#the first half of the episode i was so baffled by mark but i think that this is it

[warden-anders]

i think that... mark s doesnt know that mark scout integrated. i wonder if integration is slower than we initially thought. we saw petey after two weeks of being integrated. its genuinely possible that the flash of gemma might be the very first time he experiences integration sickness while also not even knowing what integration sickness is.

[being-of-rain]

Now that the whole series has been released, I binge relistened to all of Once and Future. And wrote down all my thoughts, of course.

Definitely the series' main problem is something that affects a lot of Big Finish; it wants to have a story arc, but clearly the writers barely planned with each other or put any effort into that aspect. There's no flow or natural build-up to the finale, unlike what the premise and first episode might lead you to expect. Without much of a compelling arc, the only thing the series has to mark it as a special occasion is its many cameos and crossovers ...but in order to have more of those than the average Big Finish series, they had to pack so many in that most episodes struggle to handle it (in one way or another).

As a series, it unfortunately adds up to less than the sum of its parts.

With all that said, it's a series that I enjoyed a lot more during my relisten, since I could adjust my expectations. I forgot my desire for a grand or satisfying larger story, and just took each standalone episode on its own merits. There's a varying level of quality, but overall its not as disappointing as I remembered.

I decided to rank the episodes from my least to most favourite, and write a paragraph on each one.

8. Time Lord Immemorial I was told this was added to the series at the last minute, and I believe it; it features the imminent destruction of every universe thanks to the use of the degeneration gun, and this little fact is not mentioned at any point before or afterwards. The plot is about a dull and generic all-powerful Time Lord fairytale with an incredibly convenient rhyme to tell everyone what to do. Not that anyone actually does much of anything in this episode. It's mostly descriptions of some impressive visuals and the trading of some half-hearted banter. The only thing of any substance at all in the story is the slightly interesting (though not as interesting as it could've been) relationship between the Lumiat and the Doctor, which is okay if you like that, and unfortunate if you wanted Liv and the Unbound Doctor to have any focus at all.

7. Two's Company This episode is the poster child of being assigned a long and truly random laundry list of characters by the producers. All elements of the episode feel like they're thrown together haphazardly, from the total disregard of the previous episodes' plot hook onwards. But the friendship of Jackie and Lady Christina, two of the least likely characters to be teamed up with the sixth Doctor, is perhaps the highlight of the episode (even though Jackie is written rather stereotypically). On the other hand, Harry Sullivan doesn't really add anything, and the bizarre introduction of The Two borders on the insulting. Back when The Eleven was first introduced, the audio took pains to note that his mental illness was not the cause of his villainy. Later authors seemed to have missed this memo, and none fly in the face of it as much as Two's Company. On top of it all, I think Lisa McMullin is just an author I do not vibe with. She's the only one who wrote two episodes of this series, and they're my two least favourite.

6. The Union I'm not a big fan of finales written by Matt Fitton, which is bad news for me because he's been Big Finish's Go-To Finale Guy for over a decade now. He always makes the plot a bit too busy and never quite lands the emotional moments for me. Once and Future's climactic episode gets a lot of fanservicey moments (some that I can enjoy and some that feel like an obligation), but the story arc that the series had been stumbling and crawling towards concludes with the Doctor winning a nonsensical moral argument about how he's fine with being and meeting himself, something that isn't demonstrated in this anniversary special and is contradicted in most others. The villain/s are a bizarre choice and rather unthreatening- but at least River and Susan are fun to listen to.

5. A Genius For War It's slightly baffling that in the middle of a series that flaunts its random character line-ups is a fairly standard Time War episode, with characters you'd expect to see in it (except for the Seventh Doctor I guess, but he doesn't feel that out of place in a Davros story like this.) I refrained from calling it a "bog-standard" Time War episode, because it does actually put some effort into being relevant to this series specifically, and is a fun little action movie to while away an hour (and celebrate the Doctor's longest-running alien foes in all their mediocre glory). Still, the fact that this ep is just before halfway through my ranking means that I enjoy this series more often than not.

4. Past Lives This is a charming episode, largely due to its fun cast of characters. It takes its time with its story, being literally halfway done by the time all the characters have been brought into the plot together, but I'm not saying it's badly paced. I'm certainly fine with it just giving us the Doctor and the Monk for the first 15 minutes. But the moment of this episode that always sticks in my head the most is the Doctor and Sarah reacting to all the pictures of the Doctors in Osgood's house, having a little bit of an existential crisis about it. It's amazing how taking even just a small break from the action for some genuine emotion can add to a story. See number 1 on this list for more. Oh I do wish it did more with the King Arthur/Once and Future theme though, especially seeing as it was what gave the series its name.

3. The Martian Invasion of Planetoid 50 Michelle Gomez and David Tennant are so good together. I don't have an awful lot more to say about this one, it's just solid entertainment. It's got great characterisation and a lot of funny lines. The episode really understood the Master when it said "Only one Time Lord would ever do something so mind-bogglingly, time-consumingly ridiculous."

2. Coda—The Final Act The final episode is second only to Two's Company in how random and long its list of returning characters is, but it handles them with much more grace and a satisfying story. I mean I do wish that Vienna Salvatori had a bigger role, but that's just because I'm a fan of her series, she works fine narratively (and there was a Jexie reference to appease me). Really my biggest complaint about this one is that it doesn't quite commit to the Doctor vs Doctor premise as much as I wish it would, with it all being a contrived trick, but it doesn't do that badly, it's fine. Wait, maybe my biggest complaint is the title: why give it two? Why not just call it Coda? Anyway, Bernice was a great choice for this episode, she's always been great at speaking her mind to the Doctor. And it was easy for me to forget this this is Jo Martin's first audio because she sounded so at home. Great stuff.

1. The Artist at the End of Time This might not be the episode I go back to listen to the most, but I think it is the best made, with the most time to breathe and the most coherent themes. (And it also happens to be the episode with the least amount of returning characters heaped upon it. What a coincidence.) The degeneration giving the Doctor something of an existential crisis, compounded by the end of the universe and the presence of the Curator, gives the series some much needed time to reflect on a key aspect of the franchise for its anniversary; the Doctor themself. It certainly works a lot better than whatever The Union tried to do in its last 15 minutes. Aside from all that, Five and Jenny and the Curator are just a rather sweet team to listen to, with an interesting problem to investigate and a lot of witty dialogue.

[professorhayforbreath]

my blog probably gives the impression that i think the show is bad as a whole, but the reason this show frustrates me so much is because it's definitely NOT 100% bad

like... the movies are bad adaptations. everyone knows it. they have some great moments (an embarrassing amount of which are better than the show lol) but overall they are widely considered blatantly bad adaptations. it's easier to make peace with that

the show, however, is far less consistent and i find it much more difficult to wrap my head around. there are parts that are bad and i'm happy to say that with my chest, but underneath numerous questionable-at-best writing choices, there are glimpses of really, really good stuff. the first few episodes had so much promise—percy burning blue jellybeans and praying to sally, the consensus song. these are brand new additions but they're good, they capture the spirit of the story and characters successfully

and sprinkled throughout the rest of the show are other strong choices! for example in the last episode i really liked that they set the betrayal scene during the fireworks, it created a fantastic ambience. i liked that grover left camp at the same time as percy and annabeth so the three of them got to part ways as a trio on half-blood hill

there are good changes being made, but they're almost all small in the grand scheme of things. in my opinion, the bigger, more consequential things are where they missed the most marks, and that prevented me from fully enjoying the show as a long time book fan

when it comes to writing nothing frustrates me more than wasted potential. mediocre writing is one thing, but mediocre writing that could have clearly been so much better is INFURIATING. i don't dislike the show because i wanted it to be a 1:1 recreation of the book, i dislike it because it's just okay when it could have been great. it so EASILY could have been great and i don't get why it's not. a lot of the writing choices are just baffling in their mediocrity, and sometimes technical weakness, when compared to the well written and effective source material. i wish i could have been a fly on the wall in that writers room when they were making some of these decisions, seriously

the cast is phenomenal. their budget is more than sufficient. they marketed it as a "redemption from the movies", as the adaptation that would finally give fans book accuracy. and the show we got is... fine. it's all right. it's not all that book accurate even though it was advertised as such. there's plenty to like but it comes hand in hand with plenty to dislike. it's only natural for people to be disappointed

i know my critiques can come off as venomous but please never mistake my harshness as hating for the sake of it. i adore the original pjo books so i really wanted to adore the show as well, but unfortunately i can't get there yet. "yet" being the key word because there's still plenty of time for this show to pick up the slack, and for that reason i'm glad it got renewed. i don't have the most faith the writers will listen to the feedback but i'm rooting for them to prove me wrong

[freakyshibs]

Shows that were canned too early that deserved better (imo)

We all hate it when we get wayy too invested into a show with good characters, an interesting plot, and a solid setup right? Well it seems that the networks for these shows didn’t really see it that way sadly, some of these shows are known, others aren’t, but this is just gonna be me rambling about how we didn’t get more of these said shows 😭

The Owl House

Now this one I wont dig deep into too long? We did get a solid ending in the end, but we were definitely robbed of a full season 3

The fact that this was Disneys next big thing, (like Gravity Falls) and still got axed kinda baffles me a bit because executives love big ratings

I heard they cancelled it because of it ‘not fitting the disney brand’ (mostly because there were two main gay characters in it) which I thought was super unfair, because they really were that homophobic 💀

All in all, I enjoyed this show and wanted a full season 3

Close Enough

From Regular Show creator J.G Quintel, this show was definitely more for an older audience, and let me say they did amazing at it.

The shows humor didn’t revolve around cussing or sex jokes, (which is what I see all the time now in modern adult animation) and the show was definitely funny!

Unfortunately though, Max cancelled it after 3 seasons due to the merge of Discovery + and HBO Max, with Max canning alot of shows during that time, this being one of them

We kinda sorta got left on a cliffhanger of sorts?? At least imo. Liked the show and wish we had more

Wander Over Yonder

For a show made by Craig McCracken (Powerpuff Girls, Fosters Home) you’d think it would be popular and have a bunch of seasons right?

Well no, with this show only having two seasons after Disney cancelled it because ‘80 episodes were enough for this show’ which is kinda dumb?? I dunno I just don’t like executives and rules and stuff

I remember this show from my childhood, it was really good in my opinion, I feel like we could’ve had more if Disney didn’t cancel it as early as it did

Love you WOY 🫡

Inside Job

The fact that this show left on a cliffhanger too made me even more upset that Netflix cancelled it as early as they did

Not only was this another adult animated show that didn’t rely on cussing or sex jokes, the story was actually really interesting too and if the show did continue, we would’ve had a happy ending

Screw Netflix actually I will never forgive them for this one

Grojband

I CANNOT stress enough about how this show deserved so much more than what it got, I actually would’ve put it at number one, but the next one is kinda justifiable so ._.

From Todd Kauffman and Mark Thornton (Total Drama Island) this show featured a kid and his friends that were in a band, and used lead singers sisters diary as lyric ideas, bc they suck at writing them

And I loved it

I swear I don’t think I’ve ever been heavily interested in and emotionally attached to the characters in a show before, it was so good

The songs in this show were also heavenly, I suggest you give them a listen, theyre really good!

Also another reason I really liked the show was because it was a Canadian toon that didn’t revolve around gross out humor (I applaud them for that)

Unfortunately this was a show Cartoon Network screwed over BIG time, with when it came out during the summer it was airing, kids were mostly outside playing, never really gaining an audience, and then after the first half of the season aired, it was on a 2 YEAR hiatus. With fans questioning if the show would ever come back

Fortunately it did! Except Cartoon Network shoved it on their app, and a year later shoved it onto their sister channel, Boomerang. Then, after the show FINALLY ended their first season, the show was immediately cancelled, with Cartoon Network never really giving it a chance

The whole way Cartoon Network handled this show frustrated me immensely, with it having a decent fanbase, and people wanted more (me being one of them:()

The creators even had alot of plans for next said season, but I guess we will never get to see them (unless a Clone High situation happens but that’s doubtful)

Show was very underrated and deserved SO much more, Cartoon Network fumbled this one and the last show Im about to mention

Sym Bionic Titan

This sci fi animated series by Genndy Tartakovsky (Samurai Jack, Dexters Lab) only lasted one season with 20 episodes

With Cartoon Network cancelling it because of the failure to produce a TOY LINE

The fact this show got axed because of toys just makes me so upset

This was one of those shows that also left on a cliffhanger sadly, so we never really got to see how this show properly ended

With Genndy even saying that he wrote 10 more episodes, but now we will never get to see them

ALSO THE SHOWS SOUNDTRACK WAS SO GOOD?! Love when shows put banger songs in the bg, reminded me so much of Clone High

Anyways thats pretty much it? These are just my opinion tho, everyone is entirely different

[popculturebuffet]

Batman The Animated Series: Christmas With the Joker Review (Commission for WeirdKev27)

Happy Holidays all you happy people! Christmas Season is here, and why wait to december when I can spread some holiday cheer now?

So to begin our holly jolly holiday coverage this year, i'm taking a look at a christmas classic i'm honestly baffled it's taken me this long to revisit. I grew up with this episode and fondly remember it being on the batman tape I had or rented back then. I just simply forget sometimes I have Batman the Animated Series right there and cant really take that for granted since the person in charge of Warner Bros thinks it's "brave" to burn down content for the insurance money.

For those who haven't experienced this holiday classic, Christmas With the Joker is the second episode of batman the animated series, though it aired later in broadcast order to line up with the timing. IT's also our first exposure to the magic that's Mark Hamill as joker, it certainly was mine thanks to aforementioned Tape.

Hamill got the role thanks to serendipity: The crew had initally cast Tim Curry, god on earth, to play the part. It SEEMS like perfect casting.. but it just didn't quite fit, as we can see from what footage of Curry as joker we have. Tim wasn't bad and I could see his joker working and him playing the part again sometime had he not sadly had to retire. The problem is his version didn't quite match what the team was going for with Mr. J. Curry's joker is one who jokes and what not, but comes off like a bastard who makes the bad jokes half heartedly as an excuse to do mayhem. The DCAU joker is the best of both worlds: he GENUINELY loves his bad puns, his craft: he lives in his own demented world where everything's a joke. When Curry's joker doe sa bit or a line, it feels like he's putting on an act, with Hamil's it's a PERFORMANCE. It's what he does. He's an entertainer, he's a comedian, he's a clown, he's going to give em a hell of a show and the death, horror and other mayhem that comes along with it is part of the act. It's key to it. It's the spice to him. Tim Curry didn't do BAD, he just didn't fit the bill. Hamill by contrast when auditioing for the now open part saw Joker's laugh as an INSTURMENT. You could tell what he was feelilng just by it's inflection. Hamill understood the character and tha'ts why he's the best at playing him: He gets just how to play Mr J, every nuance and fascet. Just as Conroy felt batman rise.. the joker's laugh escaped out of mark hamill and never went back until sadly, there just wasn't a batman to chase anymore.

The episode itself is something diffrent from the previous 3 batman the animated series episodes i've covered: I Am the Night and Two-Face were psycological adventures, the former going literally into bruce's head and showing the pain in his life, and the latter showing the gradual downfall of a man who simply needed help but wouldn't let himself get as much as needed, who put duty over himself.

Christmas With The Joker.. is a wacky christmas adventure. It has stakes and what not, but it's ultimately Batman and Robin not getting christmas eve off after the Joker decides to hyjack the airwaves with a demented holiday special. Yet.. it's still so damn good. Sometimes you need a fairly deep character study of batman or one of his foes.. and sometimes you just need the Joker deciding to do a holiday special with recurring characters as the hostages, and Batman and Robin on a deadline to stop him. Just let Mark Hamill ham it up, let Batman punch some people. BTAS has some truly stunning masterpieces.. but it also knew how to just have fun and lay back once in a while. This episode's just .. pure fun and i'll show you why under the cut.

We open at Arkham Asylum, the happiest crime against psychatric care on earth as it's Christmas Eve and Joker gets one of the best character entrances of all time. While I forgot a detail or too about this episode i've never forgotten this intro: the inmates are all singing carols, no one we'd know yet as most of Batman's Rogue's haven't been introduced. It's something I liked about Batman TAS and that seems to have stuck for the comics afterword: Anytime we visit arkham we usually see some of Batman's other rogues even if we're there for say the Joker finding out someone did a copyright infringment on him, so it's weird to see no one else present yet.

So the Joker enters the series singing that classic version of Jingle Bells. If you haven't heard it, there's only one proper way to introduce you to the best version of the song outside of this episode. TAKE IT AWAY ROBERT GOULET!

That's brilliant enough... but then he hops on the christmas tree, turns it into a rocket, and flies off laughing all the way. AHAHAHHEEHAHAHAHAHAA. It's a perfect joker move: it's overly complicated, required a ton of prep work, a ton of money we don't know how he got..

Okay we know exactly how he got it we just can't talk about it on a children's show, and it's hilaroious. in less than a minute we know the Joker's a madman, he's clever, and his crimes are over the top because it's just more FUN that way. It's what seperates the joker from most other Batman TAS villians: the others are, with exceptions like Penguin or Rupert Thorne, sympathetic on some level: Mr Freeze just wants his wife back after a corrupt rich asshole tried to kill her and made him a popsicle, Poison Ivy wants to save the planet no matter who she has to kill, Two Face's DiD consumed him, Baby Doll was traumitzed by being stuck in a body she didn't want, Killer Croc is an alligator man, which sounds boss on paper but really isn't.

The Joker is diffrent in that we don't know WHY he does this. It didn't hit me till this watch that he's one of the few foes in TAS who isn't given a full backstory upfront. While I love the film, I honestly forgot for a second that Mask of the Phantasm revealed him to have been a plainclothes gangster before he became the clown prince of crime.. and even THEN we don't know what made him like this. Maybe he's always been this way, maybe some trauma shaped him, we don't know. And that's what works: that mystique: we dont' know why the joker is the way he is, he just.. is. It's what makes him the perfect counterpart to Batman: Bruce is a man trying to take a chaotic world and give it order, give it someone who can provide justice where the law can't or simply is outnumbered to, all in the hope that one day no kid will ever loose his parents like he did, even if the quest to eats him alive (and at least in this contiunity as seen with his older self it certainly has in some ways). Joker simply wants to have fun, to put on a show... it's just his show is chaos, death and funny only to him. What he finds funny is frankly disturbing. He's the only one in on his jokes and he's happy that way.

This episode emphasies that, as well as the contrast: Batman is worked up that christmas eve, worried the Joker will pull something. Robin, being less experinced with the joker and costumed punching people what good brushes it off, thinking no one would possibly work on christmas. Bruce gets that maybe the theatrical clown who escaped on a christmas tree rocket he smuggled into a psychatic hospital has other christmas plans and they aren't good.

While Bruce is on edge partly because he's a workaholic, to the point he nearly stops a guy returning a package to an old lady on suspcion he's a mugger, he's not WRONG: the Joker is flashy. The bigger the audience, the better the show. It's why he frequently hyjacks the airwaves in this show: EVERYONE has to watch. He's fine with a small audience , but it has to be carefully curated... i.e. he's fine if it's just bats as bats is the perfect straight man. The perfect grim brick wall to play off of and someone he knows will never end his shit entirely for a simple reason.

So he's not going to stop baiting him. Bruce's mistake.. is SEARCHING for the joker. See while Batman knows the Joker... the Joker knows Batman. He made an audacious exit so Batman would KNOW he was out there and sweat it out trying to find him... but he also knows Bats well enough to avoid detection right away. To wait till it's time to start the show. Then it's fair play and Brucey can have all the clues he wants, it's an even match. But to Joker nothing would be less fun than batman spoiling his fun ahead of time. It's part simply how the game works for him and part simply being the kind of person who HAS to control the game. It has to be played by his rules , it's his show, he planned this, batman is simply performing it.

So Bruce gives up, has a nice christmas dinner for once, and everything's fine.... until he and Dick sit down to watch it's a wonderful life. I like the joke of Bruce not watching it because of the title. It's not only a common problem, many assume the film is super cheery because of it's title, but the idea of one man being important enough to make a diffrence is bruce's whole life. Of course the idea of a film where someone doubts that wouldn't be something he'd go to voluntarily. To him it's all about control.

Bruce's first watch of It's a Wonderful Life is interrupted by a holiday special.. CHRISTMAS WITH THE JOKER! Live from.. somewhere in Gotham, Joker's doing a cheesy holiday special, the kind I haven't seen a lot of , but that caked the 70's, down tow earin ga sweater ala bing crosby. He taught joker everything he knows about being terrible.

Naturally Joker needs a studio audience and while his awesome audience of cutouts, including batman and robin themselves, is fun and all, he needs some live hostages. Really ties the room together. So he kidnapped Commissioner Gordon, Harvey Bullock.. and Summer Gleason

Summer is Gotham's reporter. If you forgot her, huzzah! It means it wasn't just me... but it's also fair as she really is just there for exposition and dosen't have Kent Brockman's lunacy or Perd Hapley's mastery of the worm

So it's easy to forget she exists, and weird she's here instead of Renee Montoya. Maybe they wanted a civlliann with the cops, maybe they thought of doing the mayor as one of these but found Gordon and Bullock both too fun to let out. Maybe she was supposed to be bigger in the series and just never quite hit it with the writers. We don't really know, though if I had to guess it'd be the last one. It feels like they intended to have more for Summer to do as she shows up more in the earlier episodes.. but it became clear they didn't really need her for more than just the ocasional smattering of news exposition, and even then really didn't need news exposition THAT often as Batman often did his own research better and used newspapers more.

Joker's kindapped the "Awful Lawfuls" as his requisite hostages and plans to kill them if Batman dosen't find him by midnight. Batman does trace the broadcast.. but when Robin points out it's easy, Bats counters it's NEVER this easy with the joker.

The Joker.. dosen't let Bruce down, as while their headed to the scene they not only have to deal with the giant toys rampaging through gotham.. but also a train. The train .. is easily the weakest part of this episode. It just.. stops for a bit so Batman and Robin can save a train. That's it. I forgot this entire sequence and it's easy to see why: in an episode full of colorful joker chaos and him in the best christmas sweater ever, it's just... a train. I love me a good train, and most trains are good trains. Except Gordon he's an asshat. But this is just.. filler. It feels like the episode went under time in scripting so they added a set piece.

Thankfully the episode picks right back up from this derailment with our dynamic duo heading to the gotham observatory.. naturally.. this is a trap and joker has turned the observiatory into a canon.

So Batman distracts it while Robin battles some joker themed tin soldiers inside. overall it's fucking amazing as it is out of left field. But unlike the train not being really jokery as a crime, this fits him perfectly. Turning an observatory into a laser.. simply because he can.

While stopping it is rad as shit, it dosen't get our heroes anywhere closer to the Joker. Thankfully the joker throws Batman a Bone, as this just isn't fun if Batman entirely misses the deadline and isn't there to either save the hostages just in the knick of time.. or watch as they die horribly in person. It just isn't the same on tv it has to be life dammit. SO he holds up a doll that Batman instantly identifies and know's it's factory shut down years ago.

Batman's Doll Trivia saves the day though as our heroes arrive and we get an awesome bit as Joker plays the nutcracker sweet as he sends out an army of weaponized toy, a beautifully animated utterly awesome sequence.

Turns out though Joker was just waiting for his cue, revealing himself via curtain dropping, of course, to have all the hostages suspended over a vat of.. acid? lava? it's something what hurts bad is the point so he forces Bats to open a present. It's a pie to the face!

This leads to a chase as Joker naturally cuts the cord anyway, but Bats manages to rescue them in time and chases joker on rollerskates.. and saves him when he almost dicks himself into the generic murder vat.

With that Bats can actually enjoy christmas.. as much as Bruce can enjoy anything, with him genuinely loving i'ts a wonderful life and christmas with his grown man boy wonder. Meanwhile the joker sings to himself in Arkham, entirely happy to pick this up again another day.

Christmas With the Joker is mostly an action set piece, but it's a well done one: in one ep we get who the joker is, why he's a match fo rbatman and how this whole game of cat and also cat works for him. It's a wonderfuly demented holiday special and if you haven't seen it it's more than worth your time.

[tomanicska]

1 - My friend at the time, my partner now was like "hey a show I used to love just came back from the dead after 6 years, wanna watch the whole thing with me?" and I was like "sure dude, sounds fun." then we stayed up till like 4am watching eddsworld.

2 - 18 <3

3 - I was honestly overwhelmed because I never really watched anything on YouTube like eddsworld before, I didn't even know what the fuck was going on half the time. I kept getting characters confused and at the same time I was just baffled and weirded out by it all, I mean this was originally on newgrounds. but I never even heard of the place till after getting into the show, no wonder I was like mad confused.

4 - I think my fav was Matt at first, but at the time I had only seen early eddsworld back when Tord was about, so I just enjoyed his weird vibes. also he sounded funny with his awful mic.

5 - Beaster Bunny at the time was 5 days old, so pretty late game.

6 - I don't have a fav when it comes to Tom but the one I'm prone to say is Zanta Claws III cause white boy rap and my Autistic ass listened to that shit on loop for a month.

7 - I genuinely enjoy any scene of Tom, I pick up on different things whenever I watch the show, it could be something minor like his crossing his arms to his muscles in the end. Although I do love the iconic scene of him high fiving himself. also he gets a triple chin in hammer and fail and it makes me happy everytime <3 bro be goofy like me frfr

8 - fuck no

9 - I mean he was recasted when the show returned 6 years later, naturally the original is my favourite because tomska. but I absolutely still adore ed templers version of Tom too, its different but still fun.

10 - I'd like the episodes to have more plot even a little bit, but I'm still very happy with what I've got.

11 - some family is aware, but all of my friends are painfully aware

12 - nope, not a clue.

13 - I don't have a favourite line but tbf that's cause I'm shit at remembering such things but I always remember when I re watch or look at the comics. I'm the kinda guy who has to be reminded, memory bad.

14 - homie wears one outfit. although he has worn a suit in a casino episode but his iconic blue hoodie cannot be beat.

15 - own bootleg edd plushie, I own 3 unsigned posters, and 3 signed posters by Matt, I own a Matt, vampire matt, mark, Ringo, edd, and Eduardo pin. I also own a tom shirt, I plan to soon buy the new makeship edd plushie that was announced literally yesterday.

meta self ship questions

1. how did you discover your f/o’s content?

2. how old were you when you discovered your f/o’s content?

3. describe the first time you watched/played/read your f/o’s source content.

4. who was your first favorite character when you initially got into your f/o’s source content? was it your f/o from the very beginning?

5. if your f/o is from a series, were you into the source content from the start or did you come in later? if you came in later, what was the most recent release when you got into it?

6. if your f/o is from a series, which episode/movie/game/book of their source content is your favorite?

7. are there any specific scenes/chapters/moments of your f/o that you find yourself going back to revisit more often than any other? 

8. are there any scenes/chapters/moments your f/o is in that you skip when you revisit their source content?

9. if your f/o has been represented in more than one way (i.e. in a book AND a movie, in a movie and then recasted for a reboot later, etc.), which version of them is your favorite?

10. if you could change one thing about your f/o’s source content, would you? what would you change?

11. do your friends/family know that you’re into the content that your f/o comes from or do you keep this interest to yourself?

12. did you know what self shipping was when you first discovered your f/o’s source content?

13. do you have a favorite line your f/o has ever said?

14. what’s your favorite outfit your f/o has ever worn?

15. do you own any merchandise from your f/o’s source content? what is it?

[alolanroy]

2024 Watch Thread Part 5

part 4 https://www.tumblr.com/alolanroy/753737344319930369/2024-watch-thread-part-4?source=share

Berserk Boy: At a certain point I realized I hadn't played it in a month. I think the gameplay is alright, but that's about it. The sprite scaling looks weird and the character design doesn't gel with the Megaman ZX sensibilities. Terrible hoverbike section. 5/10

Warcraft: Putting the Mid in Middle Earth. Without the context of the series, I was never engaged by the movie. The humans were bland and the story felt less interested in a complete story than a beachhead for a franchise. 5/10

Half Life: Blue Shift: Glad I participated in the community event to boost this old game's all-time player count. As a game it didn't really wow me. I think it was overreliant on barrel pushing puzzles when barrel pushing doesn't work well in a few instances. Dispite a few baffling bugs that cost me maybe a combines 25 minutes, it was a quick and enjoyable romp. 6/10

Skyrim: Sirenroot: This may be the most atmospheric mod I've played thus far. This mod makes this one dungeon more gorgeous than anything in the base game by far, and the music sets a really spooky tome. I like that I didn't immediately catch what was going on with the multiple-character paths. While it doesn't equate to any kind of tangible reward, the characters are interesting enough that getting everyone to survive is intrinsically rewarding enough. 8/10

Skyrim: Wyrmstooth: It might be reductive to refer to it as just 'more skyrim' but that opinion congealed when I was stuck doing blackreach again. Some of the quests are fun, but some of the unmarked ones deserved to be marked quests. 6/10

DanDaDan (3 episode premier): I knew nothing about DanDaDan going into this since I was invited by a friend. PEAK. It's understandable how much hay the preroll interviews made about the direction and shot composition. 8/10

Iron Warrior: While I wouldn't say this film was altogether entertaining, the ethereal visuals and dream logic made it a unique watch. I'd like to watch a cut of this without any dialogue, since its story is mostly visuals until the lore-heavy last sprint. Honestly, we gotta put Trogar in a Star Wars, this guy is pure Sith. 6/5/10

Bleach Thousand Year Blood War S1-2: This all-killer-no-filler approach to a bleach adaptation is a real brisk shower after muscling through the Arancar arc. However, some of the fights feel a little too short. It betrays that some of them consist of a handful of attacks and prescribed reversals of fortune. Especially towards the end, I could feel the series sputter as characters the viewer aren't super invested in square off. Points for the great soundtrack. 7/10

Mars Daybreak: A great premise and fun initial hints at worldbuilding got me in, but the energy left my body as it went nowhere. We never really get to know the cast in any meaningful way and there's charitably one character arc. Nothing gets resolved only in the last two episodes to they rush to figure out what they're doing. The robots are sauceless. Theres enough endearing material, but I regret committing to finishing it 5.10

This is Spinal Tap: my watch group didn’t have context going in, so the first few minutes of trying to figure out of this was a mockumentary was a real treasure. While prone to dry spells, when it hits, it hits. 7/10

Adventures of Hercules: This movie really felt like a throwback to the old greek myth epics of golden age Hollywood. Great casting and no real pacing problems to speak of. On the funny side, collecting 7 thunderbolts that drop like a video game is pretty funny and Lou Ferrigno looks like how Bara artists draw men with tits. 7/10

Skyrim Mod: Katana, Journey in the Shadows: I picked up that these are supposed to be characters from some other fantasy series, but the 'Ow the Edge' readings are pretty high. Yeah, this is my OC. Her name is Katana, and she's a cool lesbian with a ninja sword and shes got a sick backstory and a secret shadow side she has to use a magic ring to control. Quest-wise, it felt like a couple of radiant bounties and an anticlimax ending. ambitious scripting for character interactions in the bars, however, there were some conflicts and I had to help it along. The companions themselves are pretty well realized, but to what end? 5/10

Transformers One: While it could never have really delivered on my sky-high expectations of adapting lore of pre-war Cybertron from the Aligned continuity or IDW, it succeeded on getting my partner hooked on Transformers yaoi. It was gorgeous, but maybe needed a teensy bit more sauce to get it over the edge into legendary territory. 8/10

The Wild Robot: My feelings on this are very raw as I'm writing this out. It felt like the golden age Pizar classics I've been missing. If the number of crying parents in my screening was any indication, this was a very heartfelt movie. Points for showing us a minimum of human civilization in this movie. We know exactly as much as we needed to. 9/10

Hard Rock Zombies: It satisfies the assignment of being a feature-length thriller video, but wasn't particularly gripping. The Italian feeling mood and editing was amusing, but my group got bored pretty quick. Bonus points for the best Hitler reveal in any movie yet. -6/10

Gundam Seed Freedom Re-watch: This movie still sucks.

Valor's Kids: A brief glimpse into the world where Niel Breen discovered Second Life. -4/10

Dual to the Death: Fun wuxia action and some really surprising twists and turns. I think this movie capitalizes how cool ninjas are more than most American or Japanese films. Any low points are worth it for the phenomenal final confrontation. 8/10

12 Angry Men: This film has more than earned its reputation. It balances subtlety and overt discussions on societal views on poverty, generational abuse, anti-black racism and xenophobia. It made me reconsider all my years of groaning at jury duty and think about the importance and power I have as a citizen. I can't really fault it for being a bunch of white dudes though, because their predisposed hegemony dictating the fate of an unseen black kid was part of the point. The presence of an unused women's restroom did call it into attention though. 9/10

Wallace and Gromit - A Grand Day Out: A real banger, though I find it interesting that a few parts I thought were scary as a really little kid. 8/10

Skyrim - Meridia's Order: Well executed, though I feel like it could have used a slightly wider scope. The side content to the main quest felt very limited, especially with how it draws comparison to dawngaurd. If it were a released expansion, I would say it lacks in scope, but has quest design above the usual Skyrim standard. 7/10

Skyrim - Hel Rising: I think it was a little rough around the edges and had a lot of character for a more complex dungeon. However, poorly signposted puzzles and gamebreaking bugs that nearly killed my game drop it down a few points. I also wonder how the version I played (TrueHel) stacks up against the old de-listed versions. 5/10

Megalopolis: Kinda like Zardoz, I watched this with a friend expecting a bizarre mess that twitter had promised me. Instead I was on the edge of my seat. I was enraptured by what was being cooked and had one of the most genuine bust-a-gut laughs at one of the jokes in recent memory. The joker posits that we live in a society. Cesar Megalopolis posits we live in a civilization. 9.5/10

Amityville in Space: Fuck this -4/10

Trump vs The Illuminati: The first movie made of default unreal engine assets and stock footage -2/10

Wizards of the Lost Kingdom: IDK if it was the reused footage, but I couldn't help but feel like I'd already seen it. -3/10

Attack on Titan (2022): This feels like if Serenity got like 23 direct to DVD sequels of diminishing returns. Incomprehensible/ -4/10

Ronin Mecha 4-Warrior of the Frontier: Not even good enough to finish. What a sad way to end this franchise. -31/0

Wallace and Gromit-The Wrong Trousers: Delightful. 7/10

Wallace and Gromit-A Close Shave: I think this one has gone up in my rankings. The childlike whimsey of the bike chase sequence and the plane sidecar put a real smile on my face. 7/10

First Blood: There's a really good anti-cop reading to the movie in the sense that its the text of the film, but I don't think the audience this series ended up with is ready to accept that. I wish they stopped here. 8/10

[butterflydm]

wot on prime rewatch: 1x6 the flame of tar valon (part 1)

spoilers through the end of season one of the wheel of time. I will do a reblog of this soon after I post it, with additional book-related spoilers. This is only for the first half of the episode, because my brain was getting overwhelmed with the idea of doing all of it, so I broke it in half. It splits right around the 30min mark.

1. We open this episode with BABY SIUAN (and Tear). I love the set design for the Sanche house and that Siuan is sleeping in a hammock. The relationship between Siuan and her dad (Berden, the subtitles say) is very sweet as well. I love all the fishing-related terms of conversation used here as well (so true to Siuan in the books lol). We learn that her dad does fully know that she can channel but that they have a rule that she doesn’t do it in sight of the village. “A wise woman knows the breaking point of her line”.

2. We have been slowly building up “what people think about Aes Sedai” over the course of the season -- there’s some wariness in the Two Rivers, the Whitecloaks call them witches and actively hunt and kill them, when Moiraine was capsizing the ferry the ferryman said that the Whitecloaks “were right” about Aes Sedai, Thom expressed over concern over Aes Sedai potentially targeting Mat in episode four, and now we get the Sanche house being burned down because someone saw that baby!Siuan could channel. We also get our first deliberate Dragon’s Fang drawn on someone’s property, illustrated rather than verbally explained.

3. They’ve been found out, so Berden sends Siuan off to Tar Valon with their boat and some advice - practice her network manually, don’t solely rely on the Power. She asks when she can come home and he answers, “When it’s safe in Tear for girls like you.” This scene grips my heart. He loves his daughter and is so proud of her! And he sends her away both to keep her safe but also so that she is able to reach her full potential. “daughter of the river, clever as a pike, strong as the tides.” <3 And we get some very important information here that Tear is NOT a safe place to channel/be Aes Sedai. Love the music here too.

4. The episode proper starts with Siuan Being Announced and the intense look in Moiraine’s eyes. We get to see everyone dressed up in their fancy wear! I love how we can see all the different cultures’ fashions reflected in the different clothing choices. They’re all formal but in different ways. Siuan’s entrance is VERY majestic and I love the Seat itself. Love the big overhead shot that pulls back and back to show us how tall the Tower is. I have to admit, I understand zero (0) of the aesthetic-based critique of this show, because I just think it looks SO gorgeous. What about any of this looks cheap? I am baffled, I swear.

5. Notes about the Sisters! Okay, they are arranged like so, clockwise out from the Amyrlin Seat - Red Ajah, an ajah we don’t know yet, Yellow Ajah, Blue Ajah, two more that we haven’t been introduced to yet, ending on Green. We can see that each set of Sisters comes in three but the middle seat for the Green Ajah is empty (was Kerene a Sitter?). This is the first time that show-only viewers would get to see all the different types of Ajah. The framing here on Moiraine is so good because though she has her current companions (Liandrin & Alanna) framing her in the foreground, she’s framed by two of the Blue Sisters in the background. The visual depth! What we’re being told about the characters simply via blocking! I feel like part of the reason that the Ajahs are in the order around the room that they are is so that we can have that great blocking with Moiraine.

6. I love how overwhelmed Moiraine looks to be facing Siuan. On a first watch, it can be read just the way the other Aes Sedai are reading it but Once You Know, then it’s just so much more delicious.

7. Haha, the stole is kinda odd -- I think in the books it’s more like a big scarf or something? idk fashion don’t judge me. It’s very pastel here. But her fancy clothes are so fancy! It’s such a good contrast for what we will see her wearing later on in the episode.

8. The first event of the episode is Logain being brought in for Siuan’s judgement. (and here is where my rewatch paused for several weeks as my brain tried to tell me that I needed to be Very Thoughtful and Very Incisive when that is not, in fact, actually a requirement for rewatching episodes of TV. So from this point on in the rewatch, I am trying to be less hard on myself! The problem is that I do find the episodes very rich and there’s a lot to talk about... and then I’ve accidentally overwhelmed myself lol)

9. After Logain is brought in, Siuan has his chains removed because, “gentled as he is, he poses no threat” which I imagine only made everything sting even more for Logain, tbh. He’s not even a threat anymore. Still, Siuan starts into what I assume are the traditional forms of the trial, asking Logain if he knows why he’s here. Logain goes on the (verbal) attack, telling Siuan that the world is beginning to see the Aes Sedai as weak, the further you are from the Tower. In addition to the acting (which is great), I also really like this section because we do some closer shots on all the Sitters, which is great for pausing and checking out their outfits and vibes. We have at least another couple of Aes Sedai wearing pants, which I still find exciting. I do think (though I would have to check the wiki to be sure) that the show shook up the composition of the Sitters to make them less weighted towards Andorans and that we get a wider set of cultural backgrounds.

10. Logain is, of course, also trying to incite Siuan into killing him so that he doesn’t have to live with being gentled. Siuan does realize what he’s trying to do and tells him that he is going to have to live out a long life. Interestingly, she seems to believe that the madness will continue to progress. I’m not sure if we know one way or another from the books? Logain tried to get under Siuan’s skin and make her react publicly and failed, while she DOES succeed in getting to him and he begs her to kill him. Though he’s definitely emotionally vulnerable in a way that she is not, given that he’s been gentled.

11. After Logain has been judged, it is now time to judge Liandrin, Alanna, and Moiraine for their extrajudicial gentling of Logain (as the three strongest channelers among the surviving Aes Sedai). Here, Siuan takes a stand for the law and for holding to a certain standard when in times of fighting/war, while Liandrin argues, essentially, that there are no rules in war. Because Logain killed one of their companions, he deserved harsher consequences than their rules more normally allow, she argues.

12. When Siuan says that, as the person in charge, Liandrin must face the consequences for her decision, Liandrin then goes in for a major distraction tactic - she throws Moiraine under the bus to get the attention off of what Liandrin did in breaking the rules and trying to get everyone to focus onto the fact that, omg, Moiraine has a secret, everyone! Come and learn about Moiraine’s secret that she should have told the rest of the class about! And, in doing so, she throws Nynaeve out for the wolves as well, by letting all the Sitters know that a very powerful potential is currently in the Tower and not a novice. Also, Liandrin calls Moiraine “Sis” here which I find DELIGHTFUL and HILARIOUS and I want more.

13. Siuan continues to do a good job at not getting distracted away from her purpose, just as she did when Logain tried to rattle her, and asks Liandrin what the point of her tangent is. Unfortunately, Liandrin was prepared for this too and she has an entire speech -- directed at the Sitters and not at the Amrylin -- about how Moiraine is a loose cannon who needs to be taken back under the firm hand of the White Tower. And Liandrin is able to twist the situation into being such that Siuan HAS to ask Moiraine her purpose in order not to be accused of overly favoring the Blue Ajah. And Moiraine has to say that she is unwilling to say, because she can’t actually be honest about what she’s doing because it’s such a delicate situation (and, right now, complicated by the fact that she lost all four potential Dragons and hasn’t found them again). So Liandrin is able to take a situation where the main punishment was firmly directed at her, the person who exacted “battlefield justice” on Logain, and instead redirect that punishment towards Moiraine. And she’s able to do that because she breaks the social norms of the Tower --  gentling Logain and saying that she believes Siuan still sympathizes with the Blue Ajah over the others are both examples of this same kind of behavior, though different in degree.

14. In general, the politics in this episode just- light my brain on fire, I really loved them. We also get a helpful timeline drop, in finding out that Moiraine last left the Tower two years ago. There’s also a great interplay between Moiraine and Siuan here (of course) as they try to communicate between the lines even as they’re re-inforcing the general belief in the Tower that they have had a falling out (by the line of attack Siuan uses, I think they implied they’re ‘falling out’ was over class-related differences, about Moiraine using her family name against Siuan at some point). I do love how we can see the Sitters react to Moiraine’s noble rank being brought up. Like, you kinda get the feeling that the Moiraine-Siuan breakup was basically like the White Tower’s soap opera. Also! This seems like an early hint from Rafe & co that we will possibly get more focus on Moiraine’s relatives and her connection to them, since we also got that line about her being from a ‘fallen house’ earlier in the season. But, yeah, Liandrin was able to swerve the punishment from being focused on her to being focused on Moiraine.

15. After the meeting ends, Alanna recommends to Moiraine that she publicly apologize to Siuan to soothe her anger, and Moiraine says it’s pointless. Also, one of Alanna’s Warders is Right There to hand her a post-judgement fruit. What a great boyfriend/husband/bodyguard. Lan is right there too but where is Moiraine’s post-judgement fruit? She does not get one!

16. Liandrin has already hooked back up with her Mean Girls Clique of fellow Reds. Moiraine and Siuan HAVE definitely fooled Liandrin with their playacting, tho, which was probably a relief for Moiraine to realise. Liandrin does NOT know her anywhere near as well as she thinks. SO intrigued by Liandrin calling her ‘old friend’. Love me some implied history.

17. And now we are out in the city of Tar Valon! Moiraine is taking tea on a lovely circular stone balcony. Very pretty. I love the flooring and how it looks classic and weathered. The stools are neat too, and the shape of the tables. And I like how her dress drapes along the floor. And the lanterns! It’s just very pretty to me and pleases my sense of aesthetics. We see, over her shoulder, that she Has Discovered where Rand and Mat are, as we see Nynaeve and Loial leaving the room. Ah, the detail of the vines creeping up the wall of the window! That’s so pretty! Love the open air vibe of the balconies and it implies a lot about the normal climate of Tar Valon too. Anyway, now that Nynaeve and Loial have left (and Lan confirms this by coming in -- presumably he’s the one who tracked Nynaeve to the room originally as well), Moiraine and Lan head over to collect a pair of wayward potential dragons. Lan has already been able to get a sense of how badly Mat is doing as well.

18. Ah, this is the moment that made me start shipping Cauthor and just brought a whole new dimension to my understanding of Wheel of Time! Rand doesn’t know how to channel (and is in denial that he even can) and doesn’t know how to use a sword, but he tells Moiraine and Lan that he won’t let them hurt Mat. He doesn’t have any clue what he’s doing! Moiraine and Lan can (and do) handle him like a kitten at this point! But he TRIES because Mat matters to him and so he’s going to try to protect him, even if he has the protection power of wet cardboard at the moment. So, of course, I was just hilariously gutted when Mat stayed behind at the end of the episode. I’d only just started shipping it! (luckily, Rand would manage to provide plenty of additional material in episode 7, bless him). And Mat’s exasperated fondness over Rand’s ineffective protectiveness here kinda sealed the deal. He also knows that it’s useless and pointless, but it matters to him that Rand tried anyway (even when he’s deep in his most paranoid mindset! It matters to him and he notices it!). This sort of dynamic is exactly why I tend to ship Friends-to-Lovers more than any other kind of ship.

19. Moiraine and Lan are definite Bosses in this scene, but I am too busy having stars in my eyes over how completely useless Rand is, lol. I just love it so much. This is my catnip. This is my kryptonite. Rafe Judkins reached into my soul and plucked out cauthor and put it on screen. And I didn’t even know I wanted it! And now here it is!

20. Moiraine and Mat are actually united here on agreeing that Mat Cauthon would make for a terrible Dragon Reborn, but then when Mat draws the dagger on her, she realizes that it’s not the madness affecting him but the taint of Shadar Logoth instead and we get a very cool (and icky) scene of her drawing it out of him (temporarily? permanently? I guess we’ll find out in S2). I think the show did a really good job showing us why Mat would have such a low opinion of his own character and also showing us that that’s not who he is. Oh, I am going to miss Barney as Mat. Looking forward to seeing what Donal does, but wow, Barney was fantastic in this role.

21. Rand looks very angelic and also a bit like a confused sheep, in the shot after Mat has had the corruption drawn out of him. Love the way the light is coming through the windows here. Gorgeous. And we can see that doing that for Mat took a LOT out of Moiraine, really drained her. We have this great moment of connection between Rand and Moiraine, because of what he saw her do for Mat. Back when she healed his dad, it was in the wake of their home being attacked and Rand learning that he was... adopted, kinda, so he was not in a receptive place towards Moiraine. He’s more receptive now to looking at things from her perspective and giving her the benefit of the doubt, because he was able to see her struggle with this and to risk herself to help Mat. Rand’s very sincere ‘thank you’ to Moiraine here is really nice, and it feels earned.

22. I do find it fascinating how Rand and Moiraine are STILL talking past each other, even in this scene where Rand is being genuinely grateful. Rand personalizes what Moiraine did -- she took on that evil for Mat -- but for Moiraine it’s greater good based -- she would have done it for any of her potential dragons, because wow it would SUCK for the world if the Dragon Reborn was corrupted by Shadar Logoth. Moiraine is Big Picture here and Rand is still very Small Picture. Rand does also check with Moiraine that if all that was Mat being affected by the dagger, then he isn’t... but Moiraine still says that she doesn’t know. “He’s stronger than he has any right to be. If he weren’t, that dagger would have consumed him weeks ago,” she notes about Mat, post-dagger, and it makes her think that Mat still might be the Dragon. I am 100% on the “Rand was unintentionally healing Mat with the Power during their journey” bandwagon for the show version. It just Makes Sense, and it lines up with the story Nynaeve told about Egwene ~getting better~ from her bone-breaking disease (which she attributed to Egwene being strong but, of course, while Egwene IS strong, Nynaeve also most likely healed her with the Power). She warns Rand to keep a careful watch on Mat, because if he touches the dagger again, “he might be lost forever”.

23. When Nynaeve and Loial return, Moiraine briefly shames Nynaeve for being too prideful to ask for help. So, uh, that relationship is going well.

24. I love this show’s use of non-sexual nudity. The whole scene in the bath-house is great; we get to see Moiraine relaxing while she chats with Maigan. Also, Moiraine trying to avoid the Tower as much as possible. Maigan gives us some tantalizing future plot hooks -- “Ships are disappearing off the West Coast; “Aiel have been spotted this side of the Spine”. Maigan asks Moiraine if she knows how Trollocs got to the Two Rivers undetected but Moiraine doesn’t have an answer. Maigan says that she might go west to track the disappearing ships. Oh, dear. Anyway, Maigan plans to try to convince Siuan to forgive Moiraine, and Maigan wants Moiraine to stay in the Tower on a more permanent basis while she’s gone. Obviously, this goes hard against Moiraine’s own plans.

25. Moiraine is now alerted that her other two potential dragons have been found! She has the whole set. Much like poor Mat was a wreck, poor Perrin is a wreck, but the Yellow Ajah Aes Sedai are healing him. So, Moiraine has contacts among the Yellow Aes Sedai who gave her info here. Hmmm.

26. Egwene shows Moiraine the rings that she took from Valda and tells her that Valda isn’t going to hurt any more Sisters. Oh. Oh, honey. Pretty sure you didn’t kill him. You stabbed him in the shoulder, bb. Love you tho. Egwene tells Moiraine about Perrin’s eyes going golden and Moiraine compares the color to a wolves’ eyes, so Egwene tells her about the wolves attacking the Whitecloaks and Perrin not being afraid about them. Egwene asks if the eyes could mean that Perrin is the Dragon, and Moiraine is basically *shrug emoji*. Moiraine must be so relieved to have Egwene back tbh. Egwene listens to her so much more easily than any of the rest of the Two Rivers’ folk. Also! Loved how green the Yellow Ajah’s healing room is. But it’s another change that... okay, the rest is going in the spoiler reblog.

[yoonpobs]

bad boy good thing xiv.

pairing: jeon jungkook x oc

genre: angst, smut, fluff, miscommunication (we hate her lol), pining

warnings: smut, jungkook is really an asshole, the angst hurts a lot tbh, unhealthy relationships (?)

words: 5, 690

summary: a series of drabbles where you're confused and jungkook's confusing

a/n:

hello!!!! we’re here at fourteen chapters omg ✨✨when i first started this series it was mostly self-indulgent and now there are people who actually enjoy reading it??🥺 it almost doesn’t seem real T.T 

thank you so much for the love and support!!! just so I don't give too much spoilers for this chap - I apologise to my fellow geminis for the potential slander 🤣 this is more of a self-drag lmaooo 

anyway, I hope you enjoy this chap!!!

“Ah. I’m getting allergies.” Yena sniffs, scrunching her nose.

You furrow your brows in concern, “Are you okay? Do you need any medicine?”

“It’s just the seasonal changes,” She brushes you off.

You nod in understanding, “I get it. My mom has horrible reactions towards pollen so—”

“I’m not allergic to flowers.” She blinks.

“Then what—?”

“It’s Gemini season. It’s like—literally the worst time of the year.” She blinks.

You gawk at her, taking a whole ten seconds to process her serious tone when she doesn’t waver under your scrutiny.

“I’m a Gemini,” You inform her slowly.

“I mean …” She shrugs all as you scowl at her, opting to throw the closest object you had, which was your favourite pen so you decide against it; simply shooting her the meanest glare you could possibly muster.

“Look, it’s not you,” She sighs, and you’re half-expecting her to finish with an it’s me to make you scoff, “It’s me.” And there you go. “I mean, it’s Gemini’s in general because they’re two-faced bitches who have the worst emotional attachment issues. Like they’re literally what the opposite of glue is. And they’re so over-analytical. How is it like psychoanalysing every person you meet only to hurt your own feelings and sulk about it?”

You blink.

“I mean it’s not you but if the shoe fits.” She says casually, plopping a grape into her mouth that you’re tempted to slap away.

“You’re so mean!” You pout indignantly.

She cackles, throwing her head back as you continue to sulk. You weren’t that bad. You just … you were risk-averse! You liked having the freedom to observe everyone and anyone and package them into tiny compartments in your head so you could understand them better. You weren’t … that Gemini.

“You’re so cute,” She coos pinching your cheeks. “No wonder Beef One and Beef Two like you so much.” She teases.

Your first reaction is to blush because you know who exactly she’s talking about, but you have more pressing matters, like—

“You have nicknames for them?” You ask, baffled.

“Hey, I wasn’t friends with many girls in high school. Don’t girls usually have nicknames for their crushes?” She says through a pout.

You stay expressionless as you try to gauge the level of seriousness you can extract from her tone.

You realise she’s dead serious.

“Yeah, but we’re in college,” You argue, scrunching your nose, “And sides’, it’s not like they’re strangers. We know them.”

She rolls her eyes, waving you off like you were the inconvenience here. Then she leans forward, her eyes twinkling as she takes a complete one-eighty that you try to adjust to.

“So … you Gemini hoe, what’s your plans?” She nudges you.

You raise a brow, “Did you just call me a—?”

“Plans, ___. Stay on track.” She scolds.

You sigh, still fond but you pretend to be annoyed. You really couldn’t get annoyed with Yena. After all, the more time you spend with her the more you realise how much life sucked before you had her in your life. You spent each moment learning more about her quirks and habits, her choice of words that made you giggle or laugh until you were crying.

And you realise that this is how she loves, a little rough but welcomed nonetheless.

“If you’re talking about my birthday then … not much. I’m probably stuck doing admin work for the college’s charity programme.” You shrug, stabbing a fork into your soiled salad.

Yena gapes at you, “Not much—excuse me? It’s your birthday! You’re turning twenty-five!” 

You look at her dryly, “I’ve been twenty-five since the year—”

She groans, “That’s not the same! You’re like—officially twenty-five. You’re literally hitting the mark for a quarter-life crisis. Isn’t that something to celebrate?” 

“Me going through an existential crisis at the end of my degree is not how I want to celebrate my birthday but okay,” You blink.

She rolls her eyes at your realism.

“That’s not the point. Point is, this is our first birthday together and I want it to be special.” She points out.

You snort, “What? Are we doubling my birthday as our monthsary or something?”

She shoves you with a brute force that has you snickering but she continues to pester you anyway.

“You’re so dumb. So smart, but so dumb,” She shakes her head, “You’re always studying or doing some form of work that requires the use of more than one brain cell. You deserve a break. Besides, you have two dudes to pick from on how you’d like to be wined and dined and—”

“Yena!” You whine.

“—it’ll be like an episode of the Bachelorette! But just with a super cool and smart best friend that’ll make the decision for you. It’s not your birthday. It’s ours.” She emphasises towards the end.

You stare at her for a long second, before the two of you are bursting into laughter at the absurdity of her statement. 

It was nice, just to laugh about things without having your heart feel so heavy. Even if it was a mild distraction, it was still wholly pleasant to be able to just talk about mindless things that didn’t require much mental gymnastics to navigate the conversation with.

“What are the two of you laughing about?” Taehyung and Jimin arrive at impeccable timing, sliding into the booth with their own packaged food. It’s very college-student-esque, a cute paper (because no plastic) container filled with an array of assortments.

“None of your XY chromosomes business.” Yena retorts.

Jimin blinks, “You are literally so hostile.”

“Then don’t give me a reason to be.” She sticks her tongue out petulantly.

You laugh, nudging her with your shoulder, “Be nice.”

Taehyung rolls his eyes but manages to keep a civil smile on his face. Always the more rational one between the two. 

“Anyway, Yena definitely isn’t going to answer me so, what’s up?” He turns to look at you.

You roll your eyes but it’s half-hearted, “She wants to celebrate my birthday like we’re on the Bachelorette.”

“Like you’re on the Bachelorette.” She corrects.

“Oh my God, our baby’s turning twenty-five!” Jimin coos at the reminder, pinching your cheeks as he coddles you. You scowl and weakly shove him away, even if you preen under the attention.

“I’m literally older than the both of you.” You huff.

Yena blinks, “There’s no way I’m the oldest person at this table.”

Taehyung furrows his brows, “Wait—how old are you?”

She sends him a scathing glare that has his arms raised up in defence.

“Jeez, okay. Don’t answer.”

“I’m going to answer because you told me not to.” She clips. “I’m twenty-seven.”

Jimin blinks, “No wonder you and Yoongi hyung are so alike.”

You almost miss it, but as Yena so eloquently pointed out, you were a sucker for psychoanalysing people (even if you didn’t want to admit it yet) that you notice the way she flushes ever so slightly as she scoffs.

“Him? How dare you compare me to that sorry excuse of a—!”

“Okay, everyone is beneath you. I’m sorry your highness.” Jimin rolls his eyes.

You make a note to ask her about it because you know for a fact that Yoongi ‘complains’ about Yena every hour he can. It’s almost as if he can’t go long enough without mentioning her.

You smile to yourself as you duck your head.

“Exactly,” She flips her hair over her shoulders before turning to face you. “Anyway, back to you—our baby.”

Taehyung nods, “Exactly, the baby.”

You scrunch your nose, “Don’t coddle me.”

He pats your head before cooing at you like he would to an actual baby, “But you’re just so cute. You’re too good for this shitty world. Too good for the likes of mere mortals like us.”

“Not me.” Yena blinks before gesturing to their bodies, “You.”

Jimin sticks his tongue out in retaliation as you sigh at their never-ending bickering.

Somehow … it felt right. You think it most of the times but you don’t know any other way to describe how it feels to be back with your friends, laughing, bickering and just appreciating their presence.

When you and Jungkook had your issues, it was like you made the conscious choice to avoid everyone and anyone as much as you could, and any interaction you had during that period was purely out of coincidences and not the intention. You remember actively avoiding Jimin and Taehyung because it felt too draining to pretend like you didn’t have a battle in your head. Even studying or spending time with Namjoon made you feel guilty, the thought of Jungkook lingering in your mind. Yena was there through it all, but even then you saw her as much as you did with any of your classmates you so happened to share a class with.

In fact, if it weren’t for Yena you’d probably have zero social interactions as a whole because she just knew. She somehow picked up on your internal conflicts but never outwardly shamed you or confronted you about it. All she did was be there for you, offering you her presence and you were grateful.

So, yeah. Things were better, but your heart was still at its core—confused. Your feelings for Jungkook didn’t disappear overnight and you knew that you were the one that asked for space.

You forgave him … you did, honestly. But there are things you can’t forget, and those are the things that you wished you could. The words he said in principle, was outright shitty. But the fact that it came from him only poked at every single one of your insecurities that you developed over the years.

You knew it wasn’t healthy to compare yourself to other women when they were living vastly different lives than you were, but it’s proven difficult when you’re forced to see these type of women every day, at college, in your community work or on the media. 

Believing Jungkook’s apparent feelings for you was harder because, well. Jungkook was Jungkook. He wasn’t just another guy, and despite his shortcomings, he had more merits than he’d let on and you knew that people saw that. It was also the fact that Jungkook had a charm that drew all types of people in. He was soft-spoken but passionate, and people loved a quiet achiever.

You … knew about the women. Way before Jennie and way before the thing between the two of you happened. Jimin and Taehyung would always update you about the new fling or girl he had tied to his hip just as he was in his final year in high school. You had to force a smile every single time they’d snicker and joke about how your Jungkook suddenly became a man overnight.

And you noticed the trend with the women he liked. They were … captivating. Beautiful wasn’t even enough to describe them because they looked like they could carry the world on their shoulders and spark immense change with just the movement of their lips. They were confident and charismatic, outgoing and just the right amount of flirty. You were anything but.

It sucked, majorly, because you spent years agonising over the fact that you were already coined with the older sister title in the group because of the way you acted—just a little more uptight than the average woman your age. You were quiet but loud in the right company; you didn’t like crowds, socialising or mingling around with people you didn’t know and based on your observations it seemed like that was the only thing that Jungkook’s been doing ever since he made it to senior year in high school, and even in the first years of college.

You don’t resent him, you think. You couldn’t blame him because you weren’t honest either. You consented, to all of the kisses and touches even if he hadn’t officially had sex with you. You wanted to, but you were terrified. Not at the prospect of penetration but at the prospect of not being enough and the fact that Jungkook was the only person you wanted to have sex with while he had options that were far more attractive and experienced than you were.

That’s why you needed time because at least you could get your shit together even if it was an uphill battle.

“Earth to ____?” Taehyung waves a hand in front of your face with a concerned expression.

You blink, snapping out of your daze as you offer a meek smile and an apology.

“We just asked you if you wanted a small get together at Tae’s and I’s place for your birthday?” Jimin asks.

“Really?” You beam. That was exactly what you preferred.

“Yeah, we know you don’t like clubs and stuff. Just a small and intimate gathering with all your best buds.” He grins.

You nod your head, but Yena beats you to a response.

“By best buds you mean the three friends she has, which is us and the two meatheads duelling for her affection.” She snorts.

You flush, “Y-Yena!”

Taehyung snickers at your embarrassment.

“It doesn’t help that both of them are literally the biggest dudes on the football team. It’s literally like watching King Kong and Godzilla getting into a fight for world domination.”

Jimin throws his back in laughter as you fold your arms across your chest at post at the way your friends are practically crying in laughter at the image. Jimin was clutching onto Taehyung for his dear life because if he didn’t then he’d fall off the chair.

“Stop,” You whine, “you guys are being mean.”

“Oh my God, you’re literally the only person on this earth that would take two people fighting for your attention as an offence.” Taehyung groans.

“I-It’s not that!” You deny exasperatedly, “I-It’s just … awkward …”

Jimin sighs with a small smile, patting your head.

“If it’s any consolation I think it’s offensive that Jungkook thinks he even has the right to breathe in—”

“Jimin!”

“Wow. It really is like King Kong and Godzilla.” Jimin whistles lowly, eyeing the scene before him with amusement lingering in his eyes.

“Do you think they’re gonna start slamming their chests soon or …?” Taehyung trails off in a whisper, leaning into Jimin so that the two other men wouldn’t notice.

“I can literally hear you.” You say dryly.

Jimin offers you a plastic smile, “You’re meant to hear us, babe. How about you try to tame them like Jane did with Tarzan?”

Jimin nearly shrieks when you shove him so fiercely that he topples over into Taehyung’s grasp as the second part of the duo only catches him in the process. 

You sigh, completely ignoring the way that Jimin’s muttering curses that were directed to you under his breath. Instead, you were transfixed on the scene before you—which specifically is Jungkook and Namjoon staring each other down through the mirror of the gym. You were lucky that it was just the five of you since Namjoon was able to use his captain privileges to book the gym because you had no idea how to explain the fact that two big-sized men were attempting to outdo each other in their circuit reps as if they were on a suicide mission.

“Listen, when I agreed to help you out with your sets I thought I was meant to help log it in for a report.” You exasperate, but the two men continue their manly lift-off as they huff and puff their exertion away.

“Trust me, you are helping. Being the motivation is more than—”

This time it’s Taehyung who faces your wrath as you thwack him upside the head. 

From where Jungkook and Namjoon were, Jungkook can only deliver death stares into the direction of his captain who returns it tenfold. He wasn’t even sure why they were doing this but something a flicked definitely switched in Jungkook when Namjoon (purposefully) revealed that you were helping out with something. At the gym. Supposedly alone.

Jungkook’s primitive side came out because the next thing Namjoon knew was that Jungkook managed to drag himself, and Jimin and Taehyung as a diversion. He still feels his chest swell with pride when recalling the scowl on Namjoon’s face when he entered the gym, all fake smiles and a pep in his step.

“____, could you help me spot?” Namjoon breathes, sitting up from whatever the hell he was doing with the barbell. You weren’t fixated with gym language and you weren’t even sure why he was asking you when there was an entire Jimin and Taehyung right next to you.

“Uh, okay sure—“

“Noona,” Jungkook calls.

You freeze.

“Jungkook … I thought we established that you don’t need to call me that anymore.” You raise an eyebrow.

You miss the obvious glare that Namjoon shoots his bitchass friend, as well as the snorts that leave Jimin and Taehyung’s mouth.

“Pay attention to me,” Jungkook pouts. Like, actually pouts. You somehow flush because he seemed so much like the younger version of Jungkook who used to always coddle you for attention.

“Okay but after I help—”

“Yeah. After she helps me.” Namjoon interjects, and you nearly jump at the way he’s suddenly behind you, more so—pressed against your back with his hands on your hips as he moves you aside to get to another piece of equipment.

Your breath hitches because while you weren’t exactly invested in Namjoon in the romantic sense, he was undeniably attractive and … big. You could salivate in private.

“Oh my God, do you see that?” Taehyung hisses in a hushed whisper.

“Hyung is petty,” Jimin gawks.

“This is Namjoon we’re talking about. Didn’t he steal all the umbrellas from your dorm because you ratted him out to the librarian when he broke a bookshelf?” Taehyung recalls.

Jimin pauses to retract his mind to that moment.

“He’s so petty and I’m living for it. Look at Kook’s face,” He snickers, nudging Taehyung with his shoulder.

Jungkook only can clench his jaw in return because he knew that you wouldn’t be a fan of him reaching out to strangle the shit out of Namjoon. But the older boy seems fine, if not pleased with how Jungkook’s fuming in his own spot.

“Let me just …” You cock a thumb to Namjoon, before releasing a breath of your own and going to help him with whatever he needed in the first place.

“Jimin can help him. I have a more pressing problem.” He complains.

You stop in your tracks before turning around, raising an eyebrow at Jungkook who finally sits up, still staring at you like you held all the solutions in the world.

“Literally wait for your turn,” Namjoon scowls.

“My arm hurts,” Jungkook says, raising his arm to show you. 

“I don’t … see anything?” You furrow your brows.

“Because my muscles hurt, Noona,” Jungkook emphasises with a flex of his bicep and you can feel yourself get hot in the way your eyes can’t stray away.

You’re momentarily distracted by the blatant display of muscle by Jungkook that you completely miss the way that Jimin and Taehyung are struggling to breathe because of how hard they’re stifling their laughter or the way that Namjoon is contemplating on throwing the nearest dumbbell into Jungkook’s direction.

You flush, “Okay, you know what? Wait here. Let me get the first aid kit.” You mumble, quickly scampering off to alleviate yourself from the situation.

The moment you leave the room, Namjoon takes two long strides until he reaches where Jungkook’s sat, before wrapping a hand around the arm that was supposedly hurt—and squeezes.

“Ow! What the fuck hyung?!” Jungkook shrieks.

“Don’t hyung me, you brat.” Namjoon seethes, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Jungkook gapes, while Jimin and Taehyung watch in amusement.

“Me?! What’s wrong with you?” Jungkook retorts, equally as agitated, “Oh, _____, help spot me! Woe is me! Like she wouldn’t get crushed under you, you meathead!” 

“Like you’re any better,” Namjoon snaps, “Oh, Noona, pay attention to me. My arm hurts. You might as well have asked her to change your fucking diapers at the rate you’re acting like a damn child.”

“You’re the one that started all of this!” Jungkook exasperates, “With all due respect hyung, I love you and you’re my captain but I really feel like smashing your head into the wall right now.”

“That’s it?” Namjoon scoffs, “Well I’ll do you one better and let you know that every time you breathe in my direction I feel like—”

“Oh my God will you two idiots shut the fuck up?” Taehyung interjects, snapping at the two boys who pause, staring up at him with wide eyes.

Even Jimin is surprised at Taehyung’s intervention, purely because he was the type that usually let shit slide or let other people put problematic individuals into place. He was the mediator, the diplomat—not usually the aggressor.

“Wha—”

“Another peep and I’m going to smother your body under the dumbbells and leave you here to rot and die.” Taehyung seethes, staring straight into Jungkook’s soul.

That shuts him up.

“Both of you are acting like goddamn children, and for what? To battle out your masculinity to see who gets ____’s attention first?” Taehyung exasperates.

Namjoon clears his throat, “We were just—”

“—acting like a bunch of barbarians who’s never seen civilisation?” Taehyung retorts dryly, “Yeah. Because that’s exactly what this looks like. The two of you are so petty and for what? You two are literally rubbing the last remaining brain cells you have with each other but nothing is coming out from it. Like—nothing. Do you think she’d give a shit which one of you can lift more reps? That means absolutely nothing! She’s already freaked the fuck out at the prospect of her childhood best friend being in love with her and now we have Big Tit Number One and Two battling it out like you’re in the Greek Olympics.”

Jungkook blinks, and Jimin is mildly impressed.

“So before she comes back and tends to Jungkook’s hurt muscle,” Taehyung sneers, eyes narrowing at a guilty-looking Jungkook, “Both of you better sort your shit out.”

Namjoon flushes, embarrassed at the prospect of being called out, all while Jungkook is avoiding eye contact at all costs.

“Oh my God, do you have a crush on each other or something? Apologise!” Taehyung gestures towards the two boys who awkwardly blink at each other, feeling much like reprimanded children.

It’s Namjoon who breaks the silence first, clearly the more mature one in the situation.

“Look … Jungkook,” He sighs, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to … drag it out like this. I don’t mean it maliciously and you’re my friend and teammate, so I’d really hate if a girl got in the way.”

Jungkook nibbles on his lips, eyebrows still scrunched; and the irrational part of him tells him to ignore the apology. But with the way that Taehyung is glaring him down, with Jimin’s expectant gaze, he knows that he doesn’t have much of a choice.

“I’m sorry … too,” he winces at his own voice, “But just to let you know … I really …” He shuts his eyes, feeling his chest tighten when he tries to force the words out, “She isn’t just … a girl to me, hyung. I really, really like her. And—I know you like her too but … I fucked up and I really want to make things right and seeing you—”

Jungkook is flushing while he rambles on, fully aware that the rest of his friends are listening intently to him speaking his heart. But a hand rests itself on his shoulder, and when Jungkook opens his eyes he sees Namjoon offering him a gentle smile.

“I know,” He says, “I know I said I wouldn’t back off …” He trails off and Jungkook recalls the conversation he had with him in the very same gym just a few weeks back, “But I don’t think I can compete with a decade long love story.” 

Jungkook scoffs, though his ears are flushed.

“It’s really not—”

Namjoon waves him off, clasping a tight hand onto his back that tells him it’s okay, and whatever that was going on would get better. And Jungkook feels marginally better and allows himself to let out a sigh of release.

“So are the two of you gonna kiss or what?” Jimin asks in the midst of the silence.

Namjoon glares at the boy, “Don’t make me give you an extra ten laps.”

He backs down immediately, raising his hands up in defence. And at that moment, you return, all smiles and with a pant as you raise the first aid kit up.

“Your arm?” You smile sweetly, and Jungkook can only offer a weak on in return.

“Can I ask you something?” 

“Depends. Will I have to run from the government if I answer you honestly?” Yena ponders out loud.

You roll your eyes but shake your head anyway. The two of you were meant to be cooking dinner but you’ve surrendered yourself to Netflix and Yena’s witty live commentary on horrible films you were scrolling through an hour earlier. Though, your head wasn’t quite in it, to begin with; your thoughts drifting to other aspects, ones that you thought too hard for and didn’t necessarily know the answer to.

It was frustrating, the way that you wanted to have a solution for everything but overthought every single case that happens to pass by your mind. 

“No one’s hunting anyone down, your anarchist,” You say, “This is a little … personal.” 

You didn’t have any girl friends prior to Yena, and that was your first mistake. You weren’t the person that actively avoided having girl friends because you thought they were dramatic or overly emotional but purely because you never knew how to befriend women. It was weird—being a woman yet being muddled with your own sense of femininity that suppressed your ability to form meaningful friendships with your women peers.

Throughout most of your childhood and teenaged life, you only had Jimin, Taehyung and Jungkook. While they were more than enough to keep your memories cheerful and filled with laughter, there were more personal things that you couldn’t quite approach them with. They had each other to confide in their ‘manly’ discussions, small talk that you’d often flush at—but you couldn’t ask them the same things you wanted to.

You knew, that on a fundamental level that your personal things were just … things. It wasn’t that deep, nor did it require a PhD in Gender Studies to fully understand the nuance of periods or apparent ‘girl’ problems; you just needed to listen. But you were timid, and you got embarrassed super easily—so that never boded well whenever you’d want to approach them with a question of your own.

But now, you had Yena—debatably the most open and understanding person you’ve met in your life; and you owed it to yourself, and her—to be honest, to live yourself vicariously in your girl best friends eyes—and ask:

“How do you have sex?”

Granted, there was definitely a smoother way of peeling off the bandaid, but you supposed if you were going to be discussing this one way or another, you’d go big or go home.

“I’m sorry,” She coughs, “What?”

You blink.

“Sorry, I guess I should’ve asked if you were a virgin first …” You mumble.

Yena stares at you with a stupefied expression as she gapes at you.

“Hey, repeat after me: candy, tree and cat.” She grabs you by your shoulders.

“I’m not cerebrally compromised, Yena,” you say dryly.

“Repeat,” She glares.

You huff, shoving her hand off your shoulder.

“Candy, tree and cat. There, happy?” You huff.

She eyes you weirdly as you sigh. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes!” You exasperate, “So like … how? Do you just? Penetrate?”

Yena blinks one more time, her eyes trailing to the ceiling as she asks for a higher being to give her strength before she returns her gaze onto your figure.

“Babe, that is literally the unsexiest way to approach sex.” 

“Penetration?” You furrow your brows.

She scrunches her brows, “No.” She gestures to you, “That.”

You scowl.

“I don’t know how to approach sex! That’s why I’m asking you. I literally don’t know who else to approach. If I went to Jimin or Taehyung I’m pretty sure they’d just stare at me and cry. Namjoon is out of the picture because he’d likely approach sex textbook style and I don’t need that level of detail right now. I definitely can’t ask Jungkook because he’s the guy I wanna have sex with. So yeah. I’m here because you’re a woman and the only person I can have a full conversation with without losing my will to live.”

Yena gawks at you, jaw slack as you finish your ramble; ears flushed.

“… you …” She begins, wracking her brain for the words that seem to fail her, “… okay. You know what, the fact that you’re here and putting your big girl pants on and asking me this is a feat in itself so I’m going to just ignore the fact that you said you wanted to have sex with Jungkook.”

You flush, “I was word vomiting—”

“Ah,” She holds her hands up, levelling you with a knowing glare, “If you want honest, you be honest too.”

You slump in your seat, sighing as you nod your head defeatedly.

“Firstly, I’m not a virgin. I could never be a virgin.” Yena declares, “Granted, I’ve slept with three people and two of them were women. But the idiot I lost my virginity to was, unfortunately, of XY chromosomes so … I guess I can answer your questions.”

“I mean … I know how sex works but … approaching it …” You mutter.

“And sex isn’t this groundbreaking act that requires Einstein’s IQ to partake in. It’s both intimate and not, and that’s definitely a personal preference. You can know the semantics of how people have sex, for hets in this case, which is just the classic ol’ penetration method where the penis enters the—”

“Your point?” You exasperate.

“—okay, I got a little carried away. But really, sex isn’t … difficult. It’s scary, I’ll give you that. But you don’t go into your first time thinking you’ll be great at it. Hell, you won’t even like sex that much your first few times unless your partner is a sex demon or something.”

“I mean when Jungkook …” You shudder, “When he … I … you know, did things … it felt …” You fiddle with your fingers. Your ears were undoubtedly on fire, and you were so embarrassed saying these things out loud because it was just so awkward!

“Good? You know I’m not going to judge you for it,” she says pointedly, “That’s what friends are for, right?”

You flush, covering your face with your hands in embarrassment. You knew that Yena would never judge you for something as trivial and as unimportant as your sexual endeavours, but this was still a road you’ve yet to properly navigate yourself.

“I … came,” you wince at your breathy voice, “It felt good. And … he’s experienced, you know? I just don’t want to …”

Yena looks at you inquisitively.

“You don’t want to …?”

You sigh deeply, considering your next words with a soft murmur, “I don’t want to not live up to his expectations, you know?”

She frowns at you, “Jungkook’s made some mistakes but you said it yourself. He’s in love with you,” she says softly, “There’s no pressure to have sex with him just because it’s out in the open now, you know?”

You nibble on your lips.

“It’s … more than just that,” you tell her, “I told him I needed time, and really, I do. But it isn’t because I’m confused. I mean, kind of—but really it’s because I don’t want to walk into something and disappoint him … I’m just … scared.”

Yena holds your hand in hers while offering you a gentle smile.

“It’s valid that you’re scared. But there really isn’t anything that can come out of being scared right now. The two of you worked through an obstacle, and here you are creating another one that doesn’t quite exist yet. Trust me, when the time feels right, it does. And you’ll feel ready. Will you still be scared? Maybe. But it’ll feel like it’s meant to fit within your timeline.”

You nibble on your lips, “Is it bad that I’m overthinking this?” You wince.

Yena shrugs her shoulders, “Like everything else in your life?” She teases.

You whine, shoving at her shoulder playfully where all Yena does is snicker in response. You weren’t quite sure what you were expecting out of the conversation, even if it was vaguely about the ins and outs of sexual exploration. And she was right, you’ll always be afraid of something, whether it’ll benefit you or harm you because that’s what change does. It shifts your comfort zone into a space that may be unfamiliar but necessary.

You lean into Yena’s shoulder, and a wave of overwhelming emotion washes upon you when you look at her. You really didn’t know how you survived a time without Yena in your life. And as if she’s noticed your glassy gaze, she raises an eyebrow at you.

“What are you looking at?”

You grin at her, all teeth and gums on display as you hug onto her arm like a koala.

“I’m just really happy you’re in my life.” You sigh wistfully.

She pauses for one whole second before she snorts.

“Wow, talk about sex once and suddenly you’re in love with me?” She wiggles her eyebrows at you, “Tell Jeon and Kim that you’re mine now.”

You giggle, rolling your eyes.

“They’re not even competing in the same league as you are,” you assure her.

She smiles.

“So … does that mean I don’t need to get you a birthday gift?”

That earns a thwack on her shoulder.

[mybrainproblems]

i am so very sorry but i am mildly unhinged about the finale bc i am an absolute sicko who has watched it nine times. no, i'm not kidding. (sadly not live tho. rip.)

the short and Normal tl;dr is that i took a stopwatch to 15x20 and it...

is the standard 42min (41m48s) of any spn ep

has a lot of really long stretches in the back half where you can't drop in an ad break unless you want the chef kiss black comedy of dean dangling off a rusty nail and cut to personal injury lawyer commercial

i would not be shocked if the CW saw how the episode was cutting together (which i do think was happening late, but was bc the pacing sucked) and realized that they either needed to put another ad break in earlier or have the later ad breaks be a lot longer.* given the absolutely baffling pacing in the back half of the episode, i'm guessing it was less jarring to add another break to an earlier point in the episode vs killing the flow even worse with longer breaks at the end.

* i may be thinking of radio but i want to say there's some sort of rule around the proportional length of tv ad breaks?

for the less hinged essay inclusive of timing marks and some more spec... please, by all means, continue below the cut.

so about a year ago, i was going nuts from how many times i'd seen the rumor that 15x20 had been cut down and was (depending on who you asked) 3-6 minutes short from a normal episode. what an insane thing! how wild! how did they get away with it?!

i never really saw anyone agree on just how short it was cut so.... i opened up the stopwatch app on my phone. and lo and behold, it's the same 42min runtime (specifically, 41m48s) as any other spn ep! the crazy thing about a rumor is that the easier it is to fact check, the less likely it is to be fact checked. if it's repeated enough, it becomes its own truth.

also i checked the timing on both dvd and netflix! just to make sure!

i had an inkling that maybe the claims that it was short were coming from how the ads broke down the ep, so i started trying to backwards engineer where they might have gone just based on plot beats, scene changes and camera cuts. i would love to watch a version with the ad breaks still in it. do tv show reactor folks leave in ads?

these are pure guesses but the ad breaks i'm most confident about the placement of are:

(03:59) immediately after the title card

(14:46) as they enter the barn

(26:03) before sam wakes up in the bunker

potential ones i'm less certain of:

(05:57) right before the home vampvasion

(12:47) before they arrive at the barn OR

(16:41) after jenny reveal but before the fight starts

(34:01) before the first montage (super weird placement but the only place late in the ep i could imagine putting an ad)

the thing is that they are having to schedule ad breaks around the following chunks that really cannot be broken up:

(17:12-24:29) dean's impalement until his eventual demise - 7m17s

(34:02-41:48) driving montage until end of episode - 7m46s

there's the possibility that there were no ads from dean waking up in heaven (30:24) until the end (41:48) which is a truly wild length of TV time to have no commercials and why i think there had to be one before the driving montage, no matter how odd that placement is. there's also the possibility that the credits/4th wall break had a split screen with an ad break, but i doubt it for a finale.

totally separate but given covid, i can't imagine they would have gotten too much extra footage given the restrictions they were under. so there wouldn't have been a lot to "plug the holes" of cutting other footage. what we do know was cut from 15x20 is stuff that (imho) would have been less weird to pad out time than 7min of dean driving aimlessly interspersed with (very intentionally shot) sam moments.

alex, why the hell does any of that matter?

it doesn't! and yet it feels so crucial... fascinating!

ok so like. thinking about the fact that there was an extra commercial break in the finale

In 2021 I used to work for [major US cable company] on a team that manually scheduled all of the ads that aired on their network every single day. While the exact shit that airs gets put in there the day before by a team of approx 10 human beings (insane), the tv show schedule & the breaks themselves are SET IN STONE. It takes a really specific, heavy-hitting request from a network and a LOT of people & moving parts to make an extra commercial break happen. That shit is built into the system way in advance!!!!!

I wish I had thought to ask my coworkers if they remembered anything happening then. Things were ofc moving around a lot because of the election coverage, BUT that was in the news networks, not on the fucking CW. Do we think that request was made last minute??? how long did they plan to have that extra break in there?????? were they cutting that episode up until the last minute after the networks saw the reaction to 15x18??????? we will probably never know but it is gonna bug me forever

[fictionadventurer]

So Strong as Gentleness; Or, Powers and Prejudice

Episode One: Unstoppable Force

No one who had seen Jane Bennet in civilian guise would have supposed her to be a superheroine. Her features were marked by their delicate regularity and her expressions were notably docile and sweet. Her physique tended toward the slender and fragile. Her voice, when heard, was soft, and her movements were gentle to the extreme. If asked, the average bystander would have assumed her a particularly sheltered university student, designed to be a distressed damsel rather than a rescuing hero.

Yet she was, both by nature and heritage, perfectly suited for superheroism. Her mother had spent several years as one of Netherfield City’s most prominent superheroes, and her energy blasts had saved countless innocent bystanders from the machinations of superpowered troublemakers. Her father was a telekinetic, who, it is true, had only a short career in superheroism when he was pursuing the woman he would later wed, after which he had hung up his cape and retreated to his library, but he was a tolerant parent who had no objections to his daughters making use of the extraordinary abilities nature had given them. Jane herself was perhaps the most extraordinary of the five sisters. She had broken concrete with her infant fist, lifted an automobile by the age of three, and had matured into a young woman who could stop a train merely by standing in front of it. With such an upbringing and such abilities as these, how could any young woman avoid becoming a superhero of great renown?

Their mother had high hopes for such. Having retired at an early age when her health made the strain of hero work impossible to endure, her greatest hope now was for her daughters to take up their mother’s heroic crusade. Their quiet life in the country town of Meryton had allowed Jane and her sisters to develop their abilities without drawing attention to  themselves or endangering the populace, but such places offer few opportunities for true heroism. A heroine in hiding is no heroine at all. Something must and will occur to help her bring her abilities to the service of the public.

Thus Mrs. Bennet, after years of cajoling her husband, moved the family to the city of Netherfield, the bounds of which had long been a haven for those with extraordinary abilities. People with superhuman talents were allowed to live without interference so long as they did not interfere with the lives of their neighbors. Those who used their powers for the purposes of crime and villainy were stopped by those who used similar powers for heroic pursuits, and it was these masked heroes who received the greatest dispensation to use their abilities in a public setting without censure. There was, to Mrs. Bennet, no better place for her daughters to become what nature had made them to be.

“My dear Mr. Bennet,” Mrs. Bennet told her husband over breakfast one morning. “It seems that Charles Bingley has returned to Netherfield. What a fine thing for our girls!”

Mr. Bennet looked at her over the top of his newspaper before returning his attention to the stock prices. “How can it affect them?”

“You must know that Charles Bingley has connections to the superhero community. His family has funded several superhero teams and that he has personally befriended several of the Defenders. He could help our daughters launch their careers.”

“Was that his design in returning?”

“Design! What nonsense! But he may be persuaded to offer his assistance, if he became aware of what our daughters can do.”

“Do you hear that, Jane?” Mr. Bennet said, as the daughter in question joined her parents at breakfast. “Your mother wishes you to throw an automobile at Mr. Bingley’s head.”

“Mr. Bennet!” his wife replied in vexation. “Jane, I desire you to do no such thing. Your father will make the necessary arrangements.”

"Me? Why should I interfere? Jane is capable of demonstrating astounding feats of strength without my help.”

“She cannot be sent into the city for an open display of power; she’d be like as not to be branded a villain. It is safest to reveal herself to the public only after she has established connections to the superhero community.”

"Then you may go on patrol with her,” Mr. Bennet said. “Your outfit may be snug, but I’ve no doubt the city will welcome the return of one of its finest crime fighters and whichever protégés she brings as assistants.”

“My dear, you flatter me. I may have had my share of successes, but I don’t pretend to be anything extraordinary now. When a woman is my age, she must give over thinking of her own career and allow her daughters to establish themselves on their own merits. My influence and connections are twenty years out of date, while your old university contacts must contain a dozen people who can arrange an interview with Bingley Enterprises.”

“If an interview is all you want,” Mr. Bennet said, “There are more direct ways to arrange it.” He spread his newspaper atop his empty breakfast plate and pointed to a column in the classified ads. “Bingley Enterprises is hosting a hiring event and Mr. Bingley will be in attendance.”

Mrs. Bennet examined the newspaper before her--perhaps the first time in twenty-three years of marriage that she had shared in her husband’s habit. “My dear Mr. Bennet!” she cried in delight. “Jane, how clever your father is!”

Since Mr. Bennet had put forward this solution half in jest and chiefly from a desire to deflect as much possible effort from himself, he was more than a little alarmed to see his wife so sincerely delighted with the suggestion. “It is unlikely that Mr. Bingley will complete any of the interviews personally.”

But Mrs. Bennet had already spun half a dozen delighted theories as to how Jane could turn a chance encounter with Mr. Bingley into an immediate position on Netherfield City’s team of Defenders.

When Mrs. Bennet’s raptures had calmed, Mr. Bennet said more seriously, “Jane, you have not told us what you think of this. Does it please you to become Mr. Bingley’s superpowered secretary?”

Jane was not accustomed to being addressed so directly by her father. Her two most obvious features were that she was beautiful and strong, two traits that were coupled in most people’s minds with a lack of intelligence, and her father's interactions with her were often colored by such assumptions. She had not thought to wonder if she had a choice in the matter; her mother’s hopes for her superhero career had been the primary driving force of her life from her earliest memories. She could see that such an event offered little practical hope of meeting with Mr. Bingley, and in the event that such a meeting was arranged, she did not see how she could turn the conversation to the establishment of her superhero career. But she was also in need of mundane, paycheck-providing work, and Bingley Enterprises was as good a place as any to draw a salary, especially since a position in the company could also perhaps, in future, provide opportunities to bring oneself to the attention of Mr. Bingley’s heroic friends.

“I will go,” Jane said, after a moment of contemplation, “if Lizzie will go with me.”

“Lizzie?” Mrs. Bennet said in surprise. “What can Mr. Bingley want with her? She has nothing like your power, my dear, and scarcely any control. What if the jaguar should appear in the middle of the crowd?”

Jane had experienced several job interviews where her sister’s jaguar form would have provided a much-needed boost of confidence, but it was her sister’s confident human presence that she needed for moral support at such an event.

Lizzie entered the room on the tail-end of her mother’s speech, her eyes bright with laughter. “If the jaguar appears,” she said, “there will be need of her. I never transform anymore unless there’s someone deserving of a few bite marks.”

“Your definitions of deserving,” their mother said, “are looser than most people’s.”

“Then I shall give Jane the handling of my leash,” Lizzie said. “I won’t transform unless she thinks it necessary, and you know she prefers to assume everyone is a fount of human kindness. Is that civilized enough to satisfy you?”

Mr. Bennet replied, “It satisfies me. You have more sense than the rest of your sisters put together, Lizzie, no matter which form you’re in.”

“How can you abuse your own children in such a way?” Mrs. Bennet cried. “They all have excellent control over their abilities, not like Lizzie’s rampaging beast.”

Jane said, “Lizzie hasn’t rampaged in years, Mother.”

Lizzie nodded and said with mock solemnity. “And I have had ample temptation.”

Mrs. Bennet did not find this comforting. She had always been baffled by her second daughter’s quick wit and laughing ways, just as she had always been baffled by her husband, whose personality Lizzie’s most resembled, and the animal form was even worse than the human one. She had never been comfortable with her daughter’s gift of taking on a jaguar form; such unpredictable animalistic displays were far removed from the sleek, Lycra-suited grace that formed her image of a proper Netherfield superhero. Given her choice, she would have kept Lizzie far from the notice of anyone faintly connected with the city’s superhero community, and let them think their family’s next generation of crime fighters consisted only of four sisters. But Jane had the most impressive talents in the family and the potential to become one of the greatest superheroes in Netherfield’s history, and she rarely went anywhere without Lizzie. If Jane was to become Netherfield’s next superhero, Lizzie would have to be by her side.

“Oh, go!” Mrs. Bennet said at last. “But don’t blame me if you’re branded as villains before the day is through.”

[mittensmorgul]

Dean died standing up, which on one hand seems symbolic for "dying on his feet not his knees", ie. it was his choice (i call BS). but it was also like Christ's crucifixion: killed for his love (for Cas/men) and faith that life can get better - it did when he "rose" again, but it was Heaven not Earth, ie. a fantasy. Who Dean Was wasn't the only thing that was killed, it was What He Believed In/Wanted as well: a better life, full of love.

How many times over the years has Dean just begun to see light at the end of the tunnel, only to have it ripped away in a horrific cosmic twist that refuses to let him have a win, only to get back up and keep fighting and putting away that dream until it starts to look like they might finally be on the horizon of an actual win again?

Let’s just think back over the history of “toes in the sand” dreaming, specifically, which is something that really became obvious in s10 when they seemed to be on the verge of finding a “cure” for the mark, that they were under the false belief all season was merely a curse that could be undone. He started dreaming of a vacation, of being able to let go of the need to stand between humanity and cosmic fuckery, and just... relax on a beach and enjoy the peace and quiet for a little while. But that was not to be, because the mark was much more than a curse, and unleashed a whole new round of cosmic garbage to clean up.

13.23 took this to new levels of personal punishment for Dean thinking he might deserve a peaceful retirement:

You, me, Cas, toes in the sand, couple of them little umbrella drinks. Matching Hawaiian shirts, obviously.

HE WAS EXCITED ABOUT RETIREMENT and sharing this joy with his loved ones! But by the end of that episode he would have no other choice but to say yes to Michael to save Sam and Jack (and the rest of the world...), and the narrative snatched him up and used him again.

It’s what he’s been fighting for all season long in 15, too. First he had to come to grips with what was even real about his life, if anything was ever even his choice. This season pushed him to truly understand what was real-- that Cas was probably the realest thing he’s ever encountered, and the cosmic forces that had always torn that dream of retiring (or even getting a vacation) from his grasp had also actively been trying to take Cas from him, too. But despite all that, Cas kept coming back to him anyway, and isn’t that an actual miracle?

And when he finally does get the ultimate win against the cosmos in 15.19, it’s at the greatest possible cost. Cas is lost to him, but even still he tries to make that sacrifice worth something by living his life as best he can.

And then he lives like two days before being killed in the stupidest possible fashion. Like... 

wtf, on every level

“Oh but he’s got an eternity of happiness in heaven!”

NO. *smacks everyone responsible for this travesty with a rolled up newspaper*

“But that’s just how the Supernatural universe works!”

NO. *gets out the newspaper again*

That is not how *our* world works. For every person among us who has identified with Dean or with Cas, we don’t get to look forward to happy heaven forever. We have *one* life (as far as any of us know) and it’s irrevocably precious. DEAN felt his life was irrevocably precious, too, because Cas convinced him it was, that he was worthy of living and being loved for exactly who he was.

And they both died for it.

And in a world where a... how did I phrase this in another post recently... where a proto-fascist evangelical death cult that’s taken over large parts of the us government and would see all not-straight, not-white, not-wealthy, not-abled and not-them in every other way punished or erased simply for trying to exist in society, and who truly believes that life on earth ain’t shit and their real reward will come only once they reach heaven, this is a really awful end for a canon queer couple moments after that love was made textual in a confession.

Like... really bad.

There is no defense of this choice. Writing is ALWAYS a choice. And sometimes writing simply to serve the story (like showing us that Heaven is fixed and now a paradise) doesn’t serve the audience at all. And sometimes those choices are actively harmful to the audience. I don’t just mean the queer audience (or in Eileen’s case, the disabled audience). I mean THE ENTIRE audience, including people who enjoyed the finale. Because it reinforces that the disabled can simply be erased entirely, and that confessing to loving someone is fulfillment enough and merits instant death and subsequent erasure. Not just for Cas, who confessed, but for Dean who never had the chance to confess his own feelings. Never even had the chance to really live out beyond that confession. Never even addressed it in death, either. It was just a punishment for daring to want to live free of everything that had forced him back into the story over and over again at the whim of a cruel and capricious god.

(This isn’t even satisfying for Sam, who apparently ran away again to live out the half-life he’d tried to make for himself every time he’s run away from his life throughout the entire narrative. His wife was irrelevant, he lived for his son he named for his dead brother, and barely even seemed content in that life let alone fulfilled and happy. Dean’s year away from hunting with Lisa had a more positive and hopeful montage associated with it. It’s depressing as fuck that Sam finally found his way free of all of it, and it’s like he just kept clinging to life out of a sense of duty rather than of his own free will. And it’s entirely baffling in every way. Like none of the previous 15 years of growth and coming to understand the balance of his own life meant anything. What a waste.)

The finale says there is no reward in life for people like me, and that I should just be okay with that. And readers, I am not okay with that.

So... I’m happy to throw away the finale with both hands. It didn’t happen, because it’s just that horrific to me.

And if anyone reading this actually does think the finale was good, or satisfying, then I just invite you to understand why so many of us are horrified that you can. Why we might not feel like you’re trustworthy. Just a little explainer here, because for some of us, the story of Supernatural was in the hoping, and in the end the message felt way too much like don’t even try hoping, you will always lose in the end, and that’s just not okay.

Dean deserved his retirement, he deserved to be able to tell Cas he loved him too, and he deserved a long, happy life of his own free choice. He deserved to be able to follow his heart. And all of this, everything that happened instead, was a deliberate choice. Just not DEAN’S choice.

[stevenuniversallyreviews]

I don’t need you to respect me, I respect me

I’m gonna miss writing about Amethyst.

As the most sisterly Crystal Gem, a firebrand in the new role of middle child after spending millennia as the baby of the group, Amethyst’s story is about growing from a wild teen to a responsible adult. Like Steven, she feels the need to prove that she’s a Crystal Gem too, but unlike Steven, she already is a Crystal Gem, so she carries a different kind of resentment as she continues to be treated like a child. It’s made even worse by her warrior instincts clashing with her small frame: she lives with the constant anxiety that she’s a mistake, a Gem who came out wrong and doesn’t belong in her family, so she comforts and distracts herself with hedonism and shapeshifting. Her problem goes beyond not feeling respected: deep down, she fears that she doesn’t deserve respect.

But she changes her mind.

“This isn’t normal.”

The Return and Jailbreak culminated the first act of Steven Universe, giving our characters subtle achievements (Amethyst and Pearl casually fuse into Opal, Greg reveals a deeper understanding of the Gems than we once thought, Beach City comes together as a community when Steven is in danger) and huge changes (Steven summons a massive shield, Garnet’s status as a fusion is confirmed, Lapis goes from prisoner to imprisoner). While not an official finale, Beta and Earthlings culminated the second act, narrowing the focus to five characters as they each reach one milestone or another: Lapis and Amethyst find a level of peace, Peridot defends her new home, Jasper succumbs to corruption, and Steven helps his friends but fails to help his enemy.

In a way, Change Your Mind culminates the third act with an even narrower focus. Sure, it gives big moments to a ton of characters (there’s fanservice galore, and we see the three Diamonds in particular take enormous steps), but we zero in on Steven in the same way the entire act has zeroed in on Steven, because this is a story about identity. It isn’t only about who he is, but who he wants to be moving forward, and fusing all the insights he’s learned from his human family, his Crystal Gem family, and his Diamond family into a song that encapsulates his growth over the course of the series.

We start in the most lifelike of the Diamond dreams, so real that Steven still sees himself as Steven rather than embodying Pink. Once again, this connection emerges from sleeping in a location where Pink once dwelled, but while he wasn’t feeling her impatience and rage in Jungle Moon, nor her hardening resolve in Can’t Go Back, nor her whimsy in Familiar, this time they share the same headspace when they’re both locked in a tower.

Considering how bombastic things get in this episode, I love how low-key this final dream remains until White Diamond interferes. We’re as lost as Steven at first, worrying about Connie and baffled at Blue’s recognizable mood but incongruous accusations, but as the truth becomes clear, he transforms into Pink off-screen without any fanfare, both in body and in mind: Steven isn’t questioning Blue’s warning about Pink Pearl, Pink Diamond is apologizing for her own behavior in Zach Callison’s voice. Still, looking down jolts him out of it, and after seeing the Crystal Gems poofed at the ball for a more definitive Steven memory, we cycle in Rose’s horror at her family launching a final attack on Earth. The rapid-fire identity shifts that follow inspired the most haunting piece of promo art for the episode, drawn by Rebecca Sugar herself, but I didn’t wanna display it without a seizure warning.

It’s excellent exposition, hitting the highlights of the Diamonds’ many wrongs and establishing Steven’s fraying sense of self in a way that’s both artful and brief; it’s important to remind younger viewers about the stakes, but Change Your Mind doesn’t pretend that anyone should be watching this episode without context, so it doesn’t prioritize thorough explanation. And despite how frightening the nightmare becomes, Steven gains a new sense of clarity after seeing the pattern laid out in front of him. The Diamonds are hurting him in the same way they hurt his mother, and if he’s going to help everyone, he needs to help himself.

When Blue Diamond returns to the tower in modern day, Steven isn’t afraid, and he isn’t alone. The first of many puns riddling the finale emerges (“Déjà Blue!”) before Connie proves why she’s the perfect partner for our hero, platonic or otherwise. He’s terrible at confronting the people that hurt him—this would require him to acknowledge he’s hurt in the first place, which he’s also terrible at—but if she was comfortable enough with confrontation to call out her best friend when he wrongs her, Blue Diamond doesn’t stand a chance. Connie comes out swinging, loading the bases with candor and sass despite Blue’s confusion over why a human even gets an opinion about this stuff, which makes Steven’s refusal to apologize hit the Diamond like a grand slam.

I love that Steven’s flat “no” takes Connie by surprise as well as Blue, because yeah, it’s uncharacteristically blunt for someone who’s spent his entire trip to Homeworld bending over backwards like he usually does to accommodate others. When he doubles down by explaining that he isn’t sorry about creating a show that celebrates queer characters whoops sorry I mean fusion, Callison makes it sound like the most obvious thing in the world, and this is what upsets Blue enough to inflict her tears on him. We’ll learn even more about Pink’s temper in Steven Universe Future, but the simple act of not bowing to authority makes Steven “worse than ever” in Blue’s mind: violence is more acceptable than insubordination. (Also, violence in cartoons is more acceptable than queer folks just sorta existing in cartoons, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Change Your Mind is about combating bigotry and cycles of abuse, and Blue is the obvious first test. She’s a bigot who doesn’t think she’s a bigot (compared to Yellow, who doesn’t care that she’s a bigot, and White, who’s quite proud of being a bigot). She passively perpetuates a toxic status quo (compared to Yellow, who actively perpetuates it, and White, who established it in the first place). It makes sense that she’s the first of the remaining Diamonds to change her mind, because all it takes for her to realize that something is wrong is thinking about it a little harder.

This doesn’t let her off the hook, of course: Blue’s sloth—the sin, not the animal—might not look flashy next to Yellow’s wrath or White’s pride or Pink’s envy, but she still chose to do nothing for thousands of years rather than contemplate how her actions and her society might have wronged Pink. If it was this easy for Blue to realize she was hurting Pink, it makes it that much more of an issue that it took her this long to figure it out. Unintentional bigots might be the “best” option by default, but they can be just as harmful as intentional bigots, and there’s a special sort of damage that can come from an oppressor who truly believes themselves an ally.

That said, while it’s important to acknowledge her blame (emphasized here when she only stops attacking Steven when he calls her out rather than the Diamonds in general), Blue is also a victim. She’s one of the most powerful beings on Homeworld, but she’s still trapped by White Diamond, and resorts to putting others down as a means of reclaiming a sense of that power. In the same way oppressed people often turn to sexism and racism and homophobia to make themselves feel bigger, Blue (and Yellow) reinforce White’s sweeping bigotry in the same way they echo her family-specific abuse. It’s not a good coping mechanism, in this show or in the real world, but understanding the problem is key to fixing it.

So it still feels like a victory when Blue turns, even though it should’ve happened ages ago, and even though she’s a tyrant. She isn’t just deciding to help Steven, she’s breaking out of that cycle in a way that allows for growth beyond our hero’s immediate concerns. Lisa Hannigan captures this transformation beautifully, shifting from manipulative whining about Pink’s behavior to a crushing realization that she’s the one who’s wrong. And even as she joins Steven’s side, she remains weighed down by her longstanding prejudice: Hannigan stutters as she refers to the Crystal Gems as his family, and her triumphant defense of Steven’s name to Yellow comes with the caveat that she’s still misgendering him.

But before we get to Yellow, we take a pit stop that grounds us back to Steven and Connie’s hunger. It may seem small, but this is a critical moment in establishing Steven’s humanity in a way the show has quietly done from day one: with food.

The very first scene of Steven Universe establishes our hero’s human half in a donut shop, upset about dessert. From there, the next five episodes drill in that Steven will take a unique approach to his magical Gem heritage, and they all involve food in a major way: Cookie Cats, then his father’s saying about pork chops and hot dogs, then the Cheeseburger Backpack (important enough to be the episode’s name), then the Together Breakfast (ditto), then creating a monster based on fries.

It’s not just Steven, either. The first few Connie episodes involve eating and drinking in ways that show hints of growth (worrying about trans fats, then sneaking food into movie theaters) and mark key moments in her life (sharing a juicebox, taking her parents to dinner). Lars’s development is tied with his love of baking, and on top of him and Sadie working at the Big Donut, the Frymans and the Pizzas are so tied to their food service jobs that it’s in their names. And speaking of names, we’ve got Vidalia calling her sons Sour Cream and Onion. It even extends to the Gems: Amethyst’s connection with Earth means she loves food, and Pearl’s greater distance from humanity means she can’t stomach it.

Food is fundamentally something that humans require and Gems don’t, and just like we saw in Lars’s Head, Steven’s physical body forces him to think about his own needs despite his usual focus on others. Both his humanity and his ability to stand up for himself are key to his eventual victory, and what could’ve been a generic transition between Blue and Yellow’s big scenes instead becomes a quiet Steven scene. Steven changing into his usual clothes (including his mom’s star) and Connie changing into her own outfit (including her dad’s jacket) is the perfect finishing touch before we dive back into the drama.

True to their natures, Yellow Diamond gets a starker introduction than Blue’s dream sequence: as the lights burst on, we get two shots focusing on a horrifying number of mutated Gem Shards floating around in the room, then the Crystal Gems’ thankfully intact gems in one big bubble, before panning down to the villain who caused all this pain. The menace is palpable before she even opens her mouth, but Patti LuPone’s low tone keeps the mood from boiling over just long enough that when she loses her cool, it hits like a freight train.

Blue’s passive bigotry endured because she lacked introspection, but Yellow’s active bigotry requires constantly justifying actions she knows are cruel by presenting it as a matter of superior reasoning. We’ve known from her first appearance that Yellow’s seething fury undermines her reputation for cold logic, and now more than ever the connection between her behavior and that of “sophisticated” bigots is clear. You know the type: openly, smugly hateful, but couching their hate as something derived from some deep knowledge about the subject, whether in religious convictions or whatever “science” they can scrape together to confirm their worldview.

Sure enough, even in her rage, Yellow lays down what she sees as a rational explanation for why it was okay to mistreat Pink, and why it’s okay that they themselves are mistreated: if they make exceptions for anyone, even other Diamonds, they must make exceptions for everyone, and chaos reigns. Besides the slippery slope being a fallacy, her argument is punctured by Connie’s second big retort of the night, pointing out that this extreme conclusion of Homeworld Gems living free actually sounds pretty nice. But you can’t force this type of bigot to change their mind through reason; if such a person was actually interested in logical worldviews, they wouldn’t have become a bigot in the first place. You need to change their heart.

Fortunately, emotions are Blue’s domain, so she’s just the person to help. Unfortunately, in the same way she still can’t get Steven’s pronouns right, Blue lacks experience with healthy communication, and strikes a first blow against Yellow on instinct. The ensuing brawl is brutal, switching between the massive scale of two warring titans and the smaller scale of Steven and Connie scrambling to save the Crystal Gems as Blue and Yellow unload millennia of baggage on each other. It’s so important that Blue is the physical instigator here, as it fuels Yellow’s white-hot self-righteous streak like nothing else, and it keeps the fight from being one-sided all the way through: Yellow pretty much needs to be the one dealing the final blow for the scene to stick, so it gets balanced out by Blue’s opening punch.

Blue uses her powers on Yellow, and Yellow uses her powers on Blue, but Steven’s power is talking. So just like with Blue’s conversion, Connie gets the opening words while Steven gets the finisher. When he finally gets her attention after being ignored throughout the scene, he makes Yellow listen to him by using the same food-based expression I mentioned from all the way back in Laser Light Cannon. It’d pack a bigger punch if Greg said “If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs” at literally any other point in the show, but it still does the trick.

Blue was emotionally ready to accept that Pink was suffering, but hadn’t considered the Diamonds’ role in that suffering. Yellow knew that Pink suffered thanks to the Diamonds, but suppressed her emotions to the point where she couldn’t empathize with her sister’s plight. Blue needed to be more thoughtful to change, and Yellow needed to be more in touch with her emotions to change, and thus the stage is set for the Battle of Heart and Mind against White Diamond.

Except that this isn’t the lesson of Change Your Mind. Blue and Yellow show that some bigots can be reached, which is great! But despite their differences, Steven uses the same basic strategy in both: he doesn’t let them belittle his identity, he confidently dispels their wrongheaded assumptions, and he gets help from allies instead of shouldering the burden himself. We spend the beginning of the episode seeing that in the right circumstances this approach can work, but from here we’ll see that with some bigots, it’s a non-starter.

So long as you can engage with bigots while maintaining your self-respect, it can be good work to try and help them see the light. It’s not an obligation, but if you want to change hearts and minds, Steven provides a good template for how to do it. Now the rest of the episode can focus on the bigger lesson: if someone refuses to respect your humanity when you’re steadfast and forthright, it isn’t your job to breathe in their poison, or to hold your breath until you asphyxiate waiting for change.

But more on that after the break!

I Can’t Believe We’ve Come So Far

As we reach the end of the original series, it would be criminal not to acknowledge three long-time storyboarders who are on their way out. This isn’t their final contribution to the series, as only one of Change Your Mind’s twelve credited writer/boarders didn’t go on to work on The Movie in some way (Christine Liu, whose tenure was brief but great), and Hilary Florido stayed on as a supervisor for Future. But I wanted to write the big sendoffs here, as this is the last proper “episode” that these three worked on as regular boarders. So it’s time to say goodbye to Katie Mitroff, Hilary Florido, and Jeff Liu.

First up is Katie Mitroff, who clocked two early knockouts with Alone Together and The Test alongside Florido. Mitroff’n’Florido went on to make other classics like Maximum Capacity and Joy Ride before the former teamed up with Lamar Abrams and the latter teamed up with Jesse Zuke for their next batch of episodes.

With Abrams, Mitroff deepened the lore of the show with We Need to Talk, Steven’s Birthday, Bismuth, Buddy’s Book, Three Gems and a Baby, and especially The Answer. She gave us the harrowing revelation of Back to the Moon, and the most ridiculous episode of the series, Restaurant Wars. Her final partner was Paul Villeco, finishing strong with The Trial, Back to the Kindergarten, Your Mother and Mine, Pool Hopping, What’s Your Problem?, Reunited, and Change Your Mind, 100% of which are either in my Love ‘em ranking or my Top Episodes. (Oh, sorry, spoiler alert I love Change Your Mind.)

It’s strange, because she didn’t work on any of the major episodes of Amethyst’s big arc at the end of Season 3, but Mitroff is one of my favorite Amethyst boarders: she’s the consistent thread between Maximum Capacity, Back to the Moon, and What’s Your Problem?, three cornerstones of the character. She excelled at going outside the show’s usual style, as seen in The Answer and Your Mother and Mine, and it’s no coincidence she helped animate Isn’t It Love? to bring Cotton Candy Garnet back for one last ride.

Katie Mitroff is an absolute rock star, I wish her well and you should too.

[sharonccrter]

How are you liking One Chicago this year?

Oh boy if this is not a loaded question. I watch all three shows so I'm going to state my opinion on all three separately.

Chicago Med: Season 7 is definitely an improvement over seasons 5 & 6, and just so you know where I'm coming from I haven't really enjoyed the show that much since Connor left and since Natalie and Will's failed attempt to walk down the aisle. As a manstead shipper, I really felt the writers dropped the ball after that; and we didn't get a good scene from them until season 7 episode 1 when Natalie left that was the first time since season 4 I really felt they were writing manstead IC. Like I said, the Connor thing will forever baffle me because Collin didn't want to leave; so why write out one of your most popular characters? Marcel, I'm sorry to say was no replacement; although I think this season he's growing on me (sorry couldn't get behind him while he was trying to steal April and be with Natalie.) I also am still craving a friendship like Will/Connor on the show, however, like I said season 7 is definitely trying to correct a lot of their mistakes. The biggest one is that they've done the groundwork in the first half of the season to establish Stevie and Dylan and I like them both, biggest problem I had with Marcel is that there wasn't enough of a focus on his backstory in the beginning. Vanessa is meh to me and tbf I don't think she's a good replacement for 'Reese's’ character. I'm still urning for a more personal story for Will; I feel like it's been a while since we got a storyline that didn't involve a trial or going undercover; I'd love them to give him something health-related (not too serious.) As for Pamela and Dean; don't mind them at all, Dr Charles is a consistent favourite as is Maggie and Goodwin. Would like to see more of the background characters especially Dr Lanik!

Chicago Fire: Gonna be honest I don't have much of an opinion; Fire has always been lukewarm for me; I think this season is fine, it started off really strong but I was bummed out by Matt's exist and the fact that they're keeping Sylvie and him together. I don't think it's fair to her character; and the audience. I'd much rather they both went their own ways and then if Matt came back they could then rekindle their romance. Other than it's fine? Like I said lukewarm.

Chicago PD: oh fucking boy - I love it, and I hate it. Let's talk about Kevin; can we get him a proper love interest please who's non-problematic and gonna stick around? Thank you. Now let's talk about Hank. Unpopular opinion I don't want Hank to leave, and I want him to stay at the helm; I'm really sick and tired of Jay and he's holier than thou attitude like he didn't literally participate in war crimes. Now is Hank a good guy? Hell no. But Hailey could have not gone, she could have walked away she's a big girl and she made her choice. Realistically I don't see either of them going to prison and tbf even if Jay gets to run the unit it won't last and I don't want it to. I can't see it ending well. Now on to Kim and Adam; I mean I've never been a big fan but I think their dynamic is cute this season - watch me say this and then Adam will stand with Hank. We all think that's gonna happen right? Adam is fucking loyal to Hank and there is no way in hell he's hanging him out to dry mark my words Jay gets ahold of that unit Adam will not want to follow his command if he thinks Jay snitched him in and that'll probably create tension between him and Kim who I assume would be on Hailey and Jay's side; maybe? Also, can we have a partner switch up?

[callioope]

Continuing my reactions to Avatar: The Last Airbender

This post is about Book 3. See my overall impressions and thoughts on Book 1 here. See my thoughts on Book 2 here.

ETA: crap i forgot the keep reading line initially SORRY if anyone saw this before i edited. anyways. please see the tags as a disclaimer before reading. gosh it’s late i need to go to bed.

General

Starting S3 now and dang Katara & Toph have gotten so powerful!!!!!

I literally recorded ZERO reactions from Chapter One through Chapter Twelve. And my first reaction is basically my excitement that Zuko is finally with the Aang crew! But let me try to skim through an episode list to recall my reactions.

You may have already seen my post expressing shock that MARK HAMILL voiced the Fire Lord. Still not over that revelation.

So, ultimately, I binged this show in less than a week. I think I started on Monday? And finished Saturday afternoon. That alone should speak to how much I enjoyed it! 

Aang

Okay, a bit weird to have barely any thoughts under Aang when he’s literally the protagonist, but I think (since I wrote other sections before this) that I touch on some of my thoughts on him under other characters. 

I will say, his journey really intensifies in this season. First, when he awakens after being unconscious for several days and has no idea what’s going on, and is still healing and more helpless than he’s probably ever felt in his life. I did really like his arc in this season, but what a stark contrast to the Aang of Book 1. He has to grow up so fast. I gotta say, a lot of Aang’s journey reminded me just a little of Ender in Ender’s Game. 

I do say this later, but his final decision about how to handle Ozai was amazing. I loved every second of his journey to get there, and I was rooting for him to find a path that felt true to him — and not what everyone else kept telling him he had to do. 

There was one small thing that bothered me, which was that his eventual regaining of the Avatar state did not really seem to come about through intentional action of his own. After he goes down at the end of Book 2, sorta feels like they never even talk about him going into the Avatar state again and he doesn’t until the final moment. That moment doesn’t seem a conscious choice on his part; the scar on his back collides with a rock jutting out and seems to jolt him into the Avatar state. I would have liked to see a little more agency on his part in regards to the Avatar state. 

Sokka

My boy! My boy Sokka! Truly the mother of the group. IDK why they pretended in the beginning that Katara was the mom because it’s definitely Sokka. His maps! His scheduling! He is ridiculous and I love him for it. 

I adored that he got his own training master episode! He got to learn some sword stuff and even got to make a fancy space sword! Everyone else got super powerful with their bending and I’m glad Sokka got his own arc of self-improvement. He has come a LONG way from episode 1. He couldn’t really hold his own at all that early, and now look at him! Planning battle strategies! Taking down the Fire Lord’s air fleet! He’s come so far and I’m so proud!

Oh, you know, I just realized that I didn’t really talk about ships with Sokka in Book 2 but he did continue to have the most active romance arc. It was nice to see Suki return in Book 2, and I am glad we found out what happened to her. I liked Sokka and Suki, I have nothing against it. I was very surprised that so little happened with Toph and Sokka. There did seem to be moments where it seemed like Toph might actually harbor a crush on Sokka, but nothing came of it and she certainly didn’t say anything about it. That felt a little odd to me. Why hint at something but then make nothing of it? 

Katara

Sigh. This is early in the post, but probably one of the last parts of it that I’m actually writing. I’ve definitely been putting it off. Unfortunately most of what I have to say about Katara is about shipping, and I’m really not happy about that, but then it’s what comes to mind over anything else. Which is sort of ironic considering some of her lines in the theater episode...

So in the theatre episode, Aang confronts Katara about how nothing has happened in their relationship after they kissed. She responds by saying she is “confused.” I had some issues with the script here, to be honest. It seems to imply that she’s confused about her feelings for Aang. But she also says that she’s been more focused on the war, and that totally makes sense. I really would support this moment if that’s where they left it: “I don’t have time to think about romance, my mind is preoccupied with the war.” 

But no, they say she is “confused.”

This is pretty baffling to me, and honestly seems to come out of nowhere. Book 1 it was very obvious that both Katara and Aang have feelings for each other, and Book 2 might have backed off a little from that but then we get moments where Katara is so keyed in to Aang’s struggles with the Avatar state and also the only one who can bring him out of it. Now, all of a sudden, she is saying she is confused? Where is this coming from? 

I could definitely see people argue that it’s because she has feelings for Zuko. If I shipped them (I don’t, but I also Get It), I could point to numerous moments in the series as ‘clues/support’ for this ship. Zuko and Katara have a moment at the end of Book 2 where they talk about the loss of their mothers. (“We’re both sad about what happened to our mothers!” not really a foundation for a relationship, but Katara is the most betrayed and distrustful of Zuko when it comes to the idea of letting him join their crew and it is because of this moment. She obviously begins to feel some kind of connection — I’d argue platonic but ship and let ship.) 

And yeah, Zuko and Katara have their bonding adventure, but again I don’t think this has to be read as romantic. Clearly the idea here is that Zuko “understands” a part of Katara that Aang doesn’t — except that in the end, Aang is the one who is right about her. She cannot give in to revenge. It’s not her, and Aang knows that. I mean, they’re both right — Katara had go to on the journey to learn that about herself, and it was important that Zuko was the one who helped her. But still. 

Finally Zuko and Katara go together to face Azula. Again seems like plot is pushing them together for Tension. They definitely work together here and Katara heals him and all that but she’d have healed anyone. (Like yeah if you ship it of course you’re gonna be excited over those moments.)

But.

Like. The thing is. When the dust settles? Zuko and Mai return to each other like moths to a flame. I could believe that Katara might have had feelings for Zuko, but I don’t think he ever returned them. I think it was always Mai for him. 

I don’t really want to fan the flames of ship wars — I’m trying to walk a fine line of “I totally understand why people ship this, but I don’t,” and hopefully I’m succeeding, but I’m sorry if I’m not. 

My main gripe is how the show handled this dynamic. It seemed like they half-heartedly thought about creating a love triangle, but then they didn’t follow through. I don’t particularly like love triangles, so I’m not actually mad that there wasn’t one. But what bothers me is that the Aang and Katara moments are so heavy handed in the beginning, that a sudden subtle take on how Katara feels in Book 3 feels strange. It feels like if she was having feelings for Zuko, it should have been more blatant. The depictions are inconsistent — if the writers were even ever intending for Katara to have feelings for Zuko in the first place.

Like, I really can’t tell if those moments implying Zuko and Katara were intentionally trying to start a love triangle OR if it was just sort of a mistake OR if it was maybe creators trying to address and then negate Zuko and Katara as a ship? I mean it’s weird because the play episode really emphasizes Zuko and Katara but then that play is really supposed to be all levels of inaccurate and get under the characters’ skins. 

So, I don’t know. Obviously we all bring different interpretations to a piece of media and I am by no means saying anything here is a “correct opinion” (because I hate that attitude when it comes to story interpretations). Sorry if you don’t agree, hope I didn’t make anyone mad. Ship what you like! You do you, man. 

On that note, please see further disclaimers about shipping and canon at the end of the “Zuko and Mai” section below.

Toph

Loved how Toph was the first to warm up to Zuko. It made a lot of sense. I mean obviously they were looking for a fire bender to teach Aang and it was like “Hello, powerful fire bender on a silver platter!” but also, Toph is someone who joined the crew later on. The group had to adjust to her, and she probably knows what it feels like to be an outsider. Now, granted, she was never alienated from the group in the same way that Zuko (rightfully) was. But she can also understand Zuko’s position as someone who comes from a wealthy family, the sort of pressure that comes from that. None of this was really addressed explicitly, and it might not have really fit then and there, but it was what I was thinking as she was standing up for Zuko.

Um, and also, on that note? Huge bummer Toph did not get her special bonding adventure with Zuko. Toph, I’m with you on that one! Why did Sokka get two episodes for his? 

Zuko

No “& Iroh” on this post because — Iroh spent much of this season in jail, and then the next half just ??? who knows where. 

So, I believe I stated in the last post how shocked I was at Zuko’s betrayal. Knowing he eventually joins Aang’s crew, it seemed like his time in the prison with Katara would ultimately lead to that, and then NOPE! He has this nice heart to heart about his mother, and then… it really shocked me.

But.

As I watched this season, it became clear that this has to be Zuko’s journey. He has to go back to the Fire Nation. He has to win the approval of his father. He has to get everything he wants in order to realize that it really isn’t what he wants. This is integral to his ultimate revelation and redemption and he couldn’t have stayed truly good without verifying and knowing how empty the win of his father’s approval is.

Realizing this, I loved it and appreciated the moments we get. Zuko’s visits to Iroh. Even when Zuko is being cruel, you can see how hurt and lost he is. And Iroh gives him the cold shoulder he deserves, even though of course this is breaking Iroh��s heart, too. 

Now, I absolutely must discuss the Fire Kids Beach Party episode! Because as ridiculous as parts of it are, it provides such an important and necessary insight to all four characters (Zuko, Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee). You see the privilege that they’re all used to, it’s good that no one knows who they all are. (although maybe a little surprising because Zuko’s scar certainly reveals who he is but anyways.) 

and it’s funny how you almost end up rooting for them before you’re like “no no no. they are bad people doing some bad things.” I mean, almost rooting for them. And sure, the campfire scene is a bit Breakfast Club-y but I do think it’s important. And I just loved the moment Zuko admits he’s angry at himself, how his burst of fire as he says it almost covers it up, it’s so hard for him to say. Fabulous character development going on here, fabulous. 

[Uh, side note, so apparently Zuko is descended from Avatar Roku! This is ridiculous but can we get Zuko calling Aang great-grandfather, mainly to get on his nerves?! O:-) this would amuse me greatly]

And GOSH the catharsis when Zuko finally realizes his father’s approval is not what he wants and not worth it! It’s so well earned. It’s so satisfying. I was so excited and just like, so anticipating Zuko going to meet up with the crew. Zuko practicing his speech in the woods to the frog? Amazing. Endearing. I love him so much. 

And despite that and because of it, I also loved how difficult it was for him to earn their trust. It had to be difficult. It would not be believable if it wasn’t. Every character regarded him exactly as you would expect them to, exactly as he deserved. And Zuko tried so hard to be sincere and contrite, and it was hard for him, but he was doing pretty well all things considered! And still, they distrusted him. Yes. This was good and right. And I loved it. 

AND ANOTHER THING I LOVED was that once that initial barrier was surpassed, Aang actually warmed up to Zuko pretty quickly. This is not surprising; he’d reached out to Zuko in the past. First when Zuko (masked) rescues him, and Aang says they could have been friends. Later, at the end of Book 1 when Zuko again kidnaps him, there’s just a moment… I think when Aang spares him. It’s like, my impression is that Aang can sense that their destinies are connected, and he’s not really sure how but he knows that Zuko is important. Also, I mean, Aang just doesn’t kill people and revenge is not his way. 

Each character getting their own side story with Zuko was also integral to his arc — perhaps moreso, theirs, though. Because it was necessary for them to overcome their distrust and forge the bonds necessary for the Avatar’s crew to function. Bummed he didn’t get one with Toph. Toph was robbed.

And side note, but I really would have like an Aang and Sokka bonding episode? Like, Book 1 is all Aang and Katara and Sokka, but some 1:1 time would have been nice. There was almost a chance when Aang flew Sokka to his father and the water tribe (and at the time I was like, “Oh? Aang and Sokka bonding?!”) But then it was really only a few minutes. But yeah, that said, it does make sense to focus on carving out 1:1 time for Zuko and each member of the crew to ease him into the group.

Sokka: You happy now?

Zuko: I’m never happy.

This made me sad. And also made me go “classic Zuko.”

Every time Zuko was like, “What would uncle say?” And then say the most ridiculous thing? Fantastic. Amazing. Fuel for the fire that was my love for this show.

Zuko and Mai

Mainly the Beach Party episode was important in helping me warm up to Mai. Once Zuko is back in the Fire Nation and they’re together, I was of the mindset that Mai would have to do something pretty big in order for me to enjoy seeing their relationship become canon. This episode is not that episode, but it is an important insight into Mai’s character that explains some of her actions. The fact that she’s basically internalized apathy because she’s been forced to repress her emotions. It wasn’t enough for me but we get more later, this is an important stepping stone. 

It’s also important in establishing just what Zuko and Mai’s dynamic is. It’s a bit shaky in this and they end up breaking up but then they just get back together like immediately (moths to a flame…) In hindsight, I just think they’re behaving like normal teens who care about each other but are still navigating what it means to be in a relationship. At this moment in time, their relationship is not good, but by the end of the show I can believe as they mature that it could be a good relationship.

So the actual moment that I was like, “Okay, officially supporting Mai and Zuko now” was when she helps them escape Boiling Rock. I don’t think we’re ever told the full contents of Zuko’s letter to her, but considering what she says to Zuko earlier in this episode, it doesn’t seem likely he explains himself very well. At least not for Mai to understand. And he still isn’t able to explain himself well to her as they talk face to face. Then he locks in a cell and flees! He leaves her again. 

You wouldn’t blame Mai for hating Zuko. You wouldn’t blame her for actively working against him. But is this what happens? No. Not at all. She helps them get away. She betrays Azula for Zuko. Azula!!! Azula who is very powerful and very scary! This is a clear and distinct line in the sand, and … it almost comes out of nowhere, but what it demonstrates is how she really feels about him. She’s decided to trust him and put her faith in him when she really would have been justified in not doing so. 

I’m also going to say that despite some rather odd implications of Zuko and Katara in parts of the series (namely with other characters who really don’t know them), I never feel like Zuko is interested in Katara. I would buy interpretations that Katara might have considered Zuko, the way some parts of her story are portrayed, but I don’t get anything on Zuko’s side and that is all the more reinforced by how he acts around Mai, especially in the end of the series when they’re reunited. 

(Now, that said — because I don’t abide ship wars, ship and let ship, and power to multi-shippers — I can totally 100% see the appeal of shipping Zuko and Katara, and I would contend there is even some canonical implication of it. And I can’t blame people for not totally loving Zuko and Mai. Now, I do think the canonical implications are sort of muddied and confusing, but though I have actually not written it yet, you’ll have read my thoughts there in the Katara section already. OH, and OF COURSE, MORE IMPORTANTLY — ships being canon should not matter! Ship what you love! Who cares if it’s canon! Finding canon justification for ships should not be necessary for shipping! It can be a fun exercise but should never ever be a reason for approving or disapproving of a ship, it’s just a cherry on top!)

Azula

We get some pretty interesting insights into her character this season. I’ve already mentioned the Beach Party episode, and there was some good stuff in there for her. I particularly appreciated the moment that she admitted she knew her mother thought she was a monster, that she even admitted to being a monster, and then admitted that it still hurt anyways. Honestly that’s probably her best moment.

I also thought her breakdown at the end was well done. Mai and Ty Lee’s betrayal just broke her. She probably knows her attitude puts people off, but those two were the only ones she ever really got on with. And it turns out, she really didn’t get on with them, they’d only ever been intimidated and manipulated into being her friends. She has no one, she pushes everyone away. Literally — and it is ultimately her downfall. 

It’s an interesting contrast to her brother. We literally get an episode “Zuko Alone,” and then it turns out the theme of “Azula Alone” is such an integral part of her arc, as well. The last person she has is her father, and he leaves her, too. Sure, he tells her it’s because she’s to stay behind as the new Fire Lord, but honestly Ozai was never truly close to anyone, either. But yeah. Iroh spends a lot of time and effort trying to help Zuko redeem himself. He never tries with Azula? I think, maybe it would have been nice to see him try with her, and be just utterly rebuffed. Now, Zuko also rebuffed him a lot, too. So Azula’s rejection of Iroh would really have to be something. This is the kind of stuff I’d look for in fic. Speaking of fic: I mean, I’d really love Zuko to find his mom, mom to come back, and then maybe some kind of attempt at reparations between mom and Azula. It doesn’t have to work, I just want to see the effort, you know?

Final Thoughts: Ending & Denouement

I loved Aang finding a different way to defeat the Fire Lord. I loved how every past Avatar he talked to was like “no dude just kill him.” And I loved that that was not enough for Aang. He’s pushing himself and ultimately the spirit of the Avatar to think harder, to try harder, to seek a different way. And that mercy was so integral to Aang’s character, and important to his arc that he struggled so much with it. And he’s just a kid! Oh, Aang. And I loved that he was able to find the answer he needed, the fact that it was taking away Ozai’s fire bending. Yes. Perfection.

I was a little disappointed by how little we got post-Ozai’s defeat. I was hoping the epilogue might have shown a little more in the years and decades following. It would have been nice to see glimpses of everyone prospering as they got older. 

Also, as I was watching Zuko’s coronation, I was sorta like, “uhh wait that’s a little too easy.” Now we don’t know when that happens so it’s possible some bit of time has lapsed and I’ll take that. But I thought there would have still been some trouble with some of the Fire Nation troops. Some of them would have remained loyal to Ozai. Many of those general had probably committed war crimes and would have needed to be rounded up and put on trial and put in prison. There’d be so much work to do!

That said, I do understand that we want to see our heroes with a happy ending, ultimately. I guess just a simple like “X years later” before the ending scenes would have sufficed for me to be satisfied that enough time had passed for those things to have been dealt with. IDK, I can probably suspend disbelief enough to headcanon that myself. I’m just saying. Some acknowledgement of resolution and reconstruction as a *process over time*, albeit unnecessary, would have been nice to have!

On that note, we don’t actually find out what happens to Azula. Presumably she is also in prison with her father. 

More importantly, we were Robbed of a Zuko and Ursa reunion scene!

[aion-rsa]

Old Review: M. Night Shyamalan’s Makes Another Happening

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Filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan has left his unmistakable stamp on some of our culture’s most primal fears: ghosts, beings from another world, and even unnamed monsters in the woods. Yet in his latest effort, the cryptically titled Old, the storyteller attempts to wrap his arms around the greatest terror of all: time itself.

Like the ticking clock inside Peter Pan’s crocodile, time has stalked every creature on this planet to their inevitable doom. It can often be ignored or compartmentalized, but it finds you in the end. Which is why, on paper, Old should be terrifying. By adapting a graphic novel called Sandcastle by Pierre-Oscar Lévy and Frederick Peeters, Shyamalan is attempting to prevent us from looking away. This is a film where once you step foot on a mythical beach, you will live a lifetime in a day. Who has time to distract themselves from the ravages of decay when it’ll be here by dinner?

And yet, that is not the movie Shyamalan made. Despite being a film supposedly preoccupied with the future that awaits us all, Old feels like a relic of its director’s past. For here is another half-baked and clumsily constructed series of clichés strung together by sequences which vary wildly from quality to kitsch, and from horrifying to hilarious. His characters might be rapidly aging, but the filmmaker’s undeniable talent feels as if it’s regressed back to its awkward and gangly The Happening days.

Also like that Mark Wahlberg misfire, Old is a story that mistakenly believes it’s obligated to overthink and explain its fairy tale logic. Which is a shame since the actual setup of the film is simple enough: Two sets of families, plus two other childless couples, are offered a once in a lifetime opportunity by their isolated island resort. They will be driven to the far side of the island where there’s a secluded beach surrounded by a cove with special minerals. Alone on white sandy shores and in the bluest waters, they can get to know each other and sample the good life.

There are more characters than are worth listing, but suffice to say the important ones are Guy, an actuary accountant played by Gael García Bernal, and his museum curator wife Prisca (Vicky Krieps). Despite being of separate international origins, they’ve raised the all-American nuclear family with daughter Maddox and son Trent (Alexa Swinton and Nolan River… at first), and are determined to give their children a happy childhood, even as their marriage appears to have long rested at the water’s edge. However, once they reach this magical beach populated by many other underdeveloped characters, it becomes an open question how happy a life can be had when their children rapidly age into teenagers and then young adults in the span of a morning… and that rich doctor down the way (Rufus Sewell) begins showing signs of late stage Alzheimer’s after only a few more hours.

Old is a genuinely creepy premise, which in the right hands could unnerve as the ultimate body horror. What instills more existential dread than seeing your youth turn to wrinkles, and golden halcyon days go gray inside of 90 minutes? But inexplicably that is not the movie Shyamalan chose to make. To be sure, there is some basic use of humans’ natural transmutations, but it’s mostly through the perspective of parents watching their children age like bananas. And credit should be given to the hair and makeup folks, as well as the younger actors, who convincingly pull off the continuity of Maddox and Trent’s accelerated lifespans.

But for each effective moment, such as when teenaged Maddox and Trent approach their parents confused and horrified at why their voices are different, there are five more of Guy, Prisca, and an ensemble of wildly inconsistent adult performances standing around trying to justify their film’s lunacy with laughable pseudo-science. Rather than delve into the ripe existential phobias that are growing around its cast like coconuts, Old is content with mostly coasting on being a Fantasy Island episode that adapts And Then There Were None—complete with a surprise killer running around. The movie thus plays less like an artist grappling with mortality than it does one slumming in B-movie trashiness.

And if The Happening should’ve taught Shyamalan and his audience anything, it’s that intentional trash has never been his forte. As with the revelation of why folks were killing themselves in The Happening, Old spends far too much time setting up a rationalization and an inevitable third act twist, which plays a bit like if at the end of The Birds, Alfred Hitchcock revealed the title creatures had been trained by a mad scientist down the shoreline. It’s unnecessary and, like so much else of the film, focused on the wrong questions. But then even the ideas that Old does concern itself with are haphazardly explored and articulated.

After proving he still has a gift for quirky and clever dialogue with films like Split, the perfunctory and ham-fisted nature of nearly every adult character interaction is baffling here. From on-the-nose lectures wherein parents tell their children in the first scene they’re too young for this and not old enough for that, to the robotic way in which Guy and Prisca unconvincingly talk about their marriage, the banality of the screenplay is as ceaseless as the sea. Framing and blocking for the camera is similarly roughshod throughout the movie. Sequences meant to evoke genuine horror—including a surprise pregnancy teased in the trailer—become outright giggle-inducing in their final execution. It’s in fact hard to think of any theatrical screening this summer with more laughs drifting through an auditorium.

By the time of its hokey and melodramatic finale, Old has collapsed on every level as a horror movie, but may have cemented its status as a cult midnight movie classic.

I take no joy in writing this. As someone who’s seen virtues in most Shyamalan movies, even damnable ones, it was a real pleasure to witness the “Shyamalanaissance” emerge in the wake of The Visit and Split. I even enjoy the autobiographical subtext the filmmaker inserted into Glass. But if those movies were a validation of his cinematic powers, then Old is the puddle waiting for him in the parking lot.

Old opens in theaters on Friday, July 23.

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