#uwu arc 1/3

[antonia-fortnite]

uwu u like nowan

No I don't! {>~<} I like mawia!

[rawliverandgoronspice]

anyway to end the series on ganondorf tp's writing, my take (which isn't canon but arguable as a valid "death of the author" read imo) is that he is at his most iredeemable AND that's because he has zero things left to lose and no community left and his goal doesn't even make sense anymore he is parasitic and a ghost and pathologically obsessed by his own godlike legitimacy because that is the only thing he still has and it has prolonged his life in a horrible diminished state in a nightmare dimension so SURELY it must mean something right right RIGHT

[ironmanstan]

Looks at my ocs and remembers with mild horror and mild amusement the contexts in which they were made

[canye-dest]

preferring utenanthy because they had far more screentime to build up their relationship is 100% valid and understandable but if i see anyone try to say 3+1 """ruined""" kawoshin because of kaworu or shinji's arcs you're completely wrong

The Anime Binge-Watcher's Queer Anime Ship Tournament!

Good god, what a face-off. Two of anime's most iconic and enduring queer ships, the foundations of so much early queer weebdom, and only one can make it to the finals. Kawoshin boys and Utenanthy girls, I wish you both luck. Cast your votes now!

[flower-boi16]

Helluva Boss Season 2: How to Assassinate Your Characters

Option 1: Force them into being out of character for the sake of a forced conflict or "joke"

Seeing Star assasinated Loona by making her far more aggressive compared to how she used to be in the first season, which was done as a way to force a conflict between her and Blitz. Western Energy then goes on to continue Loona's derailment by just straight up turning her into a wild animal with her attacking the doctor. The writers are forcing Loona into being out of character in order to create drama that doesn't feel organic at all.

The same could be said for Moxxie, who Unhappy Campers made out of character by turning him into an attention whore jelouse of Millie, despite him never displaying that trait in the first season and him having no reason to even give a shit about this since he was sent here for a job.

There's nothing indicating that he suffered from neglect from Crimson so there isn't an explanation here. Moxxie especially comes across as a massive hypocrit in his argument with Millie; where he asks why Millie cares so much about what the teenagers think when Moxxie has been jelouse of Millie through this whole episode, yet it is NEVER called out.

This is done as a way of trying to add forced and contrived drama between the two just so the episode can have a conflict, because the writers most likely coulden't find a way to create a conflict that was organic.

Option 2: Make past issues with the characters worse by adding in new ones or just refusing to address them

A big issue with Millie as a character is that she doesn't have much of any real depth beyond being Moxxie's wife. The show tried to add depth to her in Unhappy Campers but all that did was create a new issue where they constantly introduce new stuff for Millie as a character out of nowhere in a failed attempt to give her depth.

Moxxie meanwhile suffered through a issue in Season 1 where he went through the same arc twice in the same season, but hey that was only two times so it's nothing to sneeze at...except that Season 2 not only has Moxxie repeat that arc again, it slaps daddy issues onto him in a poor attempt to give him further depth which not only feels tacked onto him but also just creates more issues with Moxxie as a character due to him now having truama that never gets explored.

Season 2 continues the issues with the first season but makes them worse as well as adding in new ones, which is the exact opposite of what a second season should do.

Option 3: Destory and remove everything that made the characters interesting and replace it with something completely unreconizable compared to how they previously were.

Stolas in Season 1 was arguably the most interesting character in the entire show, there was a lot you could analyze from him and he had the most potiential out of any other character in the show for a compelling arc where he grows as a person...

...that Season 2 completely destoryed in favor of turning Stolas into an UwU soft boy who the narrative frequently coddles and goes through little actual character growth...at all. His bad actions are downplayed by the narrative and the people who get mad at him for those actions are all demonized by the narrative, treated as if they don't have a reason to hate him even though they do.

Season 1 Stolas was a flawed person that realized his mistakes and chose to become better, Season 2 Stolas is an UwU soft boy that just wanted to be loved. These do not feel like the same character.

Season 2 completely assassinates the characters and removes everything that made them good in the first place with the only exception being Blitzo, as although Season 2's handling of him has issues he still isn't nearly as ruined as the other characters.

[physalian]

3 More Character Types the World Needs More Of

Or at least, I do.

1. The denied redeemed villain

I need this. So badly right now. So, so, so many “redemption arcs” are half-assed and carry undertones of guilt by the heroes, gaslighting them into thinking the villain “wasn’t all that bad” right before they make some big heroic sacrifice, as if that’s ever enough to make up for the damage that was done.

But you know what I never see? A villain who’s done some awful shit, wakes up to reality, tries to apologize and… is denied. No, it’s not enough to be sorry. No, you’re not absolved of your crimes just because you cry really hard on your knees. Yes, you have to work for it. Yes, even if you work for it for the rest of your whole life, those you hurt are not obligated to forgive you.

Example that sadly did not happen in canon: Enji Todoroki

2. The liar revealed who loses

This fucker lies and cheats his way into his lover’s arms (and liars revealed are always men, because their love interests are always women put in the place of “but he tried really hard and you need to forgive him uwu” unless it’s gay). Similar to above, no, you do not get rewarded just for feeling sorry.

This character builds an entire relationship (and it’s specifically romance that I take such an issue with) on a lie. They are not who they say they are, specifically, they lie about their identity because they know their lover would not let this happen if they knew the truth.

It’s one thing to lie about something inconsequential, or to lie about something unrelated, but to lie deliberately to present yourself as the perfect suitor—and these are never little white lies, these are usually entirely false identities, or secrets so damning that risking the truth could mean arrest or even death—just. Why?

Yeah, okay, you never thought you’d get this far. Cool. You don’t have to tell her the truth, but you have to leave before you trick her into sleeping with you.

It’s just. So squicky. And the lesson always is that he deserves love, that he makes up for it with everything else, that he’s just got a winning personality. She always forgives him, even if they fight about it, it’s so, so predictable.

Examples that did not lose: Aladdin, Evan Hansen

3. The paragon who loses faith

I don’t know that we need a whole bunch of these characters, but so many paragons are painted as heroes with unshakable loyalty to their causes and I’d love to see a devolution of character where they just can’t keep smiling and pretending it’s alright. That there is a limit to how much shit they can take.

They don’t have to go full villain, but maybe they just stop caring, maybe they get cynical, maybe they just don’t show up for work the next day, maybe they’re not there when they’re needed the most.

There’s a few stories I can think of where the masses realize they’ve screwed up and show the hero that their faith has been rewarded (Nolan Bats being one of them) but I mean really a hero who just cannot take it anymore, throws in the towel, and walks away knowing it’s the hardest thing they’ve ever had to do.

Example: (kind of) Captain America

—

Sorry this list is kind of a bummer. It’s a bummer kind of week.

[desicanary]

Some thoughts after finishing the double that I need to expel from my consciousness:

1. I haven't enjoyed a show so much in a while. It had all the drama, and it didn't sacrifice it for the romance

2. Princess Wanning! She killed her dad and I think that was queen shit. She should have killed more people, frankly. She deserves to do so much murder

3. Shen Yurong how I hate you. This man is not only a murderer and a coward, he's also incompetent. None of his plans have ever worked. Mans couldn't manage to successfully kill his wife even if every god were on his side. I loved every time Xue Fangfei did psychic damage to him simply by existing

4. Xue Fangfei! Xue Li! Jiang Li! Xiao Limao! A'Li! Many other terms of address I've missed! She truly is that girl. She is gaslight gatekeep girl boss. She's a girl's girl. She stabbed a man in the dick 7 times. She has the man who once called her a pawn wrapped around her pinkie. When her man tells her he has to get into a political marriage for the nation she says do it then, and then he has to admit he was never gonna. She inflicted +9999999999999 damage on those who wronged her and Jiang Li. She can't fight to save her life (as evident) but can and will confuse her opponent into tripping over their own nonexistent shoelaces

5. I loved the progression of the relationship between A'Li and Xiao Heng. They weren't immediately lovers or friends. They fully used each other until they were willing to be used. The chemistry, the flirting, it's too much and too good. Also, Xiao Heng serves. See: the fans, the fucking gold plated murder fan, a walk-in closet full of capes, the most dramatic entrances known to cdramas, and all the audacity

6. BUT what were the last 20 minutes! They don't exist to me! My buddies Wen Ji and Lu Ji are watching their boss embarass himself at Duke Su's mansion and sharing in the hot goss, to me

7. Plus, I've gotta be missing something about the Longwu army. I do not understand them at all. Not a single one of them would survive the Nuremberg precedent. Not only are they not guided by ethics and morals, they're also not guided by loyalty or revenge or anger or hate or any understandable motivation. Instead, they're guided by a rock carving of a fish. wut. They find out the dude holding the fish works for the guy who betrayed and killed their general, their comrades, and even some of their family. And their response is: "How could they?!?!?! But we still have to listen to them because they have the fish!" Truly what. Someone explain this all-powerful rock fish to me

8. I do think that the Jiangs deserved more. And by more I mean worse. I think Xue Li should have told Jiang Yuanbai exactly how Jiang Li lived and died, and that she hated him for his negligence. I think she should have told the grandma too. They had their hand in this and they deserve to feel the full weight of Jiang Li's life and death and hatred

9. Also Jiang Yuanbai being like "It's not that I didn't know what was going on at home it's just that I was so busy working for the nation uwu". Sir, disrespectfully, no. You had not a clue. And if you did, that makes it worse. Like "Oh no! I'm so busy working that I have no choice but to let my wife frame my 8 yr old for her own attempted murder! The murder of the same stepmom that she, until yesterday, adored! Oh well, I gotta go to work so I'll just let that happen and abandon her for 10 years until politics makes it necessary for me to bring her home! And I'll feel really bad about abandoning her now, but I'll also never believe a single word out her mouth!" Actually, I think he should be hunted for sport

10. Anyway, that got off track! But I love this show, and how even the antagonists have arcs and backstories and aren't countering our girl just cuz. I love the fleshed out characters, all the looks it serves, the drama, and the adorable Wen Ji and Lu Ji and Jiang Jingrui

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PROPAGANDA

NATASHA ROSTOVA (WAR AND PEACE) (CW: Pregnancy)

1.) Natasha is one of the MCs of the novel and for the majority of it she stays an incredibly complex, flawed and fleshed out character but then THE EPILOGUE COMES. In the epilogue she marries Pierre Bezukhov (who I talked about in my previous propaganda) and essentially loses her personality. The point of her existence now is to serve Pierre and be his 24/7 baby machine. The narrative puts emphasis on how important singing is for her (Natasha expresses herself through it) but after she gets married she stops singing (the other moment she stops singing is after her failed elopement with Anatole Kuragin, when she's depressed and basically at her lowest point) because she doesn't need it anymore since she has a husband UwU.

Natasha is described as a perfect and understanding wife for Pierre and yet she's allowed only to soak in his views and thoughts without adding anything from herself. ("Now that he was telling it all to Natásha he experienced that pleasure which a man has when women listen to him���not clever women who when listening either try to remember what they hear to enrich their minds and when opportunity offers to retell it, or who wish to adopt it to some thought of their own and promptly contribute their own clever comments prepared in their little mental workshop—but the pleasure given by real women gifted with a capacity to select and absorb the very best a man shows of himself." (c) Book 15, Ch. 17).

When Natasha's cousin Sonya tries to stop her from eloping with Anatole, Natasha screams that she's now his slave and will do anything he wants and although she and Anatole never meet again after the elopement fails, she never escapes the fate of becoming a slave to her man.

To be honest I dislike Natasha (there's no excuse for how she and her family treated her cousin Sonya) but the way she portrayed in the epilogue infuriates me. Her marriage to Pierre cancels out her character arc and personal growth she had before it completely.

2.) After 2k pages detailing her unique way of thinking, lust for life, hyperactivity and love of freedom Natasha is married and therefore summarily shunted off to being jealous and incapable of understanding her husband's higher purpose, no longer singing and having no other preoccupation in life but the color of her children's pov

3.) oh my god. so shes this young girl (literally shes like. 13 to 17 throughout the main story). as natasha makes her way into society, she gets more and more hated by tolstoy. (because tolstoy hates society & women). if im remembering correctly the first time she flirts with a man & uses a fan she gets scolded. all of her love interests are considerably older than her. when natasha is 17, she gets engaged to andrei (who at this point would be around 27). he goes off to war! because he loves war. while hes away, anatole (who is vaguely around andreis age) seduces natasha. he knows she's engaged & impressionable and does it anyways. anatole plans to kidnap & elope with natasha, but the plan gets found out. natasha learns anatole is already married and tries to kill herself via arsenic. she gets better. pierre (27) who has known natasha since she was 13 & is close with her family and is also andreis friend, visits natasha. he comforts her and she's like "no what i've done is unforgivable and deplorable". pierre then kind of proposes to her ("if i were free"). natasha stops singing for a while. this is significant because singing is very important to her. well fast forward his wife dies. then theres the epilogue where pierre and natasha get married. natasha is miserable and is basically a baby pumping machine and she also stops singing again.

GWEN (BBC MERLIN) (CW: Mind Control, Adultery)

1.) She was one the main 4 characters in the show and basically the leading lady as the show went on and YET. She was literally treated like an object to make her pain a point of conflict and angst for the male characters and then SHE WAS BARELY EVEN THERE. FOR THE SEASON FINALE. THE LEADING WOMAN. so that the writers could focus on their male characters more. Also in season 4 the writers forgot that they had to make a Guinevere/Lancelot affair happen (to follow the Arthurian canon that they ~totally~ were following before. this is sarcasm btw). But at that point Gwen as a character was not in a place where she would do that. So instead of writing something actually good they decided to just have Gwen end up with an Enchanted Bracelet That Makes You Cheat On People. I’m not joking. So it wasn’t even her choice to have an affair and they never explore the implications of this. And it’s never even revealed to the characters that she didn’t choose this. She’s just. Never vindicated. Evil and terrible.

2.) At the beginning of the series there was on episode when Gwen was like “women should be allowed to fight” (in a battle that was happening). A big part of her character at the beginning was also knowing armor and weaponry bc she was the blacksmith’s daughter. But then in the series finale they had her say something along the lines for “I’m not meant to fight” just so she could be gone so that the writers could just write about the two male leads

3.) Okay also in the last season they didn’t know what to do with Gwen’s character so for almost half the season they made a plot line where she was mind controlled (again :)))) after being kidnapped and tortured. And like. Again instead of focusing on her and the effects it had on her they made the whole thing an excuse to get Male Lead # 1 and # 2 angsty about it. They had to like. Knock her out and throw her into a lake (magic baptism???) to reverse mind control and then they literally never her reaction to the whole situation ever. Literally objectified for the plot.

[hermitw]

Jjk theories / opinions / thoughts part 3 uwu (they are becoming more stupid and less coherent, let's go)

-Gege began the rumor about sukuna drinking his own milk. It is TOO MUCH OF SOMETHING GEGE WOULD SAY I cannot be convinced otherwise

-Gojo's twink death happened in the prison realm

-kenjaku was involved in founding the star religious group. He's already been making pacts with sorcerers for a thousand years, so putting him in the Nara era isn't a stretch. We already know he made several attempts to interrupt the star plasma vessels. (yes I blame him for every thing ever. His fault. And I think he'd rather watch things crumble than do the work directly bc then it's like a game, unexpected things happen and it's more interesting. Bro is always playing games even with curses smh)

-Hakari would have started a fight club to fund Kirara's transition. Idk if the higher ups would have had issues w trans students or just with Hakari's unconventional domain and methods (not hesitating to lose a foot bc he'll get it back, for example), but Gojo called them a lot of variations of conservative idiots so it seems likely I think. And they left the school before she even came out, bc Panda didn't know.

-kinda unfair that Yuta gets to transfer into Gojo with his best outfit on, he didn't have to dress like Edward Cullen for years to get there (pls don't get offended I swear to God it's a joke but also I do kinda feel this way lmaoooo)

-how the fuck do nanako and mimiko's technique work? They're twins right? I get the feeling like Mimiko can't use one on her own, but she likes to threaten people with her doll and Nanako can hang people with it. I rly wish we got to see them more (I want to believe they survived sukuna bc Geto would have prepared those girls to stay safe, maybe there's just a time lag or something pls)

IN THE AIRPORT SCENE there's even Toji but those girls are not there so that gives me hope I kajahxkakdn (I get that maybe it's Gojo's mindscape but how would he have known that Haibara showed up to Nanami? It's not just his imagination imo, those girls are alive, I need them to be.)

-I miss rainbow dragonnnnnnnn I'm so sad and still mad at toji (despite my theory that he lost himself bc the worm is banana fish I'm just bitter lmao)

-I'm so fucking sad that we didn't get to see Hanami's domain. So I made one up myself but I don't have a name for itnkajsxjskmax I just think Hanami needed a redemption arc like Choso got :(((

-the other dubs are so fkn good that when I'm tired of it I'll just play that shit in another language. The first minute of the series in French tho made me laugh so hard I had to change it. But the exchange event in German was so good

-remember when Megumi brought out Max Elephant against Noritoshi Kamo? It's like. He knew that the blood manipulation weakness was water. Maybe that's a benefit of growing up in one of the 3 major clans.

-I feel like no one ever talks about how Megumi lost Orochi AND one of the demon dogs that was with him since he was a kid when he also watched Sukuna rip out Yuuji's heart. Like we all talk about how he gets more upset over losing animals than people but all 3 of those events at once... I was rly sad at first bc I wanted to see the snake more too.

-Megumi's head bleeding in every fight for most of the anime is meant to represent that his weakness is in his head.

-when it's raining, that shows that the characters are up against something bigger than they are prepared for. (I made a whole list of every use of water and its symbolism but God I feel insane)

-the shibuya arc hurts less to watch after the first 5 times (I think? I'm on My 9th watch and I think 2 1/2 read. It's hard to keep track at this point)

-I want to see the extended mahoraga vs sukuna fight in theaters I'm so jealous oh god

-I cannot be convinced that a single character in this show is heterosexual. Everyone is gay except for hakari ig but he's an ally so

-I think that Miguel and Larue might be together but idk

-kinda weird that no one mentioned nanako or mimiko (like how no one mentioned todo and he was fiiiiiine I knew he was having fun in the culling game the whole time)

-despite how much I love hanami, my favorite animated Gojo scenes are when he is exorcising them. The English dub especially oh god

[bestworstcase]

First i want to say that i love your rwby analysys, but i just discovered your blog, so can you explain to me why you hate Ozpin so much? Like, every minor thing he does and says must have some malicious intention behind it, but everything Salem does is part of a big plan that means that she's not actually evil?

ooh it’s been a while since we had one of these! 1. i think perhaps a closer read of my salem analysis is called for, because you’ll notice that i am, er, not shy about noting that salem is evil and this is in fact a central tenet of my reading of the narrative; i just don’t think she’s a one-note genocidal lunatic and it is extremely obvious that the narrative is heading in a "the brothers were and are wrong, and salem wants them gone" direction; 2. oz is second in my heart only to salem and cinder, which sort of speaks for itself in terms of "this character did bad things!" not being remotely a bad thing in my book, 3. and speaking of cinder, i get exactly as cranky about uwuified fanon sad wet rag ozpin who’s never done a thing wrong as i do uwufied fanon poor wittle cindy who doesn’t want to hurt people but salem makes her do it for exactly the same reason, which is that it strips out everything that makes these characters narratively and emotionally compelling in favor of mashing them into gutless marshmallow pod people for the sake of… i don’t know, making them neat and bland and easily digestible, i guess? uwu?

4. this is an ozlem house

5. i don’t think ozma has ever acted with malicious intention; rather, he’s been coerced into this situation where his faith in his god, his intense desire to do the right thing, and his terror of what will happen if he fails or disobeys—in combination with a divine curse that is literally designed to prevent him from being able to change or break free, because he has a reflection of himself monitoring his thoughts and actions all the time—are at war with his true desire (he wants to be with salem) and his conscience (he knows that salem was right about what is necessary to fulfill his task, that uniting the whole world under one creed is impossible except by genocidal conquest, and he cannot bring himself to do it because it’s wrong). he’s trying very hard to do the right thing in a situation where he genuinely believes his only options are to commit genocide for his god or sacrifice the whole world for his love and he is desperate to figure out a third option that does not end with "rocks fall everybody dies;" thence the lies and manipulation and all the miserable moral sacrifices he’s ever made.

6. the reason this is an ozlem house, in the sense that my reading of the narrative in its entirety is predicated on the ozlem reconciliation, is that salem and ozma are two sides of a coin: she is doing terrible things in pursuit of a world where the gods aren’t holding a knife to remnant’s throat and he has done terrible things for the sake of the same. their conflict isn’t evil-vs-good, but apostate-vs-zealot; salem believes the gods can and must be defied and ozma believes her defiance is doomed to failure. salem tells him that in order to unite the world he needs to spread his word and crush all who deny him; as the king of vale, ozma uses the divine relic of destruction to lay waste to not only his enemies but even his own allies, thus he forges the vytal accords that established the united global order in which the story takes place. he’s a better person than she is—because she’s been living in exile for thousands of years and her capacity for caring about other people has withered away to almost nothing as a consequence—but they are in every sense equals.

7. the narrative is overtly not on ozpin’s side? he has a whole atonement arc about it in atlas—& this is why i made the comparison to uwuified fanon cinder earlier, because the framing with regard to ozpin is very emphatically clear that he does a lot of things that are not good, and are in fact pretty sinister and in some cases (amber, pyrrha) outright evil, and he has to make the choice and put in real meaningful effort to be better. i don’t think there’s anything to be gained from ignoring what is plainly in the text of the story, especially when rwby is categorically disinterested in sorting its characters into neat little good-or-bad boxes. there’s no such thing as pure evil—that’s been the explicit textual conceit since volume one—and the implied converse is that there’s no such thing as pure good, either. (which is a conceit that ozlem exemplifies.)

8. i threw a fucking PARTY when we found out salem razed vale, i get the vapors every time i think about what sort of narrative escalation we can expect in V10 given that something as huge as razing vale can happen off screen to set the stakes for vacuo. not that i don’t also adore characters who are good or who (like oz in v7-8) grow and change to become better, because i do, but i really can’t emphasize enough how much i Do Not hate fictional characters on the basis of them doing awful things. what i want from a character is for them to be interesting, which ozpin is. what you’re perceiving as me hating on him is me dissecting him under a microscope because i love him to bits.

9. the ozlem screeds will continue until morale improves

[uhohbestie]

guys. it took me two days to finally catch up and HOLY SHIT

WHAT A WILD ASS EMOTIONAL ROLLER COASTER

for the first 20 or so chapters i was living my best life thinking that through all the strife, the troubles, the tribulations scarian would stick strong

THEN BOOM

BIG B APPEARS AND I NEAR LOST MY DAMN MIND-

literally cannot wait to see where this goes, i know i joined the bandwagon near the end but know that 1) i was absolutely thriving when karlnapity appeared (i. i miss them so much) and 2) yall were not lying about this being a journey of scarian realizing polyamory existed as ksq, clethubs, and pops and his partners popped up BAHAHA

genuinely though this fic is absolutely amazing, an angsty-fun mix of sugar, spice, and everything nice as scarian tries to navigate the end of the world and i cant see where it goes next uwu <3

INDIE!!!! WE'RE SO GLAD YOU READ TAMN!!!!!! WELCOME WELCOME!!

I think you, more than anyone, were our target audience for the KSQ arc 💜💙🧡 Getting to spend time with them again, and then hope they're off to better things the second they leave Scarian behind :')

BUT ALSO: YA LMAO, when you take out all the zombies and angst, TAMN is 300k of Grian and Scar going "damn, every single of version of poly is Not For Us." They systematically go through every permutation just to end up at "unfortunately, this would not fix us." (Scar may have two hands, but Grian is the ultimate Handful....)

Seriously tho, SO glad you're enjoying the fic, Indie!!!! The best part about getting into TAMN this far in, is that at this point it can't possibly get worse ;) 🔒

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 民国奇探/My Roommate is a Detective.

My Roommate is a Detective is a 2020 drama about the Jazz Age shenanigans of a terrible OT3: a useless noodle boy, a spoiled journalist girl, and a handsome thug-turned-cop, who together solve Agatha Christie mysteries in 1920s Shanghai.

I mean, seriously, have you ever wondered what Hercule Poirot would be like if he were a 6'2" Chinese rubber man? If he had a long-suffering sugar daddy from the wrong side of the tracks and a spunky sugar mommy who owned their shared apartment? The answer is, it would be a laugh-out-loud-funny series about a ridiculous and charming assortment of weirdos solving only slightly believable murder mysteries in charming period clothing.

This is another one of those shows where I'm kind of shocked at how not well-known it is, except I'm not, because I can see exactly the problems that keep fandom from descending on it like horny little vultures. Nonetheless, I think it's a good time that more people would enjoy if they gave it the chance. Here's five reasons why you should:

1. Equal parts smart as heck and dumb as butts

On the one hand, especially given its tone and tenor, this show has many surprisingly clever turns and thoughtful moments, carried along by some talented actors. On the other hand, [.gif of a guinea pig in a rollerskate being pushed merrily down a hallway]

This show is not a complicated intellectual exercise. It's an action comedy about a goofy sleuth, a rich-girl reporter, and the cop who should be the straight man in this trio, except he's as much of a goober as the other two are. If the promotional tableaus are giving you real "cover of a Clue box" vibes, you've understood the kind of pastiche it's pulling off.

The mysteries are preposterous. They're all the kind of thing that exemplify the Doyle line about how, when you've eliminated the impossible, whatever's left has got to be the answer, no matter how ding-dang improbable it may be. You know the type: tons of overly elaborate setups, unbelievably perfect timing, coincidental long-lost relatives, people hallucinating right and left. They're also very short -- most full cases take only 2-3 episodes to introduce, investigate, and resolve, even when interspersed with the larger goings-on in these weirdos' lives. The DramaWiki page for the show lists 23 separate arcs over 36 episodes, so you do the math.

And yet, it's way more thoughtful and clever than its doofy little setup would indicate. Its attention to detail surprised me on more than one occasion. Add to that a bunch of solid performances from an ensemble of real characters, and what you get is definitely more substantive than a junk-food waste of time. You can't turn your brain off while watching it, but you sure can turn it down, and that's great.

It also doesn't hurt that everyone is super attractive and wearing great outfits. The whole show's worth it for the wardrobes.

2. THE GIRL

Fuck the haters, fuck everyone, I am going to climb right up on my little soapbox and tell you all why Bai Youning is awesome.

She is insane. She's a troll. She's a clever little monster. Every other character's response to her is, oh my god, you are literally the worst. And she is! She has been spoiled beyond belief by her incredibly rich Crime Dad, and she has learned to leverage her uwu just a widdle girl status to get her whatever the hell she wants. She simply cannot hear it when someone says the word "no." She will look her future sister-in-law in the eye and point a loaded gun at her own head without blinking. Every ball she has is made of brass.

She's hardly perfect. During the course of the show, there are some times where her entitlement runs face-first into the brick wall of reality. She's not nearly as good at her chosen career path as she's been told (mostly by the people who get paid to tell her she's good). She's rarely prepared to deal with the consequences of her actions, especially when she can't just throw money at the problem.

So she learns, and grows, and changes. She's always going to be a stubborn bitch, but she can become a stubborn bitch with a more accurate conception of her relationship to the world around her.

She's actually a really good romantic foil for Lu Yao, who is equally stubborn and spoiled and obnoxious as hell. It is a pure brat4brat relationship, where each one thrives on comically enraging the other. What this means, though, is that when they actually start showing one another some vulnerability, it's really sweet.

Now: I'm pretty sure that you could not have made a female character in her position that everyone did not hate, no matter how cool you made her, because that is the fate of all girls who theoretically keep the two boys from kissing. (More on that next point.) If she were less outgoing and friendly, she would've been hated for being too cold. If she were less headstrong, she would've been hated for being a pushover. If she weren't as into the boy, she would've been hated for being frigid. I know the "god forbid a woman do anything" meme is a joke, but ... man, god forbid this girl do anything. She gets a level of hate entirely disproportionate to what she's actually like. As I said with Eom Dada, it's not always sexism, but sometimes, yeah, it's sexism.

(Real talk: Her character is also fighting both how she's definitely not written as well as the boys are and how the plot sometimes needs her to be artificially stupid and jealous for Straightness Drama Reasons, so that's a legit problem on a structural level. Also, she's dubbed by someone else and the boys aren't, which gives her voice an annoying not-quite-there quality that's hard to ignore. The deck is stacked against her real hard even before she steps onscreen.)

So here's my advice: Go into this show wanting to like her. Embrace her terribleness as a positive, intentional quality. Don't be mad at her for straightening up an endgame that was never going to be gay, even without her. Welcome her contributions to the chaos. Realize that she is exactly as entertainingly irritating as her boys are.

Truly, this is a story of three terrible people in love. They're all just awful, and you wouldn't want to be in a room with any of them for longer than you had to. Left to right up there, Bai Youning is spoiled and self-absorbed, Lu Yao is arrogant and lazy, and Qiao Chusheng is suuuuuch a fucking cop. If you're into the kind of dynamic that can only be described OT3: You All Deserve One Another, then this one's perfect for you.

3. Do you really miss '00s queerbaiting?

Like, really? Are you just super-nostalgic for being able to see the showrunners go, ha ha, girls, we know you're watching and we know you want these cute boys to kiss, which they never will -- but what if we pretended for just this one scene??? Do you just carnally ache for that with every fiber of your being?

Yep.

Now, why am I calling the occasional really gay moments between these two gentlemen "queerbaiting" and not "bromance"? Because these moments are a) obviously intentional, b) completely sporadic, and c) never spoken of again.

For example: There's a scene (which you can see a gifset of here) where the two of them are at a restaurant frequented by the cop, who brings a lot of ladies there on dates. When the waiter points this out, useless noodle boy says, I'm his date. The waiter looks mildly surprised by this, the cop says not to listen to his bullshit, and that's the end of it. The scene moves on. There is no further discussion of this comment. It does not affect their relationship.

That's the essence of queerbaiting: that little on-purpose nod to the homoerotic tension between the two, in a way that isn't a joke but also isn't not a joke, and either way is never going to happen. (In fact, the show is going to go out of its way to make sure that ship gets sunk, so, uh, get your fanfiction lifeboats ready for that.)

A true queerbaiting move is something that should make a difference in a relationship, but doesn't. It should make a difference that our cop is so comfortable in the noodle boy's personal space that he invades it at will. It doesn't. It should make a difference that noodle boy keeps getting real weird every time the cop has a date with a girl. It doesn't. Those are some real romantic moves the two of them keep pulling, and then nothing comes of them.

I had this show sold to me as being incredibly shippy, to the point of being even more so than its censored-BL contemporaries. And ... well, it is and it isn't. It has textually gayer individual moments, but it is much less pervasively gay. It's clear from the start that it's going to throw all its actual relationship points into its canon het romance. When it comes to these boys, the show is toying with you. It knows you want to see those boys smooch, just as much as it knows (and it knows you know) they're never gonna.

How you feel about this is entirely up to you -- and indeed, it may be a dealbreaker on the whole drama for you. If you are inclined to pitch a fit when your ship does not become canon, you'll be happier somewhere else. If, however, you see this as a delightful opportunity to do whatever the hell you want with the situation as it is presented, all the while enjoying little moments of startlingly blatant homoeroticism between two handsome dudes, well, here you are!

(I mean, if you want my take on it, what needs to happen is that the cop and the girl need to fuck while the useless noodle boy watches with asexual bisexual interest, and then they all need to snuggle with the noodle boy in the middle so they can both annoy him appropriately, but your mileage may vary.)

4. The multicultural extravaganza!

1920s Shanghai had a lot going on in terms of cultures and languages, and this show actually does a fair job of representing that.

By now, I've seen a number of shows set during this era, and they all at least acknowledge the international nature of the city -- usually by mentioning the French Concession and having a handful of evil Japanese characters. However, this is the first time I've seen a show go to such lengths to actually show so many non-Chinese characters onscreen, even to the point of making one a recurring character supporting the main squad.

Salim is the best. Whatever he is being paid, it's not enough. He's Qiao Chusheng's right-hand man, which means he is also the dude who most often has to put up the main trio's bullshit. (The actor himself is also a dude with a pretty cool backstory, which is another great layer.) He's sharp, he's loyal, he's patient, and he looks great with his shirt off. He's got it all!

Other non-Chinese characters include a white Jewish art collector (I'd issue a warning for period-typical antisemitism, except … honestly, it's mostly just confused), a sadistic priest who maybe is supposed to be Italian, a completely different priest who [last episode spoiler], and three whole sinister white dudes behind it all.

It's not just the world coming to China, though! A large number of the Chinese characters are said to have spent significant time outside of China, whether for business or for schooling. Near the end, when some characters are discussing moving away from Shanghai, they consider a number of foreign cities as potential destinations.

Here's a delightful detail: When Lu Yao and his sister speak English, they're dubbed by actors with posh British accents who sound like native (or near-native) English-speakers. This makes perfect sense, because both of the siblings did a lot of their schooling in the UK. When Bai Youning speaks English, she's dubbed by someone who speaks English very well but also has a noticeable Chinese accent, which makes perfect sense for her character's background. And Qiao Chusheng never speaks English at all, because he's a street tough who has no reason to know more than three words.

...This is also kind of weird to say about something literally made in China, but go with me on it: Everything's kind of got that Art Deco Orientalist vibe to it. It looks like China's idea of what Britain's idea of China during that period would have looked like. The result comes across less like what 1920s Shanghai would actually have looked like, and more what an ad for 1920s Shanghai would have looked like. It's a fascinating aesthetic, and more so for how it's mostly pretty subtle. The show isn't some visual extravaganza, but it's always very nice to look at, and I appreciate that in a show.

5. A wonderful horrible protagonist

A lot of mystery-themed prestige television involves an asshole genius detective who gets away with being a dick to everyone because he's sooooo smart, while all his long-suffering friends and colleagues spend a lot of time doing damage control for him because, sigh, he's an asshole but we need him, genius excuses all dickhead behavior, we'll always make exceptions for him because he's just ever so special. (Watch histrionic sage hbomberguy's video on Sherlock if you're unfamiliar with the trope.)

Lu Yao is an asshole genius detective, but one who winds up spending most of his time being an asshole to a) people who deserve it, or b) his horrible friends who will be assholes right back at him. When he is awful to the people who don't deserve it, the show smacks him pretty hard on the nose for it and makes him apologize.

This is a show where you'll figure out pretty quckly if you'll love it or hate it, because if you love Lu Yao, you'll love it, and vice versa. He carries most of the show himself, with his goofy charm and his incredibly bendy slenderman body and his ability to make the one competent person he knows both protect him and give him money.

Like so.

For my own part, I find him intensely charming, and I think a lot of this has to do with Hu Yitian's ability to play him as an affectionately bullyable weenie who needs to get shoved in a locker for his own good. He's the worst, and it's comically endearing instead of offputting because at the end of the day, he really does have a good heart. He's just also lazy as heck and disinclined to do anything that he does not want to be doing, and really, aren't we all?

As I alluded to in point 3, he comes across as real asexual. He's just not that interested in sex, and he is in fact pretty uncomfortable in situations where he finds himself the subject of someone else's sexual desires. He's perfectly capable of romantic feelings! I mean, not only does he get Bai Youning as a love interest, we actually meet one of his ex-girlfriends. He's just not partciularly horny about them -- which is even more noticeable as a sharp contrast to how extremely horny Qiao Chusheng is for just about everyone, but this exasperating little dork in particular.

(Like seriously, 90% of the time, Chusheng is about to explode with sexual frustration at Lu Yao's skinny oblivious ass.)

This isn't to say you couldn't get Lu Yao into bed, because you absolutely could, and he'd probably have a good time. You'd just have to remove all distractions from the room, lest his ADHD ass wind up running off to solve a crime mid-coitus.

Twiggy little nightmare man. Garbage-animal boy. Love him.

sidebar: A word about the ending

I'm going to be vague and talk about general vibes instead of specific events, but you should still skip this section if you want to remain completely unspoiled. Jump to the picture of Chusheng holding the sledgehammer.

Okay, so, a lot of people do not like the ending, and I'm including myself in that number. I honestly don't know if they got rushed and had to wrap everything pretty last-minute, or if they thought they might get a second season out of it and were leaving things open-ended accordingly. Either way, it's incredibly unsatisfying.

I think there's a clue that the show didn't actually want to end this way, and it's not actually in the text of the show itself. Every episode, between the last scene and the start of the credits, you get to see a couple still frames from the episode (usually some of the queerbaity ones). After the very final shot of the series, you get two images: the boys hugging goodbye, and Chusheng's upset face. That's not a resolution! That is at best a "to be continued..." ending!

But no, that's it. That's all, folks.

It's not quite an ending so bad it ruins the rest of the show, mostly because it doesn't feel finished, so it's less like you're watching a car being deliberately driven into a wall because someone thought that was the best route to take, and more like you're watching someone leave a car on the railroad tracks because they figured they'd have time to move it later.

As far as I know, there has been no noise made about a second season. These 36 episodes are the entirety of the narrative. It had the distinct misfortune to start airing in March 2020, which wasn't exactly prime time for planning sequels, and that seems to have been that. (There is a 2022 show called Checkmate that stars the two main guys in extremely similar roles, also adapting Agatha Christie stories, but it's apparently pretty meh? Somebody else who's actually seen it, go ahead and weigh in here.)

I'll say that if you turn off the episode right after Lu Yao gets out the handcuffs, you'll save yourself the worst of it the awkward and unsatisfying moments (though I'm impressed at your willpower to stop watching something five minutes from the end). That's not all of it, though. Structurally, there are several situations rushed to a resolution and loose threads left flapping untied in the breeze. I guess stopping before the last five minutes simply saves you the hope that it'll pull a good ending out of the fire, because it won't.

And let's be real: The more you hate Bai Youning and her romance with Lu Yao, the more you'll hate the ending. (Not that liking those elements will necessarily make you like the ending, of course, because I'm a fan of hers and I still think the ending is butts.) The ending is already like a pair of uncomfortable shoes; if the het romance especially makes you grind your teeth, the ending becomes a pair of uncomfortable shoes that also have a rock in them. A lot of the comments online indicate plenty of people dropped the show when they learned the het romance would be endgame. It's a pretty common dealbreaker.

Oh well. Bring on the fanfic, I say! Those of us who are used to taking a sledgehammer to canon are unafraid.

Smash it, baby.

Still want to see some of these mysteries?

Both iQiyi and Viki have the answer to your sleuthing!

It's not a perfect show -- as evidenced by my digression about the ending -- but it's a lot of fun. If you can handle the occasional foible and some eyebrow-raising moments, you're in for a good time with some attractive people that occasionally tastes very gay.

Every roommate crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed man

[chickenoptyrx]

You do so right by z Broly, you understand his potential. Your au with him and Trunks is a delight

Glad we all appreciate my blatant misrepresentation of the character 😌 im partly joking but man fr, 12 year old me would hate that instead of him bein a badass edgy monster, I draw him as.. *checks notes* .. an immature loser with bad coping mechanisms uwu

Ok but in true ask tradition! :U im hijacking this ask to talk about a dumb theory thats been rolling around in my head for like 2 years now: android 16 and broly similarities:

Ok so. If you aren't aware. The android arc of dragon ball was originally going to focus on the androids 19 & 20 and trunks even names them specifically

But Toriyamas former editor, Kazuhiko Torishima, didn't like them as the main antagonists and so Toriyama changed it to focus on 17 & 18 as the bad guys and introduced 16 as a sort of mystery

Now. This gets almost completely dropped once that same former editor ALSO doesn't like these androids and cell becomes the main villian for the arc (yeah yeah, the bomb thing is technically *there*, but its so inconsequential most people forget its even a thing :T )

So. Idk exactly when movie 8 went into production, but we know Brolys LSSJ form was inspired by trunks SSJ grade3 form that appears several chapters after cell has been introduced and the androids have become power-up fodder, so im gonna argue its safe to say the decision to move away from their story had been made

(side tangent that I find absolutely hilarious btw- despite gokus commentary in the HTC, SSJ grade 3 was the strongest form of ssj we saw at this point, so its pretty appropriate to use it as the basis of the strongest scariest ssj form.... rrriiiiiiiiggght up until toriyama introduced SSJ2 on Feb 2, 1993- near exactly 1 month before the first Broly movie hit theaters. Completely undermined what, up til then, looked like a trend in stronger form = bigger and beefier right as the big beefy strongest guy ever movie came out 🤣 absolutely love it!)

So anyways. The movies overall also tend to have varying degrees of similarities with recent arcs in the show and Toriyama, while not overly involved, would give the studio designs and story notes. And. Idk. Yall can tell me im reaching if ya want, but: A guy who's made into a weapon by his father who's on a quest for revenge and has this conflicting view of his son as both someone he feels he failed to protect, someone he cares about, but also as a tool for that revenge, and someone who's destructive power hes become deeply afraid of.. now where have we seen somethin like that 🤔 may be an extra reach but I also think its neat that despite their different face shape, Toriyamas gave em the same expression

Lol they're also both just ridiculously tall bastards. Like for no gd reason. And yeah, to me atleast, it explains why hating goku specifically gets shoehorned into brolys backstory (listen I can absolutely do the mental gymnastics to make it make sense! I'm fine with it! Its fine! I actually like it! ... but it IS a dumb shoehorned plot point! Both things can be true D:< ) look just lookit these tall ass shits

Anyway. My last note is just this statement from Toriyama about 16 and Gero. The way gero is presented is really in line with how I see Paragus as this tragic failure of a father- honestly caring about his kid, but letting grief and revenge drive him into conflicting corners where he wants revenge FOR the life denied his son, but also actively shaping his son into such a terrifying weapon that ultimately hed rather his kid just never be conscious cause thats the 'only way to keep them safe'

“Dr. Gero’s son who died young a long time ago served as the visual model for Android 16. He was a high-ranking soldier for the Red Ribbon Army but was shot down by the enemy. Dr. Gero reserved special feelings for 16 as “his son,” and although he equipped 16 with immense power and a frightening destructive device, he didn’t want to see him be defeated on the battlefield and thus programmed him to have a gentle personality. 16 was consequently considered a failed creation.” The smaller caption below Toriyama’s quote reads: “Was the reason Dr. Gero didn’t want to activate 16 perhaps because of his parental love to not see him destroyed?”

[flower-boi16]

How Ozzie's Doesn't Matter in Season 2

When Ozzie's came out, it initially seemed like a big turning point for the series; we were all very excited to see how these events would playout in Season 2. Unfortunately, Season 2 completely disappoints when it comes to Ozzie's (just like pretty much EVERYTHING), as, what was once a big turning point for the show feels like it doesn't matter, having little consequences in the season. Let's get into why.

1. Stolas and Blitz's relationship

Ozzie's ended with Blitz cutting Stolas out and telling him he was very upset that their relationship was just about Stolas fucking him and nothing else. Now, you'd think that things would be more awkward after that, that there would be some tension between the two after it....except no.

The next time they see each other in Seeing Stars, they act as if Ozzie's never happened and interact like everything's normal. This set off a lot of fans obviously, as this was very jarring for them to go back to normal after such a major event for them. Then Western Energy came around and made things worse by resolving off-screen with a blink and you'll miss it text message.

So Blitz and Stolas' dynamic does not change at all in Season 2 despite how the last season ended their relationship, there's no tension between them at all and they just pretend like nothing happened, and, to add insult to injury, they made it get resolved with a text message.

Then Oops came along and suddenly things were different? Like, the conflict with Stolas getting the crystal seems to be continuing the feud him and Blitz had when Ozzie's ended...but, when the consequences of the episode have been completely ignored up until this point, having it suddenly matter NOW six episodes in feels like too-little-too-late.

You can't have the consequences of an episode not matter for five episodes and then have it suddenly matter now, it's better to have those consequences matter the whole way through rather than whenever the show FEELS like it wants them to matter.

But I'm done talking about that, let's get into...

2. Stolas becoming a better person

With Blitz telling Stolas that he doesn't want to fuck him anymore, you'd think this could set up an arc for Stolas where he ends up realizing his mistakes and decides to become a better person...

...except no. Season 2 chucks away any real potential for Stolas as a character and, instead of making him realize his mistakes and decide to grow from them, Season 2 decides to woobify Stolas and coddle him for his mistakes, and demonizes any character who dares get mad at what he's done to them.

Stolas could have been easily the best character in the whole show; somebody who realizes his mistakes and decides to make amends and grow from them, but season 2 completely destroyed that in favor of making Stolas an UwU soft boy who did nothing wrong (despite doing a LOT OF SHIT WRONG but ok). It threw away any potential for an interesting arc for Stolas because it's too busy coddling and woobifying him to do that. Now let's get into...

3. Stolas being found out

In Ozzie's, Asmodeus exposed Stolas for sleeping with an Imp, making it seem like a big deal that would have consequences in season 2...but it doesn't. I already talked about this in my post about Hellaverese' world-building issues but Stolas has not received any real consequences so far for sleeping with Blitz, so what's even the point of making it out to be such a big deal if Stolas was NEVER going to face consequences for it at all?

Stolas being found out doesn't matter despite the show making it out to be a big deal because Stolas has received NO punishment or consequences for this at all despite Ozzie's trying to imply otherwise.

4. Conclusion

So ya, that's how Ozzie's in Season 2 doesn't matter. For an episode that was supposed to be this big turning point for a lot of things in the show, Season 2 completely ignores all the consequences of the episode, making it feel completely and utterly meaningless.

[ungodly-amounts-of-godly-trauma]

wotw round 1

propaganda under the cut!

connor mckinley:

okay so basically prev propaganda but the part i wrote about the song where they repress their trauma. connor leads that song. so anyway connor is the district leader of the district nine mormons in uganda. during his song he talks about how he is gay and represses his gay thoughts forcibly (religious trauma wooo) but ANYWAY. so long story short post canon everyone characterizes him as some feminine gay twinkboy who is incapable of doing anything whereas people characterize kevin as some big strong alpha male who dominates him. its terrible. kevin is literally the one who has no special talents unless you count evangelizing which yes hes good at but only in america, once he gets to uganda he fails. CONNOR on the other hand was appointed a district leader position which means that he has a strong sense of leadership and is able to control a bunch of nineteen year old boys which takes a lot of mental strength. he also dances/takes dance class so you KNOW hes fit/athletic and you KNOW hes lifting the girls for routines so if either of them were going to be strong it would be connor. JUST BECAUSE HE WEARS PINK ONCE AND HAS A PART IN HIS SONG ABOUT BEING GAY AND SAYS "OH EM GOSH YOU GUYS" DOESNT MEAN HE IS INCAPABLE OF ANYTHING AT ALL!!!!!!! HE IS SO CAPABLE!!!!! DUDE REPRESSED EVERY NEGATIVE FEELING HE HAD AND HAD SO MUCH INTERNAL HATRED AND DEALT WITH HELLDREAMS EVERY NIGHT AND STILL TOOK LEAD OF A DOZEN 19 YEAR OLDS IN UGANDA. HE IS VERY VERY CAPABLE.

white:

ok since his twin is like the super edgy anarchist biker guy, people then go "okay and this is the sweeter softer one of the two <3." it doesn't help that like his story arc is him going from like a socially liberal centrist who doesn't understand systematic inequality to eventually you know, being an official part of the anarchist biker gang, because that means at the start when the gang was doing some more morally dubious things he went "guyssss we shouldn't do those things" and then people stuck with that and forgot that his opinion on such things changes. like his whole thing is being strategic and subtle while Black, his twin, is about dramatic public actions. like by the end he doesn't disagree with Black's methods, he just thinks manipulating things in such a manner to raise public support that doesn't alienate their cause from more moderate folks is important. he has diplomat training and cares about pr, he's not a pacifist.

also I feel like people erase his bisexuality a lot too because he's endgame with Sean and then also go and make him the uwu innocent one in their relationship. like babes are we forgetting the opening scene of him as an adult is after he hooked up with his girlfriend in Russia (that he might have been living with? unclear, it was only one scene). also don't forget that he made out with Eugene. he didn't have to do that. anyways he's not an uwu so innocent gay boy who has never progressed pass kissing before.

[ariaterramoon]

Sketch Dump - Doodle Requests Pg 2 More doodle requests from Instagram uwu

The first one is Sarai on her way to the Eastern Caverns :3 That's an arc imma explore eventually uwu

And people wanted more SaraixTwist ehehe so, them on a date nightttt aaaaa too cute

And a doodle of a moot's oc, Iris (terra.revengers)

Pg 1: Here

Pg 3: Here