed.”

“Yeah, okay, tough guy.”

“I’m serious!”

You laughed again and pulled your legs up under you. The Winchester brothers and you were stuck in the Men of Letters bunker for the last week. Sam was in the library, trying to find any kind of hunt to go on, and for the sake of Dean’s sanity you hoped he found one soon. You sunk into your seat with a grin. “Come on. Try again. I love watching you lose.”

“Maybe you should give it a try then, sweetheart.” Dean replied and offered you the controller. 

You briefly bit your lower lip at the pet name. It was no secret that you were head over the heels for Dean⏤ well, to everyone but Dean. He seemed pretty oblivious to the fact that you’ve been carrying a torch for him since the moment you met him three years ago on a hunt. 

“I would, but I’d hate to embarrass you like that, Dean.”

The man rolled his eyes before restarting the level from the top. You watched Dean play, smiling to yourself at his overly exaggerated expressions every time something went wrong or went right. Gradually, your eyes began to droop shut, heavy with exhaustion, and you fell asleep listening to Dean’s voice⏤ the sound familiar and comforting. 

The sound of clicking hadn’t necessarily woken you up, it was probably the freezing air that did that, but it was the first noise that registered in your sleep-addled brain. With a quiet moan, you forced your eyes open and the sight of a busted ceiling greeted you. The wood was aged and a gaping hole allowed you to see the blue sky as morning light and flakes of snow streamed through it. It took one second for your brain to comprehend that you were not in the bunker with the Winchesters and one additional second for the hunter in you to grasp the wheel. 

You sat up with a gasp. The space surrounding you resembled an abandoned storage room at the back of a larger structure. Broken and empty shelves lined the walls and you were lying on top of a disgusting, aged mattress. With steady motions, you rose to stand. A chill shot down your spine and you shivered. The pajamas you wore were not conducive to this new weather⏤ weather that also did not make sense. It was summer time in Kansas right now. Why the fuck was it snowing? 

There was no sign of Dean or Sam that you could see. You swallowed the lump that had formed in your throat as your stomach stirred with a foreboding sense of doom. Something was very, very wrong. Knowing that standing here confused wasn’t going to help anything, you searched the room for something of use. There were no articles of clothing you could scrounge up which meant you were stuck with pajamas and bare feet. The cold was beginning to grow painful as your extremities ached.

Only one door led out of the room, but experience told you that walking out without some kind of weapon was a mistake. Again, your options were sparse. You hadn’t expected to get lucky and find a handgun on the shelf, but a knife would be nice and not asking the universe for much in your opinion. However, you had never been the lucky kind. With a grumble, you found a few broken pipes and picked out one with the sharpest end. The metal was biting cold in your hand, but it brought some semblance of control and comfort to your anxiety riddled mind.

Seriously, what the fuck was going on?

You carefully cracked the door open to peek out into a dimly lit room. It looked like some kind of convenience store, but just like the room you had woken in it was in shambles. Bits of the ceiling and wall were broken to allow in light. You pulled the door open wider and a vaguely familiar clicking noise drifted to you once more. Where was that coming from? It had been there when you woke, though quieter, and why did you kind of recognize it?

A soft hiss made you glance to your right and your eyes widened when you spotted a young girl hiding behind half the counter. She had to be no older than thirteen or fourteen and her messy light brown hair was pulled back and half hidden under a winter cap. She glared at you in alarm, clutching a knife in her gloved hands, and mouthed words to you. She had to do it twice before you recognized the words, ‘What the fuck are you doing?!’ It was followed by something that looked suspiciously like the words, ‘fucking idiot’. Had this small, angry child just called you a fucking idiot? 

More clicking.

Your gaze lifted and your eyes landed on a new sight that filled you with dread. It wasn't an unfamiliar sight, but it was certainly one that shouldn’t exist. A clicker. It stumbled in its inhuman gait. Shoulders and arms moving in twitching motions as its head snapped back and forth searching. Whatever face the body used to have was replaced with rows of growing, eerie fungus that fanned out in what looked like two rolling curves⏤ as if it were a wave that surged then splashed right out of the skull itself in frozen motion.

The small gasp that left your lips was an obvious mistake that your hunter side was kicking you for. Its head and body snapped to face you and with a screech it roared forward. Instinct took a hold of your body, and you swung the pipe out, rather than freezing in alarm, and the clicker fell back.

“Run! Go!” You screamed and motioned for the kid to get the hell out of there. She began to scramble away, but you stayed planted to handle the clicker that was already back to its feet and rushing you once more. You ducked under and sprinted in the opposite direction of the kid while making as much noise as you could. As impossible and odd as this was, you had no problem falling into your hunting pattern. It was second nature to you. There was a monster and a civilian who needed to be saved. Your choice was easy.

Your right foot stepped on something that made you hiss out in pain and stumble. That gave the clicker enough time to slam into you and send you to the floor. With gritted teeth, you rolled before it could pin you and you swung the pipe once again, knocking it back a few steps. It recovered quickly and lunged forward, but you held the pipe up firm and met it halfway so the sharpened end of the pipe drove right through the center of its face⏤ or lack thereof. You were gasping for air as its arms went limp and with a singular grunt you used the pipe to shove it off to the side so it slumped to the ground with your weapon still buried in its skull. 

Your heart was threatening to beat right out of your chest as you tried to catch your breath. The adrenaline and panic made the cold barely noticeable. Your eyes glanced down though to see blood pooling around your right foot. Wincing, you lifted it to see a large shard of glass shoved deep into the tissue there. That was disturbing evidence this was not some kind of fucked up dream.

“Fuck.” You muttered. The sentiment was interrupted by a howling screech. You spun in place to see a different clicker, just as grotesque and real as the first, lunging at you from behind. Your hands raised in defense as a gun was fired. The clicker’s head exploded in a spray of rotting tissue and clumps of fungus before collapsing a few feet in front of you. When you lifted your gaze, you spotted an older man equipped with a rifle that was now leveled at your own head as his eyebrows furrowed in an emotion that reminded you a lot of rage. At his side, one hand wrapped around his bicep was the girl from earlier. 

It took you a second to comprehend the image in front of you. The clickers. The young mouthy girl. The older angry man. This could not be possibly happening to you right now. “Hands up. Now.” The man grunted in a southern accent. He didn’t look quite like he did in the video game you watched Dean play for the last day and a half, but there was no denying who this had to be. Slowly, you lifted your hands with a grimace. “If you got any weapons, drop ‘em now.”

“Weapons?” The girl scoffed. “She’s in fucking PJs, Joel, where do you think she’s hiding a weapon?”

He hushed her in response and motioned for her to take a step behind him. Great. You had survived the apocalypse twice with the Winchesters, quite the feat considering the people who traveled with the boys had a bad habit of dying bloody, but this was how you were going to meet your end. Shot by a video game character. This was some kind of fucked up karma for laughing while watching Dean get his character mauled over and over.

“Hi there.” You blurted  with a sheepish smile and Joel stiffened. “I mean you guys no harm, so if you wanna lower the rifle⏤”

“What’re you doing here?” Joel demanded. The rifle did not lower an inch.

“Right.” You muttered then blew out a breath of hot air. “Uh, funny story.”

Joel did not look eager to hear said funny story and you had a bad feeling that once you explained what was happening to him he’d find the entire scenario even less amusing. Fuck.

[grocerystorephobic]

2, 3, 10, 11

2. Did you reread anything? What?

Not really! I've been itching to reread The Poe Clan and Rose of Versailles, both of which I read super fast via library copies, and now that I have my own I want to give them the space they deserve. That will be a task for 2025, I suppose!

Not technically a reread (and not technically a book, but neither are the previous answers) but I did read the full, original Ms.Scribe account when previously I'd only heard it summarized by secondary sources. That was fun!

3. What were your top five books of the year?

Honestly? This was kind of a bleh year for me. There were no big standout favorites. Here's what I got, though.

(These rankings are mostly arbitrary. There is no world where William Marston is a better writer than Harriet Jacobs)

Affinity by Sarah Waters

I have a particular brain problem where if a book is too similar to things I write/want to write I enter hyper-critical mode and I cannot enjoy it. Sarah Waters writes dark gothic Victorian lesbian romances, but she's so fucking good it bypasses my hater impulse. She is on a level I cannot even comprehend. Gorgeous prose, complex and nuanced characters, it's a well-plotted and riveting mystery. I have some qualms with the ending, but they're the sort of qualms only an invested reader can have.

2. Wonder Woman: The Golden Age Vol. 1

I feel like I will never shut up about this. I had some many thoughts I even wrote a review already! I will link it here.

3. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs

A "real" account of a woman and her life and escape from slavery in the pre-Civil War American south. It was written explicitly as Abolitionist propaganda, and while some moments it is very sickly sentimental to a modern perspective (and the veracity of the specifics can be questionable), it's overall an extremely harrowing book. I listened to the entire second half in a single night because I was so enraptured by the story. I did not want to leave until our narrator was free. Jacobs does not mince her words when it comes to the horrors she endured, and lets loose intense Christian fury at the supposedly devout who could commit such horrors.

4. Princess Knight by Osamu Tezuka

I finally got around to reading some Tezuka this year! I knew how heavy the Disney influence was, in theory, but I was really blown away. It's weirdly coherent to read purely from the average media diet of the American child. Princess Knight is a story about a child who, due to a fuck up by a rowdy angel, is born with both a "girl's" heart and a "boy's" heart. She has to navigate a world that is constantly trying to put her into a box: scheming relatives who want her to become a girl so that she cannot inherit the thrown vs. an evil witch who wants her to become a boy so she can give the "girl" heart to her tomboy daughter.

I really loved this dichotomy, but sadly the story did not stick the landing. Sapphire loses her boy heart and becomes a girl in the last third-- and it's barely remarked upon. The final conflict is some forced amnesia plot brought on by a last minute ass-pull antagonist, and it completely loses the theme in the shuffle.

But again-- I guess these are the criticisms of an invested reader. I can't wait to read more Tezuka, I was way more into it than I anticipated.

5. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

It was a charming, comfy read. Genuinely funny. I laughed outloud multiple times when reading. There's not much to say about this that hasn't already been said. Despite expectations, I really like Jane Austen.

10. What was your favorite new release of the year?

What, they're still making new books? I coulda sworn they quit at some point in the 20th century....

In all seriousness. The only thing released in 2024 that I read in 2024 was Party Hard. And it was really fucked up (positive). So I guess it wins by default!

11. What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read?

Discounting the previous answers for variety's sake, I will say that I also enjoyed the Bedford Cultural Edition of The Yellow Wallpaper I picked up from a free book shelf years ago. I also wrote a review back when I read it.

[curejiraiya]

What do you guys think the King of Prism announcement is going to be? I'm coping really hard but here's the facts

The actual event is a nationwide showing of all the King of Prism media (twitter pointed out to me that they're showing best 10 before SSS which is out of order and they've also never done it in that order before)

After the first showing (March 22nd) there will be an announcement presented by the director + Shin's VA (Junta <3333). According to twitter this is the first public greeting by Hishida (the director) since 2019!

The announcement is said to be "fitting for the 8th anniversary"?

The 7th anniversary had multiple kuji/merch lines and none of them had a public announcement like this, which leads me to believe it'll be bigger than that. The vark virtual lives ALSO did not begin with a public announcement though going that far back it may have still been pandemic related, unsure.

The Prism Rush setting materials released a few months back, very very late like years after the game shut down. Could be coincidental or could be pandemic related, or could be announcement related.

Junta himself retweeted the announcement (duh) but also TWO separate former King of Prism composers and a choreographer retweeted the announcement with excitement.

None of the VAs have posted about the announcement yet (which honestly could be a sign in itself because Minato's VA (Igarashi Masashi) is known to post about KinPri every once in awhile).

Shoutan (Louis' VA) has been posting about an unrelated event called the King Super Live and it's caught me off guard more than once lmfao. Also if you really want to reach Shoutan posted a twitter photo of him with the caption "dubbing" without any other context lmao.

The Rainbow Live 10th anniversary event is happening RIGHT NOW and lots of Rainbow Live VAs and Staff have been posting about it. This is kind of unrelated to KinPri but who knows?

Last year Hishida marked March 25th as Pretty Rhythm day and promised some sort of campaign to raise money for new Pretty Rhythm content. He had no more details than more content and money however.

King of Prism was on NHK World Japan in a segment with Idolish7 (A still VERY active male idol franchise) in January, the first time Hishida and KinPri has been on the segment in years.

This is only tangentially related but I feel like it should be mentioned in the fact section, last summer the official King of Prism account searched for people to help with One Piece cheer screenings which is wild to me, but apparently because of the help the cheer screenings themselves did pretty well.

Also related to that PolPri (same production company) has been doing really well and itself has plenty of cheer screenings. There's rumors that Tatsunoko has their hands full with more PolPri and the CG for the IRIS movie, but I mean no one really knows about their inner workings lol. Regardless they DIDN'T take the new season of the Pretty Series anime AiPri, leaving them open for new projects.

Ok now that we have all the facts (that I know of lol) what do we think the announcement is?

Things the announcement could be in order of how likely they are in my opinion, and why:

Merch Kuji (if you don't know what a Kuji is (I didn't until recently) it's a merch lottery where you put in some money and are guaranteed to get a piece of merch but the character or design is random. Most modern anime merch is like this ;-;) Let's be honest, KinPri was dead for almost the entire second half of 2023. But between May and September I can count 6 different King of Prism merch lotteries (LOL?). There's also a Kuji running right now that's astrology themed that will be over by the time of the announcement. Leading me to believe that it would be the perfect time for them to open a MEGA merch lottery, one fitting of such a big announcement. Of course I would want more than this lol, but I think given the current precedent the franchise has given us this is the most likely outcome.

Regular around the country screenings. (the country is Japan btw sorry fellow Americans) I'm on the fence on whether or not this will be the announcement because why would they announce more screenings at a screening? But ever since Hiro's birthday in October the amount of King of Prism cheer screenings have shot up dramatically and they don't seem to be stopping. It would be a pretty huge announcement for them to say that the screenings are continuing at this accelerated pace for the time being. If this is the case I would also assume something bigger is coming over the summer lol because they wouldn't just increase the amount of screenings for no reason.

Ok now we get to the fun stuff

3. New Music!! I'm trying to keep my expectations low, but it feels slightly strange that the only staff talking about this are composers and choreographers, no? And the way they're wording the announcement makes me think it's supposed to be BIGGER than the two options above because those are the two things we already have, leading me here to the next step. With Prism Rush we were getting regular singles, and I think it's about time we get a new Septentrion song!!!!

4. Something like the Pretty Series VLives. The VLive format seems to be doing really well for PriChan, and King of Prism has dabbled in the format before, something more but not a ton of work would be something akin to the PriChan highschool live. where there's a shallow story but it can be rebroadcast over and over (at future cheer screenings?). Bonus that the PriChan one was crowdfunded, and there's nothing stopping them from attempting that again (though idk if they would if whatever is happening on 3/25 is also crowdfunded.) I think if we're getting any new content content this is the most likely because of it's cost to profit ratio AND the uptick of them being made for the Pretty Series, but of course I can dream about getting more, as in:

Anything past this point is not very likely but I want it anyway

5. PRISM RUSH 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok I cannot lie, I really want this one just because I want to play a mobile rhythm game and SIF2 is approaching end of service lmao. But it feels kinda weird that the Prism Rush 1 setting materials came out so late, right??? Plus maybe all the composters retweeting were hinting at new music, and what needs a bunch of new music if not a rhythm game! SynSophia has finally gotten out or announced all their backlogged projects (Idol Land though they didn't do much of that one, Fashion Dreamer, and TWO AiPri arcade games) leaving their dev team open to work on a brand new game. Yeah??? :) Plus people complained that most of the Prism Rush story wasn't in the setting materials, maybe this is their chance to re-release the event stories :) (coping!)

6. Another Super Live! Every time I watch one of the Pretty Series Lives where they bring back the VAs from now dead franchises (rip PriMagi) I wonder why they stopped doing these for King of Prism (other than like the pandemic). There's still plenty of Prism Rush songs that have never been done live, plus everyone wants to hear the SSS songs again. And I mean they're getting Junta for the announcement, it would make sense for Shin to announce something like this! I don't think this is very likely, rather it would come if there was new media with new music that was doing really well, but it is something I'd enjoy a lot.

6. A NEW ANIME!!!!!!!!! Ok we save this one for the bottom because it's the least likely, especially for an 8 year old anime and one that hasn't had a new movie in 4 years. But I mean, this is what we all want right? Director Hishida, save us all 🙏

I considered taking this entire post and making it a Youtube video lmfao but I don't think I'd get an audience who wants to listen to me ramble about King of Prism news. But uhh what do you think, I'm so so so so so so so so so so so excited! aaaaaaaaa

[rikomoriyama01]

flattered to be villain expert anon. i just want to finish up that the anon is objectively wrong (and i'm sorry but i learned so much about writing dissecting ygo when you go beyond oh silly cards games because there is so much talent and craft there, they don't actually pull in hack writers, they good writers in and then tie their hands) zexal is not the worst it just has a bad reputation. vrains is objectively the worst, do you know how bad a ygo spinoff cashcow has to be to be cancelled a third of the way into its run and get ygo pulled off air for 2 years? all the seasons have pros and cons and honestly solid writing in various areas that sync really well with some of the stuff that aftg really sucks at discussing (go sit and the corner and think about what you've done aftg fandom when ygo fandom is more mature and better at nuance than you):

DM: mostly filler and iffy animations but amazing once it gets to egypt several hundred episodes in (aka the bit the mangaka was actually invested in)

GX: fun school romp, fascinating descent into madness for the mc, rushed ending because the mc's voice actor wasn't booked properly so had to rush the important scenes and cut everything else.

5Ds: the older edgier darker atmosphere that doesn't stick the landing, wanted to be about cults and inequality (if you want cults 5Ds arcadia is great, they actually attempt to sympathetically tackle what it's like to leave a cult when you were their poster child) and does a really good job in the first half (also just everything about the dark signers is peak ygo fanservice), before the director got sick of the board forcing product placement over story and changing things last second so he couldn't even adjust properly so left to do symphogear (a show mostly unknown over in english fandoms but is one of the most anime anime ever and regularly goes toe to toe with giants like HQ, AOT, YoI and MHA for ratings), and also the tokyo subway cult attack happened and one of the voice actresses was in said cult, so a quick rewrite was done that made no sense.

Zexal: is the best villain writing in the series, pick a villain type it's got it and it's written it pretty damn well, has the best rating for any spinoff in japan and the only one of the first run of spinoffs not to have controversy, making it more cohesive as a whole, but it has a brighter style to hide the darker themes, and a younger protagonist, used as a jumping on point for new younger fans and even fans suggest skipping to episode 12/13 to avoid the worst of that and get into the plot when the real villains start appearing.

Arc-V: (pronounced 5, which sucks because Zexal spent its entire run telling us V= vee) the 5Ds director returns, then has the same issue of the board interfering just as a new season of symphogear is confirmed so leaves half way again, and once again you can tell (ygo fandom loves to blame director ono for shit he wasn't even there for), but if you want a decently good story about forcing yourself to bury your emotions and just be happy, the horrors of war and the realities of making children save the world, it's a pretty good one until about episode 80, honestly does a great job of tackling child soldiers and their cult mindset and what happens when that is challenged and the various reactions from rejection all the way up to well i've done too much shit to change paths now to the ygo equivalent of suicide.

Vrains: so much potential absolutely wasted, a really good attempt to tackle childhood trauma and abuse and ptsd and the need for revenge on your abusers and how far it can take you but plagued by behind the scenes drama that left the show itself a mess that got cancelled only a third of the way in.

all to say ygo gets written off as a dumb show about a dumb card game but its got some real writing talent hidden in there the same way aftg has if you're willing to pay attention and have some media literacy. and i am sorry for forcing my ygo has good writing once you get through the bullshit opinions on you

been distracted sorry it's okay ! appreciate expert's helps with navigating this !!!

[missingn000]

what are your thoughts on mahito?

...oh boy.

i'm sorry, but i love him. it took me about a year and a half to reach this conclusion -- i once hated his guts too, and i don't at all blame anyone who loathes him. y'all are totally valid. he's so, so hateable.

defending myself below cut. i have good reasons, i promise.

so why did i change my mind? okay. he's just so interesting. he's one of the most well-written villains i've ever encountered in media. it's hard to write an "evil just for fun" villain and make them compelling, but with mahito, gege absolutely succeeded. there are layers to it, in a way i've never seen written before.

he truly united almost the entire fandom against him. he fucked up so much in the story: junpei, mechamaru, nanami, nobara. his impact was insane. even beyond named characters, no body count even scratches his. towards the end, he was so brokenly powerful. i don't think kenjaku could've hoped to take him in if he weren't basically on the brink of death. even his final words are lashing out at his own ally, saying he always knew the end. yet he still did everything anyway.

honestly, as always, i'll keep most of my negative opinions to myself, but i really think every other jjk villain since shibuya looks like a joke next to him. he's my favorite jjk villain by so much it's almost funny. even sukuna and kenjaku don't reach his level for me. 

sure, their impact on the story has obviously been pivotal. i've definitely had some strong emotional reactions to things they've done, but i want to see more emotions from them. what have we seen from sukuna? pretty much just rage, annoyance, and cruelty? uh, okay. and kenjaku has never shown anything more than vaguely amused indifference. he just can't incite an emotional reaction from me with that. what are their motives? what are their ideals?

yeah, i'm sure i'm missing a lot of themes or whatever with them, but i really don't flip over sukuna (hopefully that'll change...) and i never want to think about kenjaku more than i absolutely have to.

in contrast, mahito's emotions are so human, so complex. he has the widest range of emotion of any jjk villain. mahito's ideals are concise and an incredible foil for yuuji's. take this speech of his in shibuya:

"I bet you thought you were gonna do some pest control! Or ghost exterminations like in some make-believe story! You came to Shibuya with half-assed determination didn‘t ya?! How naive, you stupid brat! This is war! Not a battle to fix what‘s wrong! But a clash of truths! You and your fragile justice! You are me, Yuuji Itadori! I kill without a second thought, just like you save people without a second thought! The instincts of a curse against the so-called dignity obtained by human reason! It‘s a battle to determine who will be left standing in a hundred years! How the hell did you think you were gonna beat me when you don‘t even realize that? Tell me, Yuuji Itadori, have you ever stopped to count how many curses you‘ve killed? No, right? Me neither, me neither!"

this is insane. are you kidding me? are you kidding me. this is so fucking metal. he studies humans because they fascinate him: he reads books, watches movies, familiarizes himself with folklore and religions. yet despite that, he still sees humans as having no worth. their lives mean nothing to him. but his fixation on yuuji, his cognizance of their nature as character foils, proves how much grasp he has on human emotional depth.

i wish there was a better word for it, but he cared about yuuji: obviously not in the traditional positive, warm, affectionate sense, but in that he viewed yuuji as important to himself, his own ideals, and his own growth. if given more time, i think his emotional range towards humans could have become even wider.

conversely, as it stands at the end, curses do have worth to him. he helps a wounded hanami back to the base. this incredible post talks about how jogo is almost a father figure to him (and it's great mahito meta, too). i wish what that meta writer talked about came true. he left the story far, far too soon. i miss him so goddamn much. there's a gaping hole in the cast now that no other character can hope to fill.

i honestly can't wait to write more of him. tpg mahito's arc is literally insane, and honestly one of my favorites in the entire story. i seriously can't wait. i'd never try to make anyone like or root for him -- he's a villain, and always will be. but i want people to feel compelled in the same way i do. i'm missing so much in this analysis; i feel like i've barely scratched the surface.

mahito. his name means true human, by the way. if you think i'm not going to explore every aspect of that, you're in for a wild ride.

[hostilemuppet]

damn I might just kin someone from a show I've never watched.

please direct me to where I can watch HTF so I can fix that

!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS GREAT NEWS. im assuming i dont need to preface this with the gore warning

every episode is up on the mondo media website and ALMOST every ep is on the mondo media youtube channel (unfortunately the second half of wishy washy was. not allowed to be on youtube. but its okay theres unofficial reuploads just noone snitch). BUT because this series is 23 years old a lot of them are in. very bad quality. SO a very nice person has compiled and remastered the entire series into one torrent file here if you wanna give it a try! they have the still alive bonuses you get for buying the package though which im honestly not a fan of bc it means less people will buy it and well never get another ep :( but yknow whatever mondos more focused with daddy and the big boy anyway so.

if you want recommendations on what episodes to start with, id say just start at the beginning so you can see the love that went into the silly little shock horror show. BUT my personal FAVOURITE episodes (extra ultra faves bolded. you will notice a theme with them) are:

season 1: house warming, nuttin wrong with candy, wheelin and dealin, pitchin impossible, meat me for lunch, spare me

season 2: out of sight out of mime, class act, shard at work, icy you, hello dolly, remains to be seen, blind date

tv series: don't yank my chain, concrete solution, wishy washy, a hole lotta love, mime to five, chew said a mouthful, see what develops, home is where the hurt is, a sight for sore eyes, in a jam, junk in the trunk

season 3: can't stop coffin, a sucker for love, something fishy, swelter skelter, i nub you, a bit of a pickle, see you later elevator, the chokes on you, royal flush, brake the cycle, bottled up inside, no time like the present

season 4: buns of steal, spare tire, camp pokeneyeout

season 5: a handy nanny, just be claus

theres also the spinoff series kapow where it ditches the childrens show pretence and instead parodies action movies, splendids sssssuper squad (one episode), w.a.r. journal (one episode) and buddhist monkey (three episodes). and although it was made before kapow, the mole in the city short is generally considered part of kapow. it is, you guessed it, my favourite of the bunch. it has the coolest artstyle, the best sound design, the funnest premise, and my special little guy

[chocominnie]

One Last Time 01  —  Pjm. (M)

⇢ pairing: Jimin X Reader

⇢ Genre: Idol!Jimin, Exbf!Jimin, model!reader, sad au, fluff, tons of smut, angst

⇢ Synopsis: Your idol ex boyfriend Jimin cheated on you. You two have been broken up for a while now and the media has been keeping track of you and him. You’re trying to get over him, but the things that happen inbetween makes you re-think the entire breakup, and so does Jimin…

⇢ Song : xxxxx

⇢ Word Count : 4.3k

⇢ Warnings: dominant jimin, makeout sessions, this is honestly a sad angsty au, cheating, pregnancy, unprotected and protected sex, a bunch of sex, no really a LOT of sexual themes too, I know I’m forgetting some but sorry in advance!

⇢ Copyright: please do NOT repost, translate, or modify my works in any way, shape or form, on any platform. If found doing so , it is considered as plagiarism and appropriate LEGAL action will be taken

⇢ Authors note: This is my mini series for the summer! Get your tissues, things to take your anger out on, and sit back and watch the drama unfold. Shall we begin?

The winter’s coldness is hardly enough for you to bear. Even though it’s just the beginning, Seoul is known to just go from season to season without a fucking warning. Not only that, but the first snowfall is going to come soon. The weatherman has been talking about it non-stop for the past few days. It’s going to be a brutal one he says but he says that every year so why believe?

Turning off your alarm, you take a few minutes to collect yourself and stretch. Barely any sleep once again but that’s an everyday thing now.. without Jimin. It’s been some rough months not having his body wrapped snugly onto yours. These days you long for his touch, but completely dread at the same time for very good reasons.

Your kitten greets you with small licks on your thigh in which in return you pet her head softly with a smile.

‘‘ At least I still have you babygirl. You keep me company. “ You coo softly while grabbing your phone off the charger. Texts from your best-friend just spamming you with love and apparently she’s coming over. Great. That’s normal.  But one text catches your eye. Jeon Jungkook.

You furrow your eyebrows as your finger slides to open it after typing in your password. In relief, he’s just checking up on you as always. Rolling your eyes, you muster enough strength to actually pull yourself out of bed. The cold tiles hit your feet like icicles. You jump from from foot to foot cursing yourself for not turning on the floor heaters as you walk out the room. Clara, your kitten, follows you out purring nonchalantly with a few meows here and there.

‘’ Alright Clara I hear you. Im getting your food now.’’ You chuckle, grabbing her food from the bottom kitchen cabinet right under the sink and pour her half a cup of cat food and a whole bowl of water.

After snacking on your morning granola bar you prepare yourself for your morning routine. Shower, brush teeth, skin care, get dressed, clean. Your phone dings once more just before stripping yourself of your clothes. You don’t bother to look it’s probably just a social media notification.

Drying your hair with a towel as you get out the steaming hot shower, you head straight for the mirror. Dark circles remain under your eyes from months of barely any sleep. You sigh, and gently rub under them. Jimin is the cause of this. Why would he do this to you. Surely enough he would not like to see you like this at all. The worriedness he would have over you is huge. But he has moved on and you just have to accept it no matter how in-love you still are with him.

As you clean up around the living room, another ding from your phone occurs. A groan escapes your lips as you place the pillows back as they should be. In hopes of it just being your manager giving you some good news, you let out a sigh and plop yourself down on the grey suede couch. Three new messages. Jeon Jungkook, who has text you twice, and Ryan your bestfriend. 

‘‘ Damn it Ryan why must you consistently text me twenty four sev- “

“ Beause I need to know if you’re okay.”

You jump and drop your phone onto the hardwood floor from the voice that comes from around you.

“ Holy fucking shit you scared me! “  You whine, turning around to face your best-friend. She smiles and holds out her arms for a hug. You roll your eyes and open yours waiting for her embrace.

“ Oh i’ve missed you so so so so so so so-”

“ You just seen me yesterday..” Your voice sarcastic and bland as you let go of her. You sit on the couch first followed by Ryan sitting right next to you.

She looks good today, the navy blue coat she has on suits her very well. Although, you cannot figure out why she decided to wear leggings today. It’s going to rain a bit later but you disregard that seeing as though she’s the fashion deisgner and not you.

You. The model and seemingly ex girlfriend of one of the biggest solo idol in the world right now. Thats what they call you in the news, headlines in magazines, and real life as if you don’t have a real name and just was his acessory. Your modeling career had taken off way before dating him. The world, or Seoul to say the most, didn’t acklowledge you to that point yet. 

“ Okay but still. You know we should be roomates. It’ll be easier for me to watch over you. “

Your head turns towards her quickly shaking no, “ I don’t need to be looked over im 20 years old.”

Silence takes place for the next few seconds. You know what she’s going to say next but pray she doesn’t. Those words will just make you even more upset. It’s already enough you have that constant reminder in your head. 

You watch her fiddle with the rings on her index and pinky fingers. “ But you know… you haven’t been the same since you and Jimi-”

“ Don’t fucking say it. I don’t want to hear it.”

She sighs harshly and stands up, “ Im just worried about you Yn”

“ Don’t be. Im fine. “ That lie escaped your tongue way too easily. 

Truthfully you haven’t and won’t be fine. Everyday there is something new about that girl and Jimin on twitter. Gossip pages, twitter fanpages, and online entertainment pages just always talking about them. They did this, they did that today. Oh we caught them going to this and that restaurant. That used to be you and him.. but now everyone has forgotten about you and focused on them.

Ever since you’ve told reporters and paparazzi repeatedly that you will not be holding or going to any interview they just stopped. A few calls here and there to your manager about scheduling one but she knew you didn’t want to do them so every request is denied. Although its been a year and some change, they still seem to want your side and your opinion to weigh in on. I guess that’s what happens when you date an Idol.

“ The door.. Y/N the door somebody is at the door.” Ryan says, tapping you over and over. You shake your head interrupting your thoughts for the time being. A few more knocks come through.

Finally up onto your feet you harshly walk to the door with each step making noise. It’s to early in the morning for someone to actually be knocking at the door right now. Whoever it is better be dropping off some sort of package, or they’ll surely get a piece of your mind.

Your frail hands grab onto the doorknob and swing it open. Your eyes almost pop through your sockets. How? How did he know you were here? You certainly did not tell him your knew address.

There he stands, his tall frame looking down on you. Lips formed into a tiny pout along with his eyebrows scrunched slightly. His brown eyes forming an ungodly stare into yours with his specs on.

“ Yn! Do you know how worried I was about you? Why did you not answer my messa-”

“Jungkook how do you know where I live?” You pace your hands on your hips, raising an eyebrow at him. To your knowledge, you never gave Jungkook your new apartment address.

Jungkook swallows slowly and puts on his best innocent face on. Oh please like that would work in this moment right now. The only person who has this address is Ryan because she’s the one who helped you move. Even if you had the choice of not giving it out to Ryan you would of but you couldn’t do that to her. She would of been so upset.

Ryan’s voice blares in the background full of excitement. Here we fucking go. “Jungkook! Come in Come in.”

“ Ryan says I could come in.” He says quickly, brushing past you and removing his shoes.

You heavily sigh and slam the door shut. What is this a family reunion? On your way back to the couch you notice them laughing and giggling like two five year old children. They don’t even notice you when you sit right across from them.

You study their expressions. Their chemistry is something so strong. The way their eyes light up when they meet, the way that Jungkook smiles and scrunches his nose more often when she’s around. You miss that. You miss doing that.

“ So are you both coming along this afternoon?”

Your attention focuses back on them. Of course you weren’t paying attention once again.

Your eyes slowly meet with theirs, “ Huh? Where are we going?”

“ Kookie finally bought a house! He wants us to come tonight for chicken and beer. You’re coming right?”

A sharp pain goes through your heart. If the both you you guys go then theirs a possibility that Jimin was invited too. After all, that is his brother. If Jimin comes then he’s most likely going to bring Isabel. A recipe for disaster. Your poor heart, that most likely could not bare the sight of them infront of you, would shatter into a million pieces.

Jungkook’s expression is ready to burst into happiness or to turn into a pout awaiting for your answer. If you let him down he’ll surely be mad at you. But putting yourself before him this time would be the right thing to do right?

“ Listen Jungkook I.. don’t think I can go.” You start off, playing with your hair with your head down.

“ I’ll space you two apart.”

Your face automatically lifts itself up in shock. Somehow, that little confirmation of Jimin being there, gave you some hope. Hope for what though?

 “ Wha-what do you mean?”

Jungkook sighs heavily with his hand going up to his brown hair running it through lightly. “ I’ll make sure you two are distanced apart. You don’t want to come because of Jimin but I’ll make sure I’ll invite more people to keep you company and away from him. Okay?”

“ Please Yn. I’ll be there too.” Ryan begs, laying her head on Jungkook’s shoulder. Jungkook smiles a little, caressing her cheek with his other hand upon waiting your response.

Weird. When did they get so close?

The first thing you want to say is that you really could not go. But they already know the excuse now. You might as well just give in.

‘‘ Fine. What time tonight? “

Skincare and makeup products are scattered everywhere on your vanity. You needed the perfect look for tonight that says ‘Yes im doing fine without you’, but in reality you’re doing worse. This is the night where you’ll actually see him. Damn it’s been a while.

After you apply your highlight you step back and take a look at yourself. Not bad at all. You smile to yourself and start cleaning up the mess of products you had  distributed across the vanity. A new text appears on you phone as soon as you gather everything up and put it back in it’s place. Grabbing your phone, it’s Ryan giving you the address to Jungkook’s new house.

You sigh and mentally prepare yourself, ‘‘ Okay Yn. You can do this. It’s just one night of conversing among people. Who knows, maybe you’ll meet someone new.”

Before heading out you grab your coat and scarf. Clara follows you all the way to the door letting out her little meows once again. You bend down to pet her head lightly with a smile. “ Clara im coming back. I’ve put food in your bowl babygirl.”

She purrs under your touch then walks away to settle herself in her bed. You take one last final look at your decent sized apartment before heading out.

The subway ride was agonizing pain for you due to it being 30 minutes long. Well, at-least you can ride the subway now. Your mind wouldn’t even of thought of that when you were with him. Everybody would have noticed you and bombard you with questions.

The outskirts of Seoul is peaceful and quite. Not many people live over here. Mostly famous actors and idols. The taxi takes a few minutes to get to the fairly clean subway station. Once you’re inside you take a good look at the driver who seems to be eyeing you in suspicion. You pull out your phone and read the words to the address exactly to him. The taxi man pulls of into the empty streets of god knows where.

All it took was a ten minute ride and then you’re there. The taxi man pulls up to a security guard booth. Just beyond the gates is more street but  by squinting your eyes you can make out just a few newly built houses.

‘‘ Who are you here to see?” The taxi driver says.

“ Jeon Jungkook.?

The driver talks to the man for a few seconds before you see the security guard pick up a phone and start dialing. The security is extremely uptight, thats good. After a few moments of speaking the security guard finally opens the gates to be let through.

As you pull up to the house you’re automatically mesmerized on how big and beautiful it is. There’s fresh bushes and some white roses growing in the front of it complementing the white modern style home. The roundabout is full of luxurious cars, in which might be all the other guests.

‘‘ 10 dollars’‘ He says. You give him the ten, thank him, and grab your purse, closing the door behind you.

Your eyes meet face to face with the expensive house. Behind you is the tire wheels backing up and running off back down the roundabout. The time on your watch reads 8:15. Only fifteen minutes late, not bad right?

With each step you take fear quivers inside of you. What if he opens the door? What if that girl opens it instead? The wind blows harsh-fully hitting your cheeks making them turn slightly colored. You raise a small, shaky fist to knock on the door. Your blood turning cold, and face turning pale already. Your anxiety already taking its place inside of your body.

The door swings open revealing Ryan smiling from ear to ear. She pulls you inside without even a greeting. You kick your shoes off in a hurry as she pulls you more and more inside. Scanning the area around you, its a nice huge place. First the both of you pass the entrance, then the chef sized kitchen, which then leads you to the spacious living room where everybody seems to be sitting.

All eyes are on you now with some familiar faces and some not. They smile and greet you one by one and you slightly bow your head with a fake smile.

‘‘ Ah Yn, nice to see you again huh.’‘ Hoseok, the smiley one says, getting up from his seat to greet you once more.

‘‘ Nice to see you to Hoseok. Is Chae-Yeon here? I’ve baked the cookies she likes.’’  You say, holding up the big tuba-wear of freshly baked cookies. Nobody can resist those.

‘‘ No she had to work sadly, but I will enjoy them for her.’‘ He chuckles, bringing the tuba-wear out of your dainty, cold hands.

A very familiar voice booms from behind you causing you to turn around. “ Yn! You actually did come!’’ Jungkook, the owner of the voice exclaims. He wipes his hands with a napkin just before pulling you into a hug.You pat his back just before letting go.

Ryan smiles and shakes her head, “ I told you she would come.’’

Only one hour and 30 minutes into the festivities and half of the people here are drunk or nearly there. You on the other hand do not drink at all. Staying sober throughout this whole party is a must. Who knows what would happen if you start drinking and saying things.Ryan seems to be doing good with Jungkook who’s laying on the floor laughing and cracking jokes with her head laying on his stomach giggling along with him. The others have casually invited themselves into the guest game-room to play some pool.

You just sit there on the couch, munching on a cookie and smiling and laughing here and there at one of Seokjin and Jungkook’s back-to-back jokes that seem to never leave the air.

Only for a knock on the door to interrupt  their flow of jokes.

‘‘ I got it I got it.” Seokjin stammers, placing a beer bottle down and stumbling towards the door. You freeze, face turning pale once more. It’s them. It could be them. Your teeth find their way to your lips and you begin to chew on it excessively.

Ryan notices it and automatically gets up from Jungkook, ‘‘ Come Yn, lets go see if the game of pool is interesting.’‘

You nod your head slightly as you get up from the couch. What are you worrying for? You look extravagant tonight. No need to worry yourself.

Just before taking your first few steps you stop, that voice. That oh so familiar voice begins to inch closer and closer. The famous laugh that he always tries to stifle by putting his hand over his mouth, that you’ve always thought was so fucking cute, fills the air.

You don’t know what got over you, but you sit back down dragging Ryan down with you. “ Yn? What are you doing I thought you wanted to avoid him.’’

‘’ No it’s okay. Im going to be fine.’‘ You say, awaiting upon his arrival into the room.

The footsteps are haunting you with each step they take.

one..two..three..four..five..si-

‘‘ Everyone, Isabel and Jimin are here.’‘ Seokjin stammers, smiling wide clearly drunk from all the beer consumed.

Your eyes go directly towards his. The pit of your stomach flutters with nervousness as you hold the long stare with him. His facial expression shocked but not showing it at all. His partner, who’s arm is linked with his, smiles brightly at everyone bowing her head slightly to them including you.

‘‘ Sorry we are late. Jimin didn’t want to come out of his home studio but I’ve made him come along with me.’‘ Her voice gentle and soft.

‘‘ Yn I forgot let me show you my new painting i have received.” Jungkook says quickly, trying to escape you from the awkwardness.You can bare it though its not as bad as you thought.

‘‘ Maybe later Kookie. I’m going to grab some juice.”  You say, getting up from your spot. You brush past Jimin lightly with Ryan tailing along with you.

The spacious kitchen was perfect for you to escape for just a moment. Silence is golden. Ryan sighs, pouring you and her a glass of juice. Nothing is to be said yet. But you know she really wants to have her input.

Raising the glass to your lips, you take a sip letting the tanginess run across your tongue and down your throat. ‘’ Say it Ryan.’’

She puts her cup down and looks at you with your eyebrows furrowed, ‘’ You aren’t fine. Please just avoid them for the night.’’

You knew it was coming but you have to face the fact that they area couple anyways so why avoid it? Maybe your mind will finally accept it to see it in person.

‘‘ I have to face it one way or another so why not now?’‘

She shakes her head in disapproval, finishing the rest of her juice. “ No you don’t. You’re making yourself suffer and I don’t like it.’’

‘‘ Yn.. did you make these cookies?’‘ A voice says behind you. Ryan’s eyes go wide and then looks at you signaling for you to not turn around. But you do it anyways.

Isabel. How dare she call you by a pet name? You don’t even know her like that and she’s doing this. Anger wants to get the best of you but you remain humble and calm.

‘‘ Yes. Is there a problem though? Are they not good?’‘ You say, putting on your best innocent act.

She smiles as she moves a piece of hair of her perfectly framed face, ‘’ No they are great! I was wondering if i can have the recipe.. for Jimin’s purpose of course.’’

You breathe through your nostrils with your eyes closed. She knows what she’s doing. She likes seeing you suffer huh? ‘’ You can follow any recipe online. I just add almond extract and substitute white sugar for brown.’’

Ryan shakes her head slightly while sticking her cup into the sink. ‘’ I’m going to be back I have to use the restroom.’’

Once she leaves Isabel’s smile drops.’’ Almond? Im- Im allergic!” She says, semi yelling at you. You’re shocked more or so at the sudden outburst that you can’t speak. You had zero knowledge of her being allergic, it’s an accident for sure.

 “You did this on purpose!’’ She says, tears filling her eyes as she goes into a coughing fit.

Shit. You didn’t know if anyone was allergic to nuts here but you had put it in anyways because that was the secret ingredient

‘’ I- I didn’t know im sorry is there anything I can do?’’ You say, guilt taking over you while you rush to her side patting her back. 

‘‘ Get off of me! You did this on purpose! You never liked me anyways. Jimin! Jimin!‘ She scream’s, coughing and wheezing making her face red.

Multiple footsteps rush into the kitchen. You don’t know what to do at this point so you just back away and let whoever take over. All the commotion going on and yelling is starting to give you a slight headache. All of the boys surround her, bombarding with questions and asking each other what to do. 

‘‘ What’s all the yelling about? What happened! “ Jungkook exclaims rushing towards her hunched over body.

‘‘ What’s going on? “ That voice that haunts you everynight finally comes inside the kitchen. When he see’s Isabel he automatically rushes towards her side. It pains you to see him rush to another woman’s body. But that figure is no longer yours so he has every right to do that.

‘‘ She-She put almond in the cookies on purpose! She’s trying to–to-’‘ She manages to wheeze out before another coughing fit.

Jimin’s eyes meet yours full of rage but then taken over by concern. He knows your hurt. Still hurt from the past and from this very situation now. You don’t manage to keep eye contact, so the floor is your eyes’ bestfriend right now.

‘‘ Yn. is this true? Why would you do that?”  He says, eyes never leaving yours and voice soft.

You shake your head quickly, “ I didn’t know she was allergic. I always put almond extract an-’’

“ You knew better than to put any type or form of nut in a dish when bringing it to ones house. You never know if someone has an allergy to it.’‘ Jungkook scolds you, eyes furrowed in shame.

‘‘ Don’t blame her. She didn’t fucking know.” Ryan’s voice enters the room in madness. She comes to your side with her arms crossed. Your own personal savior. Without her, you’d still be feeling guilty and taking the blame.

‘‘ Besides, you knew better than to invite him if you knew he was going to bring the girl he cheated on her with.. right?’‘ She says, cocking her head to the side as her attitude takes over.

The room is silent again. Good girl Ryan. 

Isabel lifts her head in disbelief along with Jimin. “ Listen that’s beside the point. Just don’t do it again.” Jimin says, focusing his attention back on Isabel. He reaches into her purse to grab her Epi-pen.

His scolding is enough to send your eyes into tears. You shouldn’t of agreed to come. This is a disaster. You take the tuba-wear of cookies from the counter on your way out of the kitchen and dispose of them. Your vision is blurry and you don’t know where your going but you just need some air. You make lefts and rights down long and short hallways till you reach a room that has a balcony.

You slip on who-ever’s house slippers and open the sliding door revealing the winter’s cold harsh air. You lean on the railing and close your eyes breathe in and out heavily.

Wiping the tears away, You open our eyes and look straight ahead. The whole city is lit up such a beautiful view for a sad moment. The sad moment is cut short by the sliding door opening and closing. You don’t bother to turn around it’s probably just Ryan checking on you again. When are people going to stop doing that?

“ Yn.”

Thats the last voice you wanted to hear.

‘‘ Are you happy? Happy for scolding me infront of everybody.”  You sniffle, wiping away your leaking nose.

You hear some rustling before something is placed on your shoulders. You look down at the material and shrug it off of you.

‘‘ Give it to your girlfriend.”

‘‘ I can’t let you be cold. Put it back on.’‘ He sighs, picking it back up and coming closer to you. You both stand side by side. Jimin puts his jacket around you once more and before you could re-do your action just before, he speaks.

‘‘ Shrug it off again and I’ll scold you. Do you understand?’‘ He says firmly.

You don’t bother to speak. Silence is golden.

‘‘ Listen.. i know you still aren’t over the fact that we are through but-”

‘‘ Shut up. I don’t want to hear it. Please go tend to your dying girlfriend.’‘ You say, sarcastically.

He huffs, “ She’s resting right now. She wouldn’t have to be if you wouldn’t of put-’’

You turn towards him slowly and meet his eyes daring for him to finish the rest of his sentence. ‘’ Don’t you fucking dare Park Jimin.’’

‘‘ Honorifics.’‘ He says, slightly looking down at you due to the height difference.

‘‘ You’re right Jimin-ssi.’‘

Jimin’s expression is taken a-back. You knew that one honorific word would hurt him.

‘‘ If we are done speaking I will take my leave now.” You say, eyes never leaving his as you take off his jacket and toss it to him, leaving him outside in the cold

This night was one of your worst mistakes. You thought you could handle it, but couldn’t. So maybe Ryan and Jungkook were right. Maybe you can’t handle it at all..

[popculturebuffet]

March of the Penguins: Surfs Up! Review (Comission for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy pengy’s and welcome back to march of the penguins, my kev sponsored look at pengy media in march. If you wondered why there wasn’t an instalment last week, I was sick and thus this was my natural state for the last few days

As such I had to cut the opus segment, but I feel this is a fun enough theme to possibly do again next year. Still your getting both surfs up movies so...

So for those of you wondering why Surf’s Up, the short answer?

The longer answer is that like me Kev saw this film once, both of us in theaters, and vaguely remembered it, but otherwise forgot it... till he found out ten years later, WWE made a sequel to it, which i’ll be covering next week. This left him with an obvious question

I don’t have the answer yet, I may never have it. It may be one of those big cosmic what if’s. But I was still intrested enough to agree to the reviews and to dive into this film I half remembered and it’s sequel that honestly probably shoudln’t exist but does because like me, vince mcmahon is made of stone. Unlike me he’s made of lovecraftian insanity, hard tack, essential oils and screaming, but point is I’ve got some pengy movies to review. 

I couldn’t find much on the making of this film sadly, but to compesnate i’m going to reflect on something amazing: this was the SECOND film ever done by sony pictures animation. Yes before we got four hotel transylvanias, the best spider-man movie, a few aardman movies , and about half a dozen films cerfied by the fda to give you scabies, it all started with a buddy comedy that got three dtv sequels for some reason and this movie about surfing penguins. It’s just weird to think that an animation company I didn’t think much abou tall the way back then has had such a varied history. But with such a topsy turvey history was there any good in this one or did it wipe out at the start? Join me under the cut to find out. 

The Trailers Before Surf’s Up

This is a fun stupid side adventure I cooked up. See originally I was going to watch the film on Tubi, as I will with the sequel. But last week, just before my cold punched punched me in the face, I went to my library after far too long and got my card unblocked. And while for the most part it’s meant drowning myself in the wide and glorious variety of manga from my youth and various adventures of phoebe and her unicorn, it also meant checking to see if the library had the movie so I could watch it add free. It did so I did but that wasn’t entirely true as I forgot one of the funnest parts of old dvds, the ads. Seeing films from long ago I saw shoved in my face constantly on kids networks while I was just trying to watch chowder and total drama dammit like any respectable high schooler, it was nostalgic for me and fun too. So I thought id break them down both for my own amusment and to give kev some extra content since while I obviously coudln’t control this being delayed the way it was, I still feel bad it took this long. So without further adeu...

Water Horse: Legend of the Deep While i’ve never seen this film I remember getting bombarded with ads for it on cartoon network which only brought one thought to my head. 

It’s your usual mediocre kid movie: kid finds cg dragon monster, has to keep it from his mom along with his dad, uncle, mom’s sex buddy, weirdly age gapped brother, comic relief, child with benjamin button disease, hamster piloting a human whatever he is, and also there’s a kraven the hunter afoot they have to protect their new friend whose also the loch ness monster from. I just told you the entire plot and i’ve only seen the trailer. 

Daddy Day Camp:

This film’s mere existance has haunted me for the past century. See I liked Daddy Day Care. Partly because it refrenced the flash, partly because back then i Liked anything steve zahn was in, and partly because I also liked Jeff Garlin back before he was replaced by a terrifying cgi cutout because it’s more plesant than actually having to work with Jeff Garlin. I watched it far more than a middle schooler probably shoud’ve as it was one of my only dvd’s. So getting bombarded with ads for it’s shitty half assed sequel no one asked for that had none of the original cast filled me with a weird and deep hatred. 

Now i’ve grown as a person, allegedly. I’ve come to face harsh truths: Steve Zahn is awesome but picks very shitty films including the very film that made me love him Saving Silverman (That I may still cover because it is insane. Let me know or comission me if you want to see that), shitty sequels exist and Daddy DayCamp is throughly mediocre. But I still hold a special place in my colon for Daddy Day Camp as the defintion of a lazy sequel: They had no money to get anyone of note back, as evidenced by resulting to oscar award winning star of Boat Trip Cuba Gooding Junior, the kids are lazy hackneed bits including one named mullet that was in every tv spot for this because they were actually proud of a mullet joke which unless it’s about superman’s glorious permed mullet is never acceptable, and just looks hilariously half assed. Maybe i’ll also cover this thing some day. 

Storm Hawks:

The only tv show of the bunch. I remember it exists and has a fun setting nad character designs (i’ve always been a sucker for sky settings), but otherwise was just your standard action show. Still it got nerd corps far enough to make slugterra which was equally cliche but also had one of the best mons premises of all time in “SHOOT THEM AT EACH OTHER DAMMIT”. 

Spider-Man 3:

Now we’re into films I have seen and I rewatched both of these last two films decently recently. I watched Spider-Man 3 around no way home as I was showing my neice the rami films. She like dem even if she dosen’t like this version of venom. It wasn’t as horrible as I remembered, but it’s still not... good and while disco peter is enjoyably stupid, the scene with him dancing in the club is to superhero movies what the I think I love you scene from scream 2 is to horror. An embarsing moment we’re still not sure why or how it happened. 

Monster House:

Rewatched this one with @jess-the-vampire​ around halloween. Really damn fun and REALLY fucking killer animation. Seriously it’s gorgeous. Also connecting it to this film it was one of several John Heder did before his napolen dynamite fame evaporated. 

The Plot of Surf’s Up:

Surf’s Up is your standard “Punk ass kid has a talent his family and hometown dosen’t undrestand so he runs off to try and fufill his dream, it’s harder than he expects, his idol isn’t who he thought, he makes friends and learns the true meaning of things was love of friendship or no traffic accidents, he has a force love intrest, dedrich bader as a pengin trys to fuck a trophy”

You know a regular kids movie. But so you know what i’m talking about i’ll go into a bit more detail. 

Surf’s Up is a mockumentary, following the tenth anniversay big z memorial. Big Z was the world’s greatest surfer but apparently died a decade ago. But 

So you can probably see where this is going. So every year they have the Big Z Memorial at pengu island, the biggest surf spot in the world to honor him. So a camera crew heads off to the cold north of Shiverpool to follow a rookie surfer named Cody Maverick (Actual Cannibal and Actual Actual Abuser, Shia Le Bouf) , who thanks to Z visiting has had a lifelong obession with surfing despite having no real experince. Despite the scout not wanting to take him, Cody chases the whale their riding to get his shot, and heads to the island. 

There he encounters your stock characters: Love interest Lani (Zoey Daschenel), comedy sidekick Chicken Joe (Heder) and rival and boisterous asshole Tank (My boy and underated va legend Dedrich Bader), flanked by his manager, formerly z’s, Reggie, played by public nusance james woods. For some reason the film thinks we need a pixalated nut shot of reggie

Weird Sex Stuff In This Franchise Count: 1

Trust me.. one clip from two tells me we’ll need this. 

So after some shenanigans, Cody challenges Tank after he disrespects z, he wipes out bad and is prepared to quit , and he gets peed on by Z while he’s headling Cody, as he’s lani’s uncle and also pretending not to actaully be z even though the audience called that he was still alive about 30 minutes ago. Also

Weird Sex Stuff in This Franchise Count: 2

So naturally your standard shonen traniing arc occurs as Z has cody wax on, wax off, building a board and doing various stuff to ballance him while Cody opens the old curmodugeon’s heart. Eventually they have the falling out you expect when it turns out Z faked his death not for tax purposes but because he was afraid of loosing, hence why he dosen’t like competition. Cody goes back to surf, Lani yells at him, and Joe returns from his 20 minute comedy plot involving obnoxious savage native sterotypes that took 20 minutes of my life I wish I could get back. 

The finale is telegraphed: Cody gives up his chance at winning for friendship and fun and lets joe win, and has to navigate some deadly rocks with Z’s help. Z comes out publicly, reggi’es career is ruined and Joe is king of the beach at least till joker zaps him with the surfing skill drainer and vigor reverser. 

The Things I Liked About Surf’s Up:

Before I get into why I was mostly EHHH on the film I do feel some credit is due on the things it does right.

The animation.. is drop dead gorgeous. While Sony Pictures has made some questionable decisions, at their best and even sometimes at their worst the animation is a fucking wonder to behold and Surf’s Up, even this early is no exception. The water effects are top notch, something that later netted them Aardman’s underated Pirates, and the characters all look vibrant and intresting.  Except Reggie but it’s hard to make james woods not look like a reanimated corpse even in animation. It’s why Disney just leaned into it. The surfing is also just utterly fun to watch, on par with lilo and stich’s own landmark sequences, and ther’es some great pov shots that i’m astounded they pulled off in animation. The film may be light on plot and subtance but it DOES have style. 

Next the mocumentary idea is good. The execution dosen’t really work as they don’t really do anyting intresting with it and frankly a standard kids movie plot just dosen’t fit. The film would’ve been better if it was essentially an animated christopher guest movie: add a few surfers, have some comedic talent voice them. It’s not hard and i’ts something I do hope is tried again as I love a good mocumentary but here it’s really just an excuse the pad the film out. A LOT of the run time is just ad libbed attempts at jokes by the cast and while Heder, Bader and Daschinel are talented, they aren’t great at improv. 

The final thing i’ll give it is Jeff Motherfucking Bridges. The dude himself is great in anything and one of my faviorite actors now I think about it. So of course he’s fun here as Z, perfectly cast as the worn out surfer and serves as the perfect comedic foil to Shia “shouty pants” Lebeef. Every moment he’s on a scream, dramatically and comedically makes the film better. Z himself, while not the most original character, is still engaging, if entirely thanks to bridges: he’s funny, you get why he quit and his arc of getting out of his own ass and rejoining the world again as he regains his love of surfing is geninely touching, with the final scene , as mentor and mentee surf with tons of other surfers for the fun of it, being incredibly charming. I mean it’s set to get what you give by the radicals, so it has some help but Z is a geninely good character and I dread going into the sequel without him. Speaking of which. 

Everything Else About Surfs Up:

I will say Surf’s Up is not a terrible movie. Outside of some blatant padding and a quetsoinable moment or too, I was never offended. But it is a very forgetable film. Me and Kev both forgot it because.. it just dosen’t have that much. It has a decent soundtrack.. bu tone that by this point had been heard in tons of better movies. It has a decent cast but two of them have ruined any good will they built up and the rest aren’t given much to work with.

And a big part of the problem is the format: a mockumentary requires decently sized personalites. They can deadpan saying insane stuff, but you need oddballs talking to the camera or engaging personalities for it to work. But the characters are so thin outside of z that it dosen’t work at all. Cody is a try hard, his brother glenn is a giant asshole and a waste of brian poshen who spends all his screentime bullying his brother and making me wish a walrus would come for him in the night and put me out of my misery, lani is a genric love intrest, chicken joe is just “wow he’s kinda spacey” which works once or twice but dosen’t really work overall and Tank is just a generic bully whose only real comedic set peices are bullying children and not so subtly implying he fucks his trophys. 

Weird Sex Stuff In This Franchise: 3

There’s just nothing there to latch onto. I don’t care if Cody wins often because while I want him to show his brother wrong, he’s also so annoying half the time because Shia LeQuack is playing him that despite WANTING to root for him he makes me instead want that walrus to take another pass. I don’t care if chicken joe finds cody because he only met him yesterday, and I don’t care if cody and lani get together because again they met yesterday and their only together because the plot says so. 

And the message of the film, while valid it’s okay to just have fun with a hobby... dosne’t work. Cody’s wanted this his whole life. The message should be you don’t need validation, you just need a passion for something. To enjoy it. It dosen’t hlep lani yells at cody for wanting to win.. despite NEVER HAVING ASKED HIM WHY HE WANTS IT SO BAD. Instead of tying his need for the people back home who never got him to love him into his main character arc naruto style, they just ignore that he has a valid freudian excuse for being so competition focused and focused on z: Z Beleived in him when no one else did. 

The film is just flat and lifeless. It has a lot going for it but in the end.. it’s just a lot of nothing and trophy fucking. It’s memorable because it looks good but they didn’t bother ot put something that feels good underneath. It’s far from the worst animated film i’ve seen but it’s just right in the middle where it belongs and where it’ll likely fade from my memory again. 

Anyways join me next week to see Vince McMahons weird fetishes, join my patreon bellow to help keep the lights on and ask, or comment. Let me know what you thought and follow if you want more nonsense from me. Next time it’s the 400TH review as I tie a ribbon on a retrospective i’ve been working on for almost the entire span of this blog thus far. 

PATREON

TWITTER

[lochtayboatsong]

The Jesus Christ Superstar essay absolutely no one asked for.

Last weekend, I watched the pro-shot of the 2012 arena tour of Jesus Christ Superstar starring Ben Forster, Tim Minchin, and Melanie C, because it was Easter and it was up on YT for the weekend.  I never managed to do my annual listen-through of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass this year, as is my usual Easter tradition, so I figured “Why not watch/listen to this instead?”  It was my first time seeing and hearing JCS in full, and Y’ALL, it has been living rent-free in my brain ever since.  I have a mighty need to get my thoughts out, so here they are, in chronological order by song.  

1) Prologue: I love the way JCS 2012 makes use of the arena video screen.  The production design and concept clearly took a lot of inspiration from the “Occupy ______” movement, which makes it feel a bit dated now.  But every single production of JCS is a product of its time period, so this is a feature and not a bug.  

2) Heaven On Their Minds: This is a straight-up rock song.  It wouldn’t be out of place on any rock and roll album released between 1970 and 2021, and it boggles my mind that Webber and Rice were both in their early twenties when they wrote it.  Also, the lyric “You’ve begun to matter more than the things you say” hits hard no matter the year.

3) What’s the Buzz: A+ use of the arena screens again, this time bringing in social media to set the tone.  Also, this song establishes right from the outset that Jesus is burnt out and T I R E D by this point in the story.  Seriously, can we just let this man have a nap?

4) Strange Thing Mystifying: Judas publicly calls out Mary and Jesus claps back.  Folx, get you a partner who will defend your honor the way Jesus defends MM in this scene.  Also Jesus loses his shoes and is mostly barefoot for the remainder of the show.

5) Everything’s Alright: Okay, this is one of the songs I have A LOT to say about.  First, it’s important to know that I was a church musician throughout all of my adolescence and into my early adulthood.  The pianist at the services I usually played at was a top-notch jazz pianist, and also my piano teacher for about six years while I as in high school and undergrad.  (Incidentally, I had a HUGE crush on his son, who was/is a jazz saxophonist and clarinetist and also played in the church band, but that’s a story for another day.)  One of the hymns we played a few times a year was called “Sing of the Lord’s Goodness,” which is notable for being in 5/4 time.  Whenever this hymn was on the schedule, it was usually the recessional, or the last song played as the clergy processed out and the congregation got ready to leave, so we were able to have some fun with it.  After a couple verses the piano player and his son would usually morph it into “Take Five,” a famous jazz standard by Dave Brubeck which is also in 5/4 time.  Anyway, the first time I listened to this song in full, it got to Judas’s line “People who are hungry, people who are starving,” and I sat bolt upright and went “HOLY SHIT THIS IS ‘SING OF THE LORD’S GOODNESS/TAKE FIVE.’”  And I was ricocheted back in time to being fourteen and trying to keep up with this father/son duo in a cavernous Catholic church while simultaneously making heart-eyes at the son.  Final note: This is the only song in the musical to feature all three leads (Jesus, Judas, and Mary Magdalene) and is mostly Jesus and MM being soft with each other in between bouts of Jesus and Judas snarling at one another.

6) This Jesus Must Die: I LOVE that all the villains in this production are in tailored suits.  LOVE IT.  Also, Caiaphas and Annas are a comedy duo akin to “the thin guy and the fat guy,” except in this case it’s “the low basso profundo and the high tenor.”  Excellent use of the arena video screen again, this time as CCTV.

7) Hosanna: My background as a church musician strikes back again.  It honestly took me two or three listens to catch it, but then I had another moment of sitting bolt upright and going “HOLY SHIT THIS IS A PSALM.”  Psalms sung in church usually take the form of call-and-response, with a cantor singing the verses and the congregation joining in for the chorus.  If I close my eyes during this song, I have no trouble imagining Jesus as a church cantor singing the verses and then bringing the congregation in for the “Ho-sanna, Hey-sanna” chorus. 

8) Simon Zealotes: This is part “Gloria In Excelsis” and part over-the-top Gospel song.  Honestly it’s not my favorite, but it marks an important mood change in the show.  The end of “Hosanna” is probably Jesus at his happiest in the entire show, and then Simon comes in and sours the mood by trying to tip the triumphant moment into a violent one.  Jesus is not truly happy again from this moment on.

9) Poor Jerusalem: Also not my fave.  It kinda reads like Webber and Rice realized that Jesus didn’t have a solo aria in Act I, so they came up with this.  But it has the distinction of containing the lyric, “To conquer death you only have to die,” which is the biggest overarching theme of the story.

10) Pilate’s Dream: Pontius Pilate might be the most underrated role in this entire show, and I love that this production has him singing this song while being dressed in judge’s robes.  

11) The Temple: The first half of this is one of the campiest numbers in Act I, at least in this production, and it’s awesome.  The second half is one of the saddest, as Jesus tries to heal the sick but finds there are too many of them.  Also the whole scene is almost entirely in 7/8 time, which I think is just cool.

12) I Don’t Know How To Love Him: Mary Magdalene’s big aria, and one of the songs I knew prior to seeing the full-length show.  This production has MM taking off her heavy lipstick and eye makeup onstage, mid-song, which is kind of cool.  Melanie C says in a BTS interview that MM’s makeup is her armor, so this is a Big Symbolic Moment.

13) Damned For All Time: The scene transition into this song is played entirely in pantomime, and I love it.  The solo guitarist gets to be onstage for a bit, A+ use of the video screen again to show Judas on CCTV, etc.  Love it.  And then this song is Judas frantically rationalizing what he’s doing, and what he’s about to do, with Caiphas and Annas just reacting with raised eyebrows and knowing looks.

14) Blood Money: This is where the tone of the show really takes a turn for the dark.  I think this might be one of Tim Minchin’s finest moments as Judas, because his facial expressions and microexpressions throughout this scene speak absolute volumes.  And the offstage chorus quietly singing “Well done Judas” as he picks up the money is a positively chilling way to end Act I.

15) The Last Supper: Act II begins with major “Drink With Me” vibes.  (Except JCS came WAY before Les Miz, so it’s probably more accurate to say that “Drink With Me” has major “The Last Supper” vibes.)  Jesus and Judas have their knock-down, drag-out fight, and it’s honestly heartbreaking, thanks again to Tim Minchin’s facial expressions.  A well-done production of JCS will really convey that Jesus and Judas were once closer than brothers, even though their relationship is at breaking point when Act I begins.

16) Gethsemane: This is Jesus’s major showpiece and one of my faves.  Jesus knows he has less than 24 hours to live, he knows he’s going to suffer, and worst of all, he doesn’t know whether it’s going to be worth it.  It’s an emotional rollercoaster to watch and to perform, and it goes on for ages: something like 6 or 7 minutes.  Fun fact: the famous G5 is not written in the score.  Ian Gillan, who played Jesus on the original concept album, just sang it that way, so most subsequent Jesuses have also done it that way.  Lindsay Ellis has a great supercut of this on YT.  John Legend notably sang the line as written during the 2018 concert.  

17) The Arrest: Judas’s Betrayer’s Kiss is played differently across different productions.  The 2012 version is pretty tame - I’ve seen clips and gifs of other productions, including the 2000 direct-to-video version, where they kiss fully on the mouth and have to be dragged apart by the guards and it is THE MOST TENDER THING.  Then the 7/8 riff from “The Temple” comes back and the 2012 version lets the video screen do its thing again as Jesus is swarmed by reporters.

18) Peter’s Denial: Not much to say about this one, as it’s basically a scene transition.  But it’s a significant moment in the Passion story, so I’m glad they included it.

19) Pilate and Christ: The 2012 production continues with the theme of Caiaphas, Annas, and Pilate all being bougie af, since Pilate intentionally looks like he just came from tennis practice during this scene.  Also he does pilates...hehehe.

20) King Herod’s Song: Tim Minchin says in a BTS interview that JCS works best when Jesus and Judas are played seriously and the rest of the production is allowed to be completely camp and wild and bizarre all around them, and he is bloody well CORRECT about that.  Case in point: King Herod.  There is not a single production of JCS that I know of where Herod is played “straight.”  He’s been played by everyone from Alice Cooper to Jack Black, and everyone puts a different zany spin on him.  In JCS 2012 he’s a chat show host in a red crushed velvet suit, who is clearly having the time of his LIFE. 

21) Could We Start Again Please: This is another of my faves.  Just a quiet moment where MM, Peter, and the disciples try to grapple with the fact that Jesus is arrested and things are going very, very badly.  This is also my favorite Melanie C moment of the 2012 show.  Her grief is very real, and the little moment she has with Peter at the end is very real.

22) Death of Judas: This is basically Tim Minchin screaming for about five minutes, and incredibly harrowing to watch on first viewing.  

23) Trial Before Pilate: Possibly my single favorite scene in the entire 2012 production.  This is another harrowing watch, but there’s so much to take in.  The “set” that the entire show takes place on is essentially just a massive staircase, and the people with power are almost always positioned above the people without power.  In this scene, the crowd shouting “Crucify Him!” is positioned above Pilate, which is a very telling clue to Pilate’s psychology during this scene.  Jesus is at the very bottom of the stairs, of course.  Excellent use of the video screen once again during the 39 Lashes, to show the lash marks building and building until the entire screen is a wash of red.  Pilate’s counting also gets more and more frantic, especially starting around “20.”  And all the while the guitar riff from “Heaven On Their Minds” is playing.  Jesus’s line “Everything is fixed and you can’t change it” is played quite differently in different productions - here it’s defiant, but elsewhere (in JCS 2000 for example) it’s almost tender, like Jesus is absolving Pilate for his part in the trial.  But it always ends the same - with Pilate almost screaming as he passes the sentence and “washes his hands” of the whole sorry business. 

24) Superstar: The most over-the-top number in the show.  Judas, who died two scenes ago, comes back to sing this.  There are soul singers.  There are girls in skimpy angel costumes.  The parkour guys from the prologue are back.  Judas pulls a tambourine out of hammerspace midway through the song.  And Jesus is silently screaming and crying as he gets hoisted onto a lighting beam while all this is going on.

25) The Crucifixion: More of a spoken-word piece than a song, it’s Jesus’s final words on the cross over eerie piano music, and another harrowing watch.

26) John 19:41: An instrumental piece in which Jesus is taken from the cross and carried, at last, to the top of the stairs, before being lowered out of sight as the video screen turns into a memorial wall and everything fades to black.

So.  I know I’m anywhere from three to fifty-one years late to this particular party, but I am on the JCS bandwagon now and I’m thoroughly enjoying myself.  :)

[michaels-blackhat]

thoughts on evil Forrest 😈

We are going to start out by apologizing. This is very very late. I’m sure when you sent this ask, you meant it to be in the same joking tone that I approach all of my other propaganda posts. Sadly, this is actually going to be a deep dive into a few Evil Forrest related things, including the moment I feel they changed directions, the perfect wasted build-up, and the implications of the change/how it then negatively impacted the story. As I’m sure you already know, by being on my blog at all, I don’t think the story was good to begin with, so we are going to focus on the weird hoops they made themselves jump through to make that story still work. Additionally, I am only going to mention once, right now, how much of a waste it was to not have Forrest ‘fall for his mark’ and complete one of my absolute favorite tropes. Honestly, I think “because I want it” is a completely valid reason to like Evil Forrest. But, the question was “Thoughts on Evil Forrest” and these thoughts have been developing for over a year and a half. So, I apologize in advance.

The majority of this is under a cut, with highlights in the abstract. If no one wants to read this, I understand completely. Go ahead, skip it.

Note: it pains me greatly to not actually have full sources for this essay. Just know that in my heart I am using proper APA citations, I just absolutely do not feel like digging through tweets to find sources to properly cite.

Abstract:

Previous research indicates that Roswell New Mexico has a history of repeating excuses to explain mid-season changes to plots. This essay explores how those excuses are not only loads of crap, but how they hinder the show’s ability to tell a coherent story, misuse the multiple-plot structure to enhance the themes being explored, and lead to decisions that mean the show continuously goes over budget. This also means that characters are not used to their full potential and has led to what some fans consider to be “out of character” behaviors. While these behaviors are not universally agreed on, evidence can be shown that these behaviors directly contradict emotionally important character arc/plot points in the show.

The author of this paper acknowledges that the show took some strides to mend this problem. However, once again no consensus could be found on whether Forrest was a low-level member of Deep Sky and thus just allowed to fuck off on a bus, or his job was recruitment because he did a piss poor job of making Alex not join.

The concept of Evil Forrest has been with the fandom as early as New York Comic Con (NYCC) in 2019, when it was revealed that Alex had a new “blue-haired love interest”. Speculation abounded within the fandom, with some people, including the author, going “yeah, he’s evil” while others rejoiced in the concept of Alex having a loving partner. Speculation increased as fans discussed Tyler Blackburn’s seeming disinterest in his new love interest, prompting some once again to scream “EVIL” at the top of their lungs to anyone who would listen. Very little was revealed, beyond the fact that the new character would show up somewhere around episode 3 of the second season.

Episode 2.04 aired with some commenting on how he barely interacted with Alex- prompting more evil speculation- and others excited to see the characters interact more. The character appears again in 2.06, where he invites Alex to dubious spoken word poetry (which Alex attends); 2.08, where they have a paintball date and go to The Wild Pony; 2.10, where the two are seen writing together briefly at the beginning of the episode; and 2.13, where Alex performs his song at open mic night, tells Forrest his relationship with the person in the song was long over, and they kiss. Forrest was not revealed to be evil during season 2.

Amidst the season airing, Word of God via Twitter post announced that yes, Forrest had originally been planned as a villain, though not the main villain, but it was changed as filming progressed.

The Word of God Twitter post revealed that Forrest had originally been planned as a villain, but they decided that they could not make their “blue-haired gay man” a villain. This mirrors a similar situation and excuse used the previous season, where the character of Jenna Cameron was originally planned to work with Jesse Manes against the aliens, before it was changed because they just “loved Riley [the actress] too much”. Both of these examples occurred while already filming and reflect on a larger problem with the show. Though not the topic of this essay, it is important to note that both characters are white, both in the show and by virtue of being played by white actors. The fact that they couldn’t be villains for one reason or another is not a courtesy extended to the male villains who are all the most visibly brown, and thus ‘other’, members of the cast.

This also highlights the fact that, via Twitter, it has been revealed two other times that occurrences that were reported in season 1 also occurred in season 2. During the airing of episode 1.02, it was revealed that the single best build-up of tension in the show- when Alex walks to the Airstream not saying a word to Michael after a dramatic declaration- happened because one actor was sick at the time and they had to go back and film the kisses later. At the point of airing for episode 2.08, it was revealed that one of the actors were sick and unable to film a kissing scene. Allegedly, this caused the writers to retool the entire scene and deviate from the plan to make that subplot about Coming Out. The execution of this subplot will be explored later in this essay.

The last occurrence revealed via Twitter also revealed larger issues within the show: lack of planning and poor budgeting. During the airing of season 1, Tyler Blackburn was needed for an extra episode beyond his contracted 10. A full explanation was never given, but speculation about poor planning and to fill in because Heather Hemmens had to miss one of her 10 episodes due to scheduling conflicts for another project. During the airing of season 2, yet another tweet came out saying they made a mistake and Tyler would once again be in an additional episode. No explanations beyond “a mistake” were given, though once again speculation occurred. It is the opinion of the author that this was due to changing plot points over halfway through writing, while episodes were already in production. It has been speculated by some that these changes occurred during the writing of 2.08, which was being finished/pre-production was occurring roughly around the time of NYCC 2019.

Previous Literature:

A brief look at different theories of plots and subplots

Many people have written on the subject of plotting, for novels and screen alike. The author is more familiar with film writing than tv, but a lot of the concepts carry over. Largely, the B- and C- (and D- and E-… etc) plots should reinforce the theme of the A-plot. This can be through the use of a negative example, where the antithesis of the theme is explored to reinforce the theme presented by the A plot, or through other examples of the theme, generally on a small scale.

A movie example of this would be Hidden Figures (2016), where the A-plot explores how race and gender impact the main character (Katherine Johnson) in her new job. The B-plots explore the other characters navigating the same concepts in different settings and ways- learning a new skill as to not become obsolete and breaking boundaries there (Dorothy Vaugn) and being the first black woman to complete a specific degree program and the fight it took to get there (Mary Jackson). A TV example that utilizes this concept of plot and theme is the 911 shows. Each of the rescues in a given episode will directly relate to the overall theme of the episode and the overall plot for the focus character. This example is extremely blunt. It does not use any tools to hide the connection, to the point you can often guess the outcome for that A-plot fairly quickly.

This is not the only way to explore themes within visual media. Moonlight (2016) looks at three timestamps in the life of Chiron. Each timestamp has a plot even if they feel more like individual scenes or moments rather than plots as some are more used to in films. Each time stamp deals with rejection, isolation, connection, and acceptance in different ways. So while there is no clear A-, B-, or C-Plot, each time stamp works as their own A-Plot to explore the themes in a variety of ways, particularly by starting out in a place of rejection and moving to acceptance or a place of connection to isolation.

Please note that there are many ways to write multiple plots, there are just two examples.

While there are flaws within season 1 of RNM, overall the themes stayed consistent throughout the season, mainly the theme of alienation. The theme threads through the Alien’s isolation/alienation from humanity which is particularly seen through Michael’s unwillingness to participate and Isobel’s over participation. There is Rosa’s isolation from others, how her friendship with “Isobel” ended up compounding her existing alienation from her support system due to her mental illness and coping mechanisms. We see how Max and Liz couldn’t make connections. This theme presented itself over and over in season 1. While this essay is not an exploration of the breakdown of themes in season 2, it should be noted that there were some threads that followed throughout the season. The theme of mothers/motherhood was woven throughout season 2, with some elements more effective than others. Please contact the author for additional thoughts on Helena Ortecho and revenge plots.

One of the largest problems within season 2 was the sheer number of plots jammed into the season. These plot threads often ended up hindering the effectiveness of the themes and made the coherence of the season suffer. Additionally, a lot of them were convoluted and difficult to follow.

Thesis:

Essentially, season 2 was a mess. To look at it holistically is almost an exercise in futility. Either you grow angry about the dropped plots and premises, you hand wave them off, or you fill them in for yourself. Instead, this essay proposes to look at individual elements to explain why Forrest should have stayed evil.

We first meet Forrest in 2.04 when he is introduced on the Long Family Farm, which we later learn was the location where our past alien protagonists had their final standoff. He’s introduced. He’s largely just there. The audience learns he has more of a history with Michael. In 2.06, we meet him again with his dog Buffy (note: poor Buffy has not been seen again and we miss a chunky queen). There’s mild flirting, Alex is invited to an open mic night, which he attends. For the purpose of this essay, the author’s thoughts on the poetry will not be expressed. Readers can take a guess.

It is after this point that the author speculates the Decision was made. This choice to make Forrest not evil- paired with the aforementioned ‘can’t kiss, someone’s sick’- impacted the plot. We have Alex have a scene with his father- which the author believes could have been pushed to a different episode- and then have Alex go on a date and then not kiss Forrest at the end of the night. Here, the audience sees Forrest hit Alex in the leg, allegedly not knowing he had lost his leg despite ‘looking him up’, which parallels the shot to the leg that happens to Charlie. Besides wasting this ABSOLUTELY TEXTBOOK SET UP WTF, it also takes Alex away from the main plot and then forces a new plot for him. Up to this point, Alex’s plot was discovering more about the crash and his family’s involvement. Turning Alex’s date from a setup for evil Forrest to a Coming Out story adds yet another plot thread to a packed season. It is also the author’s thought that this is where the convoluted kidnapping plot comes in. With Forrest already in 2.10 for a moment, a plot where Alex is evil has Forrest attack him for Deep Sky rather than Jesse abduct him for a piece of alien glass Alex was going to give him anyway and then for Flint to abduct Alex from Jesse. It’s messy. In a bad way. Evil Forrest would have been a cleaner set up: no taking back a piece of alien glass Alex gave to Michael in a touching moment. No double abduction. Instead, there is only Forrest, who Alex trusts, breaking that trust to take him as leverage over Michael.

Implications:

Now, Alex has two plots (Tripp & Coming Out). The Coming Out plot is largely ineffective, as they are only relevant to scenes with Forrest and have the undercurrent of there only being a certain acceptable way to be out. This could have been used for Alex to discover his comfort levels, mirroring Isobel’s self discovery, but there was not enough screen time for that. Additionally, Isobel’s coming out story was about her allowing herself the freedom to explore. Alex’s story was about the freedom to… act like this dude wanted him to. Alex’s internalized homophobia played out often in the series but it was also informed by the violence he experienced at Jesse’s hands and the literal hate crime he and his high school boyfriend experienced. With that in mind, the “kissing to piss off bigots” line comes off poorly. This is a character who experienced what a pissed off bigot could do- reluctance to kiss in public is not the same as not being out. There is more to be said on this topic, but as it is not actually the focus of the essay, it will be put on hold. To surmise: Alex’s coming out is attempted to be framed as being himself, but it is actually the conformity to someone else’s ideals. It does not work as an antithetical to Isobel’s story, as the framing indicates that the conformity/right was to be out contradicts Isobel’s theme.

Further Research:

MAKE FORREST EVIL YOU COWARDS

Author Acknowledgements:

The author of this paper acknowledges that the show took some strides to mend this problem. However, once again no consensus could be found on whether Forrest was a low-level member of Deep Sky and thus just allowed to fuck off on a bus, or his job was recruitement because he did a piss poor job of making Alex not join.

[cybernaght]

The Rebel/叛逆者: A Review of Sorts

After being only semi-invested in the Rebel, I ended up getting so into it in the final weeks of its release, I’ve shelled out on IQIYI premium just to get the final couple of episodes a few days earlier.

That’s right kids, it’s a Review of Sorts. Unfortunately, I could not find a translation of the novella the drama is based on, so will be looking at it as a separate entity. 

Most of this post is spoiler-free, however I have dedicated a few paragraphs at the end of it to discussing the final episode, as there are a few specific things about it I wanted to mention. There is a clear spoiler warning before that part.

If you don’t want to risk it, TL;DR version of this review goes something like this: Rebel is very decent, and positively one of the best things that I have seen to come out of China since I’ve jumped into that particular rabbit hole. It’s pretty well written, it’s very beautifully dressed and shot, and the cast is killing it. I thought it dropped the ball a little in post production, and I did not always love the pacing. Other than that, it’s incredibly decent, and well worth watching, unless communist propaganda really irks you, in which case stay very well away. 

I have been having many conversations with @supernovasimplicity​ all the way through watching this drama, so there are likely to be some thoughts here that are influenced by those. 

The story centers around Lin Nansheng, a struggling servicemen in the Guomingdang party. He has a great analytical mind, and absolutely no emotional capacity for his job. He has trouble handling violence, he is impulsive, he cannot speak to his superiors without bursting into tears, and has nothing even remotely resembling a poker face. And that is what makes this drama as enjoyable as it is. 

I don’t think Lin Nansheng’s journey would have been nearly as exciting had he started it from a place of competence. He botches up everything he touches because his big brain switches off the moment his emotions kick in. And so, when you see him grow in confidence, learn to control himself, learn to fake his smiles and compliments, you can’t help but feel a strange sense of pride. It also makes Lin Nansheng very likeable as a character for reasons other than Zhu Yilong’s ability to look like a bush baby.

It did take me a while to feel fully engaged with his performance - not because there is anything lacking in it, but just because it’s hard to be truly surprised by his choices after the exposure I have given myself to his work. That said, at about a half-way point I got charmed by him anyway, and there were quite a few scenes that were truly mesmerising. There were scenes where he broke out of the familiar mould of big unguarded eyes and fluttering wet eyelashes, and tried something that was not pretty: every time to a great success. I am hoping to see more of that in his future work. 

I really wanted to like the female lead, Zhu Yizhen, but unfortunately both the way she was written and the way she was performed by Tong Yao left me somewhat cold. It did not help of course that the screenplay ended up sidelining her at every turn, leaving her with very little personal agency. She was set up so interestingly, but in the end her sole purpose became being someone for Lin Nansheng to pine over. It is particularly curious from a perspective of meta storytelling: seeing how this is all centered around superiority of communism, which as a whole was, arguably, ahead of its time in the matters of binary gender equality.

The ensemble cast of the drama is stunning. Wang Yang came very close to  stealing the show at several points as Chen Moqun, somehow managing to make his rather unlikeable character interesting. I can say the same thing about Zhu Zhu who absolutely shined as Lin Xinjie, showing an incredible range and imagination in her performance.

The overarching story of the show is engaging, with some incredibly suspenseful elements; every narrative arc including a nice progression through it. As spy thrillers go, it was fairly well plotted. You could if you go looking for a few things that did not pay off in a satisfying way (notably, the Chekhov’s cyanide capsule), but you overall the story really was well told for the most of it. 

I did, however, feel like the pacing started to fall apart in the last quarter of the drama. Last episode in particular really did feel rushed, not just due to its pace, but also in a way it failed to pay off the final mission in any visible way. There will be more on that in the spoiler section of this post.

Important to note that The Rebel is a show made in Communist China in the year 2021. It does not ideologically side-step from the path that was laid out for it by that fact. Which is to say, it is, undeniably, filled with propaganda. Communists are the good guys, and if you think a good guy (or gal) is not a communist, they probably secretly are. With one exception of a friendly character who is not a communist, and whose fate we actually never find out. Curious, that. 

The Rebel is not a kind of a show where censorship-appeasing scenes are shoehorned in. It’s a kind of a show in which the main theme is Sacrifice For the Party.

Aside from the being the moral vector of the show, Mao’s gentle teachings explicitly help get Ling Nansheng out of prolonged depression following his injury, and almost annoyingly, this sat incredibly well with the character, as he was written. Lin Nansheng is conceived as this naive idealist who wants to be on the front line, who needs validation and support of others. His - and I can’t believe I’m saying this - his being disillusioned in his beliefs and choosing to join a party which includes people whom he likes and trusts makes sense. Him finding this one thing that gives him hope and letting it propel him into gaining confidence and competence makes sense. 

In many ways, the Rebel is a story of Lin Nansheng’s failure to become an antagonist within the world of the drama.

I have honestly spent this past couple of weeks pondering whether being well written makes political propaganda better or worse, whether the subtlety of it makes it more or less palatable, whether it’s enough, as a viewer, to be aware of it to shrug it off. Ultimately, this is not something I could or should make moral judgements on, but I do believe that it’s possible to acknowledge the fact that propaganda exists in the drama, and still appreciate it for a good piece of television that it is. 

That said, I am very well aware that me being kind of okay with it stems entirely from my own removal from the culture this is made in, and I am, perhaps, lucky to even have a choice as to whether I want to engage with a product which is, undoubtably, here to dress political ideology in fancy clothes.

I have, on the other hand, also seen many things in Russian media of the “Annexation of Crimea is Good Actually” variety and those make me feel very unwell, so feeling somewhat at ease with blatant political propaganda in Chinese media makes me the biggest hypocrite.

But, I digress.

Before we go into some specific plot-related things, I would like to mention that the Rebel has this weird dichotomy in which the production is sublime, and the post-production… not so much. The show very well shot. Every element of it sits perfectly together, not a single prop out of place, not a single extra underdressed, not a page of script not put to good use. It’s lit to perfection. It’s scored beautifully. So much of this show is just stunning.

And then… there is post-production. 

This is not even about bad CGI (and the CGI is, indeed, bad), it’s just that most of post-production as a whole feels rushed.

Starting with surprisingly imperfect editing, which at times just fails to make the scene flow together. The final line of dialogue would be spoken within a scene, and it would fade to black instantly without a single breath to indicate a full stop. A montage sequence would be created, but every shot within it condensed to a second, making it feel incredibly fast-paced when the effect should be the opposite. There would be a cut away from a speaking character and to the same speaking character from a slightly different angle, making it dynamic without any reason to do so. There are a couple of truly startling jump-cuts.

I did not speed this gif up. This is part of a romantic montage, edited like it’s a goddamn action sequence.

And of course dear old friend slowing down footage shot at 24FPS. Please don’t do this. You think no one notices - but we do.

There are other tell-tale signs of production rushing to the finish line: occasional, but very noticeable ADR glitches, very sloppy job done at sound mixing, which contribute to parts of the show feeling ever so slightly off.

It’s not unforgivable, but it does make me wish the same amount of care and efforts that went into shooting this drama would also go into it after it was all in the can. 

Oh, and just because if you know me you know I have a professional fixation on fights, and I am happy to say most action scenes are toe-curlingly delightful. Hot damn those fights are good. I am absolutely in love with the shot below, for example. Placing an actor behind a piece of set so he can exchange places with the stunt double during a one shot is such an old trick, but the execution, timing and camerawork are just... flawless. This is what perfection looks like.

Now we got all that out of the way...

SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES FINALE BELOW

Here’s the thing. I wanted to love the ending and I found that I could not.

The final mission was presented as important, and honestly the scene in which Zhu Yizhen is sending the vital message out as Lin Nansheng holds his ground in hand to hand fight is incredibly dynamic. Party, this is due to the fight itself being incredibly well choreographed, yes, but it’s also where it sits within the narrative, how high the stakes are for everything surrounding it. 

But then, the tension all but bleeds out. The Important Message is sent, the fight is won, and we are treated to ten minutes of a very slow car chase, problem of which is not even its speed as much as its placing within the story. As in, by this point both of those operatives have lost their cover, and completed their Very Important Mission. It would be very sad if they died, but their survival does not technically contribute to their cause. Moreover, Zhu Yizhen getting mortally injured in order to protect Lin Nansheng as part of her mission read a little empty when the mission is technically over. 

While I personally found Lin Nansheng slow recuperation and his low key ending enjoyable, I think I would have preferred to have seen a more tangible pay-off to all the sacrifices made in the name of “bright communist future”, just a little more justification for every moment of death and despair we witnessed. I would have certainly at the very least preferred to see Wang Shi’an’s death on screen. Considering how many likeable characters martyred themselves on screen, denying us the death of the one antagonist just seemed cruel. 

I really did love the ambiguity of the final few scenes however, if we consider the children choir at the end a fantasy. The idea that Lin Nansheng will live out his life in this hope that Zhu Yizhen is still alive, imagining her just outside of his field of vision, his only joy being in this fantasy of her… now, that is incredibly strong. I equally like the idea of rest being promised to him at the end of his journey, and said rest being painful, and slow and unwelcome.

But it felt like as they chose not to to lean into the “sweet” part of the bitter-sweet tone of the ending and we’re unable not commit to the “bitter” part either, so it lands with a splat which is somewhat lacklustre. 

---

This concludes my thoughts on the Rebel. 

I am more or less out of Zhu Yilong’s filmography to watch, which is probably a good thing at this point. I have just emerged out of several back to back work projects - literally today - and will hopefully once more have time for things I grew to enjoy doing during the lockdown. 

Those things, if you have not guessed, include watching Chinese television and writing things about Chinese television. 

[writingsfromhome]

Lookalike

Request: Can you do another cone song? Maybe lookalike or maniac? [Can you do it like harry dates a lookalike of you?]

A/N: I know this is way later than I said, I honestly wrote four version of this and deleted them before settling on this one and it’s still not the best. I’m just posting it so I can move on to my other ideas. I hope you enjoy it anyway! Soz it ends kinda on a cliffhanger, I didn’t want to make it super long. It already feels really long.

———————————

It was a humid summer evening, not the kind of evening you wanted to step out in. But here I was, in line with my best friend Jules who’d somehow gotten word of this pop-up club that was recently getting more popular with social media. The location would be dropped in code somewhere online for a limited time and then the rest was just word of mouth. Jules worked as a makeup artist so she usually knew what the “in crowd” was doing. This time, she knew where the club was going to be.

Myself, I was just a recent masters-graduate with low job prospects and big time loans. Always tired, single, and at the moment, very, very sweaty. The humidity was really damaging the effort I’d put in for this night out.

“Do you think we’ll spot Ed Sheeran?” Jules asks, her one true desire. “Then I can finally tell him how much he means to me.”

“Don’t know if this is Ed’s scene,” I tease her. “He seems more like a laid-back pub sort of guy.”

“You’re so right,” she still peers around us. “You hoping to see any celebs here? This one’s the biggest so far I’ve heard.”

His face pops into my head but I slam my guard down. “I’ll be lucky just to find a cute guy.”

“Two of you?” The bouncer asks Jules as we make our way to the front-she looked twelve, and we finally head inside. We’d stepped into a storybook.

Vines and tiny lights covered the ceiling and floors, rays of green and pink lights flash around us and the ground was littered with flower petals.

“Oh my god the seats are trees,” Jules whispers in my ear. This was insane.

“They probably have themed drinks,” I grab Jules’ hand and pull her to where I see the bar. We loved a good themed drink.

“This is amazing,” Jules shouts. “I think I just saw Adele!”

On a second look, we decide it was Adele’s doppleganger but we’re soon preoccupied by drinks. I order a Cosmic Boom and take another look around the open space. It was getting pretty full, people dancing but a lot of people hanging about talking.

Jules and I take our drinks to the dancefloor and enjoy ourselves. This was new all over-enjoying myself. I’d spent the last five months working hard at school, job searching, and then a bit of travel. But I was so busy convincing myself that if I worked hard enough I’d forget about the awful year I’d had. Would forget about Harry and the way he left me.

Nobody would believe it, but Harry Styles was my boyfriend for a solid year. We’d met when I was visiting Jules on set of some talk show. He’d been there, after his interview, and mistakened me for backstage crew. He asked me to show him where his room was. He’d been so embarassed when I told him I didn’t work there, but I volunteered to help him find it anyway. I was just killing time ‘til Jules was done.

We had gotten lost and ended up in this storage space where it was clear stage props were stored. We’d found half a car-cut clear through the middle and ended up sitting inside and talking. It was weird, just an hour before that, Harry Styles was this iconic and unattainable person who lived in the fantasy part of my brain. Sitting in the semi-dark with him, in a half-car, and being only a foot away, he was just another person. A regular bloke who was gorgeous, talking to me about his recent mother’s day disaster while I laughed and told him about something similar that had happened when I was a child.

It was quite silly to think we were going to leave that room the same way we walked into it.

He’d leaned in once quiet had settled down around us, both of us just watching the other, afraid that speaking would ruin the moment. His finger had ghosted my face, hesitating, asking me without really asking me. I’d leaned in the rest of the way to tell him it was okay. That’s when I knew I was a goner.

He was gentle with me, but also entirely self assured, leading the way. I couldn’t keep track of his lips or his hands but every part of my body was alive and I lived entirely in the moment for him.

He’d called me later that night asking if I wanted to have dinner at his place. We knew we had something good going. So we kept at it.

Until five months ago.

“Y/N?” Jules says in my ear. I snap out of my memories and look to where she’s pointing. And then back to her ecstatic face. There, sitting near the DJ was actually Ed Sheeran.

“Jules,” I say, lost for words. We had to do this now. We had to approach him, now or never.

“I can’t,” she says close to me. “I’m going to vom right now.”

“Come on!” I grab her and try to move her stiff body one step at a time until we’re only a couple feet away. That’s when the group he’s talking to shifts and I see Harry. Harry with a girl on his arm. My Harry.

“What’s wrong?” Jules halts as my own body goes rigid. “Don’t tell me you’ve got nerves now...oh hey isn’t that Harry?”

“Yeah...” my mouth was dry and I couldn’t believe it. He was here, I really didn’t think I’d see him ever again.

“I need to talk to you,” Harry says as I pour my morning coffee. It was the first week of my final semester so I was actually in a good mood, optimistic before all the deadlines hit. I never saw it coming.

“What’s up?” i was so innocent, drinking my coffee with no idea what else was brewing.

He takes the coffee cup from my hands and puts it down, gathering my hands in his. I notice his hands are slightly clammy, that was the first red flag.

“What’s wrong?” I ask again, the anxiety spiking up.

“No-nothing. I was just thinking about how I have to on tour for the next year. You’ve still got school to finish and a great big career ahead of you. I feel like I’m just going to hold you back and I-“

“That’s silly,” I interrupt. “You’d never...”

“I might. I’ll have tour and you’ll have school-“

“Hold on. Are you just trying to say...is it you who’ll hold me back or me who’s going to hold you back?” I asked, confused. How would Harry ever hold me back? I offered to go on legs of his tour with him when I could. I could do my work on the road. Nobody was going to hold anybody back

Harry opens his mouth to explain but I don’t let him get a word in. How dare he try to twist the situation. He should just say what he felt!

“Is that really it? I’m just a regular girl-next-door who’s run out of her luck with the famous superstar? She could never understand your fame, you could never want her in the public’s eye? Is that it? You’re too good for me? You can’t even think about going public with our rel-“

“Trust me you don’t want tha-“

“Don’t tell me what I want!” The coffee had curdled in my stomach and I felt like dry-heaving but I hold it together. I was so in love with this man, to think about living without him was painful beyond comprehension. But all he saw me as was deadweight. The realisation is crushing. “Just leave Harry. Just bloody leave then, I don’t want to see you! After all we had together I’m just deadweight to you? I’m going to hold you back? And yoy can’t eve be a man and say what you really want!”

He’d ruffled his hair, given some explanation, tried to tell me he loved me but I was somewhere else. My life felt like it was falling apart, and I had a lab to teach in a few hours. He was so bloody selfish. I decided I hated him.

“-show him who cares. Go right up and pretend you don’t even know who he is...” I wasn’t sure how long Jules was talking but she was right. I didn’t care about him. This was my night out.

Jules walks ahead and uses her charm to wriggle her way into the small conversation, inserting me right beside her. She knew the business, taking her time to talk to Ed Sheeran so as not to overwhelm him. In the meantime, my eyes catch Harry’s, and it’s like a movie line. Time slows down, I hear the breath I take and see the surprise register on his face. But I let my eyes skim past his, he meant nothing to me. Instead, they land on his girlfriend and that’s where I fight to hide the surprise.

There’s these photos I see online sometimes, you take a picture and draw it in your own style. His new girlfriend was kind of like that. She looked just like me, except slightly off. More like how I looked last year. Since then, I’d grown out my hair and let its natural colour grow in. But I nudge Jules and use my hair as a curtain, trying to tell her to look. She speaks my language so she sees right away and her eyes widen. She mouths oh my god.

I watch from the corner of my eye while pretending to be engaged by Jules introducing what she does to Ed Sheeran. Harry says something to his girl and she laughs. Jesus, even her smile was reminiscent of mine. I try not to stare, using my drink as a distraction but some small part of me-most of me is upset-but a small part of me feels like I’d won. Harry had told me I wasn’t good enough for him, and then gone out to find someone who looked just like me. That gives me the confidence I need to finally look him in the eye. It’s like he was tracking my moves because he looks at me too. He smiles and I just raise my eyebrows.

“Y/N,” he says in that deep silky voice of his. It carries across despite the noise. My heart squeezes.

“Harry,” I say. I let my eyes slide to his girlfriend and she raises a hand.

“Hi, I’m Katy.”

“Hi,” I smile, she’d done nothing wrong except look like me I guess. She looks up at Harry, waiting for him to introduce us. Ugh.

“And this is Y/N, she’s my best friend but she always says she never understands my absolute obsession with your music.” Jules from the right of me catches my attention. She was introducing me to Ed Sheeran-and exposing me.

“Okay. Ouch.” I give her a look which makes her laugh and shake Ed’s hand. Oh my god. “I’m definitely a fan, just not as big as Jules.”

“She’s more of an indie rock girl,” Harry’s deep voice comes from behind me and I’m surprised to find him standing right behind me.

Jules raises her eyebrow at him, glances at me while Harry and Ed talk before interjecting and resuming her conversation.

“I’d say I’m more of a pop girl.” I turn to Harry. I look for his girlfriend but she’d disappeared.

“But that’s not your guilty pleasure,” Harry says and I avoid the tingle in my stomach as he says it. “And Kat’s gone off with her friend, they saw Adele they want to get a picture.” I don’t bother to say it wasn’t Adele. “How’s it going with you?”

He has to lean in close to be heard and I find myself drawing closer to his orbit. I had to be careful here. I remind myself that I hated him.

“Same old,” I say. “I’ve graduated, now looking for full time work. Travelled a bit too.”

“You finally see those tourist traps you wanted to?”

I forgot how intimately Harry knew me, I wanted to forget how much history we shared. But it’s so painfully obvious now that that would be impossible. Even holding onto my hate was proving slippery.

“The Great Pyramids were better than the Eiffel Tower,” I reference an old conversation we’d had. “So I was right.”

This makes Harry laugh and the club narrows down to just us as he steps to the side with me to a quieter area.

We stand in silence for a moment, just watching each other, memorizing the details about each that time had blurred. Like the laugh lines around his eyes, or the depth to his eyes. It feels like he’s cheating with me, with how fiery and focused his gaze is on me. The unspoken words in his eyes.

“Harry I-“ I raise my hand to tell him I should go, I didn’t want anything to happen we would regret. But he takes my hand and puts it to his warm chest. The words leave my mouth as I look at him again. Really look at him. From afar he looked like he was doing better than he ever was but up close I notice the tired bags and the lost look in his eyes. It was the same one I saw in my own after we’d broken up.

This was ridiculous, I tell myself. He left me, I shouldn’t feel bad for him. I’d won. But I want to ask him about Katy, when he looked in her eyes, did he think of mine? And when he looked at her smile, did I cross his mind? I already knew that he saw me instead ‘cause she looks a lot like I did back then. I wanted to ask him and tell him not to lie.

“How are you doing?” I finally break and ask even though I want to ask, is she just a lookalike?

He looks away, his hand letting go of mine. His fake smile is back on his face as he performs for me once again. “Not too bad. I’ve got a break from tour right now so just layin’ low.”

I look around and point to the club around us. “Laying low?”

“Yeah,” Harry laughs at being caught. “My girlf-Katy-she really wanted to come out to one of these with her girlfriends. She convinced me to come along.”

I didn’t know what to say to that so I just smile. My phone buzzed and I see a text from Jules. I look for her in the crowd and she’s staring at me with a raised eyebrow. I give her the everything is okay smile and she looks relieved.

“Jules is overprotective as usual,” Harry notices. What did he expect, I think, when he’s the selfish arse who broke my heart. The small flame of anger reignites as I watch Jules smile at me with caring eyes.

“She just wanted me to hook up with a cute guy tonight,” I say to Harry. “Spending it with my ex kind of kills the vibe.”

There, I’d addressed the elephant in the room. And just as I suspected, Harry gets uncomfortable.

“So I take it you’ve not got a boyfriend?”

“Nope,” I cross my arms. “Was busy travelling...” and feeling depressed at home I don’t add.

“Right,” Harry straightens up. “Well don’t let me keep you Y/N. Sorry to...”

I look up at him, his pause. His apology seems to be about something bigger than keeping me from the rest of the club. But I don’t mention it. I don’t push it. Yes, I wanted to stay here in this corner of the club with him but I don’t want to make it a big deal. I give him a squeeze on the arm to tell him it was alright. He paints a smile on and I walk away even though I want to just stay.

I walk to Jules, tell her I’d get another drink for us. At the bar, waiting for our drinks, I notice Harry with Katy again, they’re dancing with her friends, she laughs, he pulls her closer.

That was us not long ago, before that morning chat. God. I really did hope, in his head, he saw me instead. Cause...he’d been in mine every day since then. I admit it, some nights, no almost every night...I still though about him. I tried to hide it, I did an amazing job at hiding it, but I couldn’t erase him from my mind. The thought almost makes me laugh as I get my drinks...maybe I just needed to find a lookalike.

[jonathanrook]

legally i have to give you intern 2

em you have awoken an ungodly beast inside me so i need to warn everyone that this post is. incomprehensible. but so is mymusic so i guess we're all used to it.

How I feel about this character:

i watched mymusic as it was airing/running/coming out specifically bc i'm a jack stannie, and as a kid melvin was my second favorite character (w scene being in first, obvs) for mostly that reason. he basically hovered around this ranking until my most recent rewatch in the summer of 2020, which was actually spurred by some events in my personal life that vaguely reminded me of scene's season two arc w jeff, and i thought it'd been a funny/nostalgic way to get my mind off things.

(i want to side note here that -- i know you didn't ask, but -- i love jeff. i have since i was a kid. like, obviously not as a person but i think he's honestly the best written character in the series, w indie close in second. idk what it says about the f*nes that their most interesting and well rounded characters are the villains, but i digress. to this day i'm salty that jeff never got added to the theme song and wasn't really included in promotional merch.)

however, in said rewatch, certain things about how he was written started to really get under my skin, and certain moments in particular have really stuck out to me in a negative way. like, for the entirety of season one and a good chunk of season two he's one person, and then he leaves mymusic and we have an entirely different person, but not in a nuanced character building sort of way.

i've said a few of these points before but i'll repeat them here regardless. at the risk of sounding like i've put on a tin-foil hat, it's my sneaking suspicion that scindie was supposed to be endgame, but since fan reception to it was pretty neutral, and scenechart stans were, at the very least, more vocal, changes were made to the intended finale, which is why in the last scene he's basically just. indie. like, if everything about the show was exactly the same but indie was the one who had ended up w scene in the end that would have made so much more sense since a) scene had a crush on indie that he/everyone knew about and b) indie was kind of a dick despite the half-assed attempts at redemption, so both combined make it slightly less weird/out-of-nowhere that he kisses her w/o her consent (since, even though like. implied consent is not real at worst and a fuzzy subject at best but you could argue that scene would want indie to kiss her); and this isn't even taking into consideration that c) melvin is heavily queer-coded in both seasons, with his friendship with nerdcore being, dare i say, homoerotic at times, and his arc about leaving the company and changing his name mirroring nerdcore's almost perfectly (with nerdcore being a character who b*nny [at least] has all but confirmed is actually gay).

i've also been on the fence about melvin's behavior in that final scene making more sense for indie's character being an intentional decision as a way of shoe-horning in a theme about the lasting effects of abuse/cycles of abuse/the corruption of power but i also don't think the f*nes are smart enough for that. however, for the sake of defending my straw theory, i also point to the scene where indie comes to visit the acid factory after melvin told him to shut up, and we see melvin use reggie as a foot-stool, going as far as to say that it feels good to do so (which, in all honesty, i think is a bit that was entirely improvised, since the f*nes were "notorious for never saying cut" [paraphrased from a bts video], but work w me here). he's also given a seltzer mug that perfectly resembles indie's kombucha mug. in these moment melvin is directly emulating the behavior of his previous abuser, purposefully or not, literal moments after being promoted to an equal position of authority, which was totally just included as a joke, but could also be argued is meant to show that he's becoming indie; or, if we acknowledge that the f*nes have no fucking clue what they're doing and were just directing like chickens with their heads cut off, it at least shows that melvin's new position of power is leading him to understand where indie was coming from, which is supported by their conversation in the finale.

the following contains a couple brief mentions of irl sexual assault so if that's something you'd like to avoid skip to the next section!

HOWEVER, that alone isn't what i have a problem with, since i think melvin is completely justified in being a dick to indie (and also reggie enthusiastically consents to being used as an ottoman so good for him i guess). the issue comes completely in how he treats scene in the scenes where the f*nes clearly thought what they were writing was super romantic. like, the fact that the only thing he's got hung on his cubicle wall is a single picture of scene taken from the fucking opening credits (like. how hard would it have been to have. literally any other photo[s] esp since there's an abundance of cute bts pics of the cast in costume that could have been put there) and him scrolling through her twitter at work really creep me out (and at the risk of oversharing the weird, like, social media stalking angle really fucks w me bc that may or may not have been the exact fucking thing i was trying to escape in rewatching mymusic in the first place). also, having him sexually assault scene as a means of comforting her after she had just been sexually assaulted in the same way by someone else was... a choice (which is also, uh, personally familiar).

again, i recognize that demonizing melvin wasn't what the f*nes were trying to do here, and i perhaps seem hypocritical for opening liking jeff, but what makes jeff work is he's intentionally "the bad guy." having melvin do the same things as indie and jeff uncritically only proves further that the f*nes can't write for shit, and ruins his character which had, up until he quit mymusic, been unironically good. like, it's obviously not beneficial that the exact asshole things he does are personally triggering, but the character would still be a mess and i would still dislike him regardless.

i want to say though that jack delivers a surprisingly great performance despite how shoddily his character is constructed and how little experience he has as an actor. like, it's clear he was having a lot of fun on set and i would love to see him in something, like, good; i think he could pull off even like, guest television roles, which is a lot more than can be said for other youtubers.

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All the people I ship romantically with this character:

nerdchart should have been canon i'm sorry. i know that close, nonromantic male friendships are valuable, esp between queer men, but also gd wouldn't it have been baller to have a canon interracial mlm ship. like. c'mon. and they could have been such a good friends to lovers story! we already got to see how melvin was the only person nerdcore could really be himself around so it would have been so cool if melvin's self-advocacy arc/flowchart arc had revolved more around nerdcore with a little role-reversal! and then they kiss! like god intended!

also i ship him and indie bc i'm a grubby little gremlin man ohoho. enemies w weird sexual tension? sign me up. not even enemies to lovers i'm not saying this one should have been canon i just love the vibes. do you think melvin and indie ever explored each other's bod-- *gunshot*

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My non-romantic OTP for this character:

i wish him and scene had just been bros. god remember in season one when they were just bros that was the life.

alternatively, i wish we'd seen more bonding w him and metal, as a means of reconciling that. uh. moment from season one. along similar lines i would have loved to see him get closer w rayna in a similar way to how she bonded w nerdcore in season two. i think that could have also worked to show how she'd grown between the two seasons.

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My unpopular opinion about this character:

HIM. AND. SCENE. SHOULD. HAVE. JUST. BEEN. BROS. (though i think my general dislike of him is pretty unpopular, lmao).

when the show was coming out i don't think it's unfair to say that scenechart/scenetern 2 was the most popular ship (aside from potentially techstep whatever) but luckily we're all gay and have better taste now. unfortunately i totally fell into this camp and scenechart was even my otp for years (until it was arguably more unfortunately usurped by reddie in 2019) and i didn't even realise that it's a hot mess until, again, the summer of 2020.

when actually watching the show the choices the f*nes made in regards to how the ship actually became canon are so odd and out of place, too? okay, so, on one hand everyone just shipped scenechart bc it was the whitest hettiest ship in the show (esp in season two when idol left) aside from scindie (and we already discussed what's wrong w that). but, on the other hand, lainey and jack clearly also just got along? and i suspect that lainey probably also admired jack's work and was happy to be working with him bc we have so many shots throughout even the first season when the ship wasn't the intended endgame of lainey scene looking really fondly at jack melvin at times when it doesn't make much sense at all, esp since she's smitten w indie? this trend continues into the second season which arguably works but it still seems really out of place for him to be the one to ultimately make the first move on her since it's clear she was the one crushing this whole time and also he's gay! this bitch is gay what the fuck!!

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One thing I wish had happened with this character in canon:

at this point i'm struggling to think of anything i haven't covered yet. oops.

i've talked at length before about how he should have been a woman/lesbian, but the tl;dr is that it would have solved a lot of the queer-coding "problems" that just didn't get resolved in the show. if he'd been a lesbian then not only would the friendship w nerdcore still made sense, but scenechart would have as well (not even mentioning that both of scene's other relationships w men make a lot of sense as comphet anyway).