#so we dont have to be homeless again because you destroyed our building

[27treks]

our neighbors are from fucking hell they've been pouring oil down their drains and got the whole 2nd floor flooded and destroyed the laundry room below them so now we have to go to the laundromat and its over $5 for a single load just to wash....

[popculturebuffet]

Jake Reviews Stuff: Steven Universe: The Answer

Happy pride everyone and naturally, it just wouldn’t feel like a celebration of pride in animation without one of the frontrunners of LBGTQ represintation in Children’s television, as well as quality in storytelling in general: Steven Universe.  Since your seeing this you probably know the gist but as my idol peter parker would say let’s do this one last time:  The story of Steven, a 14 year old, though he dosen’t look it, boy with a boundless amount of love, compassion and empathy,  lives in beach city with his borderline homeless dad , surrogate moms and surrogate until we find out they actually are kinda related sister: Garnet, a fusion of two gems in love and thus the sum total of both them and their feelings, Peal, an emotional but loving gem who grew from a servant to Rose’s right hand, sometimes lover, and confidant, and Amythest, a gem born long after the war that brought everyone else here who acts like a 20 something or teenager half the time. Steven soon finds himself fighting alongside themt o protect earth both from the monsters caused by the final battle of the war his mother fought to save earth from distruction and let her army live life how they choose, and the gem homeworld as it starts to take an intrest in earth again. And as the fight goes on Steven also starts to see just how flawed his family is and how much they haven’t moved on from his moms death and finds himself forced to help them past it while grappling with his mom’s terrible and complicated legacy, everyone expecitng him to basically be her, and what it means to be a  being that’s truly one of a kind.  I absolutley love the show: it’s not without flaws; Characters tend to be ingnored for seasons or episodes at a time,some arcs are really weirdly paced and the slice of life episodes can be jammed in the weirdest places. But the show’s strength: a devotion to having emotional resolution be even more important, and sometimes just as powerful animated and framed, than fighting, though the show’s fight scene’s are incredible, incredibly deep characters with fully fleshed out arcs and growth, and a love for tackling deep, heavy subjects through metaphor or even directly, taking on things such as gender identity, societal conformity, ptsd, grief, gender identity and many many more with grace and weight and helping kids with them in the process.  The show is also the frontrunner for LBGTQ+ representation in cartoons in the 2010′s. While other shows had bits nad pieces, series creator Rebecca Sugar was the one responsible for making Marcline and Princess Bubblegum ex-lovers and making it obvious as possible without saying it because standards were bullshit, Steven Unvierse decided to say fuck subtley and thus had PLENTY OF gay content: Garnet is a fusion of two women and the embodiment of their love and relationship, and when the two show up their very affectionate with one another to the point of bullcrap censorship in less tolerant countries such as india and russia, while Pearl out and out had a CENTURIES LONG romantic relationship with Steven’s mother who was explictly pansexual, and that’s just the main cast!  But I genuinely believe that it’s thanks to Steven Universe that children’s animation is as LBGTQ+ positive as it is now. SU wasn’t the first to have gay leads but it was one of the few kids shows with the balls and, at least in the us, network support to explictily have gay characters as some of the main cast, and I feel the show’s success softend execs at CN and other companies to let more representation too. Since SU”s airing, most CN shows have had gay content great and small, Nick has had gay parents and a bisexual lead, not to mention the korra ending kicking it all off, and Netflix has said hold my beer, having not only multiple gay main characters, but having the finale of she ra be built on a decleration of love between two women saving the universe and being the climax of the entire series.  Not that those crews likely still didn’t have to FIGHT for most of that, i’m not bilind and NOelle Stevenson has outright admitted she had to be sneaky about catradora for season 1 as to not get it shut down, but I feel SU”s sucess and Rebecca and crew’s own likely fights put the various studio goon’s reflector shields down and got more representation into children’s media. And that’s a wonderful thing.  So naturally the show was a lock for this month and for coverage here.. i’ts just given the show’s heavily seralized nature and the fact it dosen’t really have any long romantic story arcs. Sure ther’es plenty of romance, but it’s mostly either in the past or between an already married couple that’s also a person. The show’s arcs were more focused on worldbuilding and character building, which I do prefer and will be doing one in July.  But it did make it tricky to find an episode to spotlight the character I wanted to spotlight: Garnet Garnet is easily my faviorite character, with pearl a very close second: she has a great dynamic, is a decent if flawed mother and leader, and is also damn funny with her deadpanned reactions to things being utterly divine. As well as whatever the hell this is. 

The problem is I also wanted to spotlight the parts making up her: Ruby and Sapphire, their relationship etc as they themselves are fantastic and i’m 100% convinced were the inspriation for one mr mc skat kat and one paula abdul’s magnum opus in steven’s unvierse

The problem is most rupphire episodes are tangled in bigger arcs. They debuted at the end of the invasion arc, they had the baseball episdoe together shortly after another arc, and their wedding is tied up in the reveal rose was pink diamond and the reception is crashed by the climactic battle with Yellow and Blue that sets up the final arc of the whole series. But thankfully season two gave us The Answer to my problem.. ironically named the Answer, basically Garnet Year One as Garnet tells steven how she came to be, a story so beauitful they made a storybook out of it.. and it’s my honor to present it here after the cut. 

We open at the Barn... as a refresher at this point the Gems and Steven have been staying at Greg’s old family farm in order to have the  space and suplies to build a drill to stop the cluster from hatching and destroying earth, with Peridot reluctantly working with them. So as such Steven’s sleeping there when Garnet wakes her.. and in a notable departure for her it’s san’s shade, which shows her adorable excitment as she wakes Steven. Turns out it’s his birthday! And.. I don’t really begrudge the show for takin ga break for two episodes to celebrate it: besides being the only time steven went up a year, on screen, it was a nice break from the peridot/cluster storyline for a second, and this and the following episode are pretty great and both add a lot to the world as a whole. It’s why i don’t MIND when SU takes a break from the plot, as long as they do it for good reason. 

IN a great callback steven asks if garent’s going to tell him she’s a fusion, as Jailbreak revealed the reason she hadn’t yet is she was saving it for his birthday, which is a good joke and a great callback. Garnet cheerfully tells him know but has clearly found a backup: While steven knows she’s a fusion now.. she never told him how she came to be and how ruby and sapphire met after all.  So we journey back about 5000 years to, as we’d learn much later with the pink diamond reveal, the start of the gem war. Earth was to be the next great colony, as we’d learn next season for pink diamond, but something was in the way: The rebel rose quartz and her brutal right hand pearl were causing tons of distruption, so the rest of the diamonds had come to snuff out the rebellion personally.  So that’s where Ruby and Sapphire came in. Sapphire is a higher class gem, and befiting her caste is a precog, with Sapphires brought in to tell the diamonds the future so they can either make sure it happens or change it’s course. Garnet neaturally has this ablility too but vastly improved to see multiple timelines. She’s proper and distant.  Ruby meanwhile is a shy, if more intellgent then her peers grunt soldier. Rubies as we learned here are basically made in groups to fuse. To homeworld, Fusion is simply a tactic to create a slightly stronger gem out of three other gems, and basically creates one giant person. In Contrast up to this point the series has shown fusion as something important to the crystal gems and requriing more work: It requires all parties to be in sync to even happen much less stay together, and requires an emotional connection; Freindship, romance, kinship... whatever it is it’s needed to hold the fusion together. It’s part of what MAKES garnet so impressive: Garnet is a permafusion, only unfusing either when her two halves are needed. or when thier personal conflict is so great they CAN’T stay fused. It also means due to said emotional resonance and combining the best traits of two gems rather than creating just one big gem, that the crystal fusions we’ve seen are vastly more powerful and versitale.. evne if they dont’ speak much because Rebecca made the mistake of getting big artist to do the role and apparently refused to just you know.. recast? It’s something that always baffled me. There’s no shortage of talented poc performers who can sing out there.  Anyways, that’s part of what makes this intresting: up till now, we’d only seen one form of fusion.. we hadn’t seen what homeworld thought of it and used it for, and to the show’s credit it was hinted back during the return arc when Jasper called fusion a “tactic for making weak gems stronger”, since as far as homeworld used it, that’s what it was and it’s a stark contrast to the crystal gems harder to maintain but much more intresting and unique fusions. 

We’ll get more into this later. The two front rubies argue about whose going to punch people whie our ruby just points out the obvious: Their just going to fuse into a really big ruby and punch together. This gets her shoved into sapphire, which despite not being her fault gets gasps and monocle pops from the gems around them. And it’s about time I dug into the episodes unique animation style: instead of the usual, only a handful of characters, the rubies, sapphire, and later rose and pearl, are animated normally and even then, at least for the first half, are brightly lit in their primary colors, while the rest of the gems present are just barely animated sytlistic shadows. It’s a really intresting choice and a clever way to save on budget, while still looking gorgeous. 

Sapphire, while refusing Ruby’s help getting up, is understanding if monotone, but as w’eve seen in the present, tha’ts mostly just a side effect from seeing where everything’s going, and likely the reason garnet’s own emotional process is much like that; Stoic but willing to emote when necessary. Sapphire however has a reason for brushing her ruby off: the reason she was called here.. Blue Diamond.  This is intresting as it’s not only the first time we HEARD of blue, as before this we only heard of Yellow, who’d make her proper debut at the end of this season, but the first time we saw a diamond in any way shape of form. Sure we had murals and such, but given the lack of info about the diamonds this early on it was impossible to tell whow as who and the only giveway there was more than was diamond was the symbols: the era 1 symbols in temples and at the arena showing all 4, hinting at pink, and the modern one shown in jailbreak that was a triforce. We do only see Blue in a hood, covered by her palquin and her voice done by Garnet, but it’s still the first tiem we’d see any of the diamonds in any onscreen form. The Garnet voice is also notcable as every other voice in the flashabck, including characters who aren’t either part of garnet or the same gem type as part of her, is normal.. it’s only blue Garnet does a voice for.. and a clever way of covering for the fact they likely hadn’t cast her voice actress yet. It’s also notable for the introduction of Blue Pearl, who silently stands by her Diamond teh whole time.. it’s weird thinking back to the fact that this was the first time we’d really SEEN other versions of our main cast: other rubies and another pearl. Sure we knew they were all part of one type or another with the obvious exception of garnet.. but this episode is notable, and weird to think about giiven how many variants we see as the series goes on, for being the FIRST time we see this on screen. 

Sapphire reveals that while she, and two of her rubies, will poof the rebllion will end here, and Blue is releaved to here this, thanks sapphire and dismisses her. As Garnet explains, Sapphire had no issue with this as she simply saw her life as one straight line: No choice no, option: Fate would just come as it may. Sapphire also muses to Our Ruby on the fact that she finds this planet a wonderful place for a colony.. and that she wishes she could’ve seen more of it. While Our Ruby says theirs more time, Sapphire, while appricating the sentiment gently shoots it down.  This little moment is interuptted however as Rose shouts out, signaling her and Pearl’s arrival. The battle has begun. And I do like the clever use of storytelling here.. not in presetnation but in what we’d learn muchhhh later with the big reveal: To a first time watcher, we just thought that it was only rose and pearl for story purposes or it was a small attack. After all the rest of the characters we’d seen were just shadows, so I, and I presume many others just assumed the rest were off screen or failing that this was just a small strike. As we’d learn once we got the full story of Pink Diamond becoming rose.. it was indeed JUST them, and only them at the time. it’s probably why in the future sapphire saw the rebellion ended her: Pink while powerful had to reign it in as not to be found out and pearl, while as we see her is already utterly badass and an ace with a sword as she mows down Quartz soldiers, is still one gem going up against a literal army.  Another noticable thing, that hints at when this takes place is the fact that when Rose takes down the fused rubies, poofing two of them and leaving ours to flump to the ground.. she uses her fists. At this point her iconic sword is well established and it’s assumed it was just left out for artistic purpose.. but since we meet who made it next season with Bismuth, it’s another clever hint this is before there was a proper army. Bismuth wasn’t a gem yet so Rose/Pink just had her natural strength and shield to protect her, which wasn’t nothing, but the sword probably made it far easier to hold back. 

And thus we come to the moment of truth: Pearl has come back and is about to mow down sapphire.. when Ruby realizes just waht Sapphire meant and waht she’s about to do and thus.. the future changed. Ruby tackles her out of the way. And Garnet is born. 

I absolutley love Garnet’s cotton candy design, both as a sensible evolution, as this is a garnet formed in a moment of passion and accidently versus the one we see in the present or even in flashbacks: a person formed by choice and love and thus having a more stable form. Naturally, Rose and Pearl are baffled by this.. and it’s even more understandable.. as the above mentioned pink diamond origin episode explained.. they had never SEEN this kind of fusion before. While i’m sure this isn’t the first time this happend in gem history, any others were likely killed as soon as it were over or went into hiding as we saw with the off colors. And Pink being sheltered and Pearl being created for her, probalby simply never thought of something like this existing. But they also realize this never before seen to them miracle is their cue to skidoo and book it out of there.  Naturally Blue is pissed and the court are disgusted as the two defuse and both have about the same reacation. 

Before Blue can murder Ruby for you know, doing her fucking job, Sapphire ttakes her by the hand and books it off the sky arena and the two plummet to earth  while ruby screams no a lot. The foundation of any good relationship. 

They float down to earth.. because she’s Mary Poppins Ya’ll. Ruby reveals why she’s upset: Because as she sees it, there’s dozens of her. She’s not WORTH this. Sapphire has no reaction because for the first time, she has no idea what the future brings, what it means and the future she saw was just shattered. She’s frozen. 

Jokes aside I really love that pun. Ruby worries and quickly scoops her up bridal carry style and quickly finds the two a cave. In the cave the two light that flame get that and Ruby continues to freak out over what happened,  upset with her self that she’s supposed to save sapphire.. with Sapphire gently reassuring her “you already did.”  It’s also intresting as it shows even garnet, or at least half of her, had to go through what peridot did.. it went down a bit easier since exile happened right away, but Ruby still had to shake off the homeworld conceived notion that she was WRONG for saving sapphire simply because it lost them the fight and got them fused and all that. It’s also a nice metaphor for someone whose been told, for a nightmarish rainbow assortment of bullshit resaons, that being gay is wrong only to discover they are and having to realize there’s nothing wrong with who they are. 

After a breif flash the two finally talk about their fusion, with Sapphire being suprised considering she figured fusion wasn’t anything like they experinced.. only for Ruby to chime in that sh’es RIGHT: Their fusion wasn’t anything like Ruby’s normal “me but bigger’ fusion.. they lost htemselves.. and both clearly enjoyed it, expressing it through having a third eye for ruby and more than one for sapphi 

We then get the utterly adorable musical number: “Something Entirely New”Which takes the so far mildly subtle “This is like two people who had sex with the oppsite gender for the first time “ metaphor.. and just makes it texual as the song basically screams of two people talking over an unfamiliar sexual experince, but in a cute, well done, and intentionally awkward way that’s still approraite for the kids. it’s a real beautiful song and also shows the burgoning couple bond on earth. This is important as a previous episode had garent and out and out say that love takes time and work, accurate and that love at first sight simply dosen’t exist.. and we also see she practices waht she preaches as the montage does show some time past and even before that the two genuiely bonded. Sure they FUSED on the spur of the moment.. but actually loving each other took time and bonding. 

As the song ends, the two dance romantically,deciding to be Garnet for good as we get some nice callbacks to jailbreak: the two hum the tune to stronger than you, now revealed to be their song and spin similarilty to the way they have when they’ve fused, a nice callback that also add’s weight to those previous moments.. and thus two become one and Garnet is reborn. 

Garnet narrates as her past self gets used to her strange new form.. and just as she does she falls down a ditch. Eh could’ve been worse. 

Garnet finds herself face to sword with Pearl. Pearl backs off a bit once she realizes who their dealing with, and Garnet panickedly offers to unfuse.. only for Rose to enter. Garnet narrates them as Rose Quartz and her terrifying renegade pearl. 

Truly a force to be reckoned with. Rose dosen’t care about her own feelings though “What you feel is bound to be more intresting” It’s a good moment both because Garnet , up to this point hasn’t had to think about what they are or how they feel.. but more notably... no one but the two gems makingthem up ever cared, not before they were garnet and after all the homeworld gems wanted was to kill her. We also get a great line from garnet: “Why am I sure that i’d rather be this than anything else and that i’d rather do this than anything else i’m supposed to do? “  Rose’s response.. to give a giant grin while saying welcome to earth. As Garnet continues to question things, Rose tells her to never question this, never question what you are... which is a damn good message for a kids show to give out. The metaphor is crystal clear: no matter where you are on that beautiful lbgtq+ rainbow: NEVER be ashamed of who you are, never question it.. just enjoy it. Be who your meant to be and love that person. It’s a damn good message and one badly needed in a medium that for way too fucking long was SCARED to tell messages like this: Of sponsors, of foreign markets, and of idiots like one million moms. it took people like rebecca and her crew to say “fuck that”, to say that queer kids NEED these kinds of stories to know they aren’t alone, they are beautiful how they are. They shoudln’t have to wait to find out what they are.. is okay. And that’s beautiful. 

As Rose Tells Garnet that she is the answer, and as we cut back to the present, Steven asks what the answer is. Garnet simply answers: Love. And we close on one great exchange Steven: I knew it Garnet; (wistfully) So did I. 

Final Thoughts: While I remembered the episode being good, hence part of the reason I choose it I forgot just HOW great this episode was, especially post reveal. The art direction is goregous, shot like a fairy tail and rightfully so since this episode is told as one, the story is heartwarming and erica and charlene really act their hearts out as ruby and sapphire while Estelle kills it as both present garnet narrating and past garnet, a garnet ENTIRELY diffrent from what we’ve seen but acted beautifully. It’s espcially noticable since unlike the other two lead gems, we obviously wouldn’t see more garnets like we would amythests and pearls, so unlike her contepraries estelle really didn’t get to flex her vocal range as much playing alternate versions as the seasons went on, with this being the closest she got.  The episode is beautiful, has a wonderful message, and is just utterly charming and is agian why I DON’T mind that every su episode dosen’t advance the plot: Sometimes it dosen’t need to. And even so this one ended up being WAY more important than I remembered, introducing blue diamond and turning out to be MASSIVELY important once the reveal kicked it: For it was Garnet, and the love dthat forged her that changed Pink’s direction. Before the rebellion was simply a way to stop the occupation of earth and would’ve been snuffed out if not for ruby’s actions.. but seeing garnet, seeing how earth and being free from homeworld’s restraints could positvely impact someone.. it changed rose. Besides bringing her and Pearl together, it also made her realize just what her rebellion could bring to people and what a gem could be and even more how precious her future home was. By forming in an act of Love, garnet changed the entire future of gemkind. By staying that way she did so once more. And that’s beautifully. overall an underated, even by me, little masterwork with once again a damn fine message.  We’ll get back to SU soon enough, as I plan to cover the series first full arc as we meet peridot, and see into the souls of our heroines. But first Pride isn’t over yet, and I have one last card on the table as we todd it up a bit with my first look at bojack horseman. Like this if you enjoyed it, comments subscirbe etc etc and don’t be afraid to comission a review for 3 bucks, and until we meet agian, later days. 

[pbandjesse]

Today has been a lot!! I have another cat in the other room. He is orange and his name is Andrew!!! He is just temporary until I find him a new home but man is he a sweetheart and man is sweetP upset!!

Today really was a lot. I slept bad again. And when I woke up I was so upset I was almost in tears. I tried my best to just get an extra couple minutes but I really had to get up. 

I got dressed and was really just not having a fun time. At least my outfit was cute and I wore one of my new hair clips and I felt pretty good about that. 

I got to work with plenty of time even though I accidentally got stuck in the apartment building because someone was sleeping in the entry way and Im assuming someone tried to lock the door more and they like messed it up and I had to go back up to get help from James. Like I dont mind homeless people chilling in there but like, I gotta get out. But I still got to work on time. 

I was mostly just watching a program I had never seen before: paper bridges. Which was neat. But it did not go super well with the first group. They were 8th graders which already made it hard but they called Kaitlyn a bitch and it was really distressing to her. Not shocking I would be upset too. I actually stepped in and gave a speech about the strength of shapes and helped pull everything together to try to make it not so bad. Take some pressure off her. 

And the second time around went just fine.  John is an excellent teacher, we had a smaller group, and it just went much smoother. I am glad I saw both ends of the spectrum. 

But I was also really glad to be done. I headed out and went to get lunch.

I had burger king. I cut my sandwich in half again which continues to be the way to go. I texted Marcus and he asked me to come get him. Absolutely. So I went to get him. I waited in the parking lot for a while. I found a coat rack with a bear on top in the trash. What a nice find. It only needs a little fixing. 

Me and Marcus went to the dollar store for some candies. And off we went to school. 

It was an okay day. The kids were good. I enjoyed their company. But the school is still not a really nice place to be. We hung up art and there was just a lot of uncomfortable comments. About how it wont stay up and the kids will tear it down and destroy it. But like. Its partially your job to get them not to do that?? It just sucked to be told that. 

But working with my kids was good and I had a nice time. 

Pick up took a long while. I had a lot of tears with my kids today so I shared some funny videos of my Rizmo and toys and stuff. I just want them to feel happy. I try my best. 

I had to be in the front office for a while waiting for parents. But that was okay. I was still able to leave around 6. 

As soon as I went outside I saw a cat right there. A beautiful small orange baby. And it came over to me for pets!! But I said goodbye and started walking. And he followed me!! Across the street!! That upset me and I picked him up to make the rest of the walk to the grass and put him down. But then he ran back in the street. I called over to a neighbor and was like 'any idea whos cat??" and they and another neighbor told me its a stray and they were hoping I was taking it when they saw me picking him up. So I coaxed him out from under a car and put him in the front seat. 

He was very silly to drive with. He wanted to be on my arm. Then on my lap under the steering wheel. Then on my shoulder. I was listening to Andrew Jackson Jihad, which is one of my favorite bands and singing to the cat and laughing and I decided that was his name. For now. 

At a stop light I texted our upstairs neighbor Kimberly and asked if she knew anyone who might like a cat. And she said to bring him up so they could meet him. So that is what I did. And its looking good that they will take him if we can convince Nick. Andrew is such a good cat and it would be so nice to let him continue to live in the building. 

But well see. For now Kimberly helped us get him all set up in my studio so we can close the door so sweetP isnt to upset. But then we had to go right back out. Yesterday was James's mom's birthday and we had to go celebrate.

We had dinner and grasshopper pie and she gave us some more train parts. It was just real nice to be with them but I was very tired. 

We got back and I got cleaned up and changed. Went to sit with Andrew. Tried to make sweetP not mad at me. And now Im just in bed. I am really ready to get some sleep. Im just watching a small documentary about a con man and feeling sleepy. 

I hope you all have a great night. Tomorrow is a very long day. Museum, teaching, art show, silks! Its like a 14 hour day. Im already tired. 

I hope you all sleep well tonight. Goodnight!

[tumblunni]

ANOTHER REPETITIVE POST! I love Spectacularverse Doc Ock like I love breathing oxygen, ok bye

I mean seriously WHAT a good character design and backstory and personality and just seriously rescuing a critically underrated character concept that’s been varying degrees of camp in EVERY OTHER ADAPTATION EVER and seriously this time he looks even more goofy and cute than ever before yet is also the most genuinely intimidating?? and this dude has had plots about being like an uplaoded conciousness separated from his graphically depicted mutant cancer-ridden body and possessing spiderman, and shit like that, and IT ALWAYS COMES OFF AS CAMP AND BADLY WRITTEN and then they can friggin make me terrified of a four foot tall middle aged office worker with a world’s best evil boss mug. And like FOR ONCE he’s actually shown as being remotely smart, geez, its not just He Can Invent Literally Anything The Plot Requires but he never does any form of badass master planner shit even though he should be able to. THE MASTER PLANNER EPISODE WAS THE FUCKIN BEST. They somehow made the sinister six actually sinister! THEY RESCUED THAT CONCEPT TOO!!

but seriously just fuckin LOOK AT HIM

he’s THE MOST ADORABLE he like.. ACTUALLY looks like a normal nerdy mid 30s or 40s science dude who stumbled into evil by accident. he isn’t just some abnormally ripped generic superhero in skintight spandex with just glasses and a generic bowl cut or curly hair doodled on top I actually REALLY like the redesign of his villain outfit, seriously! Its the least actual ‘villain outfit’ villain outfit. He just pulls on a vaguely practical jumpsuit and swaps out his work labcoat for a comfortable cardigan overcoat thing. HE LOOKS LIKE MY GRANDMA! It works a lot better to have the crazy robot limbs be shooting out from some disarmingly normal guy, and seriously why did he ever NEED to be fuckin buff when he has robot limbs?? seriously this version is like a miniscule adorable uncle being dragged along entirely by the limbs yet he somehow managed to be the most physically orientated incarnation of doc ock because WHY WOULD HIS NORMAL ARMS NEED TO BE BUFF, SERIOUSLY IT WILL NEVER STOP BEING DISTRACTING TO ME And like, the reimi movies were one of the earliest successful attempts at making him sympathetic, but man it was Also Distracting how he was again really kinda ripped but also like supermodel handsome?? he looked like some rich heiress to a french duchy or something. and his costume was all Trying Too Hard To Be Badass with the Fashion Trenchcoat (tm) and like seriously i do like how this version is like a colourscheme tribute to that one while also changing stuff to fit with this version of him and just seriously man i love all the doc ocks even if i’m a critical bastard oh and also underrated but good is how many costume changes he makes, and how they succeed at never changing the way he’s meant to be perceived because of it. Some of his most serious scary moments are with him topless aside from the robo harness, and we don’t get a bunch of ~ha ha fat man~ jokes, seriously this is his INTRODUCTION and as much as spidey quips around its still hella intimidating and really tragic sad. And its happening to this random half-naked Old Dadman wearing nothing but a vest and shorts. oh and the episode where he wore a cool tuxedo!! that was!! really good!! why did it even take place in fancytown if not to give us an excuse for Dapper Ock Day. When your defining concept is being basically a flesh suit dragged along by a robot thing slowly taking over your personality, I dont see why anyone needs to follow ANY ‘rules’ or cliches about what that flesh suit looks like. THE INTIMIDATING THING IS NOT THE PEOPLE PART. Yet somehow in this show it IS, I’m more scared by Nice Dadman’s loss of his humanity than I am of getting stabbed in half by his Nice Dadman Robo Hands

MAN I JUST FUCKIN REALLY ADORE THIS DOC OCK

like just LOOK AT HIM he wins the sympathetic plotline thing way more instantly just because this time HIS DESIGN is also made with that in mind right from the beginning him being a super normal relateable huggable shy nerd with a sad office life and a lil bowtie is all deliberately engineered to NOT ONLY make him relateable and sad but ALSO make him more intimidating?? like, its planned ahead of time to give you this established personality for his pre-transformation self that cameos in a few episodes before it actually happens. So the huge change in his personality is shocking and terrifying and you still know there’s some normal guy stuck inside it all, and really this could have happened to anyone, it could have happened to you! and its just like ONE EXTRA CHUNK OF BADASS ON THE BADASS CAKE that like.. his design.. doesnt change?? he doesnt stop being short + round + cute + traditional shyman design even when the shyman personality pretty much evaporates into eternal rage. You��re still getting your ass kicked by Someone’s Embarassing Dad At The Christmas Party. Its a total abandoning of all ideas of who can and can’t be a superhero/villain and seriously i know its such a minor detail but this is why i love how Spectacular diversified everyone’s body build and stuff. Also, having way more distinct silhouettes makes them more memorable, and makes the characters who’re supposed to be defined by being buff actually look it! but seriously imagine being fuckin rolled in an alleyway by The Most Harmless Dad weilding a giant bioweapon and an interlinked criminal empire of other villains under his control because even in his deranged state he keeps his massive intellect that was never recognised back when he was good ITS SO FUCKIN TRAGIC BUT SO FUCKIN COOL

and seriously HIS PLOT his PLOT his personality, his backstory, his very brief yet really well developed foreshadowing before his origin story AAAA its SO GOOD

I think the best part of it in my opinion is like.. he’s sympathetic but he’s NOT redeemable? Well, he might be redeemable but he never gets a redemption plot, he ignores all his damn epiphanies, and like.. Spidey doesnt even know the poor sod’s backstory so he never even tries, and its REALLY FRUSTRATING but also realistic too He was 100% The Nicest most innocent good natured guy and now he is 100% a villain who never even remotely tries to go down that redemption plotline yet the show keeps it hanging over our head forever as a goddamn tragic thing He was just... a really good guy who did nothing?? He didnt deserve anything?? He just got turned into a monster against his own will after tHE WORST DAY IN HIS LIFE and basically broke and decided to abandon all that goodness in one big moment. And man, I say ‘decided’ like it isnt an intriguingly ambiguous theorizeable constant question of how much of his old self is actually left in there and how much is the arms talking. I kinda like to interpret it as like Spidey and the black suit? Its a shame they didnt take the opportunity to use any parallels when it happened. but like ok SERIOUSLY like.. even the sympathetic Ocks of times past weren’t THIS pure

he wasnt JUST a good guy, he was a really shy chronic doormat who’d been ordered around by assholes all his life and had all his accomplishments stolen and just fuckin DIDNT DO ANYTHING WRONG EVER and manifested his super doom powers not through any normal accident even but from his asshole employer trying to murder him and he would have legit died in the most horrible horrible way. the last we get to see of Good!Ock is his ‘oh umm, sir, I think the door lock is broken’ turning into a horrific realization, and then him fuckin... CURLING UP IN A FETAL POSITION CRYING and “this can’t happen, I’ve been good’ THATS LITERALLY THE LINE like HOW MANY OTHER TIMES have people betrayed this man in his life?? he’s so fuckin buried in respectability politics that its no wonder he went COMPLETELY NUTS as soon as he got powers. he’s spent his WHOLE LIFE being good for NO REWARD, being TOO GOOD and having villains take advantage of him again and again, like no fucking wonder he’d give up on the whole concept of virtue being his own reward when LITERALLY IT NEVER WAS like seriously aside from the part about him inventing a magic super arms suit and his boss trying to murder him this is JUST AN ORDINARY STORY OF CORPORATE AMERICA this is the kind of ‘tragic backstory’ thats completely fuckin normalized in our society all his suffering was just cos of money and academic elitism and terrible employers n shit, his grand reason for becoming a villain is just because HIS JOB IS BAD and its not even SUPERNATURALLY bad until the point where it tries to kill him. its a supernatural sci fi corporation whose worst points are its SUPER REALISTIC BEAUROCRATIC BULLSHIT. And seriously this could have even ended the same way in real life, it’d just be more likely the mistreated employee would become homeless and die on the streets, or collapse from overwork, or something... so seriously this fuckin CINNAMON ROLL WHO DID NOTHING WRONG whose intro episode is ENTIRELY JUST DEVOTED TO CONVINCING US HE’S GOOD AND NOT LIKE ANY OTHER OCK EVER, this fuckin SHY DADMAN THE HUGS with his TINY BOWTIE he gets fuckin destroyed and killed offscreen before spiderman ever even meets him, and we get to see it but he doesnt, and then we enter in at already the point of no return where ock’s decided to never trust anyone ever again except The Machine, and NOBODY IN-UNIVERSE even gets to find out that he was once good!

and i love how the show actually explores the underappreciated flaw of spiderman, that sometimes the people he’s quipping against aren’t really The Mook of The Day but a sympathetic human being who might have been able to be talked down instead. Early on in this show he gets a bit carried away in having fun with his hero job, and makes a few mistakes like this. As well as just times that he did know the villain before they turned, and he’s REALLY trying to help them, but he still fails for other reasons and its just like AAAAA maybe if he had a bit more experience he could have figured out what to do but you know he’s not gonna realize that, he’s just gonna blame himself forever. Spiderman is allowed to have Kind of A Douche Move flaws, yet also be sympathetic and good at the same time?? So good! Its more clearly shown with the Electro episode, I think? Just look at how much more serious he gets when he realizes this isnt like Electro, The Guy Who Donned A Super Suit One Day And Decided To Commit Crime, but Literally Max You Just Met The Other Day, Who Escaped From The Hospital And Is Having A Mental Breakdown In A Public Coffee Shop. Seriously Electro here is really underrated! We don’t get as much time with pre-villainy him and he’s a bit snippy and such, but he was still just a normal good person who fell into bad luck, and he still has this scary loss of personality afterwards. He’s possibly even more tragic than Doc Ock cos there isn’t even any deniability ~ooh but maybe he’s controlled by the arms or maybe not~ and he didnt have a really long backstory that convinced him to change his perspective in life after one big bad day. His change comes out of NOWHERE after that one big bad day, and even he seems really scared and confused about it! Its like whatever the fuck is going on with this magic electricity infection has amplified all his emotions to a point where they physically pain him, he’s suddenly really obsessed with minor jealousy things and seems unable to rationally process them like he was seen doing just five minutes ago. He’s even kinda LESS snippy than he was before, he’s like he can’t even string together a complex enough train of thought to manage it. He goes from a pretty world-weary and down-to-earth electrical worker to like.. uncomfortably childlike, and the series uncomfortably making fun of him for it. I found it very relateable as an autistic person, even though it was 99% likely unintentional, and like.. if it was intentional it would be pretty bad representation anyway cos its like some guy being turned autistic by magic science, but yknow Whatever. Still goddamn coffee shop scene was literally Several Days of My Life laid bare on the screen for all to see, poor goddamn relateavle Electro AND LIKE Not to mention the sensory deprivation body horror aspect, like HOLY SHIT imagine how scary it must be to have to wear this full body armour thing and NEVER TOUCH ANYTHING EVER AGAIN because you’re MADE OF DEATH NOW. Seriously his fuckin turning point was after a day of slowly discovering all the different ways he was Completely Fucked, he just wanted a damn cup of coffee and ended up crying in the starbucks, and then spiderman comes in assuming he’s a villain cos well he looks like a weird electro creature and seriously HE JUST WANTED HIS COFFEE. its like an uncomfortably realistic depiction of a panic attack that some poor guy is having after developing a major disability in an accident. Amplified by crazy lightning powers ruining his brain, and some dumb spider kid punching him while he’s trying to figure it all out. I think this is kinda why I really like the subtle hints of a fatherly relationship between doc ock and him? He’s surprisingly patient with him compared to the other sinister six members, and Electro treats him with a huge amount of respect and admiration he isn’t shown giving ANYONE else! like seriously, his brain meltdown made him think all his old friends were conspiring against him at the slightest misinterpreted evidence, so it says a LOT that Ock is able to actually keep this status as a trustable person in Super Paranoia Man’s brain across two whole seasons. And its kinda adorable how he’s like ‘wow, electro just jumped the gun and misunderstood my plan YET AGAIN’ but at most he just chastises the dude and actually explains what he did wrong. And electro actually does change slightly over the series, developing from this mentorly treatment when nothing else ever seemed to work for him. Tho I mean, its never made clear whether Ock really sees him that way or if its just like ‘well this guy is easy to manipulate if you offer him the most minimal kindness’ which is SAD IN ITS OWN RIGHT! thatd be so depressing cos it’d mean ock is becoming like how osborne used to treat his old self. i prefer to hope its just a shred of his old good guy self relating to Electro’s situation.

and MAN the question of whether doc ock is in control, or the arms! ITS HANDLED REALLY WELL!!! the one thing that bugged me about the reimi movie ock is that its always a bad ‘redemption story’ when the guy never even chose to turn evil, he’s just being mind controlled or something. they made it too clear that he was 100% mind controlled by the evil arms and yet tried to blame him 100% for his actions and then he dies in the end. And seriously, why was he even able to regain control of his senses in the end if he couldnt before? it would make so much more sense if he was a guy who actually made a bad choice in life, saw the consequences, and took the decision to change. THIS IS THE BEST PART OF REDEMPTION PLOTS and like.. the interesting part about Spectacular Ock is how he’s just gone 100% full hog into his evil and expresses no interest in taking any offers of redemption plot. He isnt all divided and doubting because of his old goodness, he legit went from 100% good to 100% evil in one scene. ‘I should sacrifice my own health and confidence and life just to be useful to other people’ to ‘EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING FOR ME. NEVER TRUST ANYONE EVER. GIVE ME THE RECOGNITION I WAS DENIED!’ It sounds like it SHOULD be a jarring change but they wrote it so well that it COMPLETELY works! we dont see the entirety of his life beforehand but we see enough to know that this was his absolute despair horizon and he’s emerged on the other side as someone tragically unrecogniseable. And every single thing about this wildly different new evil personality is ABSOLUTELY derived by something that was already evidenced in his old good one. Its dark reflections of personality traits that were one some of his greatest virtues. And its like.. a deliberate decision on his part to become the kind of villain who’s the opposite of the weak things he despised in himself, cos as much as he’s all ‘dont trust anyone’ now he still blames himself for not being good enough, as if he somehow deserved what happened and could have avoided it if he acted differently. Its a very performative kind of ego that’s critically fragile deep down. And also HOLY SHIT I love how well developed that was as a flaw!! They gave us an actual reason for why Ock could be ‘a genius’ yet still make mistakes when necessary to allow our hero an opening to defeat him. They make him WAY more competant than he ever was before, and now his mistakes stem from an established character flaw so its far less obvious deus ex machina. Its not ‘stupid moments’ anymore, even if its still a genius at some things showing a lack of basic common sense at others. Now its because he loses rationality when angered or insulted, due to the circumstances of his depressing backstory. Just act like mr osborne and all ock’s cool composure falls away. Heartlessly weaponize those memories of his abuser, our hero! (SERIOUSLY THIS SHOW DOES MORAL AMBIGUITY SO WELL)

ok ok ok okay WHERE WAS I oh yeah THE ARMS QUESTION cos seriously it is SO GOOD and its one of the biggest reasons i’m sad the show got cancelled before reaching a resolution. i wanted to have the question answered!! or at least give us enough evidence to draw a conclusion one way or another! Ok so like.. its left TANTALIZINGLY vague whether Ock’s vast change in personality was JUST due to snapping after one terrible day, or if the accident with the arms actually affected his brain somehow. like, we know from other continuities that ‘the arms’s AI is fused with my personality’ is a thing that can potentially happen to a doc ock, but did it happen to this one? Honestly its so vague we dont even know if ANYTHING happened to them in the accident really. Could he have actually taken them off at any time? is his story less about ‘oh god im stuck as a cyborg freak forever, i will take it out on humanity’ and just a guy who stole this bioweapon tech when he decided to become a villain, and is using it normally as intended? Cos seriously when you briefly see him in prison like.. how did they remove the arms? And how did they so easily attatch again afterwards? it doesnt seem like they were stabbing into his flesh like in the reimi movie, just however the spinal attatchment was normally intended to function. Also: another underrated moment! Its a great interpretation to have the arms be something he invented himself as a morally neutral laboratory aide, and never intended them to be a weapon at all. they do seem weirdly battle equipped for simple prosthetic limbs, so it feels like maybe osborne modified his original design because He Is Evil Fuckface In Every Possible Way. Then again you could probably say that stuff like the saw functionality might be necessary when you’re working with building complex robotics n stuff. Anyway, it was cute and creepy and creepycute to see good!Ock just casually using the same Death Arms for ordinary lab work way before he gets his origin story. it was kinda endearing how he seemed to not even realise how unintentionally creepy their design was, he was just super proud and affectionate about this cool invention of his. The awkward handshake with the robo arms!! that was cute!! But then like THE MOMENT. Th e DAMN MOMENT. That was SUCH GOOD WRITING but in light of there NEVER BEING AN ANSWER I kinda wanna spitefully call it bad writing, lol They have that One Scene of (apparantly) prologue good guy ock finally coming back for like 15 seconds?? I was so excited and happy and proud of him?? You see him going through prison therapy and.. ITS HIM!! I cant even BELIEVE how much I mourned this poor guy until they really drew attention to it. He changed so much you legit outright MOURN all the good guy potential he had, and how much he didnt deserve what happened. And then the Fiendish Writers bit is what happens next, you see the cyborg arms acting independantly of him and breaking free of their restraints to return to their master. And then YOU SEE HIM NOT WANTING TO GO. You see him SCREAMING. You see him dragged out a fucking window horror style. And then you see him perfectly calm five seconds later. You get post-reattatchment Ock saying ‘haha i was just pretending to be redeemed, I was just hiding my true intentions while I waited for my robo arms to come back’. But like.. like.. why did he keep the act up even when his plan was complete, then?? He would have no reason to act afraid when the arms showed up! He could just reveal his deception with a fancy flourish and ride his train to freedom. Why did he keep screaming even as he was already out the window and around the corner, with nobody there to be fooled? its just SO tantalizingly vague and seriously FUCKING HELL I wish the creators at least gave the answer in interviews or something after the show got cancelled before the final season. Tho personally my headcanon is kinda somewhere in the middle and fitting with the comparisons to the symbiote and such. i think maybe there is indeed something going on with the arms gaining some degree of sentience after the accident, and fusing with their host to influence them into making decisions they might not have. Tho I also think that this hypothetical machine hivemind isn’t really like the symbiote where it has an active sense of self and is shown being sneaky and manipulating its host actively, with a huge amount of awareness. I just feel like this form of sentience is a pure instinct mess of malfunctioning programming that amplifies people’s obsessions in like.. an eternally expanding feedback loop with no limit and no end goal in mind. Its just ‘PROTECT HOST = ??? = PROTECT HOST MORE’ and ‘UPGRADE UPGRADE UPGRADE’. i think if the arms actually were acting independantly of him then they also actually were trying to rescue him, that would kinda explain why the reinstituted dual conciousness thinks of it that way. i mean, if it’s not outright a sign that doc ock is completely dead and thats the arms talking through him and lying. Cos that would be the more boring option, like I said I prefer sympathetic villains who arent brainwashed and actually made bad choices so they can actually be redeemed of them later. So like, I’m seeing this as like ‘what if you got stuck with a good-natured genie who grants your every wish entirely wrong and will NEVER LEAVE’. His arms AI only intends to serve him, it just... Goes Very Wrong. JOIN THE SINGULARITY, MASTER. You should totally upgrade me very much so I can protect you more. I WILL KILL ALL THE PEOPLE WHO MADE FUN OF YOU And then its similar to the symbiote as like a metaphor for drug abuse, when the drug is ‘power’. Or like.. the potential to have success at the cost of other things. Its not inherantly evil and its not like it takes control of you outright, its just like a thing that amplifies your worst vices and at the same time does damage to your health and is Generally A Bad Decision. Its a temptation to do bad stuff you already had the potential to do on your own. I think if either the arms or the symbiote possessed a genuine 100% flawless good person, they would have no effect on them. But like.. not many people like that really exist, and its not like people who have flaws are any less good. So its tragic that we’ve seen these definately good people who’ve fallen apart under the influence of The Magic Superpower Drugs Metaphor, and like.. Doc Ock and Venom are the tragic story of people who couldnt manage to escape from it and develop out of their flaws like spidey did. And I think maybe Doc Ock is somehow even more tragic because he DOESNT HAVE A CHOICE TO LEAVE. this has just shown that like.. his one decision to metaphorically take the one cocaine has already doomed him. Even though he said no to it the second time, the arms still forcibly reattatched to him, and probably will keep doing that until either one of them ends up dead. Like, its so tragic that he actually seemed completely normal when they were removed?? He seemed to have come to his senses and be working past his issues that caused the whole freakout, with that prison therapy. But NOPE! Tho on the other hand it was also REALLY DEPRESSING in its own way that poor Eddie was still irrecoverably broken even after he lost the symbiote, and then actively sought it out to be reinfected no matter how many times it shows it has no damn loyalty to him and just wants to eat his damn soul and fuck off to the next host. Another reason for good comparative metaphors! It could be a really epic battle between him and venom cos the show could actually clarify a lot of stuff about how on earth each respective symbiosis works, and maybe have like a battle of The Good One vs The Bad One even though both are bad? Like, neutral not-entirely-sentient arms thing that just wants to give its inventor the power he needs to get what he wants, inadvertantly exploding his damn brain into evils. Then we have creepy manipulative love-em-and-leave-em alien with an actual voice and personality and stuff. Yet both equally harmful to their hosts! Comparison time: FIGHT!!

god i have like SO many fuckin ideas of where the story could have gone, i wish i knew what the creators had planned if it wasnt cancelld, god i wish we could have had some damn sweet funky cool resolution for Badass Cute Bowtie Dad and his Doom Squiggles Also electro! give electro more sympathy and development! give him a dad! why did u make me care so much about these villains aaa