#i have yet to rewatch a show from this era without a single episode having some form of genderqueerness to it!

[sam-not-sammie]

Ya know what i miss? The inherent gender queerness of late 90s - early 2000’s television. Like? They were out here PLAYING w gender roles and presentation in almost everything??? Now they’re too busy licking fascist’s and bigot’s boots to even have fun anymore :/

[noblechaton]

so I finished my rewatch of Doctor Who series 3 and wrote a bunch about it in my media thread and feel like crossposting it lol. just some scattershot thoughts in the fallout of the most mid series of the show yet - kinda like how I remembered

This one's really hard to rate, honestly

On one hand you have some of the very best episodes across the entire show's history, but on the other you have some genuinely hard to watch stories marred by overambition and/or just lazy writing

It all comes back to Martha, really, and how she's treated as an afterthought straight out of the gate. I understand the storyline at play here, I get what they were doing and even why they were doing it - but that doesn't make it fun to watch, or good. She deserved a lot better than she got here and the worst part is I think those behind the scenes sorta knew it.

She gets this fantastic introduction in Smith and Jones only to then immediately take a backseat in The Shakespeare Code (one of the worst of this era btw) and she just doesn't really get a chance to recover from that until it's way too late in the series and again, that's kind of the point, but it's also kind of a bad one. She's a rebound for the Doctor in a post-Rose universe but, rather her remain a match for the Doctor and maybe gradually find feelings for him, she's head over heels almost straight away and suffers for it. It's like they weren't sure if they could continue making the show without some sort of romantic angle but didn't want to commit to Martha in that way for one reason or another so they rushed that element so that, by the time it made sense, it was, again, way too late

I just don't really get it. Freema is a great actress, she has great chemistry with David and there was definitely something here. A doctor to help fix the Doctor's broken heart. But that's not really what we get, so much as the Doctor just gradually getting over it on his own and Martha just sort of being there. That there are multiple scenes across multiple episodes where he basically - if unintentionally, thoughtlessly- insults her to her face is just so baffling, it feels weird as a viewer and almost mean outright to the character of Martha herself, and kind of OOC for the Doctor.

Just such a shame because I love Martha. She's such a fun foil, so competent and compassionate and could certainly have stood toe to toe with the Doctor outright if they'd just let her more often than they didn't. That her being an afterthought is the story through her entire series and that she only overcomes it by the very end just feels so wrong.

More on the whole though, the series is also the most inconsistent yet. There's some rough stuff here like Shakespeare Code and 42, while the final episode of the series is so outright bad and stupid from a writing standpoint that I can't believe it didn't get another pass. But then, some of the best of the best are in here. Human Nature/Family of Blood is a fantastic story, Runaway Bride is another classic Christmas special and Blink is an outright masterpiece of an episode and might be the very best single episode there is for the entire show

The first two parts of the finale are pretty great too, Utopia does a great job of playing with expectations and the concepts of despair and hope while Sound of Drums is a great, desperate hour of the Doctor being properly backed into a corner due, in part, to his own hubris. Lazarus Experiment was a surprisingly great episode on rewatch, while I still mostly enjoyed Gridlock and the Dalek two parter as well. It's just that those that are even just solid aren't as solid as most of series 2 or even series 1, while there's some proper bad stories here too.

Last of the Time Lords in particular is just such a huge disappointment because it feels really clear that they'd built up the finale without much forethought in terms of how it would actually end. You can't let Earth stay decimated like it was, but what solution is there beyond walking it back? And that's exactly what they do. A big reset button for the whole world, with promises of trauma for those still on the Valiant (a literal helicarrier btw) that just aren't really followed up on that much. The only real consequence of the story is that the Doctor is, again, alone, but he'd felt detached from Martha all series long anyway.

Like yeah Martha's family has trauma to work through, but they never really appear again so it doesn't really matter. Jack's all smiles by the end after being tortured to death multiple times in a year. And the Master himself doesn't even stay dead. Nothing really changes and there's not much consequence to the Year that Never Was - which was the point of the reset button, but in turn it takes consequence away from the audience too.

It's a clear case of compelling, interesting and ambitious storytelling just getting the better of those involved and as such, Last of the Time Lords is easily the worst finale episode in this era at least. Just got too far ahead of themselves and didn't know what to do. Which is kind of how series 3 feels in general. As if they just didn't really know what to do about that Billie Piper shaped hole in the crew and spun the wheels for a bit, making for a very mixed bag of incredible highs and some real disappointing lows

Plenty to enjoy in this series even if it's all a bit duller, still perfectly fine television - just not what it could have been, with a lot of dropped balls and disappointments throughout. Watchable is a really good word for at least half of this series, like it's better than some stuff that gets put on TV these days but that doesn't really make it great.

Really the brightest side to the entire series being that series 4 is next and that is quite honestly, at least in my memory as of right now, the peak of the entire show to this point

[whateverthedragonswant]

I swear I'm about to embark on another SPN rewatch just to pick every single episode apart and show just how relevant Dean was to the story after season 1. So tired of hearing this bullshit about how Dean didn't matter to the show, how he was just a prop, he's only a strong supporting character, he doesn't matter because Jensen was #2 on the call sheet, and that he got what he deserved in the end because "it wasn't his story". Yet every time someone else dares to mention another character from the show that isn't a Winchester, then suddenly these same people have no problem grabbing Dean and including him for their defense of "the show is only about the brothers!" Make up your goddamn minds. Is it purely just the Sam show as the sole protagonist or is it about both brothers (aka multiple protagonists)? It can't be both. That's not how story telling works.

And what kills me even more is that half of these people hate on Dean because they have an issue with Jensen (that has nothing to do with Dean or Dean's story line at all). And these very same people scold others on how they're unable to compartmentalize and distinguish between reality (the actor) and fantasy (the character) which the hypocrisy is just...wow. Your asses are showing. Big time.

If you have legitimate criticisms about Dean and/or his story line, that's cool. But this bullshit I keep seeing is just to serve stupid fandom war shit, whether that be to hate on Jensen or prop up Sam/Jared, and it is beyond fucking annoying.

By season 3, definitely season 4 (aka still Kripke-era meaning Kripke did this himself), Dean stopped being a supporting character and became a protagonist right alongside Sam. Kripke solidified that by making Dean the yang to Sam's yin, by having Dean be the true vessel for Michael while Sam was Lucifer's true vessel, having Dean represent the faction of Heaven (via Cas) while Sam represented the faction of Hell (via Ruby). Kripke even told you that the story doesn't work without BOTH brothers by leading up to the battle between Michael and Lucifer in season 5. BOTH Sam and Dean would have had to say yes to an entity to bring about the battle; the battle would not come to pass without BOTH brothers; even though they found a loophole in Adam, it's stated that Adam is not Michael's true vessel (but since he has the genetics of John, he's a suitable temporary replacement to bring on that battle that Dean interrupts and Sam makes the choice to sacrifice himself to save Dean, and the world by extension); it was stated in the show that John and Mary actually didn't like each other when they met and a cupid had to intervene so they would get together and have Sam AND Dean in order to bring the story to that point (aka 5x22). That's all from Kripke, the creator of the series. It all happened on his watch, during his run, way before the "later seasons". He equated Dean with Sam; he brought Dean and his story more to the forefront, pulling him out of the supporting role he was originally playing in season 1. Regardless of why he did it, the point is he DID it.

The story was about both brothers. Dean is just as important as Sam was to the story. Get over it.

[gogolstoelicker]

Hear me out hear me out, Fyodor!MC

Or like a Eren!Mc from attack on Titan because lord knows season 4 Eren was wild.

Dorm leaders with a Fyodor!MC

warning(s): mentions of blood and murder/killing

notes: •honestly, fyodor will probably do the same thing he did in bsd to nrc bc look at them

•I'll write for eren!mc later! (but pls remind me i might forget LMFOAOA)

Showing a calm and confident personality most of the time, you don't appear to fear your enemies, boasting enough courage to let yourself be captured by them.

Despite being extremely arrogant, you're a straightforward and intelligent individual with a truly sinister personality.

Referring to yourself as carrying out the lord’s will and always talks about the sinful nature of man.

Riddle:

well at least u didn't break any rules?

hehe but u did broke the law /TRUTH

will lecture u abt laws and rules and how it's important once he found out

dont know how since you're literally so secretive but

lets say he did

while he is horrified at what you did, he still can't just let it go that u broke some laws for the sake of "purifying the world or smth"

like there's surely some ways to purify people without having to break some laws

ur path as a priest era ig???

other than that, he likes how perfect is ur grade

and the way you play the cello

sometimes he asked for u to play it as a way to relax

it works btw‼️

he might also snatch ur hand out of ur mouth everytime u tried to bite ur thumb until it bleeds

he would scold u while he patches u up

Leona:

u give him the chills

and he's pissed about it

like some anemic herbivore is making his skin crawl??? what kind of pussy is he

may or may not saw ur ability😅😥

like u using ur ability on one of the dorm residents bc they tried smth with u

so u use ur ability on them and now everyone is scared

(fyodor's ability is called "crime and punishment", was not described yet but it was hinted that it can kill someone with a touch and is not restricted to skin-to-skin contact)

idk how the hell u got away with that but uh

lets just hope the school was fast enough to whip out some magic that can help the student before u got expelled

probably made the whole savanaclaw respect and fear u in a day

Azul:

probably kins each other LMFOAOAOA

well in a way???

this mc will surely fit well in octavinelle PLSS

ahem

is azul gonna be an ace(bsd) kinnie? he sure was

well thank god someone was there to stop u

or else azul will be hanging onto dear life /JOKE

(if u don't know what does that mean, then go see bsd season 3 episode 29. i totally didn't memorize the episode bc i keep rewatching it)

probably tried to hire u to play ur cello in monstro lounge

he genuinely can't tell what are u thinking bro

like he could stalk u around and he still wouldn't be able to tell what are u thinking

esp since you're either really calm and scary or just scarily weird????

Kalim:

aha u kind of scare him

😅😥

jamil probably doesn't trust u around him

i mean nobody trust u but

but jamil is esp on his guard

kalim is gonna get near u? u have jamil going 😡 at the back

(hes not mad at u btw, he's just staring to make sure u don't do anything)

pulled u up one time and u almost fall over

bc you're anemic get it

standing up too fast is gonna make u go through war and kalim will probably not get a hint

jamil have to tell him btw

and explain everything

kalim is a little more careful now

just a little tho

since if he forgor forgot, he'll do it again

ur talent in playing the cello bro

would u like to join his club?🌹

Vil:

u like people with good complexion so

so u def like vil

well in terms of appearance

we dont know abt personality yet

vil however? what does he thinks of u?

"pls fix ur appearance🕴😡"

ur hair is messy, ur posture is bad and u always bite ur thumb that causes it to bleed

he pulled ur thumb out of ur mouth every single time you tried to bite on it

and then proceeded to scold you about it

and then fix ur thumb if its bleeding

might even paint it

yassification of fyodor mc?💅

he really likes it when u play the cello honestly

like u finally look the slightest bit pleasing while playing that thing congrats omg😍

Idia:

u scare him on god

on the great sevens**

and the fact that you're not even a copy of kalim, cater or rook and u still scare him???

you know it's bad

well you're good at hacking and he probably does too so

so u guys might can bond from that??

i mean if you're not being usual ol' u, he can deal with u

but once u started going on abt the sin of mankind and how they should be punished?

he just

stayed in the corner and never come out

other than that, he's ok with ur company!!

you mind ur own business + he minds his own business

Malleus:

knows he's malleus draconia when u first met

decided to just play along with him

you're an interesting one, he must say

you always talked about how much sinful the people in this school are or just people in general and how you're going to purify them all

he thinks its light magic and go "idk how u ended up here🤗"

he's wrong btw💀

yknow that thing fyodor said? "together, u and i will cover this land with the blood of the sinners"

yeah u prolly said that to him or he overheard u said that to someone

literally him: 😃😮😶😥

you're amusing but

but murder??? war??? no thanks<3

but he really enjoys it when u played the cello!!

you're really good at it bro

he might have to hire u

/j

/hj**

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 09 first part

(Masterpost) (More Canary Funsies)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

This episode features so many eternal minutes of zombie shambling that I thought I could fit everything into a single post. HA HA HA HA nope. 

Zombie Temple

The trio do their best to fend off the not-zombies in the temple. Lan Wangji tells Wei Wuxian that he can’t go carving them up because they’re not actually dead, and drops a callback to their very first meeting at the gate of Cloud Recesses, when Wei Wuxian caught his attention with his pillowy lips comment on the not-dead cultivator. 

Lan Wangji: You said it in that golden moment that will be seared into my memory for eternity, where I heard your voice and laid eyes on your angelic face and lost my heart forever, remember? Come on, babe, it was our very first zombie! How baked were you?

Wei Wuxian: I jerk off to the sword-fighting memory, not the zombie memory, you weirdo.

Nie Huaisang’s fear of the definitely not undead has apparently gotten him the rest of the way over his fear of Lan Wangji, because he’s now yelling “Lan-Xiong!” right along with “Wei-Xiong!” as he struggles. Note that although he later mentions that his fan is made of some fancy metal, we don’t see any evidence that he wants to fight with a fan any more than he does with a blade. I don’t hate anyone’s fan-fighting NHS headcanon, but my take is that he just isn’t a physical fighter, and that’s ok. 

This is a good time to remember that our entire experience of the Nie clan so far in this story is 1. Clever but hopelessly combat-unready tiny artiste Nie Huaisang 2. Quietly helpful, absurdly pretty sidekick Meng Yao. 

We don’t know yet that Nie Huasang’s gege and Meng Yao’s sugar daddy is literally the toughest motherfucker in the entire cultivation world. But his friends do! Which makes me love these dynamics even more, because not one of them criticizes Nie Huaisang for being the person he is. 

(more after the cut!)

Never Let Me Go

This scene is where Wei Wuxian gives his tacit consent to being used as the eventual agent of Nie Huaisang’s vengeance....ok not really.

But he does make it clear what Nie Huaisang should do when he’s in a pickle. And NHS doesn’t forget things.

Priorities 

Meanwhile, Lan Wangji isn’t nearly as patient as Wei Wuxian, and he drops a silence spell on Nie Huaisang basically out of annoyance. It’s not like they’re trying to be sneaky. 

Lan Wangji: How about you have an exquisitely crafted ceramic cup of shut the fuck up?

Flute Girl

Wen Qing comes to the rescue by summoning all of the not-zombies, who happen to be her extended family, to come toast some marshmallows. 

She’s another person who unwisely demonstrates, where Wei Wuxian can hear her, the power of flutes over zombies. 

This move doesn’t seem to do anything important but it looks cool. 

Brother Dynamic: Bad. Really Bad. 

Jiang Cheng shows up in the temple and trolls everyone, because this is a great time for childish antics. Wei Wuxian is super happy to see him and runs over to hug him, which earns him a shoulder slam. 

This is a regular part of their body language with each other. Wei Wuxian covers his hurt reaction very, very quickly, with a smile that doesn’t involve very much of his face. 

Ow

Wei Wuxian is so good at pretending his feelings aren’t hurt, he probably convinces himself. 

Then he gives a too-honest answer when Jiang Cheng accuses him of...daring to enjoy himself, basically.

That’s more truth than Jiang Cheng was looking for, and he raises a hand to Wei Wuxian, who hides behind Nie Huaisang. This move is interesting because on one level it’s just clowning; obviously Nie Huaisang can’t protect WWX from anything, and WWX doesn’t need protection from Jiang Cheng. 

WWX can easily beat JC in a fight, as he’s let us know before. On another level, this retreat signals WWX’s harmlessness, his childlike-ness, in a semiotic dance that has been playing out for over a decade between the brothers.  NHS is taking on Jiang Yanli’s role in the choreography, this time.   

All of this troubling hostility doesn’t make Jiang Cheng a bad person. He’s young and he’s still under his parents’ control and subject to their abuse at home. It takes time to develop mindfulness about this stuff and learn to treat people beneath you differently than the way you are treated. 

Jiang Cheng isn’t ready for that yet, any more than he is ready to say out loud that he cares about his brother. 

Leave My Boyfriend Out of It

This interaction is noteworthy for Wei Wuxian defending Lan Wangji to his brother, before Jiang Cheng even has a chance to blame Lan Wangji. 

Wei Wuxian says that following Lan Wangji was his own idea, and then gives LWJ the sweetest, warmest smile.

Lan Wangji also gets a pair of totally unearned, delighted smiles of thanks from his two besties when he lifts the silence spell on Nie Huaisang. 

Being mildly dickish all the time works out fine, I guess, if you only make friends with people whose brothers are legendary grouches.

Grilling Wen Qing

Wei Wuxian finally decides he’s had enough of Wen Qing’s crap, and gets slightly aggressive in questioning her.

He’s not actually roughing her up but he is approaching her as a near-enemy for the first time, rather than as someone who wants to be her friend. Once Wen Qing tells him what’s up and agrees to a sort of temporary alliance, he goes back to being his normal slightly awkward self with her. 

I don’t romance-ship WQ and WWX, except maybe as corpse-mountain era FWB, but I do like their chemistry. And their friendship is really refreshing and interesting, based on sharing goals and working together, not on emotional intimacy. It’s nice to see people with a lot of barriers around their hearts, building a strong, trusting bond without having to actually open up very much.

The idea of perfect sharing between people is a nice one, but it’s pretty alien to many of us who are recovering from trauma, or people who just aren’t wired that way, and it’s good to see other models of friendship and love. 

Wei Wuxian, at Lan Wangji’s direction, parts the Red Sea drops a cage on the other 3 cultivators before going to hunt the dire birdy.  

Jiang Chang is, predictably, pissed off about it, in spite of Wei Wuxian’s “you’re good at this” parting words, and says, according to the subtitles, “you bastard!”

“Bastard” is a pretty specific epithet, in English. In the current century, it’s generally used to mean “asshole,” more or less. But it still does carry the meaning “of illegitimate birth,” and since The Untamed is often concerned with legitimacy it seems pretty strong for JC to use with someone who is rumored to be his own Dad’s by-blow. 

Let’s have a look and see what he really is calling him... 你混蛋 =  Nǐ húndàn = “you bastard” per Google translate. Wow, Jiang Cheng, you really went there, huh. 

Wen Granny

Wen Qing and the others in the golden cage watch as the not-zombies try half-heartedly to get to them. Wen Qing is super sad about it, as opposed to the two guys who are just annoyed (Jiang Cheng) or scared (Nie Huaisang).

The first time I saw this, it was just - oh, Wen Qing sympathizes with this poor random woman, she feels bad about what's happening, this is to show us she has a heart.

Now though --  that's HER granny. Maybe not her bio-grandma but clearly a granny of her clan, who she knows well, who later cares for A-Yuan when he's a child, so may very well have cared for A-Qing and A-Ning when they were small, too. Owie.

Dire Bird Hunting

Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian run off to hunt the smoke bird together. They are quickly trapped in cool-looking fog. Kudos to the Director of Photography.

They spend some time being confused and also being peak Wangxian 1.0 as they help each other out. 

Lost in the fog and unable to summon talismans, Wei Wuxian is mainly about checking on Lan Wangji, making sure he’s ok, making sure he’s near.  He doesn’t spare any worry for himself.

(We get a rare instance of seeing an actually glowing sword here, instead of just having a character say “I saw the beams of swords!” to save money on VFX.)

Lan Wangji, meanwhile, understands the mental attack they are under, explains it to Wei Wuxian with only a little snark about Wei Wuxian’s overly busy mind, and teaches him how to handle it.

Lan Wangji is super disciplined in mind, body, and sword - his fight moves don’t change, really, throughout his life, but he gets better and better at execution. Wei Wuxian isn’t exactly undisciplined, but he’s super creative and busts out a new skill in nearly every encounter. Lan Wangji sees this and is learning to make use of it.

After Lan Wangji helps Wei Wuxian overcome the confusion that is blocking his talisman use, he tells him which talisman to use. 

This isn’t a talisman that LWJ uses himself, it’s just that he’s paying very close attention to WWX’s battle moves, and has a great memory, so he knows which ones will work. In a pretty short timespan he’s moved from thinking like a solo swordsman to thinking as part of a team with a broad range of battle skills. Very soon, he’ll be starting to use Wei Wuxian’s talismans himself. 

WWX takes a hit from the flying death chain, but uses it to his advantage, as in so many encounters. He’s not just self-sacrificing--he is definitely that--but he’s also a chess player, knowing how to use a sacrifice or an injury to his advantage. Cue Lan Wangji being worried for the entire rest of his life.

Part Two is here!

[livinglikearoyal]

K-drama Recommendations: Nov. 2019

One of you asked for some K-Drama recommendations and here you are! Keep in mind that I watched some of these quite a while ago so the plot isn’t as fresh in my mind as I’d like. I tried to keep the list to K-dramas that are fairly easy to find either on Netflix or Hulu. I’d love to hear your opinions on these and any recommendations you have for me! Also, these aren’t necessarily in any sort of order...but I will say the top 10 that were described are ones that I will probably rewatch at some point because I enjoyed them so much.

Chicago Typewriter (Netflix)

Summary: This one is hard to summarize without giving away the storyline. It follows a group of three characters through two eras: the 1930s Japanese occupation of Korea and then the present timeline. The characters’ reincarnated selves are brought together seemingly by fate and struggle to find out the truth of the past lives.

Why I liked it: Netflix almost did me dirty on this one. The summary and preview that popped up were not intriguing to me at all. However, it said I’d be interested in this (98%) so I figured I’d give it a shot. Boy...was this a journey. I absolutely fell in love with the characters and I loved how there wasn’t a “weak link” in the trio. They all brought something unique and important to the dynamic of the show. The acting is spectacular and they really allowed these characters to grow. The storyline can be predictable at times...but how they get there is unexpected. The ending had me in happy tears. 10/10 will watch again!

Romance is a Bonus Book (Netflix)

Summary: This kdrama follows Kang Dani, a 30-something mother, and her journey to find herself after a divorce. She reenters the workforce after being a housewife and finds herself at a popular publishing company as a temporary worker (I believe it was an internship). This company just happens to have one of her childhood friends as one of the co-owners and editors-in-chief. That doesn’t make it any easier on her and the series follows her through the hardships and triumphs of finding her independence. 

Why I liked it: The title says it all. The romance is just the cherry on top for this storyline. It really follows Kang Dani and looks at all of the challenges that people of various demographics face: single parents, “older” individuals trying to find a job after a time away (and while competing with the younger folks), women in general, etc. I was going through a bit of a quarter-life crisis when I stumbled upon this...questioning my job, my love life (or lack thereof), the expectations that I was facing...and it really helped ease a lot of the anxiety. Plus, Kang Dani and  Cha Eunho are absolutely adorable working alongside each other. The ending credits of the final episode got me too. This is the one that I couldn’t help to rave about to my coworkers that have never watched a kdrama in their lives. 

Strong Girl Do Bong-Soon (Netflix)

Summary: Bong-Soon was born with superhuman strength like the other women in her family and she aspires to become a video game creator--making a game with a strong female character like herself. In real life, she tries to be more “girly” and “delicate” but it doesn’t always work. One thing leads to another and she finds herself hired as a bodyguard to the CEO(?) of a video game company and also tries to find a kidnapper that is threatening her neighborhood. 

Why I liked it: Strong female lead...duh! :) But in all honesty, I don’t remember all of the details from this one as I watched it a long while ago. I remember it being funny, sweet, inspiring and suspenseful. I loved the main three characters too! 

Hello, My Twenties  (Netflix)

Summary: A group of female college students learns and grows while living together. Each character has their own backstory, secrets, and hardships. The five bond through the various hardships, traumas, and successes that come their way. 

Why I liked it: 5 strong women finding their way in the world. They struggle with so many realistic things: temptations, poverty, insecurities in their love life, an apartment ghost, an attractive neighbor. It was a fun and heartfelt journey. Realistic. You can definitely learn something from this one! Once again, my single self enjoyed that it wasn’t relying on a love story to draw the plot forward also.

The Smile Has Left Your Eyes (Hulu)

Summary: Kim Moo Young has lived a traumatic life and is rolling with the punches. He has also forgotten many of his childhood memories. When he happens upon Jung So Min, he doesn’t think anything of it. They grow on each other and eventually enter a relationship, much to the disapproval of her brother, a homicide detective. He believes Kim Moo Young is more sinister than he lets on. 

Why I liked it: Just looking at clips/photos/quotes from this drama still tugs on my heartstrings. This one made me an emotional MESS. Seo In Guk is PHENOMENAL as Moo Young. Absolutely phenomenal. His character is so cold and detached--flawed--but he still makes the viewer connect with him. The storyline could be cliche (amnesia, secrets, etc), but they execute it so well. Each episode is a cliff-hanger and you get so emotionally invested in the characters, Moo Young especially, that you just stay up all night binging it...knowing that you are on a train that is heading straight for heartbreak. I will definitely rewatch when I’m in my feelings. 

One Spring Night (Netflix)

Summary: Lee Jung-In is a librarian who happens to meet Yoo Jiho at the pharmacy where she buys a remedy to her hangover but forgets her wallet. He tells her to pay him back later and pays for a taxi. She is in a long-term relationship with a very well-off gentleman and is battling with pressure to get married from both her family and her significant other, but she has her doubts. This meeting with Yoo Jiho makes her question marriage even more as she begins to fall for him. Another issue, he is a single father and is looked down upon by their society and her family because of it. 

Why I liked it: I always love a show where they go against the norms. I fell in love with Yoo Jiho immediately and his son even more so. It is real. The conversations are thought-provoking. The love is sweet. 

Just Between Lovers (a.k.a. Rain or Shine) (Netflix)

Summary: Two individuals who lost their loved ones in a tragic mall collapse meet each other after there is news that a new mall is being built in the same location. Lee Gang-Doo was an aspiring soccer player when he lost his father (a construction worker) in the mall collapse and his legs were injured, ruining his dream. He has become a bit of a “bad boy”. Ha Moon-Soo was at the mall with her younger sister when it collapsed. Ha Moon-Soo survived; her sister did not. The two characters find out that their lives are more interwoven than they thought and work to figure out how they can stop another traumatic event from happening in the same location.

Why I liked it: It had mystery. It had trauma. It had love. These two main characters are complete opposites on the outside but their traumas bring them together and they make an awesome team. Another one that really tugs on your heartstrings! 

Black (Netflix)

Summary:  Black is a detective possessed by the Grim Reaper. Ha-Ram can see shadows of death. These two struggle to save the lives of people, breaking the rules of heaven. (from AsianWiki)

Why I liked it: It has been quite a while since I watched this one. It was my first Korean mystery show. This is one that you can’t watch when you are distracted...you need to have your eyes on the screen at all times or you are going to miss something important. It was suspenseful and interesting. I’m not sure if it is one I will rewatch, but it is definitely worth the first time!

Vagabond (Netflix)

Summary: This is a newer addition to Netflix. Cha Dalgun is a stuntman that has taken in his nephew after he was abandoned by his mother. Their relationship becomes strained as his nephew begins to see how much Cha Dalgun hadn’t wanted a child before him and doesn’t have the finances to live a prosperous life. When his nephew dies in a tragic plane crash alongside the rest of his soccer team, we begin to see how much the boy meant to Cha Dalgun. When some video clips shared on the cloud make Dalgun suspect malicious intent in the plane crash, our story begins. He meets Go Haeri, a member of the NIS, when the bereaved families fly in to collect their deceased loved ones. A story of political corruption, big business, terrorism, doubt, and crime-fighting ensues. 

Why I liked it: This one isn’t completed on Netflix yet so I don’t know the ending, but it is definitely suspenseful and you find yourself trying to figure it all out and cheering on or booing at the characters. The characters of Cha Dalgun and Go Haeri both won my heart early on and now I’m hoping their ship sails! Each episode leaves you on the edge of you seat. 

Rookie Historian Goo Hae Ryung (Netflix)

Summary: Goo Hae Ryung is still single in her late twenties and is seen as a sort of misfit as she seeks knowledge rather than a husband. She becomes a female historian in the Joseon Dynasty. Prince Yirim has been living a life away from society, writing love stories that are popular but forbidden by the government. The two happen upon each other in a book store where she speaks poorly of his writing/genre. As they come to be familiar with each other through their positions, they work to uncover the secrets that the rulers would prefer to keep hidden. 

Why I liked it: The cast of characters is spectacular. While Hae Ryung and Yirim are the leads, there are so many supporting characters that catch your attention and win over your heart or make you absolutely hate them. They also aren’t all the boring, simple, support characters. They are so complex that this seems more like a slice of life piece rather than a drama. The storyline is interesting, especially to someone with little to no knowledge about the Joseon dynasty, Hae Ryung stays strong and independent while also showing her vulnerability. Yirim puts off a clueless aura but is really a strong character. Did I mention the characterization is amazing? 

A Few Honorable Mentions...

Something in the Rain (Netflix)

Memories of the Alhambra (Netflix)

When the Camellia Blooms (Netflix)

Descendants of the Sun (Hulu)

Thirty but Seventeen (Hulu)

What's Wrong with Secretary Kim (Hulu)

[musingsofanunorgainizedmind]

Top 10 Things I Love About Supernatural

It’s been almost half a year since the show ended and now that the dust has settlIed, I just want to list ten reasons I love this show. Despite it’s flaws, it’s been quite the ride.

1. Team Free Will

When I first got the idea to make this list, I originally planned on doing entirely separate entries for “Sam & Dean” and “Destiel”. Except then I wanted to pay tribute to “Sastiel”. And then I wanted to do an entry for “Team Free Dads”. By that point, I was already halfway through the list and I hadn’t even moved on from the main characters. A few months ago, I made a post about why I love every single pairing in this group. Obviously, Sam and Dean are a legendary duo. Obviously, Dean and Cas have an unparalleled story. Obviously, Sam and Cas are an underrated team. As for Team Free Dads, I’ve always had a soft spot for father/mentor figure characters and and all three tackle the role in different ways. I love Jack, too. I love how everyone in this bizarro family is “broken” in some way. We’ve got the Allistair’s prized pupil, the spawn of satan, the boy with demon blood, and the angel who nearly obliterated all of heaven. But they help each other heal by being supportive and seeing the good in each other. They all love each other so deeply and when together, nothing can stand in their way. Not Michael, not Lucifer, and not God himself. They tore up the book and wrote their own story. And it was a pleasure to watch it all unfold.

2. The Suppporting Characters

To list every single supporting character I have loved and lost in this show would take way too long. I don’t know if it’s the writing or acting performances, but I love pretty much every single supporting character on this show. Even villains like Azazel or Allistair are top-notch villains. Hell, I even like characters like Metatron, Lucifer, Mary, and John! Characters like Rufus, Charlie, Crowley, Rowena, Kevin, Ellen, Jo, Bobby, Gabriel, Balthazar, Mick...how am I not supposed to love them??? All of their stories were cut so short. I’d watch a show about any of these characters. The Wayward Sisters were robbed. So many ships were gone too soon (Sam/Rowena, Dean/Jo, Cas/Meg, Etc.). So many heartbreaking deaths. I want to be best friends with all these characters. Why be a “dean-girl” or a “sam-girl” when you can be a garth-girl? A kevin-girl? A claire-girl? A bela-girl? There are so many great characters with interesting and compelling backstories and so much untapped potential. I could go on forever on this, but I digress.This show has one of the best supporting casts I have ever had the pleasure of watching.

3. The Themes

It’s no accident that I got addicted to this show at the time that I did. Namely, my Senior Year of College and 2020. Graduating college and entering the “real world” felt like it’s own sort of apocalypse. 2020 definitely exacerbated my worst tendencies. Messages like “family don’t end in blood”, “you can write your own story”, and “always keep fighting” really resonated with me. I could definitely relate to the feelings of insecurity these character’s felt and the ways they suppressed/repressed their issues instead of facing them. I could relate to the feelings of not fitting in and I could definitely relate to the loneliness. This show helped remind me that I’m not alone. That it’s okay if my values and identity don’t line up with the what I envisioned for myself. And, most importantly, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that I should never give up. If Dean, Sam, and Cas can keep moving forward despite their demons and despite how bad it gets, so can I. Regardless of how the story ended, these themes resonated with me and I’ll still hold them with me. A single episode can’t take that away.

4. The Fun Episodes

This show has so many legendary standalone episodes. Changing Channels. Ghostfacers. The French Mistake. Fan Fiction. Tall Tales. Bad Day at Black Rock. When this show goes for the absurd, it goes all-in. It takes the risks it needs to take, it gets completely insane, and it pulls it off. So many of these episodes could have easily been the moment that the show “jumped the shark”. Yet, time after time, the show delivered on it’s potential. I don’t know how much I can say about these episodes except that they made me laugh out loud, made me fall even harder for these characters, and that they’re the episodes I remember best. If I were to rewatch any episode, it would be one of the fun ones. This show knew how to not take itself too seriously and how to poke fun at itself. I’ve always had a soft spot for shows that can make me laugh and cry (X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel, Doctor Who, etc.), and this show definitely nails the fun part. 

5. The Sad Episodes

Death’s Door. Hammer of the Gods. Despair. Carry On. Abandon All Hope. In My Time of Dying. Swan Song. When this show wants you to cry, it doesn’t pull the punches. It gets downright devastating. No character is safe. Literally every character you love will either be forgotten or will die. Or both. The amount of trauma Sam and Dean have to go through is insane. Both have literally been to hell and back. Both have killed countless people, including innocents. When this show decides it wants to wreck you, it’s overwhelming. I sobbed when Bobby died. I sobbed when every single member of Team Free Will died for the final time (I still can’t watch any of those scenes). I still wish Jo, Ellen, Charlie, Kevin, Mick, and Gabriel had been given more time to tell their stories. Being a hunter means a life of endless angst. Being an angel or demon doesn’t get you off the hook, either. I remember going into this show thinking it couldn’t hurt me. My favorite character type is “mentor/father figure”. But holy hell...I don’t think every single sad moment was necessarily good writing, but when it was? Damn. 

6. The Biblical Themes

I’m not a relgious person. But, despite this show being steeped in Christian mythology, it really touched on my feelings about the Old Testament in a profound way. Well, really just Ben Edlund and Robbie Thompson did. I’ve never seen a show really hit the overall feel of the bible the way this show does. The idea of Angels as mystical and terrifying creatures. The idea of God as a flawed father figure with a penchant for wrath. The sheer epicness of the biblical stories. The idea of family members constantly being turned on each other. Cain and Abel. Jacob and Essau. Moses and Ramses. Moses and Aaron. Abraham and Isaac. The bible is full of stories of family drama. This show doesn’t always give angels and demons weight. Sometimes it’s silly and stupid and cheesy. But when it hits right? It’s epic. This is more of a personal thing I love about the show, but definitely a plus!

7. The Music

The early seasons music is so good. I really miss the classic rock of the golden era of the show. I mean, there are still some great musical moments later on, but damn. I loved hearing songs I recognized and I loved learning new songs. I loved when the song and the scene hit perfectly in time (Death’s intro. Cas’s return in Season 13.). Also Supernatural wouldn’t be Supernatural without the ‘Carry On My Wayward Son’ song at the end of every season. Even at the end of a season I didn’t love, that recap would always get me pumped. Also Chuck singing Fare Thee Well? Dean and Lee singing together? Fan Fiction? All great. 

8. The Cast & Crew

I never care about the actors or actresses in a show. I definitely don’t bother with the names of specific writers and directors or their styles of writing/directing. They’re just random people who happen to write for or play these characters I love. They’re not actually the characters. But these guys? Well, for one, I’m pretty sure half this cast actually is their character. At least to some degree. They’re also just...really cool people? Who are all friends? They make a point to do community service, to interact with fans, and to promote positive ideas. Jared’s Always Keep Fighting campaign. Misha and GISH. The fact that they all participate in fundraising opportunities and encourage fan engagement. Do they all have issues? Definitely. Have they said stupid things? Yes. But the good far outweighs the bad. They’re an entertaining bunch whether onscreen or not and I hope they all do well in whatever their future endeavors may be.  

9. The Fandom

I joined this fandom late. To be honest, I thought this fandom was obnoxious before I found myself a part of it. Now that I’ve been in the trenches? It’s got it’s ups and downs like any fandom. There are some parts that are more toxic than others. A lot of people yelling that their opinion is the only opinion. But overall? The good outweighs the bad. And the good? The good is great. Some fanfictions I’ve read are better than actual books I’ve read and just as moving. The fanart? Incredible. I love reading all the metas about random aspects of the show I never would have noticed. I love the music videos and I love the analytical videos. In real life, I’ve made many friends through our mutual love of this show. Hell, even getting sucked into GISH once or twice has given me some solid memories and brought me closer to friends. I wish all fandoms were this much like family. I’m so glad I got to be a part of this fandom and I can’t wait to continue being a fan. After all, nothing ever stays dead in Supernatural.

10. The Chaos & Insanity

Season 16 has been a time. First, Destiel went canon. Then suddenly Sherlock was having a 5th season, Putin was retiring, and Georgia was going blue. Destiel going “canon” and Joe Biden winning the presidency will always be correlated in my mind now. Things in the fandom went from quiet to blaringly loud real fast. Carry On happened. The fandom went into a civil war. I can’t even remember half of what happened in Season 16, but it’s been a wild ride. There’s been ups (my personal favorite being the french dub and the Saileen wedding). There’s been downs (Jared’s controversial statements and the original scripts being leaked). At one point Misha Collins had sex with Bill Clinton???? It’s been a wild time. It’s honestly gotten me through the end of this pandemic. At least it’s entertaining. I would say that at least all the craziness is over, but is it ever really over? Every time I say that something else completely insane happens. But it’s been fun. I’m glad I started watching this show despite my reservations and here’s to whatever happens next. 

[ja-khajay]

2020-2021 Animation Watch(ed)list

I haven’t posted about animation in a while that I remember, and I know a lot of my followers are into it as much as me so I decided to make a list of the animated movies and series I watched on the past year or so, coupled with my short, spoilerless take on them. Enjoy!

Organized by

Things I saw for the first time

Things I rewatched

Under a cut for the sake of your dashboards! PS: I have not added any images yet. If you are interested in knowing more about the visuals of these movies, I might make an old fashion ask-prompted imageset list.

Part One: Things I saw for the first time

The Bear’s Famous Invasion of Sicily

Movie, 2019, Italian/French

9/10, a delightful little movie with amazing visuals. It feels like an animated picture book.

One of those “plot is in the title” media! I had never heard of this before but was heavily recommended it by my family members, who all loved it! It’s a sweet story, nothing groundbreaking but the unique colorful visual style alone makes it worth it.

The Castle of Cagliostro

Movie, 1979, Japanese

10/10. Reminded me of all the books i loved reading as a child

I assume its because it’s so old and the art style and themes are so different that it gets little to no love compared to other Ghibli movies, which is a shame! It’s fun with an endearing cast and as always, great animation and music

Mushishi

Series, 2006, Japanese

10/10 three episodes in I knew it was going to be my favorite series ever

One of the few things I’ve seen I’ll describe as life-changing. It’s absolutely lovely but never toots its own horn about it. Humble, calming, emotional and surprisingly mature. It’s pretty impossible to binge due to how intense the experience is. I just want to walk in the forest now...

FMA: Brotherhood

Series, 2009, Japanese

6/10 Dissapointing adaptation of a classic story

I read the manga for this when I was in middle school and remembered loving it. The animated version does an ok job of presenting the characters and worldbuilding and has some nice action scenes but overall looks really damn cheap and just. Not very good. Seeing I already knew most of the plot I did not have the element of discovery that made me marvel so much reading the original. It’s still a nice series but I really recommend reading it instead.

Code Lyoko (s1+2)

Series, 2003, french

3/10. 1.5 being for the opening song alone

This show sucks ass if I hadn’t been watching this with my bestie I would have dropped it two episodes in. The art style is ugly the stories are always the same and the first season has a (later removed thank fucking god) LITERAL “erase any consequences” button as a plot device in every episode. If you watch it for one thing let it be the nostalgia factor of early 00s Vidya Game Plot

The Legend of Hei

Movie, 2019, Chinese

7/10. Impressive visuals and a poor story

I finally watched this, peer pressured by the load of gifsets on my dashboard! It’s a sweet movie with really impressive animation, sometimes a bit too flashy for my taste (the action sequences go so ham they become not very readable...) but the story was just ok? The setting is barely explained and you are instead bombarded with vague epicspeech about powers and stuff that made me fondly remember Kingdom Hearts lol but that asides it’s a really good time! I need to watch more Chinese movies the few I know are just delightfully off the shits in how they approach action and I love that

Hunter x Hunter

Series, 1999, Japanese

9/10. Superior to the recent one!

I first got introduced to the series via the 2011 one. Comparatively, the 99 series focuses way less on action and way more on the characters, which I love because that fits my personal preferences! Despite mediocre filler episodes and some weird slight pointless plot changes, what it changes from the original manga doesn’t have much of an impact on the characters. The animation quality isn’t always consistent including a huge art style change for an arc (???) but it’s overall pretty nice. The series really shines in the last arc it adapts.

Oban Star-racers

Series, 2006, Japanese/french

9/10 a lovely surprise

This series is completly obscure despite having been created by people famous for their other series (Cowboy Bebop, Code Lyoko that i can name) and it’s a crime! It’s a kids show but without being stupid about it who tells the story of an inter-planetary race. If you liked that one scene in the star wars prequels you know what I mean. It’s got surprisingly nice animation for a TV series, and some truly great character design. The art style is a bit unique in a not for everyone sense, but I didn’t mind it much. It’s also THE most offensively 2000s series i’ve seen in terms of visuals. y2k kids assemble

The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon

Movie, 1963, japanese

8/10. Classic fairytale format with incredible visuals

Watched this for the art style because I know it inspired Samurai Jack, and it delievered! I dont’ have much to say about this one, it’s a very simply film but it’s sweet. For my pirates out there if you want to find it in good quality with english subtitles it’s VERY hard to find. If you just want to see the looks of it, it’s on Youtube with portugese subs.

We now enter the Gobelins Shorts Zone....!

My Friend Who Glows In The Dark

10/10 makes me cry each time

Pure delight...great animation writing everything. A little short about death and friendship but not in the way you imagine!

Colza

9/10

Visual treat...homely and nice :) not far from a 10 but a 9 because nothing about it is that groundbreaking

Sundown

9/10

If you’ve ever been ten minutes from failing a group project because of a single dude you will REALLY enjoy this. Loved the colors and personality

T’as vendu mes rollers?

10/10

It’s SUCH a sweet little short I loved that one so much

Dix-huit kilomètres trois

10/10

Surprisingly well written dialog. Visuals are great but the humanity of the characters carries this to another level

Un diable dans la poche

9/10

Amazing visuals and the most tense/creepy of Gobelin shorts i’ve ever seen. Chilling

La bestia

8/10

I had some issues with the pacing. Interesting story and visuals choices but I was not fond of the art style

Goodbye Robin

5/10

Confusing but predictable. Both at once??? Yes!

Le retour des vagues

6/10

Cool animation stuff but felt pretty pointless

                                                                ***

Part Two: Things I rewatched

Ruben Brandt: Collector

Movie, 2018, Hungarian

10/10. Underrated as hell

Watched this fully blind for the first time in an animated festival and rewatched it with friends. It’s a crime I never see anyone talking about it given the amount of whining I see about the lack of both adult animation and 2D movies? This film is a unique love letter to art in the form of a weird mix of charming crime story and psychological horror with amazing visuals. I recommend watching it blind and also buying it to show appreciation for how nice it is!!! WATCH THIS MOVIE...

Mononoke

Series, 2007, Japanese

10/10 Visual/storytelling masterpiece in the weird shit departement

If you can stomach intense stuff watch this. The visuals are incredibly unique and beautiful and under the jewel tones and art direction high takes it’s a really cool horror series. My only obstacle to enjoying it the first time I saw it was how dense it is - simply put, it’s so...culturally Japanese it’s not very accessible to me who doesn’t know anything about the culture? Watching it for the second time helped understanding the stories more! 

Corto Maltese in Siberia

Movie, 2002, french

9/10 but really close to ten. A great adaptation!

I’m a huge fan of the original comic so I entered this a biiiittttt suspicious it would suck but it was a really pleasant surprise! It has all the wonder and charm of the original and the animation was surprisingly good for the little budget. If you’re not familiar with the series, it’s a sort of geopolitical action/adventure movie but with it’s own really poetic vibe to it. It’s almost impossible to find online but happens to be fully on YouTube so go ham I guess?

Redline

Movie, 2009, Japanese

10/10 cinema was invented for this, actually

Every review of this movie i’ve seen gives it five stars and starts by talking about how immensly stupid it is. I’m no different. It’s a masterpiece of escalating energy with the depth of a puddle and it fucking rules. It’s free on YouTube too so there really is no excuse to not watch it. Watched it for the first time on a huge cinema screen and despite this my second rewatch on my small laptop was as/even more enjoyable. If you watch this stoned with friends you might travel to another dimension

Spirited Away

Movie, 2001, Japan

10/10 deserves the love it gets

I watched this a single time as a kid and had little memory of it! I mean it’s Ghibli you know it’s going to be good as hell but this one rly shines in how colorful and detailed it is and in it’s world! It made me remember I had a huge crush on the dragonboy as a kid. I’m gay now

Kung-fu Panda (1&2)

Movie, Usa

10/10. KFP fucking rules

Honestly my favorite franchise of the whole disney/dreamworks/pixar hydra. It’s fun as hell, doesn’t skip a single beat and has amazing animation and character designs. If something is a good time I will not care if it’s deep or not and boy I fucking love these movies

Sinbad, Legend of the Seven Seas

Movie, 2003, Usa

5/10 Some great some really bad and overall generic

I tend to hate american cinema and this includes that era of animation I have no nostalgia for. Sinbad is in a weird place because I love adventure stories and the visuals of the movie absolutely deliver but it’s very predictable and TANKED by the addition of the female character, pushed in your face as “look we have woman!!!” despite her writing being misogynistic as hell lol. The evil goddess rules tho. This movie would have been a solid 9 if instead of the girl the two dudes had kissed

[ribcagecarnival]

NO. 4 (Obama the Gleek)

Glee premiered in May 2009. I was about to transfer to a new middle school and Obama was four months into his first term. At just shy of 12 years old, I considered that pilot episode to be the best episode of television I’d ever seen. In seventh, eighth, and ninth grade, my mother and I watched the show religiously every week. In 2010 and 2011, we attended the concert tours—at one of them, we foolishly purchased VIP tickets that gave us virtually no perks, but through a cracked door, we saw Cory Monteith, and he waved at me before security shuffled him away to what I presumed was the actual VIP room, where he would participate in a real meet-and-greet. Monteith died in July 2013, the same day that George Zimmerman was acquitted of killing Trayvon Martin. By 2015, when the show ended, I hadn’t watched for years, and Donald Trump was entering the presidential race. And now, in early 2021, two more members of the original cast have died, Trump went from joke candidate to fascistic president to twice-impeached private citizen, and the entire world is in the throes of the worst viral pandemic in just over a century. Obviously I spent part of 2020 rewatching Glee. All art is a product of its time, either reflecting it back to us directly or functioning as a vision of what’s to come. Glee belongs firmly in the former camp. The progressive aspects of the show would not have been possible in the conservative pre-Obama era of American media, but plenty of premises and plot lines that passed for merely transgressive at the time would be shut down by contemporary cancel culture. Kurt’s coming out storyline in season 1 was a heartfelt, tender portrait of teen sexuality and coming-of-age that felt unprecedented and nuanced in 2009. But having an able-bodied actor play a wheelchair-bound teen (Kevin McHale) would have brought the full force of the online mob if it happened a decade later. A moment that has come under scrutiny on Twitter and TikTok comes from season 1, when Mercedes (Amber Riley) asks Mr. Schuester (Matthew Morrison) if the club can perform more Black music, to which Rachel (Lea Michele) snaps that it’s “glee club, not krunk club.” There are countless memes joking that in spite of the dizzying number of romantic pairings on the show, the OTP of Glee is Mr. Schue and jail—his bizarrely intimate relationships with his students were only ever called out by the show’s antagonist, Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch), and it was always played for laughs. The most heartbreaking episode of Glee is Season 5, Episode 3, “The Quarterback,” which is a tribute to the late Cory Monteith. But it is arguably more difficult to watch a moment from the following season, in which a group of McKinley alums crash an adolescent Tea Party Patriots meeting in order to recruit members for the rebuilding glee club. The episode is from 2014, but the remarks made by the student attendees are downright depressing when you know that 2 years later, Donald Trump would be the president-elect of the United States. In season 4, when a new cheerleader named Kitty (Becca Tobin) is introduced, she makes remarks about the “lame stream media” that are snuck into a litany of insults as rapidly as machine gun fire. The audience never has a moment to meditate on the significance of these jokes, because pre-2016, we didn’t have to. At the time, having characters parrot the fringe commentary of Sarah Palin and Fox News commentators was a shorthand meant to indicate that said characters would either undergo a change of heart or be permanently vanquished. Glee’s run spanned Obama’s time in office, and the Hope & Change candidate’s ascent did not make room for the victory of villainy. We had entered the Liberal Gilded Age. One thing I forgot about Glee was how often it mentioned the failing economy. As we all know, Obama inherited a broken economy from his predecessor, and the entire country was wracked by home foreclosures and unemployment. But as a preteen, all those references were lost on me in favor of glittery show choir competitions and the Finn/Rachel romance. The constant mention of budget cuts seemed more like an arbitrary plot device than a grasp at historical accuracy. Watching the show as an adult, however, the economic currents underpinning the show are impossible to ignore. Sue Sylvester often mocked the glee club for having a warped, rosy, show-biz view of reality, but they always prevailed. Even when they were temporarily down, they would rebound, and they would eventually win. But Sue, the comically evil opponent to the superficially valorous glee club, was right. You could not fix the evils of the world by simply celebrating diversity, accruing celebrity guests, and singing a feel-good song. Yet this has been the Democratic establishment’s strategy since 2009. And it hasn’t worked for a long time. The secondary characters, much like real American citizens of the time, were desperate for real change and real solutions. This is not an Obama Exposed essay—of course, he made progress on certain issues. But most of what the country got were charming late-night appearances, secret concessions to conservativism as the Democratic establishment shifted further to the right, and an increasingly divided populace that left both the progressive wing of the Democratic party and the growing alt-right movement increasingly agitated with the state of the union. I loved Barack Obama when I was a teenager. But over the course of the Trump presidency, I became radicalized. I saw the flaws in his administration that wreaked havoc both domestically and internationally, and that ultimately enabled Trump to carry out much of his hateful agenda over the last four years. Just as I have outgrown the version of myself that watched Glee uncritically as an adolescent, I too have outgrown the fractured politics I parroted before I was of voting age. Glee characters are prone to flights of fancy, acts of supposed altruism that often wind up harming themselves or others, and inspirational speeches that are ultimately meaningless. Mr. Schuester is offered the opportunity for a transgender student to have private access to a single-stall bathroom in exchange for a moratorium on student twerking. At first, he refuses. It takes the full length of an episode for him to realize that this thing is not worth fighting for. And even then, it’s seen as some huge sacrifice for the club! This, to me, is a perfect allegory for the Democratic party—an institution that is purportedly invested in betterment and equality, but in reality was more concerned with optics and symbols. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that Mr. Schue would have wept seeing BLACK LIVES MATTER murals being unveiled, and likely would have said that instead of looting the protestors should’ve just knelt and sang a Journey medley to the cops. Rachel Berry would have gone to a protest for a photo op while carrying a sign that said IF HILLARY WON I’D BE AT BRUNCH RIGHT NOW. I know this as deeply as I know that Spongebob Squarepants is gay and Daffy Duck is Black. Some things are just TRUE. In 2009, simply having queer and PoC characters centered on television was groundbreaking. In 2020, this is no longer enough. Simply acknowledging that marginalized people exist is not sufficient activism. In media, we deserve nuanced and complex stories that don’t subject them to even more of the stereotyping we’ve been experiencing for decades. And in politics, we deserve more legitimate structural change—reparations, secure voting rights, anti-discrimination laws, a livable minimum wage, universal healthcare that includes access to safe abortions—and less empty virtue-signaling. Glee is a tremendous way to escape from the horrors of our current state of affairs. But it is not merely a camp masterpiece. It is a cautionary tale. The circumstances that gave us Glee—an Obama presidency, decreasing voter turnout, the rise of the social internet, increased representation for queer and PoC and disabled people—are the same circumstances that gave us Trump. We don’t merely need our lives to be visible, we need them to be viable. We need to weaponize our passion and empathy against tyranny. We need to rebuild the world for the versions of ourselves that first loved Glee, without reverting back to who we were when it first aired.

[mysilverylining]

Don’t Renew Veronica Mars for S5

One of our Burned Marshmallows received a response from @hulu this morning claiming that the forum we were directed to leave our complaints and feedback in was merely tech support and our complaints will be “archived”.

I’m posting my complaint here for posterity, and I suggest that other Burnt Marshmallows do the same.  

I'm a longtime lover of Veronica Mars and one of the co-founders of a large and very active VM fan group spanning multiple social media platforms. I contributed heavily to the Kickstarter and attended the NYC premiere of the Veronica Mars. Since then, I've put in time and effort every single day to keep the fandom engaged through rewatches, activities, and challenges, and to ensure that when a streaming service came calling, they would know the fandom was ready and waiting. When Rob and Kristen called on us to demand more Veronica Mars, we used our platform and our social media cred to organize and make it happen. All this to say, I feel qualified speaking for the pulse of the fandom - both before and after the release of Season 4.

We DO NOT want another season of Rob Thomas's Veronica Mars.

Either replace Rob Thomas as show runner, or put Veronica Mars out of its misery.

Rob Thomas's name has been stained by the betrayal of his fans. Not because he killed off a popular character, but because he made this decision back in 2014, knowing it would cost him a large chunk of his fanbase, and then continued to use and exploit the "Marshmallow Army" for his purposes. Milking every last drop of activism and goodwill from us before we could turn against him en masse.

I do not want a Veronica Mars without Logan. Let me clarify. I would have applauded a cordial LoVe breakup in episode 8 for the sake of Logan's mental health.

I LOVE an angry female protagonist. I seek these characters out as a rule. But Logan was absolutely INTEGRAL to Veronica. Not as her boyfriend or husband, but as her truth teller. He was the only one who knew all her dirty secrets and was the only one with the guts to stand up to her when she was wrong. He pushed her to grow and heal and to be honest with herself. Keith is a wonderful character, but he has neither the knowledge nor the chops to push Veronica kicking and screaming on her journey.

Rob Thomas has no business writing women's stories in an era of #MeToo and #BelieveWomen. In the novel, Mr. Kiss and Tell, Veronica is hired to disprove a rape victim's story. On its own, this is bad, but if you combine it with Season 2's "The Rapes of Grath" and most of Season 3, you'll find that Veronica has disproved more rape accusations than she's caught rapists. This is extremely harmful messaging and contributes to the public perception that false rape accusations are common, committed by vindictive women hoping to ruin a man's life. Statistics prove the opposite, yet the messaging persists. Perceptions like this explain why rape victims are terrified to come forward and have their character put on trial.

Rob Thomas has no business writing mental health stories. Veronica's constant belittling of Logan's attempts to get healthy send a bad message, as does the idea of a single therapy session being a magical cure for Veronica's issues. Rob's statements after the finale only compound the damage. He tells us that emotionally healthy people and people on the journey to emotional health are not interesting. I could not disagree more. I found Logan's journey to be the most interesting storyline of the season.

Rob Thomas wants to move Veronica out of Neptune. Away from her father, her best friend, and the rest of her crew. He wants to focus on the mysteries instead of the personal relationships. The problem is, he's a TERRIBLE mystery writer.

His complex character stories actually worked to distract viewers from his gaping plot holes. Without the relationships we've grown to love, Veronica Mars would be just a 4th-rate procedural.

Just off the top of my head, I can point to the season finale. The edge-of-your-seat pacing is necessary, because if RT gives you a moment to think about it, you'll realize it was impossible for Penn to kill Don, plant the paper order slip, place the bomb at Kane High School and construct the backpack bomb, because HE WAS IN JAIL DURING THE TIME HE WOULD HAVE BEEN SETTING THIS UP.

Most Veronica Mars mysteries have similar inconsistencies, and the most insulting part is seeing the brilliant Veronica Mars being dumbed down for the sake of plot, forgetting other cases she's solved with the same M.O., and trusting villains with the exact same characteristics as the last 10 villains she trusted.

In conclusion, if you refuse to get a new showrunner, then at least just please put us all out of our agony and cancel it. This latest iteration was not the Veronica Mars anybody wanted.

[agentofship]

My rewatch AoS 1x11 to 1X15

I am very late for the rewatch so I thought I’d keep doing my rewatch review in blocks of five episodes (or whatever seems relevant). So here we go. With TAHITI, we're starting to get a glimpse of what the rest show is going to be since from that moment on. Except for Yes Men (who still gives an important moment information about May at the end) who really should have been in the first part of the season, every episode will be connected in a more or less big way to the main plot of the season. Like Yes Men who's completely independent or Seeds whose main plot doesn't seem linked until the end when we learn that Iain Quinn was linked to it, this first part of 1B makes the transition between the happy Bus days and the darker tone of the last seven episodes that will continue on in season two. So here's a few thoughts about separate episode: The Magical Place I absolutely love that first scene with the team working together perfectly, each using their own talent, it was perfect. Still love it when people call Fitz "sir" in season one, it's just so funny since he's so tiny 😄 May is really smart in that episode. Everyone did exactly as she had planned without even having to tell them (because she knew FitzSimmons and Ward would help Skye escape) and thus also remaining in Hand's good graces. Agent Skye mini May is adorable! But she really is as smart and ressourceful as May, she just needs to be trained in combat and badassness now! I know it's a very unpopular opinion but Raina annoys the crap out of me with her too sweet smiles and exaggeratedly sexy voice. I mean she's obviously really at getting in men's heads, including Coulson but I just find her… annoying. She gets more interesting after she turns, too bad she didn't last longer after that. Love the Coulson rescue mission, again that was some very good team work. And love the reunion scene, although I know at least Skye wanted a group hug. Love May's side smile and "Nice Jacket". "Bet there's no flower dresses where she's going!" "Amen to that, sister." Love that :D "Disengage bracelet" Coulson's dorkiness really is one of his most endearing traits. Seeds First of all, a big thank you for giving us enough FitzSimmons content for hundreds of FitzSimmons Academy Era fics. Love that FitzSimmons scene where they present each other's work mirroring the scene in the Pilot when they introduce each other, it's adorable. Also love the way their speech is so well rehearsed, it's perfectly flawing between them and I bet even that joke Fitz does was written on paper. "Potential can sometimes be dangerous…" Oh Fitz, you're going to remember that one quite bitterly in a few years. FitzSimmons are so proud of their Academy and being such stars there. I love their competition with Ward and Simmons' "Did you have one of these in ops? Did not think so." Yep, cannot imagine Ops having something so fun! SciTech would have definitely been more my kind of place (except for the fact that I didn't study science at all :p) "My room was just like that." We know it's a lie but it's cute, it's Fitz's slightly awkward way of trying to connect. We know he has trouble making first contact and it looks like he's also kind of thrilled of being someone's hero or even a father figure of sorts. Coulson saying "You're talking, it's weird" is the best. That's some pretty dangerous info we're getting on Skye. They really took their time giving us bits of information all through the first season to focus on it in season two. Love the little robot on the bar at the boiler room, never noticed that before, need to include it in a future fic, it's adorable! Too bad Donnie ended up as he did, he really wasn't a bad person and deserved a redemption arc. Again, May is such a freaking badass. And all this without a single superpower! T.R.A.C.K.S Although there will be some criticizing, keep in mind that this episode still remains one of my favorite episodes of the season and the show as a whole. Love the plot, the humor, the action, the different POVs and that's also some top notch drama at the end. So, first of all, the accents. Even I, a person who only some distant italian relatives, can tell that Ward's one is awful. But at least, he's not supposed to be Italian so that's understandable. But that conductor sounds like a mix between Mario and Jen speaking pretend Italian in IT Crowd (hilarious episode by the way, you should look it up if you haven't :D) Then, that train. You should read @valentinaonthemoon‘s post here about it if you haven't because she points out all that is wrong with the train and its route. But seriously, it's so weird. It's all too big and pretty. I have never seen a restaurant carriage with actual cute little wooden tables and chairs and actual room to walk between the table. And what the hell about the actual bed? I've taken a night train to Venice once, even first class wasn't close to looking like that! Anyway, now moving on to all the good parts. May is the definition of badass in this episode. First casually walking on a moving train and then taking of all the bad guys with the knife they stabbed her in the shoulder with. And I also love the little Philinda moment where she lets him help her but didn't let Ward. Love Fitz summing up every cliche Europeans have about Americans "They have some good shows. Lots of nice teeth." and "Someplace affordable with big portions." His pretend relationship and real friendship with Skye is very very sweet in this. I love all the teasing but also the way he insists she takes the gun and tells her to be careful. Jemma is, once again, very heroic in this. Once more, she takes the conscious decision to sacrifice herself for his friends and Fitz in particular. Of course, that grenade wouldn't have killed them but she didn't know that. So really, during the pod scene, when Fitz is faced with the reality that only one can hope to make it to the surface, his decision is easy. And I think it's not only because he loves her and couldn't bear to live without her anyway, but also because she did twice already and he thinks that's it's his turn now. He's just less lucky about the consequences it has on him. (And ironically, Ward provoked it instead of being here to save the day… but I digress). I love Fitz's reaction after Jemma falls. He doesn't run to her because he's stunned and frozen at the idea that she might be dead. His sigh of relief when Skye tells him she's alive is everything. And also the line about her little face is adorable, especially since I only learned recently that it was ad libed by Iain! I didn't remember how heartbreaking Skye was when she tries to call for help and has no voice left at all. For a moment, she must have thought she was going to die all alone in that scary dark room. I mean, I never was really worried because they weren't going to kill her off but still, that's gut wrenching :s But Jemma for the win though! She's not even a medical doctor and so many people are alive thanks to her! And well, of course, THAT HUG! I mean all of FitzSimmons hugs are wonderful but this one is just… I love how it parallels the one from 4x21 where they don't talk and he just has to reach for her shoulder for her to finally let go and cry in his arms. At first, she doesn't fully hug him because she's afraid of putting blood on him (which is very Jemma-like of her) but then she lets go and he doesn't need to say a thing because it's his presence that comforts her the most. Also, FZZT was the moment he realized his feelings had changed for the first time but this feels important too. This is the first of many hugs and the moment their relationship becomes more physical (not in the sexual sense of the word, just physical). As much as I like to imagine they spent their Academy days falling asleep in the same bed every week, I feel like until now, their friendship was very intellectual with only quick very tame physical displays of affection like the touch of a hand or shoulder. Even that kiss on the cheek seemed something wild in the way he reacted and she hesitated before doing it. After that, we'll see more hugs and more daring touches, culminating into the pod scene. (and then regressing and slowly progressing again in season two B and and three) Because being on the field had taught them how hard things could be and they're like each other comfort blanket for a time, thus the need to be physically closer. T.A.H.I.T.I I love how FitzSimmons are sitting so close together on that couch. I think they both need the comfort of each other's presence because they are the only constant in their ever changing world. They really should have let Ward blame himself here. The way May beat the crap out of Iain Quinn was very satisfying. Love Coulson's progression about Tahiti. "Turned out not so magical" and in the next episode it'll be "It sucked". Well, at least he got to see the real, beautiful Tahiti 😞 Awww Trip. I didn't like him all that much the first time. I mean I found him okay and all but only on the second rewatch that I grew to like him. Other than the fact that he could actually get "Witches weekly's most charming award", he really is just a genuine nice, easy going, good guy. Too bad it made him the perfect candidate for shock value death 😞 Love, love, love that scene with FitzSimmons looking through the files. It's stunning and blue light definitely suits Fitz. I also love him during the mission. We know he's kind of scared and he still doesn't like being on the field but he's brave and funny and adorable. "Not afraid, not yet…" "To certain horrible death? Absolutely" Classical sassy Fitz! One thing that had always bothered me during this mission: Couldn't they use non lethal weaponry to "attack" the base. I mean they're protecting a shady secret but they're still (mostly) agents of SHIELD. And they'd been left to die and be buried under all that rock. I get that Coulson wanted the truth and to save Skye but still … I absolutely love the way they decided to handle the Kree reveal. Make Coulson look terrified and let us imagine all the most horrible things and then only in the end the horrible mutilated corpse. Feels a lot like what Hydra did to Skye's mother by the way and very, very evil :s Yes Men I enjoyed this one more than I thought I would despite it not being the strongest episode and it has a lot to do with Sif being a badass. So, first of all, with all the super advanced technology they have, would an Asgardian really be impressed by a bike?!! Skye saying: "I must look awful". Honestly, makeup department guys? They did a really good job when she was close to death but now she doesn't even look a little pale. She doesn't a little circle under eyes and doesn't even look tired at all. And look at her hair! That's not the hair of someone who had been forbidden to leave her bed for days! Fury is already missing, it's getting serious! Sif is so freaking badass and really aces the super hero landing! Also, she's so extra, like she casually throws a car to provide cover. I love her connection with May and I would totally watch a spin off of them kicking ass together. I like the phrase about people being dangerous when they are controlled and how it's another hint at May's backstory. Okay, so I love Sif throwing a car during the fight scene and I love Coulson calling Sif "your ladyship" but seriously, didn't SHIELD have enough women fighters? Honestly! Jemma is totally right about being mad at Coulson about wanting to know more about GH325. Coulson has a good reason for keeping it in house but he should just tell them for god's sake! At this point, we can see that he's still struggling between the whole following the rules and doing things his way because he no longer trusts SHIELD completely. "Ward is not the man you knew. He will not hesitate to kill you." "He might try but he wont." Yep, yep, yep, you don't know how right you were, May! "Because yes, I am that good!" Fitz was cocky and cute there but really not that wasn't a smart move telling Coulson about Lorelei without knowing if he'd been swayed as well. Libido does take a bit of his genius away :p "He's always getting knocked out, isn't he?" Mmmhhh … okay but how freakishly strong is Coulson if he can knock him out with only one punch? "You were saying?" Honestly, they should have copied that collar to use for all the villains and their long boring speeches. And finally dun, dun, dun! They really did a good job making us paranoid and making us think May could be the villain.

[hippychick006]

SPN Analysis - Season 4

SPN Analysis – Season 4

In relation to This Post, I’ve finally completed Season 4. I also made separate posts on each episode of Season 4 and it’s clear that although there are a couple of weaker episodes, there were no outright clunkers, and the majority of the individual episodes were very good.  So why don’t I love the season overall?  

1)    For me (as you’ll see in the analysis), it was the start of the myth arc outweighing and overpowering the original MOTW concept – road tripping, investigating urban myths and legends.  If I was to top 20 all Supernatural episodes, I’d be surprised if at least 90% of them weren’t MOTW format with a nod to the myth arc. Classic supernatural for me, will always be seasons 1-3 and those are my favourite seasons with season 1-3 style episodes like Baby, Regarding Dean and Red Meat joining them.  Just personal preference and what drew me in to the show in the first place.  This is the biggest reason why I’m struggling with Dabb, but we’ll come onto his seasons later.

2)    What I struggled with more than this though, was the overall myth arc of Season 4 and where we ended up.  I don’t mind brother angst, I don’t mind Sam going dark side, I don’t mind him drinking demon blood and being ultimately wrong in killing Lilith as the last seal (since Dean unknowingly broke the first seal).  What I don’t like is what Season 4 led to, which is the narrative that Sam is constantly blamed by everyone for starting the apocalypse.  I don’t like that Heaven’s betrayal was softened by Castiel’s last minute defection which unbalances the season (at least for me) and Sam’s character comes off even worse than it should because of it.  

Any detailed notes explaining reasoning, I’ve put under the cut so as not to take up your dash.

Monster of the Week v Myth arc Episodes: 13 MOTW v 9 Myth arc.  

4.01 (Lazarus Rising), 4.03 (In the Beginning), 4.09 (I know what you did last Summer), 4.10 (Heaven and Hell) 4.16 (On the head of a pin), 4.18 (Monster at the end of this book), 14.20 (The Rapture). 4.21 (When the levee breaks) and 4.22 (Lucifer rising) were Myth arc.  A few were debatable including 4.17 (It’s a terrible life), but since Zachariah says that Sam and Dean were in their real world (with only their memories changed) and that it was a real case, a real haunting with real people affected, I put it under MOTW. Some of the other cases were stopping the breaking of one of the seals which relates directly to the overall myth arc but were enough of a case to put it in the MOTW category rather than myth arc – e.g. 4.02 (Are you there, God, it’s me Dean Winchester).  

Wannabe Hunters: 0 (See Note 1)

Ship Pandering: 0 (See Note 2)

Fan Pandering: 0 (See Note 3)

Someone is called “Family”: 2 (See Note 4)

Death having no meaning: 0 (See Note 5)

Sidekick status Updates: 0

I specifically checked on Bobby and there are no mentions of what he’s up to unless he actually appears in the episode.  Castiel is not mentioned unless he’s in the episode.

Sam or Dean dumbed down: 2 (See Note 6)

Retcon

Bobby’s narrative changing over time to be that of a father figure

Mary being a hunter and making a deal

One more point I’m going to make on Season 4 is that whenever anyone complains about Season 14 being Sam and/or Dean light or that they aren’t hunting together, or that they are focusing on something that isn’t Sam or Dean (e.g. the Nick storyline), we’ve been told that the show has done this before. And I agree, to a very minor degree they have.  Season 4 is an example of this, the brothers were sometimes separated, either working on their own or with other people but re-watching just hits home the difference.  If you have decent writing, coupled with decent characters with backstory you get invested in, and decent actors that portray them, you don’t notice because you are completely drawn in to the story.   That contrasts sharply with Dabb era where at least 2 out of the 3 (and sometimes all 3 elements) are missing.

Season 1, Season 2 and Season 3 if you missed them are here.  

Note 1: Wannabe Hunters

4.17 (It’s a terrible life).  The ghost facers are back and appear to have moved on from being paranormal investigators to ghost hunters.  They’ve produced an instructional video which newbie hunters Dean Smith and Sam Wesson find extremely useful in their first ghost hunt. The whole dialogue (for me at least) is funny and we were never meant to take the ghost facers seriously.  They are just there for comic relief and it’s very much played as two idiots that accidently stumbled into the supernatural world and are very lucky they haven’t been killed yet.  They are there to show that people that don’t know what they are doing should not be anywhere near a hunt. They aren’t ever shown to be better than the Winchesters - even in the instructional video, they keep saying they learned things from the douchebag Winchesters, so still score of 0 for wannabe hunters.  

 Note 2 Ship Pandering

I decided to do a full re-watch specifically for the purpose of watching Cas and Dean scenes through shipper eyes and I’m not seeing or hearing anything I would call ship pandering.  They aren’t even friendly with one another. There were no lines of dialogue you could call ship pandering, nor moments between them that were deliberately put in to feed shippers.  I don’t see anything for any ship that’s been put in there to deliberately pander.

 Note 3: Fan Pandering

There was no fan pandering of characters (e.g. Cass is pretty).  It’s not clear whether there were any amendments to the original role of characters following fan reaction to them.   On rewatch, I’m actually inclined to say not, but if anyone has any evidence saying otherwise, I’d love to hear it.

In terms of Castiel, he was in the first three episodes, all of which would have completed filming before the first of them aired.  By the time the first episode aired, scripts for later episodes would already have been in progress, so I’m inclined to assume his next appearances in 7, 9 and 10 were already planned.  Which makes sense as his role throughout the season was to act as a conduit between Dean and Heaven, a single point of contact that tells Dean about the breaking of the seals and Dean’s purpose.

Anna does not appear until 4.09 and she disappears at the end of 4.10.  Both episodes would have been completed before either episode aired.  So again, Anna disappearing is not anything to do with fan reaction.  It was planned.  Neither she nor Castiel appear again after 4.10 until 4.15.  On rewatch, Anna’s purpose appears more than anything else, to be to drive Castiel’s defection.  

The only thing I’m not clear on is whether Castiel was supposed to die in 4.22 and not come back in 5.01, because that would actually have been an amazing sacrifice.  I’ll come back to this after Season 5.

 Note 4: Someone is called “family”

There are 2 instances of the retconning of Bobby to be more than he was originally written:

4.01 (Lazarus rising).  Dean to Bobby trying to convince him he’s not a demon.  “You’re about the closest thing I have to a father.”

4.21 (when the levee breaks). Continues the changing of Bobby narrative when he says to Dean during Sam’s detox in the panic room, “Look, I know you hate me for suggesting it, I hate me for suggesting it.  I love that boy like a son.

 Note 5: Death having no meaning

In 4.02 (Are you there, God, it’s me Dean Winchester), Henriksen, Meg and Ronald Resnik all return.  They appear as spirits as part of the breaking of the 66 seals, so not alive, still dead and it was a clever way to see them again without cheapening death.  Particularly Ronald, because no doubt he’d be a “fan favourite” with the writers now and someone the Winchesters go to for advice on hunting.

In 4.03 (In the Beginning), Dean is sent back in time and he meets his young parents before they were married.  Still dead in Dean’s timeline.

In 4.08 Sam dies briefly due to a wish, which is reversed minutes later.

In 4.21 Mary and Alastair appear, but they are all hallucinations in Sam’s mind when he’s going through blood detox.  Still dead as doorknobs.

 If I’ve missed any, let me know.

  Note 6: Sam and Dean are dumbed down

 Okay, not counting putting salt down in rooms with windows:

4:12 - They turn their back on a magician who is tied up to have a conversation and unsurprisingly, the magician escapes the ropes and disappears.  I have no issue that he’s capable of slipping the ropes, given the kind of act he has. I do have an issue with Sam and Dean taking their eyes off him. In Dean’s words: “Guess we should have seen that one coming.”  Also, they didn’t search the room for him.

4.20 – They should probably have tested Amelia for being a demon prior to letting her go with her daughter.  I was going to let it slide, but nope.

[thedogsled]

Hi guys. I’m going to cautiously title this ‘About Zimbio, Destiel, my personal struggle with the idea of wlw vs. mlm, and why what we achieved in the vote today says a lot about our magnificent fandom’. 

This is a reminder in advance that I make generalizations but I don’t mean any harm by them. I’m happy to discuss this topic and capitulate on some things, because my experience of shows is extremely limited right now (unless I want to watch them in French). Just like Dean I say ‘we’ a lot but please assume sometimes I mean ‘I’, I by no means make any claim to speak for all of the following groups at any point: bisexuals, mlm shippers, wlw shippers, television executives, social media marketers, the mainstream audience, destiel shippers--etc, etc, you get the drift.) If any of the following upsets you, please let me know, it’s not my intent to cause any harm, only reassure my friends that they did a good job.

I promised I was going to write a post on this, because I’ve seen just a little mumbling and unhappiness that Destiel didn’t make it through in the semis. I get it, it’s only natural that it’s going to lead to some hurt feelings, but I wanted to really put across to you all why I say I was proud of us for our semi-final performance, rather than you just take it for granted.

We are an old fandom. Thirteen years is a long time; it makes Supernatural the longest single run fantasy/sci fi series on American TV (and I mean I think it’s unfair to compare it to non American shows like Doctor Who anyway just on pure numbers, especially since Who has gone through thirteen fourteen? fifteen? are we counting radio drama? actors in the lead role; it’s like a different show every time.) So. It’s had a superb run. Fantasy/sci fi shows are typically considered to be niche, not massive hits (comparatively speaking; SPN isn’t Grey’s Anatomy or NCIS I’ll grant). But what networks are finally waking up to is the power of the fandom of those ‘niche’ shows, dedicated viewing power which can grow a network’s brand, particularly online, and networks are eager to wrangle that.

This modern era of television is fandom’s era of television. Netflix are promoting gamification of television watching (even for kids) as well as choose your own adventure style TV. Binging and rewatching box sets is a whole thing now, not just the domain of the “geek”, and shows which can convince people to stick around and watch something instead of moving on when they run out of material--they’re the ones gaining success, while traditional shows slip further and further as they fail to capture new demographics. We’re making strong social media contracts with the creators and actors of our shows, and making it clear to them - in a way that is increasingly being recognized for the opportunity it represents - that there must be give and take with modern audiences, especially if you seek gratification through social media. (I read a great article I reblogged that called it the ‘Brandom’ effect.)

It’s wonderful, and it’s terrifying, because both fans and creators don’t know what to do with it. They can give fans too much power and the show goes off the rails, or deny it to them entirely, and earn only vitriol. Some shows rub their power right in the face of their fans and increasingly they pay for it. Some showrunners are outright incapable of talking to their fans at all without being respectful (I’m looking at you The 100), and some fans are ghastly, aggressive and outright disrespectful in pursuing what they want (it is a different thing showing joy over your ship as it is to dox actors and send their wives hate mail). Some showrunners, instead, are more embracing of their fans, like the Earpers, and if you want an idea of how actors should be engaging with fans, check out David Haydn Jones’ twitter. That man is a saint. It’s a delicate game of mutual respect, and occasional drama, and intent is the name of the game: do you have good intent, is it honest? People crave honesty on the internet where everything and everyone is fake--and that honestly is a tough thing to achieve when studios are too heavily concentrating on their bottom line.

So, this is a changing landscape, like I said, and people are struggling with new marketing techniques, trying to find their place in the world, running into walls when they realize that in fact they don’t understand their queer audience members. When something works, shows are very quick to jump right into it, almost relieved to have evidence that if they do X thing, their fans won’t all jump ship in horror, but here’s the thing, networks are in a lot of ways far slower to respond than shows. If you want to do something, you have to prove to the person holding the purse strings that it’s a profitable endeavor. Producers are set in their ways, especially old school producers, not realizing how quickly the landscape is changing, and writers are fighting against that all the time, because they’re often a lot more in touch with the creative fandoms they’re trying to inspire. Many have come from fandoms themselves. Queer writers should mean more queer storylines, right? But it means fighting money men to make it happen. Oftentimes that leads to the whole ‘one queer ship is enough’ standpoint, and when it comes down to it, those money men are more likely to put stock in safe investments, in proven investments. Consequently, wlw is flourishing because it draws in audiences without losing them. It’s arguably less risky to make Alex Danvers gay than Castiel. It’s more PC, accepted by wider audiences, groundwork laid by Dark Angel and Buffy in my own recent memory. When good results come from featuring those kinds of ships, they appear increasingly on TV, and it’s AWESOME. There were 16 wlw ships in Zimbio March Madness, and 11 of them got through all the way to 8vs8. There were only 2 mlm ships in 8vs8, and 3 het ships. Internet fandom, passionate and social and dedicated? It speaks, and it says ‘More LGBT rep please’.

We’re in a transitional period. Changes are coming, but when you look at the big mlm ships of the last few years, you can see the uphill climb that’s still ahead of us. I spoke with our Hannigram and Johnlock friends last year about what their experience with this was like. (I haven’t spoken to Sterek folks, but I know there’s disappointment from that front too). Johnlock shippers are largely furious about how explicitly the finale no-homoed their ship when there was absolutely no reason to. Having watched the finale myself, I feel like they really went hard against shippers explicitly. Hannigram suffered too. I haven’t finished S3 even now, but what I recall of the conversation went like this: they’re together, but there was a kiss that didn’t make it to air, and then the show was cancelled. In any case, what I’m saying right here is that this is part of a pattern, a theme I’m struggling with, where mlm fans are dispirited and disappointed and feeling disrespected by the very mainstream shows they’re watching.

(Which isn’t, I’ll quickly note, that I’m saying the same isn’t true of wlw audiences. The last two ships in Zimbio this year are non canon ships, and the fans of both have been hurt by the shows they watch, but they still keep coming back and watching the show. Swanqueen is ending, but the pair have been consistently mirrored - dark and light - with the emotional journey of the show largely being made over the shared custody? I don’t know, they changed it every week while I was watching it of Emma’s son. Supercorp is clearly full of eye sex thanks to the actress’ chemistry (and McGrath is so gorgeous she’d have chemistry with a brick wall) and yet has been outright mocked by the show’s cast. If that sounds familiar to Destiel fans, I almost want to say that Supercorp have it worse; just as with Swanqueen, they’re often told simply to shut up because there's already wlw rep on the show.)

But where shows are willing to go there now, diminished risk is the key, especially as resale value of shows reflects multiple, competitive platforms constantly needing to purchase content to fill their airspace. Naked women, women kissing and women having sex - bisexual women who are explicitly still available to men - that sells, but as far as I can tell networks are struggling to sell the same narrative about mlm. Maybe that’s my perspective only, maybe that’s me watching the wrong shows (and not at all because I don’t enjoy looking at women’s bodies, I do, but variety is the spice of life) Look at the outright surprise last year when GOT gave us a beautiful, pus covered, full screen dick. GOT, of course, which is insulated because it is a Number One performer. I present to you, in terms of dicks on screen, American Gods, then. Neil Gaiman is my hero, selling the network on the premise that they could have his great stories if only they were willing to gleefully integrate peen on every episode. Or so I’m told. There’s a lot on my ‘to watch’ list that I haven’t got around to yet. I will tell you, of course, that mlm is out there, Evak were voted out against Supercorp in the quarter finals) but on a big show like Supernatural that risk is exceptional. That’s why when we talk about Destiel ‘going canon’, we make the shockingly ambitious request of them HOLDING HANDS, or mutually saying ‘I love you’, and sometimes feel like expecting anything more, like a kiss, or god forbid a sex scene, is too much to ask. Why? When lesbians and bisexual women are presented on TV, kisses and sex scenes are a matter of course. In Alex’ coming out, in Thirteen’s coming out in House, Angela’s coming out in Bones - huge ensemble shows where main characters, all women, have come out and kissed (and returned to male partners in the case of the later two). (I should point out I am talking about genre “mainstream” shows in general, not for example Queer as Folk, where the primary aim is to explore sexuality, not fight dragons or solve crimes)

Now in addition to this problem, an issue that I’ve seen for years is that from inside the fandom world we are made to feel as though we are somehow obscene or inferior for shipping mlm ships, a projection that comes from the way mainstream folks will react to you if they happen to discover you drawing dudes together. Sometimes we hide our online selves from the real world out of shame that has only built over the years, where it’s considered that supporting mlm ships instead of wlw ships makes you fetishistic, or objectifying of gay men. I’ve seen it in fanfiction spaces and in rp spaces on dw and lj that shipping wlw has been raised to a point of being considered ‘more pure’. If you ‘claim’, they say, to be a queer woman, you should wholly be supporting wlw ships. When I started hearing this dialogue I was THIRTEEN. This was before Willow/Tara. There were just less wlw ships on tv, and there were less female characters whose autonomy didn’t depend on men, or portray them as being fragile, the weakness of their gender or whatever. There were standout female characters in my youth, absolutely, but they were all independent (mostly) straight women: Kathyrn Janeway, Sam Carter, Clarice Starling, Dana Scully. They kicked out against the system, the world they lived in, intelligent and defiant ladies I still idolize. Nowadays, though those wlw ships are available, and populated by so many beautiful, powerful, progressive female characters - and yes miraculously even strong female characters who still embrace their own womanhood. In contrast  mlm ships are not keeping up because, in some way, I think that the ‘impurity’ of shipping mlm has stuck. I struggle to think of even straight non toxic male role models, nevermind male role models who are in engaging, romantic relationships with the same sex. This stagnation of masculinity (apart from the rise of the geek hero which often, as in the case of TBBT, doesn’t break away from inbuilt misogyny) troubles me immensely. (I’m not saying all male characters are awful, incidentally, but it’s not a positive message to outright expose the flaws of toxic masculinity without offering understanding, lessons, and growth. But that’s another essay.)

Trust me, I’m not saying everyone feels that TV is being stacked against mlm, but as a bisexual I really feel fractured by the whole thing. I feel like I’m supposed to loathe myself for shipping mlm, particularly when that mlm ship is ‘two white guys’. The fact that I as a woman enjoy male and female bodies is irrelevant, because one desire is pure, and one desire is fetishism. There is no balance. I’m allowed to be titilated by members of my own gender kissing each other and only that and heterosexuality. As a bisexual who is currently leaning toward wlw myself (sexuality existing on a sliding scale imo), it is the power imbalance in heterosexual couples which puts me off. It’s painfully true to life. I have a particular loathing for Booth and Brennan from Bones, for example, where his toxic masculinity is unilaterally forgiven because it’s true love, while Bones, once independent and stubborn herself, is increasingly nudged further out of character in order to forgive him his trespasses. But when I ship mlm, or write fanfic of my favorite couples, any power I give them is not based on their gender. The same I imagine is true of wlw. (An unfortunate consequence of this is people project it onto real life, where power inequality and abuse can exist regardless of make believe ‘purity’, and consequently people end up believing that something is wrong with them rather than their relationship, similar issues as people face when they imagine marriage is the goal, and everything else is happily ever after, because Disney told them so. In which case I advise you to rewatch Mary Poppins.)

During voting, I was reticent to address why voting for Destiel over the other ships was important to me. It was personal. (Of course anyone could have sent me an ask if they were curious). But why I was voting didn’t matter. It was enough that I was voting for the couple I love, whose relationship my blog is devoted to, and whose love story I hope is resolved. But there is more to it than that. What’s important, I guess, is how I feel about Dean. My reading of him is of a bisexual, still in the closet - perhaps even to himself - in his thirties. He made it out of high school, but that’s it, because he dropped out of higher education for family commitments. He likes rock music and classic cars. He loves pie, and dumb medical TV dramas, and cowboy hats, and riding rodeo bulls and chatting to strangers. He struggles with voicing his true self with people who know him, and might judge him in a way he will never come back from. Dean is basically me. I am all those things. And in this case, he’s in love with a genderfluid (has been both male and female) guardian angel whose love for Dean explicitly and singularly, has been described as a profound bond, and the greatest love story ever told. Castiel’s love for Dean, his willingness to do anything for him, is all I think any of us want from a romantic partner. And yes, we all find different things in our ships, and presumably other people connect with Destiel for reasons that aren’t the same as my own, but that’s okay. My reasons are my reasons.

And yet I am still thrown into that emotional disconnect: that because this couple is an mlm couple I’m wrong to ship it, that I would be better putting my energy into watching shows I don’t necessarily enjoy as much so I can find my representation in more respectable (or potentially less queerbaity) fandoms. That Supernatural isn’t good enough because I’ve been repeatedly told by people inside and outside the fandom that it isn’t good enough. I’ve got to tell you I agree that it struggles with being progressive. While season 3 of Grey’s Anatomy was showing the struggles of a pre-op mtf woman and her wife in an ep that made me actually cry for the dysphoria represented, on the other channel SPN had just got done killing a token ‘woman with an off screen girlfriend’ character. By season 11, we’ve had two gay male couples, both holding hands and leaning into each other to express their relationship. SPN is slow. Nobody in the world would deny that. 

But to be quite honest, also, finding representation doesn’t have to mean ‘a ship’, it can just be a well written bisexual woman with a badge, and you aren’t restrained to just one rep either! In fact, the more the better. I find myself particularly starved for that rep, especially since - having been fetishized for my bisexuality irl before - I see painful reflections of that on television. That’s obviously going to be related to bad writing and TV’s particular way of objectifying women in general, too, but when a woman (say Angela Montenegro from Bones) has a two episodes storyline where she makes out with another insanely attractive actress, the music rising, lit with soft shades, the camera focused in on their mouth--before the plot is forgotten entirely, it is incredibly difficult not to see that as objectification and not bisexual solidarity. I want more mlm on TV because I want more bisexuals of both genders on TV, and because of the harmful insinuation in mainstream thought that a guy who comes out as bi late has somehow been lying to himself and was gay all along, while women who are bi are just exploring their sexuality and somehow more up for it. Those views need to be constantly, constantly challenged, because, honestly, people believe them. (Probably not me or you, but it’s out there).

(As an aside: mainstream is also harsh toward female writers who write mlm stories. There have understandably, as a result, been female writers who chose male pseudonyms to pen their gay romance novels. I first experienced this to a lesser extent back in Gundam Wing fandom, because if you were a ‘male’ author it legitimized you and people would read your stories in preference to those penned by girls. Back then it was a numbers game. The prejudice does remain. Audiences are sometimes outright cold to female authors who pen mlm stories! You need only look at the conversation about boycotting Love, Simon because it was written by a straight woman to appreciate just how deeply we’ve built this disconnect, as though to write something the author must always write from personal experience. If that’s the case, I feel terrible for Thomas Harris and Jeff Lindsay, and JK Rowling (who speaks about choosing her moniker because it was genderless) must certainly have had an exciting childhood, what with all the magic and dragons. 

As a result I think we (or at least I) have internalized some harmful things about who has the right to interpret themselves in stories told about men, or male protagonists. And in lashing back at girls who for years have been doing just that, considering it to be lesser if I find a role model in Dean instead of Angela, we have harmed the integrity of mlm fans themselves, who increasingly struggle under a burden of self imposed guilt. It is reflecting back poorly on mlm performances, even as wlw stories flourish. In this raising the pedestal of wlw purity, the ‘ethical’ alternative, we dismiss what people can learn about themselves from male role models too, something that we instead encourage if it’s a teenage boy finding a role model in Elsa. My closeted bi self loving Dean Winchester harms nobody, but I am still made to feel lesser for doing so, even if sometimes that feeling is ridiculously self imposed. Hell, maybe I’m alone in this feeling and the rest of this is bullshit, but that’s why I said ‘I vs we’ was definitely a part of this commentary.

In any case, this is what I think this means to the Zimbio vote: As wlw rep has been increasing, mlm has been facing a disappointing deficit. Those once big fandom movers ‘Superwholock’, the Hannigrams, the Sterek shippers--have fractured and splintered off. Destiel has come in waves but it’s still somehow here, without its original opponents from back in the day. It’s here, even with setbacks after season 8 and 10 that had fans breaking away from Supernatural entirely. Optimism now reflects optimism felt before, but let’s face it Castiel was killed permanently at one point, and Bob Singer said outright, even just a few years ago, that Destiel and social media stuff just didn’t come up in the writing room (pr is not showrunning, etc). People are hugely entitled to struggle with optimism for non canon mlm ships because history repeats itself. Add into that feelings like I described above, and the struggle is real. It can sometimes feel like you’re fandom’s three legged, one eyed donkey.

Add to that how old Destiel is. Every fandom coming into existence now, every ship built around, comes into contact with Destiel at some point. If you type ‘queerbaiting’ into Wikipedia, our ship is cited. In Google, we come up first. Thanks to antis (and some genuinely bad behavior from bad apple shippers over the years) we’ve earned a reputation, and it moves before us into every ship interaction we have. Because of that, we can appear both intimidating and as something to be avoided, because ‘what if you meet a crazy one’? You’d think seniority would be a good thing, but few people see us as a ship that’s been there and done that, as they do Swanqueen. We aren’t the ship that can perhaps offer advice on things going on in whippersnapper fandoms based on our experiences, as it would be in an ideal world. We’re not a ship to be aligned with, and because of this odd perception of wlw vs. mlm, there was simply never any potential that support for Supercorp wasn’t going to skyrocket. It was a fight against ‘That monolithic mlm ship that just won’t stop’, as it were, because here we still are hanging onto threads hoping our ship will go canon, and based on past evidence, the fall of other mlm ships, and only looking in from the outside, that seems like wishful thinking.

So we were unlikely to gain allies from heartbroken mlm fandoms. We were unlikely to find allies in wlw fandoms. It’s sad, of course, because for all the talk of representation in media, the desire to express a balance and cheerlead for mlm, imo an obvious representation underdog, simply doesn’t ever come up. Our friends and relatives roll our eyes at us if we talk about Destiel because we get that ridiculous light in our eyes when we do. Ultimately, that meant that Destiel was on its own. It had to unify. It had to pour its passion into voting and be a family again. It’s been knocked out in previous years - honestly based on what I’ve heard it’s been a disaster - but THIS YEAR we pulled out all the stops. That was all us. Despite antivoting, Destiel shippers - and only Destiel shippers - fought and fought - thousands of votes after thousands of votes, as we made small leads only to slip three times further. We didn’t stop. We were there and fighting right up until the end. And it may just have been a silly online poll, but I think it really goes to show what we can do when we put our hearts into it. We more than doubled the amount of votes cast in the previous round, over the exact same time scale, even though Supercorp fought back with everything they had, all the vibrancy of being a fresh, shunned ship determined to prove themselves, using social media strategy and unity to bring in votes from wherever they could get them. They fought well. They were wiley and smart, and so passionate; passionate like I thought I’d forgotten how to be.

And we kept fighting. We were in the semis, with twice as many votes more than Swanqueen, and we fought tooth and nail and almost got there, slipping just in the last half hour.

I have to believe that that’s because some people in the Destiel family have hope. I know we’ve drawn in a lot of new and returning shippers recently, I’ve seen you following me and starting out in meta writing yourselves, joining Destiel exchanges for the first time, sharing your first codas. The DCBB and Pinefest have had ENORMOUS turnouts. We are, despite all odds, growing as a ship again. 

I really hope that we can overcome the shame that has somehow been drummed into us for shipping mlm. I hope that we can all, whether we ship wlw, mlm, het or poly or whatever peeps are doing these days, make sure not to raise one as an ideal over the others, because it’s not in the spirit of family, of fandom. It is never ‘us against them’, it’s never a case of moral or ethical superiority, definitely not even in everyday parlance and least of all in a shipping popularity contest.

And maybe despite the risk, we’ll get an ‘I love you’, some hand holding. Hell, maybe even a kiss (Supernatural never even gave us a kiss between Jesse and Cesar, though, so I have my doubts.) But God if that wouldn’t pave the way for better deconstruction of toxic masculinity on genre TV, more presence of bisexual men and gay men on genre TV, and more men kissing and open expression of sexuality on genre TV. 

So here’s my final word. Maybe the bunnies will kiss. Maybe they’ll even do what bunnies do, who knows? And maybe next year we’ll win it.

I hope I didn’t step on any toes with this post. I felt like these words needed to come out of me, though, so here they are. Thank God there’s no more Zimbio until next year, right? Please refer back to my first paragraph for disclaimers. Thanks, though, if you read this far.

[mimeparadox]

Why ‘Ice‘ and ‘Façade’ are Top 10 “Alias” Episodes

Because @sydneythorne was curious about their inclusion in my list.

Let’s start with “Ice”, since it’s probably the most disputable entry in my indisputable* list. While everything I’ve seen indicates that it’s quite a divisive episode, and part of the reasons why I like it are the same reasons why I like “Façade”, making its inclusion somewhat redundant, I stand by it.

Alias stand-alones tend to get a bad rap: season 4 is easily the most consistent and consistently rewatchable season of the show, in my book, but the early part is often considered one of the series’ “bad” parts.  While it’s certainly not the series’ most daring era, I do feel its merits are often ignored.  It’s Alias without its crutches, unable to rely on “we can work on it later” as an excuse to avoid things like proper characterization and knowing how to end a story.  

(Like, I love me some Irina, but even in season 2, she is made to use only a fraction of her potential. Have her played by a weaker actress, and her story would collapse like a bad soufflé. The same goes with Sark: even as a series regular for two seasons, there’s very little there there—he’s a capable underling, and there’s hints of a deeper relationship with Irina. But that’s it—hints. Actually attempt to give him something of weight—see the entirety of “A Man of His Word” where they tried so hard to pretend they’d created a character whose epiphany we cared about—and it simply doesn’t work.)

So let’s talk about Kiera McClaine. who in the space of a single episode gets to be funny, sad, tough, vulnerable, sexy (that accent), sympathetic, and ultimately tragic.    Her story is a simple one—no  real twists and turns here—but it is complex, dealing with the issues of morality Alias should have been dealing with all along but rarely did, and which, as a bonus, intersect with Vaughn’s in a way that makes his side of the whole Lauren thing seem, for a hot minute, compelling.  She’s the sort of character Alias rarely deals with, and it makes this story stand out all the more. What’s more, she works largely because she’s a one-shot character: give the writers more space to deal with her, and it’s entirely possible she wouldn’t have worked nearly as well.

Then there’s the Nadia B-plot, which is simple—almost simplistic—and yet is full of lovely interactions of the sort we rarely get in the series.  Characters in Alias, unlike those in Nikita, rarely just sit down and share their feelings, so the opportunity to see all of these characters discussing Irina is incredibly nice to see, even if it they don’t lead to solid answers.  Here, though, that lack of answers isn’t a stall; it’s the point.  Irina is a complicated character, and this is one of the best examples of what that means. 

----

Season 3 of Alias is generally a mess, but it’s a mess with a fairly noticeable nadir, which can be found in the first few episodes after “Full Disclosure”, where the writers are stuck figuring out just what the heck they’re going to do with the rest of the season.  “Façade” is the last episode of this period, and it comes at you like a bullet, not only being unlike anything the season—or the series—had done before, but by being super-good.

First of all, the conceit of having Sydney and company create a super-elaborate production to get the information they want is a brilliant, and long overdue, expansion of the series’ formula. There’s a case to be made that Alias never really figured out keep its trademark action scenes fresh and compelling, once the initial novelty was over and the budgets started getting cut, so seeing them actually work some new dimensions into them is fantastic.  Yes to jobs involving aliases more complex than a wig, a dress, and an accent.  Gimme more of those, all the time.

But what really makes this one mission work is that it feels feels substantial, in a way few don’t.  There’s specificity here that Alias, for reasons that are never quite clear, usually avoids: Sydney isn’t trying to fool nameless incidental characters, but Michael Ryan, who has specific motivations, quirks, and things to watch out for. It makes all the difference, giving the mission some real stakes and tension, and consequently, Ryan ends up being the best one-shot baddie since McKennas Cole back in the show’s first season.  

While “Façade” is largely a stand-alone, it is, weirdly, one of the few episodes of the season that manages to use its various elements in a way that is satisfying.  Here, we not only get the first (and sadly only) real use of Julia Thorne since “Full Disclosure,” we also get the return of Leonid Lyzenker; a plot that actually requires Sark to be head of the Covenant’s North American cell; and a plot involving the bombs from “Blowback”. Finally, it is the one episode in the season that best manages to give a sense of the Covenant as an organization.   

Still, this isn’t just an episode that’s good compared to season 3—it’s a great episode period. It’s both fun and funny, it uses almost all of the main cast (barring poor Dixon, a barely-there Sloane and an absent Lauren) to good use. It gives us a moment of great tension and a genuinely surprising resolution.   And, much like “Ice”, it gives us a great central guest character.  It’s everything I want from Alias.

[ayellowbirds]

Keshet Rewatches All of Scooby-Doo, Pt. 18: "Nowhere to Hyde"

("Scooby-Doo, Where Are You", Season 2 Episode 1. Original Airdate: 9/12/1970)

AKA, "The First One With a Song"

The episode opens on a nighttime view of the "Movart Collection", a display of expensive jewelry highlighting large gemstones. At the window, a ghoulish face appears, casing the joint. He slides open the window, steals a single enormous pendant, effortlessly climbs down the wall, and makes his escape as a police officer catches sight:

THE GHOST OF HYDE!

So, that's one of the oddities we're dealing with, in this episode, in this world of Scooby-Doo. It's the convention of fictional worlds that other works of fiction are real within them; Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is not a well-known novella by Robert Louis Stevenson, but a fact of history.

The scene cuts to a malt shop, where the Mystery Machine is parked, and the Ghost of Hyde opens the back doors and sneaks inside. Fred, that terrible driver, has no sense of security, and has left the van unlocked.

Meanwhile, the gang have just received their orders. Five double-fudge sundaes, one with a pickle on top for Shaggy. After Fred says that they enjoyed the magic show at the high school (mind, not a confirmation that they have been going to classes, but merely that they attended an event there), Scooby declares that he wants to demonstrate his own magic trick: a disappearing act where he swaps Shaggy's ice cream from its bowl and onto his own sundae, and eats it in one go.

I will remind you that chocolate is fatal for dogs. But Scooby is clearly something other than a dog, so i suppose that's okay. For whatever reason, Shaggy’s pickle-on-top is also consistently drawn as a pickled pepper, and i can’t decide whether that makes this more or less appetizing.

The gang wrap things up, and settle into the Mystery Machine, driving who-knows-where as Fred takes a “creepy shortcut”. Unfortunately, the heater is busted, so Scooby reaches back for a beach blanket...

...which happens to be the hiding place of the ghost. As he rears up with a ghastly grin, the gang flip out, and stop the van to run and hide as the creep makes his escape. Velma recognizes him from the papers as the Ghost of Hyde, and the gang follow him to an old house. Shaggy’s not bothered at all by the situation, no.

I’d say “you don’t know where those have been,” but you know exactly where those have been, and that makes this worse. Y’all just walked through a swamp.

A fall through a trap door puts the gang inside a laboratory belonging to one Dr. Jekyll, who enters and discovers them hiding. He explains that, after a test of a “vitamin formula you only have to take once in your life”, he started blacking out and awakening under circumstances that convinced him he was taking after his ancestor and turning into Mr. Hyde... the ghost of Mr. Hyde!

Danny Phantom, he ain’t.

The gang are convinced something’s fishy, because the mud on Dr. Jekyll’s shoes is dry, which makes no sense if he just transformed from the Ghost of Hyde, who was running through the marshlands near the house. The begin to investigate, with Shaggy and Scooby checking out the attic.

There’s a great gag where Scooby draws his paw across a particularly large web framed between some pieces of wood, and it produces a sound like the scales of a harp. Seconds later, Shaggy opens a “creepy old chest” to discover it’s full of live bats, though how they got in there will forever remain a mystery.

The bats are drawn even more adorably than usual. Investigating the rest of the chest’s contents suggests that “somebody around here must’ve been in show biz”, as it’s full of pieces of costumes. More investigation of the attic doesn’t go very far before the boys catch sight of a spooky shadow, and start to run around in a panic, trying different doors.

Scooby opens one to reveal... another, smaller door. Which hides another, behind which is yet another, which conceals one last tiny, tiny door.

A mouse exits the door on its hind legs, squeaks angrily at Scooby while shaking a fist, and slams the door behind. We don’t have time to process the utter absurdity of this comedic non-sequitur (by which i mean, it’s a completely random gag that does not flow organically from the characters or situation and feels shoehorned into the episode for the sake of slapstick, there wasn’t even a second door visible in earlier shots) before the shadow reappears, and Scooby and Shaggy huddle together in a trembling panic.

Except it’s only Helga, the housekeeper. She assumes they’re “friends of the doctor”, with an air of disdain in her surprisingly pleasant and youthful voice—for a cartoon of the era, the way she’s drawn and the name she’s given would suggest an older voice. Her voice actress, Susan Steward, would also be involved in the writing of several songs in episodes later this season.

Helga complains that the boys “have made a mess of the attic, just after I finished cleaning it,” and begins to dust.

In contrast with the mouse door, it’s a gag that flows from the situation and characters: Scooby and Shaggy’s unease with “creepy” environments, the decrepit appearance of the house, and the air of mystery all combine to make it amusing while also adding to the idea of Helga as a suspect.

Meanwhile, the rest of the gang have found something in the fireplace, a scrap of old newspaper that it looked like someone was trying to burn.

To be honest, while this makes Helga’s youthful, teen-like voice all the more dissonant, i want to draw your attention to the smudged “writing” at the very bottom. Part of that looks like it could say, “ON MONDAY”, but there’s even more that is not recognizable as even fragments of Latin letters. There’s a triangle, and a sort of [-] shape. These sorts of glyphs are so typical of newspapers and other on-screen writing not meant to be read, that i have to wonder about who was responsible for them. Was there a standard set of non-letters, or was it made up as they went along?

While Fred, Daphne, and Velma wonder about why someone who specializes in unassisted climbing of walls would be working as a maid in a place like this, the boys are busy in the Doctor’s library.

The episode does a lot to convince you that Helga is the Ghost of Hyde, but let’s be honest, that bookshelf settles Dr. Jekyll as the culprit without a doubt. We see books on Snakes, Plastic Surgery, Ogres, Medicine, Lizards, Plato, Marquis de Saude (sic), Biology, Murders in the Rue Morgue (obscured above by Shaggy), Chemistry, Dracula Manual, a Hundred and One Ghosts and Ghouls, Vipers, History of Make-Up, Origin of Species, and Bats. So, various works of horror, books on stereotypically “creepy” animals, and several more on outright monsters as well as a couple on changing your appearance.

Shaggy doesn’t have time to contemplate the obvious clues the  background artists are providing, however, as the Ghost of Hyde is, well, hiding behind the first book he pulls. As they run and hide, the boys try a deception of hiding inside a broken television and playing at being actors on-screen, including a regrettable bit of Shaggy as a 19th century soldier and Scooby as a native complete with feathered headband. The deception doesn’t last, but their flight leads to another “clue”, as Velma insists that Hyde couldn’t have been Jekyll, since she and the others just saw him in his study—and Scooby finds a feather duster, pair of muddy shoes, and green jacket hidden on a fold-out ironing board in the basement.

As the rest of the gang follow the clues and investigate Helga’s room—finding a can of phosphorous paint (an absolutely nonsense “clue”, since the ghost never glows visibly) and a bottle of “knockout drops”—Shaggy waits outside and raids a bowl of fruit. Freddy, Velma, Daphne are convinced they’ve solved the mystery, but Shaggy interrupts...

...and the Ghost of Hyde snatches him from behind! While the gang hunt the house to rescue him, Shaggy finds himself strapped to a table in the basement, where the madly laughing Hyde gestures to a book to indicate he plans to use the Doctor’s chemicals to turn Shaggy into a frog. Or, as Shaggy puts it, “croak me”. 

He screams the series title in despair, and so begins the very first musical chase scene! “Recipe for My Love”, a performance credited to George A. Robertson, Jr., who also sang the new opening theme and was better-known for his musical career as Austin Roberts.

As Shaggy and Scooby crash back into the house, Freddy wonders why the Ghost was after Shaggy in the first place, when the rest of the gang was holding all the clues.

The others shrug it off, concluding that “the Ghost of Hyde is a 24-carat phony” (what????) and that they know who he really is.

A 24-carat phony? Did that line make sense in the Seventies?

The boys bait Hyde, luring him to pull apart a curtain, which reveals... another Ghost of Hyde! 

Fleeing, he encounters another, with an oddly high-pitched laugh, and a peculiarly petite one who offers a familiar-sounding “boo!” before he runs in terror, screaming about GHOSTS! Velma, Daphne, and Fred remove their Hyde masks in triumph as they watch the original run back towards the very same trap door that caught them when they first arrived, sending the Ghost of Hyde crashing down into...

THE FIRST TRAP THAT EVER WORKED RIGHT

But there’s still a twist. “If our calculations are right, it should be Helga, the housemaid,” Velma says, as smugly as possible

Well, you win some, you lose some.

Fred explains that the Doctor’s repeated failures in utter unscientific nonsense led him to turn to a life of crime, hastily coming up with the idea of framing his maid and coming up with fake clues while hiding the genuine ones—the suction cups he used for wall-crawling, which Helga wouldn’t have needed.

As the episode ends without commentary on the fact that, while this Dr. Jekyll faked his transformation, there was apparently an actual historic Mr. Hyde, the culprit sulks, his head hung in shame.

There will be no “meddling kids”. Will there ever?

(like what i’m doing here? It’s not what pays the bills, so i’d really appreciate it if you could send me a bit at my paypal.me or via my ko-fi. Click here to see more entries in this series of posts, or here to go in chronological order)

[chromsai]

Speaking of Sound Duel 4, that’s basically all I’ve had on loop since I got it this weekend and I just do not tire of it ever.

A quick review:

Pros: It’s fucking brilliant. Every single fucking track on here is unique in its own way and has something to give you chills from. For the most part, they chose to include more of the heavily orchestrated tracks from the later half of the last third of Arc V, but they all have their own particular rhythm and tension and each evoke not only just one unique emotion; their tones are diverse and versatile: one moment the tune will start building you up for an intense unleash of power and yet the very next brings in the soft but reassuring keys of a piano to slow you down so you can reminisce and build even more confidence, as just one example. It’s amazing to hear a story being told to the fullest in each track, and yet each track also builds up into an even grander story overall. I think Sound Duel 2 was closest to having its tracks meld as well together as this, but Sound Duel 4 definitely takes the cake in that cohesive respect. 

Cons: Oh man... we’re missing some tracks here. Leading up to its release, I had imagined this would be the case, given Marvelous hadn’t released an Arc V soundtrack in almost 3 whole years. It is sort of a shame that some tracks didn’t make it on here because there are definitely some iconic ones I would have loved to have in HD, but I naturally figured we weren’t gonna get everything we’d heard in the show since about early/mid-Synchro arc began, unless they had made this a 2-disc release. Don’t know why they decided against that, unless they plan to release a Sound Duel 5 in the future (which is very very VERY unlikely given that SD4 included Pendulum Beat + Dashing Pendulum & released it along with Arc V’s Vocal Best, which usually marks the end of a soundtrack era). I always believed in Sound Duel 4 happening, but I don’t have any hopes for a Sound Duel 5— I’m just being realistic. That said, if they decide to continue milking Arc V’s soundtrack for another quick buck and do something as out of the blue as a SD5, I am all for it and will be pre-ordering immediately once again (*cough cough js Marvelous/NAS/Konami*). For now, I guess I’ll just have to keep on rewatching those episodes that contain the few tracks I’m missing on here...

Now for the real question:

“Was it worth the almost 3 year wait?”

My answer is: 95% YES, and 5% no. ‘Yes’, because I’m in love with this soundtrack and I can’t stop listening to each track and I keep getting chills from it and listening to it out of context (as I’m driving or just out and about or doing whatever, rather than hearing them through the show) gives me another perspective of them and I appreciate the work put into the composition of the music and the OVERALL Arc V soundtrack as a whole. Kotarou Nakagawa knows how to capture the perfect mood for a multitude of scenarios and I can definitely hear all the attention to detail to Arc V’s themes and story throughout the trajectory of this set of tracks, and their part in the show as a whole. And ‘No’ just because... well... I wanted MORE, lol. All that said and done, I am overall pleasantly satisfied with the tracks we did get on this ultimate Sound Duel 4. Sincerely and truly impressed. 

My Top 3 from this Sound Duel:

1. Track # 4: “Intense Back-And-Forth”. I’m ngl, this is the one I wanted to hear the most in HD... I’m a sucker for simple yet intense beats that call for battle.

2. Track #6: “Fighting Bravely”. Not a track I was exactly waiting to hear in HD, but now that I have, I have a whole new appreciation for it and I am utterly obsessed with that mid-piano bit call back to Swing! Pendulum of Souls!. The attention to detail and the added care means a lot and makes it insanely memorable. I’ve already been hearing it in my dreams. It’s stunning.

3. A hard tie for me between Track 15 “The Duelist Reiji” and Track 23 “A Fierce One-on-One Battle”. For one, Reiji absofuckinglutely deserve that grandiose, boss ass theme. But on the other hand, Track 23... that IS the definitive endgame boss battle theme of Arc V. Give them both a listen to, I’m sure you’ll understand my conflict. Both amazing in their own rights.

Final notes: I feel like a lot of the fandom takes this soundtrack for granted. I’ve heard the dub, I know a lot of you have heard the dub. I love the dub and all for it’s own dubious charm, but this show doesn’t feel the same without the soundtrack. You can certainly grasp the message and themes without the soundtrack, but the soundtrack is a major part of what helps Arc V feel grand and unique. I hear a lot of soundtracks in anime a lot, of course, and many shows have wonderfully composed soundtracks. The problem, though, is most have rather generic tones conveyed and are easily spliced and adapted from one anime to another. It’s hard to create a soundtrack that’s very distinctive in a sea of anime produced by talented but often seasonal-outlook-only studios. Nakagawa definitely understands the identity of a show and conceptualizes personalized music that will not only help define its greatest moments but also grasps the flare of that particular show, elevating it into something more— something that leaves an unforgettable impression not only on your ears, but on your mind and heart as well.