#there's my two cents on today's episode

[a-genderless-frog]

"Statement follows"

Not "Statement begins"

I can't be the only one thinking about this.

[maxgicalgirl]

Oh Cecil Palmer I would be delighted if you were always right next to me only inches from my face mwah xoxo

[jmdbjk]

This is our show.

SPOILERS...

I am in a feverish covid haze... my first time... its yucky. But I think I'm on the backside of it now.

I needed to throw out my two cents on today's Are You Sure? Episode 4 before I go take another nap (seventh since yesterday)

First: Naked. Jimin strutted out to the pool, got in and was promptly warned by JK to cool it, the pool has a window where everyone can see and they both glance at the staff who are off camera... I'm not making this up.

NAKED. NAKED. NAKED.

Staff who bought those swim trunks probably short-circuited when they thought we'd be seeing wayyyyyy more of Jimin-ssi than intended.

MORE NAKED...

My mild ataxophobia was triggered when I saw the entrance of the cafe that's been famous since last Chuseok. I know it has its "charms" and the space probably serves several purposes as I see a sewing machine back there, its possible the owner lives there too. But the clutter made my brain glitch:

More naked...also for you pit hair enthusiasts:

A minor dramatic subplot for this episode: RIP Drone Camera:

Jungkook recording more of the memories that will carry them through this time of military service:

And Jimin right there with him while he does it...

And this laughing, giggling... so carefree... it will put smiles on their faces whenever they look at these pics and videos on their phones.

We unlocked a new subunit name:

Other thoughts: this episode returned to a more laid-back vibe. Laid back for them. Not for us. The naked has all of us ogling, pausing, rewinding, comparing what mother nature gave them, nipple size, basically going crazy. Oh? That's just me? Okay. Never mind.

Jimin was feeling good and fully engaged and it showed.

It picks up with them leaving the wall climbing/kart racing place and they drive to an omakase restaurant. It is a style of Japanese restaurant where the chef chooses what you will eat.

Tae understood that his presence really wasn't part of the concept of what Jimin and Jungkook were doing with this project and he did seem to respect that a little bit more as time went on.

Jimin can definitely handle Tae, he set him straight a few times in this episode, just like he did in the last one.

Jimin and Jungkook really do sleep together. There was no reason for them to share a bed for as long as they did in this episode, there was another completely fine empty bed in the room. They made jokes about hitting each other in their sleep, which correlates with their banter during JK's naked-in-bed live after the Connecticut trip.

Anyway, its time for another nap for me. Carry on. Try not to break the pause/rewind buttons on your keyboard...

[1shirt2shirtredshirtdeadshirt]

Today on popping the corn and feeding the children, what do you folks think of this discussion? :)

I'm always curious to hear what other Trek fans, especially queer Trek fans, think about our place in Trek history and how we fare as the queer participants within our fandom. What have your experiences been like?

Overwhelmingly I've found a great reception and a welcoming attitude, but I admit that has increased considerably since the 90s. However, there are still some Trek fans who seem to be vehemently in denial about queer history in Star Trek, or the fact that anyone who has worked on Trek has pro-LGBT attitudes. This always surprises me considering some of the blatant queer content we have already seen in Star Trek such as the Jadzia Dax and Lenara Kahn kiss.

Anyway, I enjoyed the discussion that followed and seeing the overwhelming outpouring of support coming from Star Trek fans in response to this thread.

Here was my two cents contribution:

"No, what they said was factual.

Have you forgotten Nichelle Nichols was indeed an African American woman in the core seven bridge crew back in 1966?

Or the fact that Gene Roddenberry went out of his way to write The Motion Picture Novel, creating the term "T'hy'la: friend, brother, lover" so that fans could choose which interpretations of Kirk and Spock they saw fit? He also embraced K/S fans and hired a number of them to write the earliest Star Trek novels, including the very first official one (The New Voyages Vol. 1 & 2) which included slash fiction as well as Gene's approval/forward in the books.

In case anyone has forgotten, here's a little bit of background on Gene Roddenberry and his perspectives on queerness in Star Trek.

He admitted that in his early life he was very affected by how society and culture treated the LGBT community, and that he too found himself subjugating and judging others for that lifestyle because it was what people did at that time. As he got older and had more life experience, he began working with a number of queer artists in Hollywood -- and through TOS, a number of queer individuals began asking questions about Kirk and Spock.

Instead of vehemently shutting down this perspective, Roddenberry was intrigued, and saw potential to tap into a large audience (LGBT) that most others didn't want to go near or acknowledge publicity-wise. He saw it as an opportunity to expand the fanbase while also pushing yet another envelope.

But with the heat already on the show for what they'd already pushed, he found he was often stuck between what he'd like to do and what production would let him get away with. There are a number of Kirk and Spock scenes in scripts that got cut out for leaning a little too obviously romantic. Tiny trickles of that content still made it in were infamous moments like the backrub scene in Shore Leave. Even the 2009 movie had a K/S moment while Spock Prime and Kelvin Spock talked that was written and filmed that was cut out of the final product.

Queer subtext and coding has always been relentlessly weeded away at with an excuse ready to go for why they always try to cut us out, but we all know it's because they are scared of the homophobic backlash and ratings hits. Look how violently homophobes went after the gay romance episode of The Last of Us **just this year**. This has always been our reality, so for someone like Roddenberry to make efforts in the 70s? That was massive.

But Gene as well as the queer/slash Trek community managed to accomplish some things in the 70s which I'm surprised more folks don't talk about or give much credit.

In the same TMP novel which features "T'hy'la" and the famous footnote, Gene cleverly wrote Kirk with a bisexual/pansexual lens: Kirk describes himself as *preferring* women but being open to "physical love in **any** of its many Earthly, alien, and mixed forms." (Direct quote from Genes book). Basically, Captain Kirk was DTF with whoever if there was a connection, which was a very progressive take for a character in a novel written in 1979, but made sense for the future which would have a lot less hang ups about sex and love compared to our current rather puritan/conservative society.

I also prefer women, but I married a man. Shout out to Gene Roddenberry for giving us a seat at the table back in the 70's when folks *still* try to insist there is no place for K/S or queer concepts in Trek, because he made efforts -- however small -- to employ queer people and show queer perspectives. According to David Gerrold, LGBT+ representation was a big thing that Gene personally pushed for in TNG and wanted various depictions of love/couples in the Risa scenes, to name one example.

In the 70s, fanzines led to meetings and swapped fanmade magazines, which got so big that they needed hotel centers, then convention centers, then one day the TOS cast came to one and what we know as modern fan conventions were born -- inspiring even George Lucas who attended Trek conventions in the 70s and saw how popular Trek was in syndication; it was a great climate to launch his Space Opera. Star Wars then became so huge that we got TMP.

But none of that would have happened without the level of organization, passion, and creativity that those fans poured into Star Trek and their characters after it got cancelled and went into syndication.

Without queer folks we wouldn't have George Takei, Theodore Sturgeon who gave us Tribbles, Bill Theiss and his amazing TOS costumes, Mike Minor's art direction, Merritt Butrick, David Gerrold (writer for TOS, TAS, TNG) to name a few of many queer contributors to Trek that Roddenberry respected and tried to go to bat for wherever he could in a climate that was absolutely impossible to gain an inch in.

At a time during the 70s and 80s when so many people resented and feared the queer community and wanted us to disappear, especially in the 80s during the AIDS epidemic which many homophobes claimed was "God's punishment to the gay community" or "Gods's answer" to our "hedonism", thinking we'd gotten our just desserts and should just disappear . . .

During that time, Gene Roddenberry gave us queer folks a place to say: "You know what? Sure. Write your stories. TV says you guys shouldn't exist, they pull books with queer people off the shelves and burn them. Laws exist specifically to forbid you guys from loving each other, and call you mentally ill. You can't even hold hands in public. But I'm going to validate you guys and invite you to write novels or work for me, try to see what we can get by production, and allow you to see yourselves in my characters if you want to. There's a place for you in our fandom."

He gave us bi/pan Kirk, he gave us K/S is open to interpretation. In Phase 2 Kirk's surviving nephew Peter, son of his brother Sam from Operation: Annihilate!, was going to be written as gay and living on the Enterprise with his partner -- that also got chopped and reworked into a script that wouldn't get used until decades later. That was huge at a time that being queer was officially listed as a mental illness, and villainized due to the AIDS crisis.

So before you try to dismiss or tell K/S + queer Trek fans whether or not they deserve a seat at the table, remember that Gene Roddenberry was among the **first** to pull that seat out for us in a climate that was ruthlessly against LGBT+ folks." -- 1Shirt2ShirtRedShirtDeadShirt

P.S: Have some cute bisexual/pansexual K/S pride gifs. :) Pride month is a hop, skip and a jump away.

LLAP!🖖💚

[agathaharknes]

These are my two cents after watching today's episode: Agatha knows, on some deep subconscious level, who Teen is and that is why she is protecting him so fiercely, which let's be honest is completely out of character for someone so utterly ruthless. He is Wanda's and so he is Agatha's. He's the last thing she has of her and so he is invaluable and she cannot lose him. Also, he's a chance to right a wrong, even if just symbolically. She couldn't protect her kid (probably), but she can protect hers.

[littlemanthings]

So, Sun's Going Through It. As He Does.

OK— today's episodes legtimately have me in the feels right now. And since I saw a lot of other posts literally ranting over how insensitive and unhealthy Moon is dealing with Sun's emotional well-being, *yet again*, I decided I might as well put in my two cents nobody asked for.

Alright, for starters; THANK YOU SOLAR, he took this whole so well, probably because he has some experience in killing his own brother (and technically taking part in killing his own Sun as well?). Second, what the actual hell, Moon?!??!? WHAT DO YOU MEAN "I'm not good with emotion"?!?! There is video evidence to show how that is absolute bullshit, he was there for Earth after Nexus talked down to her when he has literally THE LEAST EXPERIENCE IN THAT (not saying he doesn't understand, but I feel as though this is more something that Sun and Lunar can relate to), helped Dazzle and Jack hold a funeral for Neptor and explain the situation to them in the best possible way seeing as how they are children. BUT NOW SUN GETS TO DEAL WITH KILLING YET ANOTHER BROTHER, and the one who he chose to save doesn't even go to check on him after he just saved his life over a version of himself that'd treated him so much better and probably STILL WOULD'VE if he hadn't gone mad in mourning over his other brother. I wouldn't be suprised at all if Sun is grieving over— not Nexus— but *New Moon*, just as N. Moon had for Solar.

Sun has now one more brother's blood on his hands. He's killed Old Moon, taken part in Lunar's death, two Eclipses, Bloodmoon, and don't forget the July 16th kids. Poor guy.

[genericpuff]

The Kiss Bet Episode 172 - Hot Pot and Venting About How I Want My 70 Cents Back

Okay, look, this isn't a post I was expecting to make today but it's something that just happened and I have to fucking talk about, so let me preface this with some context.

I had to buy coins recently and because I switched to using my iPad for reading comics on, I got a "new reader" type deal from Webtoons for a coin bundle that got me like 100 coins for $5; because technically it was a 'new account' as Webtoons operates their in-game currency model on apps, not on actual emails (meaning if you use the app on an Android phone and then switch to an Apple iOS device, they're technically two separate accounts which you sync the reading data between via the account info linked via the email, therefore they have two separate coin wallets).

So with more coins than I knew what to do with, I decided to start FastPassing The Kiss Bet again, which I had recently stopped FP'ing around the S3 mark, as it's recently devolved back into the "will they won't they" trope, but instead of between Sara-Lin and Joe, it's between Sara-Lin and Joe's younger brother (the "true endgame") Oliver.

Now I don't mind the ship in essence. Joe was definitely not gonna be endgame, it was always gonna be Oliver, anyone who's read any amount of romance before - especially high school romances - knows how this shit tends to go, and The Kiss Bet isn't exactly trying to be groundbreaking or subversive in any way, it knows exactly what it's about and what it's trying to accomplish.

But it's almost become a little too good at this. Because in playing the "will they won't they" game for so long with a character that we know is endgame, it's basically been weeks and weeks and weeks of-

That said, after I caught up on the recent FP episodes, it seemed like stuff was finally moving a little bit. We were finally meeting Oliver's mom and his stepdad who he has a fractured relationship with, Joe was finally getting with his true endgame girl, Vicky (who's totally not an exact genderbent version of Joe lmao) and Sara-Lin was finally realizing she had feelings for Oliver.

And then the newest episode came out, Episode 172 - Hot Pot and Venting.

CAUTION: FASTPASS SPOILERS FOR THE KISS BET OFFICIALLY BEGIN HERE!

Already I was a little petty over the title like "lmao ok clunky title but whatever". I swept it off as not a genuine criticism, just me being a nitpicking asshole over what's essentially Fluff: The Comic.

The episode cost 7 coins, which is about roughly 70 cents, albeit closer to a dollar for Canadian readers (here's something they don't tell you about Canada - our Monopoly game currency is just as fucked as it looks) and that's where I'm gonna get into my second disclaimer that I need to be perfectly clear about (and it'll be what we get more into later on in this post).

I understand the principle of paying for art. I understand fully that many of these webtoons are being produced on tight deadlines by creators who often can only afford 1-2 assistants, if any at all. I understand and fully agree that creators deserve to be paid for their skills, time, and efforts, not just as creators working on the hellsite that is Webtoons, but as artists in general who deserve to make a living the same as anyone else. Anyone who follows my stuff here knows I'm an artist myself so I would never debate the ethical necessity of paying artists for their work.

However.

I can say that, and also agree with the people who have stated in discussion circles such as on /r/webtoons that a lot of the comics that have started charging 7 coins have been suspiciously delivering less comic since. And it's not even so much in the literal panel count, the liquid volume of these comics have remained the same, but the calorie count has dropped significantly. Food metaphors aside, what I mean is that despite many of these comics maintaining their 40-60 minimum panel count requirement, they have in fact reduced the actual amount of content that happens in them, and The Kiss Bet's newest episode is a stark example of what I mean.

I am going to start by posting only post three panels - three panels that literally sum up the entirety of Episode 172 and what it chooses to spend its time on.

That is it. That is literally all that's established in this episode. I'd tell you to go read it yourself, but honestly, this is genuinely one of those rare times I can honestly say that a 40+ panel episode is not worth 70 cents and you'd be better off, and that's saying a LOT when these episodes are only priced at the cost of a gumball. At least Lore Olympus has entertainment in how bad it is most of the time, Episode 172 of The Kiss Bet is just nothing. You will literally get more substance and flavor from an actual gumball.

Literally every other panel in this episode is either repeating the same dialogue (Sara-Lin saying the same thing multiple different times to express how Oliver is holding her hand or how his stepdad is a dick) and then Sara-Lin and Oliver staring at each other. Over. And over. Again.

I am not joking. I did not cut anything out in that sequence. That is where the episode ends. Complete nothingburger, seemingly cut off right as it was just getting started like Cait Corrain's career.

Out of the entire episode, there were 45 panels. So I can safely assume Ingrid's minimum panel requirement is at least 40 per episode, that's me assuming the best that she didn't exactly meet her panel minimum at 45 panels on the dot.

Out of those 45 panels, there were:

Two actual unique backgrounds that weren't gradients or just a single piece of furniture

4 separate panels of Sara-Lin freaking out over Oliver holding her hand and wondering if he even noticed

10 panels of Sara-Lin staring at Oliver either dumbfounded or asking him to repeat himself (or apologizing over nothing)

5 panels of the characters saying nothing

11 panels of Sara-Lin repeating information in different ways that could have been accomplished in half that time

Two separate occasions of Oliver getting Sara's attention from off-panel, literally formatted the exact same way both times (and both followed by reaction panels of Sara-Lin staring at him dumbfounded)

Way too many panels of Sara-Lin blushing in response to Oliver being an asshole tbh like literally this guy's a douchebag, Joe may have been the "out of her league" love interest but at least he was nice and didn't treat Sara-Lin like someone who just bought a Husky as a "starter pet" ???

Again, I don't usually like being a dick about the coin costs, and I definitely don't like being a hypocrite in telling people they should pay artists for their work while simultaneously posting their paywalled content like this, but I think there does come a point where it feels more irresponsible for people to not be aware of what they're about to pay for and how little they're going to be getting. This episode is literally one of the best - and worst - examples of how far the romance genre has fallen on the platform - when it's not being overtaken and oversaturated by problematic series that romanticize abuse and sexual assault, it's being dragged to death with the most boring executions of tropes that everyone has seen before and is only exciting for anyone who's never read a book or watched a romance movie, period.

And here's the thing where I do approach a bit more "hot take" territory, but every time I see this argument come up about episodes not being worth the coin cost, I see others who rightfully argue that 70 cents isn't that much to pay for what you're getting - weekly episodes of work that are usually always delivered on time, with more panels than you would ever typically see in a free to read comic.

But here's where I take issue with that argument, as much as the principle of it is sound, it misses the overall point: readers are paying for entertainment first and foremost, so can anyone who's actually paying for regular refills on their app currency step away from this and truly call it "entertainment"? Nothing was gained. The comic had 45 panels to say something, anything, and managed to not even squeak out so much of a word. Even the silent moments have no substance, they just reiterate information that we already know.

Do we really need another panel of Sara-Lin blushing at Oliver? We've known for weeks now that she has a crush on him. Do we really need another panel of Oliver getting Sara-Lin's attention? What is this actually showing of their chemistry? What is being shown here that hasn't been shown numerous times - with and without dialogue - for weeks now? What does the comic have to show for itself after four seasons?

Another point of the "it's just 70 cents, don't be an asshole" argument that people seem to miss is it's not 70 cents. It's $1. Because if you want to buy a single episode of the Kiss Bet, you can't just pay for the individual episode in isolation, you have to pay for the coins first, and $1 is the absolute bare minimum you have to pay to get 10 coins, which will only pay for one episode of a 7 coin series - of which there are many now, basically any series that's 40 panels or more will cost 7 coins and, shocker, those are the series that WT will tend to promote most, you'll rarely see the 5 coins series in the banner ads, and that's not even getting into how there are more and more series cropping up that have 5+ episodes behind FP rather than the traditional three.

So if you're someone who's (almost definitely) keeping up with more than one series? You can't just pay the $1, you have to pay at least $5 for 50 coins, and that will NOT go far anymore or cut as evenly as it used to when just about every series is now 7 coins. Webtoons knows fully well what kind of game they're playing by making the new coin cost an uneven number while still offering increments of 5/10 in their coin bundles. They undoubtedly want you to be left with an uneven number so that you'll be easily lured into buying more coins so you don't 'waste' the uneven amount you have left that isn't enough to buy the episodes for the series you want to read. Obviously this is more speculation and not fact, but it's a common business model and with the series that have adopted the 7 coin count model (rather than starting off with 7 coins outright) such as The Kiss Bet and Lore Olympus, it's becoming abundantly clear that either the creators or the platform itself is encouraging these series to meet their panel minimums with as little content as possible in order to get more money out of readers who are barely even being drip fed actual entertainment and narrative progression, let alone spoon fed.

And then there's the waiting. The goddamn waiting. So many of these series guilty of siphoning their content off through a hose that they're deliberately standing on are designed intentionally with the most egregious cliffhangers in mind to keep their audience hooked so they'll undoubtedly FP next week. Do you know what that amount of waiting does to a comic? To its readers? First off, it artificially extends the actual pacing of the comic to make it feel longer than it is, when in reality, many of these plotlines are happening in a vacuum of very short bursts of time. Case in point, Lore Olympus is commonly confused for having a plotline that takes place over the course of months, when actually when laid end to end in order of cause and effect, many of its subplots - including the romance of Hades and Persephone - takes place over the course of days. This over-inflates the plotline's actual depth and, even worse so, it makes it harder for readers to keep up with information that's being delivered, as it often takes weeks for that information to actually go anywhere - so by the time it does, many readers have straight up forgotten about it.

It's absolutely not okay that so many of these kinds of series are normalizing literal slow burning for an audience who's paying to be entertained. It's not a "slow burn". It's just slow, and deliberately so. It's absolutely NOT FUN to follow a comic that does not go anywhere week after week. It's frustrating. And before long, it starts to feel like gambler's fallacy, where readers have to essentially gaslight themselves into paying into it more and more convinced that it has to pay off eventually, based on a promise that was never actually made, only assumed in good faith. And readers should not have to fill in the bulk of the content that isn't happening with their own imaginations, which is something that happens a LOT in these series that spend so much time on the characters just staring at each other and saying nothing. It's not 'plot' to just draw characters blushing and have your audience fill in the rest of it entirely on their own. This is certainly a technique in writing, but in the case of The Kiss Bet and other comics like it, it's much less of a valid technique and more just flat out manipulating your audience into falling so hard into the sunk cost fallacy trap that they don't notice they're being robbed blind by the plot that hasn't actually happened - and they've been paying for that financial and emotional robbery out of their own pockets and brains every step of the way.

Again, I do not care about the coin cost in and of itself, seventy cents IS still an incredibly cheap price for weekly updates of a series that has to put out so many panels each week. But as a reader and a customer, I should not be leaving these updates with less information than what I started with. And I'm someone who's incredibly old school by webcomic standards, there are comics that I follow that have updated 1-2 pages a week for over a decade that manage to do more with their limited pages than Lore Olympus and The Kiss Bet manage to do after entire hiatuses filled with pre-production time.

Why does this page of Alfie manage to move both the intrinsic plot of the titular character as well as the external plot that's going on around her in one page made up of 5 panels better than what The Kiss Bet can do in 45?

Why does this page of Tamberlane manage to convey more information about the world's lore and the people in it in a way that's emotionally driven and clearly affecting the characters without outright info-dumping than what Lore Olympus has managed to spit out onto its plate since S3 started over a year ago?

How does Tales from Alderwood manage to be more entertaining and convey more meaningful storytelling through its characters in a single page consisting of zero dialogue than what The Kiss Bet can convey in its silent panels of staring, blushing, and repetitive stuttering?

Why are the creators who are relying entirely on their own efforts, resources, and ability to generate income through community interaction and support putting out better work with less panels and on slower schedules for FREE than what we're seeing from professional creators on a professional publishing platform who are being paid to do this as their job?

There's this saying in the tattooing industry: good work isn't cheap and cheap work isn't good.

At this point, 70 cents is not a 'bargain' as many people like to argue in defense of the creators. And while I do want to have good faith in the creators who don't pull this shit, the creators who clearly go above and beyond to do what they do in the pursuit of storytelling and polishing their craft to be the best piece of work that it can be - the comics that are worth paying 70 cents and beyond for - are not the comics that Webtoons is promoting to people. The creators of the works that genuinely deserve more than 70 cents per update are being left to fend for themselves without support from the platform, while those that aren't worth the price of even a flavorless gumball are consistently winning the Wonka Golden Ticket lottery.

The cost of 70 cents is relative. For some works it's a genuine bargain. For others like the The Kiss Bet and Lore Olympus, 70 cents is not a "bargain", it's not a "good deal", it's exactly the value of what you're paying for - cheap work that isn't good.

[deathsbestgirl]

idk how to write reviews at all but i think perihelion dealt with with msiv so well. its all pain & grief & denial that we see in the finale, its complicated and i never felt it reflected what they truly believed or felt. mulder & scully just went through hell. mulder watched his biological father shoot him, they watched william die after trying so hard to find him, and not abandon him. the whole revival is about william even if we don't see him until s11.

perihelion assumes mulder & scully believe csm, because it's something they've both always feared. scully was going to leave csm in en ami because she was suspicious. mulder was always afraid william was an experiment, much like emily. and his birth was traumatic for not just scully & william, but mulder & everyone who helped them (doggett, reyes, skinner).

mulder & scully are so vulnerable when it comes to william, and that's literally what the whole thing is about. and now scully is pregnant again, and they have another child coming under questionable circumstances again!! and now they have more reason for concern because of scully's dna, like that's part of why scully was reignited, why she wanted to find william (and everything in home again with losing her mother, and the visions jackson sent to her).

i don't think you can fault scully or mulder for believing. sure, they have experience with csm, maybe they should know better. but they're also constantly discovering they've possibly believed lies. and this is personal.

i think their relationship develops perfectly in it. they've decided to coparent and move in together. they're both terrified to fail again. what if the x files is all that ties them together, and they're about to lose them again? what if sleeping together doesn't mean the same thing to the other as it does to them? their communication has improved greatly, but they're still mulder & scully, always trying to protect each other & not put the other through more hell than necessary. always extremely independent, as "codependent" as they can be.

and as we have seen many times before, their coping mechanisms conflict and it's addressed. they're together but they're not, as with most of the series. but now it's from a place of knowing what being together is, how their personal struggles impact the other, and a deeper understanding of themselves. and eventually, this only gets them closer. they've always moved at their own pace and perihelion is no different.

it isn't fanfiction, it's meant to fit in with the series and follow the arc of the revival, and take it further. i think it makes complete sense with the scope of the show, and the interests of people today.

and i know i'm probably one of the few in fandom who loves it, but it has so much goodness. the words & phrases & names claudia gray uses are a callback to so many episodes, some widely loved scenes. scully has a friend! she's temporarily working a job maybe harder than her last job as a doctor (until they know the fate of the x files) and it's extremely difficult for her. mulder has no idea what he's gonna do (they'll figure it out). there are new players, some closely related to ones we already know and others who are basically Brand New.

idk!! but in talking about the revival, i also felt the need to throw my two cents in about perihelion. i'm just a big fan and i hope she makes it a series.

[kanmom51]

Jikook - what we see is what we get

When we get to see it.

Not seeing it doesn't mean it's not there though.

Was sitting today BTS songs just playing in the background while I'm working on my post. All this shit just happening around us, around JK and JM (yes, JM is part of it, he's also affected by it all), and The truth untold comes up.

This version:

One of, if not their best performance imo. The emotion just pouring out of them.

This song. It kills me every single time. Brings me to tears every single time. JM turned away from JK singing "and I still want you" in every performance. Well, other than their last 3 in Seoul, changed by them, performed by them, ending facing each other JM singing "but I still want you". Defiant.

All about the need to wear that mask to hide your true self for fear you might not be loved for who you truly are, that you might be seen as ugly, a monster. And the two of them, changing the staging, turning to each other, looking into each other's eyes, while changing the "and" to "but I still want you"... do people understand this? The enormity of this moment?

And then this song comes up, this performance:

This was on day 2, while on day 3 we had this:

Omg, my YT logarithm is trying to kill me today.

And got me thinking about this moment we got on day 3 as well.

This love, people, this chemistry, us not seeing it as often for the lack of BTS ot7 content doesn't mean is gone. It's very much still there. We just aren't as lucky to be able to see them in that one frame as often or even at all. But when we do, there is no denying it. Even if it's for the shortest of moments.

We saw it in 2020 (have people forgot memories 2020 for god sake?)

We saw it in 2021

So much more, so little image allowance... But you can find it all in my masterlist.

We saw it throughout 2022 in their Seoul and LV PTD concerts.

And in JITB even if briefly,

And in Busan and Run BTS episodes.

And we even got a little touch of it in 2023, when there was no way of keeping them out of the frame, like in Jhope's enlistment BTB, D-Day in Seoul and even when not being in one frame, in those lives we got to enjoy when the one joined the other in their comments and even without the other even making that kind of appearance.

Letter, goddamnit.

Oh and then we had JM literally flying across the world to be with JK for his Solo debut (if only GMA concert wasn't cancelled, damn it), and them dipping off for their 4 day private trip in CT.

It's sad how short people's memories are. Really. I am reading all sorts of fanfictions being put forward as "this is what happened with Jikook over the years", stating facts that are not facts, creating non existent drama, because people love the drama.

This is a loving couple in a long term relationship. You know, that boring kind. The stable, loving, filled with respect and no drama. The one where one supports their partner when they are struggling. One where just being with each other is fulfilling (cough JK coming to JM's room in LA just to be with him in the same room for hours cough).

Funny how people are talking about them breaking up 2020-21 during the pandemic when JK literally had a slip of the tongue spilling the beans they live together, they are one household, in Run BTS episode 142 they were each gifted a knife. JK all proud and piping up "we got 2"...

JM just sitting there all quiet, smirk on his face.

Stories about breakups. Stories about sexually experimenting but no actual emotional commitment. All while ignoring the constants. Those things that are just there, all the time, whenever we do get to see them:

That electrical chemistry between those two.

The way they look at each other constant over the years.

The way they talk to each other constant over the years.

The way they touch each other constant over the years.

The way they talk about each other.

The way their interactions are so different from the others or their own with the others.

The way the others are around them, their reaction to Jikook.

All still there!!!

*PS:

I wrote this post yesterday before JK's Radiohead appearance and his TikTok post-delete.

I guess now would be a good time to repeat what the wise @ourwinterspring (yes, I'm mentioning you again, lol) once said (well a couple of days ago, that is):

Rumors are created by haters

accepted by fools

and spread by idiots

[nalyra-dreaming]

If I can add my two cents: I agree that Claudia's role has changed radically because book!Claudia was doomed by the narrative but show!Claudia is no more unstable or dangerous than book!Armand, Condemning her for being too young is not only hypocritical and borders on the ridiculous, because I'm sure she may still be a little volatile due to hormones, but she has shown that she can control herself.Her killing spree was not a product of being a vampire teenager but a reaction to her grief and loneliness over the loss of Charlie and realizing that she is not loved for herself but so that Louis and Lestat play house.

Claudia's story and her tragedy are now not linked to her lost and frozen childhood, but to her *femininity*, to her condition as a woman and specifically as a black woman.

Claudia finds herself literally trapped in a girl's body on the brink of adulthood, ensuring that she cannot be taken seriously in the normal world as a woman, no matter how intelligent, astute, studied and experienced that she is. This deal is one that many women even today can relate to along with being surrounded by men who want to mentor them not out of a sense of mentoring (which is what Claudia wanted with Santiago) but because they are considered lesser and less versed, it is about the ego boost they receive and not about allowing women autonomy

Claudia has been used by almost every man in her life, always seen for what she could do for them and not for herself, Sometimes even being punished and mocked when she steps out of the role they determined for her and her mistakes are judged twice as hard.

Also consistently what Claudia longs for is companionship and romance. That's something a lot of black women can relate to. Claudia may be independent and quite capable of taking care of herself, but she wants the company and care of a lover, not the infantilization of a daughter or being forced to take care of those who should care her. It is especially in this regard that Loise fails Claudia even when she thinks she is supporting her.

Does that make Claudia free of any guilt? Not at all. Claudia is selfish and ruthless but none of her flaws justify the death she will receive because in the end it is not about what she really does., but from what others (men) obtain from her death

At least this is my point of view and I am aware that I am projecting a little, but otherwise we lose any nuance of tragedy in Claudia's story

Yes!

She is used and she tries so hard to- SO HARD- to break free of the golden cage.

The trial… will not be about her age I think. They wouldn’t have needed the diaries for that. No, they will make it solely about the murder/attempted murder.

But it is, and always was(!), a mock trial. Has been called that in the books.

This isn’t about justice.

Which brings it all… to a very harrowing point, imho.

The next episode will be very hard to watch, and I‘m not particularly looking forward to that part of it.

[callmewrinkles3]

Hi kiddos. Alex here. I know nobody asked for this but goddamn, I just needed to get it out of my chest and out of my head because today has been bad.

Nobody wants another sad story but there it goes. I was never a sports person until my best friend made me sit in front of our TV to watch twenty guys go around in circles driving fast cars. She spent her childhood watching Fernando race, so I just sat there without understanding shit. We were in deep shit in every single possible way, so I didn't complain about it because she was happy to do it.

It was the worst summer of our lives for too many reasons, but we spent those weekends watching YouTube videos about F1 to cheer ourselves up. It was really really really bad, but for a while that made it better. I can even point to the exact two moments I fell in love with Dan during those days. The first episode of DTS when he says he is a mechanic and the McL*ren snacks video where he had the goddamn Let's fuck ring. It was instant love. That was the moment my brain yelled "Yup, that's my guy". I also remember the first time I saw him. It was during the Hungary GP red flag after Valtteri destroyed everything that moved. I saw Dan standing beside the car looking at the damage and I remember thinking “Goddamn” because it was a mess.

I went from not being a sports fan to absolutely getting obsessed with it and with him. I remember Monza weekend like it was yesterday, grabbing my bestie’s hand after the sprint and saying “NO BUT YOU DONT GET IT” because he wasn’t going to start P3 but P2. I used part of our savings to get that pink shirt because it meant the world that weekend. I used part of my salary to buy an old school yellow Renault Dan shirt with my first job after not working for months thanks to covid. We were the most irresponsible people ever and we spent all our savings buying tickets to the race here in Barcelona the next year because it became my dream to actually see Dan racing in front of me. It was worth every single cent because it was a privilege to see him racing not once but twice.

The thing is, that curly Aussie man brought me the biggest smile on the worst days. He put a smile on my face when probably nothing else could. He gave me some of my biggest happy moments and some of the worst headaches and heartbreaks of the last four years. He even got me the motivation to write again after centuries of not doing it even when I love it probably more than anything else. He gave me my friends because I would never have met them if it wasn’t for our mutual love for him.

Dan is magically was the reason why @honeybadgercomeback appeared at the exact time I needed them the most. Heaven knows this needs a special mention because holyshit I love Ciara so much it's ridiculous. They stood by my side and listened to me cry for hours and stayed there when anxiety kicked me in the ass. They decided to write a whole story with me and create an entire world out of it. It's my pride and joy to do it. They even opened the doors of her family and home when I was about to explode and there aren't enough words to thank you. They're really the Blake to my Dan and heaven knows nobody will ever do it like we do. We have planned the whole thing to watch Austin together at my place next month, and even today they stood by my side when I said I couldn't watch it if Dan's not there. If that's not love then I don't know, kids.

It breaks my heart. I can't explain how badly I cried today about all this mess. The way the press and his own teams have treated him over the last couple of years is unfair. To see him leave like this is unfair. I absolutely hate it, but this is so incredibly unfair and wrong that I just reached the point where I found myself actually saying to myself that I just hope he retires and gets home to his family. I just reached the point where I’m exhausted by the sport I love so much and goddamn I’m not even planning to watch the rest of the races if he is not there. To see him crying in the media pen broke my heart, and I can't. Even then I truly hope this is not the last one. I just want to see him in Austin again. I really want him to have the farewell he deserves.

All this to say goddamn, how I love Daniel. I'm thankful for the last four years of love I got from seeing that lanky man on my TV doing what he loves. He means more to me than I could ever say. I love him more than words can express. He'll always be my guy. He'll always be my baby. God, I would go to the end of the world and to war for that man. Whatever happens next I just hope he is at peace after all this mess, because after fourteen years he bloody deserves it.

[peachysunrize]

I had tried to take the leaks with a grain of salt, but now I can say that this really really sucks. I'm reading comments calling Aemond disgusting and cheering on Alicent and Helena for "putting him in his place". They gave Daemon a redemption arc just because they want the general audience to root for him at the Gods Eye. Well, jokes on them, I’ll stan Aemond even more. They glossed over b&c as much as possible and no one gives a shit about baby Jaehaerys. Alicent's character is destroyed beyond repair. Team Green is destroyed. The writers are so biased in favor of TB and girboss Rhae Rhae that season 3 is going to be unwatchable. I had such high hopes and now I'm just tired. The actors were great, it's not their fault. Ewan had the bare minimum of screen time and managed to make me empathize with his character, often without even having a line. But if the script is shit the actors can't do anything about it and you can't expect much from writers who write lines like the one about Aegon's cock and the goatfuckers slur. Ultimately, the thing I liked the most about this season, aside from a bunch of scenes, was the press tour, especially all the Tom and Ewan’s interviews. And the fanfics of course. 💚

Since you mentioned everything, I’ll go ahead and give my two cents on the episode (if you want later the whole season in another one) in this post

There are many things that bugged me this episode.

First things first I’m gonna start with Aegon cause I’ve seen so little of him on my dash today.

Aegon is an underdog. He didn’t want to become king, yet here he is! The cost of it was nearly his life by the hands of his brother. He has to feel betrayed and tossed aside, which he is in fact, but what did we get from him? His dick is like a sausage on a spot. Right. Because there aren’t ANY other factors to talk about, the writers decided to give us yet anotherrrrr disgusting hypersexualizing moment that Aegon talks about his DICK while Larys is saying important things.

About Helaena

I get that they’ve made her into this autistic sweet girl and I’ll stand by her side, but… doesn’t she have a motherly instinct AT ALL? I mean yeah Alicent is the only mother she has seen in her life, but like your son was beheaded in front of you, why don’t you want to idk even SCREAM? The cause your brother is fighting for, THE CAUSE YOUR SON WAS BEHEADED FOR, needs your help…

Aemond

I’ve talked about his scene with Helaena on the balcony, but I’ll say it again; Aemond showing weakness means he is DEEPLY disturbed and troubled. He is desperate to grasp at any chance he can to bring someone on his side because he has no one, absolutely no fucking person, and he has to fight for his and his family’s life ALONE! The same family who ran away and left the war THEY caused for him to deal with. I would have been so angry Dragonstone would melt without me even setting it on fire. HE. IS. ALONE. Even if he didn’t burn Aegon do you think he would have taken Aemond’s side??? He would keep humiliating him, but they are siblings, AND NOW HIS MOTHER AND SIBLINGS HAVE LEFT HIM TO DEAL WITH THIS MESS ALL BY HIMSELF!! The only person he’ll have is Daeron but they probably wouldn’t meet.

Alicent

I don’t even know where to start lmao… The fact that in season one she was ready to MURDER Rhaenyra for Aemond, but now she hates him so much she has to flee from him to RHAENYRA and spoil his plans and OPENING THE GATES FOR HER— not to mention how she fucking nodded at “a son for a son” as if Jaehaerys’ death is totally forgotten (probably has). SHE GAVE RHAENYRA — THE FRIEND WHO ONCE HELD LOVE FOR ME (the fact that she doesn’t even know if she still has affection for her is soooo funny like girl stop wilding and sit and think) — HER ELDEST CHILD!!!!!!!!!! THE CHILD SHE HAD TO GIVE BIRTH TO AT 15!!!! THE SAME CHILD SHE WAS RAPED FOR AND ANOTHER WOMAN WAS CUT OPEN FOR— I CANT begin how furious she made me. Nothing can make me like her again, not when she chose Rhaenyra whose friendship with ended the moment Luke took Aemond’s eye over her children.

[couldtransitionsaveher]

RAPHAEL HAMATO from TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (2012)

JUSTIFICATIONS:

"raph is an interesting case to me. she's a teenager that has immense struggles with emotional regulation and keeping positive relationships with people, has a lot of pent up feelings and has a lot of issues that REALLY aren't helped by the events of the show, and hides/is defensive about her less typically masculine interests. she's been compared to the princess from super mecha robo force at some point, and dressed as a fairy princess one halloween. raph has been surrounded by guys all her life, having never met a woman in person until she turned fifteen, so she's got a rather toxically masculine mindset (pretty common for teen boys, unfortunately). however this issue is less prevalent around said girl (april)... though this might just be because we don't see them together too often (which really sucks imo, i wish their dynamic was explored more, especially after requiem). but like. she softens around mona, too! (the way raph lifts her leg up in that cutesy little way when they do that nose kissy thing is just so ashdfdjhsiudsi) i'm not the best at explaining my throughts but like idk man. i just think raph's life would've been improved if she was allowed to be a girl. it wouldn't changed the fact she and her brothers have been traumatised beyond beleif, but it'd alleviate some of the pain. it's not great to deal with crushing trauma AND identity issues at the same time. i see a bit of myself in her tbh (if nine year old me had the chance to watch tmnt 2012 i probably would be a lot better off in present day tbh!!) she also has a body swap episode which is inherently trans to me. literally trapped in the wrong body for an episode. (plan 10 my beloved)" - @miahasahardname

"i saw a reply to an ask that state that she's already in the queue, but i would like to give my two cents while there's still time. i believe 50% of her problems could be solved by transitioning. it wouldn't fix her entirely, she has been through a LOT over the course of the series, but i feel it could help with some of her anger issues. my precious fairy princess who acts so tough but is so vulnerable... also, she and april are queerplatonic trans lesbians to me." - Anonymous

Reminder: Submissions are always open! Submit here!

Did you make your daily click today?

[janetkwallace]

Ok, so I'll share two unpopular opinions that I have in regards to the Moomin fandom in general, and more specifically, the 2019 animated series, Moominvalley.

One is that I really don't care about Snufmin. Yeah, you heard me right. No matter the place or adaptation, Snufkin and Moomintroll are always paired up with each other, and I don't care about their relationship. Heck, they're not even my favorite characters of the series, which will be my second point, but they're quite popular as a couple here or anywhere else. Although, it may be just me, but I'm a niche parasite. I'm very fond of side characters that are seen once and never again, the characters who do not even get referenced after they appear for a single frame. The Moomins have plenty of characters like this.

As for Snufmin, they're the opposite of their niche, which means I'm not concerned about the nature of their relationship. You can read the most recent posts on Tumblr to see what other people think of the lack of queer representation in Season 4, and here are my two cents: You guys, ladies, non-binaries and all the LGBT+ people deserve better than breadcrumbs, but a supper is rare when it comes to canonical queer relationships, so I understand how you feel when you're given nothing in return.

But this rant isn't about Snufmin, oh no. Because, you see, this is about one of my favorite Moomin characters... and it's not Sniff, but today, I'll talk about Mrs. Fillyjonk and one aspect of her character that was denied in Moominvalley: Her motherhood. Mrs. Fillyjonk doesn't have children in this adaptation. They are their nieces, they even wear different clothing as if to say "hey look at us! We are related to Mrs. Fillyjonk but we are not her kids! You thought we would be, but no!", which... I don't like this change. It feels like it was done to justify why Mrs. Fillyjonk was on her own, but by doing so, they took away one part of her character that made her such an interesting figure.

In the comics, Mrs. Fillyjonk is established as a juxtaposition of the Moomin's. She is a no-nonsense ferret lady whose children all wear the same clothing and spend most of their time on study. Meanwhile, Moomin and his friends have their own identities and are playing around the valley, and Mrs. Fillyjonk is so devoted to showing others how a life led by duty is discipline is better to the point it gets ridiculous, as in, if your way of life is so much better than the Moomin's, then why do you feel the need to impress them all the time? Are you, or your children, happier than they are by living this way?

Someone probably wrote an in-depth rant about Mrs. Fillyjonk's character and how she is a joke trying to be taken seriously, but hey, I like her. As for her children, they don't have their own characters, they're just mini-Fillyjonks who sometimes get to talk and they exist to show that Mrs. Fillyjonk, despite her strict behavior, cares for someone that isn’t just herself. One of my favorite moments of the 1990 anime is Mrs. Fillyjonk worried about where her children might be and they're just fine. 

That motherhood is gone from the 2019 adaptation, and now they're their nieces. And they barely interact with each other. I guess the nieces appear for, like, two episodes, and that's it? Sure, you still have the dutiful, organized, anxious, methodical Mrs. Fillyjonk, but to take away her children took away a piece of her character that I could relate to.

Heck, she isn’t even concerned about her nieces and their well-being during the Comet finale. They are simply gone, like Emma, like Ninny, like… Oh yeah, isn’t it odd that Ninny only appeared for one episode and then never again? She doesn’t even get to be casually mentioned like Snufkin borrowing a sun oil from a certain Fire Spirit… I could write about that moment as well, but I’ll leave it for later, there's been too much disappointment already.

[socksandbuttons]

I don't remember the last time Lunar got mad at Moon. Moon has told Ruin that he trusts his family but in today's episode, Lunar told yelled at him to actually trust his family. Trust isn't always about betrayal or hiding something from someone. In Moon's case, he doesn't trust Lunar enough to protect himself. He doesn't trust his capabilities to take care of himself. It made Lunar feel like he was being treated like a kid again which is why he had to reiterate to Solar that he is not a toddler on that episode when Jack broke into his apartment. His anger towards the two is very much valid. And to be honest, I am glad that Lunar told Moon off about trusting his family. I understand that Moon is very protective of them and that in itself is admirable. But continuing to hide things like this, not communicating properly with them aside from Solar, and not trusting their capabilities, all those things will only break them apart.

I'm gonna be honest. Poor communication has always been a problem in our beloved celestial family but for me, it's getting a little tiring at this point. I believe you can write family angst/drama/disagreements without poor communication being the only sole cause of it. Just my two cents on that.

- Unhinged Solar lover

LOOOVE that lunar got to call moon out. Moon is very much 'I can do this without getitng anyone involved' cause like i get he woke up with so much happening. Probably not helping that re-enforcing the idea that HES got to take charge and fix it. Hes got the fresh outlook! (No hes just going back into a cycle) Something he kinda fell back into and got mad at SUN for not communicating. He's getting that thrown right back at him. Absolutely the miscommunication and refusal to tell people is getting wild but this is interesting that they ARE in a way addressing this. So i wonder how well this may go. Lunar im sure wouldve liked an input of whats happening with eclipse rather than moon and sun making the decision without letting anyone KNOW. But yeah its great Moon told him! But its uh... of course Lunars gonna be mad. Of course hes gonna be upset with the news. Moon went ahead with soemthing without much input. Again. Esp with someone they all agreed didnt like for valid reasons. Earth I dont think would be too agreeable of the situation for a few other reasons (a chip in eclipses head yeah a good safe bet but ALSO...) But anyway- casually wondering whats gonna happen cause im just sitting here like Wow. Anything can happen now.

[mr-mentally-ill]

Woah Mr Mentally Ill posting twice in one day??

...who cares lol

Anyway– I'm here today to talk to you about the use of color in ASOUE. So let's get into it!

Okay let's start off with basics: yellow represents innocence and purple represents evil. In the early days of the first season, Sunny wears yellow colored clothes. As she gets older however, she wears more colors like pink and grey.

Purple is the color that Esmé wears at the opera. It's also the color that the man with the beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard wear. In the scene wear the baudelaires help burn down the hotel and help Olaf get away, Violet wears purple.

Again, going back to yellow, look at the island. Now this might be a bit of a stretch, so take it with a grain of salt. So yellow and red make orange right? So someone with not much knowledge on the subject might think that orange and white makes yellow aswell.

This is where the stretch comes in, Ishmael wants to recreate that innocence like we see in Sunny at the start. That's what VFD was supposed to do, keep childlike innocence.

While you would think red would be a color associated with evil in ASOUE, but it doesn't. It mainly represents good. The uniform on the Quequeg is red. In the show, Kit wears it at the opera. In the books, the baudelaires wear it while working at the Hotel Denoument. Klaus also wears it in some early episodes.

Blue would usually be associated with childlike innocence, but in ASOUE it's usually the loss of childlike innocence. Beatrice wears it when she throws the dart that kills Olaf's father. Klaus wears it when they steal a boat, get arrested, in the movie, and all illustrations. Sunny also wears it in later seasons, showing how she is no longer innocent. It is also the color of the sugar bowl.

Green is a neutral color. The hypnotized mill workers wear it. In the show, the baudelaires wear it when they spy on bad people. Olaf wears it in the song "Not how the story goes".

Black and white funnily enough, aren't black and white. They're blurred, both bad and good characters wearing it.

But hey– that's just my two cents!!

(If you guys wanna send me theories to talk about, send me them!)