#i know technically we've already seen him in book 1 but WHAT A MAN

[emblemxeno]

HUMINA HUMINA AWOOOOOGA 🥵🥵🥵

[sarshles-cheescake-li]

A metaphysical argument for why Lu Guang was the one who risked his intestines falling out to go save his little meow meow

Needless to say, spoilers ahead!

Part 1: Introduction to the bootstrap paradox

There's a lot I could say about the supposed time loop that occurs in episodes 7-8-9 of season 2. Most of them -- the kettle, the lack of a speedboat, Lu Guang's characterization -- have been said better by other theorists. But I'm here to explain the bootstrap/predestination paradox.

The bootstrap paradox is when something is sent back in time, which creates an infinite loop, making the thing seems like it has no origin. The example I learned it with was with time machines. Say you open your door one day to find a book, written by yourself, containing information on how to build a time machine. You take, I dunno, let's say ten years building the thing. Then you use your new time machine to send the book back in time, to your ten-years-ago self, to seal the loop. Works great, right? You've closed the loop, and now you have a time machine.

There's only one problem. Where the hell did that book come from in the first place?

I mean, yes, obviously, it's from the future. But someone had to have written that book, right? But you, the supposed writer of the book, only got it because it got sent back in time by a version of you that already had the book. We assume there was no way you could've figured out how to build a time machine yourself. But that means that the knowledge about the time machine essentially just, popped out of nowhere. Poof! Just like that.

The information about Cheng Xiaoshi and Li Tianchen/Li Tianxi's location is like that. The only reason any of the characters know it is because of Lu Guang. But if their narration is to be believed, then "Lu Guang" only knew it because he was being possessed by Cheng Xiaoshi, who already learned the information in the future. So… how did anyone get that information in the first place?

I generally consider there to be two solutions to the bootstrap paradox. One is an obfuscated origin -- one where the information was obtainable even without the loop, but its origin is hidden by the loop's existence. Say if, without the loop, Li Tianchen releases Cheng Xiaoshi from his control once they're on the boat, and Cheng Xiaoshi figures out where he is. He manages to survive the encounter with the antagonists, and eventually makes it home. But, in the process, Qiao Ling dies. So now Cheng Xiaoshi both has information available to him about where he was during the boat scene, and also a reason to start the loop -- Qiao Ling is dead, and might not be dead if he didn't get taken in the first place. So he takes Lu Guang's photo, and starts the loop.

This particular version of the obfuscated origin theory is… probably not the case. Largely because we don't know how changing the timeline so drastically interacts with Cheng Xiaoshi's ability, specifically, what would happen if he were to clap back into a "present" that technically no longer exists. However, my personal theory -- that I'll discuss in another post -- does fall under the obfuscated origin solution, just slightly to the left.

The second solution to bootstrap is just an allowance for these types of paradoxes to exist. Each story handles it differently. In my model of time -- which I'm pretty sure Link Click doesn't follow, because why would it -- these types of loops are a close relative of magic, because of their self-defining nature. Now, I'm going to say that this is not the case in Link Click, based on what we've seen of Cheng Xiaoshi's power so far.

Part 2: Cheng Xiaoshi's power is weird, man

For the second solution to be valid, we should ideally have at least one of three proofs.

This is the most convincing proof -- if we have another example of an exclusive, stable time loop (exclusive as in the events involved in the loop would not have happened without the loop's presence, stable as in the loop doesn't contradict itself the way it does in, for example, the grandfather paradox). This would just plainly prove the fact that Cheng Xiaoshi can create the loop we see in episodes 7-8-9.

Cheng Xiaoshi's dives should be able to have causality effects up to and including his decision to dive, at the very least. Essentially, Cheng Xiaoshi needs to be able to create an effect on the world that shows up before the dive concludes. This demonstrates the flexibility of the timeline -- that it allows Cheng Xiaoshi to make changes to events that precede his dive, instead of only events that succeed it. While this isn't as strong as the first proof, it would show that, at the minimum, Cheng Xiaoshi is able "cause" his own dive.

In cases where Cheng Xiaoshi observes a person who he has/will dive into, he should be viewing the "dived" version and not the "original" version. This demonstrates that the timeline "knows" about Cheng Xiaoshi's dives before he performs them. This way, it makes sense if the "Lu Guang" Cheng Xiaoshi saw was a "dived" version, instead of original-Lu-Guang. This is our bottom line, because without this, then… Well, there's really nothing showing that Cheng Xiaoshi was even possessing Lu Guang during that first run of events that we saw.

Let's go through them one by one. The first proof is pretty much a no-go. There is only one dive in the entire series where this type of causality is even discussed, and that's during the dive into Li Tianxi (referred to as Xixi from now on. By the way, fun fact -- although the English sub appears to subtitle her nickname as "Xixi," it's actually pronounced "Xiaoxi" in Mandarin. I was confused about this for a while because Xixi and Xiaoxi would both be valid and common nicknames for her, in terms of convention, haha. If anyone ever wants to hear me talk about some hard-to-translate linguistic details in Link Click, let me know!). In this dive, Lu Guang tells Cheng Xiaoshi to pick up the photo, saying that if the photo disappears, then "the future that we live in will cease to exist." You could make an argument here that Cheng Xiaoshi's act of picking up the photo allows for the dive to happen, fulfilling proof 1. However, this proves stability -- that the dive does not contradict, or nullify itself -- but it doesn't prove exclusivity. That is, we have no way of knowing what would've happened to the photo if Cheng Xiaoshi hadn't dived. It's plausible that Xixi or Li Tianchen would've picked up the photo in the end anyway, regardless of Cheng Xiaoshi's influence. Thus, this is much closer to just being their typical motto while diving -- leave the past untouched, or as close as they can get it to the original.

The second proof is harder to say. We can't say for sure whether or not we've ever seen the effect of Cheng Xiaoshi's dives occur before he makes the decision to dive, for two reasons. One is the butterfly effect -- many causes may have effects, but those effects may be extremely hard to trace back to their original causes. It's possible that maybe Cheng Xiaoshi as Xu Shan Shan asking Qiao Ling about what Lu Guang saw in him might've, I don't know, kept Qiao Ling occupied where otherwise she would've gone "Oh I forgot my phone in the studio" or something. And the fact that Qiao Ling never came back to the studio demonstrates that Cheng Xiaoshi created an effect prior to him diving. But there's no solid proof for this being the case. The second one is that it's just much harder to prove impossibility than simple absence. That is, even if we've never seen this happen, it doesn't mean it can't happen -- it just means we haven't seen it yet.

However, from a writing perspective, there's some solid evidence that, while Cheng Xiaoshi's power has the potential for "effects," those effects are only observable to Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang themselves after the "cause" has already occurred. That is, any effects of Cheng Xiaoshi's dives only become evident after the dive has already happened. The strongest proof for this is Chen Xiao's camera in episode five, and Lu Guang's narration. As a result of Cheng Xiaoshi's actions while possessing Chen Xiao, the camera that presumably would've been destroyed in the original timeline is preserved. Chen Xiao's father then finds the camera and brings it to Chen Xiao, who then brings it to the studio to get developed. Lu Guang says here that this is why they don't ask about the future -- because the future is inevitably changed by their actions. While this was an emotionally touching scene in terms of storytelling, I believe it also serves a double purpose, showing us the limits of Cheng Xiaoshi's diving. It shows explicitly that his dives can change the timeline, but he himself will only experience the effects of that change after he's already dived. This makes quite a lot of sense, combined with part three, which is that:

I'm nearly 100% sure that Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang themselves always experience the "original" series of events when they go through things in real time, and never otherwise.

The best example of this is with the Xu Shanshan dive in episode 10. After combing through the episode and comparing it to episode 8, there are three major deviations in Cheng Xiaoshi's behaviour during the dive versus Xu Shanshan's during the first run through. First is a general difference in voice, mannerisms, and expressions. Especially near the beginning of the dive, Cheng Xiaoshi sounds different than Xu Shanshan. Even later, does small things like turn his head and make expressions at a different time. However, I'm not going to take this one as seriously, considering we're not sure if this is showing actual reality or is for the viewer's benefit, demonstrating the difference between the two. After all, we, the viewer sees that anyone possessed by Cheng Xiaoshi has their eyes turn gold, but no one in the story itself notices it. Me, personally, I think I would notice if my best friend took a photo and then came back with differently coloured eyes. I don't know though, I might just be built different like that.

Second is that Xu Shanshan says "I'm not like a certain someone, leeching off other people" (second half paraphrased) whereas Cheng Xiaoshi says "I don't [want to be like] a certain someone, leeching off other people." Again, this one is questionable, because the dialogue actually spoken is the exact same (in terms of words), and the English sub is the exact same, but the Chinese subtitles has a 像想 in place of 像 in the second run-through. Which is weird, because [want to be like] is actually 想像 and not 像想… confusing. Like, this is 100% a typo by the subtitles team, but what was the original intended version? No one knows. The last, and only actual deviation I found, was that Xu Shanshan goes "Hey, Qiao" when asking about how Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang get their information from photos, whereas Cheng Xiaoshi just says "Qiao."

This, combined with the fact that Lu Guang is able to "see" the original in the first place, all make a strong case that, in Link Click, the timeline doesn't "know" that Cheng Xiaoshi has dived until he actually does it, at which point it tries to catch up. This is consistent with everything else we've seen. It makes sense that the effect of his dives are only noticeable to him after the fact, because the timeline has to basically make live edits to itself to deal with his existence.

With this in mind, the Lu Guang we see in episode 7 simply couldn't've been Cheng Xiaoshi. This was a real time event, so it had to have been the undived version of Lu Guang doing… all that. Of course, the question here is how Lu Guang even got the information about Cheng Xiaoshi's whereabouts in the first place. I might make more posts theorizing about Lu Guang's powers and their limitations, the nature of his loop, etc… But for now, I've been grinding this post for about two hours. That's all. I hope you all enjoyed reading this!

[hikennosabo]

trimax vol 10 random thoughts (ch 5-8)

part 1 here.

okay, time for part 2. i don't want to do this, i have a pit in my stomach.

chapter 5:

destroying razlo's punishers... a good strategy!

getting leverage to jump by stepping on his leg, i love it

you could say he. he was. *wheeze*... i guess you could say he was... ...disarmed... [a comically large hook drags me off the stage]

wolfwood and razlo just met today (not technically but y'know), but he can read razlo so well already, taunting him like this.

THIS FIGHT...!!! it's reminding me of vash vs knives in the finale of the 98 anime! one black gun and one white gun, and them being on even ground, making the same moves...

they're an even match when they're just whaling on each other, but wolfwood has tactics that razlo doesn't. also this is an insanely cool move.

chapter 6:

^ how it feels to read trigun maximum (said again)

^ how it feels to read trigun maximum (said for a third time)

he knows wolfwood is dying. we know wolfwood is dying. he can't do anything to stop it. we can't do anything to stop it. (except for refusing to keep turning the pages, i guess)

THEY HAVE NAMES?

vash can't do anything to stop wolfwood from dying, but he can help wolfwood go out on his own terms...

PLEASE, HE'S ALREADY DYING, WE DON'T NEED YET ANOTHER DEATH FAKEOUT FOR THE BOOKS.

livio interfering... i'm not an expert but this is not how DID works. but sure. the drama carries it.

WHY AND HOW IS CHAPEL STILL ALIVE FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU

razlo realizes very fast that chapel never cared. despite his verbal denial, i think he was realizing way before this.

DESERVED!!! YES.... KILL!!!!!!

of course razlo can only attack. attack, like how he killed livio's parents. not that chapel doesn't deserve it, but this is the only thing razlo knows how to do.

ough. livio apologizing... "i'm okay now"...

so is razlo just gone now? like i said, i'm not a DID expert, i know re-integration(? not sure if that's the correct term sorry) is possible, but i don't know if this is how it works...

honestly, i feel bad for razlo. he only knew a life of violence, he was manipulated and indoctrinated by chapel, all he wanted was to be needed but his last experiences are finding out that chapel didn't care about him and then livio telling him he doesn't need him anymore. poor guy.

chapter 7:

oh, no, i don't want to read this chapter again. don't make me read this chapter again.

the difference between this and tristamp... stamp had the orphanage much more directly tied to EoM, and a bunch of guys in suits came to pick wolfwood up. this scene is a lot more "normal," a lot less obviously suspicious. idk if i'd go so far as to say stamp!melanie was in on the whole thing, but she doesn't look happy about wolfwood leaving... i do wonder how stampede will handle all this... ANYWAY!

"six years"... lmao. now i understand what people meant when they said the timeline is confusing. it's killing me and i hate it, actually?! nightow ALL you had to do was NOT specify a number!!!

the coins... i constantly forget about them and i find it funny whenever they're brought up... they were so clearly meant to set the ghg up as a shonen battle enemy-of-the-month type thing but then that got thrown off the rails when the magazine ceased publication and everything got turned upside down. yet the coins persist. what are they all for in the end.

also i'm sad. this is wolfwood's paltry attempt at pushing vash away. (also he's been carrying rai-dei's coin this whole time?! lol?! that's also sad... just waiting to give it to vash i guess...)

"this is the way you want it? are you sure?" i'm just fucking inconsolable at this point.

of course this attempt at sincere emotion is deflected. you boys are so, so, so, so, so stupid.

i can't do this man. i can't review the couch scene. i'm crying too much.

the prayer. this especially is getting to me. we've seen wolfwood pray a few times, but now it's vash's turn to pray. we've never seen him do that. and while vash was there to answer wolfwood's prayer... there is no one to answer vash.

what if i climbed into the microwave right fucking now.

ourgh. out of all the images in this chapter, this is the one that stuck with me the most. even more than the couch images. ugh, i can't even fucking write.

chapter 8:

i don't know where else to say this...? lol but livio's personality is different, he's cute now. is this because he broke out of the EoM brainwashing or because he integrated with(???) razlo? (once again: IS this how this works???) or is it both? either way he's a lot more expressive than he was before...

other people have already talked about how we didn't see the burial. i'm also thinking about everything else we didn't see. vash buried wolfwood, and he also cleaned up outside, brought livio in and laid him down, gathered ingredients and started cooking...

how long did he sit on that couch for before he moved. how much and how hard did he cry. we didn't see that either. we don't need to.

knives. he's smearing blood on his face again.

his laughter... i don't think he finds this funny like "haha funny" necessarily, i think he's just losing it.

vash defends the orphanage and knives doesn't even push it. he just moves on. hmm, i'm trying to articulate this... vash's display of power used up more of his life, which knives noticed obviously, and vash is willing to go that far to protect the orphanage... knives still doesn't want vash to die, and... he's laughing out of disbelief, or something like that. i don't know.

vash and livio sharing a meal together is... it's nice. but vash is still clearly very angry. with livio, with razlo, with himself too probably.

i don't know. i'm not angry with livio or razlo at all. they were both victims of chapel same as wolfwood. this is all chapel's fault in my mind, lol.

oh.

we're gonna see this in stampede too, aren't we. wolfwood will die for a third time and we're gonna see vash holding the punisher.

the fact that this volume doesn't even have the goofy author extra... we're just forced to sit with this. man. the book club wasn't kidding, it's so much worse the second time around. the first time i cried a little but i was mostly just taking it all in. the second time i was like actually heaving and sobbing. reading this volume twice within a few days was a BAD IDEA.

AND WE STILL HAVE FOUR VOLUMES LEFT. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GO ON AFTER THIS. four entire volumes without wolfwood...

[snowbarryiscoming]

Day #1 Christmas Tree Shopping- T. Holland

i know i'm behind on everything, but i will make it up to you guys.

sorry if it seems a little short

here's day 1 on the tenth day of december lol

warnings: none, just fluff

It was the first day of December, and you stepped out of your cocoon of warmth that was your apartment to go get a tree. Your boyfriend, Tom Holland, was away for the month but had compromised with you on the date to get one.

You had wanted to get a tree in the last week of November, while Tom wanted to get one closer to Christmas. Each of you gave your reasons, but in the end, settled for December 1st. Tom wanted to go with you to get the tree but instead was whisked away by surprise thanks to his brothers who wanted the whole Holland family to be together.

He really wanted to stay but you told him that family should come first and that you'd be okay. Your family was on the other side of the country and you didn't really have the money to book a flight out there, which Tom knew and that's why he didn't want to leave you all alone. You reminded him that Tessa was living with you both so you technically had someone to spend time with while he was gone.

Once you picked out your tree, the man who sold it to you helped load and tie it to the roof of your car and soon enough, you were on your way home. Once you parked the car at your reserved spot, you texted Tom that you got the tree and were already home and headed up. After a bit of struggle, you got the tree upstairs and took out your keys to unlock the door. Tessa was excited to see you again and once the door was closed, you let her out as you set the tree in the spot you and Tom had chosen for it.

You began to decorate the tree with the lights and ornaments that you'd bought earlier last week and stopped when the tree was fully decorated.

You curled up on the couch after making a cup of hot cocoa with Tessa by your feet as you put on one of your favorite Christmas movies, Elf.

Not even five minutes into the movie and there's a knock on the door, which causes Tessa to go over there. You are slightly irritated because you had to get up during the movie, but even more confused as to who was at your door since you were not expecting anyone.

You gasped a little as you saw Tom standing outside with suitcase in hand.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were with your family."

"I am, but they wanted to come with me. I couldn't stand being away from you, love. They could tell I was missing you and when you said that you'd gotten the tree, I just couldn't stay there. So I talked to my family and they said that you're family as well so we all booked our flights and now we're here. Well, I'm here. Our apartment isn't really equipped for all of us."

You smiled and embraced him tightly as did he. You both let go and he walked into the apartment to admire the tree as you closed the door. You walked over to him and he turned to you and brought you close.

"I love you."

"And I love you."

You both shared a kiss and finished watching Elf. The next day, you were making breakfast when there was a knock on the door. You went to open it and tears were brought to your eyes as you saw your parents and siblings standing in front of you after having not seen them in person for a year and a half.

"There's my little girl."

You held onto your dad so tight as you were so overcome by happiness and sadness all at once.

"I can't believe you're actually here. I've missed you guys so much."

"And we've missed you just as much, sweetheart."

As the hugs were going around, Tom came out of the room and smiled as he saw your family.

"Hey, I'm glad you all made it safe."

"We should be thanking you, Tom."

You glanced at Tom, who smiled as he shrugged.

"It was my pleasure."

"You brought my family here?"

Tom nodded as you walked closer to him. "I figured you were missing them a lot right now and since my family is here with us, then your family should be here as well."

You pressed your lips to his and gave him a deep kiss before pulling away.

"Thank you. This means so much to me."

He gave you another kiss before you both got dressed and you all headed out to meet Tom's family.

Now, every year during December, you and Tom made it a tradition to fly your families out and spend the whole month with them, together as one whole family.

[magnificent-nerd]

Why Naqib in The Boys sucked

Image description: fictional character Naqib in Amazon Prime’s show The Boys.

(Is the fire in the background an excuse to use racist Yellow Filter to show how exotic he is? Hmm.)

I first posted this on my blog in Dec 2020, and since nothing in superhero media has changed for the better at this time (September 5th, 2021), I’m going to keep talking about it.

Because nobody else does. So, without further ado:

WHY NAQIB SUCKS.

I was a big fan of The Boys season 1; I love superheroes, I love deconstructing a genre. Sure, it has its problems, but overall I enjoyed season 1 and thought the show had potential.

(That’ll learn me for being hopeful!)

When season 1 ended with this big build up of mostly nameless brown and background characters as Muslim terrorists (deep sigh) we the audience are left thinking this one Muslim character (Naqib) whose superpower is to blow himself up repeatedly (insert another long deep sigh here) is going to be The Big Bad of season 2.

I had my misgivings about that direction. Firstly, as you can see from the image of Naqib, he is highly exoticised and is walking around bare chested with Arabic writing on his chest. He looks more like a generic western media depiction of a genie than he does a supervillain. 

And yet he's the first prominent Muslim character in superhero media I've seen in YEARS.

-

(See my post about MENA and Muslim character good guys, including Joe played by Marwan Kenzari in The Old Guard, which is technically a comic book movie but it’s not what I’d call ���caped and costumed’ superheroes so it’s more... superhero adjacent.)

I follow superhero content closely and as far as I'm aware the last time we saw any named Muslim characters in superhero movies WITH SPEAKING LINES was:

Instance 1) Iron Man 1 back in 2008 with The Ten Rings in Afghanistan, showing multiple Muslim characters as baddies/terrorists, but only two of them as a named character and with any meaningful lines to say. And despite one of them, Yinsen (actor Shaun Toub), being a good guy he still dies! Which is common in western media for Muslim and MENA characters.

Note: Fellow Iron Man 1 castmate, actor Sayed Badreya, makes an important point in this GQ article: "I die in Iron Man, I die in Executive Decision. I get shot by everyone. George Clooney kills me in Three Kings. Arnold blows me up in True Lies…" (x)

Instance 2) A more recent instalment in Batman V. Superman in 2016, with some unnamed 'General' character and mercenaries/terrorists in Nairomi, Africa, referred to only as "the desert" throughout the movie. All reference to the General's actual name are available in an extended/deleted scene only, so a very poor and vague depiction in the final cut.

Instance 3) The generic and badly written ‘bad guys’ in Wonder Woman 1984 (2020 movie), which was honestly such a racist depiction of Arabs and Muslims that many critics pointed out we hadn’t seen a depiction this terrible since 1994′s True Lies. (At least most critics were in agreement that WW84 movie was generally terrible, so there’s that.)

And that's it, those are the only major instances showing any Muslim actors or characters in a caped and costumed superhero movie. 

Some other fleeting glimpses of Muslims onscreen:

Glimpse 1) I spotted a girl wearing a hijab among the nameless and unspeaking background characters of Peter Parker's class in Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019). A first for Marvel movies, apparently.

Glimpse 2) Disney Plus show Falcon and Winter Soldier (2021) had two nameless Muslim characters walk by in a scene that’s supposed to be Tunisia (using Yellow Filter), and ‘thank’ the present American Air Force (eye-roll).

Glimpse 3) Netflix show Jupiter’s Legacy (2021) had a nameless Muslim sailor conversing with one of the main characters in a scene, with meaningful dialogue about racism. (WOW. Really good.) Bonus: no yellow filter. It’s a pity he’s a nameless background character because this brief instance is the least problematic MENA rep I’ve seen in ages, but it is very brief.

I just wrote about Glimpses 2 and 3, and how the Netflix show outdid Disney when it comes to these nameless walk-on Muslim characters.

This is pretty pathetic overall, these small crumbs, especially compared to better rep and probably the only instance of legit MENA superheroes in a ‘costumes and capes’ style superhero show, the Tarazi siblings on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.

-

Anyway, now I’ve listed what crumbs are available across the live action superhero genre, back to The Boys.

I was intrigued about how season 2 would handle Naqib and any characters relating to him, and what storyline they'd use. 

Was I excited at the possibility of seeing Muslim supers onscreen? Damn straight I was. Did I mind that they were baddies? Well, yes and no. When you only ever get crumbs or no crumbs at all, you tend to get excited over one stale old crumb.

After the build up for season 2, I eagerly sat down to watch the first episode, only to have the first five minutes of episode 1 Trigon him.

Note: who's Trigon, you ask? Well if you didn't watch the DCEU's Titans show, Trigon was The Big Bad who was hyped up throughout season 1, introduced in the season 1 cliff-hanger episode as this big 'oh shit!' moment for the cast of heroes, only for him to fizzle out like a wet fart in the first episode of season 2 while the show pivots wildly in another direction. 

Exactly what happened to Naqib in the first five minutes of The Boys season 2.

Erm, so, Naqib. Farewell, I guess? As a character you briefly appeared in 2 episodes, portrayed by a different actor in each (Krishan Dutt, and Samer Salem). It seems the writers used you as a plot device when they needed a cheap cliff-hanger for a direction that ultimately went nowhere.

Am I disappointed? Yeah, I am. Overall I thought season 2 of The Boys was weaker than season 1, but I'm not here to talk about the whole season: I want to talk about Naqib and this missed opportunity.

The Boys and its showrunners sell the show as being a satire of recent and well known superhero content, of all the big movies and TV shows. There's been a lot of patting themselves on the back for calling out overused tropes in superhero media (and sometimes they've done this satire well: see the LGBT marketing scene with Queen Maeve in season 2), but my issue with the show on their Muslim rep, or should I say lack thereof, is if your show has even less Muslim character rep than the content you're trying to parody, how is this a win for satire?

Naqib and that whole angle came across as a lazy, half-assed swing from the writer's room. Sure, perhaps a lot of the non-Muslim and non-MENA audience won't even notice, as we've been ignored by western media or made into nameless, generic, vacuous baddies for decades now. Non-Muslims and non-MENA just accept that we're always the baddies for no particular reason at all (which feeds into Islamophobia, by the way) and The Boys' writers could say they are simply satirising the tropes already present in media...

But, and this is a big but, the media that The Boys is satirising has already made a step toward better inclusion and representation: Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan), Marvel comics' first Muslim superhero, is entering the MCU as a lead character in her own Disney Plus show, debuting in 2022. 

Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan is also cited to appear in upcoming Captain Marvel sequel, The Marvels (2022), which will be a major movie.

The MCU has also cast a Muslim actor (Mahershala Ali) as the lead in a reboot of Blade. That's going to be big news when it starts filming.

So to the showrunners on The Boys, I say this: now you've done this small angle of 'all Muslim characters are terrorists, yuckity-yuck!' like we've seen in major superhero movies thus far, and you've brushed that aside in favor of focusing on other whiter villains, my question is will you come back to Muslim and MENA characters again? Or is that all you got?

Because if that was ALL, then the current score is Disney/MCU:02, Netflix:02, DCEU:02, and The Boys: a big ZERO as far as Muslim and MENA rep goes.

-

Originally posted on my blog, magnificently nerdy.

If you, like me, are always on the lookout for onscreen Muslim and MENA characters in superhero media, and have spotted any characters in superhero TV shows I haven’t watched yet, let me know about them!

Here is my post on good guys, featuring Old Guard’s Joe, and Blindspot’s Rich Dotcom.

Here’s my post about the Tarazi siblings on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow TV show.

And, if Marvels’ Eternals gets released on schedule for 2021, we will have a MENA actor portraying a supporting character. I just hope Marvel gives him a name.

[salvatoreschool]

Julie Plec Tells Us How Hope's Finale Twist Will Affect Legacies in Season 2

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for the Season 1 finale of Legacies. Read at your own risk!]

Legacies did the unthinkable in its Season 1 finale, and now we're not sure whether Hope Mikaelson (Danielle Rose Russell) is dead or alive or hovering somewhere in between!

The finale saw the Salvatore School under attack from Triad Industries, and the confrontation eventually left Josie (Kaylee Bryant) in mortal peril. After she jumped in front of a bullet made from Malivore mud intended for Lizzie (Jenny Boyd), the poison slowly started to eat away at her. Only Hope's blood managed to save her, but we're wondering whether or not that will end up being a great thing considering she found a magical device in Alaric's office that could eventually release a pretty huge baddie — more on that later.

As for Hope, after facing off against this week's monster (a headless horseman, of all things), Ryan Clarke (Nick Fink) got the best of Hope and Landon (Aria Shahghasemi) and threw the final artifact into the Malivore pit, raising his father from banishment. Knowing she couldn't allow the monster-eating golem to return to Earth and use Landon's body as a meat suit, Hope killed Landon (temporarily, obvi) and threw herself into the pit along with Landon's brother. As the tribrid of the three species that created it, Hope realized she was the only thing that could destroy it, finally giving her loophole existence a purpose. Girl, you are too noble for your own good.

So, is that the end for Hope, especially now that no one even remembers her? And what does her "death" mean for everyone else but especially Rafael (Peyton Smith), who might now have to remain a wolf forever? TV Guide spoke to showrunner Julie Plec about this huge finale and where we go from here when Season 2 picks back up.

So Hope is officially erased, but are all traces of her really gone? Or can we hope to stumble across some clue to remembering her and getting her back in Season 2?

Julie Plec: There is hope, and there is an actual pitch for that, so your brain is in the right place, creatively.

Is Malivore dead now or did she just prevent him from rising?

Plec: That is the question, I think, that we're left with at the end of the season, which is — technically if she had destroyed him, would she be destroyed in the process? Maybe not. So the fact that no one remembers her might mean that there's still a blackness out there that is keeping her captive. And since we've already seen a glimpse of how s---ty that is, I hope that's not the case.

Can we expect to see a Hope-shaped hole in the lives of everyone left in Season 2?

Plec: That's exactly what we can expect to see. What's fun about it, and sad about it, is we'll be able to realize just how much impact Hope had in these people's lives without them even realizing what they're missing. And just understanding that they all feel individually like there's something that doesn't feel right and that they're struggling with this feeling of not being complete somehow. It just feels like such a universal experience, especially for teenagers. I'm looking forward to having each of those characters act out on that feeling.

If feels like Raf is the one most affected by her loss, since he's kind of stuck as a perma-wolf?

Plec: Yeah, Raf is screwed. Raf is a perma-wolf. Look, when Hayley (Phoebe Tonkin) on The Originals was turned into a wolf all that time, that really did a number on her, and Raf is a new werewolf, who is still a teenager. So to be stuck in your most primal and feral state for God knows how long, if he's ever even able to get out of there, that will be catastrophic.

Landon did learn that he was intended to be a "meat suit" for Malivore to let him procreate, but does he even remember that? And if not, is that still a looming threat in Season 2?

Plec: I think that's a good question. What, if anything, of his experience and all the information that he learned about Malivore will he remember? Even more so, what does it all mean now that Malivore doesn't appear to be functional anymore? So Landon is going to have a lot of questions moving forward, and a Hope-sized hole in his heart, as you've said.

I love the chemistry between Hope and Landon! Every time they're on-screen together, you just can't help but go, "Awww!"

Plec: Thank you! It's so pure; I think that's why I love it so much. It just feels really innocent and honest and pure in a way that you don't get a lot in relationships in movies and television. So I think that's why I really like it.

Will Triad Industries play a role moving forward, considering most of their staff was just killed or consumed by Malivore?

Plec: We may have seen the last of Triad for now in that I think M.G. (Quincy Fouse) made it very clear with his mother what role he expects her to not play in his life moving forward. I certainly don't think the organization is going anywhere, so they will be out there lingering in the shadows and maybe our heroes will cross paths with them another time.

The twins seem to have found the Ascendant, which The Vampire Diaries fans will recognize as the key to a prison world. How worried should we be about a visit from evil Uncle Kai (Chris Wood) if they start messing with that?

Plec: I think when a key that would open the lock that is keeping evil Uncle Kai imprisoned shows up on your screen you should always be afraid ... and also super, super psyched — which, by the way, is not me saying that Chris Wood has agreed to come back because I have not gotten any answers out of him yet, but I would love nothing more.

Will we be seeing more of Penelope in Season 2?

Plec: Penelope was a very successful character for us, and we always love the villain that ultimately finds a way to redeem her wicked, selfish, evil ways over the course of the season and leave us all crying and wanting more. Certainly my hope is that she remains in our universe and she, in spite of being in Belgium with her family, may make an appearance again. I can't make any promises, but I certainly would love to see her.

Can we also hope for the return of Clarke? Because I was really digging the revival of the whole supernatural brothers thing!

Plec: There's going to be a hole in the marketplace right now for supernatural brothers. We have not necessarily seen the last of Clarke. Certainly wherever Hope is, it seems to be that he is there as well. It depends on where that is and what that looks like and if we want to tell that story.

So if we want Hope back, we might have to get Clarke?

Plec: Exactly. Two for the price of one.

Are you looking to introduce a new big bad for Season 2 or are you hoping to stay invested in this Malivore storyline?

Plec: We are going to take a page out of Harry Potter and hope that Malivore can be an ongoing threat, much like Voldemort was able to be over the course of all the books. That is the goal and we will see how long we are able to do that.

And are you planning to keep the monster-of-the-week format or lean into more serialized storytelling.

Plec: I think our emotional and character stories will always be deeply serialized like The Vampire Diaries, but the structure of the monster of the week or a monster that can span a couple weeks has been a lot of fun for us, and we've really enjoyed it. So we'll definitely be continuing down that road.

Are there any plans to return to monsters we've seen and spared before like that gorgon who was getting flirty with M.G.?

Plec: There's absolutely opportunity for any of the monsters that we've seen before to come back again. I know my personal favorite is the necromancer. We've got some competition... people who loved the dryad, the gorgon — if we can figure out a way to make snakes cost less in visual effects, [it] has a better shot at coming back when technology can catch up to what we want to achieve. That was a "learn the hard way" kind of character.

Alaric's (Matthew Davis) position at the school has been left up in the air, so what can you say about the impact of potentially removing him as headmaster if that's how the council votes?

Plec: I think that for a man whose last decade-plus of his life has been committed wholly to his daughters and this school, if he wakes up one morning and is no longer the headmaster, that's going to be a big dramatic shift for him and I'd wonder how he would make it through that.