#i think i literally watched this more than any episode of the tv show

[lovely-v]

what if i liveblogged phineas and ferb across the second dimension

[fruity-phrog]

Okay, I saw someone say that Nimona, while being good representation, “didn’t take the big step forward in queer rep that everyone says it did”.

That is wrong. So wrong, my dude.

Yes, an explicit and open queer relationship in children’s cartoons is not new, per ce. Hell, just this year, two popular kids’ cartoons had the main character in an open, adorable, plot-based queer romance. But this is different for a few reasons.

Reason number one, it isn’t left in suspense. Yes, they had that split for three odd weeks, but they started the film as a couple. One of the very first scenes is them together as a couple, Ambrosius saying he loves Ballister, them holding hands, Ballister leaning on Ambrosius’ shoulder. Ambrosius says he loves Ballister three times during the film, and none of them are any more than halfway in. It’s very clear, from their very first interaction, that they are an established relationship, which isn’t something I’ve seen...at all in other animation.

Secondly, they are the plot. Ambrosius not believing Ballister, Ambrosius cutting off Ballister’s arm, Ballister trying to get the video to Ambrosius - this is what drives the plot. In any other children’s animation with queer relationships, the relationship is not the main focus. Even The Owl House, which is so amazing with its constant representation, would still make sense if Luz and Amity never happened. But Nimona’s plot wouldn’t make sense without Ballister and Ambrosius’ relationship. It, quite simply, can’t be erased. It could work as a friendship, yes, but that’s the point. They could have just been two close friends that fell on opposite sides of a fight, but they weren’t. They were two lovers that fell on opposite sides of a fight. 

Thirdly, they aren’t sanitized for “family viewing”. An emerging trend in children’s animation is to only have mlm relationships as fathers to make them seem more “family friendly”. With the exception of Kipo, there really isn’t many tv shows or films that places light upon an mlm relationship. And if it does, it'll be a teen relationship because teenagers being queer tends to come across as less “dirty” and more “innocent”. But Goldenheart is none of these things. They are adults without the mollifying aspect of having a family. And on top of that, they fight. They wield swords and they get bloody and they shoot at things and get angry and yell. They aren’t “clean” and “innocent”.

As well as this, they are in a film. Films are far more accessible than tv shows. You have to watch twenty seven episodes before Lumity in toh is canon. Troy kisses Benson on the eleventh episode of Kipo. And there are two hundred and eighty three episodes of Adventure Time before Marceline and Bonnie kiss. But with a film, the queerness is much more forward - especially in Nimona, where it’s literally the second scene. Animated films hardly ever display queer relationships, but Nimona did.

Finally - they aren’t perfect. I don’t know about you, but three weeks of thinking your boyfriend/maybe ex is a murderer? Doesn’t sound like a healthy few weeks to me. I have only seen big relationship arguments portrayed in straight relationships in cartoons - think Star Vs The Forces Of Evil - whereas queer relationships either have the massive fight prior to being canonically gay - She Ra - or have conflict, not arguments, that are dealt with quickly - Dead End/The Owl House. But Goldenheart? Goldenheart suffers. Their relationship is pushed to such extreme boundaries as for them to be pretty much exes throughout most of the movie. And yet, they are clearly healthy, happy and very much in love at the end. 

TL;DR - Nimona is amazing with the queer representation, and it is a milestone for LGBTQ+ cartoons. Not only is the relationship romantic for the entire movie, the plot is driven by Ambrosius and Ballister’s sort-of-break-up. In short, they are treated the same way straight people are. They have flaws, they have massive arguments, they have plot importance, they have backstory. They are in love. And that’s what matters more than anything else. 

[copdog1234]

Man, I was watching the movie and the entire time I was thinking "Wow. This would've been so much more satisfying in the show" because the show has earned it. The show's writing is far from perfect, it has many, many flaws, but my god is it far better than Miraculous Awakening will ever be. And I'll tell you why.

I will preface by saying, yes, an hour and a half movie has way less time than a TV show with several episodes to build up characters and relationships, so time constraints will make it so we may not get as much depth in the on-screen relationships.

You know what, though? The time they spent playing mediocre songs could've been used better to show us all the things the songs had to outright tell us. Cause that was the problem.

The movie sure liked telling us how the characters were feeling. It rarely showed it. Like could you tell me why movie Marinette liked Adrien? Because I couldn't. What did he do to earn her affection beside look pretty? Why did we only get a montage of them getting closer instead of actually seeing it? Or how we never really see much of Gabriel and Adrien's struggles with the loss of Emilie, we simply get glimpses. How am I supposed to feel anything when Gabriel stops being Hawk Moth when this movie showed us literally nothing of their strained relationship? And then there's Gabriel's claim that he did absolutely everything to get Emilie back. No he didn't. He did actually nothing. He freed a couple of criminals and then akumatized himself. That's it. That's all he did.

Could you tell me why Alya decided to befriend Marinette? Could you tell me why Adrien "who decided not to get close to anyone" was friends with Nino? Could you tell me why Chloe was so confident Adrien had any interest in her when they never actually interacted?

And then there wasnt enough explanation on how anything that we should've been told worked. Could anyone really tell me how these versions of the miraculous work? Or why Master Fu was in possession of them? Or why they really chose their holders? Could you tell me if the kwami had much personality and were necessary?

Like, I will say, there were funny moments, the animation was nice, and there were cool set pieces, but where was the substance?? It was nonexistent. If you don't watch the show, would you know or feel anything for what was going on in this movie?

Cause even for me, who does watch the show, I didn't.

Think about this. The show has even faked out multiple reveals to me and every time I was hyped and screaming, I have read fanfiction of these same to characters falling in love and confessing every which way and I've swooned, but we get reveals and love confessions that are real and permanent in this movie and I felt. Nothing.

It's okay if yall disagree with me, but I just needed to get this off my chest. I'm hard on this movie because I wanted it to be good because I love the characters and story from the show.

[imababblekat]

TmnT Boy’s Meeting Aprils New Roomie; HC’s

Anon Request, “Can I request the bayverse turtles reactions to meeting april's new roomate who is a really a short s/o (like 5 ft) that has a tired and chill personality (has the same kind of personality as aizawa and shinso from mha) and instead of freaking out when they see the turtles they just say "hey" nonchalantly then go back to what they're doing? (You don't need to do this I just think it would be funny)”

~xXx~

Michelangelo:

Mikey had barged his way into Aprils apartment to excitedly talk about the latest episode of their favorite TV drama when he stumbled upon you

April was there with you, equal panic on her face as the orange clad turtle waited for the inevitable screaming or a similar panicked reaction

Your lack of shock left Mikey curious about you; all you had given him was a tired “sup” with a head tilt up and continuing your conversation like seeing a mutant ninja turtle breaking into your apartment was the most normal of things

His brothers wouldn’t have believed him if not for April being witness to the ordeal and are left as equally surprised by your lack of reaction when they ultimately come to meet you

Doesn’t take long for Mikey to practically glue himself to your side; it’s like the golden retriever boy trope

Loves the fact you’re so short; doesn’t out right tease you because he knows what it’s like to be the smallest, but he won’t hesitate to pick you up and throw you on his shoulders to get something from a high place

Donatello: 

His mind is so deep in explaining what he figured out what was wrong with Aprils watch, that he hadn’t picked up on her panicked face till he’d heard the once vacant room in her apartment creak open

Your lack of noticing him at all, which was odd considering he was a literal giant in comparison to your much shorter stature, and making way to grab some water before retreating back to your room had Donnie wonder for a second if he was really that good of a ninja

But after questioning April the next day about whether or not you truly did notice him, it turns out he in fact wasn’t as invisible as he felt, when his friend informed him that you did actually see him that night

Ultimately, he had to introduce himself and his brothers to make sure you wouldn’t go talking about them to the wrong person, but at your simple nod and “okay” while absentmindedly texting on your phone at the end of their empty threat introduction, Donnie was even more confused than he had been the first night

Your nonchalant behavior had left his overthinking brain wondering why you reacted so differently compared to others

It didn’t make any logical sense to him, especially after no indications that you were going through some kind of weird shock symptom 

His time spent trying to understand why you didn’t freak out on him that night turns into a lot of time bonding and forming a friendship he also never calculated to be possible, not that he minded of course; your chill personality was a nice contrast to the chaotic energies of his brothers when needed

Raphael:

He had been asked by Donnie while on a solo patrol to grab something from April, so when he’d stepped through her window he did not expect to see another person there with her

Your lack of a fear struck response leaves him frustratingly confused afterwards

Poor Raph is so used to people screaming or even fainting at the sight of him, that when all you did was wave a simple high and continue watching your Netflix show, he couldn’t help the suspicion he held towards you

Due to his skeptical feeling towards you however, he ends up spending a lot of time around you, and even though it does take some time, your unconcerned attitude towards, well, all of him, eventually has his walls crumbling around you

You make him feel normal, like he’s not some freak of nature; you don’t even flinch when his anger gets the best of him, instead waiting for him to calm some before offering some comfort

As Raph finds himself more lax with you, he opens up quite a bit and finds a friendship he didn’t know he desperately craved

But he’ll never tell you that, not at first at least, and instead just teases you and calls you shorty and time you tease him about how sweet he’s being

Leonardo:

Leo is definitely the most guarded when meeting new people, and your unbothered nature towards him when he accidentally stumbles upon you in Aprils apartment, does not easy his mistrustful thoughts about you

For a while he actually wonders if you’re some kind of secret spy to the foot clan or some other bad group of people, but anytime he tried to get you to confess your secrets, you’d just confusingly ask if you could help him with all the weird staring he’s doing

It lowkey leaves him feeling flustered, because he’s not used to not being taken seriously by anyone except his brothers

It takes a while for him to warm up to you, but when he does he starts to realizes how much he appreciates not being seen as a freak almost like Raph does, he also feels very relieved to not have to worry about his family being in any sort of danger with you

Yeah, you might be the shortest person he’s ever met, but he secretly feels like you could kick some ass

Your unassuming personality also has him thinking you could secretly be a force to wreckin with, and often ponders if he should offer up the idea to train you; definitely not because he wants to spend more time with you or anything of course!

~xXx~

[byers-bowlcut]

I've seen people say El likes the IDEA of having a boyfriend more than she actually likes her own boyfriend, and jfc it's so true 😭 Like it's all over the show:

Season 1

She's initially attached to Mike because he's the first person to give her shelter, food, genuine human care and just,, not calling CPS immediately. Her feelings for him was born from trauma and dependency in season 1. And throughout the rest of the 3 seasons, we don't see it grow past that.

Also I think it's noticeable in S1 that:

She was uninterested when Mike tried to share his hobbies with her

She also did not seem to mind AT ALL when she questioned if Mike could be her brother. He voice is neutral and curious here, not the least bit repulsed by the thought of being siblings with Mike, like girl does not care 😭

Season 2

This season has zero onscreen moments of Mike and El actually getting to know each other further. They were separated nearly the whole season.

What we DO see:

El's attachment and dependency on Mike that was developed from S1

We also find out how El spent a year of her life watching melodramatic romance films. Many other middle schoolers might identify that relationships in real life don't work like those films. But El is fresh out of lab life, she's literally learning the world through this TV, and has now become obsessed with the IDEA of having a boyfriend/relationship just like that.

Season 3

Again, no onscreen moments of El showing interest in who Mike is as a person.

The very first scene we see of them, she's trying to get him to stop singing along to the song they're listening to. She seems to like kissing Mike. But isn't shown enjoying anything actually characteristic about him, like sharing interests with him such as music.

Hopper indicates that they don't do anything meaningful together either. We see here that before hanging out with Max, El had little sense of her own style, her hobbies, her interests- meaning spending time with Mike for months probably didn't involve many talking points did it?

Also in season 3, El dumps Mike with ZERO hesitation. Then she has the time of her life with Max. The most acknowledgment we get that she's oh so heartbroken is a small frown to Max that her and Mike aren't on best terms. And even that doesn't seem so paramount cause 1 episode later she totally dismisses Mike after he explains how Hopper threatened him. She just tells him maybe Hopper was right 😭😭

It's literally ONLY once she starts becoming in danger that she starts clinging onto him again. I feel like we've seen this film before hm.

Like where are any signs that she likes Mike as an individual, and is falling for who he really is, rather than simply being attached due to trauma, and liking the concept of doing romantic things (ie: kissing, dancing at the ball, etc.)

Season 4

This is the season it becomes the MOST OBVIOUS: El loves the concept of a happy relationship and being loved, but not really loving Mike for who he is. And bringing in Will's feelings just emphasizes this point.

To start, El continues doing all these relationship-y things that she did in the start of S3. She has Mike's name and pictures plastered all over her room. She makes a "Mike box" with his pictures decorated all over it. But the thing is: this is all sort of a façade at this point. We know she's BEEN unhappy with him for months ("From Mike! From Mike! From Mike!"). But with all these items, she's basically trying to convince herself that she's in this happy, fantasy, movie-like relationship, like she probably watched in hopper's cabin in season 2.

And then, there's the sheer difference between her and WILL in their feelings for Mike. We see it right off the bat when Mike comes to the airport: Will and El both have plans to give Mike something.

Will plans to give him a painting he worked extremely hard on. The painting is a connection of what they BOTH love: DnD, and it includes their friends who also play the game. It's very personal and immediately touches Mike. What's more is, the painting illustrates the exact qualities about Mike that Will loves: his leadership, his bravery, his guidance. This painting literally spells out to us that Will truly loves Mike for WHO HE IS.

Meanwhile, El plans on giving Mike a fun reunion date. She has the whole day planned out. And immediately: we see that what she wants to do doesn't actually takes Mike's interests and personality into consideration. You can see and hear the strain in his voice when he talks about "burritos for breakfast" 😬

You can see how he's not that relaxed at rinkomania, and nervous about skating, saying he's clumsy. He probably would've much preferred movies and playing a board game, over skating. But El has her own ideas. When she brings Mike to rinkomania, she tries to act really cool about it. She wants to impress him, wants to seem like she fits in and belongs.

Her present was never actually ABOUT Mike, and about loving Mike that she would plan this huge date for him. Her present was about her desperately wanting to have this cool date like every other normal teen girl might, with a normal boyfriend, and make it seem like they have a happy perfect relationship.

And then finally we reach their S4 fight. I find it extremely interesting how Hopper's cabin is framed in the background during their whole fight. It's almost like an indication that her desperate need to be loved by Mike stems from her trying to cope with losing Hopper and the hole left by him, that clearly did not exist when she happily dumped Mike in S3.

In their fight, when the topic of bullying comes up, Mike says he understands her, but El is quick to say he doesn't. She thinks Mike doesn't understand her, but this is just as much her not understanding HIM as well.

She doesn't get the extent of Mike's insecurities (definitely partially a result of bullying), something that Mike later divulges to WILL and not her. If the writers wanted to show us how much El understands Mike and loves him for who he is, her and Mike would work through his insecurities in their rs together, NOT through a middle man.

Overall it's pretty striking that we've never once heard El actually compliment Mike, or articulate, or even show what exactly she loves about him through four whole seasons. I mean...

Attachment to him due to trauma or grief =/= loving him for who he is.

Wanting to BE loved =/= loving him for who he is.

So really in terms of a relationship, what El ACTUALLY wants is the concept/idea of a regular boyfriend, and a happy easy relationship, all in an attempt to feel normal. And that's why we see them fall apart the way they do in season 4, and why Will is currently so involved. Because Will DOES see and love Mike for exactly who he is.

[blocksgame]

Tips on character voices when writing fic

This is written in mind for people writing fic in MCYT/QSMP/DSMP/Life series/etc kind of fandoms. But if anyone finds it useful for anything else, well then, hell yeah.

Character voice is big in all, uh, fiction, and mimicking it in any fanwork is big. But I think it’s especially big in these fandoms where the voices are so distinct – it’s usually how a Real Person Somewhere (the streamer) talks, versus something very scripted that you’d see in a TV show or novel. And it can be a big difference in your character sounding generic versus really feeling true to the original.

Listen to a bunch of your subject talking. If you want to write a character well, watch vods from their point of view, or episodes where they show up a bunch. Take note of what they say and how.

2. If you don’t know how to start doing that: try literally writing down what they say. Transcribe an actual exchange in fic-format. You probably won’t want to publish a literal exchange from canon, but it will give you a sense of how to physically write what they say.

3. If you do this (or just pay attention to how they talk), you will get a lot of: Stumbling, pauses, repeating words, filler words, weird sentence constructions, fragments, etc. I love em! Here’s something that comes through in improv much more than in novels or movies: Most people, even very charismatic people, are not very eloquent when they speak. Writing out conversations or sentences will give you a sense of the unique and delightful way in which your subject is not eloquent. vvvvv way more under cut vvvvv

(People use a LOT of filler/etc when they speak. It’s reasonable to cut back on this if it’s interfering with a nice-looking or readable result. I believe this is the eternal struggle of people who write transcripts – you want the transcript to be accurate, but there are also a lot of things you can obviously simplify and not lose the meaning. So you’ll end up falling somewhere on this spectrum either way. But I do think a lot of mediocre/generic fic dialogue is very stylized – it doesn’t sound like your guy because your guy literally wouldn’t say that. They would say it worse and more confusingly.)

(I’m serious, if you’ve never sat down with a short non-completely-scripted clip or real conversation or whatever and just written out exactly what was said, do it. It will make you better at writing.)

4. Wonda-cat made a really incredible list [link] of characterizing speech patterns for the Dream SMP members. But you can also do your own reconnaissance and come up with your own patterns, common phrases, etc.

5. You do not have to get EVERYTHING right. You’re not going to, like, get so deep into the speaker’s brain that you can produce “exactly what they would have said if they were somehow in your fic.” That is impossible. You’re just trying to evoke a character, and if you get a few turns of phrase to ring true, you’re doing great.

6. A lot of these people are popular because they are hilarious. Include jokes. Yes, even if your thing is angsty or serious. A lot of the most serious lore I can think of from, e.g., the Dream SMP or 3rd Life or the QSMP - the really story-defining, life-and-death moments - were absolutely hysterical. If you’re writing characters who are usually funny, then add some humor. It can heighten angst via contrast and a sense of realism. Ask yourself what a funny streamer would make jokes about if they were possessing a character in this situation.

7. Some people have the mystical ability to “hear” character voices in their head, and read things in their voice. If you can, do this with all of your dialogue during the editing process. This won’t always get you there, but sometimes it can catch things that sound wrong by invoking "that's really hard to imagine them saying". If you don’t have this power, try recruiting a friend who does.

8. So there’s dialogue and then there’s narration that’s still from a character’s point of view. I’ve mostly given you tips about dialogue, but a lot of this is also true for narration. IMO, narration is less about phrasing things the way the subject would, and more about recreating the way they think. I don’t have concrete rules on how to do this, but here is my wisdom:

You can get eloquent again - narration is more of an abstract and artistic process than dialogue.

Spend time with your subject’s source material.

Pay attention to what they notice and care about. How do you think they think?

Don’t be afraid to get weird with it.

That last one also applies to all art ever.

9. MCYT tends to give you a great boon you don’t see in other media: what the speaker says to their chat/audience when nobody else is listening. This can be incredibly characterizing even if you’re writing a story where people don’t have chats. It’s your person talking about their thought processes and feelings! Mine that shit.

10. Some questions that might help guide both characterizing narration and dialogue (that you’d get from dialogue):

How open are they about their feelings?

How often do they lie? What do they lie about?

What kind of metaphors do they use, if any?

How quickly does their mood change?

How can you tell when they’re in different moods?

What kind of things do they pay attention to?

How formal is their speech?

11. Finally, this is a little odd, but I find it’s much, much easier to write a character that sounds good if I, the author, like them and am rooting for them at least a little bit. If a character needs to be there who you don’t love, try to love them. Or at least get a sense of what other people love about them. It just makes everything else easier. I swear to god.

Happy writing out there!

[episodeoftv]

Round 5 of 8

propaganda and summaries are under the cut (May include spoilers)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 5.16 The Body

tw Death of a major character, grief, dealing with the death of a parent

Buffy, Dawn, and their friends deal with the aftermath of Joyce's death.

The purposeful removal of music for the whole episode, the grief portrayed, the portrayals of people with varying amounts of interaction with death. It hits so hard.

This episode killed me. I have never watched anything that has fully encompassed the feeling of loss and what it's like to experience death close to you than The Body. It is an absolute gut punch in the best way. I actually had to take a week off of watching Buffy to recover because I was so destroyed. 12/10 I don't think I will ever be able to watch this episode of TV ever again

One of the greatest depictions of grief and bereavement of all time. Both formally inventive and unique in its cinematography, sound design, editing etc. while also being an incredible personally affecting emotional experience.

There’s another buffy episode that probably deserves the title more, but I did have to give this one some recognition. For a whacky silly show about vampires, this episode is maybe the realest portrayal of death and grief I’ve ever seen. It’s not just a sad episode that makes audiences cry - I mean it is that - but it’s also this incredible examination of what it’s like to lose someone, and how the world shifts on its axis when that happens. The lack of any non diegetic music is an amazing touch to give this episode a sense of distance from all others. It’s real in a way that’s hard to watch but also unforgettable. Certain scenes and lines will always stay with me and will forever shape my feelings on life and loss.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Body_(Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer)

M*A*S*H: 11.16 Goodbye, Farewell and Amen

In the closing days of the Korean War, the staff of the 4077 M*A*S*H Unit find themselves facing irrevocable changes in their lives.

LITERALLY the most episode ever. For American television broadcasts it remains the most-watched primetime television episode ever, beaten only by a number of Super Bowls, the moon landing, and the Nixon resignation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodbye,_Farewell_and_Amen

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

I understand the criticisms people have about season 2, I really do. I have my own genuine complaints. But, frankly? I feel like we can pick this show apart too much. I don't expect any piece of media I consume to be perfect so I sure as hell think I should be able to extend my favorite show a little grace.

Literally every problem I have with s2 is almost certainly down to the fact that they had to work with a 40% budget cut and had to keep every episode strictly under 30 minutes (whereas in s1 longer episodes had some breathing room). It's very obvious to me that the writers of this show did their absolute level best to do their story justice with what they had. And at the end of the day, my biggest complaint is always that I wish they had more - more time, more episodes. That's a pretty nice thing, really, that the worst I can say about something is that I wish I had more of it.

Like I said, I get the criticism, I really do! I'm not saying any show is above critique. But I'm also not exaggerating when I say that this show as a whole is the best thing I've seen on TV in a long, long time. I can't make myself care much that s2 was a bit messier than I'd have liked when I think it still runs circles around everything else. And, as if the fact we got s2 at all wasn't enough, they made sure Ed and Stede's story never really suffered for the budget cuts, and they made sure that we ended the season with Ed and Stede in a good, satisfying place. If you haven't watched it since it was airing I couldn't recommend enough watching it again without the week-long breaks and all the fandom speculation and craziness in between; the pacing feels soooo much better that way. I love it even more with every rewatch. We complain a lot in fandom spaces but almost everyone I know irl who watch it casually think s2 was better than s1.

I love this show so much. I'm so glad we've got it and for every bit of hate I see about s2 I'm just gonna love it even harder, because even when it's messy it's the most earnest, heartfelt thing out there and I appreciate the fuck out of it for that.

[thewyrmspace]

Posting a rant I wrote a while ago about Pim and Charlie's dynamic because why not (I wrote it when only the Gwimbly episode was out so keep that in mind with the points I make in it)

Look under the cut at your own risk (insane ramblings ahead)

first of all, to lay the base for all this, at their cores, Charlie is a very passive person, preferring to go with the path of least resistance when possible, and Pim actively steps into the unknown and out of his comfort zone all the time. There are of course outliers to this, but in general this is how they are.

That being said, Charlie very clearly likes to be "in charge", something shown very prevalently with Shrimp. Whereas Pim's approach is to try and do what Shrimp thinks is best, Charlie sees this dude that's smaller and weaker than him and immediately starts telling him what to do. You can see it throughout the entire episode that Charlie clearly doesn't think of him as an equal, telling him how he should and shouldn't do things and even straight up saying to his face how messed up he thinks Shrimp is. It's not that Charlie means to be cruel, as he's truly trying to help, he just genuinely doesn't respect him and thinks he knows what's best.

In fact, even with someone like Mip, at the end of the day I don't think Charlie really respected him either, only caring as far as Mip's praise for him. I don't think he necessarily liked Mip, or at least WOULD have, if he didn't constantly shower Charlie with praise. You can very steadily watch his ego inflate to dangerous levels, to the point of getting mad at Pim, his best friend of who knows how long, for being upset over this dude they met a few hours ago. And as stated earlier, this is one of few outliers to the "path of least resistance" rule Charlie has, as he will almost always defend himself if his integrity or pride is threatened. And when Pim "attacked" the source of his massively inflated ego, he felt he had to defend himself.

Compare these interactions to that of James. From the second he walks in you can tell Charlie is uneasy, but it doesn't show very clearly on his face or in his words. Even when James is making a huge mess and throwing stuff around, Charlie still tries to assert himself as the bigger man in the room, telling James that he needs to clean up his own mess even after getting a TV thrown at his head. The second James establishes that he's the one in charge however Charlie completely breaks, giving in to everything he says and barely fighting back in the slightest, opting to do damage control rather than fighting to prevent it. Even with a missing nose and a knife to his throat, he's more ready to accept his fate than try and fight back.

Now granted James is obviously a dangerous individual, and Charlie really didn't have much of a choice in the matter, but he was less scared having a gun pointed at his head by DJ Spit, another person I don't believe he respected at all, literally trying to wrestle it out of his hands. He was in great danger in both of these situations, but only one of them he felt in control of.

Ultimately, Charlie likes to be in control but isn't particularly willing to fight for it.

Then there's Pim. He often lets others passively take the lead, doing all the work and guiding them but overall letting them feel in charge. He rarely tells people what to do but rather offers support and suggestions for any challenged they face. He can be stubborn and pushy at times but at the end of the day he'd break his own bones to make others happy.

However, this is not true of him with Charlie. Despite clearly valuing Charlie's acceptance and approval, he's one of very few people that Pim will actively disagree with. If he and Charlie don't see eye to eye on a job, Pim doesn't immediately go along with what Charlie thinks is best but will fight for his own ideas and methods, a stark contrast to how he tends to be with others.

And on Charlie's end, he rarely pushes back very much when Pim disagrees with him (with exception to the Christmas episode, where he felt his integrity was being attacked) and in fact will still support him in spite of it, which is really why they work so well as a team. Pim actively takes the lead on a lot of jobs, and Charlie gives up a lot of control he usually holds tightly to him, sort of taking Pim's role as the guide. You could absolutely argue this is just because of him being lazy, which I think there's some truth to, but then again this same dynamic doesn't work for him and Allan, someone far more opinionated than him, and someone Charlie definitely respects but not to a degree to let him be "in charge."

All of this is to say that in a romantic context, Charlie trusts Pim enough to let his guard down and not feel like he constantly has to hold onto control, and Pim feels comfortable enough around Charlie that his people-pleasing instinct isn't as prevalent, and he's able to be more free and himself.

Charlie often thinks himself above other people, and Pim often thinks himself below, but with each other, they're just equals. So Pim taking the lead doesn't make Charlie feel threatened, and it doesn't make Pim feel too pushy, it just feels safe.

[kaythefloppa]

Wild Kratts - Our Blue and Green World: Part 1: Review [Spoilers]

Welp, here it is, the Wild Kratts TV movie (not to be confused with the feature film they've been teasing us with since 2021). There's been a lot of hype around this special and season, especially with how much the latter was being hyped up during the hiatus. Let's see if the blue and green bros were able to deliver: Spoilers under the cut

Well, this is certainly an attention grabber!

This entire live action intro is shot and edited like an animated Wild Kratts episode, it's glorious.

Woah, intro change!

They said the thing! They said the thing!

HELP THIS IS SO RELATABLE. Also, THE BOYS ARE FIGHTING

Lmao I don't think they do it very often, but using animals/nature in their insults is very creative.

Also, whooping crane episode when?

This entire song is mercifully short. Like most character sung songs in Wild Kratts, it's not good, but this at least is clever in its lyrics and its visuals. It feels like a Disney reference at best and I am content with that. I also ADORED seeing the Draco and Walrus Suit return again. It's arguably the best musical number in the series. No, that is not saying a lot.

MARTIN WHY ARE YOU THE ONE WHO'S MIFFED YOU NEARLY MUFASA'D YOUR LITTLE BROTHER

CHRIS WHY ARE YOU MILDLY INCONVENIENCED YOU GOT ACRAPHOBIA FALLING FROM THAT HEIGHT

When I first saw the clip, I thought that they were going somewhere with this, like they'd activate Peacock Powers at the end when they recognized the compatibility and blue and green. But nope. Wasted potential is an understatement.

Also, where the fuck are they right now? In a previous shot there was Target the Chameleon, implying that they've been to Madagascar, but that is an Indian peafowl, and as far as I'm concerned, they don't live in Madagascar. Were they just having an off-day? These animals have little to nothing to do with the plot when they really shouldn't have, so I don't see why they couldn't have just shown a projector image or something.

Remember when I joked about the Wild Pony Power Suit returning in S7.... fuck you Apollo.

Man, they are eating it up with the animation here. It's hard to tell with screengrabs but man, is it fluid.

The first half of this episode is mixed. While it feels like the brothers are incredibly stubborn, it also does make sense for them to be this fixated on their favorites. So I can totally buy this. It could've been insufferable to watch, but it wasn't.

As if YOU haven't spied on them since the first time your dorito-headed ass showed up on screen

Did you find that funny? Because not only do they do a similar joke like that later on, but they follow through on that joke in the most unexpected way you will shit your pants when you first ingest it.

Oh my god if they make a Creature Power Suit off of that bird, I will take back any diss I've made, that is so beautiful.

Good to know that Aviva put the button near the chest and not near the back.

Maybe it's just me but this is kinda pushing it. Chris is literally getting his organs crushed, I think that should matter more than A) being right or B) trying to get 2 people to stop fighting.

I'm loving the callback and what this leads up to but ew, all this does is remind me about how ugly bright the color pallatte in S6. Really glad they fixed it in S7.

HELL FUCKING YES

This episode finds really unique ways of showing how the two different biomes are interconnected. It's like Rainforest Stew's (very brilliantly handled) message only to a larger degree. Kids can learn a lot from this.

I fucking love this episode, man.

Honestly, the way they write Paisley in the first half of the episode is very in-line with her character. Most shows that do what this episode does has them be out-of-character as a set-up, but here, she's just roasting the fuck out of Zach. Once again, recontextualized entirely in the climax.

HOW THE FUCK DID HE GET TO MADAGASCAR FROM THE GODDAMN AMAZON IN ONE AFTERNOON THAT IS LIKE MORE THAN 1,000 MILES AWAY?? ARE ANACONDAS THAT FAST?????

Also, INDRIS!!!!! :D

I was frankly expecting this to horribly backfire but spoilers, it doesn't. This actually winds up working. Common Aviva W.

To be continued.... will the blue and green rivalry end? Will one prove superior over another? And will they be able to stop Zach and Paisley and save the planet earth? And will this change the adventures of the Wild Kratts team forever? Stay tuned for part 2!

Pros:

The live action segments.

The animation of the earth's model.

The musical number not being ass.

Paisely's catty behavior.

The Anaconda Suit.

The inventive ways they show how the stability of the Earth is complex. There are a lot of ways it functions and thus a lot of ways it needs to survive

The comedy.

Cons:

The villains do not do anything until the second half of this episode. In fact, they're left completely in the backdrop. I expected them to make their prescence known and for Aviva to invent the discs to get them together for the SAKE of fighting the villains. But no. It makes the stakes feel hollow, which is the opposite of what they should be gunning for in an hour long special that they hype the shit out of.

CONCLUSION:

It was an "okay" set-up. It did live up to some of the hype it had, but not all of it. Honestly if it wasn't for the second half of this episode, this movie would be mediocre or slightly above average, but no. They do pick themselves off the ground and... they do jump the shark. But we'll get to that next time

[cal-daisies-and-briars]

🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️🛌🛌🛌🛌🛏️🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌🛌

Yay! 162:

---

Eddie raises an eyebrow. “Because we’re temporarily sharing a bed?”

Buck nods. 

“No, man. We aren’t Charlie and Frank,” Eddie assures him. “But if we were, you’d be Frank.”

“WHAT?” Buck bursts. “Why would I be Frank?”

Eddie shrugs it off easily. “You read too much to be Charlie.”

“Are you claiming illiteracy, Eddie?” Buck challenges.

“No,” Eddie shakes his head. “Just less literate than you. Please take that with offense, if possible.”

Buck smirks. See, this is why he asked. Not because he was actually worried. He just… He just needed the reminder that… That, fuck. No guy, no girl - no one - is worth sacrificing any time with Eddie. No one is worth asking Eddie to leave his home. No matter what.

“Well,” Buck smirks. “Just keep this conversation in mind when I shit the bed later.”

Eddie wrinkles his nose. “You’re disgusting.”

“Apparently you think so, Dayman.”

Eddie’s lip quirks. “You want to watch that show? Poop episode?”

Buck nods. “And the waterpark episode. With liquor.”

Eddie nods. “Whatever you need right now.”

And that sort of does it for Buck. 

He steps forward and hugs Eddie. Tight. Because hasn’t this been the whole damn point? Buck just wants to do whatever Eddie needs. And Eddie gets it. Is the same way. This is who they are. 

Eddie squeezes Buck tightly. One of his hands rests a little higher on Buck than usual when they hug. His fingers warm the bare skin on the back of Buck’s neck. Buck closes his eyes. He lets his head slump forward, just a little. His body starts to relax, like Eddie’s touch has changed a setting on his internal operating panel. 

“Thank you,” Buck whispers. 

“Yeah,” Eddie replies. Like it doesn’t even bear mentioning. “Do you want to talk more about it?”

“No,” Buck replies firmly. 

They don’t part from each other. 

“Buck?” Eddie asks after a moment.

“Yeah?”

“Is it because I’m staying here?” 

Fuck. Fuck. The last thing he needs is Eddie feeling guilty about anything else. 

“No,” Buck replies. “It’s because he’s a jackass and I don’t like being given ultimatums.”

Eddie pulls away from him finally. 

“No, Buck,” he says. “Come on. You can’t break up with him over me.” 

“I broke up with him over him,” Buck counters. “He was being paranoid and unreasonable.” 

“Still,” Eddie sighs. “It’s not… You can’t do that. You-you should fix it.”

“You’re ready to go back?” Buck asks.

“That’s not the point.” Eddie shakes his head. 

“Yes it is,” Buck says. “That’s exactly the point. I… I want you here. We didn’t do anything wrong. So do you really want to leave and for me to go apologize to him because he was being an ass?”

Eddie thinks about it for what feels like close to a minute. 

“No,” he admits finally. “I don’t.”

Buck feels a jolt of relief. He can’t quite say why. Maybe he should want to fix things with Tommy. Maybe that should be more important than Eddie’s prolonged sleepover. But it’s not. It’s not. 

“Then let’s forget about it for now, okay?” Buck asks. “Please?”

Eddie nods. “Yeah. Okay.”

🛏️

Watching TV doesn’t quite go the way Buck thinks it will, liquor or not. 

They try sitting on separate chairs. This clearly doesn’t work for either of them. A few shots of tequila later, and they’re on the floor side-by-side again. Pinkies buzzing in proximity, but not quite linked. 

At one point, Eddie twists his back in an uncomfortable stretch. Yeah, the floor kind of sucks. Buck needs a damn couch. 

“We could, uh, move,” Buck suggests. 

“Move?” Eddie echoes. 

“Upstairs,” Buck clarifies. Then he blushes, realizing how it sounds. “Uh, I mean, we could play it on my laptop. From bed. We’re going to end up there anyway in, like, forty minutes.”

Eddie checks the time and whistles. “We’re getting old.”

“All the more reason to be comfortable,” Buck replies. He has no idea why he’s pressing. Really. 

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. “I could go for that.”

So they migrate to bed. Buck props the laptop up on a raiser he has from when his leg was in a cast and he did a lot of computer use from bed. They prop themselves up on a collection of pillows, leaning into each other ever so slightly. 

And then…

Well, okay…

It’s not so much that Tommy was right. 

Tommy wasn’t right. Plus he’s an ass. So two faults for him.

But… Okay, maybe Buck can see where he was coming from. 

Because they’re a little buzzed. And they’re laughing at the show. And they’re leaning into each other. And they’re hands are brushing under a blanket. And nothing about it feels like two friends sharing a bed because it’s the only possible thing to do. Nothing about it feels like just friendly at all. Eddie slides his hand into Buck’s, and their fingers lace together, and it feels like something more. 

Buck doesn’t really know what to do about it. He doesn’t know what it means. And he doesn’t want to question it. Because he likes it. A lot. He likes it far more than he’s sad or mad about Tommy. 

So he just keeps holding Eddie’s hand. And neither of them says a thing about it.

iv.

From there, it only gets worse. Or better? Better, for sure. Just, not for Buck’s clarity. He has no idea what’s going on. Truly, none. But he’s loving it?

He just can’t say so. Because that would feel like jinxing it. He doesn’t want to jinx this at all.

It becomes a routine. They get back from work, they eat dinner together, they watch TV in bed, they fall asleep touching. Holding hands becomes an arm looped around a shoulder. Which becomes a hug. Which becomes limbs tangled together. A head tucked into a chest. A hand sifting lazily through hair. 

It’s not overnight, of course. It takes weeks.

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 延禧攻略/Story of Yanxi Palace.

Story of Yanxi Palace is a high-budget 2018 Chinese harem drama about the historical-accuracy-adjacent antics of an extremely baller young woman who gets a job working in the Forbidden City in an attempt to discover the reasons behind her sister's death.

Imagine Nirvana in Fire, but only the scenes that take place inside the Inner Palace. So there's still schemes aplenty, but now these schemes are happening among a cast that's 90% women, all locked inside a walled city with rigid rules, excruciatingly strict hierarchies, and a very limited number of ways of getting out alive.

This show was huge in China. The English-language fandom is almost nonexistent. I'm betting most of you reading this have never even heard of it, and if you have, you have only the vaguest idea of what this 70-episode palace drama is about.

I enjoyed this show a whole hell of a lot. I also had some major issues with the show, to the point where I very nearly did not write this rec. But I'm doing it because I think the good parts of the show are worth seeing, and because I think the problem parts of the show are worth thinking about. Interested? Then follow me through these five reasons (and a few anti-reasons) I think you should watch it.

1. The Real Housewives of the Forbidden City

Tired of c-drama sausage fests? Want to see a bunch of incredibly talented ladies act their faces off? Then this is the show for you.

The vast majority of characters in the show are absolute bitches to one another. They are locked in a cutthroat game of power and manners where the stakes are literally life and death, so they spend their whole lives either plotting to take someone else down or counterplotting so the person trying to take them down gets taken down instead. They all know they can't trust one another, but they also sometimes can't not trust one another. They keep their friends close, and their enemies closer.

Unlike most other schemes-based shows, which are all about one big mystery, Story of Yanxi Palace has several smaller arcs. Remember the sister-murder I mentioned at the start? I was prepared for that to take the whole runtime of the show to solve; it actually gets (mostly) concluded around episode twenty-something. Antagonists arise and fall. Situations happen and resolve. Think of it less like a movie's single narrative, and more like a video game's multiple levels. Hooray, we finished Garden World! Now we get to go back to Palace World, but with way more EXP and powerups than we had before!

I know that looks like a bunch of lovely, high-class ladies in that shot, but it's not. It's a pit of vipers. Any woman in that lineup would straight-up shank pretty much any other woman in that lineup without hesitation or remorse. Every woman there knows exactly where she fits in the hierarchy and has a detailed plan for how to take out every woman above her to get to the top -- except for the one in black, who already did take out every woman above her to get to the top, and that's why everyone has to ostentatiously defer to her now.

If you are a fan of TV shows where folk scheme their way to success, this is really a can't-miss property for you.

This is also a show about how smart women have to become to survive being at the mercy of stupid men. Not only are the women being vicious to one another, they're doing so while simultaneousy having to pretend that they are pretty, delicate, vapid ornaments whose only thoughts are how they want the best for their precious emperor and his beloved mommy. It's all about the exercise of soft power, how to hide your knives behind silk sleeves and a sweet smile.

So okay, it's not quite as trashy as reality TV, but it's still bitchy as hell and incredibly fun to watch.

2. You love to hate her (and her, and him, and her)

Now if you've read pretty much any one of my previous recs, you know I like a good baddie, and this is a show with some good baddies. As I said in the last point, this is a show about bad people doing bad things entertainingly.

However, I am not going to tell you who most of the show's love-to-hate characters are, because the vast majority of them do not start out hateable. If the show introduces a female character and you like her, or a eunuch character and you like him, there is like an 85% chance they're going to do a heel turn. (And then sometimes do a face turn after? Look, schemes are complicated.)

But I will tell you about one bitch who's rotten from her first moment to her last: Noble Consort Gao.

Noble Consort Gao is the scenery-chewing, shit-stirring, absolute meanest mean girl in the palace, and it is so fucking entertaining. She's your major antagonist for the first half of the show. She's strategically mean, but she's also recreationally mean. She does the anime villainess laugh for real. Her actor, Tan Zhuo, has set her bitch dial to 11 and isn't even bothering to chew the scenery -- she's shredding it with those incredible metal claw-nails she wears.

Noble Consort Gao is a good starting antagonist because she's so blatantly evil -- and yet somehow still unstoppable. She's a good example of how you can get away with being pretty much openly sinister if you also manage to mind your manners. The reason she gets away with being so damn awful to everyone else is that she's still playing by all the rules. She's managed to weaponize every convention about propriety to lord her power over everyone else. She's like a fucking HOA.

And you'll notice I'm speaking about her with such fondness because she's delightfully awful. In fact, pretty much everyone in this show is delightfully awful. There are exceptions, but on the whole, you want to see them go down, yet you're also going to be a little sad when they go. Even Noble Consort, by the end, you get where she's coming from, and you feel a little bad for her on the way out.

Do you like vengeance? Because we've got some vengeance for you here. Many, many people in this show have been wronged, often by the people they trusted most. And of course they all respond to this in a healthy manner, seeking justice for themselves and for their loved ones through proper channels and reasonable means.

Ha ha, just kidding, everybody here is completely unhinged! The primary difference between a good guy and a bad guy in this show is how many innocent people they wind up taking down with the guilty party. It's messy as hell and we are making popcorn about it.

This is a show full of villains. In fact, this cast is pretty much entirely bad guys, semi-bad guys, potential bad guys, and good people who had to do bad things to survive. There are maybe two non-child characters who are Just Plain Good that don't get nuked almost immediately. Everyone else is some shade of grey. Even our hero (and we'll get to her in a minute) is pretty yikes-inducing cruel when she needs to be.

Going to say this as clearly as I can: This is not a show for people who cannot tolerate moral ambiguity. This is a show for people who love to watch clever bastards work. And pretty much nobody's more of a bastard than Noble Consort Gao.

Ladies and gentlemen, the cunt is served.

3. No, seriously, this is actually what it all looked like

If you are at all interested in this actual time period, you owe it to yourself to see this dedicated work of historical recreation.

The amount of research and detail that went into this production is honestly mind-blowing. Because this show is set in the 18th century, we actually have some pretty great documentation about the places, objects, and people involved in this story -- including some (slightly later, obviously) photographs! The production went all out in its attempts to replicate the setting, including using period-appropriate techniques to create various accessories and objects.

The outfits are amazing -- and excruciatingly accurate in several aspects. I've seen more than a couple people say that their first reaction to the costumes was, ho hum, kind of boring. Well, yeah, compared to some of the absolutely bugfuck-complicated wearable works of art from earlier periods, these are a little understated. But then you start paying attention to the million little details: the embroidery, the hair ornaments, the layers, the fabrics. A whole team of people clearly put a huge amount of work into these outfits.

Nearly every royal character in the show is a real person. You could spoil yourself for several major plot beats just by going to Wikipedia. In fact, I accidentally did this, because I was reading the show's DramaWiki page and thought, oh, that's interesting; I understand why the actor names are links (because it takes you to the actors' pages), but why are so many of the character names also links? Turns out: Wikipedia! So, uh, careful where you click.

One of the great things about the show is how utterly claustrophobic it is. Most of it takes place within the heavily guarded walls of the Forbidden Palace; on the very few occasion it goes somewhere else, you're just traveling to other walled manors and villas. There's one brief scene in a forest, and the psychological difference is enormous. You see a few trees and you're immediately like, oh, so that's why these women are going crazy in their gilded cages.

The drama even shows how some of the least glamorous parts of the Forbidden Palace work: the chamber pots, the coal for furnaces, the mopping, the weeding, the laundry, the fire brigades. It's an enormous production, keeping what is basically a 178-acre city-state running to imperial standards. It's nice to see a drama that acknowledges that while rich people may want to see only clean walkways and fresh sheets, those things don't happen by magic.

If anything, knowing about all this detailed research makes the unintentionally funniest scene in the entire show -- the one with the eunuchs playing Western instruments -- ten times funnier. You had artisans spending months doing exact recreations of historical hairpins, and you couldn't spend thirty seconds asking the internet "when were saxophones invented?" or "does an accordion make noises like a string quartet?" Perfect. No notes.

Trust me when I say you'll get used to the queue haircuts on the dudes. It helps that most of the time, they're facing the camera so they just look like they've got their heads fully shaved, and most of them have heads that look very good shaved! ...Most.

4. The kind of girl who'd make Mei Changsu say damn

The show has a strong ensemble cast, but the woman at the core of all the action is the tough-as-nails protagonist, Wei Yingluo.

The details we have on the actual Lady Wei are sparse. She doesn't really exist as a person in the historical record, to the point where we don't even know her given name (if she even had one) or when she showed up to the palace. We mostly know when she got given her titles, how many kids she gave birth to, some of what she did later in life, and when she died. The show takes these historical gaps and just runs with them, weaving into the silences a narrative that, while implausible, could have happened!

The show starts when Wei Yingluo enters the Forbidden City, not as a royal lady concubine, but as a regular little maid. She's got an agenda, though -- as mentioned earlier, her sister has died tragically, and she wants to figure out why. The stakes get higher as it becomes clear just how much people don't want this question answered, for their sakes as much as for hers.

She very quickly realizes that she can't just live a quiet life and snoop around casually. Too many people are out to get her, and if she's going to survive, she's got to fuck with them before they fuck with her. And they are wholly unprepared for the self-destructive lengths to which she will go to to fuck with them.

Wu Jinyan deserves all the accolades for turning in a great performance. She has to be completely all over the board emotionally and energy-wise for seventy whole episodes, and she brings it. She's very funny and physical when the show calls for her to be! She's willing to flail around and stuff her face and ugly-cry. Then she turns on the don't-mess-with-me stare and the temperature in the room drops ten degrees. Did she get some award for this? [checks her DramaWiki page] Okay, she got several awards for this, good. Even in a huge cast this talented, she's an absolute standout. I can't wait to see her in the Double, which is definitely on my to-watch list.

I'm not going to call Wei Yingluo a Mary Sue, because that's not accurate, but this girl does have some serious plot armor on. You never get the sense that she hasn't earned it, though. She's smart, capable, and more than a little completely fucking crazy. The show makes you believe that the reason she survives most of the shit she pulls off is that everyone is just so baffled that anyone would try it at all that they don't even know how to respond.

I thought about starting out this rec post with Wei Yingluo -- putting her above the cut, in fact, because she really is that compelling. She's back here, though, because it's with Wei Yingluo that we start to slide into my points of critique. Too often, female protagonists are here to solve the problem with their cuteness and quirkiness and extra-special perfectness that shows up all the other girls and captures the heart of whatever boy she needs to save the day. And no matter how this show starts off wanting to make her something different, it ultimately can't conceive of a female lead who isn't at her core just like that.

The writers can never decide how much Wei Yingluo's Manic Pixie Dream Girl act is an act, and how much she means it. The show introduces her as a stone-cold psychopath who is capable of feigning being a carefree brainless uwu smol bean. Later it decides, actually, she's really at her core a spunky, soft-hearted creature who likes to goof off and is just capable of switching on Scheming Bitch Mode when she needs it! And it's like, are you kidding? You just spent like forty episodes telling me that it's all a big trick when she does this, and now you're saying it's not anymore?

It's like they made a character capable of decieving men, and then got decieved by her, which you have to respect. Any fictional character can fool another fictional character; only true legends fool their creators.

sidebar: fuck that dude

The show can never fully commit to this bit, because he's supposed to be our big heroic love interest, but the emperor fucking sucks.

Hands-down the show's biggest moral is that All Emperors Are Bastards -- yes, even the ones in relationships we're supposed to find cute; yes, even the ones whose lifestyles we're supposed to envy; yes, even the ones played superbly by the devastatingly handsome Nie Yuan. While watching we repeatedly invoked this tweet:

Being a billionaire must be insane. You can buy new teeth, new skin. All your chairs cost 20,000 dollars and weigh 2,000 pounds. Your life is just a series of your own preferences. In terms of cognitive impairment it's probably like being kicked in the head by a horse every day

He is the dumbest, most easily played motherfucker in China. Getting horny makes him stupid, and he's horny all the time. He has absolute power over the lives of everyone in the empire, and you can distract him with the mere suggestion of a vagina. He has taken a full You Girls Fight It Out Amongst Yourselves stance toward his scheming harem. This will not go well for anyone.

And speaking of those wives, no matter how many times they loudly profess their undying devotion to him, I have a rough time imagining these women feel anything for the Emperor beyond exhausted contempt. Well, okay, maybe the Empress who married him before he took the throne, since she had a chance to get to know him before he was in full Emperor Mode. But none of the other women should ever stop dunking on this guy like the gullible shitbag he is. If you (like me!) are already skeptical about any given heterosexual romance in fiction, be prepared to roll your eyes through the Big True Love Story this one tries to sell you.

5. Right on the cusp of a fascinating feminist conclusion!

I may be on this one for a while; skip ahead if you like.

Okay, so: What little English-language buzz I've seen about this show has used the word "feminist" about it -- mostly in conjunction with how the show's popularity made the CCP sour on its failure to portray appropriate communist values (???). So I went into it expecting feminism! And I got a show with a whole bunch of female characters in it! And hoo boy, are those two things not necessarily the same!

This show is a great example of how merely passing the Bechdel-Wallace Test doesn't make something feminist. Sure, it's mostly about a single woman who, through her plucky nature, rises in the ranks of power. But that is feminist only by the shallowest, most girlboss, Lean-In-ass definition of the word.

At the beginning, you can kinda tell this was written, produced, and directed by men. By the time you get to the end, you can absolutely tell that the production team was dudes from top to bottom. This, to me, is the big tell: that the show cannot conceive that anything these women are doing could be interesting unless it's trying to stab another woman in the back. There is a time jump very near the end, where the few female characters still standing agree to stop being shitty to one another -- and then fast-forward a decade, because why would we care about seeing what their lives are like when they're not being shitty to one another?

The show is incredibly constrained by Actual History. At the end of the day, it's a Cinderella story, and as such, we have to cheer for the social and legal mechanisms that make it possible -- even when they're grotesquely misogynistic. The show lets its female characters pay lip service to how awful it is that women are little more than breeding stock, but it doesn't let them do anything about it. Mothers can be obliquely sad that their daughters are being fed to the same patriarchy machine that fucked them up, but talking is the most they can accomplish ... because those daughters were real people who were actually fed into the patriarchy machine. We know this. We have documentation. China is very good at keeping receipts.

Wei Yingluo starts out as a servant, and throughout the first half of the show, she moves up and down in the servant ranks -- and all the while it makes the point that being a servant fucking sucks. Maybe it's better when you get to work directly under someone you really like, but the actual job sucks shit and puts you at the mercy of everyone above you in the palace hierarchy. Your life is not your own. You're barely a person. You can easily get executed for merely working in the same household as someone who broke the rules.

The feminist answer to this dilemma is to notice that the system is bad and either a) refuse to participate in it, or b) use your power to mitigate its badness. The show, however, clearly thinks that the real problem with this whole setup is that the people we like aren't at the top of it. Somebody has to take the abuse; you just don't want that somebody to be you. Once Wei Yingluo gets to a place of real power in the palace hierarchy, she starts behaving very much like the people who used to be shitty to her and takes no steps to prevent the early-show damage she suffered from happening to other people.

Now: You can make the argument that if she'd done all those radical things, she would've been dead meat -- and I think you'd be correct! But the show never indicates that it gives a second thought to how abusive and unfair this all is. Survival in this system means exploiting the people below you. There's not a neutral option. And this show expects you to cheer for exploiting the "right" people.

The show never quite seems to internalize what the stakes are -- at least, not for more than a moment or two at a time. I made the Real Housewives joke because the show more or less treats the consort-on-consort schemes as fun catfights by mean girls wanting to be the prom queen. It almost gets to the point of realizing that a woman's place in the harem is literal life-and-death shit for her, and that if she can't produce a son and work him into a powerful position, she's fucked. It always bunts when it gets there, though, choosing to play up vanity and petty grievances instead of the absolute desperation these women must be feeling.

It gets so close with Consort Shun to a real discussion about how awful it is that the men in their lives see them as pretty objects to be bartered for favor and power with other men. But it can't fully go there, because that would undermine the structures propping up this Cinderella story, and then we couldn't feel good about the Cinderella story. And we want to feel good about the Cinderella story. We will burn every other female character in the show if we get to feel good about the Cinderella story.

I've made a lot of jokes about lesbians in this show, but the truth is, it is chronically deficient in lesbianism. Lesbian sex would have improved the lives of at least half the characters here, if not more. Unlike a lot of other historical c-drama shows, Yanxi Palace acknowledges the reality and possibility both male and female same-sex sexual desire -- but it does so in order to say that both are bad. (I legitimately cannot tell if the production is doing this to show how regrettably anti-gay the past was or to play on the audience's expected homophobic disgust. I suspect the latter, but I genuinely don't know.) While it does the fascinating thing of showing desire and coupled relationships between women and eunuchs, it has no idea how queer those setups are, nor does it acknowledge the possibility for same-sex pairings to fill that same positive dynamic.

So why on earth would I list this whole mess of problematic attitudes as a reason for, and not against, watching the show?

Because it is fascinating to think about. Look, I've burned a lot of time and brainpower here writing several paragraphs that no one is ever going to read about how interesting the show's moves are. It has the weird problem where it understands what happens when you lock a bunch of women together in a high-pressure situation keyed to a brutal hierarchy -- but it doesn't ever appear to quite get why. At least, not beyond the sense that people will claw their way to the top of any hierarchy they have access to, just because it's there. (Watch how it treats the few exceptions to this, the rare nonambitious characters. See how long they stay nonambitious.)

As I said when I labeled this point, the show is just on the edge of a smart conclusion, and that smart conclusion has to do with how awful it is that women are both the people who suffer most under heteropatriarchy and the people who work the hardest to uphold it.

Yes, the world into which these women have been thrust is awful. But they make it ten times more awful because they're all semi-voluntarily engaged in a vicious, Highlander-esque zero-sum competition. They could cut one another some slack, but they're more invested in continuing the cycle of abuse to maintain an intense, repressive order. The ones that try to be kind about it get repeatedly fucked by the ones who have no interest in kindness. They all have to engage in performative rituals that mimic sincerity without actually producing a single genuine emotion toward one another. It's horrifying and paranoia-inducing in the extreme. And they're doing most of it to themselves.

If it were really feminist, the moral of the Story of Yanxi Palace would be it does't have to be like this. This dynamic is not inevitable; this is a choice perpetuated by generations of people who benefit from it just enough not to question its correctness.

Sadly, there's still enough promise in patriarchy that being a Good Girl will save you from the shit we put the Bad Girls through -- so don't you want to be a Good Girl? All we need you to do is throw all those icky Bad Girls under the bus. It's their fault for being Bad Girls anyway. But you? You don't have to be afraid. We're not going to hurt you. You deserve all the good things we're giving you. You're not like all the other girls. You're different. You're special.

Just don't forget to watch your back.

If anything, I think the CCP is terribly wrong: This show is an excellent demonstration of communist values, in that if these women had just joined together in solidarity, all their lives would have been so much better! The Emperor should have been posting helplessly on Reddit like "My (55M) consorts (40F, 36F, 31F, 28F, 22F, 19F) have unionized" so the entire internet could come for his ass.

Care to watch?

This is another of those shows you can find in a whole bunch of places! Here's the ones I know about:

YouTube

TVBAnywhere

Viki

Tubi

iQiyi

I know seventy episodes is a commitment. I know eighteenth-century palace drama is a lot. I know that last selling point of mine seemed to go on for-fucking-ever and you probably didn't read any of it. But this show is a beautiful work that I think more people should see, warts and all. Besides, if all we ever consume is ideologically "pure" media, how do we learn to think critically about anything?

True story: My Chinese colleague, knowing I was watching this show, taught me slang for "lesbian." It's 拉拉 (lala). Very useful.

[be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie]

Avatar: The Last Airbender Live Action Thoughts!

-First of all, ya'll need to leave those child actors alone, they are babies and they didn't write the show, nor was it their idea to do it. I have seen way too many people body shaming children; leave them alone they all did well!

-I think Gordon makes Aang just as cute and small and powerful as I always saw him as!! He manages to joke around and be fun even when the storyline is a lot darker and more serious.

-I really wish Sokka was able to be more of his goofy and silly self. I understand why he isn't, and his humor is more sarcasm and dark jokes, but I saw glimpses of him in there! His excitement when he was with the Mechanist, engineering and getting to do something other than be in charge. Also when he has any older brother convo with Katara or Aang. I'm hopeful with time he'll be able to loosen up!

-(Speaking of the Mechanist, my boy Danny Pudi was SO GOOD, I love him, him and his little son).

-I wish Aang would practice waterbending with Katara :( those scenes of them practicing together were always some of my favorites in the series. Just beautiful kataang moments. I'm glad they addressed it but I missed those moments.

-I don't understand how you guys can't be having fun watching this, I get so excited waiting for little moments of lore, or when Jet and Katara were fighting in the forest I was sitting in front of the TV like "WHERE'S SMELLERBEE AND LONGSHOT. OH MY GOD NO IT'S PIPSQUEAK!" It's just so much fun! The colors are beautiful, the effects are gorgeous, and the plot and characters are entertaining. Think about the piece as it's own thing and enjoy it!

-Adaptations are just that; adaptations, and things will be changed! I think so far I haven't minded their changes, I understand why they've been made. There are things to criticize, but I think this is pretty well done.

-Zuko is fantastic; I think all the child actors are fairly good but Dallas' pissy attitude and the faces he makes are so so fun! I feel for Zuko and I'm scared of him when he shows up, and he's just as annoying and bratty as ponytail Zuko should be. His physical motions are fantastic!

-TEO WAS SO LITTLE?? Oh my god, like as a kid I thought the cartoon version of him was kinda hot so when they wheeled that tiny baby in I was HORRIFIED.

-Idk why YOU ALL weren't scared of Lizzy Yu's Azula, but her little smile in her intro scene gave me a lil chill. Maybe it's because I was away when the show first came out so I saw post after post about how bad she was, but I just.... Thought she'd be worse?? She did really well! Ya'll better be careful though or Gaten Matarazzo will come for you, that's his girl.

-So far the mushing of plots has made sense to me. Yes, I miss the silly filler episodes and the traveling the Gaang did, but it allows us to sit in a scene longer, and to colorize the world better, when we're in one place and one plot for longer. I think that's important for this type of medium and this amount of episodes. They might be able to justify more next season if this show does well enough.

-I am OBSESSED with Zuko and the 41st division oh my god, what a fantastic and well thought out addition. The reveal, and they're bowing for him when he comes back was DEVASTATING.

-They we're GIVING us Sokka and Katara best sibling moments, I loved all of them. They are so cute, they just mean so much to me.

-I don't feel Appa or Momo as characters like I did in the cartoon. I'm hoping this can change, because rn they surprise me every time they get on screen. I'm like "WHAT- oh it's Momo, he's here." How are we going to feel Appa's loss as much as we did in the cartoon if they continue to like barely be in it.

-Ken Leung SLAYED as Admiral Zhao, I watched him go literally insane as the episodes went on.

-Aang's imposter syndrome and feeling of failure being focused on I will always enjoy, even if I hope he can be silly next season too. His entire character arc this season just made me want to cry.

-Bro the coloring during the the Siege of the North was A M A Z I N G. The way the color faded in and out with fireballs and the monster koi passing nearby, just so pretty. It looked awesome.

-Making Yue a waterbender? The best. Her freezing Sokka in place so he can't stop her? Heartbreaking.

-Iroh and Zuko paddling off looking for bestie Lt. Jee?? Okay.

-They really grew this show up for us adults that watched it in 2005 and focused in on the really painful moments, themes, and details.

[flower-boi16]

vox is gonna be a major antagonist? Really the fucking Vees? Not the vengeful angel that has motivation to destroy the hotel and kill everyone and has a fucking army of powerful exterminators and Lilith/eve, but the stupid annoying tv head that motivated by beating his dumb rivals and being number 1? Along the ride he was a boring British woman who doesn’t do shit and a rapist pimp? The main cast is comprised of two of the most powerful being in hell the king and princess, an ex-exterminator who was the top best killer, and they have connections to other powerful overlords like Carmella and Rosie. I cant wait for retcons and asspulls from the writers to justify why vox is a threat and why Angel is still working for Valentino? There’s literally no reason why Angel has to work for him other than more rape fetish mv

I have no idea why Viv thought that making the Vees antagonists was a good idea. From a narrative perspective it makes a lot more sense to have Lute be the main antagonist, not Vox, the stakes are just going backwards at this point.

I really don't even know what the story season 2 is going to be...?

There could actually be a decent direction to take which is Lute deciding to overthrow Sera and take over Heaven, leading a full war onto all of hell killing everyone there and Charlie has to help dethrone Lute from the throne and help Sera and Emily reclaim Heaven...which would be a very badass idea for a finale that I would absolutely watch.

That being said, I don't think that's the direction Season 2 is gonna go in since Vox is the main antagonist here, and with Vox in as an antagonist there isn't really any room for much of a plot this season without it just meandering around until the finale.

My point is; Season 2 is most likely just not going to have a plot. It's going to be a bunch of side stories with no real narrative attatched to it, that is what my expectation is because there isn't much potiential to make Vox as the main antagonist. Mind you, I think Vox is a good character but he just doesn't feel like the natural next step the show should take.

Lute should be the main antagonist for Season 2, she works a lot better as the antagonist compared to Vox no matter how one-dimensional she is. Maybe their trying to make Season 2 as a sort of break season where there isn't much of a major conflict and is mostly focused on character driven episodes, which would be fine if that wasn't litteraly what the first season was trying to be and should have been.

This structering is just bad, the vees should have been the antagonists for Season 1, Adam for Season 2, and Lute for Season 3 and whatever other villian they have planned for Season 4 and beyond. Adam could work as a Season 1 villian but you really shoulden't follow him up with Vox as the next antagonist. While I'm fine Adam as Season 1's villian, I do agree that with the strict episode limit they have the vees would have worked better as antagonists for Season 1, and then they move onto Adam in Season 2, if Viv really wanted them to be major antagonists rather than minor recurring villians.

Hazbin's stuctering is just very questionable at many points and I really think Season 2 is just going to be meandering a lot of the time with no real plot.

I could be wrong, but we'll see.

[cina-full-moon-xanadium]

I like Gotchard!

I could pretty much end it there! I don't have a whole lot to say about the show. It's not a particularly deep series or anything; and if you were to ask me I do think there's a decent bit of missed potential, many episodes I found myself thinking of rewrites I'd do or changes here and there; more than most shows. I think also there's a couple late-game decisions that are pretty poor (mostly relegated to the second last episode), and if you asked me if there was even any Big Moment or Character like Jeanne or Vulcan for me I'd point to the literal 3 episodes of Daybreak and end it there.

I kinda just love it though. Funny that way, isn't it? It's a show whose sheer charisma I couldn't help but be drawn into. It's a show that went so hard on its use of its gimmick - the Chemies - and the main character's adoration of them that you can't help but be right there alongside him. Whether it's individual episodes devoted to cards released months prior or forms pulling in a shocking record of just never going away or every powerup being devoted to finding new ways of forging bonds with them, Gotchard just finds a way to nail the importance of that core concept and form system in a way I just haven't seen since Ghost despite it meaning 101 extra characters; and it's that dedication to that and Hotaro being The Goddamn Kamen Rider who loves them that just made me into a complete grinning fool each week.

I'm not sure I could easily convince someone to watch. This isn't in my top 10 Kamen Riders, I don't think even my top 20. It's a very silly very lowkey kind of show but one that I just wanted to keep watching each week because that silliness made me smile. I think that strength lies in being on TV each week rather than something you binge later, but... man, I don't know. It brought back that classic toku hero energy that as a diehard Showa Rider fan is right up my alley. This was a lovely little show, and I'm so happy I was convinced to watch it. Thank you Kamen Rider Gotchard

[magnusbae]

Never in my life did I watch something quite as ridiculous, pointless, without any coherent sense of direction or self as The Acolyte. Start to finish it created its own 'threats' and 'issues' to artificially stimulate a plot that never had a single point to be made. What on earth were they thinking? Nothing in this series follows its own internal logic. The character motivations are all over the place and often simply contradict themselves within the same episode. The intrigue and the foreshadowing all come to a null when the reveals literally are not in par with what was implied and just generally--- what on earth? You cannot say I did not come open minded. Watched all the episodes, given it grace and opportunity time and time again to prove itself but--- no, no it's actually just the worst tv show I've ever seen, and that's a serious claim as I watched quite a few bad ones I enjoyed more than I did this one. Don't even get me started on how fundamentally lacking they are in understanding what the Jedi are and who they are as an entity, there was no idea of the self or the values or even codes of the Jedi in this show. Something that could have been such a wonderful and intriguing show, with visuals we all were craving (Jedi Temple) it ended up being below mid-show, shot almost in its whole entirety on a planet that looks 100% like earth with zero intriguing visuals or anything to justify the monstrous budget they had to burn through. Wow, kudos on creating something so empty of meaning I am not even angry after watching it, only baffled that someone actually wrote it and someone actually thought it was good enough to film. Damn.