#like being autistic about characters with 5 minutes of screen time

[emiplayzmc]

Dude if I were able to actually commit myself to ArtFight I would be unstoppable methinks.

I was planning to next year!! Unfortunately

*art college. Frickin dies*

[cringevalue]

I keep a fanfiction spreadsheet, I have no shame, and I need to yap about my stats.

I spent approximately 42 hours and 4 minutes reading this month. That being said, I read 23 fics this month, 89 chapters, and 352,755 words.

My top fandom was Stranger Things (obviously) with 23 fics (I did not read for any other fandom this month. Shocking, I know) and my top ship was Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson with 18 fics. My top five reoccurring characters (according to how they were tagged) were Eddie Munson in 18 fics, Steve Harrington in 15 fics, Robin Buckley in 7 fics, Wayne in 4 fics, and Dustin Henderson in 4 fics as well.

The three tags I read the most were Bisexual Steve Harrington in 5 fics, Eddie Munson Lives in 5 fics, and Autistic Eddie Munson in 4 fics, and my top rating this month was Explicit with 9 fics.

The most words I read in a day was 50,072 on October 22nd and the longest fic I read was i can't tune you out by hairstevington at 113,115 words. October 22nd was also the day I spent the most time on AO3, according to my screen time, at 6 hours and 38 minutes.

All of this information (aside from time spent reading) and every fic I've read this month can be found on my spreadsheet!

Every Stranger Things fic I read on AO3 this month is linked under the cut (fics i read on tumblr can be found here!)

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

i can't tune you out by hairstevington

Teen and Up - 113.1k - Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson - No Archive Warnings Apply - Chrissy Cunningham & Eddie Munson Friendship, Platonically Married Robin Buckley and Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington Are Best Friends, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington Friendship, Eddie Munson Lives, Gay Eddie Munson, Musicians, Fame, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Publicity, Enemies to Lovers, Jealousy, Slow Burn, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Coming Out, Music, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Modern Era, Social Media, Chrissy Cunningham Lives, BAMF Chrissy Cunningham, Robin Buckley Has a Crush on Chrissy Cunningham, Angst, Angst and Romance, Angst and Humor, Fluff and Angst, Eventual Relationships, Hate to Love, Compulsory Heterosexuality, Banter, Happy Ending

Eddie Munson is an up-and-coming rock and roll artist living in LA. Steve Harrington (under the stage name HARVEST) has been taking the radio by storm lately. When the fans start shipping them together as a couple, Steve and Eddie consider it an opportunity to boost their upcoming albums. There's just one problem - they can't stand each other.

 Trust Me, This Is For Your Own Good by Raven_CL

Explicit - 3.4k - Multiple Male Characters / Nancy Wheeler - Rape / Non-Con - Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Rape, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Consensual Touching, Non-Consensual Kissing, Non-Consensual Groping, Non-Consensual Blow Jobs, Non-Consensual Oral Sex, Spitroasting, Sloppy Seconds, Cunnilingus, Multiple Orgasms, Vaginal Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Forced Orgasm, no beta we die like papa

Nancy and Steve have their little argument in the bathroom at Tina's party and he exits the party, leaving her alone. Steve really shouldn't have left her alone there.

release your inhibitions by crybaby

Explicit - 7.8k - Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson - No Archive Warnings Apply - Sugar Daddy Steve Harrington, Eddie is a Soft Findom, Bottom Steve Harrington, Top Eddie Munson, Daddy Kink, Mommy Kink, best of both worlds, Feminization, Breeding Kink, Belly Bulge, Dom/sub, porn without plot but with some sappiness

“Who would ever guess? Ruthless little Steve Harrington just wants to be fucked and no one will ever know. Everyone thinks you’re my Daddy,” Eddie pauses to let out a breathy laugh, licking across his teeth as Steve’s brows pull together, “No one knows the truth, do they baby?” Steve shakes his head. Eyes wide, mouth wet. “No one knows you’re my perfect little baby. My fuck toy," he digs his nails into Steve's hip for emphasis. "My Mommy.”

Private Lessons by QueenOfSwords1312

Explicit - 2.2k - Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson - No Archive Warnings Apply - Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - College/University, Professor Steve Harrington, Grad Student Eddie Munson, Eddie Munson Has a Crush on Steve Harrington, Teacher-Student Relationship, Pre-Relationship, Sort Of, way too much information about Renaissance literature tbh, Flirting, flirting via Google Docs, Age Difference, Dirty Talk, Praise Kink, Eddie Munson Has a Praise Kink, Steve is kind of a perv, but Eddie is DEFINITELY into it, Masturbation, Kinktober

Grad school wasn’t exactly in Eddie’s grand life design, but he’s not really complaining. Especially not when his Renaissance literature professor is the hottest person he’s ever seen. Or: English Grad student Eddie has an insane crush on his professor, and when Professor Harrington offers his star pupil private lessons in order to give him more than the usual lecture accounts for, Eddie jumps at the chance.

the last of the real ones by braveromantic

Teen and Up - 1k - Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson - Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply - Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Autistic Eddie Munson, Pre-Slash, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Guilt, Survivor Guilt, Grief/Mourning, Suicidal Thoughts, Eddie Munson is a Sweetheart, Steve Harrington Loves Eddie Munson, Dissociation, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Steve Harrington Calls Eddie Munson Pet Names, Exposition, Character Study, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, Ambiguous/Open Ending, POV Alternating, Period-Typical Homophobia

He’s here for answers, not to comfort someone who’s wanted for the murder of a teenage girl. But seeing him like this, quiet and small and hurt, nothing like the boy Eddie’s been since he was put into Steve’s 7th grade class, well, it’s startling. It makes Steve want to believe Dustin’s insistence that he’s innocent. It makes Steve want to take Eddie’s hands in his and tell him that things are fine, and he’s safe, and nothing is ever going to hurt either of them ever again. a rewrite of the shed scene. eddie is pretty sure his trailer is cursed. steve is pretty sure the thing curled into itself is /not/ eddie munson.

Close To You by illbreakurkneecaps_uwu

Mature - 1.4k - Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson - No Archive Warnings Apply - Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eddie Munson Lives, Trans Eddie Munson, Trans Male Eddie Munson, Autistic Eddie Munson, POV Eddie Munson, Established Relationship, miscommunication tag I guess, Angst, Grinding, consensual somnophilia just in case idk, Additional Warnings in Author’s Note, Eddie Munson Needs a Hug, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, Not Beta Read, so self indulgent im sorry

He stops moving, stops breathing. Eddie opens his eyes and looks into the dark of the room, unfocused. His hand on Steve’s chest suddenly feels clammy. His head is swirling with so many thoughts, with things to say and ways to fight back.

i like the way this feels by starsdontsleep

Mature - 12.3k - Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson - No Archive Warnings Apply - Gay Eddie Munson, Eddie Munson Lives, Touch-Starved Steve Harrington, Oblivious Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson Has a Crush on Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson Loves Steve Harrington, Affection, Platonic Cuddling, Falling In Love, Fluff, Eddie Munson is a Sweetheart, Eddie Munson Calls Steve Harrington "Sweetheart", Good Friend Eddie Munson, Pining Eddie Munson, Idiots in Love, Good Friend Robin Buckley, Eddie Munson is Steve Harrington's Bisexual Awakening, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington Has a Crush on Eddie Munson, Developing Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Mild Sexual Content, Cuddling & Snuggling, Sharing a Bed, Happy Ending, Fluffy Ending

Steve doesn't realise he's touch-starved until he starts spending time around Eddie Munson. The other boy touches him all the time, leaving Steve craving that kind of constant affection. Only, when Steve decides to instigate his own touches back, things between them begin to shift in an unexpected direction, one that might make Steve realise some other things about himself.

lean on me by bdelaney

Explicit - 2.4k - Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson - No Archive Warnings Apply - Autistic Eddie Munson, Established Relationship, Steve Harrington is a Sweetheart, Bondage, Rope Bondage, Gags, Blindfolds, Sensory Deprivation, Hand Jobs, Subspace, Dom/sub Undertones, Aftercare, Nonverbal Eddie Munson, for a little bit at least, Porn with Feelings

“You still feeling on edge?” Steve asks softly, and Eddie nods against his chest. “Do you want me to hold you?” He taps once, firmly, between Eddie’s shoulder blades, “Or do you want me to help you another way?” This time, he taps twice in the same place, and Eddie takes a moment to mull his options before tapping twice against Steve’s ribs. Steve nods, his chin rustling through Eddie’s head. “In a sex way?” Again, one tap. “Or a non-sex way?” Two taps. Eddie’s heart stutters in his chest, something other than panic budding in his brain as he realizes what Steve is suggesting. He quickly taps once against his ribs, and he can feel Steve’s smile on the top of his head. ~~ Kinktober Day 14: Sensory Deprivation

The Ole Harrington Charm by ApomaroMellow

Teen and Up - 1.5k - Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson - No Archive Warnings Apply - Eddie Munson as Kas the Betrayer (Dungeons & Dragons), Revenge, Seduction, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Canon, Murder

Eddie comes back with a vengeful bloodlust and the others have already given up on him. But Steve knows you'll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

meet the parents by Ayes

Explicit - 7.9k - Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson - No Archive Warnings Apply - Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, TW: Eddie Munson’s Dead Mom, TW: Steve Harrington Has Shitty Parents, BDSM dynamics, Daddy Dom Eddie Munson, Sweetheart Steve Harrington, Daddy Kink, Lifestyle Dynamic, Dumbification, thigh riding, Pain Kink, painal, Dirty Talk, Humiliation, Also A Soupçon Of Mommy Kink, Blink and you’ll miss it, Basically I Ran Out Of Time To Do Two Separate Parents’ Days And Here We Are, Eddie Is Not A Mean Dom But Sometimes Daddies Punish Babies, Feminization, Crossdressing, Knee Socks, Sex in a Classroom, Reclaiming High School Fantasies, ATM, Oral Sex, Anal Sex, almost getting caught, Deep Throating, Spanking, Talk Of Real Dads During Sex Oops, Is There A Tag For Pushing Cum Out Of Your Ass, Schoolgirl Steve Harrington, Ahaego, drool, Butt Plugs, Dirty photos, the babygirlification of steve harrington, I Plead Guilty To Objectifying Fetishizing And Sexualizing Him Your Honor, Somehow All These Tags In 8k, Dacryphilia, So Much Daddy Kink This Is Your Last Warning

a Mother's Day in which the boys exchange I love yous, and a Father's Day in which the boys exchange fluids. a continuation of the daddy talk series

too good to be true by Ayes

Explicit - 45.3k - Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson - No Archive Warnings Apply - Steve Harrington - Freeform, Eddie Munson - Freeform, Getting Together, Fake Dating, Kind Of, rom com plot, Fluff, Flirting, Gay Eddie Munson, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Soft Dom Eddie Munson, Bottom Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington’s Bi Awakening, AU - No Upside Down, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, switching POVs, 10 Things I Hate About You meets Mean Girls meets Do Revenge, Bruce Springsteen as a love language, Fall Vibes, Benny from Season 1 lives and he's an elder gay bear, Steve x blushing

When Eddie sees Steve in a gay bar, he decides to seduce him and break his heart as revenge for what an asshole Steve was in high school. Steve, who was only at the bar to support Robin, is taken aback by the attention but finds himself under Eddie’s spell. And Eddie, to his growing unease, discovers that Steve Harrington is actually everything he’s ever wanted.

No Suprises by orphan_account

General Audiences - 2.9k - Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington & Eddie Munson - Major Character Death - Eddie Munson Lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hurt Eddie Munson, Protective Steve Harrington, Temporary Character Death, Suicide Attempt, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Self-Harm, Overdosing, Eddie Munson in the Upside Down, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Title from a Radiohead Song, Involuntary Age Regression, Age Regression Little Eddie Munson, Age Regression Caregiver Steve Harrington, Age Regression/De-Aging, Pre-Relationship, Steve Harrington Has OCD, Autistic Eddie Munson

Eddie Munson survives and comes home.

You Shook Me All Night Long by mrsmunsonbarnes (Katnerys)

Mature - 85.7k - Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson - Underage, Rape / Non-Con - Omega Verse, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Eddie Munson, Alpha Steve Harrington, Alpha Wayne Munson, Omega Nancy Wheeler, Teen Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Rape/Non-con Elements, Slut Shaming, Pregnant Eddie Munson, Slow Burn, Friends to Lovers, Eventual Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington Has a Crush on Eddie Munson, steve means well but is a bit clueless, category 5 simping event, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Starts with Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Alternate Universe - No Upside Down (Stranger Things), Eventual Jancy, Minor Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Steve Harrington Has Bad Parents, Smut, Kidnapping, Attempted Sexual Assault

Eddie’s life in Hawkins was rough enough before he went and got pregnant in high school. Now he’s even more of a freak, which makes it really strange that King Steve Harrington has seemingly taken an interest in him.

puppy love by bdelaney

Explicit - 2.3k - Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson - No Archive Warnings Apply - Established Relationship, Puppy Play, Dom Eddie Munson, Sub Steve Harrington, Collars, Praise Kink, Subspace, Feminization, Porn with Feelings, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, Cock Warming, overuse of the phrase good girl, Aftercare, Dirty Talk

“I picked up a present for you.” Steve blinks at him, confused. “What did you get me from the pet store?” Eddie’s gaze darkens, his smirk knowing, and Steve instantly flushes. He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth, glowing when he notices Eddie’s eyes tracking the movement. “You want to see what I got you?” Eddie asks softly, forcing Steve to keep his gaze. When Steve nods, he thumbs Steve’s lip free from his teeth, kissing him deeply before pulling back to whisper against his lips, “Go get ready for me, pup.” ~~ Kinktober Day 17: Pet Play

Brown-Eyed Girl by Chubbypeachhh

General Audiences - 10.8k - No Archive Warnings Apply - Kid Fic, Single Parent Eddie Munson, Good Uncle Wayne Munson, Babies, Domestic Fluff, Past Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Original Character(s), my girl zoe as a teeny-tiny i'm cryin

Everything catches up to him. He’s a dad. He has a very small baby girl in the other room who’s depending on him to survive, and he has to work two jobs to pay rent or else he can’t swing it. Babies are notoriously expensive as hell. No one in his life besides Wayne has any clue that any of this is happening. OR: Eddie's first few months of being a dad!

sweet as pumpkin pie by mseg_21

Teen and Up - 3.1k - Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson - No Archive Warnings Apply - Post-Stranger Things 4 Vol. 2, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, POV Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington Has a Crush on Eddie Munson, Flirting, Fluff, Baking, Eddie Munson Knows How to Bake, Steve has Feelings about it, Getting Together, First Kiss, Steve Harrington & Dustin Henderson Friendship, Dustin Henderson & Eddie Munson Friendship, Steddie Spooktober 2024 (Stranger Things)

Dustin groans, scrubbing his hands down his face. “But Steve, I need a pie!” “Sorry, kid, you’re gonna have to ask someone else. Maybe Mrs. Wheeler or–” “I can do it.” Both of their heads snap towards the living room entrance where Eddie stands, rubbing his eyes sleepily. Christ, he’s cute, Steve thinks, and immediately feels his cheeks heat up. He hopes Eddie is still too groggy from sleep to notice. “Do what, Eds?” “Make Henderson a pie,” Eddie says, waving his hand at the kid. Dustin blinks at him with wide eyes. “You know how to bake a pie?”  or Dustin needs a pie, Eddie bakes him one, Steve has Feelings

Let Me Be Your Porch Light, Baby by AidaRonan

Explicit - 2.3k - Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson - No Archive Warnings Apply - Mothman is Real, Mothman!Steve, Rock Star Eddie Munson, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Monsterfucker Eddie Munson, Eddie Munson Has ADHD, Rimming, Anal Sex, monsterfucking but the monster has a tragic backstory, porn with a side of light angst, Dirty Talk, Eddie Munson Smokes Marijuana

Eddie makes an innocent comment about the unnecessarily fine ass of the Mothman statue. It would be a shame if anything heard him. It would be a double shame if anything followed him back to his hotel to see if he meant what he said.

Stuck Between My Anger and the Blame I Cannot Face by BonitaBreezy

Teen and Up - 19k - Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson - Graphic Depictions Of Violence - Angst, Amputation, Amputee Eddie Munson, can't believe that's already a tag who knew, Post-Season/Series 04, Eddie Munson Lives, Vomiting, not described in detail and only mentioned a couple of times at the beginning, Blood and Gore, also just a bit right at the beginning

He looked down at Eddie’s empty eyes and shuddered hard for a moment, and then straightened up. He’d taken first aid training. He was a damn lifeguard. He knew what to do in these situations, he knew how to react instead of staring uselessly. He took a deep breath and steeled his nerves, and then pressed his fingers against Eddie’s throat, feeling around through slick, hot blood until he found it; a pulse, slow but there. “He’s still alive,” Steve said. ----- Steve pulls on his first aid knowledge to stabilize Eddie long enough to save his life. But field medicine comes with risks, and sometimes to save a life there must be sacrifices.

the passion and all the pain are one by lalunasol

Mature - 6.6k - Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson - Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings - Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - No Upside Down (Stranger Things), Vampire Eddie Munson, Blood Drinking, Blood Kink, Dubious Consent, Regarding the Blood Drinking, Mind Control, It's the 90s now, Blood Sharing, Praise Kink

Steve is working at a bar on Halloween when he stumbles upon a group of metalhead vampires feeding. Their leader, Eddie, takes an interest in Steve.

pulling on habit lines by rogersharringtons

Explicit - 2.1k - Steve Harrington / Eddie Munson - No Archive Warnings Apply - Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - College/University, Roommates, Friends With Benefits, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Gay Eddie Munson, Top Steve Harrington, Bottom Eddie Munson, Virgin Eddie Munson, Possessive Behavior, Jealousy, Recreational Drug Use, Alcohol, Lack of Communication, 5+1 Things, buckingham in the background because i couldn't not write them into this, No beta we die like Barb, Frat Boy Steve Harrington

“Wanna head back home?” Eddie seemingly purrs over the music into Steve’s ear, his fingers inching up under the fabric of his sleeve to pet at freckled skin. It could be wholly innocent, the way Eddie’s leaning into him. If anyone was to glance over, it would look like a roommate who was maybe drunk bracing himself on the other man for support. But the words cut through to Steve’s core, fill his veins with ice only to be melted away by the fire of what the night promises. “Don’t-” Steve starts, turning to glare at him. “You can’t just say that, dude. There’s people everywhere.” or; Five times Steve Harrington doesn't know what he wants, and the one time that he does.

[holocene-sims]

character asks tag

thank you @changingplumbob & @feroshgirlsims for tagging me!!

this went around a hot minute ago, so i do not remember who has or has not done this, so feel free to ignore if you aren't interested or already did it, but i'll tag: @igglemouse @queeniecook @dandylion240 @nectar-cellar @vercosims & anyone who wants to!

✨ which OC is the first at a movie theater opening night for a movie they've been excited for?

henry! he spends a large chunk of his weekly screen time on letterboxd and running his movie review blog, so i think it's safe to call him a movie buff. and honestly, i think he'd be seated front row on opening night for any movie, not just the ones he's excited for. he has a stake in seeing terrible movies, too, if only because the internet loves a spicy review, right?

also, this means that soobin counts here, too. she'd prefer to go see rom-coms exclusively, but if henry is willing to watch reality TV with her, she is willing to go watch what he wants in theaters.

✨ which OC is the pickiest?

i think it depends on the type of picky!

aside from the very obvious answer (grant's parents)...

shannon is the queen of picky eating. she's famously physically repulsed by coffee, and she's the kind of person who orders the exact same meal every time at a restaurant, no deviations. also, she does not do spice, like, at all. mild salsa is the upper range of her tolerance.

in terms of perfectionist pickiness, i think i'd have to give this to henry. especially when it comes to his art hobbies or his job, he's straight up compulsive about getting everything exactly right. he'll retake a photo a billion times just to fix one minor light imperfection in the corner.

✨ which OC is the most stubborn?

aoife, followed by grant. i mean, it is kind of the defining trait of the family, but these two get it honest. for better or for worse, they don't give up on anything. god forbid if they do, that means they've really reached the end of their rope.

colm should be thrown in this category as well. he's...i mean, he's just colm. he's quite the guy, and i think stubborn on purpose. aoife and grant don't necessarily mean to be stubborn, they just are by nature/upbringing, but colm does it because it's funny or out of spite.

✨ which OC looks like a pushover, but could actually kick someone's butt?

this is also an aoife thing! she looks harmless (hello, she is tiny), and generally, she is harmless, but if you give her a reason to be pissed off, i think she would be your worst nightmare. she wouldn't even need a weapon, but a wooden spoon is in her implement. anyway, #farmgirltough

✨ which OC is most likely to excitedly talk about hobbies?

i'm going to be so for real, all of them except grant's parents 🤭 it might just be me, the author, just being autistic lmao but i can't really envision anyone not wanting to do that, so i let my characters do it all the time tbh.

but it does exist on a spectrum. on one end, you have someone like grant, who will only do it with people who like the same stuff as him or explicitly ask him to talk about his hobbies. on the other end, you have shannon and colm, who will talk anyone's damn ear off 24/7 about something that interested them for 5 seconds the other night at 3AM. and then you have characters like henry, who does talk about his hobbies often, but mostly online. etc., etc., etc.

[faafi]

Can you rank your favorite Loonatics from your least favorite Loonatics? Mine is like this:

1. Rev Runner(There's nothing sweeter than him)

2. Tech E Coyote (Too cool and shy for me)

3. Danger Duck (A little rude but funny)

4. Slam Tasmanian(No one mentions this furball. It's sad😭)

5.Lexi Bunny(She's cool, but I don't like her that much.)

6.Ace Bunny(I hate him. He's steals others' screen time, mostly)

By the way who is your favorite villian in Loonatics?

If you will answer it I will thank you😊.

Yes I can!

(this is a LONG post, so be warned lol)

IN MY OPINION, here is my ranking of the Loonatics:

1 — Rev Runner

Rev being first is for obvious reasons. He's SUCH a kind and generous person!!!!!!!!! How can you NOT like him!!!!!!

I will say that Rob Paulsen did an AMAZING job at voicing Rev. I don't think that I would have connected so strongly with Rev without Rob Paulsen's wonderful voice acting.

Moreover, everyone's voice acting is remarkable!

My ONLY complaint about Rev was that we didn't get enough of him. I still wish that we saw more of Rev on screen. Rev was mistreated SO MUCH in terms of screen time. It's so unfair. I swear, in some episodes, Rev is barely on screen for more than 2 minutes. :(

REV MY BELOVED

I don't have much else to say about Rev at the moment.

Who knows? Maybe I'll make an appreciation post all about Rev.

Maybe one day...

2 — Tech E. Coyote

Tech is definitely one of the most popular Loonatics, and it isn't only because of his appearance (although his appearance does contribute a lot). Tech is that perfect blend of nerdy and cool for my enjoyment.

I especially enjoy the fan interpretations of Tech. The fanfics that I've read show Tech's softer side a lot more. I wish that we saw more of Tech's emotional side in the show.

Tech isn't shown to be too emotional, at least on screen.

I do recall that Tech has some emotional attachment to his technology, most notably in Weathering Heights and The Menace of Mastermind.

However, other than these moments, Tech tends to be the most emotionally distant member of the entire team.

I wish that we saw more of Tech's emotional side in canon. I am very glad that Tech and Rev are more vulnerable with each other in the fanfiction. It's incredibly refreshing to see. I especially like the headcanon that Tech is autistic. It adds a lot to Tech's characterization where it shows Tech's meeker side. Besides, I already self-project onto Tech and Rev a ton. So I declare that Tech is autistic!!! LOL. :3

I will admit that Tech was often used as a plot device by the writers. Typically, I would be fine with powerful characters.

However, there are some moments where Tech is excessively powerful, and none of it is acknowledged in the episode.

For instance, in Sypher, Tech just recreates everybody's individual powers with suits.

What?

Honestly, I think that this idea could have worked if Tech only built one suit (*cough* REV *cough*). However, having Tech construct suits for all 6 members of the team seems very unlikely, even for his intellect.

In the same episode, the fight scene lasts a fourth of the episode.

During the fight scene, the Loonatics only defeat Sypher because Duck throws one egg.

WHAT?

I don't think that Tech making suits that recreates everybody's powers was necessary in this episode. Maybe I'm just overthinking this part of the episode. I just think that Sypher could have ended in a better way.

Tech is incredibly overpowered in other episodes of Loonatics Unleashed, too.

This can be seen in the first episode: Loonatics on Ice. Here, Tech is able to command a set of flying motorbikes from a remote AND make a flying boat.

WHAT??

In the same episode, Tech's lasers fail to melt the iceberg AND the jetpacks malfunction.

WHAT???

And none of this is acknowledged whatsoever.

WHAT?????

I think that at certain points of the show, Tech's power could have been better implemented. Thankfully, Tech's abilities are more balanced in other episodes.

(I apologize for bringing up the first episode so often in these asks. Loonatics on Ice is one of the weakest episodes of season 1, and it's a shame that this show began so poorly. If the first episode of Loonatics Unleashed was stronger, then I think that the public perception of this show would be way more positive. Honestly, I am tempted to write my own version of the first episode, but this isn't a priority of mine.)

With all of this said, I think that Tech's positive traits outweigh his negative ones.

As an aside, Tech IS Rev's boyfriend (and this fandom's collective boyfriend lol).

EVERYONE knows it...except for Tech and Rev!

Hahaha.

I know that I am ranking my favorites between individual characters, but I think that Rev brings out the best traits of Tech.

I think that these two complement each other's positive traits so well that it is a wonder to witness (both in canon and in fanfics).

Also, I just got confirmation from EVERYONE who worked on Loonatics Unleashed that Tech and Rev began dating after season 2 and are married and are madly in love!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(THIS IS A JOKE; I AM JUST FEEDING MY TECHREV DELUSIONS; THE CLOSET IS MADE OUT OF GLASS; REV AND TECH ARE IN LOVE; NO ONE CAN CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE)

As a final point, just look at him. Cuteness overload. 2nd fav.

Enough said.

3 — Danger Duck

Danger Duck is a very interesting character to discuss.

I LOVE his power. It's quirky and it fits him perfectly.

His voice fits him perfectly, too. Jason Marsden was the perfect fit for Danger Duck. His voice accentuates Duck's personality so well.

Duck was present in a lot of episodes. And if he wasn't the focus of certain episodes, he at least had something to say. For wanting Rev to shut up so often, Duck was one of the team members who talked the most.

I think that Duck was one of the funniest characters on the show. In nearly every episode, Duck makes most of the jokes.

However, this comes at a fault.

At times, I think that Duck's positive character traits were weakened in favor of prioritizing comedy. And I think that that is a shame.

In my mind, I think that Duck doesn't want to intentionally hurt others. And so I don't like it when Duck makes comments that intentionally put others in physical danger.

For instance, I think that the weakest episode that features Duck is It Came From Outer Space.

Yes, I know that I've said that this is one of my favorite episodes of the show, but I can still critique things that I like.

In the scene above, Duck says a few lines to Ace about the "positives" of letting Melvin abduct Lexi. Later on, Duck makes comments about abandoning Lexi and dividing up her stuff. These parts are the worst parts of the whole episode, for these scenes weaken the previous interactions between Lexi and Duck.

I mean, Lexi and Duck go to New Chinatown together in the fifth episode of season 1!

Lexi and Duck care for each other.

Or at least, it is out of character for Duck to want Lexi to give herself up to Melvin without a second thought.

I think that it is fine to characterize Duck as callous sometimes.

I think that it's also fine for Duck to not be very smart either.

However, that doesn't mean that Duck wants to endanger others.

I keep ragging on Duck in It Comes From Outer Space because there are much better Duck-related episodes.

For instance, I love Cape Duck. This episode shows the more callous side of Duck's personality while still staying consistent with his earlier portrayals. Here, Duck does a press conference after claiming to have caught the Stomper.

I think that this scene works so well for two reasons:

First, Duck is clearly playing up his accomplishments. After all, he accepted the credit for capturing the Stomper, and so, he is using this opportunity to boost his social credit. Duck isn't maliciously targeting or endangering the other Loonatics here.

Second, the entire team can react to Duck's comments. In the scene right after the press conference, the entire team confronts Duck about what he says.

I want to analyze this entire portion of the episode since I have more to say about it; this section is already becoming lengthy...

My point is that Duck's portrayal in Cape Duck is much better than in episodes like It Comes From Outer Space. When Duck is written well, he is one of the most charming characters. However, when he isn't, he becomes one of the more grating characters to watch.

I really enjoy Duck's interactions with the others. I like the banter between Duck and Ace. They seem to have the strongest relationship besides Tech and Rev, and they genuinely seem to care for each other.

I don't know where else to put this, but here it goes:

Personally, I headcanon Duck as having NPD (narcissistic personality disorder). I think that his backstory as an orphan contributed to an unstable childhood environment. And I think that Duck didn't receive proper emotional support as a child.

I definitely don't think that the writers intended Duck to have NPD. Danger Duck is similar to Daffy Duck in this sense. I also headcanon Daffy Duck as having narcissistic personality disorder (especially in The Looney Tunes Show). It is heavily implied that Daffy Duck has some form of childhood trauma (Daffy doesn't remember anything about his childhood before the age of 15, his only clear childhood memories involve him and his grandmother). And it is quite easy to see how Daffy would have NPD (most notably in "To Bowl or Not To Bowl").

With that said, I would definitely like it if fanfic authors explored Duck's character more. Oftentimes, Duck is relegated to a comic relief in the fics that I've read. I would really enjoy it if more authors explored the possibility of Duck's NPD. And even if Duck isn't characterized with NPD in particular, I would still like to read more experimentation featuring this mallard.

As a final point...

LOOK AT HIM!!!

SILLINESS OVERLOAD

4 — Lexi Bunny

I enjoy Lexi.

Honestly, when looking for screenshots of each individual character, I found it difficult to find a shot where Lexi was the only character in frame. I think that this says a lot about her character.

Lexi works very well in the presence of other characters. In most shots, Lexi is standing besides someone else. She tends to ask a lot of questions, and Ace or Tech tends to answer them.

I think that there are a few faults in her character. Most of these faults relate to Lexi being too archetypal. After all, Lexi was the only woman on a superhero team in a 2000's cartoon. There were a few moments where the writers relied too much on this archetype.

Typically, Lexi is the only character who makes comments about beauty.

I also noticed that Lexi was crushing on this one mountain climber in The Hunter.

Thankfully, Lexi's crushes/love interests didn't become a pattern or a running gag (thank goodness).

Lexi's character could have been WAY worse, so I am glad that her character managed to stay enjoyable in retrospective.

As a final point, I really like it when Lexi and Duck work together. I have noticed that Duck and Lexi are paired up a lot, and they are really fun together. I even like their smaller interactions.

For example, in Going Underground, Duck says "You tell him, sister."

(shown below)

I think that this scene is SO cute.

I wish that the canon explored more of Duck's encouraging side, especially towards Lexi. It would have been interesting to see.

Overall, I enjoyed Lexi's interactions, particularly with Duck as her foil. She's fun to watch.

5 — Ace Bunny

I am not an avid Ace fan. Generally, I enjoy his character, but at times, his screen time eats up the screen time of the others (most notably from Rev and Slam).

I do like the fact that Ace is competent at his role as leader.

At times, I really enjoyed Ace's implementation in certain episodes. Honestly, season 2 uses Ace a lot better compared to season 1. For instance in Cape Duck, Ace is the person who discovers that there were "two" Stompers (the actual Stomper and his mother disguised as the Stomper). To me, this reveal was really well done in this episode, and it shows Ace's strong perception skills.

I wish that we saw more of this part of Ace's character in the first season. Of the entire team, Ace improved the most from season 1 to season 2.

However, other than this part of his character, Ace isn't a particularly favorite character of mine.

I especially don't like how Ace treats Rev. It's really inconsistent. Sometimes, Ace is happy around Rev. For instance, at the beginning of Sypher, only he and Rev went to the game.

However, at other times, he is incredibly condescending to Rev.

I wish that Ace and Rev's relationship was more consistent. It would have been really cool to see their friendship more in season 2.

As a final note, I still am mad at Ace in the episode The Heir Up There.

HOW COULD YOU, ACE???

Lexi and Slam would NEVER.

6 — Slam Tasmanian

Slam was treated poorly in terms of writing.

The only real thing that stands out for his character is that he is strong and was a wrestler before the meteor crashed. Oh, and that he eats a lot. That's his only joke.

That's really all that the canon shows of him. This is a shame.

I like how the fandom has taken to Slam's potential softer qualities.

In canon, I don't have a particular fondness to Slam. I think he's cool.

I just wished that he had more defined relationships with the rest of the team. This is especially a shame when Rev is not on screen, even in episodes that I like!

For instance, in Cape Duck (shown below), Rev is barely on screen; meanwhile, Slam just stands on screen and does nothing.

Why is Slam on screen if he is not going to talk???

In general, Slam only really talks when he is prompted by Ace.

His character deserves more justice.

Also, my favorite villain is...

Ralph Runner!!!!!

(Okay, I am half-joking here. Although I don't think that Ralph Runner is truly a villain, I do think that The Family Business is such a compelling episode because of Ralph Runner's character. After all, the audience only sees a portion of Rev's home life.)

My favorite traditional villain is either Melvin the Martian or Mastermind. I've already explained in further depth in another ask. The short answer is that both villains required the team to work together instead of solely relying on Tech's weaponry or the Loonatics' powers. Also, their designs are cool.

Thanks for the question(s)!

[millilps]

I LOVE JODIE TOO AND I LOVE SPYFALL BUT THERE'S A SECRET THIRD THING I LOVE EVEN MORE ABOUT ALL THIS

the level of "lmao fuck gender norms" that the suit has

I'm non-binary, ace and probably in the aro spec because sure why not(/sarc) and let me tell you. LET ME TELL YOU. I HATE LOOKING FEMININE BUT JODIE IN A SUIT WAS AN INCREDIBLE AMOUNT OF GENDER ENVY (the last time I had gender envy was for Jenna Coleman in a suit but it doesn't count cause that was gay panic and gender envy condensed in 5 minutes of staring at my screen) (I should also add that I have no idea how a gay panic feels like but those 5 minutes definitely were a panic)

and yet, it's also gender euphoria. Jodie in a suit is gender euphoria. the 13th Doctor is gender euphoria. 13's silly little outfits are gender euphoria.

we could've had a female presenting Doctor who was like Missy - dressing with more feminine clothes and highlighting the change, because Missy was having the time of her life - but we didn't. the Doctor still was this silly alien whose gender was not installed and when asked about it an error window pops up. "I never did this when I was a man" is even funnier when you think about 10 saying "it's ok, just us girls" because no, the Doctor never gave a single fuck about gender and they're not going to start just because the way they look and dress doesn't align with your idea of how someone should be.

and the best part? Jodie liked how free from gender norms she was too! in an interview (that I can't find anymore, because why should I remember what i searched to find that interview) she said something along the lines of feeling really good with the character of the Doctor because she's not a regular human who feels like they should follow a specific idea of how they should be and that gives her more freedom to just... be a silly alien, no man, no woman, no gender, no social pressure, only fun and funky outfits with the same amount of colours as the sixth Doctor's coat (I actually never counted. might count and report back about the numbers later.) and I think that's amazing, and the behind the scenes pictures definitely show how much fun she had on the DW set.

(slightly unrelated note about Doctor Who and gender: watch Classic Who. in an episode a companion accidentally becomes a goddess by wearing a bracelet that belonged to a priest, and when questioned how they thought she was a goddess if the priest was a man, she answered that the important thing was the bracelet and not how she looked. Barbara is honestly an absolutely slay most of the time)

but wait! there's and even more secret fourth thing that I love about 13 and her era!

SHE WAS EXPLICITLY WRITTEN WITH AUTISTIC TRAITS

and I absolutely love this, not only because imo it was actually well written, but also because she acts literally like all the other Doctors did. Chibnall accidentally(?) made canon one of the most common theory in the fandom - the Doctor being neurodivergent. (there's a 32 minutes compilation about 10 on YouTube, if anyone has time)

so yeah I really love Jodie and 13 I need to talk more about all of this

I am so normal about Jodie Whittaker holy shit

(appreciation post cause I'm too gay to not yell about this on social media)

Okay so- no spoilers but I just finished her season 12 finale of doctor who and this just is cementing how much I love her???

I almost like her more than 10th doctor- David holds a special place in my heart but I need to re watch his seasons because omfg I love 13 so much

Genuinely I am unwell because have you seen her??? In general she's really fucking pretty but then also in the spyfall 2 part episodes they put her in a suit???

I say this as an ace person but I'm starting to understand what y'all see in celebrities ngl-

Also this post so far isn't even mentioning just how good she is at acting- idk if I'm just gay and bias but Imo she's one of the best doctors acting wise they've had

Look at her??? I love her so much??

Anyways I'm off to watch broadchurch because David and Jodie?? Excuse me????

Right okay so please just- anything anyone has to say about her please respond to this because I am unwell and I need to find my people-

Nkhnvkbmk anyways last 13 gif before I go :]]

[undine-taz]

5 times Diavolo failed to be a sugar daddy and one time he succeeded

I'm just imagining poor Diavolo trying SO HARD to spoil an MC who is just. Not greedy in the slightest and loves weird little shinies while being totally indifferent to the super crazy expensive gifts he usually gives to people he's trying to woo. Just in case, this is the PUREST OF FLUFF and completely sfw. I can’t even think of any tw to tag??? Let me know if you notice something. Oh, and MC is imagined to be gender neutral. There’s a mention of perfume, but not in the feminine sense- that’s just the proper word for a certain level of scent concentration.

1. Expensive Perfume

Diavolo's first attempt is the most expensive perfume/cologne money can buy

He's not quite sure what MC's favorite scent is, so he buys a wide variety

All the bottles are sleek and minimalistic and the scents inside are VERY obviously expensive, the kind of thing Mammon would probably lose his mind over

MC's reaction is perfectly grateful, they say sincerely how much they appreciate him thinking of them. He doesn't feel a single lie off of them and he walks away mostly satisfied thinking maybe they’re just the type to not show a ton of excitement over gifts

That is, until he's walking down the hallways in RAD and happens to overhear a conversation between Asmo and MC

Asmo's talking about how he's been going through perfume at a record pace lately, and he feel so bad about wasting these beautiful bottles... would MC like them? He has one shaped like a rose, one like a star, one modeled after the cosmos... 

Asmo doesn't even get to finish because MC is already flapping their hands in joy (I'm autistic and MC is going to happy stim if it kills me) and wiggling and practically jumping into Asmo's arms in excitement

Asmo's laughing and promising to save all of his prettiest empty perfume bottles for MC from now on and MC is practically wiggling in joy and nuzzling their face into Asmo's chest in happiness

They’re talking about spending the night in Asmo’s room trying to make perfume blends for each other to fill up the bottles and tossing scent ideas back and forth

And Diavolo is sitting there feeling a bit like he's been bonked over the head. Those happy stims are ADORABLE and he wants to be the one who causes them. He's not sure why his perfume failed and Asmo's literal empty bottles worked but he's DETERMINED to try again

2. Fancy gemstones

Diavolo's next attempt is fancy gemstones. He finds large, beautifully cut and processed gemstones, the type that are so perfectly processed they look almost identical except for color

Again, when he gives MC his gifts he can tell that they're sincerely grateful! They tell him they love that he was thinking of them, they worry that he spent too much money on them ( they try to refuse at first because it's too much, but Diavolo breezes past their protests with a smile and an iron will) and Diavolo doesn't sense even the tiniest hint of untruth from their professions of gratitude

But.... there are no happy wiggles, no stunned gasps, no joyously flapping hands, no nothing. Just calm gratitude.

Diavolo goes back to the drawing board, and he's just going to visit the HOL library for inspiration in a rare book (and as an excuse to see MC) when he hears Satan and MC laughing together in the library.

When he walks in, he sees Satan and MC crouched together with some strange tools in their hands, gently chipping away at a large rock. There's a tiny pile of uncut, unprocessed gemstones at MC's elbow.

As soon as MC sees him, he's aflood in a wash of excited chatter as MC tells him about the gemstone mining kit Satan bought after reading a book on gemstones. In fact Diavolo can see the book open at Satan's elbow along with a notebook where the two have been identifying every gemstone they dig up.

Before he knows it, MC seizes his hand and he's drawn into the game, watching their eyes shine and seeing them bounce in their seat with excitement every time they uncover a new gemstone.

Dammit. Another failure. But, Diavolo finds as he watches MC's obvious joy, he can't be too frustrated when they're this happy. 

3. Shopping spree at Majolish

Diavolo is undeterred! He takes a day to bring them to Majolish, having them try on outfit after outfit. Sure, they're not picking out very many things, but he loves spending time with them and they say they're enjoying themself.

After several hours, Barbatos gently reminds him that he has a meeting soon and that MC seems absolutely exhausted.

Diavolo pouts, especially when he sees that MC hasn't picked out very many things, but he sighs and concedes.

When he drops them off at the HOL, MC gives him a hug and thanks him for helping them pick out some more formal outfits for any upcoming RAD events. Diavolo accepts the hug gladly, but there's no squeaking or jumping and DEFINITELY no flapping. MC seems rather exhausted, and Belphegor has appeared from nowhere and draped himself over MC and is mumbling about needing a nap buddy and MC isn't even trying to argue 

The next day, Barbatos shows him Levi's post on Devilgram. It's a video, of Levi giving MC a plain, unassuming box.

When MC opens the box, their mouth drops open, their eyes go wide, and they fling themselves at Levi, happily nuzzling into his chest and mumbling incoherent thanks while Levi turns bright red and starts stuttering and clearly tries not to combust

The video cuts out for a second and then starts again with MC wearing a simple shirt embroidered with a strange logo, which Levi explains from behind the camera is inspired by MC's favorite series and was handmade by Levi for practice. Levi was apparently asked to design formalwear inspired by anime, and he chose MC's favorite to practice a design. According to the caption, the two spent an entire day together watching the series and sketching ideas!

MC is beaming and happy stimming while Diavolo thumps his head into his desk dramatically and Barbatos elegantly stifles a chuckle behind him. 

4. Bouquets of flowers

Well now Diavolo is determined. HE WILL MAKE MC HAPPY STIM IF IT KILLS HIM

HE HAS HIS PRIDE AS THE FUTURE DEMON KING DAMMIT

He begins watching the corniest of romcoms for ideas.

Midway into one of them, he sees the character buy their love interest bouquets upon bouquets of roses

BRILLIANT! He's up and placing orders immediately. Barbatos stays behind for a few minutes to actually watch how this particular ploy works out on screen, before laughing and going to watch the chaos

As dedicated as he is to the young lord, watching Diavolo scramble around trying to impress his first puppy love only to fail because the target of his affections is simply too humble.... well, it's honestly adorable. He'll step in if it goes on for too long, but for now it might actually be good for the young master to experience something he can't have by throwing money or influence at it.

Diavolo has some of the Devildom's finest florists on the horn and he's sending a veritable flood of their finest cut flowers... AND he's sending them from an anonymous source, just like in the movie! The woman in the movie only sent over THREE bouquets to the object of her love, so Diavolo sends 300. Only the best for his MC :)

He's waiting impatiently for the results of his little scheme when he gets an apologetic text from Lucifer saying that he'll be late to the meeting and MC won't be coming at all. Some anonymous admirer sent MC an excessive amount of flowers and the sheer amount of pollen triggered allergies in ALL of the demon bros and MC.

Lucifer needed time to clear out the house and distribute allergy meds to everyone and buy out the nearest store on tissue paper

Barbatos is no longer even bothering to stifle his chuckles while Diavolo buries his face in his arms to hide his shame

To rub salt in the wound, Lucifer tells him a few days later that he set up a miniature greenhouse for MC to grow humanworld herbs in and they've barely left it in the last two days

Lucifer’s been spending most of his free time in the greenhouse with them, helping them tinker with humidity spells and listening to their excited monologues on human gardening techniques

Lucifer is definitely smirking as he tells Diavolo this and Diavolo doesn't bother to ask how Lucifer knew what was going on, because his old friend knows him too well and Diavolo realizes he's not exactly subtle.

What he doesn't realize is that Barbatos is also a dirty dirty snitch and he and Lucifer have been watching over his attempts with a mix of hilarity and pity

5. Desserts

Some might give up, but not Diavolo! His newest ideas is fancy desserts. He was told by a sweet old succubus that the best way to his lover's heart was through the stomach (actually she initially had some far raunchier suggestions that had made Diavolo blush and had given him some ideas for far, FAR in his future relationship with MC, but that's neither here nor there) and so here Diavolo is, placing a giant order at Madame Scream's to be delivered to the HOL.

This time he has learned from his mistakes and he signs it as being from him and addresses it to "MC and the residents of HOL" because even he recognizes there are far too many sweets for a human to eat before they go bad

Barbatos by this point is starting to feel pity and is almost tempted to suggest he wait until it's not Beel's day for Fangol practice to send a giant array of tempting sweets.

Almost. If it weren't for the maid cafe fiasco of last week Barbatos probably would have, but that lace had chafed in areas that should never be chafed.

Diavolo sent his gift only to receive a poorly drawn thank-you card drawn by Beel and signed by everyone at the HOL, including MC, even though "I didn't even get a chance to eat any, BEEL"

This poor man feels his soul leave his body, especially when he returns home from RAD to find Barbatos and MC baking together and singing along to Disney songs (well, MC was singing, Barbatos was simply watching them with a smile and occasionally twisting them into a simple dance to make them laugh and squiggle with joy)

Et tu, Barbatos?

After yesterday's glitter incident, Barbatos has no shame and simply smirks back. He'll help the young lord when he can shower without finding glitter in every crevice.

+1: Tea together

Diavolo is planning his next gift when he gets a message from MC, of all people

His heart flutters, he has butterflies in his stomach, and he hasn't even read it yet!

It's a simple text- "What are you up to?" 

Obviously Diavolo can't admit he's shirking paperwork to try and figure out a gift that would make them happy! So he improvises and claims he's working. He gets back a sad face emoji and a simple "Miss you! I feel like we haven't hung out in forever, but I know how busy you are. Good luck, I'm rooting for you!"

SHOT THROUGH THE HEART AND MC IS TO BLAME

This man is dramatically draped over his desk wailing about how cute MC is.

Luckily for him Barbatos has forgiven him for both the maid cafe incident and the glitter incident and Diavolo has been too distracted trying to plan gifts to cause any new chaos

Barbatos hands him a lovely picnic basket, complete with tea and fancy sandwiches, and tells him to go see MC and take a break since he's clearly not getting any work done as is.

Cue guilty glance to the overwhelming stack of paperwork that's been building up. He swears he's never seen Barbatos place more and yet they keep growing, are they breeding somehow...? Did Lucifer curse him after the taffy incident?

Either way, Diavolo takes the basket and heads off to HOL.

He's either very lucky or (more likely) Barbatos bribed Lucifer into helping him out, as MC is the one to answer the door.

They look kind of down until they see him and he explains he's there to spend time with them, and then they absolutely LIGHT UP.

Before he knows it, they've thrown himself into his arms and they're bouncing in excitement and snuggling him and happy flapping and boyo is confused but OVER THE MOON.

He finally did it!?!?! What was it!?!?! The picnic basket? Do they have a thing for picnics baskets!?!?! 

And then he actually tunes in a d listens to their flood of chatter and how happy they are to see him and how much they've missed him and how excited and grateful they are they he took time out of his busy schedule to spend time with him and out in the thought to prepare a way for them to spend time in each other's company...

O H

He is M E L T I N G

He can't believe it was this easy.... no need for fancy gifts or anything like that, just... paying attention to their likes and spending time with them???? 

Holy shit he is gonna protect this human's smile witH HIS LIFE 

And now that he understands them better he can buy EXPENSIVE SHIT THEY'LL ACTUALLY LIKE AND HE'LL GET ALL THE HAPPY SNUGGLES AND JOYOUS STIMMING IN THE WORLD!!!! 

Yes, he decides, wrapping his arms around them while trying to keep the basket level

Now that he's gotten a taste of their sincere joy, he's hooked and he's going to make them as excited and happy as this as often as he possibly can. 

[theangrycomet]

Comparing KO’s (OK KO) Character Arc to Cassandra’s (TTS)

Ok THIS^ actually bothers me and I really hope it’s a shit-post. Sorry, @astratic, but you have inadvertently signed up for some Character Analysis.

Let’s establish one critical difference between Cassandra and KO before we really dig into this shall we?

Cassandra is a fully developed, fully functional adult roughly in her early to mid twenties.

KO is a CHILD, who’s age is literally 6-11, though fans typically agree that he acts in the 8-9 range. Additionally, he is commonly head cannoned to be on the Autistic Scale and/or ADHD.

Because of this, their decisions and actions need to be seen through different lenses.

Point 1: work tirelessly to become a hero like [parent] who you idolize

KO:

This statement perfectly depicts KO’s goals. KO strives to be a hero in order to help people to the best of his abilities. He hates being useless and powerless to help his friends, so he trains to be a better hero and works through his struggles with their help. He lives to be like his mommy and his father-figure. I mean, look at him when Gar praises KO and tells him how proud he is of him.

Cassandra:

Cassandra’s goals are different. She wants to be a guard at the end of the day for glory. She wants people to see and acknowledge her abilities and strength and admire her for it.

Yes, making her dad proud is a benefit of that, but that is NOT her driving motivation.

Point 2: Become discourage by lack of progress and hindrance by social status

KO:

Social status was NEVER KO’s problem. His stalling in progress, as I mentioned in another post, was a mental block. He couldn’t tap into his power He came from lower middle, working class family with a single mom.

Cassandra:

Social Status was her problem, but only up until the 1st season finale where she was placed as Captain of the Guard.

She had regular progress in getting more time and respect as a royal guard. The fact that She CHOSE to leave that behind in order to follow her crush on some half-baked, unplanned road trip is only the fault of her own. She threw out the chance she had been waiting for for her entire life to follow Rapunzel.

And than was given numerous opportunities through out the trip to leave and pursue other goals. 

Point 3. Be Mentally Ill

Okay, first OP, you could phrased that WAY better. 

Secondly, the mental struggles our characters face are completely different and largely incomparable so to group the two is insulting to both characters.

KO: 

Disassociative Identity Disorder (or multiple personality disorder) 

Possible Undiagnosed Autism and or ADHD

KO develops Disassociative Identity Disorder, due to his frustration at lack of progress, the manipulation of Shadowy figure, and his bottling up of negative emotions. KO is mostly unaware of what happens when TKO is in charge and vice-versa. It took the two a long time to figure out how to work together and eventually merge back into one personality. 

He also demonstrates some traits typically associated with Autism and ADHD, though some of those could be on account of his age. It is a common head cannon amongst fans that his either and sometimes both. 

Cassandra:

Cassandra doesn’t have to deal with any mental illness until the season 3 finale where it can be gleamed that she’s working through depression if you squint at it. 

Yes, there is the Blueberry Ghost, but she was never a result of Cass’ mental state so much as her being host to the Moon Stone. 

Her struggles lie in reigning in her anger and her pride so that she can see problems from unbiased perspectives and apologize for her actions. And that is left still unresolved by the time the finale comes around. 

Point 4. find out long lost parent is actually horrifically villainous and have a whole crisis about it.

Perhaps, we need a little reminder here before I dig into this one:

KO is a child figuring himself out and Cassandra is an adult figuring out what she wants in life.

KO:

KO had been struggling with his darker side for quite some time before he asked his Mom about who exactly his dad was. 

This was something the show had demonstrated time after time that bothered KO, not knowing who his dad was.

So he finds out his dad was this big time hero, and gets reassurance from that fact that he comes from great heroes, so he too can be a hero. Only for that to be immediately tossed out the window when it’s revealed that the only person he hates in the entire world, the person he dubs as the truly evil villain, is actually his father. 

His whole world is not only shook to its core, but his self-confidence as well. Laserblast was a great hero who turned villain; what does that mean for a hero-in-training whose already struggling with that darker side. 

Praise Carol for not killing PV on the spot. 

Additionally, PV didn’t actually know KO even existed until a few months before this incident, and wasn’t even sure if KO was his kid (KO does coincidentally share a lot of Physical attributes to Gar) until KO came busting in, wearing Laserblast’s helmet and bragging about how his dad was a great hero.

So when they attempted to have that father-son relationship, it was as awkward and strained as it should have been. (I’ll get to the OK KO Finale in just a minute)

Cassandra:

Cass could have cared less as to whom her real parents were. She had her dad. She had her goals. She had her job. Who her parents were and why they dumped her on the Captain was irrelevant to her life. 

She didn’t care until Season 3, and that whole season was OOC for everybody, 

Even then, it wasn’t so much as a crisis so much as an excuse to use to fight Rapunzel. It didn’t matter that Gothel was her mother, it mattered that Gothel picked the Sundrop over her. Which in all honesty was the best thing that could have happened to Cass.

Her “crisis” revolved around a dead woman’s shattered legacy more than her mother. 

Point 5: Fall under the influence of said Villainous parental figure

KO TKO: (again, a CHILD)

TKO was used and manipulated into letting his darker side show by Professor Venomous/ Shadowy Figure, (this is my opinion), in order to actually have something they could relate to eachother on. 

Yes, Shadowy Venomous saw TKO as more of his tool for power, but you can’t deny that he wasn’t motivated to have his son by his side. 

Additionally, KO had at this point literally locked away a part of himself because he didn’t have the tools to deal TKO with this mentally or emotionally. So he responded the best way he could and pushed the problem down so he and others wouldn’t have to keep cleaning up TKO’s messes.  

KO was in desperate need for someone to understand how he was and how to help him.

And guess who was there.

Cassandra: (again, an ADULT)

Cass was never led on by Gothel, she was led on by Zhan Tiri.

Cass was delusioned that the moonstone was hers by Zhan Tiri just as much as Rapunzel was delusioned into thinking stopping the moonstone was her destiny by Demanitus. 

However, Zhan Tiri really didn’t make Cass do anything, she never pushed her past the breaking point, she never forced her to do anything. 

Baked Ziti only prompted Cass, reminding her what she was angry at. 

Cass was perfectly capable of ignoring her and doing her own thing. 

Point 6: suddenly and dramatically betray everyone you love even as they plead with you to stop. Become convinced they all hate you except for [villainous parental figure] who is actually just manipulating you to gain power.

This point is actually a very good description of what happened to both, given different contexts. Again, remember that KO is a child who is significantly more easily influenced than Cass should have been.

(Note: again, Zhan Tiri’s not her Parental figure and neither was Gothel)

Point 7: ruin everything and destroy your home

KO TKO:

His destructive rampage was motivated by the betrayal of the one person he believed to understand and support him entirely. He was literally grabbed by the shirt, lifted in the air, told he was nothing more than a tool at best, and that the plan to conquest together had been a lie. 

Wonder where I’ve seen THAT BEFORE?

(Sorry about the low photo Quality, I quickly search and screen shotted so)

(yes it’s this scene that made me think Mad Ben and TKO would get along)

Cassandra:

Which betrayal are we talking about? Because both involve trained guards rightfully attacking Cass for injuring the crown royalty and wrecking the castle.

Point 8/9: snap out of it at the last second and be horrified at what you've wrought/ the world is fixed by an incredible magic. Reconcile with your loved ones. Flourish

KO: 

This is accurate. 

But KO didn’t have to lose his power to see how bad he messed up. He was actually at the top of his game. He probably could have taken out the President of the Universe if he really wanted to. Instead he begged for everything to get fixed, and wished that EVERYONE (even Professor Venomous) could live their best lives. 

Cassandra:

She was only repentent AFTER she lost her power. Even then, she does not apologize for her actions but rather the circumstances and ONLY to Rapunzel herself. She does not care that she caused a world catastrophe, and still wouldn’t have had she won. 

With how it was executed, Cass did NOT deserve such an easy redemption. She should have had to work at it. She should have at least attempted to apologize to the people whose lives she ruined. To the people she’s hurt. Not just Rapunzel. Rapunzel has no right to forgive her in place of everyone else. 

Eugene should not have to forgive her.

Varian should not have to forgive her.

The Brotherhood honestly deserves to fight her in combat. 

She should not have been able to ride off into the sunset and avoid the consequences of her actions. 

BUT I digress. 

IN SUMMARY:

KO and Cass, while they share some similarities, do NOT have the same Character Arc. At all.

Sincerely, 

TheAngryComet

[everybodyelsesgirl]

hey!! if you get this answer all the questions and come up with an individual bonus question and send it to your favorite BL blogs

1) what was a bl that you thought would be meh but turned out to be one of your favorites

2) if there was one thing you could change about a bl you despise (that would make it less awful) what would it be?

3) think about the bl you hate the most, now give me at least one thing that you like/love about it

4) one of your pet peeves that you overlooked because it was in your favorite bl

5) what are some instant red flags that a bl won't be good

bonus question: what's the BL show which is popular and you don't know why?

aaaa sorry it's taken me so long to reply, I was honestly gonna do the last one of these you tagged me in as well because if there's one thing you know about me it's that I love complaining about bl's lol but I have the memory (and attention span) of a goldfish rn so please accept this instead 🙇‍♀️

gonna put this under a cut (and trigger warnings for mentions of suicide and rape/sexual assault)

I guess this would probably be atots? I didn't necessarily think it would be bad or whatever, I just went in with relatively low expectations since I'd been bouncing off a lot of the shows I'd been watching at the time so I just wasn't expecting much. and now, of course, I am ruined for all other shows because nothing else will ever compare to atots my beloved 😌😌😌😌😌

tbh the entirety of the second series of we best love turned what could have been a relatively inoffensive bl (tropey emotional blackmail and questionable depictions of mental illness aside) into an entirely incomprehensible mess that I still cannot figure out what they were even trying to achieve with it. also the fact that the majority of the autistic character's screen time was spent with him either in intense distress or resulting in violence is just exactly the kind of exploitative bullshit I have come to expect from these shows. the writers were clearly only using him being autistic as some kind of ✨edgy✨ plot device because what's more tragic than being autistic, right??? so maybe if they just hadn't made the second season at all then I wouldn't have had to sit through all that 🙃

uhh.. tharntype had some ok direction and lighting in some scenes, I guess..??

hm. so maybe some of the more mean-spirited things that phupha did at the beginning like taking tian to the waterfall instead of just telling him he had a bathroom made me balk slightly at the time, but I think the fact that tian got back at him by pretending to drown (lol) sort of felt like there might be less of a power imbalance than I expected? it's not like there was no power imbalance at all—because there absolutely was—but I think once phupha's self-sacrificial nature kicked in it sort of felt like it evened out a lot more. so, yeah, I guess I was worried that phupha's character would end up just being the standard issue arrogant male authority figure that abuses his power but we're supposed to find it ~sexy~ or whatever, so thank fuck he ended up being almost the exact opposite 😌

I mean, aside from the obvious rape, sexual assault and the "i'm not gay, really" bullshit and other assorted homophobia??? I suppose if the editing is bad/sloppy and every scene is about five minutes too long I just know that I'm going to lose all patience with it. there really are only so many ways you can communicate the exact same information multiple times in one scene to pad out the runtime and it shows!

bonus question!

ha ok, so nads probably already knows this one but.. I really didn't like until we meet again. I wouldn't exactly say I hated it, but the way the show overused (and recreated??!?) the suicide scene was very icky to me and I just couldn't get past how uncomfortable it made me. plus the whole everyone-is-related thing was far too freudian for my liking and so by the end of it all I just felt a bit traumatised tbh.

[nekoprankster218]

Just Wanted to Do 10 Fandoms, 10 Characters

Nobody tagged me but I saw one while scrolling and just felt the want to gush about 10 different characters (plus it said anyone who wanted to who wasn’t tag could, so that’s enough of an invitation for me!). In no particular order:

1. Arbiter Thel ‘Vadam from Halo

I love a bunch of Sangheili characters, and if the rule wasn’t “10 different fandoms”, half the list would just be them. But there’s one that just rises above the rest (funny, given he’s actually shorter).

2. Penny Polendina from RWBY

Ever since Volume 7, Penny’s quickly become my favorite RWBY character. Maybe it’s because of everything that happened in that volume, or starting a found family crossover fic with her as the focus, or something else. Either way - four episodes in, and I’m already worried about what the writers have planned for her this volume!

3. Entrapta from She-Ra: Princesses of Power

Probably the most recent favorite out of everyone on the list - she’s half the reason I finally started watching She-Ra (the only half was Catradora)! Not finished with the show (last I had time to binge, I finished season 3) yet, but I doubt anyone’s gonna take the “favorite character” medal away from her. Probably biased, because I am autistic and firmly believe she’s at least coded.

4. Paarthurnax from Skyrim

I like several named dragons from Skyrim, but Paarthurnax gets the honor of being on the list. Is it maybe convenient that a lot of his story arc mirrors Thel? Perhaps. I also attached to Sissel’s dialogue about her dragon dream immensely, despite knowing it probably meant nothing to Bethesda.

5. Sachiko Shinozaki from Corpse Party

I have a soft spot for ghost kids in horror stories, and Sachiko’s probably the epitome of that. She’s fun as a villain, has a nice balance between childish and mature that I like to see played around with, although you also can’t help but feel bad she ended up that way. You can tell she’s one of my favorites because she’s one of my go-to characters in multi-fandom crossovers (Thel also being one!).

6. Gajeel Redfox from Fairy Tail

Pretty sure Gajeel was the first time it really hit me that I liked reformed antagonists. I can’t even explain why he became my favorite (same for some of the other characters on this list, actually). It was just nice to see his arc develop over the series - his personal growth, his budding romance, his dynamics with others. (Also yes, I liked Fairy Tail, dunno why that’s such a controversial opinion in the anime community.)

7. Rattlesnake Jake from Rango

Speaking of antagonists! I know I just said I really like reformed antagonists, but villains without a redemption arc are good, too. Especially in Jake’s case, where you see he still has his own code; it’s just that, his own code. And let’s be honest. Rattlesnake with a gattling gun on his tail? He has only 10 minutes of screen time and he stole the whole damn movie. If they never make Rango 2, I really hope they at least make a Rattlesnake Jake spin-off.

8. Rocket Raccoon from Guardians of the Galaxy

Looking through the entries on this list, starting to think I just find intense/deep character arcs pretty neat. Rocket’s an a-hole, and usually I do not like a-holes, but he’s also a really interesting case. The MCU has yet to really say much about Rocket’s backstory, but the little crumbs it has given speaks volumes, so when Rocket’s doing his self-sabotaging behavior or talking out his mouth...only negative emotion I really feel is sadness. He tries to act tough, but he probably needs more therapy than Volume 8!Penny or Red!Sachiko.

9. Hakase from Nichijou

If I could put the whole Shinonome household, I would. Their segments were always my favorite part of the episodes just because kid scientist, big sister robot, and talking dad cat. You know how Ouran Host just got a second season announced? Can that happen to Nichijou? Just, please, there’s more manga to cover!

10. Godzilla from the MonsterVerse

‘Nuff said.

And that’s my 10 favorite characters from 10 different fandoms, in no particular order and certainly missing plenty of characters from the same fandoms and different ones. Also tried to keep it varied. Kinda weird actually that I never once brought up-

11. TouHou Project

I. COULDN’T. DECIDE. There are so many good Touhou characters! I really couldn’t narrow it down to one! This is probably a promise that I’m gonna do a 10 favorites post just for TouHou Project.

Anyway, usually people tag 10 others, but I really don’t have the confidence to tag 10. So, uh... @katthescalie​ show me what you got (if you want).

[dianadragonfly]

Okay, hang on bitches, cause Imma bout ta rewatch “The Final Problem.” I’ve seen it once since 2017. And because there is no commentary on the disc I have, I will be providing the commentary.

[[MORE]] Since I started my “rewatch and comment” spree, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Things that had previously stood out in my mind as being particularly not-good are really not that bad. Most were actually really short moments that stood out in retrospect because they seemed incongruous with how well-written and acted everything else was.

Up till season 2, the writers could do no wrong whatsoever. The exact moment I experienced a “well that was overdone” moment of questioning the writers was when Sherlock broadcast a picture of Mary on the outside of the facade in “His Last Vow.” From there, I had moments of doubt and questioning plot and directing choices that took away from the narrative. But, except for the moment John sees Mary die, I never ever questioned the acting choices. The actors are so amazing. And I’m not just saying that because Ben and Martin are hot.

As I prepare to watch the episode, there are several scenes that I dread. Opening with the girl on the airplane reminds me of how much I hated this trick. If the girl is Eurus messing with them, then why do we see it acted out? If we cannot trust that what we see is a reality, then all of the “Mind Palace” theories of TFP (i.e. that it actually took place in a dream or in the head of a character) have some authenticity to them. Ugh.

Damn. I’d forgotten the “Hello. My name is Jim Moriarty” part of the intro. No need for that if the girl is just something in Eurus’s imagination.

Oh shit. I hate hate hate hate everything about this scene of Mycroft.

First of all, there is security in Mycroft’s house.

Second of all, he would have skewered any of those actors with the umbrella sword or shot one of them with the gun.

Why are the paintings crying blood? John and Sherlock couldn’t accomplish that... once we add scary clown it’s just too much. Even for Sherlock.

Oh stop with the heavy-handed East Wind references. Dammit, I loved this show for its subtly. Killer clowns are not subtle, even in pranks.

Now with Mycroft here, in the client position, refusing to sit, with the Baker Street Boys in their chairs - this is what I came for. The light, the look on their faces, the composition of the shot.

Oohh Hudson throwing some shade. John’s half smile...

Is the skull portrait glowing? I can’t tell.

“That’s why he stays!” Fuck yeah. John’s half smile again...

“Middle child. Explains a lot.” As a middle child, I resent that remark. And sort of get it.

So the flashing back and forth in time, with the ashes of Musgrave Hall in the apartment, 5 year old Eurus answering grown-up Mycroft’s questions, the pebble: all of that would be okay, if not a tiny bit less than subtle, had we not just fought a goddamn clown in the scene before.

Oh goddamn. The stupid fucking patience gernade and that song.

Of course Mrs. Hudson vacuums to Iron Maiden.

It’s Sherlock’s turn to half-smile. Cute.

Beautifully shot here with the above view and all three of them at different points on a circle around it.

Ugh. I have to turn away at the “action shot” of them jumping out the window. This is not “Die Hard.” It’s not a cop buddy movie. We just got a really well played, fun little scene where they talked a about Oscar Wilde to avoid talking about the fact that they might die. That’s what I watch Sherlock for.

There was a fan fic written around 2012 that mentions “The Importance of Being Ernest.” Coincidence? Creators reading fanfic? I know Wilde and ACD were contemporaries, but it’s interesting. I can’t think of any other literary works that are alluded to in canon. It’s funny it should be this one.

And now we’ve commandeered a boat. Seriously.

All of the other episodes, I had more patience with on this go-around where I get a chance to type out reactions and reflect on how they are put together. But I’m finding that isn’t the case with this one. I’m just pissed. Give me one or two unbelievable moments or plot twists in an episode and I can sustain it. But between the airplane, killer clowns at Mycroft’s, the patience gernade, and this, I’m already done and we’re 20 minutes in. Sherlock looks like a goddamn vampire bat. And seriously, why does Mycroft need to steal a boat? And write a message in the sand? What the hell? Why dress up?

Sherlock’s security guard act cracks me up.

Oh his face when he sees Eurus. His. Face. Curiosity. Heartbreak. Empathy. Pain. Doubt. Fear. THIS is my show. Not patience gernades, killer clowns, dressing up like a sea captain etc in one damn episode.

She “enslaves” people... magical Eurus who makes people kill their family. Really?!

Oh no. He ignores “Vatican cameos.” I forgot that. He chooses to ignore John’s warning.

His face.... Jesus Benedict can act.

Big bouncy red alert! Okay, what was with the spinning John face when he gets knocked out?

This constant shift between wondering what the hell is happening, wondering if the show has become a parody of itself, and then bouncing back to this heart wrenching narrative — is that the point of this episode? Like “The Empty Hearse” or “The Abominable Bride”? But those episodes explained themselves after they pulled the rug out. As soon as something got to the point of absurdity, it was explained. Sherlock didn’t swing in a window at Bart’s and kiss Molly but we briefly were led to believe he did. Moriarty and Sherlock aren’t really kissing on the roof. (By then we knew what was up though). Sherlock didn’t really attempt to dig up a dead Amelia Rocoletti. We understand it’s a drug-induced dream.

This rapid jumping back and forth with half-assed explainations — I’m coming to believe this off-balance feeling is the point of the episode but I don’t like it. I like it even less than I did before.

Oh Andrew Scott. I love you.

The bastards wait till 5 minutes into the Moriarty scene to tell us it’s 5 years ago. That constant pulling out the rug — I will at least excuse that because there is a plausible explaination given. But it’s a cheap trick. This episode is one cheap trick after another, with only a few moments, here and there, of characters actually interacting.

So it’s late and I don’t know if I have the heart to make it through this whole episode tonight. To be continued....

Edited:

Starting at scene 5 on the DVD because that's when Sherlock sees Eurus for the sort of first time. I kind of just want to bask in Ben's performance here again.

After the last episode, clean-shaven Sherlock in a suit is a relief. He's back... at least a little.

His small smile when he asks her how she got out. . .

I'm realizing how much of this scene had to be Benedict looking directly into the camera and talking to Eurus. That had to be intimidating.

***I've skipped ahead to closer than where I was last night because the small people in my house will want food soon. Parentig gets in the way of fangirling. ****

I still love the Hungry Donkey story.

OH MY GOD! I forgot how much I love Andrew Scott here!!!

Are they making out through the glass?

And now the four of them wake up in a cell but this one has glass. Ugh. The plane again. I love how Sherlock changes his voice here to talk to the girl. He isn't incapable of reading people and reacting to them. He just usually can't be bothered. There’s a fan theory that says Sherlock is autistic. I was going to comment that this skill of his is evidence that he’s not but I stopped myself. He -knows- HOW one needs to act to get people to respond to him, but it’s a learned skill. Which actually might add evidence to the “autism” theory more than the sociopath theory.

Mark Gatiss - I forget what an incredible actor he can be. Whoa.

These scenes - these scenes where they have to apply themselves to a task that Eurus sets for them -- they are so fucking good. Tense and well-acted. I can see every emotion on every actor's face. The rest of the episode should have been better to make it worthy of these performances. It physically hurt watching John try to shoot the governor.

Someone said that Jim Moriarty went from a criminal mastermid to manical Thomas the Train Engine on this episode and I can't unthink that any time he flashes on the screen.

I had a moment, when Eurus was using such clinical language of behavioralism ("prompts") etc that I flashed back onto my life as an ABA instructor. Seriously. I know they are a million miles away but no one watching this would ever think, even for a second, that Eurus was morally right. Why, then, do we do a smiliar thing to autistic children? I had a moment of revulsion then. (Restirct physical liberty and autonomy, make them complete a command that's nonsensical for either reward or aversive. Give prompts. Follow through (deny reward) if one deviates from the prompt). She might as well been saying "Touch table, Sherlock." ("Touch table" is one of the first directives often given in ABA. It's easy to manually prompt (force) a kid to do and helps the kid realize the link between following the requests and obtaining rewards.)

Sorry. ABA rant is slightly off topic.

To be continued in comments ..

[phcking-detective]

5. Bad Habits

Fic Title: First Blood

Rating: E

Length: 5/33 chapters, ~128k

Tags: Slow Burn, Idiots to Lovers, Trans Character (gavin), Autistic / Asexual / Non-binary Character (nines), BDSM, learning to use good etiquette and safe words, Dom Nines / Sub Gavin, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort

Chapter Tags: Gavin acts like a sleazy corrupt asshole to get another sleazy corrupt asshole to drop his guard, (it’s kind of hot), banter, so much banter in this one, Nines says Creepy Things, dumb idiots flirting without realizing they’re flirting, Nines saves pictures of Gavin’s dumb cute face when he laughs

Link on AO3

***

Senator McAshlynn Dernham [CEO: Synergy Paradigm] acquiesces to an interview with Detective Reed, but his heartbeat picks up to ninety-one BPM when Nines steps into his office as well.

Downtown view, fifty-second floor. Eight hundred and sixty-five square feet--nearly a hundred more than Reed's apartment. Minimalist furniture, a display of signed sports balls, and a jade paperweight shaped like a turtle valued at over four thousand dollars.

It would make an excellent bludgeoning tool.

"Detective Reed." Senator McAshlynn stands up from his desk and meets Reed halfway in the room. "Come in, have a seat."

They shake hands. Reed exerts an estimated fifty-six pounds of pressure on the handshake. Senator McAshlynn's grip strength does not exceed thirty pounds. He tries to hide a grimace, but the one facial expression Nines can reliably detect is pain.

"Sit down, sit down. What can I do for you, detective?"

Nines is not offered a greeting or a seat. It would hurt all zero of his feelings, except no talking and no physical contact is how he prefers to interact with humans. He stands behind Reed while the detective sprawls out in the offered chair.

"Just have a couple of financial questions for you, Mr. McAshlynn," Reed says.

"Oh no, McAshlynn isn't my last name," Senator McAshlynn replies. He grips the back of his chair with an estimated thirty-two pounds of strength. "Senator McAshlynn is my first name, both of them. My last name is Dernham."

"Right."

Detective Reed performed fairly extensive research on Senator Ashlynn Dernham (limited as he is by his lack of neural connection to the internet) before their arrival. Despite being fully aware of the not-senator's two first names situation, he lets the silence drag on for thirty-six seconds before clicking his tongue and continuing.

"I only need to confirm a few things about Mr. Russell's finances, and then we'll go."

Senator McAshlynn's BPM ticks up to ninety-four. "I'm not sure why that would interest you or be relevant to me. Russell personally made those investments with money given directly to him by his … investors. Although he did found this company, I can assure you, Synergy Paradigms remained completely uninvolved and unaware of--"

"Yeah, yeah." Detective Reed waves his hand. "Relax, I'm not here to bust your balls, and I don't care. I just gotta make sure Russell really did have plenty of motive to commit suicide."

"Is there something questionable about shooting himself in the head?" Senator McAshlynn asks.

Reed shrugs. He pulls out his phone and scrolls through a takeout ordering app. Nines can hear the other human begin to grind his teeth, and pinpoint the exact moment he begins inhaling in order to speak again. Even with his limited human senses, Detective Reed somehow senses this precise moment as well.

"Look, the media's making this into a big shitstorm out there, all right?" he says. "Didn't think I needed to tell you that. I just wanna make sure I'm covering my own ass, and I get that you want to do the same. No problem. Like I said, you answer some questions about <I>his</i> finances, and we leave."

Senator McAshlynn considers. "All right. I may be able to do that."

"Cool. Like I said, I'm not here to bust your balls." Reed's reflection in the wall-to-ceiling windows in front of him gives a smile even Nines can recognize as sleazy. "Guy's already dead. If you work with me here, I don't mind working with you."

Senator McAshlynn's BPM begins to fall, and he smiles back at Reed. "I'm always happy to assist the DPD, but. As you said, Russel is already dead. I'm not sure what's left for you to work with."

"Mmm." Reed puts his phone away and tilts back in the chair until the back of it rests against Nines' abdomen. "Well, my partner here has done some digging into Russell's finances. Did you know his bank account has been hemorrhaging money this last month?"

"I was not aware of that, no."

"Yep. And here's the really interesting part--he pinged the IP of some other android messing around in there."

That is so inaccurate Nines almost corrects him on sheer principle. He deactivates his voice box though, both to halt that immediate impulse and to prevent interrupting in a conversation that clearly won't involve him.

"Again, I'm not sure how that's relevant to this company," Senator McAshlynn says.

Reed shrugs. "Doesn't matter. You and I both know the media is going to drag Russell's name through the mud and into the spotlight for as long as they can milk it--and they're going to keep mentioning Synergy Paradigms while they do it. Makes for a better story."

"Well, I would certainly like to avoid that." Senator McAshlynn smiles at him again. The action barely involves his lips. "I don't suppose you know an especially talented PR agent?"

"I know large sums of missing money plus a mysterious android equals a damn good story," Reed replies. "So if there's anything you know about that, now's a good time to let me know."

"Is it?"

"I'm not looking to arrest anyone in a suicide. And if some unsavory shit comes up--you know, the kind that would stay on the ten'o'clock for the next month--maybe my partner here deletes some stuff. Maybe I let you know about it, so you get some closure on your dear friend's death."

Senator McAshlynn stays silent as he considers it. Detective Reed lets his chair drop back down to the floor with a loud thunk in the quiet room.

"But in another minute now, I'm gonna go interview that reporter who broke the story," he says with a smile that only serves to show his teeth. "So like I said. Right now is a good time to start working with me."

Senator McAshlynn takes a seat. "What can I do for you, detective?"

Nines saves the smile Reed gave to his most encrypted folder. It shares several points of similarity to his own facial expression categorized as [hostilesmile-murder]. He places the file next to the zoomed view of Gavin's nipples he attempted to delete two weeks earlier.

"Do you know where Russell's money disappeared to this last month?" Detective Reed asks.

Senator McAshlynn sighs. "No. If Russell got into escorts or red ice, I never saw any of it. And even if he did, there's no reason for his indiscretions to drag this company down with him."

"Sure," Reed says. "My partner and I are going to do some digging. See what we find."

"I don't suppose you could be persuaded to … take a holiday?" Senator McAshlynn asks.

Reed clicks his tongue. "Not how this works. And I might not know any PR agents, but I have heard it's better to get ahead of stories before they break. Know what shit stinks in your own house 'n all."

"I might like to know what the hell Russell was doing," Senator McAshlynn admits. "But maybe I'd like it better if no one knew. If we all just, dropped this whole matter?"

"Mmm."

Reed takes his phone back out and takes his time choosing from the menu of the Chinese restaurant closest to the precinct. Nines adds a side of fried vegetables and rice to his order of Chicken Kung Pao (spicy).

While Gavin works at increasing the CEO's stress levels, Nines continues syncing with the smart desk. As soon as Senator McAshlynn rested his hands on its surface, the handprint scanner activated and unlocked the interface, although it stays resting on the set screensaver of mahogany wood.

Nines doesn't alter anything or open any files. He doesn't need to. Senator McAshlynn's calendar, contacts, and social media feeds are set up to sync automatically with all of his devices.

It's simple enough to copy the handprint from the scanner and convince the "smart" desk that he himself is one of those devices.

"Oh, yeah. See." Reed says when Senator McAshlynn begins tapping his twelve hundred dollar pen. "The money? Yeah, maybe that's old news. It was all a Ponzi scheme anyway. But the android …"

Reed lets out a long sigh and tips his seat back again.

"What android?" Senator McAshlynn snaps.

"The one messing around in Russell's finances," Reed says. "Traces of it in his loft too. Can't just let that go."

Senator McAshlynn lays both hands on either side of his desk. Human body language is as chaotic and individual as every human, but this gesture clearly reflects a threatened animal attempting to look bigger than it really is. The motion also places his right hand closer to the portion of the desk's touch screen devoted to summoning security.

Nines tells that particular program to begin an update. The entire smart desk will now need to be restarted in order for the program to function.

"And why not?"

Reed reaches up and taps backwards against Nines' chest. "Say something creepy."

"Jade is porous."

"What are you talking about?" Senator McAshlynn asks, very firmly maintaining eye contact only with Reed.

"Your paperweight would make an excellent bludgeoning tool, but jade is porous," Nines says. "The blood would absorb and stain. Useful for a murder itself, but a liability afterward."

"God, you never disappoint," Reed says as the other human's face pales. "They gave him all this info and programming on solving crimes without ever stopping to think about what reverse engineering means. Takes a special kind of hand to manage him."

Nines deactivates his voice box once more. The problem with custom-building a social module is that he can only learn from his environment. The second problem is that the only human he regularly interacts with is Gavin Reed.

[dialogue options: AVAILABLE]

:Yeah, I bet your hand is real special to you.:

 :I gave a special hand to your mom last night.:

 :You can catch these special hands in the parking lot.:

"Are you threatening me?" Senator McAshlynn demands.

His finger presses down on the incognito security alert. A dialogue box pops up on the table informing him of the necessary restart, ruining the illusion of real wood.

Reed scoffs while he scrambles to close the notification. "I don't care about you enough to do that. It's only the android we're after. Any LM one hundreds, PJ five or six hundreds, or WB five hundreds you seen around Russel?"

"LM—a personal assistant?" Senator McAshlynn looks up from his desk. "No, Russell didn't have one of those. I don't even know what the other two are."

"University lecturer and financial accountant."

Senator McAshlynn huffs. "No. And for the last time detective, this isn't relevant to me or my company."

"All right." Detective Reed stands up. "Thanks for your time, Mr. McAshlynn."

"It's Dernham. Please leave or I will have my security team escort you out," Mr. McAshlynn informs them.

"Two GJ five hundreds and a refurbished GS two hundred." Nines nods his head toward the desk. "Is that paperweight for sale?"

"Get out!"

***

"God that was great. You really fucking asked him if it was for sale."

Gavin is still so pleased about getting kicking out of Synergy Paradigm, he lets Nines control his truck from the passenger's seat. Nines keeps the speed a steady five miles over the limit like his partner prefers and passes him a pack of the regular, non-marijuana cigarettes he smokes while on duty.

"Did you get a picture of his face?"

Nines sends the file to his cellphone. Gavin checks it immediately when it dings, then shoots him a wide smile. Nines saves a picture of that too before he's aware of making the decision to do so. He now has fifty-four pictures of Gavin saved for purposes other than building a databank of facial expressions. Anything more than three is a pattern.

A habit.

"Anything else?" the detective asks. "Wait, if you fucked with his table, don't tell me. Anything you got from that is inadmissible in court, and if there's any chance you might get caught, don't do that shit anymore."

"If there is any chance I might get caught," Nines repeats back to him. "Hypothetically, what if Senator McAshlyn's cell phone--"

He tries to put the right amount of emphasis in his voice to imply air quotes. It is difficult to preconstruct which syllables to stress and in what order. Gavin stares blankly at him. He tries raising his volume by ten percent.

"His cell phone."

Gavin suddenly huffs and rolls his eyes. "Jesus, yeah, OK. If his cell phone did …?"

"Connected to his smart desk and automatically synced to his calendar, contacts, and social media feeds."

"And anyone looking into the like, syncing history or whatever, would confirm his cell phone was the only device to connect to his smart desk about ten minutes ago?"

"Correct."

"OK, hypothetically speaking," Gavin says. "If there's no chance of getting caught--and keep in mind that would mean our whole case could get thrown out and lots of lawyers and Fowler screaming about privacy violations and IA jumping on the chance to fuck over their very first android …"

"Understood."

"If there's no chance of getting caught, that shit is still a slippery fucking slope and you shouldn't risk it."

Nines stares at the human's face, trying to determine if he is being that aspect of [sarcastic] that is not meanly saying the opposite of what he really thinks, but is still saying the opposite in order to [cover his own ass].

"Anyway." Gavin clears his throat. "On a totally unrelated note, do you have a hunch about anything?"

"A hunch."

"Yeah. Like, a gut feeling you can't really explain to me in--"

"Oh."

Gavin clears his throat again.

"I do not believe Senator McAshlynn Dernham was close friends with Maverick Russell," Nines says. "I do not believe the two planned to meet with each other within the last two weeks or the next fortnight."

"You fucking had to say fortnight. Pull over, I have a dance I want to show you."

Nines locks the passenger door. "My 'gut instinct' is that Senator McAshlynn has in fact been distancing himself from the victim for several months now and likely thought Russell was a bad investor, desperate to be liked, and only got lucky mooching off of his co-founders' talents and his father's inheritance when founding Synergy Paradigms."

"That's all your gut instinct, huh?"

"Social media accounts are public knowledge, and I have the processing power to review literally everything Senator McAshlynn has ever made publicly available online. He has not been discreet about his feelings. That is my assessment of them."

"You remember what I said about staying out of my life?" Gavin asks.

"Yes, detective." Nines does not sigh, because that would be redundant. "I am not to access your medical history or background information."

"Just keep that in mind."

"I am affixing a permanent post-it note to my field of vision right now."

"Fuck off. Is there anything else I need to know about?"

Nines considers. "Do you need the video and audio I recorded?"

Gavin actually does sigh, blowing out a cloud of smoke. "What the fuck did you record?"

"Technically speaking, I am always recording."

"This whole fucking conversation is justifying every bit of my goddamn paranoia about androids, you know that, right?"

"Humans may also acquire go-pros."

"So you admit that's what you are."

"Do you wish for me to upload the video and audio recording of our walk through the interior of Synergy Paradigms to your terminal or not, detective?"

"Yeah, sure." Gavin takes a long drag of his cigarette while he thinks. "I mean, I was right fucking there with you though. I saw everything you did."

"True," Nines admits. "You did see everything I did, but you do not possess the ability to review that video with perfect recall. My hearing is also significantly more advanced than yours, and I recorded audio from humans on the first and second floors, as well as the fifty-first, fifty-second, and fifty-third, within an approximate three to five office radius."

Gavin nearly lets the cigarette drop from his open mouth. "Holy shit. Uhhh, yeah, sure. Fuckers in a company like that gotta be gossiping about what happened. Maybe we'll pick something up."

The majority of the audio is, in fact, gossip. Nines has already processed and reviewed it of course, but he is also aware his lack of a social module and general understanding of humans must necessarily limit his ability to determine the relevance of what he's heard.

Personally, he would declare it all irrelevant. "Petty gossip" does not even begin to describe how asinine and crude the humans' dialogue is. It's all about who has been fucking whom, who is climbing the corporate ladder, and who is fucking whom in order to climb the corporate ladder.

The entire experience of walking through one [1] human corporation has justified every bit of his disgust for humans.

Still, Nines will transfer the files to the detective's workplace terminal via direct connection once they arrive back at the precinct. So far, there is nothing currently illegal about his advanced hearing and "privacy violations." And technically, anything in plain sight or said within hearing of an officer may be admitted in court as evidence.

It just so happens that Nines's sight and hearing have a bit wider scope than current laws predicted.

Gavin works on nursing his cigarette down to a nub for the next several minutes without speaking. When he taps the backs of his knuckles against his window, Nines rolls it down for him. They're moving slowly enough through the city traffic for him to ash his cigarette out the window. The cold air whipping through puts a red flush on his face as he smokes and blows it out the window.

"But seriously," the human continues after a few minutes of quiet driving. "If I ever get like that for real, knife me in the back of the neck. Straight through all of that good brain-spine stuff."

Nines runs several preconstructions. While monitoring other police officers isn't part of his mission, he was created to serve as a form of Internal Affairs. RK800s to track down the deviants and RK900s to monitor the eights.

(His [pride] pushes the idea that he is more akin to Military Police, but that is irrelevant to the preconstructions and possibly a deviant thought pattern.)

Still, Nines is aware a not-insignificant number of police officers commit errors ranging from abusing their authority to planting evidence to outright working alongside criminals for profit. Even Detective Reed has shown a propensity to skirt right along the edge of what is legal--or not technically illegal.

His assumed persona at Synergy Paradigms seems to have illustrated crossing the line however, so Nines categorizes those behaviors as [unacceptable] in his system and updates his own action-paths accordingly.

The preconstructions of killing or permanently disabling Detective Reed still fail.

But his partner is designated as his [human partner] within his system, and there may be dormant programming preventing Nines from causing serious harm to him.

"I will inform you that your behavior is no longer acceptable," Nines tells him. "If you continue after my warning, then I will neutralize you."

Gavin takes a long drag off his cigarette and gives him the facial equivalent of the :eyes: emoji. Not an apologetic look as Nines originally interpreted, but an expression known as "side-eyeing." His extensive collection of saved images focused on Gavin's face has given Nines a much higher rate of success at interpreting his partner's nonverbal signals than the average human.

"Didn't take you for the type to give warnings," Gavin finally says.

"Well." Nines practices shrugging. "It takes a special hand to manage me."

Gavin snorts out smoke. "Fuck. Did I really sound that stupid?"

[dialogue options: AVAILABLE]

"I estimate your hand is very special to you, detective."

That earns him another snort. Eighty-three chance of [amusement].

"I gave a special hand to your mother yesterday evening."

"Hope you didn't bother paying for that shit."

"You may receive these special hands at a Denny's parking lot of your choice."

That finally makes Gavin laugh, long and loud enough that he starts coughing. He flips Nines off around a wheeze, still grinning. Nines watches him keep smoking and adds to his collection of saved images.

It's a very bad habit.

***

***

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 23 / 24 / 25 / 26 / 27 / 28 / 29 / 30 / 31 / 32 / 33

I also have a Patreon for this fic, if you want to support me! $1 gets you access to chapters a week early, $2 gets bonus content and deleted scenes, and $3 gets short chapters from two AUs I’m writing: an A/B/O heatfic and reverse!AU

[almaasi]

reaction post typed while watching SPN 14x17 “Game Night”

this was not 45 minutes of Dean playing Twister with Cas :/

04:22pm

if this isn’t 45 minutes of team free will 2.0 having a happy time in the bunker with all their alive hunter friends and family, playing board games, everyone whistling and whooping when cas takes off his coat to play twister with dean, i will be sorely disappointed

HOWEVER

/checks

it’s meredith glynn

so maybe it won’t be the pure, fun, gay plotless fantasy that i have in mind, but it’ll probably be well-written and emotional, which is aaaalmost as good

-

04:30

DEAN’S PLAYING MOUSETRAP 

OKAY 

OKAY

OKAY

-

04:31

[distant “soN OF A BITCH”]

yeah mousetrap is like that

we have one exactly the same, it’s from the 60s or something, it sometimes functions but mostly doesn’t

when the ball hops into the bucket and rolls down the slope, that’s my favourite part

-

04:37

WHY ARE THEY HAVING GAME NIGHT and drama WITHOUT CAS

WHERE IS CAS

WHERE IS CAS

THIS IS TOO MUCH

-

04:38

ahhh thank you ms glynn for immediately answering my question

she knew!!! she knew the only question everyone would be asking at that exact moment when nobody mentioned cas is WHERE IS CAS

and then she’s like “here have some cas”

thank

-

04:39

i want a gag reel of danneel and misha trying to do this scene

we don’t have anywhere near enough content of them together, interacting

-

04:41

cas getting earrings for anael/sister jo is so intriguing to me and i really like it for some reason

“lightly cursed”

jsdfd

-

04:43

paused and screenshotted because in this exact moment she looks uncannily like my doctor

-

04:45

jo: the winchesters don’t know you’re here, do they?

cas: “why do you say that?”

jo: “i don’t know, just a general reek of ill-conceived lone wolf desperation”

i love this script, danneel’s delivery, and also describing cas as a lone wolf, i find that both attractive and accurate... kinda makes me feel better about the fact he disappears for weeks at a time, i guess it’s just a personality trait of his that he likes being alone after socialising a lot

-

04:50

mary: “i can be... closed off... hard”

dean: “yeah? :) that’s where i get it from”

aw yeah cuties talking about their feelings

-

04:51

while dean and mary talk, i think the music is that soft piano theme they use when dean and sam are having emotions, and i’m not 100% on that because i haven’t heard it in AGES, like maybe two seasons, unless i just missed it

either way it just makes me think of all the times they DIDN’T use that music with dean and cas

at least not since season 4 or 5 (sic), this music definitely reminds me more of that era than the recent eras

-

04:57

cas in that big silver pickup truck

i wonder what dean thinks of all his car choices

-

05:00

YEEEAH SAMMY SMUSH HIS STUPID FACE

-

05:03

mary telling sam she’s proud of him eyyyyyyyyyyy <3

edit: IN HINDSIGHT THESE “LAST WORDS” INTERACTIONS WITH SAM AND DEAN HURT WAY MORE. now i’m really worried about her gdi ;A;

-

05:04

the doll cas blows dust off reminds me of that weird lil doll danneel keeps in her and jensen’s house

-

05:08

laughing because how is nick even close to being jack’s father

jack is biologically the president and the presidential aide’s/first lady?’s son

and team free will are his nurturing dads, who did the actual job of parenting

lucifer is his angel father since he was possessing the president

but like

nick is the body lucifer wore, was nowhere near the president, wasn’t a vessel at the time, hasn’t physically been allowed to be near jack in all the time jack’s existed, has had almost no interaction with him, and is also a douchebag murderer

family don’t end with blood and all, sure

but like

no

-

05:18

jo/anael: “look, i just stepped in a rat, so”

oh god that reminds me of--

*trigger warning: very gross, animal death*

reminds me of that time my cat brought in a mouse and ate half and then because it was dark i stepped on it in a bare foot and skinned it with my foot and it was cold and horrible

also that time i stepped on a spider, also in bare feet, and it crunched

and that time i stepped on a lizard but it was fine and it was SQUISHY

-

05:21

i went back a bit and anael throws the doll, first it says “ma-ma~?” and then it hits the pile and goes “mhmhj!!” and that’s both cute and upsetting

-

05:24

OH MY GOD IT’S LIKE THE SAMULET BUT DIFFERENT

cute lil horned skull, i want one. seriously it’s adorable, i don’t think it’s meant to be adorable but it is

-

05:34

rock hit sammy’s face and i cringed

-

05:37

of all the wounds to the head

finally one actually did some damage

feels weird but right that dean called an ambulance like real people

edit: what did he tell the EMTs though, now sam is all healed up

-

05:40

beautiful and terrifying

-

05:41

nick: “make me strong again, make me you”

he’s gonna die isn’t he

-

05:43

dean: “count with me”

sam” “you always put me first”

noo sam !!!!

-

and then the cut from sam, dead, to nick, dead

oh gdjfgdjg help dhfgdf

-

05:47

mary: “you need help, we’ll help you”

oh now i’m worried about mary

jack you better not hurt her

-

05:48

black screen

jack’s whisper “mary”

oh no

-

05:48

THIS WAS SO MUCH

AND IT WAS GREAT BUT IT WAS SO MUCH

I KNOW I SAID TWISTER BUT THIS WAS NOT THE KIND OF TWISTER I ENVISIONED

I MEANT PHYSICAL NOT EMOTIONAL THANK YOU VERY MUCH

i have no thoughts

i can’t think, i’m just

........maryy..........

i freaking loved anael, and i loved how cas interacted with her, he’s comfortable and knows her well and is just aware of her strengths and fears and likes and needs, and anael knows him just as well, well enough that she knew his real motivations for trying to contact god

i love that this was all about jack, but i also hate it because oh no our sweet baby nougat boy is a chocolate cake now

i love how much love the winchesters have for him, how they’re not even questioning whether he belongs there or not, even when lucifer and nick are trying to claim kinship. team free will are his three dads and everyone knows it

i adored seeing mary again, it feels like it’s been ages. and i hope dearly she’s okay at the end of this, we’ve all had enough of fridging and she doesn’t deserve that to happen to her again, none of us want that

meredith glynn writes good female characters with relatable positive and negative traits and i am so pleased to see that!! i do kind of think anael was the best part of this episode, and she was written so much better here than in the previous season. that stuff she and cas talked about, her doing everything for money vs. her trying to fix suffering, but also clearly enjoying the money along the way, that was my favourite part of the episode

i think my least favourite part was the fact it was basically two stories, cas doing stuff for jack, and then dean and sam and mary doing stuff for jack. i know it’ll match up later, but i disliked the lack of contact there. at least on screen, cas wasn’t informed about all the drama the others were going through, and like anael said, they didn’t know where cas was or what he was doing.

and also given this all happened apparently around the same time, and the episodes’ air dates (maybe) coincides with when they’re set, where WAS cas two weeks ago when he left dean and the bunker and dean said he left early in the morning? i assume he was going to meet anael, but how much time passed between then and this? idk

i loved that cas picked up earrings for anael though. and knew enough about them to know they were valuable. either he’s an jewellery expert or a geologist, or dean or sam are, and all of those possibilities thrill me

didn’t like sam getting hurt but the wORST PART was jack’s downfall here

oh no

dean’s relief after sam was healed, where he had to step back and turn around, that was... something. no matter how many times he almost loses the people he loves, it never gets easier for him, and it never will

damn that rock from the middle of the road that probably shouldn’t have been there

but also. how much of lucifer’s personality was just nick? because he’s basically the same person without lucifer. i’m really curious who lucifer is, because we don’t really know, do we? i mean, actions aside, the quirks of his speech and personality were seemingly all nick’s. (i think when sam was in the white suit, that was non-nick lucifer, except that was in an alternate timeline so who even knows.)

one more thing. a tip for the non-anxiety-ridden, non-autistic people out there. when a person is stumbling away from you with their hands over their ears/eyes/head, muttering about wanting the conversation to stop or the noise to stop or for you to go away, please, under no circumstances, go after them and yell at them and grab them

not saying jack should’ve done whatever he did, but mary definitely reacted in the worst possible way to a panic/anxiety attack, especially when jack is clearly dangerous to other people, not just himself

anyway. 06:21pm.

10/10, but would not recommend unless someone really wanted their heart ripped out

would have preferred dean playing mousetrap for 45 minutes and cas coming home early to find everyone had the correct amount of soul, and then letting dean teach him how to play twister, actual twister, not this twisted goddamn fuckery directed at my stupid emotions like this actually turned out to be

[partycatcentral]

"legends of the league": weaving narratives out of numbers

at least that was the idea at the beginning. hi my name is valentine and i'm gonna talk about my final project for LIS752. yeah i know how to capitalize letters i'm just not going to.

context

so before i launch pawsfirst into the crunch, lemme give a lil preview for folks in the listening audience who have never had the grave misfortune of playing League of Legends. LoL, or just League, is what they call a multiplayer online battle arena, or MOBA for short (who doesn't love acronyms). It's a genre/style of video game that focuses on competitive play, with two teams, composed each of five players, pitted against one another in an enclosed arena. both teams have a home base they need to protect, and each player self-selects into an pre-assigned role, which partially determines the champion or player-character they'll be using. each champion has a different set of abilities, stats and lore, and each champion is for the most part unique. there are 138 champions in league, spread somewhat evenly across the 5 or so roles each champion can slot into.

this is what an average match in league looks like. don't worry if you don't understand anything on screen, i don't really either. all you need to know are that the two characters with health bars hovering above them (yellow and red respectively) are champions.

league is a massively popular game, drawing in millions upon millions of poor suckers gamers that play from all across the world. there's also the eSports scene, where professional league teams compete for prizes of hundreds of thousands of dollars, alongside sponsorships and brand deals. league is wickedly lucrative, for its developers and for players who get good enough to be recognized in the community or by the pros. as you may have already guessed, yes, i did in fact play league once. it was a terrible experience and the day that i quite my life improved, considering i was no longer pouring untold hours and dollars into a game that hated me. however, being autistic, i was left with one helluva special interest, and to this day i know more than i feel comfortable knowing about league and its mechanics, lore and community. my interest remains to this day, which is why i've done my project on looking at data taken from tens of thousands of competitively ranked league matches and attempting to parse something, not anything definitive like trends or patterns that might help a fledgling player play better, but something intangible, the little stories that sprout up in every match, the little occurrences that happen once n never again. how might we be able to use statistical, quantitative date to build a narrative? that's what i've been thinking about for the last twelve hours, considering i did not sleep at all tonight. let's gooooooooo

the dataset

so let's talk numbers. i acquired a dataset off of Kaggle that was uploaded by one Michael J. back in 2017. the dataset contains information from over 50000 competitively ranked league matches taken from the western european server, from a time between June to September of 2017. the data is sorted across 61 entire features, stuff like which champions were selected and for which team, which were banned, which team claimed which objective first, that sort of thing. as far as this kind of data goes it's actually lacking a lot of granular information a few of the popular league stat search engines (which exist, because of course they do) offer, like how much gold per minute a player made, or even just how many kills each player got. of course, including such information would've ballooned the dataset to something two or three times its current size.

aside from that lack of specificity, there's also the minor issue of the utter anonymity of the data. each player is reduced to just a set of simple decisions they made -- which champion they selected, which one they chose to ban, which abilities they preloaded into the game. having even just their username, or an identifier of sorts, would've been interesting for being able to track a given player's history across this stretch of time with playing the game, how they might've improved or changed things up. it's just another very minor thing.

of course, some of you might be saying, valentine, you want the data to be less anonymous? you enjoy data harvesting? you want each player's social security number to be printed on their league of legends match history alongside their kda? yes that's all true but for real, there is an interesting bit of discussion that could be had about how this data was collected. the dataset's creator mentioned using the publicly available API for the game to collate the data, which is probably how all those other companies and search engines offer their own (much better and more in-depth) stat analyses for players to peruse. there wouldn't be much identifiable information, perhaps the user name, the server you logged into, the time and date you started the match. however, the question remains if this is just a seemingly innocuous byproduct of much more malicious and harmful data-harvesting practices that the game and the developer perpetuates because it makes them a metric ton of money. perhaps in making little allowances like this, providing information "for free" so that others (or anyone) can use it, it helps mask those more unsavory applications of their software and oversight. perhaps we talked about it in class and i just didn't pay attention. the world may never know.

the analysis

so when it was finally time to start wrangling the data, i swear i rode this dataset like i was a rodeo clown on my first day on the job and golly gee was she a rough ride. let's take a peak at what the bulk of the data looks like:

this is pretty indicative of the general standard of friendliness. the dataset is rendered exclusively in integers, and some in a format i'd never seen before, like creationTime (shown above) being in Epoch format. the first thing i did was arrange the dataset to retreive the first and last items from that column and (online, not in code) converted it into standard date & time, which is where i got the june 2017-september 2017 range from earlier

the dataset also came with a couple of json files which provided some additional information and context, like parsing the generic champion id numbers into names and titles. i also attempted to convert the json files in rstudio into csvs so i could work with them, but something about the way they were written just ended up bouncing off of everything i tried, so i manually edited the file and converted it, also online.

from here i decided what i wanted to see were stats like win-rates, play-rates and objective wins, sorted by each champion, because I felt that would be a pretty simple way to sort this data, and that kind of information is always at the forefront of advice given to newbie players just hitting the rift for the first time (gamer slang, you wouldn't understand, nor should you. leave now, before its too late)

using group_by and summarize functions i was able first to group the dataset by champions, and then provide a few key stats about each champion's statistically significant impact on a game:

how many games across the whole dataset did each champion play? what were the champions' win-rates; or, what percentage of games did one side win when a given champion was part of the team? how often were certain objectives taken first by one side when a certain champion was present? this part took a lot of manually constructing bespoke dataframes for my pretty lil numbers to have cute lil beds to lie all pretty within because otherwise rstudio would call me an idiot, i feel like a digital carpenter.

then, i decided to seize on one stat in particular to take a real close look at: play-rate. how often did a champion see play? what kind of role did that champion serve? using slice_min & its cousin _max, i isolated the 10 most & least played champions in the dataset, and put them up in a bar plot:

so, here are numbers. like the subtitle says, the colors correspond to similar role. in this case, yellow means "ADC" or "attack damage carry", a player with high damage but relatively fragile build, purple means "support", a player who helps by healing & protecting their allies or hindering the enemy, and green means "jungler", a player who roams and performs ambushes to help their team and catch the enemy unawares. these roles are not so set in stone in game and during play, and often many players (myself included, when i did play) had a lot of fun breaking the mold of what a champion was considered "right" for. However, in this case it's useful for determining a few things. 6 of the top 10 most played champions are ADCs, which makes sense, considering they are known for their fast-paced and flashy styles of play. they're seen as fun to play, so they're chosen more often. comparatively, the other four roles aren't as well represented.

now let's look at the bottom 10:

Here we have a more even distribution, with green still meaning junglers, orange meaning top-laners, players who usually play tanks or beefy bruiser builds, and red meaning mid-laners, mages or assassins who (literally) take center stage in a game. We also see more junglers, holding even with mid-laners. And comparing the total games played for these champions, the most played in the bottom 10 is just under 1200 games played across 51490 total games recorded, hovering just at 2%. compare that to the least played in the top 10, who we see peaking above 7500, which comes out to almost a 15% pick-rate, over 7 times as high as the former. the two most played in the top 10 have a pick-rate of almost 25%, which means that in nearly a quarter of all the games recorded, they were present.

of course, this kind of bean-counting and pencil-pushing isn't why i'm here.

the one in fifty one thousand four hundred ninety

its saturday morning, august the 19th, 2017. all over the world, league players have already been logging on and playing for hours, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, engaging in thousands of matches. but somewhere in western europe, an unknown player logs in at 11 am. maybe they just woke up, or maybe its already been hours, but whatever the case maybe, they get in line to join a ranked match. when they finally join, who do they pick? maybe one of the most popular champions, statistically? ooh perhaps one of the flashy ADCs, or a nice sturdy support or top-laner? i mean, they've got 138 choices...

nope. meet skarner.

at 567 total games played skarner has by far the lowest play-rate of all 138 champions across all 51490 matches recorded in this date. sitting at juuuust a hair above 1.1%, you could very well play one hundred ranked matches and never see a Skarner. i mean, look at him, he even looks busted.

skarner is also classified as a jungler, a role that's generally not as popular and requires a fair amount of skill, finesse and awareness to play. junglers often get a lot of flak for their playstyle, because they're often expected to do a lot more than their counterparts. as a roaming role you have to keep an eye on the whole arena, makin sure nothing escapes your watchful eye. or, scorpionful eye. crystal eye?

welcome to ranked match #3309615915

the match

from the stats of the game, its obvious our lonely Skarner didn't get off to a good start. Their team took none of the early objectives that often guarantee early headstarts that can snowball easily into a win. that's a lil like if uhhh i guess in baseball? someone like, strikes out, the first few, times they have to go bat or something. anyway, all these early advantages, down the drain.

also, the enemy team is stacked with champions that are often considered to have a serious effect on morale. Draven, Darius, Vladimir, Soraka: these are some toxic champions to play against, often heading well into just plain frustrating.

look at this smug asshole.

how must our Skarner be feeling right about now? Heading straight to a defeat, their teammates probably trying to quit and forfeit the game. that would mean a pretty heavy blow to your ranking, because remember, this is competitively ranked, Skarner is here because they want to win.

and what do they do? WIN.

seemingly against all odds, despite having the deck stacked against them, all early leads lost, they manage to take the win at the very end. over the course of nearly half an hour, what epic highs and lows must this Skarner have seen? what a surprise this must've come as to the enemy, who might not have seen another Skarner for dozens, if not hundreds of games?

well, it's not much of a surprise to us. because the data shows that Skarner, across all the games he plays in, has one of the highest win-rates in the game for this dataset. at over 50%, he joins a select group of champions that have the odds tipped ever so slightly in their favor. a very slight advantage, but anything, however slight, however small, can be the difference between victory and defeat. is that number inflated due to the very small pick-rate? definitely. but maybe that is also to his advantage, not being as common or chosen as often. maybe it's because the Skarner had the two most picked champions on their team. maybe? maybe it was the spirit of sports...

[scriptautistic]

OK so I might be wrong but I recall one of the admins here saying they're French (or that they got diagnosed in France ???)...if I'm not mistaken, could they say more about the diagnosis process & how autistic people are treated in France (do you have accomodations, is there a lot of ableism, etc) ? I'm writing a French autistic character and I'm lacking a lot of information because most of the info about autism in France is in French, and I haven't learned the language.

Hi! You’re remembering correctly, I am indeed French, and I can answer that question.

Autism Diagnosis in France

French healthcare is set up with a primary care system with general healthcare providers(such as general practitioners or family doctors), and then you’ve got specialists, and you’ve got to go through primary care to be able to access the specialists and be reimbursed properly. It works like this for all kind of healthcare specialists, and it’s also the case for autism.

I don’t know the age of your character when they’re getting diagnosed, so I’ll cover different situations. Basically, there are three different times in your life where you can get adressed to a specialized team for diagnosis:

As a young child: It is possible the parents noticed that there was something “wrong” with their child and brought it up with the pediatrician. It is also possible that the pediatrician noticed some developmental delays or tell-tale signs of autism during one of the developmental checkups that are (theoretically) scheduled regularly during the child’s first years.

As a school-age child or as a teenager: difficulties (of an academic or social nature) at school can trigger questions from teachers or parents. Typically, the child would then meet the school psychologist who would do a first screening/evaluation. If the school psychologist thought there was ground for a diagnosis, they’d refer the child to a child psychiatrist.

As a teenager or an adult: Self-diagnosis can lead the character to seek an official diagnosis, they’d then go to a psychiatrist (people younger than 26 can go see a psychiatrist directly, people 26 and older need to be refered by their G.P. if they want to be reimbursed) to talk about it. Another possibility is the character seeing a psychologist or psychiatrist for mental health problems, and the professionnal bringing up the possibility of an autism diagnosis. If it was a psychologist who brought it up, the character would need to go and see a psychiatrist anyway, because only doctors can make official referals to specialists.

In any case, the character would end up seeing a general healthcare provider, who would ask them (or their parents) a lot of question about autistic traits, their impact on daily life and on professional/academic life, etc. If what the doctor hears lets them think that there is ground for a diagnosis, they’d then write a letter to a specialized team, with all the information to justify their demand.

Specialized teams can be composed of psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, speech therapists, occupational therapists, psycho-motor therapists… There is at least one “official” team per admisitrative region in France (so that means 8 total), in what is called a Centre Ressource Autisme or C.R.A. (which means Autism Resource Center). There can also be teams in other places such as in CAMSPs (Center for Early Medico-Social Action, for children younger than 6), CMPPs (Medico-Psycho-Pedagogical Center, for children up to 18 yo), child psychiatry or pediatry services in hospitals, special evaluation units, or coordinated independant practices.

Your character can probably count a couple of months before being refered to one of these teams. It’s going to be quicker for a young child than for an adult, because it’s considered as more of a priority. For me it took 6 months but that’s because they lost my contact info, I think one-two months is more representative.

As for what the actual autism evaluation would look like, I am going to describe mine, but it’s slightly different from place to place and from team to team. It probably would also be slightly different with a child, i went through the evaluation process as an adult.

First I had a preliminary interview with a psychiatrist, it was a general discussion of my autistic traits and of the things that made me suspect being autistic. I also showed him my health report and my school report. After that he said he’d recommand me for a full evaluation and he told me to wait for them to contact me. I had the full evaluation two months later. It consisted in:

A full cognitive assessment, they used the WAIS-IV

 A language (and more) assessment, which included a spelling test, a reading speed test, a thing where I had to come up with as many words as I could in two minutes, a theory of mind test, a test in which I had to identify and then imitate intonation, a test in which I had to identify emotions on faces, give definitions or synonyms for words, and maybe more stuff that I can’t remember.

What they called a “functional assessment” which consisted in them asking questions about my daily life, about how I manage activities of daily living, how studying and working is going for me, and so on. I think they had a booklet they took questions from. They also made me do some things like telling the story from a picture and from a picture book, telling a story with objects, playing a kind of pretend game… I was filmed during all of this. They also left the room for a few minutes while leaving me with distractions (a big basket of books and stimmy things), they said they needed to talk but I think they wanted to film how I’d react while alone.

An interview with my girlfriend about my daily life, how I manage activities of daily living and whether I put myself in danger and whether I know how to manage money and stuff. Basically assessing my level of independence I guess.

There was supposed to be an interview with my mom to ask about my early development but she couldn’t come, so they gave her a paper form with questions to answer.

 After that, there is one more appointment with the psychiatrist to give me the results.

That’s about all I can say about diagnosis. The whole process took about a year for me but it’s supposed to be shorter, it would have been if they hadn’t lost my contact information. It didn’t cost me anything. It all took place in my local hospital, in a special evaluation unit for adult autism diagnosis. If you have any more questions I’d be happy to answer them.

Attitudes towards autism in France

First I’d say autism is not as well-known in France as it can be in English-speaking countries. If you ask the general population what autism is, chances are you’ll be met with faint memories of Rain Man and not much else. There’s also a certain awareness of rocking with one’s hands over one’s ears as an autistic thing, and it sometimes is used for ableist jokes and mockery. Mostly, if your character were to try and explain they are autistic to people, they’d probably have to explain everything from the beginning because people don’t really have a working definition of autism.

There’s a lot of ableism towards autism among professionnals, even though most specialists I’ve encountered were well-meaning. Asperger’s is still a very commonly-used diagnostic term here, and chances are your character would have to talk about Asperger’s rather than autism to be understood and taken seriously by professionals. If they don’t have contact with an international community, that’s also probably how they’d identify. All French communities of autistic people I’ve found centered around this word. There are not a lot of these communities, and I’m not aware of any big organization run by and for autistic people. Your character may feel isolated and have trouble finding people like them. Some hospitals or autism centers run discussion groups and meetings for autistic teens, I think.

Regarding autism, things that are well-established in the U.S. are often seen as the Brand Great New thing in France. Basically I think you can say we are about 10 years late in that regard. For instance, I’ve met a lot of professionnals who were excited to work with me because they were very interested in how autism presents in girls, they’ve read there are some differences, and so on. This is not a new researc subject in the U.S., but it is here. Another, less pleasant example of this phenomenon is that here, ABA is seen as the Great New Thing, a new efficient treatment that’s commonly used overseas but barely even known here! We’ve got to train specialists and to develop it! That’s one aspect for which I wish we wouldn’t be making progress.

Most non-specialist mental health and medical professionnals know very little about autism. Once I tried to talk about it to a psychiatrist, and he confused it with schizophrenia and schooled me on why I wasn’t psychotic. I had to teach more than one therapist about it. There are still very backwards “treatments” of autism that are sometimes in use, such as psychoanalysis (on nonverbal 5 year olds...). But as a psychology student I can say we’re mostly getting up-to-date information about autism, so hopefully this should get better in coming years.

As to accomodations, I’ve never had to ask for any so I’m not best placed to answer this question. It is law that people with disabilities (I’m pretty sure you have to have an official diagnosis for this) have to get the accomodations they need in the workplace, in school and in higher education, but I’m not sure how easy it is to get them or how well the laws are respected. I’ve seen a few disabled fellow students who got accomodations, one of whom was autistic (he had someone else take his notes for him and was allowed to record lectures). I can tell you a bit more about how to get accomodations in university; if that’s relevant for you to know you can shoot us another ask once the askbox is open again.

That’s all I can think of off the top of my head, if you have follow-up questions I’d be happy to answer them.

-Mod Cat   

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[buddaimond]

# One of the best reviews of Good Time so far! Go for the highlighted parts to skip spoilers!

“Good Time” should be an average movie, but it isn’t.

The plot isn’t necessarily riveting — a man desperately trying to acquire bail money for his imprisoned brother; the cast isn’t particularly eye-catching and not one known for immense depth in their acting; and the directors haven’t produced anything that has done particularly well with critics or the box office.

When watching the movie, however, all of those apparent truths become lies.

“Good Time’s” plot isn’t just one more crime thriller that will put you to sleep, its cast isn’t just a slew of unremarkable actors and actresses and its directing isn’t the cookie cutter material you’d expect from a previously poorly reviewed director. It’s the exact opposite in almost every regard.

“Good Time” is, in my opinion, one of the most inventive, aesthetically pleasing, mentally stimulating and impressive films in the overdone genre of bank-robbery gone wrong/crime thriller in years — maybe decades. It’s not the “Fast and Furious” oversaturated, car chase heist movies we have become so used to filling up our silver screens and robbing the box office. It’s “Reservoir Dogs,” it’s “The Usual Suspects,” it’s “Dog Day Afternoon.” It’s a new chapter in a genre that we thought had stopped being published.

Yes its plot is an incredibly inventive take on the genre — a man’s search for bail money after a botched bank robbery leads him into drugs, a suburban family’s living room, an abandoned amusement park, a suicide and a heavily guarded hospital. Yet, despite such inventiveness, the plot isn’t what makes the movie as memorable as it is — it’s the characters and actors who bring that plot to life.

The cast is by no means illustrious. Its stars include a former “Twilight” saga star, one of the directors of the movie and an actor who is more famous for being the crux of the “I am the captain now” meme than any movies he actually starred in. In the movie, however, they all break out of their stereotypes and come together to form a beautiful harmony and naturalistic story for the 99 minutes the movie lights up the screen. The aforementioned director — Ben Safdie — physically and mentally transforms himself to portray the incredibly difficult role of an autistic man. Recognizable face and Somali-American star of the 2013 film “Captain Phillips” — Barkhad Abdi — plays an emotionally torn and drug-induced security guard in a beautiful manner. However, as good as other performances are, each is put on the back-burner to that of former “Twilight” vampire and heartthrob — Robert Pattinson.

Pattinson is nothing short of brilliant in his performance. He portrays the brother of an autistic man (Josh Safdie), who is desperately trying to get the money to bail his brother out of the infamous Riker’s Island prison. It’s not a particularly complicated role, he could have just kept doing what he’s done his entire career — recite the lines, go through the actions and look damn good while doing it — but he didn’t. He broke out of the vampire, teenage rom-com mold, and he did so (we hope) permanently. Pattinson didn’t just play a man trying to score cash for his brother; he played an incredibly complicated, multi-faceted character whose every action is torn between love, desire and anger. You can see it in Pattinson’s face when he beats up a security guard in an attempt to avoid arrest, an an action not out of anger, but out of love for his brother. For the majority of the movie, in fact the entire first scene, the cinematographer — Sean Price Williams — only focuses on faces, not entire body shots. This would normally be a rather ambitious move, as bodies tell just as much as face, but Pattinson is so realistic, so precise and so methodical that he doesn’t need a body to show how he’s feeling — all he needs is his eyes, mouth, and everything in between to show the audience the multiple layers of his character’s personality.

Many critical and fan reviews of this movie have fallen into using a similar terminology to describe Pattinson’s performance in “Good Time” — they’ve all said in one way or another that he’s the new Al Pacino, or he’s the new “Robert De Niro” and this is his “Taxi Driver” or that he’s the next go-to protagonist in Scorsese-esque films. Their analysis and comparisons have validity — Pattinson showed brilliance in “Good Time” just like how De Niro put on a method acting master class in “Taxi Driver” — but they’re not an accurate way to describe Pattinson’s performance.

Whatever actor Pattinson introduced the world to in “Good Time” it wasn’t De Niro, it wasn’t Pacino and it wasn’t Brando — it was Pattinson. The style in which he acted was uniquely Pattinson — his perfection of a New York accent with his native British tongue was uniquely Pattinson, his facial expression were uniquely Pattinson, everything he did was him and nobody else. Just because he isn’t the first actor to portray a noir protagonist incredibly well, doesn’t mean he has to be compared to someone else.

Pattinson’s performance aside, the film is technically, visually, sonically and narratively very well done. The scenes are scored by a mesmerizing techno soundtrack by Oneohtrix Point Never; nearly every shot that cinematographer Sean Price Williams pick is minimalist, but does exactly what he wants it to do; the screen is constantly a contrast between dark and neon light giving a very unique and ‘80s feel to the film; and the screenplay is incredibly well done — both taking advantage of every actor’s or actress’ strengths while keeping the story exciting and entertaining.

It’s a film where the plot or premise may not be exactly a “Good Time” but it’s one that will put a smile on your face. Thankfully, everything else about the film isn’t just a “Good Time” — it’s a great one.

Shamrocks 5/5

Directed: The Safdie Brothers

Written: Josh Safdie, Ronald Bronstein

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Ben Safdie

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Power Rangers 2017 review

The past few years have sucked for reboots. There was Fantastic Four, the absolute worst iteration of the superheroes ever and a nadir for the superhero film genre; there was Ghostbusters, the excessively mediocre, casually sexist, and painfully unfunny all-female shitfest no one wanted; there are all the live-action adaptations of cartoons like The Smurfs, which lack all the soul of the original show; and don’t even get me started on horror reboots. Hell, the years to come don’t look much better, what with the cringe-inducingly bad Universal Horrorverse. So when I saw they were doing a reboot of Power Rangers, a series I’ve never been a fan of but know a little about, and it looked like it was going to be yet another tone-deaf, overly gritty, miserable reboot, I was not impressed and predicted that, like so many reboots before it, it was going to suck. HARD.

I was wrong.

Power Rangers is the reboot I’ve been waiting for, a movie that fills me with a sense of fun, excitement, and even interest. This actually made me want to go and watch Power Rangers, something absolutely nothing before this film has ever made me want to do. Like yes, it’s not a perfect film, but for what it is, it does a lot right in my eyes. Hell, it actually does shit a lot better than its contemporaries; it handles elements reboots like Ghostbusters and superhero films like Suicide Squad and Fant4stic handled really poorly. I’ll explain what I mean in just a moment, but first, the story:

Jason the high school football star lands himself in detention after running afoul of the law; there, he meets an autistic boy named Billy as well as a pretty young lady named Kimberly. A series of eevnts leads them to a nearby mine, where they’re joined by Zack and Trini. They discover some funky coins and soon discover they have superpowers. Returning to the mine they discover an ancient alien spaceship, where the little robot Alpha 5 and the cybernetic talking head Zordon fill them in on their destiny: they are the Power Rangers, guardians of the universe, and they must stop the evil Rita Repulsa from destroying the Earth. Rita is searching for a crystal that will give her a shitton of power, and is out trying to reform her mighty ally Goldar; can the Rangers learn to work as a team via the power of friendship in time, or will Rita make her monster grow powerful enough to wipe them out?

The most shocking thing about this film is how it actually manages to get the teenage drama right for once. I actually liked all of these kids as characters; I can still easily recall their names without having to look up the IMDB page, which is pretty impressive as most film teenagers don’t really click with me. Out of all of them, my favorite was probably Billy; he’s a sweet kid who is on the spectrum, but he’s never really the butt of jokes and is always shown in a positive light. Hell, he’s basically the glue that holds the team together! This is definitely a step up from the last time I saw anything resembling an autistic character in a movie, which was Pistachio Disguisey in Master of Disguise… yeah, Billy is an enormous step up over the uncomfortable Turtle Guy scene. Overall though all the kids were really well written; they are basically The Breakfast Club gang if they were superheroes, and I’m all for that. Their development over the course of the movie from five strangers to five friends who can work together and call each other friends is, of course, condensed, but it still feels more realistic and believable than the bullshit from Fant4astic.

But that’s just our heroes; how fares the rest of the cast? Well, Bryan Cranston as Zordon is easily one of the highlights of the film, but that’s no big surprise since Cranston is one of the most amazing actors of all time and can sell you on anything, even a giant TRON-esque head on a screen. Elizabeth Banks as the villainous Rita is like a much better take on the Sorceress from Suicide Squad; she’s hammy and has personality, she’s actually amusing at some parts, and she’s just as campy and ridiculous as you would expect such a villain to be. Her big issue is she doesn’t get near enough screentime, but she’s still fun to watch. And then there’s Alpha 5, the goofy comic relief mission control robot; voiced by Bill Hader, he could very easily have been annoying, and yet instead, he’s rather amusing.

Speaking of the comedy, it is, for the most part, actually pretty good. Sure you have some rather tasteless jokes about jacking off bulls in the beginning (which is a step up from the last movie I reviewed, which actually SHOWED the animal jacking), and not every joke is a gutbuster, but there were a good amount of moments that made me laugh. This is in stark contrast to comedic hero reboots like Ghostbusters which, despite ostensibly being a comedy, was really light on laughs. The soundtrack, too, while having plenty of contemporary songs, is a lot better than the mess of Suicide Squad’s, and not nearly as oversaturated as that film’s soundtrack.

Now, with all this positives, there are still negatives. Goldar himself is sadly one; his design here, a giant goopy gold creature, is rather bland in comparison to the one from the original show. Sure he’s a kaiju, but he doesn’t have the same campy charm the look of the original had. The at-times rushed pace, underutilization of Rita to an extent, the somewhat underwhelming design of the Puttys, and the lack of a suiting up sequence until the last twenty to thirty minutes or so are all minuses on this movie’s scorecard; even the final fight was at times a bit underwhelming. Still, I feel like the best comparison this movie has is to Big Hero 6; yes, it is a superhero movie, but it is more about the characters and their journey than the superheroics. And while I do criticize aspects of the finale, from the moment you hear that “GO GO POWER RANGERS!” and the music plays and the Zords go charging into battle, you can’t help but get excited and overlook the flaws of that grand finale. And even if the entire final battle sucked, hearing Rita Repulsa hammily say “Krispy Kreme...” and then go into the restaurant and eat a doughnut as Goldar destroys the building is one of the greatest moments in any piece of media ever.

So wow… this reboot does things I hate so many other movies doing, but it does them WELL. This is the standard by which reboots should be judged, in my opinion. Even if this is wholly different from the show, it made me want to WATCH the show instead of just avoid it like a bad reboot would do. I was someone with no interest in the series, and now I must admit I’m curious. So, if nothing else, I need to praise this film for being a reboot that sparked my interest in things instead of nipping it in the bud. But no matter what, congratulations to the creators of this film; you made a reboot that was actually enjoyable, and that is a feat almost unheard of. It may not be a perfect film or the best action film ever, but goddamn if I didn’t enjoy it.