#this is a tv show so I don't really care and hollywood magic can take liberties

[queencvbra]

ck completely ignores any significance to belt ranks (outside of giving ant a white belt LMAO), meanwhile in my dojo / dojang, if your belt touches the floor while you're not wearing it or you're in the process of putting it on, you owe pushups

[alpacaroni-and-cheese]

Leah, Fatin and Choice.

Not to wax lyrical about a TV show that was cancelled over two years ago, but The Wilds is pretty good, actually.

All 8 of the main characters (yes, eight, the boys don't count) are some of the most complex, layered and interesting characters I've ever seen. Each of them, on a surface level, seem to be one-dimensional.

Shelby, for example, is the goody-two shoes Christian flawless pageant queen. But she isn't, not really. She's a closeted, anxious mess, who is about one or two mental breakdowns away from shaving her head at any given time. She cares far too deeply, leaving her heart exposed and vulnerable.

Or take Rachel; on the outside, she's hard on everyone, angry and resentful, and bound for diving for America in the next Olympics. But in reality, she's burnt out. She might be hard on everyone around her, but she's hardest on herself. She suffers from bulimia, brought on by a few ill-advised words from her diving coach, and isn't even on the team anymore. She is angry, and she is resentful, but I think she has good reason to be. So when she does release that anger, it's an inspiration for us all.

You can do this kind of analysis with all of the characters, but the two I want to focus on in particular are Leah and Fatin.

Leah, the boring, ordinary, average girl from the Bay, who thinks too much and leaps before she looks.

That doesn't even scratch the surface of who Leah is.

She's whip-smart, and not in the "knows the first 20 digits of pi" Hollywood style of smart. She notices things and tucks them away in her brain until she has a moment to herself where she can ruminate, drawing connections where maybe there aren't any, and draw conclusions based partly on evidence and partly on a near-infallible trust for her gut.

She analyses. Not in the (BBC) Sherlock kind of way where she just magics up the answer out of thin air, but in her own way. She sees something is out of place, and digs around in the rocks and dirt, bloodying her fingers and knees until she can figure out what's wrong.

She gets taken advantage of by a man far older than her, and lies about her age so he'd sleep with her. She's hopelessly, helplessly tied to this pathetic man, every aspect of her life tethered to him. So when he finds out the truth and removes every part of her from his life, she is left drowning in his wake. She clings to the book he wrote and the sick annotations he left for her like it's a lifeline, when it's actually pulling her further beneath the waves.

Leah broods, she ruminates and she analyses, until something gives way.

She runs headlong into walls until either they break, or she does.

Next, let's talk about Fatin.

Promiscuous, princess-y Fatin, who's never done a day's hard work in her life.

In 1x05, Fatin runs away from the group. In 1x04, she was (metaphorically and a little bit physically, albeit accidentally) mauled by Leah. Her soft underbelly exposed and prodded. The others have all made judgements on her character, and in their eyes she has come up short. So, she chooses to remove herself from the equation, and runs away, like a thief in the night.

She finds a waterfall, practically saving all of them from dying slowly of thirst. And Leah, who pushed her, shoved her, rejected her last episode, spearheads the campaign to find her, after a little encouragement and wake-up call from Dot.

Fatin is not used to forgiveness. We see her mother let things go, but her mistakes are not forgiven, and most certainly not forgotten. Her hurt is minimised and dismissed by her mother, so she turns to her father for support. He is her best friend and confidant. He always has her side.

But then she discovers the photos. Her father has been cheating with lots of women over a long period of time. He has been lying to and betraying their family for years. She lashes out and chooses to send his nudes to everyone in his contact list, not thinking it through properly. When this is inevitably drawn back to her, her father turns on her, and her mother just sits and watches.

She isn't familiar with forgiveness, so when Leah offers it to her the first time she chooses to willingly accept it, offering it back in turn.

Leah makes the choice to burn Jeff's book, severing the tether holding her beneath the water. She's free, and can breathe.

Fatin becomes her confidant, listening to Leah's theories about the island and offering reasonable explanations for what's going on, and it works for a while.

But Leah becomes obsessed with the island. She's convinced something is wrong, and works herself to the bone to discover the truth, at the expense of her own safety and sanity.

Fatin reaches out to her, tries to wade through the darkness clouding Leah's thoughts and pull her back into the light.

But she fails.

When Leah runs into the ocean, desperate to find a way out, Fatin can do nothing but watch. Rachel overcomes her fear of the water and drags Leah back to the beach. Dot wants to sedate her, just to be safe, but Fatin refuses. Leah's had enough choices taken away from her, so she lets Leah choose.

Fatin, who knows how damaging it is to have your autonomy stolen, gives Leah this choice. Fatin, who knows Leah had many decisions made for her in the past, lets her decide for herself. She lets Leah make the choice to live.

[rolameny]

welcome to turtle hell

may or may not have watched both seasons and the tv movie of rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles in a possessed state the last couple of weeks

the two pillars of my enjoyment for this series are:

the writing and production quality are ridiculously polished for a y7 kids' show. like, huge swathes of the tv show are what i would call mathematically perfect. absolutely pristine structure. this is a masterclass in character-driven action/comedy pacing. i'm being so serious rn and speaking from a real critique perspective.

raph (red bandana turtle) is my sweetie angel perfect son and i love him. i'm speaking as the loving mother to a perfect sweetie angel son.

ROTTMNT is a show from 2018 that tries a new spin on the classic turts -- in a move i find really fun, each one of the teens is a different kind of turtle. my sweetie angel is a snapping turtle, donatello's a softshell turtle, etc.

the character dynamics are also flipped around a little bit: instead of raph being the angry one guided by his leader leonardo, here he's the leader, struggling really hard between parentified eldest brother overprotectiveness and being a rowdy teen who also would just like to smash shit and have a good time. this show's leonardo is a showman who would rather have fun and look cool than train -- this gets him into trouble when he refuses to take things seriously and when his brothers can't recognize the rare times he DOES take things seriously.

they're the heart of the show imo, with raph slowly learning that he doesn't have to take on every burden and that he can trust his brothers to have his back, and leo learning in the post-show movie to listen to his brothers in turn.

responsibility and duty -- what is yours, how much of a burden is it, how will you respond to it? -- are huge questions in this show. it's notable that this show's splinter is like, brutally depressed and therefore negligent as a parent, and doesn't tell his turtle kids about any of his past or their family duties until forced. this splinter started as the scion of a clan dedicated to repressing the demon shredder; he bailed on his responsibility in his youth, changed his name, and made a career as a hollywood action star. then he got mutated into a horrible little rat man and acquired four turtle sons. he loves his kids but spends most of his time watching tv, including a lot of reruns of his own movies from when he was a cool respected human action star and not a depressed single rat dad.

there's a conversation splinter has with michelangelo late in the game, about the yokai scientist who mutated them both:

splinter: WHY do you care about him? mikey: he made me. he made us! splinter: i know. he's a monster.

mikey is a reasonably well-adjusted sewer teen who would like to know more about his past; splinter loves his kids but has never gotten over what was done to him.

to get back to my sweetie angel, raph is both the oldest (i don't know how they decided turtle ages. genuinely.) and the biggest/toughest physically. he towers over his brothers. mikey climbs on him like a jungle gym. all the turts have magic abilities in this show. raph's is that he can surround himself in a glowing red projection of his own body, which he can scale up to godzilla size. raph uses this both to clobber guys and frequently as a shield to protect his allies. the first time he ever activates his power, it's to save leo after he got tossed off a roof. this is not subtle: he is the strong one, the oldest one, he shields his brothers from harm and carries them and leads them. in the season two finale, he breaks under the strain of having to lead his brothers against shredder with no weapons or backup. and he's taught a lesson by a family member he never knew he had: you are not alone. you can't lead and protect and fight and plan by yourself. your abilities rely on your family, and you have to trust that they will catch you when you fall just like you always catch them.

it's not subtle!! it doesn't have to be. it works.

also, raph internalizes this lesson and decides to teach it to his brothers by jumping off a cliff and trusting they'll catch him on the way down. he is still a dipshit teenager. and my perfect son--

pivoting:

this show has 12-minute episodes (two per 24-minute half-hour tv block), and a lot of them are adventure of the week. that is not a lot of time at all, especially considering there are plenty of extended action sequences. the show is SO quickly paced for it. you're tossed into a situation with maybe one line of setup; a couple times the show starts in media res and then has one character turn to another to ask, "why are we doing [X plot action]?" to get you situated.

when i talk about mathematical structure, this is what i mean. this show is doing so much with character work and worldbuilding layered on top of its adventure plots that its pacing has to absolutely run on rails. it's really effective, and that layering keeps you from feeling like you're only seeing the mechanics of the plot. every character is fun and weird and vivid and has an idiosyncratic voice, both in the writing and in the performing. april o'neil gets squawky and squeaky; raph and casey jones jump up and down in volume as they get worked up over the course of a sentence; ben schwartz is here.

the worst i can say about this show is that nickelodeon cut its second season order in half and canceled the third season and you can feel it. stuff starts getting rushed in the back half of s2 and in the tv movie. characters get dropped. problems are brought up and left unsolved. and yet things still mostly work. if "damn, nick fucked you over" is the worst i can say about a show that show is pretty good!!!!

the animation, the fx work, the background painting, the sound design [there's a tiger roar sfx that occasionally gets dropped in at dramatic/comedic moments that makes me laugh every time], they're all genuinely so good it makes me mad. it's so fucked up that this show is this good. i'm in turtle hell.

[manicpixieyandere]

A Show For The Witches!!!

Agatha All Along

OH MY GOD WE REALLY CAN'T BELIEVE IT?! Agatha All Along, a show that actually honors IRL witchcraft while still maintaining its Hollywoodness in good faith that also is for the girls and gays???

Still cannot believe Marvel actually followed through and didn't shy away from showing any intimacy between Agatha and Rio??? Not to mention Billy also has a same sex kiss! (Thought we'd love to have seen Agatha and Rio in the cottage raising Nicky, it also makes sense narratively what they did with Nicky).

Like yes obviously the witches have unrealistic flashy powers, but they still do tarot and magic with intent. It was fucking awesome and obvious they did their research! In an interview Kathryn Hahn even said she talked to a real witch. There always needs to be something to be able translate something into the medium. Film and TV is a visual medium and thus you need spectacle. The MCU has done this before with having Marc and Steven from Moon Knight talking in reflections. Dissociative disorders don't usually work like that, but it works well for television and it was clear they did their research in all the other aspects.

Honestly the MCU has gotten better with representation and we couldn't be happier. Hawkeye and Echo showed physical disabilities, Moon Knight was about neurodivergence, and there are many more heroes who aren't white (ex: Black Panther, Shang-Chi) and aren't all men (The Marvels). Probably many more we are forgetting at the moment. Hell things are so good it'd be a bit too long to mention them all!

And that isn't to say representation is what makes the show good. You can have a diverse cast and still a shit show. But Agatha All Along was actually GOOD! What was the difference? It was structured like a TV show. All the Marvel shows so far have felt like split up movies with an overarching plot. It works sure, but it doesn't feel like TV and can be a bit much to take in. But Agatha All Along uses its format to its advantage, having each trial be an episode is so simple and yet genius. It feels fresh in the new landscape of movie budget limited series. Not to mention the show used its motif of "The Witches Road" to create the whole story. Every twist and turn goes back to that song and yet it was still surprising and exciting. It's a lesson on how even seemingly simple ideas can be the best. Not everything must be grand.

The best episodes were 7 and 9. 7 was very creative with how time was out of order from Lilia's perspective. Lilia's death was also a perfect moment for her character and it was quite beautiful to watch. The creators also said all the characters (besides Agatha probably) will stay dead. That's a decision we can respect. The MCU can sometimes feel low stakes with all the resurrection. Episode 9 was also amazing! The way the story comes full circle, the heart of it being Nicky brings many tears to the eyes.

We just wish we saw a bit more of the Agatha / Rio moments. Not everything needs to be shown on screen of course, but a bit more would have been nice. Even just Rio watching from the distance as Agatha kills each coven. But still, top tier stuff!

Honestly sorry to Moon Knight, but I think this is our new favorite of the Marvel shows so far! We had fallen out of love with the MCU over the years, only tuning into the ones we really cared about, but this restored our hope in the series. Hopefully Agatha will come back like she does in the comics and then is with Rio for the rest of eternity because lord knows Death needs it. She's a bratty bottom at heart.

[not-souleaterpost]

Sinuhe, the prestige tv anti-hero

Yup, this post will probably be the farthest from anything I am usually known for

So some months ago, while being stuck in the hospital, I didn't have anything better to do than read this book which I somehow got into my possesion. Funnily enough it's author is supposedly the most famous Finish author, and during the 60s there even was a Hollywood movie adaption all the jazz. Yet today it's hard to find anybody online talking about it.

So in a way this is my motivation. Yet what is there to say? Will I repeat the one thing everyone praises of it being so accurate to ancient egypt? (I'm not from Yugioh, so how would I know either way?) That it is a metaphor/retelling of the authors life and experience during the events of two world wars and the rise and fall of empires and emporours? About the cycle of history, that even if how depressing in retrospect seems to be moving, even if it all takes tragedy? - Nah, let's better talk how it reminds me of a prototype of all these grimdark shows with lots of nudity lol.

From Breaking Bad's Walter White who is driven to crime supposedly, while only being a power fantasy for both the viewer and charachter, to the as popular as it is forgoten Game Of Thrones, or even the ever so Classic Sopranos - it's funny to see how all the things were already atleast half a decade old (and probably a lot more, just read the Coun of Montecristo, which may be more relevant to a certain topic so lets just wait for that in a certain video...)

But for examples, we have the narrator figure, a quasi tragic yet at the same time clear figure for the reader to insert and feel powerful - he gets seduced by a beautiful women, get's access to the highest court, has an mystical origin (being a proto-Moses figure, but thats another topic), gets into serious yet allways non-lethal adventures, ending like cartoons with last minute saves and contrivances - his growing mysantrophy and cynicism only making him appear more cool for school.

I think maybe that's what I'm getting at - many "serious" shows today (or maybe ever? Guess I'm actually kinda uncultured so who knows) - seem in a lot of ways more childish than the silliest cartoons - atleast the later do their gags for their own sake, not to get a one up on the people that bullied and spiteted them, which the motivation for most of these shows are.

But what am trying to say? Am I shiting on the book? Nah just on the shows, and even then not really - still like the Sopranos, the only one I truly dislike is Game Of Thrones and am happy that I only saw a few scenes and moments passing by the family tv years ago before it was ok to dislike it. Still one will ask, what my point is? Well I think it is, what actually makes it different from all the anti-hero tv shows afterall?

And I think it's the universal project of trying to get through all history, to give a map of humanitys progress - in both ways of a map of something existing and as a roadmap - to show where and how it all can go.

This is lacking even in the Sopranos, which in the end just stews in it's cynicism and condemns the viewer for even identifieng with the family - "they are killers and bigots, how can you care for them, you don't even the ending" - no end in sight, in all senses, no message for the future or possible resolution - like Walter White dieing in some redneck nazi bunker having removed himself from reality as the only possible solution.

Yes this book also ends in a sad way, but as I said with one in which I saw hope - the burying of his books seems more than just a framing device, but a message, that the future can and was influenced by all his experience, even if it took hundreds and thousands of years.

Even if he buried them to the void, as we all do who post here and other places, without getting any attention, not even hate mail or spam. Maybe it will all be deleted in a few years, maybe some catastrophy will destroy it even if it was backed up by some magic ai computer, yet still one has this absurd hope of what if?

So as the song stops mid scene for the anti hero, maybe it will continue for it's opposite some day as unexpectedly?

Damn.

(Also the book is mostly mundane with no supernatural elements, yet there is a guy whose ability is to just magically stop bleedings, guess I can't escape Soul Eater references lol)