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honeybunhalo · 3 years

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Kara/Lena adopt Superboy AU Notes (Part 1)

I’m finally delivering on the content for this Supercorp AU

This is a Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor and Superboy (Kon-El) centric story. Specifically focused on exploration of one's identity and how you define yourself with the many aspects of your life and choices you made as well as what you consider important and precious to you. The effects of being constrained by how you were born and finding those who love you for who you are and don't ask you to change the core of your being to fit in. — this is not an action packed story at all.

Here are some of the ideas I have for this or things I thought Kon had in common with Lena and Kara that I find compelling.

Lena concepts:

Lena gets to know another Luthor, her biological nephew, who isn’t a trash person and is someone to not just for her to protect but who’s existence assures her that it isn’t blood that makes someone bad and maybe she isn’t so different from other people and she’s not “irredeemable”. Sometimes he reminds her of her older brother when he was kind to her growing up. Likewise, everyone usually sees the Lex in Kon as an inherently bad thing and thus he learns to hide it and hate himself for it. Lena presents an alternate because she remembers bittersweetly a simpler time when she looked up to her brother. Not everyone sees the Luthor genes in him as a threat, Lena finds it comforting to be able to help someone like her in a way she was never helped as a young girl.

Lena thinks she can’t interact with kids well, much less the kid Lex had grown in a lab, but she totally warms up to him and can talk to him about familial rejection (via Clark) and if it’s because he’s a Luthor and if that makes him wrong. Is it because he’s artificial? Is it because he’s some strange illegitimate lab child? Smothering this kid with love and protection.

Plus Kon is like Kara in more than just being kryptonian but also in dorkiness. Lena’s life is just trying to wrangle an overpowered golden retriever and her lab puppy. She can’t stay mad at them for long.

Lena finding she is capable of loving and being loved and being with Kara makes it harder to ignore the crush she has on Kara. They talk together about love and acceptance now they have a shared kid they don’t want to hide personal things from that could later hurt him and many things become open secrets in their now shared house. Soon enough, it becomes obvious she needs to be truthful with Kara about her own feelings for her.

Lena could learn about the difficulties of hiding being an alien that Kara had to deal with and the onslaught and exhaustion of developing powers in young kryptonians. She gets to see first hand what it does to a child and wonders how that must have affected Kara’s emotional development and sense of self.

Lillian and Lex won’t get anywhere near this kid if Lena has something to say about it. Lena knows what it’s like to be the odd one out in a family and for people to reject you for simply existing from other people's sins

Kara concepts:

Kara recounts how she felt like a failure waking up on earth to find out Kal had grown up without her. Now she can maybe make peace with that by taking in Kon even if everything that motivates her choices with him is primarily for kons sake.

Kara can share with another person krypton's history and culture which is something she’s had to keep seperate from her primary identity for years now *cough* it’s almost like she’s an immigrant who has to hide her identity and culture to be accepted and you could use that in the story *cough*

Kon lived through being created as a lab rat and the only living experiment left. Kara could sympathize with his own grief from her experience with survivors’ guilt.

Being open with Kon so that he doesn’t feel that same overwhelming pressure when she was told to hide with a human family also gives room for Lena to learn more about the world Kara came from beyond what she knows from interviews from Superman. Having Kara speak openly about her life on Krypton is much more personal and feels much more real than any article could do.

Teaching Kon how best to control his powers and her and Lena being able to have the resources for him to do so safely

Alex is very alarmed by the new addition to the family, mostly because how shitty Clark was in relation to the kid. From her perspective, this is not the first time the guy has dumped an unwanted kryptonian child on someone else’s doorstep. Whatever, she gets to buy leather jackets for her new nephew and be scary overprotective of him. “I don’t care if you think you’re nearly invulnerable at your age, do you have ANY IDEA what type of trouble your mother got us into when we were growing up? Or even when she just started hero work?”

Conner Kon-Cepts:

His sort-of-aunts can be his adoptive moms and be much better to him than his biological dads ever were to him in the comic canon. Kon actually being allowed to be close to other Superman family members!!! I need it like the air I breathe. Kon could get to know a Luthor that isn’t trying to hurt him or use him. Someone who defies part of why (Kon thinks) Superman could never accept a thing like him.

(I have too many things to say to put in a brief bullet point just know that he’s my fav little boy and I think that he deserves parents who would love him unconditionally and Lena and Kara deserve to live a slower life where they can be cute and domestic)

(If he’s raised by these two then I can give a solid reason as to why we just ignore all the blatant misogynistic and horny writing from the 90s comics that made me really uncomfortable and didn’t completely fit with his given backstory especially with how over the top the specialization was. It helps make up for that)

Kon has to deal with being constantly compared to his two genetic fathers mirroring how Kara and Lena both are constantly being compared to Superman and Lex Luthor as they are the female counterparts of those two more infamous members in their respective families

Kara and Kon have very complementary stories and could become what the other needs to fill a hole in each of their hearts. Canon is way too personally tragic. I’d rather have a bittersweet world that’s also soft so I can spend more time with slow paced character analysis.

(In the beginning, Kon’s much more timid given he’s still so young and is coping with being rejected by superman. The tone at the beginning of the story is very serious. As the story unfolds, kon will loosen up to be goofier like his comic counterparts personality)

Both Clark and Lex don’t deserve this kid in any way. If all they are gonna do is mistreat or neglect him in their own ways, Kon is better off with his aunts.

Conclusion:

Kara and Lena can be happy together by fully trusting themselves with each other in domestic bliss for once AND Kon doesn’t have to cry his eyes out knowing he’s an unwanted experiment child who is “undeserving” of family and home who never got to experience childhood

Everyone who's always saying “you can’t trust a Luthor” better shut their trap when Kara walks in with Kon-El Luthor, her newly adopted son, and her fiancé, Lena Luthor. These new moms will tear you apart if you try to instill that internal hatred of being a Luthor in their son’s young mind.

Kara and Lena both defying what people say about them and instead raising a well adjusted boy from both their warring families.

Kon is gonna be raised by a true power couple.

DC refuses to deliver on giving this boy a home or parents so I’m gonna do it instead. Just look at the family they could be together:

(FYI: This has nothing to do with the version of Superboy in the Young Justice cartoon TV show, so if you’re only familiar with that you may be a bit confused about this Superboy who that one was loosely based on. This whole punk fitted kid is indeed a real character and I stay pretty close to his original design from 1993.)

#Supercorp #Supergirl #Kara Danvers #Lena Luthor #Conner Kent #Superboy #Kon-El #Kara Zor-El #my art #my au #Supercorp + Kon AU #Supercorp and Superboy AU #long post #Feel free to comment or tag because I love reading peoples reactions/ideas about this #i just have a lot of feelings about this

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Lilo and Stitch Crossovers: “Morpholomew” (American Dragon Long): Stop Trying to Make Am Drag a Thing (Commisson Done For WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people! And welcome to a brand new retrospective/story arc/thing from yours truly, comissoned directly by WeirdKev27. If you’d like to comission your own review or set of reviews like this one, it’s 5 bucks. Just contact me via my ask box or direct messages on this very blog or my discord technicolormuk#6550.

With Shadow Into Light in the books, Kev decided he wanted to comission something not duck related and a bit smaller as a buffer before the next big arc, ALL of three arcs from season 2 of Ducktales, and decided to go with something he suggested to be a while back as a possible future retrospective: The Lilo and Stitch Crossover episodes!

That’s right for the next three weeks, with TWO reviews this week since I had a spot open up and Kev paid for this one in full and way in advance, we’ll be taking a trip to Hawaii to visit everyone’s faviorte little girl, her best friend/pet/killing machine as they try to find homes for his 625 cousins.

I loved Lilo and Stitch when I was a kid: Disney admitely got their hooks in me on that one with their cool prequel comics in disney adventures. These comics set up the movie, showing Jumba creating Stitch and the events leading up to both getting captured. The movie did not disapoint with cool character designs, a drop dead gorgeous recreation of Hawaii, and a really heartfelt, heartbreaking and heartpumping story of loss, family, and ving rahmes voicing one of the few heroic child services workers i’ve seen in a medium, a refreshing change of pace. The film is a masterpiece and I really do need to watch it again sometime.

Given the series was a huge hit and that thsi was before the big lull in the late 2000′s and early 2010′s where Disney refused to make any tv shows based on their movies, a series followed, given a lead in by the direct to video movie Stitch.

The movie set up the basic premise; 624 capsules containing Jumba’s previous experiments, cousins as Stitch calls them, ended up raining over Kauai, awakening when dropped into water or any other liquid. Lilo and Stitch, with help from Jumba, his live in boyfriend Pleakley, her tought but fair sister Nani, and her boyfriend David, who dosen’t show up as much as i’d like but is my boy so he gets a mention here. But anyways our heroes try to reform the various engines of distructoin who all have unique powers and find them their one place they truly belong.

So yes the show was a Mons-type show clearly captalizing off pokemon.. but the slice of life setting as opposed to the shonen style of most shows following in pokemon’s wake, gave it it’s own unique feel: while our heroes did fight, it was more about shenanigans, adventures and what not with these unique creatures and the purpose is very heartflet: Lilo simply wants to give these guys the same kind of love and support she’s given Stitch and a chance to do good.

Opposing them is Gantu, the shark bounty hunter from the first film who, now out of a job, is working for Dr. Hamstervile, an imprisoned sceintest and a character I really don’t like that much as he’s not funny or a genuine threat or both and feels like a waste of time. Thankfully he’s not the focus and Gantu is instead partnered with 625, my faviorite Lilo and Stitch character. 625, as the name suggests, is stitch’s immediate prototype.. but unlike Stitch is too lazy and peaceful to be a real threat and isn’t even really a villian despite being on Gantu’s side. He’s busy making samwitches, his calling to the point when he gets a name in the finale movie it’s naturally Ruben, and snarking at gantu. He’s sadly not in this one but hopefully it’s JUST this one.

As you can tell I liked this show a LOT at the time. I haven’t watched it since, mostly because disney scarely replayed it after it’s run, but it was vibrant, fun and intresting and a nicely laidback and creative take. The fact I came into the franchise with the comics and thus 625, who was introduced there in fact, and had a hunger to know more about the other experiments certainly helped. It was great fun.

But while I grew up with the show and the four shows it teamed up with, i’ve never seen these episodes before these reviews. I wondered why for years as I caught the tail end of the kim possible one and saw images ocasionally, but never saw them.

Turns out it’s because in general Season 2 got screwed over. While Season 1 was pushed out the door fast and aired at a rapid pace Season 2.. was portioned out over several years, and the Recess crossover one, the last one aired and the last one i’ll be covering never even got to Disney channel, only airing on ABC kids, DIsney’s saturday morning block at the time I rarely watched. I did watch it’s predecessor one saturday morning though. Good stuff.

Since I couldn’t find any making of stuff for why these episodes happened, my best guess is DIsney wanted some cross promotion, and the shows used were chosen because they were the most popular at the time and honestly all 4 represent some of disney’s best, with Recess being in heavy reruns at the time, hence i’ts conclusion despite the show being finished before Lilo And Stitch the movie came out, let alone the series.

So yeah i’m taking this ride for the first time.. but I was happy to. While Kev pays for a lot of my work, I still have to accept the idea.. and this was a great one. It allows me to cover 5 amazing series and gage how much people would want to see reviews of said series on this blog in one fell swoop.

So to kick us off we have American Dragon: Jake Long, a series I waited forever to come to Disney + as I loved it at the time, badly need to rewatch it (Been busy ), and find it genuinely great: It’s a great teen superhero story about the magical protector of new york, with a charming lead, a great setting and horrifcally great villians in the violently racist magic creature hunting huntsclan.. and their top agent who happens to be jake’s love intrest Rose. It’s really excellent and i’m glad it’s now widely avaliable for all to see. I will say ahead that all four shows in this crossover arc are excellent, and were fine choices for this.

So what happens when an action comedy about a hip hop teenage dragon meets a slice of life show about aliens? Find out under the cut.

So we open at a fancy hotel where Lilo’s bringing lunch to her sister Nani when she runs into.. Keoni Jameson.

The second I remembered this kid all the hate just came flooding back, coursing through my veigns. Just pure liquid hatred for this little perosnalitiless little punk. Keoni is Lilo’s crush and local “stupid white audience stand in”. He has no real personality other than “generic cool kid” and “likes skating”, and just sucks the air out of the room anytime he’s in an episode. Keoni is part of a recurring problem in cartoons across the ages, one that’s slowly going away: the bland love intrest. Intorducing a character whose only traits are being cool for the lead to fawn over with usually no intent of either getting the two togehter or just ending it. IT’s annoying, it was in a good chunk of my childhood, I wish it’d stop. I cannot tell you how many shows used this trope. There were exceptions, American Dragon Jake Long actually used it well by not only making Rose a fleshed out character.. but making her jake’s nemisis in their other lives, and thus making things increidbly difficult on both once the truth comes out, with Jake grappling with if he can trust her or not and Rose grappling with the slow relization eveyrthing she was taught her whole life was wrong.

And again I have seen GOOD storylines using this as a tool: Dipper and Wendy ended with her having been aware teh whole time, but simply not knowing how to let him down given the age gap, and Regular Show rebounded the best from it: it turned the stop and start relatoinshpi of Mordecai and Margret’s relationship into a character flaw for him, openly explored it.. and ended up having him work past it and actually date her for a bit. Before she moved away, he got an even better love interest, then they destoryed the relationship in the worst way posisble and I wil lbe getting to that at some point. Some point.

So yeah even at the time it was done better, hindsight haas only made it worse and it made watching the first few minutes tough because I had to keep pasuing because I hate him so damn much. He just adds NOTHING to the show and is a blank yanwing void from which no good came out of and I was terrified he’d be in the rest of the episode. Thankfully while he drives the plot he’s only in this scene.. but it’s still one more scene than both 625 and Pleakly got. yeah both are missing, as is nani.

I did uncover one fun fact that made things a bit easier though: The crew ALSO hated Keoni. No really. Disney forced the character on them as they wanted an audience surrogate, and this abomination is what popped out. They DID NOT want him here and likely only used him as mcuh as they did because Disney forced it on them. And Disney would NOT learn from this as Star Vs got saddled with Alphonso and Ferguson soley because of network mandate. The two aren’t TERRIBLE characters but they aren’t great and feel as tacked on as they were. And part of this does fall on the crew: you CAN twist a stupid mandate like this to work well: Joe Murray was asked to add “A female character with a hook”, as in some sort of dumb gimmick to Rocko. He used those words, meant to create a superfical girl power cardboard cutout.. and created the wonderful Dr. Hutchenson, a bright cheery doctor, the series best sidecharacter.. and someone with a hook hand. But I won’t go too hard on them: they probably didn’t have as much room to manuver and the fact Keoni was sitll being shoved into episodes in season 2 tells me they likely had a set number of episodes he had to show up. I’m suprised they didn’t demand they have characters ask “Where’s Keonie?” any time he wasn’t in an episode. He was unecessary and it comes across with a massive chunk of unforutnate implications: that they didn’t think a series with a mostly hawaiann cast would work, that they wanted at least one other “nice” white character to offset myrtle instead of having the only major white character be a bully and antagonist, and that they thought tehir mostly white audience coudln’t enjoy a series without a white character, which as someone who was in the target demo at the time, I call bullshit on. As I said I hated him then, I hate him now and his involvement is the worst aspect of this episode.

So after Lilo fawns over him for a bit we find out this chonk of wood’s purpose in the episode: to set up the plot. There’s a massive Skate Competition coming to town with the prize being a really cool skateboard. This plot point itself.. I don’t mind. Jake is a skater, it’s part of his character and one of the things he loves doing in what minsicule spare time he has. And while it was a common trope at the time having a character skateboard really dosen’t harm most works. We’ve gotten great characters like Jake, Jackie Lynn Thomas, Branwen and Ronnie Anne Santiago out of it, and it feels like natural parts of the character, and frankly An Extremley Goofy Movie wouldn’t be NEARLY as awesome without having skateboarding bizzarley attached to the plot via the college x-games. Granted somtimes you get Rocket Power out of the deal but that’s the price you pay for the good stuff. I only regret it’s involved because Keoni has to be there and I had to pause multiple times to get through his scene. He’s just a sampler platter of terrible decisions made in 2000′s cartoons and he irritates me more than this guy.

And anyone whose read my Loud House reviews can tell you that is a high bar to clear.

So naturally Lilo wants to enter the Hawiann X-Games to get the board for Keoni. Though I will give the writers credit for having Stitch voice their thoughts and the audiences thoughts by having him take Keoni’s picture and throw it in the garbage. Where he belongs.

Lilo’s not great at it as they practice.. and said practice naturally ends up waking up a new experiment, 316.. who i’m just going to go ahead and call Morpholomew. Stitch eventually catches him though like many of the experiments he’s not actively malevelolent and is easy enough to get home.

Jumba gets to his schitck of breaking down what the experiment of the week does: In this case Morpholomew is a shapeshifter though he has a VERY intresting twist on those powers: while he can naturally morph himself into anything he’s seen or has a picture of, he can do the same to anyone he touches. It dosen’t effect their voices, but otherwise it’s a perfect recreation.

So Lilo instead of finding him a home right away.. decides to wait until after the compettition because we need him for the plot.

So at the Skateboard Competittion Lilo tries to enter, but finds she’s too young.. but since she has a picture of Keoni, which is a nice way to use her photo hobby from the movie for plot reasons and thus dosen’t feel like an ass pull. Why Keoni’s not in town to skate is as his dad left because it’d be too crowded.. even though the event is at the resort he owns.

So while Lilo commits identtity theft, our guest star appears. He’s cool, he’s hot like a frozen son, he’s young and fast he’s the chosen one, people i’m not braggin, i’ts the American Dragon. Jake is here for two reasons: the first is that Grandpa Long got reports of magical creatures out in the open, so naturally they need to look into that. It’s a clever way to get him, along with Grandpa, Fu, Trixie and Spud, over to Hawaii. The Dragon Council would defintely be suspcious hearing about this, and my guess to why they hadn’t sent another dragon over is they simply dont’ have one on the islands. As for why the Huntsclan didn’t get involved in any way, it’s simply too public for them. With the magical community in new york, they don’t have to worry about exposure because neither side wants it, so neither side can out the other. Here with a bunch of creatures out in the open it runs the risk of the Hunstclan being dragged into the light.. and given the populace dosne’t care about the “magical creatures” alongside them, it would make them look like the monsters they are.

Spud and Trixie tagging along also makes sense besides “they needed them for the plot”: While they’d obviously want to come to Hawaii, the skate competition is likely Jake’s cover for why he’s there, as well as one for why it’s just him and grandpa going with a couple of his friends so they don’t have to deal with manuvering around jake’s dad. That sad them never TELLING jake’s Dad is it’s own can of worms as it feels cruel, made things harder for jake and there was no real reason not to. At worst he’d want Jake to stop for his own saftey but given ther’es an active threat in the huntsclan for the first season and a half, NOT helping people would be the right thing and I feel he’s a sensible enough man to understand eventually.

And it’s stuff like this that already makes this crossover really work for me: they don’t really have to strain to get Jake over there or tell the audience heavily, the blanks fill in themslves. Or I am but that’s because it’s my job and I love doin it.

So everyone goes off to their corners; Jake to do a few practice runs, Foo Dog to bet on his friend because of course, Trixie and Spud to go to the beach (even though Spud’s terrified of sharks so I question why Trixie needs him for this), and in a delightfully adorable subplot, finds a lady to woo: local fruit stand vendoer and crankly old lady Mrs. Hasagawa.

I am here for this subplot: While Grandpa not focusing on the mission is weird for him that’s the entire point.. and their just really cute together. He’s smitten with her entirely because he sees her chewing out one of the people running the contest for making her sign too small. And he performs one hell of a romantic gesture by, while everyone’s back is turned, using his dragon fire to make an add for her on the skate ramp itself, and they have a lovely montage of their time together.. which also weirdly includes grandpa using his dragon fire on stage inf ront of everyone which makes no sense for his charcter but is so cute and does feature david I really don’t care. The writers of Lilo and Stitch probably weren’t deeply familiar with the show and likely just wanted a fun gag. Could be wrong there but it’s cute. He continues to act grossly out of character by trying to avoid going home at the end.. but again I find it simply because he’s in love, they have genuine chemstiry and I like to think they stayed in touch and he retired out there at some point once Jake was old enough to handle things himself. This may not be a ship I expected to support going in but I will die for it going out.

So back to the main plot, Lilo uses Keoni’s body to imitate him which... she’s only loosely called out on and realizes is bad by the end only because she gets stuck in another body. And that’s not even getting into the fact she BREAKS UP WITH KEONI’S GIRLFRIEND. Yes really.. she just does that to get her out of the way. She comes around and realizes she was wrong and tries to fix it which would be fine.. if hte episode didn’t try to cop it out by revealing “Oh she’s not his girlfriend, she’s just someone who keeps telling people that”. It just feels lazy and dumb and a way to keep Lilo’s crush on Keoni for reasons I DO. NOT. GET. But the identity theft is just brushed aside by everyone: Keoni never finds out, and Jake just brushes it off. The real issue is more her trying to bribe keoni into likng her which while something kids need to learn is not the only thing she did wrong here. It feels like they didn’t think all the implications out here and it hampers the episode

Speaking of which as Gantu captures Jake, he sees him transform into dragon mode and assumes he’s the experiment, Jake’s charactization is pretty shallow. And why yes it DOES feel weird writing sentences about a character with the same name thank you for asking. I wasn’t expecting a deep character piece or anything: This is a guest spot, the writers here are not the same normal ones for American Dragon. That’s fine. The problem.. is that they clearly did not get Jake. Grandpa being partly out of character is half the joke, Trixie actually gets a really nice moment towards the end, and Spud.. is eh. But out of them Jake just feels like a basic character description: He likes hip hop, he likes skateboards, he calls himself Am Drag despite that sounding like a good name for a drag act but a terrible name to shorten your title, he fights.. that’s it.

While jake is all of that in the main series, he’s also a kind young man who while sometimes irresponsible does the right thing when the chips are down. He’s someone weighed down by a responsiblity he didn’t ask for, often makes his life more difficult and often finds himself in trouble because his mother and grandfather won’t bother to tell his dad he’s a dragon. Yes that part still bothers me, and I don’t see why we couldn’t just have a superhero show where both parents know. But regardless this just dosen’t feel like Jake , like they just watched the intro and that was it. Jake feels more like a plot device in his own crossover.

That being said there is some good stuff: The minute Jake realizes some Sci Fi stuff is going on instead of hte normal magic stuff he tells him “The am drag’s show isn’t about sci fi” a nice meta bit and then breaks out. Meanwhile Lilo takes on his form.. and ends up stuck after badly botching her run again, as Gantu finds the real shapeshifter.

We get the best stretch of the episode from here though: Lilo awkardly tries to play jake and like jake we get a nice meta nod to how diffrent their show is as she’s worried about his belief in magical creatures.. and is startled out of her charade when Foo Dog talks, a really nice bit especially since it’s tame compared to the weirdness he deals with. Spud and Trixie have questions... only for Jake to show up and his agressive behavior leads to the best bit of the episode: Jake Vs Stitch. The catlyst is understandable: jake has no idea why Lilo’s taken his identity and Sttich is just protecting his best friend from harm. The animation is fluid, the fight is fun and quick and uses both’s powers stellarl. Whle “two heroes get into a misunderstanding and then fight” is a well worn cliche at this point, it’s moments like this that show why: you get to see two heroes who in this case never have interacted before or sense, duke it out, why each is special and it’s fun to watch.

Lilo breaks it up, and admits to the whole thing.. including the whole give Keani the board stuff. While Jake and Spud, being awkard with girls and a loveable moron don’t see the problem with that Trixie gets a moment to shine. As far as I can remember she really didn’t get much on the show proper so it was a nice suprise to see her mentor lilo her, telling her trying to give someone gifts to love you is not okay, she should just be herself all that good stuff. It’s a nice character stuff and tha’ts the kind of character interaction this episode needed more of.

With the misunderstandings washed away our heroes team up and storm gantu’s ship leading to another great sequence as Stitch rides on Jake’s back while the two keep him busy and Lilo gets turned back, Trixie complimenting her dress “Thanks I have 10 just like it at home”. It’s such a sweet and genuine moment” They head back out and gantu semeingly grabs morpholmew from where they hide.. only to find out when he gets back it’s spud, our adorable little blob monster transforming Gantu into a bunny and our heroes leaving. How does Gantu get out of being a bunny?

But it’s a nice enough gag. So we end the episode. We get another nice gag as grandpa had himself and his lady transformed to try and avoid going home, and Jake is fine with having lost out on the board what matters is he made a friend. Sadly we did not get a followup in ADJL., but spud does name our experiment, Morpholomew.

We end on Morph getting his home: a costume shop where he gets paid in fried chicken, he was shown to enjoy it throughtout the episode and changes people into things. It’s a nice little button to the episode and one of the funnest parts of the show was figuring out where the experiment would end up at the end.

Final Thoughts:

This episode is a really mixed bag. There is some good character interactions, two tremendous fight scens and Trixie gets a chance to shine for once if only for a scene or two, and the clashing genres end up making for some great jokes> The shows do go well together as while Lilo and Stitch is more laid back both have slice of life elements. And hasgawa X Grandpa is just oto cute for words.

The episode is held back by Jake and Lilo’s lackluster characterizatons: Jake is simply the theme song as a character, which in theory is awesome because that theme song slaps but in practice is pretty lame, and Lilo is selfish and irresponsible even for her in a way that dosen’t feel at all convincing. It drags down what’s otherwise a fun crossover and Morpholomew is truly a unique and wonderful experiment. Still if you like either show it’s worth a watch even if you have to suffer through Keoni for it. It’s worth it.. I just wish it was better and hopefully the next 3 will keep the good parts but take out the bad. Granted this was produced last so I could be wrong, but here’s hoping. Oh this episode also featured Miranda Cosgrove as the girl who claims to be Keoni’s girlfriend. This is also Keoni’s last episode meaning I do NOT have to worry about accidently running into him. Thank fucking christ.

Next Time On American Dragon Jake Long: Jake’s dad drags him and his friends on a camping trip and Jake ends up encountering the Jersey Devil. Now all they need is a sexy lady devil cake to lure it out... what it worked for the Cake Boss. And yes that happened, Allison Pregler did an episode on that episode. Check it out.

Next Time On Lilo and Stitch Crossovers: It’s the family, the family, proud familllyyy as the Prouds take a vacation at Peakly and Jumbas bed but not breakfast and we get some kind of squirrel demon for our experiment of the week. We also get Wizard Kelly appearing...

See you at the next rainbow.

#lilo and stitch #american dragon jake long #Lilo Pelekai #Stitch #experment 626 #jake long #luong lao shi #fu dog #trixie carter #arthur p spudinkski #gantu #crossovers #reviews #disney channel #morpholomew

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twentiethcenturymoviesandtv · 3 years

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The Goonies: A Product of the Times

Released in 1985, The Goonies came along right smack in the middle of a decade well-known for its movies centered on youth. While there are plenty of fond memories of the ‘teen oriented’ films like The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Adventures in Babysitting, Hollywood of the 1980s was focused on more than just the teenagers: it was also pretty heavily focused on what it was like to be a kid.

From Flight of the Navigator, The Explorers, and The Monster Squad to E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial, a lot of the films of the 1980s were about the adventures of people under the age of 14: children. Ranging from sci-fi to comedy, to horror, to adventure, the movies about kids during this decade of the new and untested were getting as big as everything else: more and more impressive as an entire subgenre of children’s movies starring up-and-coming child stars (Drew Barrymore, Fred Savage, River Phoenix, Corey Haim, and plenty more) sprouted up out of the ground, playing the gambit of genres and allowing children to act in ways that hadn’t been deeply explored before. These weren’t adult films with roles for children: a lot of these were movies about kids.

Instead of movies like The Champ or Aliens, starring children in side roles, films like The Goonies, Return to Oz, Stand By Me, and Time Bandits starred kids in the main roles, carrying the stories themselves with incredible performances, broadening the horizons for adventure films about kids, for kids.

Such is The Goonies, a film that really could only have been made in the 1980s.

How do I know that?

Simple.

As we’ve discussed before, no film ever made is separate from the culture it was created in. Every single movie, television show, radio broadcast, book, newspaper, comic or song ever made has been directly impacted by the culture and other pieces of media surrounding it.

This seems pretty obvious: after all, a product made by people living in a certain kind of culture is going to reflect that culture. No film is an island, and while that seems pretty self-explanatory and without much need for discussion, in an era with more and more pieces of media debated as to their worth to a modern viewpoint, it leaves those of us who enjoy older movies with a very important question:

How ‘dated’ is too dated?

It’s not as easy a question to answer as it might seem.

See, ‘dated’ is an interesting term.

Typically, the word ‘dated’ is used to apply to anything discernibly created in a specific time period. It’s synonymous with ‘old fashioned’, when applied to a film, it carries the implication that the movie is less understandable by those looking from outside that particular culture or time period, worsened by the cultural drift. This would be a film that hasn’t ‘aged well’, most often describing contemporary films of the day. By contrast, a film that’s considered ‘timeless’ is the exact opposite: a film that remains completely understandable following a change in the culture. This is a film without a cultural footprint or identity, without any actual context, able to be enjoyed no matter how much time has passed.

These are words that get thrown around a lot in the film world. There are plenty of arguments over which films are timeless, and which are dated, whether Die Hard shows its age too much to be enjoyed, or whether Commando is too ridiculously ‘80s to be watched in any other context, but the fact is, the argument is a lot more complicated than it seems to be boiled down into.

We’ve talked a lot about definitions, but the fact is, by strict definitions, no movie, or any piece of media ever made, is actually ‘timeless’. Every film is a product of its times, but that does not mean necessarily that they are defined by their times. With this in mind, films like The Terminator and Predator, while set and made in the 1980s, are not exactly dated, because they are not defined by the 1980s. Anyone with the slightest understanding of the idea that times change can accept things like hairstyles, music changes, and special effects. Like I said, a film is considered ‘dated’ if it is less understandable or enjoyable in hindsight, from a place outside of that specific culture, and things like the movie tips and tricks of decades past are fairly easily forgiven.

Less easily overlooked are ideas.

If a ‘timeless’ film is a movie not defined by its own times, then a ‘dated’ one is a film that is defined by its culture, typically in a negative way.

So, the question is: which is The Goonies?

Timeless iconic kid’s adventure film, or dated ‘80s flick?

Well, it’s kind of hard to say at first glance.

By externals, there’s no question. The way the kids are dressed and Mouth’s use of the word ‘gnarly’ pretty clearly set this film in the mid 1980s, as does the fact that nobody has a cell phone to call their parents. But as we’ve already established, there’s a bit more to it than that.

The cast is fairly typical of its day: all white except for Rosalita, the Spanish-speaking housekeeper, and mostly male. The two female Goonies do allow for a little more range than is sometimes portrayed in kid adventure films, with a Tomboy and Girly Girl dynamic that normalizes more than a standard Token Female per group, and even Mama Fratelli (although by no means a role model for young girls) balances out by being a memorable villain, bringing the gender ratio a tiny bit closer to even than a lot of contemporary films. With that said though, there isn’t really anything that I’d argue idea wise in this sense that dates the film terribly badly, aside from a series of fat jokes at Chunk’s expense and a moment where Andy is given the unfortunately expected treatment of having her date try to look up her skirt, which was considerably more shrugged off at the time (although she does get him for it later, offscreen).

And there are other elements too that indicate that this film is from a different time:

A PG in 1985 for a kid’s film was very different from a PG now, and it shows. The language used by a lot of the kids, as well as the violence, drug jokes, and other material has proven to shock more than one fan who went back to watch The Goonies as an adult. And that’s not all: the basic concept of kids banding together in this way, while making a resurgence in the form of Stranger Things, hasn’t really stuck around for very long.

After the 1980s, the ‘band of kids’ adventure story somewhat died out. By the 1990s, the ‘kid’ adventure stories calmed down, with lower stakes and less danger, and while the trope still appears in ‘retro’ nostalgia pieces, for the most part, we simply don’t see it anymore, and the idea still tends to bring to mind stories like Stand By Me, The Monster Squad, and even It.

It’s just a statement of fact, and not nostalgia, to look at this film and remark: “They don’t make them like this anymore.” Because they don’t.

In most movies today, kids don’t run around in tunnels, having a blast and looking for buried treasure without their parents or any adult supervision, with their lives in danger, all the while quirky, peppy music assures the audience that everything’s going to be okay. That’s not necessarily good or bad, it just means times have changed, and that the way that The Goonies was made was directly influenced by the types of movies coming out at the time.

However, while that style may bring to mind the 1980s, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s specifically enjoyed in that era.

As a matter of fact, there’s a lot about The Goonies that’s like that.

The basic premise of the story, while not necessarily common anymore, is still understandable to people decades later. Just because we no longer dress or talk like 1985 anymore doesn’t mean that the core essentials of the film are rendered completely unrelatable. Kids still become friends and don’t want to move away from them, that much is understandable. Even though the style of filmmaking has changed, the characters really haven’t: we all know a Data, or a Mouth, or a Chunk, or a Mikey, sometimes we even are one of them. Kids understand the danger they’re in: not just losing their lives, but their homes, their friendships. These characters and their story still ring true decades later, even if there are things about it that point to its creation being set in the mid ‘80s.

In short?

No, The Goonies probably couldn’t have been made today. But that doesn’t mean it can’t still be enjoyed today.

There’s surprisingly little that actually harmfully dates the film itself, and the film is, in many ways, just as exciting and fun as it was when it was first released. Honestly, there’s the possibility that due to the lack of movies like it made today, the film actually has a larger impact and is more unique and memorable now than it was in 1985.

And while the quality of the film has not shifted, as the time around it does, I think we’ll find that as the film gets older, more audiences will continue to discover it, forty, fifty, sixty years later and find that the movie still tugs at a nostalgic part of them and makes them feel like children again.

The Goonies is a fun, exciting, charming story that has remained beloved so long partially due to nostalgia, but also because people genuinely love the story and characters, proving that a film is ‘timeless’, not because you can tell what decade it was made in, but because it has endured, because people still enjoy it after the culture has changed.

If you can watch The Goonies and love these characters and enjoy their adventure, it doesn’t matter that Mouth is wearing parachute pants or that some of the character cliches haven’t been used in thirty years. In the end, a film’s quality has little to do with how easily we can tell what time the film was made in, and a lot to do with what it’s about, and how well people remember it. If that’s the criteria, then The Goonies is pretty timeless.

The Goonies has lasted this long as an ‘80s staple, and an adventure movie classic in general because no matter if it’s 1985 or 2085, people can understand it, enjoy it, and relate to the characters and themes. And that’s the reason it will continue to endure.

It’s been over thirty years since those kids first trekked into the caves to save the Goondocks, and the audience for this film has done nothing but grow since then. The characters and the heart of the film have gone unchanged since then, still entertaining and even touching audience members who remember what it was like to be a kid and want ‘their time’, and they will continue to endure for decades.

Thank you guys so much for reading! If you have something you’d like to add or say, don’t forget that the comment box is always open! I hope to see you all in the next article.

#The Goonies #The Goonies 1985 #80s #1985 #Film #Movies #PG #Adventure #Comedy #Family #Sean Astin #Josh Brolin #Jeff Cohen #Corey Feldman #Kerri Green #Martha Plimpton #Ke Huy Quan #Richard Donner

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nileqt87 · 3 years

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More thoughts on how to resurrect the Indiana Jones franchise post-Harrison Ford

Perhaps a proper, modern television show would be a good way to bring back a younger, but adult Indy (with perhaps flashbacks littered throughout). You can also get away with a lot more content (definitely aim for TV-14) and characters who are allowed to be flawed. Relationship dramas are serialized storytelling's forte in a way that is disappearing more and more from blockbuster films. Complicated characters are better left to television, as the audience expects and allows for it because of the nuance and depth the serialization affords. The complicated, messy story of Abner and Marion is a story best left to being explored only after the characters have some real complexity and development. It also wouldn't be forced to play to the mass audience of under-13s that makes modern PG-13 often meaningless. In comparison, TV-14 actually pushes up harder against its limits regularly--not just violence, but also with innuendo and sexuality minus nudity. The amount of historical-style, pulpy violence, not to mention potentially comically gruesome deaths, in Indy would also necessitate the rating. Indiana Jones might be niche enough at this point with an audience veering towards adults who grew up with it (Gen-X and the older end of Gen-Y), while Gen-Z has little awareness of it, that Disney wouldn't be forced to make it a total kiddie property. It's not the same situation as back in the early '90s with Young Indy being aimed at older kids who had recently seen Last Crusade in the theater. They could reboot it for television with a young adult Indy who potentially could grow into a fully adult version. And I wouldn't try too hard to not step on the trilogy's toes with the timeline. Just let it live in its own developing continuity.

Use of long-running supporting cast (parents, Remy and returning guest stars aside) would also be a big difference from Young Indy. Characters like Belloq (could potentially go from friend to antagonist, akin to how Smallville handled Lex), Sallah, Henry, Brody, Abner, Marion, etc... could actually be around a lot more than just for an adventure here or there. These are all characters Indy had clearly known for years. Actually put the show into a seasonal, serialized format that isn't a new cast every episode. You could also stick around in locations a lot longer this way, which would help with budget.

Another thought I've had since watching an absolute ton of fantasy/sci-fi dramas in the last few years is that the influence of Indiana Jones is actually pretty apparent in a number of pretty famous characters, sometimes overtly and sometimes a bit more subtly. Harrison, Indy or Raiders in general are outright name-checked in quite a few places, often by scrappy action hero types who tend to take hard beatings (the kinds of characters who should've died a hundred times over) while in situations they're way over their heads in or literally impossible odds they can't win. Like Indy, the intended prize isn't won at the end and, outside of a few gruesome baddie deaths, the shady, corrupt or evil barely get a dent. Fox Mulder and Dean Winchester are two characters who name-check the comparison overtly and you can see the writers and actors both having the influence in mind. It's obviously a male fantasy, too. The influence on The X-Files and Supernatural is definitely there. Supernatural is chock full of biblical MacGuffins (not to mention having angels and demons as most of its recurring supporting cast), so it would be a hard comparison to avoid. Raiders came up in the WWII Nazi submarine episode with a piece of the Ark onboard (it's subsequently a show to raid for Indy ideas, because they pretty much mined everything biblical), for example. The X-Files likewise was dealing with shady government officials and pretty blatantly copied the huge warehouse of government secrets loaded with alien relics (and then repeated the Cigarette Smoking Man's warehouse reveal with the tunnel of filing cabinets stretching on forever). Mulder was also very much a one-man army a lot of the time when it came to the alien conspiracy (no offense to Scully). Moments like him climbing/riding the tops of sky rides, trains and escaping the spaceship were total Indy-esque moments. Sam and Dean had literal God-tier levels of plot armor keeping them alive (repeated resurrections included). Angel is another one that, unlike Mulder and the Winchesters being very human, is a supernatural character (subsequently his level of pain tolerance and durability is at the level of regular impalement, defenestration out of skyscrapers and being set on fire), but the comparison still holds because of how often he's getting decimated and fighting forces way beyond his pay grade. Wolfram & Hart, the Shanshu and seeking redemption with the Powers that Be, like the mytharc conspiracy/alien takeover and literal God a.k.a. Chuck, is another endless, unwinnable fight that is so far beyond all the protagonists that there's no win/happily ever after and they'd be lucky just walking away from it with nothing. Angel also name-checks Indy with a blatantly Indy-inspired fantasy dream episode (Awakening in season 4) with Angelus making a crack about the Raiders fantasy. George Lucas actually visited the Angel set back in 2000 and was interested in how they were making mini movies every week and doing some pretty huge stunts on television. David Boreanaz had lunch with Lucas and has talked about it a few times over the many years. I mean, these are all shows starring action-oriented leading men and writing staffs of relatively similar age. Mostly Gen-X males with a few Baby Boomers (more so on the writing staff) with an audience that's primarily Gen-Y but appealing to a pretty broad age range (and probably a lot more female than originally intended!). Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Harrison Ford films in general were very formative to that generation. Harrison Ford is the ultimate leading man action star to a certain generation. Gen-Y got their familiarity with all of that by being the original home video/VHS generation and subsequently a lot more familiar with retro media (including things that were made before they were born or around that time) than Gen-Z. '80s movies have a lot of currency and familiarity still with Gen-Y, even if Baby Boomers were the stars of them and Gen-X were the ones who saw them in theaters. Gen-Y fangirls absolutely dominate the fandoms of many iconic television supernatural/sci-fi franchises (many are admittedly aging franchises). The WB/CW have catered to this group of fans for the last two and a half decades. If you're going to be reviving the character as a mid-20s-to-30s version (if the show lasts long enough, it probably will be stepping on the trilogy's toes timeline-wise by the end), I'd absolutely be aiming for this same audience and their tastes. They're also the audience who would be most receptive to and familiar with the character, IMO. If I were going to reinvent Indiana Jones for the television landscape, I would definitely be looking at those sorts of shows that have influence from the character already in their DNA. I think for the target audience, they'd definitely need to be aiming it at the same fanbases. Young Indy mostly tried to avoid stepping on Raiders' toes (despite Temple of Doom and Mask of Evil already making it ludicrous) by limiting the amount of supernatural elements, but I think a show would have to go all in on it. Indy would have to be transformed a bit in regards to trying to line him up with a character who would still be skeptical after all he's seen. Young Indy ended up forced into being a straight period drama with educational elements, which is very counter to what the audience wanted. There are things to keep from that approach (meeting historical persons, being a WWI veteran and witnessing history could absolutely be mined as backdrops to the stories), but the supernatural elements would have to exist in a revival now to get the audience who I think would be most receptive to it. While I would aim for a serialized drama format that would mean the globetrotting wouldn't have to completely change locations every episode (have it instead in arcs with some bigger MacGuffins and baddies perhaps crossing entire seasons), it's true that there would probably have to be more location filming than good, ol' Vancouver, but Disney is one of the few who could afford it (though Covid certainly would throw a wrench in it and political situations could potentially kill off certain locations). There's only so much green screen that Indy could get away with, though I imagine that a fair amount of it would have to be used for period piece reasons alone. There are a lot of modern intrusions even in historically-intact cities (Eastern Europe comes to mind as having a lot of its architecture intact and is affordable to film in) and around iconic landscapes to paint out. But at its core, it probably would need to bulk up its focus on the relationship dramas. Indy tends to have a girl at every port and to a degree you would introduce some of these love interests, but there's still a lot of relationships of every kind that could be developed and serialized. Certainly throw in a few femme fatales and tragic losses, given the Smallville-esque situation of there being an inevitable Indy/Marion endgame that should be kept--it thus becomes about the journey when it's a set conclusion. Absolutely have a strong recurring cast of Henry and friends new and old. The films actually have a lot of characters that Indy didn't just meet yesterday and could be developed to a huge extent. For a show to work now, there'd have to be a lot more connectivity to how often the recurring cast appear. Young Indy had a lot more of an anthology format with little chance of us getting attached to most of the revolving cast outside of a very tiny few. That's the biggest thing I'd change. You need characters to become regulars beyond just Indy if it were revived for modern cinematic television (the true successor to the film serials of the '30s!) in a way that isn't necessary for film installments.

#indana jones #harrison ford #lucasfilm #indy #young indy

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lilisouless · 3 years

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Before friday comes and Shadow and Bone releases, i´d like to share my personal opinions , expectacions and predictions of the cast and how well i think they´ll do .This is judging for what i´ve seen in trailers, interviews and what i know about the actors. i haven't seen the show and when i do i´ll revisit this to check who got into my expectations, who surprised me and who disapointed me.

-Jessie Mei Li: I am sure she´ll do better than book!Alina.In fact my prediction is that the writing for her will still be kind of generic (she´s still the audience surrogate ,those character types are barely allowed to have a personality in most shows) BUT anything charming that will come our of her will be because of the actress and not the writing´s room. I´ll repeat this is a prediction, i am not one of those who already watched the show and i HOPE that the show´s interpretation of Alina will completely shut me up. i just think Jessie deserves better and i hope that in future seasons the writers write more of her personality into Alina.

-Archie Renaux: I have already talked about my concerns about Mal in the show, so i won't repeat them here.I think Archie will do fine just like Jessie, and will give more than due to the character.But given than other characters have looks and stories more interesting ,i don't think the character will stood up in the sense of being memorable.

-Ben Barnes: He is obviously gonna be great, he is already experienced and is taking this quite seriously.I think that he´ll give the second best perfomance, Barnes doing a good job is nothing that concerns me. That being said, for some reason i don't really like him as the Darkling. Maybe because he looks too old to be playing Alina´s LI ,but that not completely unlike the character. Or maybe is the fact that The Darkling doesn't seem like a challenge, unfortunately faux-sympathetic villains are very prominent in today´s media and ,again, i am not sure he will stand out.He´ll do a great job but i really don't think i´ll fall in love with this Darkling

Freddy Carter: you don't want to know

Amita Suman: If i only go for the trailers ,she seem like only the "villain´s female minion" but interviews calmed a little my concerns since she does seem to get the character.I don't completely buy her as Inej but thats mostly because of the mental image i had in my head.I think she´ll do great, i am not really concerned about her.

Kit Young: He doesn't look the part, i mean yeah, he look cute and all but you know what i am talking about. That being said, i think he´ll be the best, he nails the facial expresions, the voice and mannerisms and as interview go, both him and the crew knows he is not just the comic relief and has depts. My expectaions for him are too high and i don't think i will be disapointed.

This is not for bashing the actors, this is just me writing how i feel now so i can compare it next week and see how many of my predictions were right

#netflix #netflix shadow and bone #shadow and bone #jessie mei li #archie renaux #ben barnes #amita suman #kit young

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alorenawrites · 3 years

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Thoughts on Loki, Gender, Sex, and Identity

So...I've seen a few posts on transphobia embedded in Loki and I wanted to examine my own thoughts on this a bit. I'm not going to dig too deeply, just hit on a few of my thoughts on the matter regarding my own positionality as a demisexual, demiromantic, bisexual, nonbinary, gender funky human.

To begin, my own relationship to sex and gender is complicated, based on my own experiences. I'm fine with people not having this same interpretation because of differences in experience and I'm not going to sit around and listen to anyone bombarding me with statements about how wrong they think I am. Go write a post with relevance to your own experience and please don't shit on mine. The purpose of this is to share my own thoughts on this matter, not to get into an argument. I have enough real-world stress regarding these things and don't need them on Tumblr as well.

I've seen the argument that Loki is gender fluid and it is wrong to say he is sex fluid or that sex fluidity is a way to undercut or deny the validity of gender fluidity. I don't see it this way. To begin, we don't actually see Loki display gender fluidity, even though shape-shifting is clearly within his skill set. MCU Loki shifts into Sif once in The Dark World, but other than that, there is little evidence outside of his word at this. I know those creating this story did refer to him as gender fluid, but I question whether those who stand outside that fluidity might not be as well-versed in how gender fluidity comes in a myriad of experiences. I am fine with the idea that perhaps Loki still uses traditionally male pronouns while in other shapes. I am not considering comic interpretations of Loki in this, as there are so many different storylines that I think they would be hard to sum up into this character. And it is fine if you don't see this the same way.

In myth, when Loki transforms into a maiden during the marriage of "Freya" (Thor in disguise) to Thrym, the book I reference (Neil Gaiman's retellings of the myths) does, at one point, refer to Loki as "he." When the mythological Loki transforms into the mare to lure the horse Svadilfari away from the builder of their wall, the references to the mare indicate "she" (and it is worth noting that in this retelling, the mare is never referred to as Loki by name), but when Loki returns he is referred to using male pronouns yet still as Sleipnir's mother.

In the television show, Loki's file lists his sex as fluid. As gender and sex are entirely separate, I took this into consideration as a part of what defines a Loki- they may change physical sex. I did not see an entry for gender on the file. I may have missed it. But to me, the lack of listing gender and the inclusion instead of sex leads me to believe that the TVA doesn't much care for the gender of a variant, but rather the body in which they are most likely to inhabit. In this case, it would seem that knowing if a Loki is more likely to appear as a physical type without regard to pronouns or gender might be considered more important data than gender identity and pronouns. I examine this as someone who has to handle grant data that requires a sex marker in the demographics- not a gender identity, but an assigned-at-birth or otherwise legally documented sex.

I don't see these two things as mutually exclusive or an erasure of one another. I would see it as a way for the TVA to try to classify a variant without regards to any sort of identity. After all, if Lokis are destined for pruning, who cares how they see themselves? It's not like they are going to have an extended conversation with them- process them, judge them, prune them.

In the context of the Lokis we meet, and the note that they haven't met a female Loki, I do wonder why they haven't met one yet. Is it because they don't catch every Loki that comes through? Is it because they themselves have only ever experienced being Loki as men and and haven't assumed otherwise? I don't know. But I don't see it as impossible to explain, either. How many Loki variants have come through? And how many haven't survived? We don't see every variant in the Void that we see in Mobius' briefing holograms. Who didn't make it, and who is missing? Yes, the comment that she "sounds terrifying" could be read as incredibly sexist, but at the same time...Lokis grew up with stories of the Valkyrie, powerful warrior women who they likely looked at with awe, wondering why these towers of strength were no longer with them. The Valkyrie predate them and are mythic figures- we see how Thor reacts to meeting one of these warriors in Ragnarok. Given that this line comes from Loki the Elder, someone who leans into the power of sorcery and the capabilities of magic, wouldn't it make sense that the combination of these skills would seem terrifying? A warrior of the legendary capabilities of the Valkyrie combined with the might of a Loki sorcery? I mean, I'd probably think the same thing, and I think this is possibly one reason why the variant Loki we come to know would agree with him- she has been jumping through time, surviving apocalypses that likely terrify him, enchanting anyone she needs to use, and she can run circles around him. Given the tonal shift in the delivery of the line "and she needs me," I interpret this as the blustering Loki does when he wants to feel more important than he really is- he's trying to justify why he needs to find her to someone else (and possibly to himself) instead of just saying it's because he cares deeply about her and wants to know what the hell that means. Sylvie can clearly take care of herself and doesn't really need rescue. He wants to feel important enough to go back and to convince the others he is as well. That she could render him irrelevant is something that would be terrifying to someone who craves attention and affirmation.

Mobius says that the most common iterations of Lokis look like the one standing before him, yet Loki does encounter a variant file from California in the early 20th century that refers to Sylvie. So the TVA knows that there is a rare chance that a sex fluid Loki could exist (and they have, presumably, pruned them). While I wish this had been explored further, I don't necessarily see it as a transphobic intent. Did it resonate that way with some people? Yes. And that's fine. Their feelings on the matter are valid.

Another element of my interpretation of this comes from my own experiences of gender expression. Most of the time during which I have been out as nonbinary, people have read my gender as a woman. I like my long dresses and I have an extensive collection of vintage women's clothing. I also have a decent collection of corsets and well-tailored suits that fit my body type. I don't bind my chest. My hair varies from very short to as long as it will grow (not far past my shoulders). I occasionally wear eyeshadow, regardless of what gender I am on any given day. I very rarely read masculine and when I feel neutral, I still don't bother to alter my body shape, only sometimes choosing a bra or bra tank top that decentuates my curves (which, granted, aren't dramatic). So the concept of a gender fluid individual choosing gendered pronouns and reading as male during the (relatively short) time in his lifespan during which the audience knows him doesn't seem odd to me, as it is how I've existed (and I, too, used gendered pronouns for a few years on my nonbinary journey- they were a default while I searched for something that suited me better). But I have known nonbinary people who have exclusively used gendered pronouns and it does not invalidate their gender identity, nor does gendered expressions of that identity. The concept that we would only see a male presenting Loki doesn't seem very odd because I have lived a stretch of my life during which I, too, presented a very femme gender expression and used traditionally female pronouns. But that did not make me less nonbinary.

And, of course, this is assuming that gender fluidity is part of his identity, which we are never told in the text of the story. I reject that everything a creator says must be added to the text of a piece of media simply because the piece also has to stand on its own and be interpreted on that level as well. We do know that Loki shifts sex, which makes sense for someone who shifts bodies, as sex is tied more to bodies than gender is.

The point in this is that we can't assume the gender of a fictional character, just as we can't assume from appearance the gender of a living human. I may read as a woman, but this is not my gender identity and no one should be assuming that my clothes are meant to project gender. Reducing gender to an outward and bodily expression of sex is not something with which I am comfortable, and it seems that some people are conflating the two in their interpretation. Again, your experiences may differ from mine and it's fine to see this in another way.

But here's another very important thing this show can demonstrate. Allow an anecdote. My children watched this show with me. My son is nearly 7, my daughter a few months from being 10. She is very femme- loves makeup, frilly dresses, dolls, princesses, My Little Pony, the whole shebang of activities stereotypically associated with the childhood of girls. At this point in her life, she very much asserts that she is a girl. The same goes for my son- he very much asserts himself as a boy. When we were watching together, we talked about Loki being gender fluid, just like their Mum. We talked about Loki being bisexual, just like their Mum. They understood that just because Loki looks one way, it doesn't mean he is that way...again, just like their Mum. There is power in the idea that some of us are in this same position- we are assumed to be cisgender based on our appearances, but our identities are more complex than that. I thought this was a good window for my children to see through and one I could turn into a teachable moment about all the different sorts of people there are in this world. This is the blessing of imperfect media- we can find ways to learn from it and to share opportunities in it for open interpretation with those around us. And the lesson of not jumping to conclusions about gender or sex based on appearance is a deeply important one for young children to understand.

Is this an area in which I have a problem with the show? No. Does this mean the show couldn't have done more or better? Also no. We do need a variety of types of representation. But seeing the possibilities of this being someone a little more like me (though alas, I can't shift shape)? That was nice.

Hopefully we can see more of this in the future, but if we don't, we can create transformative works to fill in the gaps. It's what fan communities have always done and will continue to do. When I fell into fandom years ago with Harry Potter, long before the movies were all out, so many works were there to add queerness, racial diversity, language diversity, disability representation, all of it, into the series. It didn't stop us from still enjoying what it meant to us in those times and places and I don't think we have to outright reject this show for the imperfections we see in it. It can still thrill us and speak to something in us we've been lacking.

And in my case, that is the affirmation of wearing traditionally gender coded clothes while still asserting my pronouns are ze/zir/zirs and my gender is nonbinary, though also gender fluid, gender optional, or gender funky and that my oft-assumed-to-be-hetero relationship makes me no less bi or any other piece of my complex relationship to sexual orientation (and sharing that affirmation with my kids).

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void-inked-pen · 4 years

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WHY I LOVE RISE!!

from a new fan of the franchise~

I was only recently introduced to the show and I can't believe it took me this long to sit down and watch it. everything about the show is what I want to do and see from kids shows. It's inspirational to me in more ways than one!

First off: The Animation

I literally have never seen an American show so beautifully animated in my whole life. most shows cut corners, save their budget for the intense bits, but not Rise. The crew who work on the show put so much effort into making every scene flow! Even at points where you would pause and most shows would stop all character movement, the characters still feel alive! they still are moving, subtly but moving! I want more of that please!

Second: The Cinematography

Ho boi don't even get me started! the angles! the shot composition! the crew clearly is having a blast and the effectiveness of their story telling is through their scenes is just down right gorgeous! as a storyboard artist i am in complete awe!

third: Character Design

I have not seen a show SO WELL DESIGNED IN SO LONG! the female characters arnt all just one body type, and if they're a monster YOU BETTER BELIEVE THEY'LL LOOK LIKE ONE! the main bois are all designed so nicely too! they each are a base shape which is important for character design and yet i don't see many shows doing that anymore. the style is angular and sharp which is perfect for action. and if you look more closely you can tell within the main bois they all have something similar with another sibling which is genius.

Four: The writing

when it comes to kids shows, a lot of the writers seem to think they should follow the hip and new slang or pop culture... even though that pop culture will be dead in a few years. Rise has learned how to balance that very well! Leo in particular has the feel of an older generation but still young with his constant puns/one liners and the fact that he's the only character allowed to dab EVER! there are only a few lines that make me cringe but overall everything is written so smoothly~

Final thoughts:

I am new to the TMNT scene and I know a lot of older fans of the franchise are letting their bias speak for them and not even giving the show a chance. its not fair to the creators to just disregard the love the show has been given. because of rise I've actually gone out and looked into the previous shows and lore. I've started reading the IDW comics (which are great btw) and I'm currently studying the way they storyboard for an assignment to help me learn and improve as an animator.

So thank you Rise~ you are inspiring!

#rottmnt week #why we love rottmnt #rottmnt #pen talks

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carriagelamp · 3 years

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A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: The Poetry of Mister Rogers

This is an anthology collection of the various poems and songs that appeared in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, with art by Luke Flowers. It is exactly as zen as you think it will be. If you are in need of something soft, loving, and affirming right now in the terror that is 2020, go pick this book up. I read it all over the course of two days and feel like a better person for it.

Asterix in Britain

I decided to watch my french Asterix movies on a whim the other week, and that got me rereading all the old Asterix comics I grew up with (Asterix and Obelix All At Sea, Asterix the Legionary, Asterix and the Black Gold, Asterix and the Great Divide, Asterix and the Secret Weapon…) I decided to use in Britain as my representative though because to this day it’s one of my all time favourites, and it’s one of the first ones we ever owned — while the others my brother and I collected avidly over the years (any time we were allowed to pick a new comic out of the book store) I can’t remember a time when we didn’t have this volume at home. There fun, detailed illustrations, goofy puns, over the top slapstick, and endless love between the characters seriously melts my heart every time I pick them up. Though I have to admit, the Secret Weapon sure is a bigger shitshow than I realized as a kid…

The Barnabus Project

This is a new Canadian picture book I’ve been meaning to get my hands on for a few months. It is very neat. It’s a bit more of an involved adventure story than you often see in picture books, while still not entering the domain of graphic novel or chapter book. It’s about a company that genetically engineers “perfect” pets for the public to buy. But deep beneath the storefront, well under the streets, are the sinister labs where the “failed” projects are kept, waiting to be recycled back into parts. This is where Barnabus lives, and this is where Barnabus and his friends must break free from. A thrilled little book with adorable art!

Bunnicula

This is actually my first time reading this book, though I’ve meant to ever since I was a kid. For anyone that doesn’t know this classic, it’s told from the point of view of the family dog, who witnesses his owners bring home a strange new pet: a pet rabbit named Bunnicula, with black fur that looks like a cape and the strangest teeth ever seen on a rabbit… The housecat is even more alarmed, and the two of them begin to investigate the strange occurrences going on around the rabbit and protect their family from sinister forces. It’s a very cute chapter book and a nice soft intro to the “horror” genre without going quite as dark as Goosebumps.

Care Bears: Unlock The Magic

This was… hm. Something. It was cute. The art of this graphic novel has certainly modernized the care bears from their original style, but it’s not a bad thing — the simple, bold shapes are actually pretty enjoyable. You have the care bears on a mission to protect the land of these strange new creatures from dark, “heartless” forces. Overall, if you’re in the mood for something soft and nostalgic that’s been transported into 2020, it’s not a bad read... though I can’t say it wow’ed me.

Emma and the Blue Genie

Another adorable novella (chapter book? Somewhere between the two?) by Cornelia Funke who I don’t think is capable of writing a bad story. Like all her books, this one is charming and whimsical and feels strangely classic. Emma and her wiener dog Tristan sneak out of their house one night for some peace and quiet, and discover an unusual bottle that washes up on the shore. When they release it, a small blue genie is released and Emma learns of the horrible events that befell him and his master in a far off land. A horrible yellow genie stole the source of his magic, forcing him into this small, weakened form, and has besieged the land now that the blue genie is out of the way. The blue genie seems to heartbroken that Emma can’t help but promise her help, and accompanies him across the sea… A fun little story for anyone that enjoyed Aladdin.

The Erth Dragons: The Wearle

The first miserable failure of a book I read this month. I couldn’t finish it and didn’t even try. It sounded like cool scifi dragons, but what I got was a pack of sixty dragons off exploring. A team that included a grand total of three female dragons. Who are there for, it seems, breeding. One of which is fridged immediately to jump start the main character’s story. This is a book I may have read in middle school, but I was thrilled to realize I actually have choices now and don’t need to tolerate this shit. Do not fucking bother, the world building is obnoxious as well.

Flawed Dogs

Now this one was a delight. As quirky and bizarre and charming as Berkeley Breathed’s work always is. This is a novel that starts with a prized pure-bred dachshund, Sam the Lion, one who is a once in a life time example of doggy bred perfection. However things get mixed up on his way to the snobby dog-show-loving owner who purchased him and he ends up instead in the arms of a young girl who adores him as only children can, completely indifferent to any “perfection” he may have. The happiness of girl and dog fosters resentment in the household’s other dog, a show dog who is pampered but not loved. So begins a horrible sequence of events that sees Sam cast out of the house, horribly mutilated, and left to fend for himself in a cruel world. Flawed Dogs manages to deliver both dogs with rocket-propulsive farts as well as grim questions about what the nature of life, perfection, and vengeance means to a wronged party who has had his life destroyed beyond all recognition.

This was my favourite book of the month, and I would HIGHLY recommend it, but maybe give it a miss if you’re squicked by animal brutality because this book delivers very funny moments, very heartwarming moments, and very upsetting animal abuse in fairly equal measure.

The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell

The second disappointing book of the month. I’ve heard so many good things about this series! About how it’s gotten so many kids to fall in love with reading and series and more complex narratives! I’ve been really excited to read it, because I love me a twisted fairy-tale. Unfortunately this seems to be a very good series for kids, and a very poor story for adults who are used to the tropes of a basic fairy-tale inspired fantasy novel. The writing was unfortunately bland and it was chockablock of clichés and stereotypes that are frankly rather unappealing. Maybe things get better as it progresses, but the series didn’t hold my interest for long enough for me to find out. Honestly, it just made me want to go and reread Inkheart instead.

Little Tails in the Jungle

The Little Tails series is an adorable blend of picture book, comic, and nonfiction educational. It shows Chipper and Squizzo as they adventure around different ecosystems and interact with the wildlife there, sharing interesting facts and trying to keep out of trouble. It’s a pleasant read for an adult that likes well done wildlife art, and fantastic for kids that are craving accessible nonfiction content about animals.

When Santa Fell to Earth

My second Cornelia Funke novella of the month. This is a Christmas favourite of mine, and I reread it around December every couple years or so. In this story, Nikolas is a young Santa who is on the run. The North Pole has been taken over by a faction of Santa’s who have given up on the traditional values of Christmas and have decided instead to focus on a more sterilized, corporate type of Christmas, one with clear present transactions and a hefty bottom line. Any dissenting Santas are hunted down and dealt with. Nikolas is one of the sole surviving rebel Santas who has managed to stay ahead of the Santa hunters… or he had, until his reindeer panics in a thunderstorm and sends his caravan crashing down to earth, to broken to lift off again. Stuck at the side of a little residential street, Nikolas befriends a couple of local children who help him, his elves, and his angels try to get things sorted out and ready to go before Christmas — or the Santa hunters — arrive.

Wintersmith

More Pratchett, and in this case another seasonally appropriate read. This is the third book of the Tiffany Aching series, in which Tiffany, a young apprentice witch, joins her mentor at the secretive dark morris dance, a ritual that happens in the winter to welcome the changing of the seasons, just as the regular morris dance heralds summer. Tiffany, though, doesn’t just hear the music but feels it in bones, and before she knows it she finds herself compelled to join in, to fill in a strange empty spot she can’t look away from. She does, in fact, find herself dancing with the Wintersmith, and now there are snowflakes coming down with her face crafted into them, frost that lovingly spells out her name, and a winter that doesn’t seem inclined to leave anytime soon. Tiffany made a mistake, and now people are going to die if she doesn’t do something.

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duhragonball · 4 years

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Oh, Shit,I Just Remembered Pete Wisdom.

I started looking into Warren Ellis a little more, to see what he accusations against him were, exactly. So much has come out about so many people that it’s hard to keep it all straight, but I’ve been a comics fan since 1993, and Ellis has been in the industry for about as long, I think, so I wanted to know more.

The quick version, from what I can tell, is that Ellis would offer to mentor fans who wanted to break into the comics industry, and with the women, he would start to segue that relationship into something more physical. It would get to the point where he’d want to have sex with them, and they felt like they couldn’t refuse him, since he could torpedo their careers before they could get off the ground. A few women must have spoken out about it, leading others to do the same, and eventually it started to become clear that there was a lot of similarities in their stories.

As I was thinking about this, it suddenly dawned on me that I first heard of Ellis from his work on Marvel Comics’ Excalibur, where he introduced Kitty Pryde’s love interest, Pete Wisdom. And then a bunch of stuff started to make a lot more sense in hindsight.

The X-Men franchise is overrated trash, but probably the wankiest, most usless, most overrated part of the X-Men mythos is the spin-off series Excalibur, which was basically a splinter group of X-Men operating in Great Britain. Fans loved this book, I think because it featured popular characters like Kitty Pryde and Nightcrawler, and the book (mostly) managed to steer clear of the mega-crossovers that dominated the rest of the franchise in the 80′s and 90′s. When I finally sat down to read my X-Men collection in 2015 and 2018, I did so confident that I wouldn’t need to bother with Excalibur, because it rarely had anything to do with the main books. The message Marvel sent me with this book was that it doesn’t matter and it never did.

Anyway, around 1995 or so, Warren Ellis took over as the writer, and he introduced a new character named Pete Wisdom, who quickly became romantically involved with Kitty Pryde. This was somewhat controversial for a few reasons:

1) When Kitty was introduced in 1980, she was stated to be only 13 years old. “Thirteen-and-a-half”, to be precise. They actually threw in the fraction, just to make her seem even more like a little kid, if that was possible. Comic book time moves slower than real time, but it wasn’t entirely clear to anyone how old Kitty was by the time she relocated to England and met Pete. Later stories by other writers would attempt to set Kitty’s age as being 16 or 18, which makes Kitty’s relationship with Pete a continuity error at best.

2) In spite of Kitty being very young, people had been shipping her with Colossus for years, and it annoyed them that there was yet another obstacle for their extremely problematic-but-much-desired relationship.

3) People accused Pete Wisdom of being a Mary Sue, since he seemed to just pop in out of nowhere and work himself into the team, win the heart of the most popular female character, and he’s supposed to be this super cool secret agent type. The implication here was that Ellis only invented Pete as a self-insert OC for the purpose of getting it on with Kitty Pryde.

I think there were two schools of thought on how Kitty was supposed to be portrayed in comics. The first was that Chris Claremont had insisted on keeping her eternally 16 or whatever, this plucky kid prodigy who was always too young to get into these kinds of relationships. Ellis’s supporters felt that this was too restrictive, and it was foolish of Claremont to think that other writers would be beholden to his wishes, especially after he left Marvel Comics in 1991. Ellis seemed to be allowing Kitty to grow and mature as a character, and it didn’t matter if it messed around with “comic book time”, since no one knows how that works exactly anyway.

For my part, I always thought Pete Wisdom was a fucking tool of a character. He was yet another government spook riding on the popularity of “The X-Files”. Plus, the conventional wisdom among comics nerds in the 90′s was that U.K. writers were better somehow, just because they liked to write snarky dialogue and deconstruct the superhero genre. Pete Wisdom was a mutant, and he joined the Excalibur team, but he wasn’t gonna wear any poncy tights, innit? No, he went into action with a suit and tie, smoking cigarettes and constantly drinking shots, because that’s more bloody realistic, mate. Ellis gave him an eyepatch in 2001, because of course he did.

The point I want to make here is that Ellis came up with this big idea in the 90′s, and fans ate it up because they were X-Men fans and had no taste. You have to understand that in the 90′s, the big overused cliche was giant guns. The second biggest cliche was nostalgia references to the 1960′s. So when someone trotted out “Fox Mulder, but he’s sarcastic and British”, people actually thought it was kind of fresh by comparison. Surely this bold new concept could only take Kitty Pryde into amazing new directions...

But no, Excalibur got cancelled in 1998, and they moved Kitty back to the X-Men. Did they even break up Pryde and Wisdom on panel? I have no idea. All I know is I read a bunch of her post-Excalibur appearances and she barely mentions the guy, probably because a lot of people in Marvel probably wanted to forget the time she got aged up just enough to sleep with a skeevy-looking older man.

Looking back on it, I always sort of assumed that Ellis only did the Pete/Kitty thing because he was just looking for something interesting to do with the characters, and he wasn’t going to let tradition or continuity stand in the way. But in 2020, the whole thing starts to feel more autobiographical, since this resembles the sort of thing he was doing with young women through his online community. Ellis’ “apology” states that he didn’t notice the power imbalance when he was involved with these women. “I have never considered myself famous or powerful.” I find this insulting to my intelligence, since I used to see fans worship every stroke of his pen like he was some kind of genius. News would come out that Warren Ellis would be taking over the writing duties of a book, and fans would say “Good, they finally fixed it.” They just trusted him to do right by whatever project he was given. So I can only imagine how overwhelmed they might have felt when they signed up for his mailing list fan club thing and he would offer to help some of them become professional writers.

So maybe the critics had Pete Wisdom figured out from the beginning. Whether Ellis realized it or not, Pete was his power fantasy, an older guy just impressive enough to get the attention of a (very) young woman and take her under his wing. And he teaches her how to drink whiskey and smoke and how to know all this black ops horseshit, and-- well whaddya know?-- they’re having the sex.

And to a point, maybe that’s human nature. I always wanted to be a writer because I liked the feeling of power it offered. Imagine being the guy who could put words in Captain Picard’s mouth, or decide exactly what kind of music Superman likes. And yeah, if I could make a name for myself in that kind of field, maybe the ladies would start to notice me, and then I’d be doing pretty well for myself.

The thing is, I eventually learned that writing for comics is a real bullshit thing to get into. You can’t just submit scripts, and there’s no set of steps to follow. I remember reading stories of writers breaking into the comics industry, and they were all different, usually involving some improbable meeting with someone who was already there. A comics writer I respect once wrote that it takes some creativity to figure out how to break in, and if you can’t find your own way, then maybe you’re not creative enough to be in the business in the first place.

And that’s how these women got pulled into Ellis’s nonsense, I assume. They had similar aspirations to my own, and at first he seemed to be offering them a lifeline, but then it led to something they hadn’t bargained for, and what could they do? If they refused to have sex with him, they might have to start from scratch.

Which sort of confirms my suspicions that writing for comics is just a bullshit job, because maybe it’s only hard to get into because of all the gatekeeping that goes on. Why bother accepting submissions and hiring based on merit, when a handful of writers can just vouch for friends or fans willing to do anything they ask? All I know is it’s relatively straightforward to get a job in chemistry. I got a degree in chemistry, and then I sent out some applications, went to some interviews and they offered me a job. Maybe if Marvel worked the same way, guys like Warren Ellis wouldn’t have the sort of unfair influence they have over their fans.

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72crowe89 · 5 years

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Kids’ WB! and Diversity

“It’s so great to see a black superhero.”

This is a direct quote from one of my middle school classmates regarding Static Shock. Even as an eleven-year old girl, I realized the significance of that statement. In a world full of Supermen, Batmen, and Iron men, to have a hero like Static who looked like us and wasn’t a jive talking best friend or an aggressive criminal or a lazy bum was uplifting. Over fifteen years later, seeing diversity within cartoons wax and wane throughout the years has led me to revisiting Static Shock and the cartoon block it was on, Kids’ WB! In its 13-year history, WB has had several cartoons that are diverse in both their characters and their stories. I will go over the ones I’ve seen briefly, then discuss why the shows (mostly) were positive representations of diversity.

Waynehead (1996)

Waynehead was a 13-episode series that centered around Damey Wayans and his friends as they experienced life in their inner-city poor neighborhood. The series was created by Damon Wayans and based off of his own childhood (hence the name of the protagonist). Although the show never had a home release, reruns ran on Cartoon Network in the early 2000s.

Jackie Chan Adventures (2000)

Created by John Rogers and produced by Jackie Chan, Jackie Chan Adventures stars a fictional Jackie Chan who, in his job as an archaeologist, uncovers magical artifacts that make him a target for different natural and supernatural enemies. Luckily, he has the help of his mischievous niece Jade, his magic-using Uncle, and Uncle’s apprentice and reformed villain Tohru, as well as his own martial arts skills. The series was able to last five seasons before ending in 2005.

Static Shock (2000)

Static Shock was created by Dwayne McDuffie and based off of his Milestone Comics series Static. The cartoon follows Virgil Hawkins, a teen who gets caught in the middle of a gang war when chemicals in a nearby building cover all of the participants, given them unique powers. Virgil gains the power to control electricity and, as the superhero Static, protects Dakota City from other empowered individuals like himself. Static Shock ended in 2004 after four seasons.

¡Mucha Lucha! (2002)

¡Mucha Lucha!, roughly “a lot of fighting” in Spanish, was about life in Luchaville, a city were everyone was a Lucha Libre- style wrestler. The series follows main character Rikochet and his best friends Buena Girl and The Flea as they go to school to learn how to be the best luchador they can be, while using and developing body-morphing signature moves along the way. ¡Mucha Lucha! was created by Eddie Mort and Lili Chin and lasted for three seasons with a direct-to-video movie, concluding in 2005.

Xiaolin Showdown (2003)

Created by Christy Hui, Xiaolin Showdown was about four children from different parts of the world training to become Xiaolin warriors that protected objects of power called Shen Gong Wu from various enemies. The children were Omi, the arrogant Dragon of Water from China, Raimundo, the laid-back Dragon of Wind from Brazil, Kimiko the tech-savvy Dragon of Fire from Japan, and Clay, the calm Dragon of Earth from the United States. Using different Shen Gong Wu and their own elements, the Xiaolin apprentices challenge their enemies to contests called Xiaolin Showdowns for control of the Shen Gong Wu, developing their skills and personalities as the series goes on. Xiaolin Showdown ended in 2006 after three seasons, although a spinoff named Xiaolin Chronicles that lasted another two seasons ran from 2013 to 2015 on Disney XD and Netflix.

Analysis

These five shows boasted widely diverse casts, but many shows during this time did. What makes these shows different, however, is that people of color were either the protagonists or the main focus of these shows. Other shows with diverse casts still usually had the male white lead who was the most developed character. So what are the benefits and drawbacks that come from having a mainly minority cast?

Positives

One of the biggest positives that comes from a POC-led cast is the variety of personalities. In white-led diverse casts, minority characters are often given one personality trait that they never deviate from. This is especially true if the trait is a common stereotype for the minority: Asian nerd, Black athlete, etc... In shows that multiple minority characters, each of them are given widely different personalities such that a stereotype is rarely establish about a particular minority in that particular show. Jackie Chan Adventures, for example, has Asian characters that range from smart, kooky, annoying, strong, evil, and more. Static Shock have African Americans that are outstanding citizens, criminals, and everything in between. This shows illustrated how varied POC are in real life.

Beyond a multitude of personalities is genuine character development. Throughout these series, POC characters who would often be reduced to static characters were allowed to grow and change throughout the series. In Xiaolin Showdown, Omi was humbled many times throughout the show, while Raimundo went from laid back but rash to a smarter and nobler warrior. Jackie and Jade’s relationship in Jackie Chan Adventures actually evolved throughout the course of the series. In these shows and more, the creators were not afraid to show their characters as imperfect-- this in turn leads to greater character development.

Given that the casts were mainly POC, these series often discussed topics that affected those communities. Both Waynehead and Static Shock discussed living in the inner city, homelessness, poverty, and violence, with the latter also discussing racism and black identity. Jackie Chan Adventures used both Chinese mythology and literature as inspiration for its stories as did Xiaolin Showdown to a lesser extent. Finally, ¡Mucha Lucha! is a celebration of the Mexican lucha libre tradition. Not only are the characters valued in these series, but so are their cultures as well.

Finally, seeing a POC as the main character at a time where most main characters were white was empowering for young POC like myself at the time. We got to see ourselves as heroes, martial artists, warriors, and more.

Negatives

Because the main focus of these series are POCs and their stories, many people may perceive elements of these shows stereotypical, from the strong Hispanic accents in ¡Mucha Lucha! to the exaggerated features of the characters in Waynehead to gang violence in Static Shock. Stereotypes in of themselves, however, are not bad-- reducing especially minorities characters to those stereotypes is. None of these series do that; all of the characters and situations are well developed in spite of the risk of stereotypes. It helps that most of these series were created and/or produced by people of the same ethnicity as the characters, which led to a more nuance portrayal of stereotypical issues rather than an exaggerated portrayal of them.

Caveats

Of course, there are many white-led cartoons that had well-developed POCs, including both X-Men and X-Men Evolution, Codename: Kids Next Door, As Told by Ginger, Gargoyles (although that was more creature-led) and many more. Minority characters were often just treated like another character rather than significant because of their minority, so they were just as developed as their white counterparts.

Furthermore, Kids’ WB! was not the only company that had cartoons led by diverse characters. From Nickelodeon’s Hawaiian-led Rocket Power, to Disney’s Black-led The Proud Family and Asian-led American Dragon Jake Long, to Cartoon Network’s Asian-led The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, many companies were creating cartoons that celebrated a variety of different backgrounds. What makes Kids’ WB! stand out is that it was a basic channel that everyone could watch rather than a cable channel that many could not pay for. Kids’ WB! also had relatively more diverse series than its basic channel contemporaries like One Saturday Morning or Fox Box/4Kids TV. However, although ethnically diverse, Kids’ WB! was not diverse in other ways.

All of the shows I discussed in this essay have male leads. Even though several of them have well-rounded female characters like Jade in Jackie Chan Adventures and Buena Girl in ¡Mucha Lucha!, Kids’ WB! have only a handful of shows that starred females, which were either cancelled early, borrowed from Cartoon Network, or, in the case of Cardcaptors, edited to give more attention to male characters. The studio wanted to attract more boy viewers rather than girl viewers to sell toys; ironically, this is the same excuse that many studios use for not focusing on ethnic characters-- that white children will not resonate with them.

Another diversity issue is the lack openly queer or genderqueer characters. Now, this is more of a industry-wide problem than just a Kids’ WB! problem. Even today, when we’re getting more queer representation in children’s programming like Steven Universe, Adventure Time, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, The Legend of Korra, and even Arthur, there is still a lot of pushback from “moral” guardians about this type of inclusiveness. Kids’ WB!, however, has a specific example of this. Ritchie Foley, Virgil’s best friend in Static Shock, is a reimagining of Rick Stone from the Static comics. Rick is gay in the comics, and McDuffie revealed after the show was over that Ritchie was too, which would have been an uphill battle now let along in the early 2000s.

Conclusion

Rightfully, more people are demanding more diversity in their media. People want to see shows and movies that are led by ethnic, religious, gender, sexual, and other minorities because that reflects the world they live in. It reflects them as people. Two decades later, it is amazing how Kids’ WB! had ethnically-diverse series that portrayed Black and Asian and Latinos as both heroic and flawed, noble and cruel, intelligent and foolish, and everything in between. Rather than having one minority character to fill a quota, Kids WB! had a multitude of minority characters that accurately illustrate how varied and complex real-life ethnic minorities are.

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sophieakatz · 5 years

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Thursday Thoughts: Yet Another Feminist Movie Test

The people of the internet (myself included) have a lot of fun playing around with the “Bechdel Test” – a simple formula created by lesbian comic artist Alison Bechdel to determine whether a film is worth seeing. This test asks the following three questions:

Are there at least two named female characters in the film?

Do they have a conversation with each other?

And is that conversation about something other than a man?

The Bechdel Test does a good job of illustrating several significant problems in mass media – the lack of named female characters, and the extremely limited range of plots, lifestyles, and character types that these female characters are given. It’s good for pointing out trends that fail to represent the diverse lives of women, and which specifically fail to appeal to lesbians and other wlw (women who like women).

But this little “test” on its own does not actually determine whether an individual film is “feminist.” It’s only three questions, after all.

Since the Bechdel Test took off in internet circles, many netizens have come up with their own media tests inspired by Bechdel’s comic. You can read about a lot of them here, but here are some of my favorites:

The Mako Mori Test: Is there at least one female character, who gets her own narrative arc, which is not about supporting a man’s story?

The Ellen Willis Test: Would this story’s depiction of these two characters still work if the genders of the characters were flipped?

The Topside Test: Does this film have more than one transgender character, who know each other, and who talk to each other about something other than a transition-related procedure?

Deggans’ Rule: Are there at least two people of color in this film, and is the film’s narrative not about race?

The Sexy Lamp Test: If you replaced the female character with a “sexy” lamp, would nothing change about the film?

Today I am adding my own test to the mix. Let’s call it the Want Test.

The Want Test is based on one question: Does what the named female character want matter to the plot?

Of course, this requires that there be a named female character in the movie. I’m taking that as a given. Most films do have one of those, these days. However, this test does not allow a filmmaker to simply point at the presence of a named female character and say that their work is done. This question asks about the relevance of this named female character. Does what she want actually matter to her world? If the answer is yes, give the film a checkmark. If the answer is no, give it a minus sign.

Note that she doesn’t necessarily need to get what she wants, but the movie world around her should react as though her wanting it means something. Villains have desires that drive plots, certainly, but that doesn’t mean that they should succeed. Additionally, many protagonists begin a movie believing that they want one thing and act upon that desire, but along the way figure out that something else is better for them. These stories are all important and I don’t want to bog this test down with the requirement that these characters get what they want, because getting what you want is not always a good thing.

Musicals tend to pass this test pretty easily, especially Disney Princess movie musicals. Cinderella of Cinderella wants to go to the ball – that matters to the plot. Tiana of The Princess and the Frog wants to open a restaurant – that matters to the plot. A main feature of a musical is the “I Want” song – the scene early on where the heroine has a solo about what she wants, setting up the plot of the story. Movies with an “I Want” song consistently get their checkmark from this test.

But this is me we’re talking about, and I’m not going to leave it this simple, now am I? Let’s add some more plusses and minuses to the test.

The titular character of Snow White gets two “I Want” songs (“I’m Wishing” and “Someday My Prince Will Come”). She wants to find love – and she gets it, too. She also spends a lot of time bossing the dwarves out of their slovenliness, for no apparent reason other than that she wants to. That’s enough for a checkmark.

But Snow White is not the only named female character whose wants matter to the plot. The Evil Queen (and yeah, I’m counting that as a name, because it’s how she’s consistently referred to in Disney media) wants to be the fairest of them all, and that want drives her to try to kill Snow White multiple times, launching the entire plot in the first place. If more than one named female characters have wants that drive the plot, then the film gets a check-plus.

However, Snow White does not do as well under this test as it possibly could. Snow and the Queen’s wants directly conflict with each other; they are enemies. Ultimately, for the story to conclude, what one of them wants needs to matter less than what the other woman wants. And that’s not ideal.

Let’s take a look instead at Frozen. Here we have two named female characters, Anna and Elsa, whose wants absolutely matter to the plot. Anna wants to connect with her sister and save Arendelle from the eternal winter, while Elsa wants to protect her sister (and save Arendelle from the eternal winter, but that’s secondary). Ultimately their wants converge, and they help each other get what they want, living happily ever after. If the named female characters help each other get what they want instead of fight against each other, then the film is upped to a check-double-plus.

Now here’s the disappointing side of this test. Sometimes a named female character wants something, and her wants matter – but her wants directly contrast with the wants of a male character. Perhaps she’s the villain who has locked the male character in a dungeon. Perhaps she’s a prospective love interest who doesn’t want to fall for the male character. In this case, while the female’s character’s wants matter, they only matter insofar as the male character is trying to change what she wants or to make sure she does not get what she wants. These films may depict a woman as having desires, but her desires are not actually important – they are an obstacle.

In Toy Story 2, Jessie wants Woody to come with her to the museum in Japan. Woody doesn’t want to go. The viewer does not want him to go. Her wants certainly matter to the world – Jessie’s backstory is arguably the saddest sequence in all of Pixar history, and she nearly sways Woody to her side – but her wants are an obstacle. The film’s triumphant moment is when Woody gets her to change what she wants and come be Andy’s toy instead. As a result, this film gets a check-minus. It passes – but not in a very positive way.

That got pretty wordy. Here is the tl;dr version of the Want Test:

Does what the named female character want matter to the plot?

Yes – checkmark

Yes, AND this is true of multiple named female characters – check-plus

AND these characters help each other get what they want – check-double-plus

Yes, BUT her wants are an obstacle to a male character’s goal – check-minus

No – minus

Now let’s look at some other movies and see how they fare against the Want Test:

Tangled – check-plus. It’s a musical movie with an “I Want” song, and Rapunzel’s desire to see the lanterns sure as heck matters. So does Mother Gothel’s desire to keep Rapunzel prisoner and stay young forever. They’re opponents, so it doesn’t get a double-plus, but it’s still an excellent film.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl – check! Elizabeth Swann is a force to be reckoned with, and the world around her recognizes it right from the start. Alas, she is the only one of her kind. There are other named female characters here, but what they want (to slap Jack) is only ever played for laughs.

Toy Story 1 – minus. Bo exists, but she might as well be a sexy lamp (which, you know, she is). Toy Story 4, on the other hand, earns a check-double-plus in the end. As I’ve written before, that film is entirely about a man learning to put his wants second to what the women around him want. Because of this, Toy Story 4 might even deserve a check-triple-plus.

The Social Network – check-minus. Barely. The film begins with Erica Albright getting fed up with fictional-Mark-Zuckerburg’s assholery and dumping him, which implies that she wants to be treated better. The film gets a check because this want is what sets off the entire plot, and Mark spends the rest of the film trying to impress her in one way or another, but since her wants are one hundred percent in opposition to Mark’s wants, it’s a check-minus.

Mad Max: Fury Road – check-double-plus, easily. This film is a group of women’s journey towards freedom. They don’t all make it there, but the fact that they want it and strive for it literally changes the world.

Ocean’s 8 – check-double-plus. If you need to ask why, then we didn’t watch the same film.

Up – check-plus! Surprised? The female presence in this film isn’t obvious at first glance. But there are two named female characters – Ellie and Kevin (yes, the bird counts, this is a world with sentient animals). While Ellie spends all but the first five minutes of the film deceased, the want that she establishes in those first five minutes – to travel with Carl to Paradise Falls – drives literally everything that Carl does in the film. Kevin just wants to live her life as a mama bird, feeding and protecting her babies, and those wants do matter, in sharp contrast to the wants of the villainous Charles Muntz.

Moana – double-check-plus! Moana, Grandma Tala, and Te Fiti’s wants all align. I can’t remember Moana’s mother’s name ever being said in the film itself (according to the credits her name is Sina), but she has a key moment early on of helping Moana get what she wants, even though that means giving up some of what Sina herself wants, and that’s noteworthy too.

Now here’s where the fun continues: you could also replace “female character” with a different minority! Does what the named Asian-American character want matter to the plot? Does what the named disabled character want matter to the plot? Does what the named transgender character want matter to the plot? So you’ve “inserted diversity” into your film – but what are you doing with it? It’s not enough for us to just be there. We need to matter, as people with desires and agency. We need to matter in films, because we matter in reality. And we haven’t mattered for long enough.

Let’s have a conversation! What other films pass - or fail! - the Want Test? What media tests do you like to apply to the films you watch? Reblog, reply, or retweet with your thoughts!

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kajaono · 5 years

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X men master post

I am allways a little bit surprised that the X-men movies are not more popular by „diverse“ people. I can understand why the MCU is favored by many white straight male persons but let me break down the XMCU a little bit for you and why it actually has a lot more depth and diversity then the MCU. And they did important stuff when it came to disability and female representation around 10 years before the MCU did it.

Diversity, with in the main cast:

Logan: While he first appears as a hot wet male dream his character actually has way more depth. He suffers from PTSD and amnesia. While in the MCU Tonys PTSD was (mostly) only discussed in Iron man 3 Logans PTSD is a constant companion in every story that features him. He suffers from sleeplessness and nightmares. He shows sign of affection towards the man who tortured him. And even long after he has got his memory back and found out why he sufferes from PTSD the triggers are still there. And they can be activated at any given moment. Like in Days of future past where one look at a young version of guy who will torture him some where in a distant future was enough to gave him a panic attack and flashbacks. And all of this (nightmares, panic attacks, flashbacks) are happening in every movie and are making it nearly impossible for him to find a home or form stable relationships with other people.

Erik: A jewish man. And being jewish is a big and important part of the character. It is still a superhero movie so we never see him celebrating jewish holidays but he is constantly reminding the viewer that we never should forgot what happend back then in the KZ without reducing him to that. But actually showing how he overcomes his grief and anger by making it a constant companion of him.

Charles: A disabled man. While his disability is never shown as something that stops him from doing stuff (because he has a fancy sci fi wheelchair) there is a whole movie that shows how he tries to accept his life in a wheelchair. And after he accepted the wheelchair it a constant companion of him so we see him going into fights with a wheelchair and noone finds anything “strange” about that (aka making comments about him). Actually people are more confused when he stays at home. But that doesn’t mean that his disability is ignored.

Rogue: A girl that can actually kill by touching other people. She is perfect example how being different scares other people and make you an outcast. Until that point where you are unable to love and accept yourself. And what i found so fascinating about her story. It showed that it is okay to give up. That we do not can win every fight. That giving up is okay when it is what makes us happy and gives us peace

Powerful female main characters:

In the XMCU women where allways part of the main cast. They were never reduced to love interests or sex objects. They were allways in the middle of the fight and kicking ass. Actually 2 out of 3 X men in the first movie are women. They wear the same outfits as there male comapnions and if your name is Storm you get an extra fancy cape. While on the other hand the women are diverse. They are not wet male dreams of hot women kicking ass but actually you have:

Jean: A doctor. Who is really calming. A loving teacher and girlfriend. Also a little insecure about herself. While also being one of the most powerful mutants around and kicking ass. And she is allowed to say: NO!” Something we rarely see in other superhero movies. In x men 2 she shows signs of attraction and affection towards Logan. But instead of cheating with him on her boyfriend she says: No, please do not let me do that.” Because women are perfectly functional human beings who can still decide against a guy when they feel attraction towards him, knowing it wouldn’t be good for her/or when she wants to protect her relationship with her boyfriend.

Storm: A woman of color. Sadly her character never really got fleshed out.... not like Jeans character. (She deserves a solo movie!) But she is this quiet cool woman who somehow manages to stay away from every relationship drama because she never gets a male love interested forced onto her. She is this kind of women who makes you hyped everytime you see her own screen just because her presence alone is so powerful

Rogue: Actually she is still a child and doesn’t know anything about fighting. She is super insecure. Is really closed off from the world (caused by her powerful mutation) But somehow she is allways in the middle of the battle and saving the world with small actions.

Kitty: While her character gets introcuded really late, and she is actually only a side chatacter, the whole plot of xmen 3 and days of future past would not have worked without her.

Queer characters:

Nevertheless this is still a superhero and hollywood movie which means queer representation is of cource not present in text. BUT! That doesn’t mean it is not present at all. 1. The whole plot of x men 2 was a LGBTQ metaphore. There is this whole conversation in x men 2 where a mother sits down with her son after he says: Mum i have to tell you something.” Then he comes out as gay a mutant. Later the mother asked when he first relaized that he is gay a mutant. And if he ever tried not to be gay a mutant. Bouns point that actually this character comes out as gay in the comics. Also it has Ian McKellen who highly supports a gay reading of his character Erik.

Yeah Cherik:

From the very first moment they share a deep lovers to enemies relationship with eachother. Because no matter how much they fight against eachother. They allways end up together again, saving eachother, unable to let eachother go. Their relationship ended really tragical in the first timeline. But the new timeline with Fassbender and Mcavoy did not stopped that. They added 100% more homoerotic subtext. And then they wrote a whole movie for them only to explain how they meet and fall in love. And it was so gay that Fassbender and Mcavoy confirmed that FOX seperated them in later movies to reduce the gay subtext. BUT! that did not stop the writers from make it canon in the last movie. Yeah, it is still a Hollywood movie so not canon CANON but if you watch it you will see that it is canon. A little bit like good omens. They are moving in together and playing chess like they allways did... in Paris... the city of love... they couldn’t have been more obvious. Would have been openly queer representation even better? Sure. But with this little ending FOX XMCU achieved more then the MCU in the last 10 years.

The cinematography is perfect. Many may know the scene where Quicksilver is running through the kitchen in light speed listing to music. The movies have so much more of these moments. Also in the early movies where they had less money and CGI. So they need to invest a lot of time into planning how to film exciting scenes while still saving money and time. That resulted in absolut amazing scenes that make especially X men 2 a bless to watch. Also that most of the movies are PG 13 blood is only used where it is needed but then allways in such an aesthetical beautiful way that it is allways blowing my mind.

Body positivity: is a big topic especially in the first three movies. Sure the main characters are all perfect looking people but what matters here are the children. Most of the storyline is playing in a school and not a single one of the kids is a model type person. They are are super mixed, super chubby, super skinny, tall, small, freckles, curly hair, flat hair etc. And they all dress as bad all children did that grew up in the early 2000s. I think that is especially important for the children that are watching the movies. Becuase they see that all the kids are looking like them and have super powers anyway, no matter what skincolor or body type, so they do need to stress about that

Sexual consent: Especially in the main movies there are never any out of the blue sex moments. And as i allready mentioned Jean says: No” to a kiss with Logan because she doesn’t feel good with it but i think even more important is the scene in x men 3 where Jean goes completly Phoenix and wants to have sex with Logan he first goes along happily because that is what he allways wanted. But in the moment he realizes that Jean is out of her mind and not really there he stop immediatly. He regnoizes her boundaries and says: Let us stop. And let us talk about it tomorrow again.” And i think this scene is so important. It shows the viewer that just because a woman wants to have sex with you it is not necessarily right to use her helplessness as an excuse to actual have sex with her. Instead you should try to get her sober/clean and bring her home.

Up-to-dateness: Escpecially the older movies are still really up to date. There is this whole scene in X men 2 where police forces are storming into the mutant school by night and are arreasting little children by gun power. Just to imprison them later on, with out food, proper cloths or a lawyer. But also the realization that if you are part of a marginalized group you have to fight 10x times harder to be accepted, that you allways have to good, because one mistake and everyone will hunt you down and bully you again. That gets a nice addaition by the scene in x men 1 where Mystique says that she was afraid to go to school when you was young because of her beng different even though noone can actually see it.

Problems. of course there are problems. Here are the four main ones.

Solo movies: Everything i said about the x men movies does not necessarily have to apply for the solo movies. The Wolverine solo movies allways feature a quick female love interest and fights that get more brutal and bloody with every new solo movie released. They do not take their time to explore Logans PTSD and trauma even more and focus more on the action. And also the female love interest do not know how to fight, are weak, are needing protection and are getting killed off easily.

Storm. Her character was more of a side character from the beginning. She had not really much character development but all in all her character still got treated well (okay in x men 3). It gets horrible in the new movies. In days of future past she only appears because of her powers. She is just standing there and fights. She does not share more then one sentence with the three main characters. With all those characters she is actually really close with in xmen 1 to 3. While all “old” characater (those that allready appeared in x men 1 to 3 and survived) get a heartful goodbye she is excluded from it. Then her origin story happens in Apocolpyse. here she not only joins the bad ones first, she also get absolut sidelined again. Why she joins the good ones in the end is absolut unclear because she never says anything. And i do not even remeber if she even was in Dark Phoenix. Because IF she was in there she probably never said more then one word. We never got the Jean/Scott/Storm origin story we deserve

Rasism. For a movie that is so diverse it has surprisingly few persons of color. Beisde of Storm there is actually no POC in those movies. And let you only need to see above to see how bad she got treated at the end. And then there is still this cursed scene from X men First class where the bad guy says: “You can stay here and live like slaves. Or you can come with me and live like king and queens.” and in the moment he says: Slaves.” the camera focuses on the only black giy in the group who gets murder 5 minutes later. “Kings” zoom at the blond white guy who survives the movie. “Queen” focus on the latina woman in the group who joins the bad guys 5 seconds later and gets injured badly at the end of the movie.

Apocolypse. Actually everyting about this movie is horrible. F.e. while the other movies tried to show how Erik over comes his KZ trauma by making it a part of himself Apocolypse reduces being jewish completly to the KZ and kills off his whole family five minutes later... again. A forced straight romance that leads nowhere. Everything about Storm in this movie. This movie is just cursed.

Also x men 3 feels a little bit off sometimes but this is part of another post

So with the Xmen now joining the MCU i can highly recommend everyone to check out the x men movies. Especially the old ones from 2000 who still have the most depth and do not try to be a copy of the MCU.

So all in all i can highly recommend you to watch the X men movies. And the contunity errors that many MCU fans are laughing about are actually really helpful because it makes the movies more flexible then the MCU movies. And that avoid shitstorms and makes the fandom - most of the time - a really relaxed place to be in

#x men #xmcu #mcu #marvel #x men master post #master post

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bladekindeyewear · 5 years

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Boots reads Homestuck Epilogue(s) Part 7 - Meat Page 26

==>

Back on to Jade swimming into the singularity or something. (And trying to stop thinking that maybe Candy ends with a giant polyamorous relationship and/or orgy, because I don’t imagine Rose would have acted so tamely if that’s what she saw.)

Yes, Time is the complement of Space, that was already confirmed in comic if it wasn’t super incredibly obvious all along anyway.

Gah, I’m getting stomach cramps again.

Yeah, too much Space makes Time invisible and vice versa? Or...

Maybe Dave broke her heart a little, and he keeps doing it too, no matter how many different timelines they try out.

God damnit these CRAMPS. Reading further.

Like a garden, where Jade used to spend so much of her time with her hands in the earth and her head in the clouds, dreaming about flowers that bloomed in six colors and grew when she played them a song. Was that real? It’s hard to tell. But it made her happy, didn’t it?

FUCK are you going to start making me doubt the reality of the liFe we saw her living early in-comic????? Cut it out, it’s unsettling!

Alright, alt!Callie is taking the reins from Dirk on this narrative he so smugly thought he could completely consume. That’s good/bad.

slutty adult Jade

FUCKING YIKES!! FUCK YOU DIRK!

FUCK I DIDN’T NEED HER DEATH DESCRIBED IN SUCH DETAIL EITHER. Also alt!Callie’s really embodying Death here.

==>

Pff. Calliope’s writing the story now, in a sense, like she always kind of wanted.

Also pff, this version of her doesn’t know how to describe human stuff colorfully. :)

An adversarial dichotomy between your opposing goals, huh? This might end up as a “none of us can really write the ending” ending that DOES leave it up in the air for everyone else to decide instead.

Fuck, now you’re having THIS Jade suffer by proxy by experiencing the other Jade’s memories. This metatextual ascension’s happening to everyone isn’t it.

Yeah, she’s done it before and stuff--

when jade turns to look at roxy, her eyes are completely black.

FUCK.

my presence shall mitigate, if not altogether subdue, the corrosive effect on reality and the will of its occupants by those who would manipulate the way events are telegraphed for their own megalomaniacal objectives.

Well, fuck. Jade’s been temporarily hijacked for the rest of the story AGAIN, like back in Condesce days, this time as a plot device to keep Dirk from overreaching with his god powers and stepping over everyone’s wills like an Ultimate Riddle style villain. Dirk, I mean. Being the villain. And alt!Callie just doing what she has to to put this back on track. Man I HATE it when Jade’s will doesn’t get to be on full display. Her will is awesome. (Also, alt!Callie just tacitly confirmed that the will of reality’s occupants matters, if that wasn’t obvious already, so ha.)

despite his pretensions to a greater design, the prince of heart cannot be allowed to continue to exert unchecked control over the authoritative recitation of events on this side of my horizon. it cannot be overstated the extent to which he represents a threat to the continued existence of both this world and corporeal life itself.

Yeah, it was indeed looking that way earlier.

Ooh, alt!Callie is really spot-on with her pronoun use.

Alright, Dirk’s voice is shrinking away, and my stomach still feels half-clenched.

Wow, alt!Callie’s really mad at what Dirk’s been doing with this epilogue.

==>

“EPILOGUE FIVE”?????

Did I miss the titles for one, three, and four??? Yeah there were probably there and I just missed them or something.

Pfffff, John looks/smells like shit. :D

...too fresh??

Fuck you John for thinking Monty Python and the Holy Grail isn’t a masterpiece. :P

terezi tips her head to one side, with what john personally regards as a cute expression, one he believes is unique to her. whether he’s correct or not, it’s his belief that there is no one else who emotes in this manner. it’s both quizzical and mocking, two descriptors that he considers to be an apt summation of her personality as well.

Niiiiice. Nice linguistic description of her “>:?” expression.

have no desire to interject thoughts into others’ minds, or to sway intent. nor do i see value in masking the reality of the emotions that i transcribe. this is how he feels. his mind, however, has made a habit of being less clear about his thoughts than i am willing to be.

Oh thank fucking god, I don’t have to question everyone’s thoughts anymore. Until Dirk comes back or something, I dunno.

Oh my fucking god, alt!Callie, you total voyeuristic nerd.

he fears he is in danger of seeming like the type of creepy human male who is likely to collect large pillows bearing the illustrated images of japanese earth females. to me, this idea means nothing. but it is causing him to sweat.

This is one very relatable snippet of text.

Feed Terezi Feed Terezi Feed Terezi

WHY is the gold tooth poisonous??????? ...Wait, Caliborn affixed it to his mouth intentionally. He had every right and motive to make it poisonous for no good reason. Ugh.

Beep beep, let’s find Vriska.

==>

WHAT

WHAT JANE

WHAT THE FLYING FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN DOING

JESUS

Using Trickster Mode as a drug to further one’s political performance. That’s fucking horrifying. No wonder it was on the triggers list.

additionally, it prevents one from dwelling on any given personal problems, or the greater implications of any political statements one might make.

Pff, mhmm.

Problematic, huh? Jane seems like the slightly-old-fashioned sort of person who thinks it’s getting kind of ridiculously silly how much people are caring about stuff being “problematic”. And yet that stuff DOES matter, and ignoring it DOES hurt people, and she not only isn’t seeing that but is drugging herself to see it LESS with that goddamned lollipop. Holy shit.

she turns around promptly, her body jolted by the surprise of her sudden reversal. she bends over, cradles the lollipop reverentially, and situates it carefully in a place signifying respect: atop the mantle, after clearing space for it by shoving several brittle, worthless objects to the floor.

PFFF. Okay, so alt!Callie ISN’T above altering characters slightly from their narrative course when it comes to one of the few things she deems important. Heh.

Having “his control of a shared vehicle fully suppressed”, huh? Does alt!Callie only mean the narrative, or maybe Rose too with whatever weird bullshit he did to her?

Uh, “while the seer both diminishes and ascends”??? D:

--Oh, oh shit. He was planning to NARRATIVE CONTROL Jake into going along with things. D: D:

Yeah, Jake would want to bang all the aliens, really.

Sendificator rifle, or something like that. Got it.

==>

How fucking long is this epilogue, anyway????? I mean, the length is appropriate from an objective point of view, I’m just frustrated because I’m going to have to spend every waking hour liveblog-reading it until I’ve reached the end or I’m likely to fucking explode, and I didn’t want this to be my entire day/weekend/existence again AAGH HOMESTUCK YOU BLACK HOLE

anyway yaay karkat in a suit.

Alluding to assassination attempts? What, is that red rifle going to try and fulfill that old “through the silver screen and straight into my heart” unused foreshadowing-herring from act six, or five, or whenever it was? Five, I believe.

Pff, super pacs, yeah. Dave’s nearly as political as me now or something. Except he actually acts on it here instead of just sitting around talking about it and thinking he’s right all the time, like me.

Wait, JANE ACTUALLY WENT THROUGH with smearing Jake??!??? Holy shit she’s lost touch.

KARKAT: SWEET BRO AND HELLA JEFF IS ABSOLUTELY HORRENDOUS SUBJECT MATTER FOR PRODUCING CAMPAIGN ADS! KARKAT: NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THE FUCK YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT, OR WHAT POINTS YOU’RE TRYING TO MAKE! DAVE: yeah its awesome

Pfffff.

...yeah, Jake isn’t thinking of ANYTHING except Dirk right now, really.

Oh huh, Dirk HAS been as controlling of Jake as he used to be, now that alt!Callie’s pointing it out. Just with an even more insidious mechanism.

Oh cool, Karkat’s version of the policy pitch! :D :D :D Can’t wait can’t wait reading

(dont lie karkat you totally know shes hot)

Pff, stop making it seem obvious that Dirk wanted to assassinate Jake for political purposes. Heck, even if that WAS his plan it’d just be a temporary death that he’d resurrect from and then they’d try to turn it into... what, some media spin on how Karkat might have been responsible? Or a troll?? That latter part would make things MUCH more xenophobic. I’m starting to get seriously into the politics of this.

==>

Pff, now ‘rezi’s eating tobacco.

...okay, is Terezi REALLY going to go for a real conversation with just an honest ask for one? I don’t think so--

--aaand there she goes laughing, as expected. At least at first.

Yep, Terezi’s wearing the shoes. Nice date gift.

--And yep, Terezi remembers all that. She managed to do the nigh-metatextual mind merge with her other selves WITHOUT even needing God-Tier.

Yeah, Vriska always seemed fit to abandon the kismesis you deserved when it suited her, ‘rezi. :(

JOHN: even worse, i might have tried to fix things MYSELF! TEREZI: OH D34R GOD JOHN: yeah!!!

Yeah I cackled out loud at that.

TEREZI: 34RTH C 1S P3RF3CT 1SNT 1T? TEREZI: BUT NOT FOR YOU TEREZI: YOU DONT *F33L* 1T

john swallows a thick breath. he reminds himself that he never wanted perfection, never asked for it. and yet he feels guilty every day for failing to enjoy it as much as he believes he was supposed to.

Holy shit. John’s survivor’s guilt from all the doomed timelines he witnessed and escaped is keeping him from feeling their victory has been real, and making his “squandering” of it gut his self-esteem too. God damnit.

Roxy and John wouldn’t have worked out????? Hey Terezi, quit it! >:[ That’s not fair, just very plausibly and authoritatively dismissing a ship we’d hoped for offscreen like-- Oh, shit, she’s alluding to something that happened in the Candy side I haven’t read isn’t she. She would DEFINITELY have an idea of what happened on the other side of that Choice Split with her hero role. Fuck what am I in for

....pfff, that Callie vs Dirk bit. It’s like revenge against Doc Scratch, which it kind of IS, really.

I didn’t expect this much time to be spent dwelling on really intimate John/Terezi scenes. It’s really refreshing! Making this kind of meaningful no matter whether it’s black or inexplicably red they end up with or whatever, and equally meaningful if they don’t end up in any sort of relationship at all, really.

even without the aid of a juju, he is fortunate enough to be blessed with the only true form of divinity. to be released from the prison of nonsensical inhibitions which so often psychologically hobble the more primitive forms of life.

Alt!Callie, are you causing this? I thought you wanted to be impartial.

Okay, THAT finally brought things suitably closer to the black side of romance like I would have expected.

==>

their finger hovers over dirks number for a moment, but... no. that would not be a good idea. they don’t know why they suddenly think it’s a bad idea. it just is.

Okay, THAT shred of influence is fair. You DID say you were going to countermand his influence, so yeah.

Good excuse to get narration of her thoughts, if flimsy. :)

Lord save me from this fake woke nightmare.

Pfffff. Fuck you, Dirk. ;)

ROXY: guess ill just open the damn curtains and let some light in here

FUCK you’re going to kill JADE aren’t you???? You’re giving Jade a TEMPORARY DEATH just to deny alt!Callie’s proxy?!?? That’s fucking insidious! Fuck you, Dirk!!! That one wasn’t a loveable joke this time, that was an ACTUAL fuck you. This epilogue is really good at making him out to be the villain now that his powers have expanded to the narrative.

Reading reading reading...

...Huh. Is Roxy talking about coming out as non-binary and getting advice on it? Hm!

Alright, and she’s defs a little gay for Callie from what she’s saying if it wasn’t clear before. If “gay” even has any relevance when you’re talking about a pair of non-binary... yeah whatever. :)

Alright, time to hear Dave talk about it all some more I guess.

--Yep, he’s only mostly gay. Called it. There’s a whole spectrum.

...and yeah, I mean... why NOT let it go beyond quadrants with Karkat and never slap an official label on it? You’re just two people who love each other and want to spend time together in any capacity, be it positive or negative. It doesn’t have to result in anything formal unless you want it to, much less boning down or something. Dirk, stop getting creepy with how hard you’re shipping them, that’s the fanbase’s job.

Jade and Roxy are visible from this location, right? Wasn’t it mentioned that they live in a tower in Carapaceville or whatever? Has Dirk successfully conned alt!Callie into having her vessel shot through? Probably.

the ongoing corruption of his cerebrally impaired daughter.

Eewwwwweweewww

Anyway yeah here comes the plot twist or whatever...

Yeah, Callie gets it wrong, and--

......ah, a tranq? That makes more sense and is more than slightly less evil, if still ultimately evil given his eventual presumed goals or whatever.

DIRK: Like the bitch she is.

FUCK YOU

Oh, Jade’s going to be asleep for the rest of the story? AGAIN?!???? FUCK YOU SO MUCH, DIRK.

Jesus christ. How long is this epilogue anyway.

Taken your leave? From this planet??? What the fuck, are you--

Oh. Oh shit.

When Dirk ascended into absorbing the memories of all his various split selves, did he get a heaping helping of DOC SCRATCH in there too??? Was Doc Scratch’s ambition actually for POST-victory ascension in this very manner? FUCK. Either way, him sharing some of those memories puts a pretty unique spin on his descent into goddamn evil, here.

Reading on... oh shit, did Callie write the candy half??

==>

Huh, postcoital; we actually went there. Cool.

Ah, she gives up on Vriska? Better find Vriska really fast, then.

Oh, you’re really going? Or, trying, anyway.

==>

Really committed to this whole ascending to literal godhood schtick, aren’t you, Dirk?

(Hm. Makes me almost think that this situation with Rose is going to end up with someone splitting her essence entirely in two to save her; her raw Seer-ness getting forced into a convenient vessel (cueball, wonk wonk) and herself returning to consciousness a slight bit more mortal than she was before, ie not going completely insane. Hmm.)

Oh, “Vast Fuck” sorta-maybe-confirmed..??

Stop tacitly insulting Jake as you puppet him, Dirk. He’s a dumbass but not THAT much of a dumbass.

beta-bitch

FUCK YOU, DIRK.

She loves you, Jake, more than anything, and you toyed with her heart.

Fuuuuuuck you.

could subsume your entire personality

Shit, he IS trying to pretty much consume them all. Swallow their individuality and take total control of all their actions. All Prince of Heart on the whole world. Dirk you need to fucking DIE.

And to love Dirk is to obey him.

There isn’t a Fuck You large or loud enough to what I feel about the mental violation Dirk is inflicting on Jake right now, and everyone else around him, and I sincerely and selfishly hope this epilogue is almost over because I don’t want too many pages to stand between this one and seeing Dirk fucking PAY.

Jake opens his big, dumb mouth to make the only important contribution to the plot he ever has or ever will make in his whole sad, pointless joke of a life.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU

Let’s hope that in your hubris your looking away managed to let him say something different or some such.

==>

You try to remember if you’ve ever been revived by Jane before. You honestly can’t recall. So much shit has happened. Maybe?

Yeah, I don’t recall either really.

The poison needling through you is antithetical to narrative relevance. You’re not dying, John. You’re being erased. Cherubs don’t fuck around. We’ve both been learning that the hard way.

Okay, fuck? How the hell? Is this just because Dirk says it is, or???

I guess it’s tragic, though maybe not in the conventional sense. My view is, the real tragedy with you, John, is that you never mattered all that much.

Yeah, Dirk’s first fucking rant when he took over the narrative officially was about John being a you-insert nobody average guy, and the DISDAIN he shows to everything about who John is is pretty goddamn insulting. He has NO concept of how John managed to bring everyone together or... UGH!

even though you knew both then and now that it was the only choice you possibly could have made.

Dammit, so it probably WASN’T a full timeline-bisecting Mind split. Just a side branch that wasn’t as likely, because just like with his Denizen, John’s will was tilted toward this part of the choice. D:

I see how some of this seems to be going, or at least think I do... Dirk thinks that John needs to die heroically “for the good of the story”, and something’s potentially going to come in and say “no”? That the whole reason they WON was to essentially be free of that cruel logic once and for all, and that Dirk is gonna get one hell of a smackdown for trying futilely to enforce it in their new post-victory domain??

She listens to him bleed while she smells him die.

--That, and fulfilling bits of foreshadowing for shits and giggles. >:(

Huh, “friable”, didn’t even know that was a word. Just looked it up; you learn something new every day.

Okay what is Dirk planning with the fucking body.

==>

Jane swept the election, of course. I told you I was going to win. After Jake’s incoherent and scandalous heel-turn at Karkat’s ill-fated rally, no amount of esoteric, three-dimensional jpeg artefacts could have salvaged the Vantas campaign.

Ah, but is that what REALLY happened, or what you’re saying happened, about to be overwritten?

Mainly that their BFF Jade has been in a coma for an entire month. They’ve been in and out of the hospital handling her affairs. Her next of kin is listed as John Egbert, and no one’s seen him in ages. It’s like he just disappeared suddenly. Like some great hand came out of the sky and crossed his name off the big list of guys we ever need to give a shit about anymore.

F U C K Y O U

Roxy, after all, and since her big heart-to-heart about the personal politics of queer onion metaphors, and ten stages of galaxy-braining through the many vicissitudes of the phrase “no homo,” Roxy has decided to really step up her gender experimentation. I guess at this point she’s gone beyond Stage Ten. Which I imagine is somewhat like reaching Super Saiyan 2 of gender, and then going even further beyond.

Holy crap, she’s going full Dave Lalonde. That’s pretty sweet.

...Isn’t Terezi like obviously covered in blood and stuff?

ROXY: they stay home all day with the blinds drawn paintin some weird ass shit on the walls

Oh my fucking GOD real!Callie please save the plot. Nuke this self-indulgent Dirkshit.

ROXY: like lotsa nasty purple blood and um ROXY: nudity???? TEREZI: >:? ROXY: yeah yikes ROXY: but MOST of it is cute stuff like... various combos of all of us being happy and gettin married and shit ROXY: anyway thats kept callie kinda busy

...This is an allusion to the Candy side I haven’t read, isn’t it? Maybe THAT’s part of what she supplants this bullshit with. Or since it mentions “various combinations”, she’s restoring the possibility to everything that the ending was supposed to have?

This is potentially a real fucking indictment of the idea of a narrative-driven ending when what actually mattered was the characters’ escape from said narrative. :)

ROXY: its like theyre traumatized ROXY: and they think ill drag whatever possessed jade back into our home with me

Okay fuck maybe Callie ISN’T helping. Maybe she’s just so worried about the alternate history she could have lead that she’s retreating into every Candy-like fanfic she can think of. :(

What’s with the phone buzz? The intervention we’ve been hoping for, since Dirk’s making her ignore it?

Oh cool, figures Terezi’s been hearing the narrative all along and just politely not acknowledging the fact that she hears it! Maybe SHE’LL help unfuck this mess. (And according to her, Roxy’s gone full “him” too!)

Fuck fuck fuck Terezi don’t listen to him go against his bullshit instead

Where, canon? Is that where you’re planning to escape back to or some such, with yourself as the author? Is that orange Andrew actually you or some BS?

Dammit.

==>

FUCK, “new body”????

The new body I’ve made for her won’t have much use for her usual ensembles. That’s all I was saying.

FUCK FUCK FUCK it IS the cueball isn’t it. Holy shit. That’s even worse than a robot. FZUCZK

Okay calm down. The Rose part of Rose can be cut away and rescued from this fate somehow, if she isn’t just whole-hog rescued entirely which would also be good. FUCK DIRK

...look purple? What?

DIRK: What’s happening here is the best thing for everybody.

Yeah, go fuck yourself. This shit had better be undone soon.

To finally face the truth. If Rose has been spending more time with me than you, if she’s realizing she resonates more with me due to our natural similarities and finds my presence more rewarding than yours, then what does that say about YOU, Kanaya?

PFFFF. YOU’RE GONNA BREAK UP THE PAIRING JUST SO YOU CAN STEAL HER? HAHAHAHAHAHA NO.

Okay, after THAT page’s last bit of horrid manipulation, this can’t end in any way that doesn’t involve ages of existential and literal torment for Dirk, forever.

==>

Epilogue Seven, huh. One last thing he wants to take care of before getting out of dodge, huh. I see Karkat and Dave’s text colors on screen. Is he going to try to force them to finally bone down or confess? This would be the perfect place for his plan to get fucking stopped.

Homestuck, stop making my fucking stomach clench so hard.

That’s a hell of a disaster Dirk thought up for these guys on that stage.

Part of this whole shitshow might be to tell us that this ending, this “fanfic” of dubious authenticity of an epilogue that Dirk is giving us is how DIRK believes it would end best for everyone involved, but not how everyone else would, ignoring their wills... while also discarding the idea of the epilogue that any individual reader of Homestuck would want in favor of the possibilities he meant to leave open with the ending.

Alright, here comes Dirk NOT forcing them to bone down but rather trying to persuade-brainwash them into a relationship talk.

DAVE: so what youre saying is you believe in me who believes in you

Dave. Please.

Hey, the Gurren Lagaan reference went WAY too long unsaid. Even if Andrew literally didn’t know a thing about said anime when he made the character designs.

I look Dave right in his mind’s eye and tell him to cut it the fuck out. He wants it, you want it, so just go for it, my man. It’s now or never.

DAVE: oh DAVE: same

I feel every brain cell in my immortal body begin to perish in real time.

BAAHAHAHAAHHhahahha FUCK YOU Dirk.

I mean, I want Dave and Karkat together as much as the next guy but FUUUUUUUCK YOU DIRK!!! I want everything you ever wanted to go wrong and shit on you. Their equivocating soft-nearly-mance is strong enough to go even against you, who thinks yourself the narrative fucking Sun.

Oh this is fantastic

I’ve literally been decapitated and that was less unbearable than this.

YES KEEP FALLING APART

You see that twinkle? That’s devotion, you unbelievably dense neutron star of a dumbshit.

Nice callback to... what was it, Dave’s first rant at Tavros to troll him back or whatever?

radially effervescing kaleidoscope of more hot boy peckers than you could ever imagine.

Yep, DEFINITELY a callback to that. I’ll never forget the sick flow of that metaphor.

DAVE: i just keep having thoughts i know id never think

SAVE US DAVE

Dammit, near miss.

The privilege of a Strider Eye Moment is about the most earth-shattering experience a young man will ever have in his life.

Pfff

DAVE: GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HEAD AND JUST LET ME DO THIS MYSELF!!!

yaaaaaayyy

I mean we didn’t save the whole story yet but at least Dirk got fucked over and we still get Davekat intimacy.

That’s pretty classy actually, not getting into detail and just sounding blown the fuck away by it even though he’s Dirk. That’s pretty good.

==>

Something about the height of Rose, roughly Rose-shaped, and wrapped in a cloth. I know she’s gonna love it the first time she sees it.

Oh so it IS a robot body. Well, fuck you a little less than it potentially being the magic cueball, but STILL fuck you.

I may have already mentioned, but I’m a bit too deft at this for my own good. Doing the thing where I tug at the part of someone’s latent thought process that already knows they adore me. That if someone would just pull the stops from their sense of inhibition, they’d realize they would do anything for me.

It’s called killing their soul with your role abilities you ASSHOLE

I hope this crush you filled him with bites you in the fucking ass now that he’s here.

DIRK: I won’t be coming back, Jake.

Oh, so you’re just going to drop the truth on him like that? Let’s see how that works out for you, asshole.

DIRK: Jane needs you now more than ever.

Oh fuck you. This is “best for everyone”, huh?????

DIRK: You’ll just be, you know. DIRK: Her candy boy? JAKE: CANDY BOY??? DIRK: Yeah. Being on call. DIRK: Serving a multimillion-year term of giving her the right kind of “presidential action” she needs to keep going. To keep her morale up and such. DIRK: To provide her with many heirs. DIRK: Doesn’t that sound cool? JAKE: HEIRS??

Um. What the fuck? Is this even Dirk anymore? It’s not Condesce intervention, I’m not going to try and suspect that just from the callback or anythiiiii-----

Fuck, we DID just get an alive Meenah dropped into a universe somewhere.

Maybe this IS Condesce intervention. Just a different Condesce. o_O

Two ticks longer than he ever deserved.

Gah???

DIRK: But I’ll never let you break my heart again.

So this was all just revenge for dumping him??????????????

==>

Guh, back to Kanaya-- wait, why does Dirk want Terezi around, anyway?

Jade wakes up and then-- Okay. Okay my eyes flitted down to the green halfway down the page and I saw this phrase before I actually got to it.

JADE: DIRK STRIDER HAS TO BE STOPPED!!!!!!!!!!

Thank FUCK.

Anyway reading the in-between...

The scope of her awareness, she now understands, is truly staggering. Memories are suddenly accessible that are almost impossible to believe. Some of them are unspeakably marvelous to her. Others, deeply disturbing.

FUCKING COOL she got Ultimate-Selved! Now she knows too much about what’s going on to stop her! Get fucked, Dirk!!!!

No, more than just disturbing. She lingers in the dark recesses of her consciousness. There were things she saw, things she was told... Her mouth twists into a silent snarl. She’s been angry plenty of times before. But never so angry that she stopped being cute. She’s not cute this time.

YEAAAAAHHH JADE GET ANGRY

This had better not be Dirk intentionally riling her up since he still has control of the narrative though.

Next post.

#Homestuck #Homestuck Epilogue #upd8 #Homestuck Liveblog #bladekindeyewear #BlastYoBoots

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slytherinfinity · 5 years

Text

ENDGAME SPOILERS!!

Okay I saw Endgame last night and I need to vent... AHHHHHH!!! haha I have so many mixed emotions and I don’t even know. Also I typed this on mobile so sorry for any typos.

So I first saw Iron Man when I was 11, and it was so cool. I grew up watching all of these movies. At first, Cap was my favorite bc he was ~cute~ and I was a young teen girl and so were all my friends. I also loved Loki for this reason haha. Then I saw Iron Man 3 and LOVED IT. I bought it on DVD as soon as it came out. Tony Stark was amazing, but also he dealt with anxiety and panic attacks? His and Pepper’s relationship was everything as well, and also his and Happy’s and Rhodey’s friendships. Tony felt real and human and relatable, and it was cool he was able to overcome so much even with all of his trauma. In AOU he just wanted to protect his team, and no one truly listened to or respected him or tried to understand him, and he ended up with more trauma and guilt. I just wanted him to have a happy ending. Then he met Peter and it brought me hope, after all the Civil War crap. Infinity War was crushing but not completely because I knew another movie was coming out, so there was still some hope. But then Endgame. Honestly... I’m still processing, but I don’t think I’m happy with it. And for more reasons than just Tony, though I’ll talk about that first. His storyline just seemed... blah. He gets back, gets to yell at Steve, and then goes and lives in seclusion with Pepper and has a kid. Yet you know that even with that life he’s still depressed and guilt-ridden. It’s how Pepper knows he won’t stop. So he does his best to help, time travels or whatever (honestly that whole part is still kinda confusing to me- it created alternate timelines, but what are the implications of that- and also for the rest of the MCU??) and then Tony comes back and it looks like they’ve succeeded. I was expecting him to notice something off about Nebula, tbh. But anyway, final battle, and we all know what happens. He makes the sacrifice play. He dies. Pepper says it’s okay, but I just can’t agree. He already made the sacrifice play in the first movie. I think it should have been Steve or someone else in this one to do it. If all Tony’s pain and trauma has been building to this- I just feel empty inside. It’s not a satisfying end. Sure, he saved the universe, but I feel like Strange literally could have like left a message saying don’t send Nebula to the past and all of that would have been avoided. It felt so pointless. They’d already won. Tony also only got to reunite with Peter for like 30 mins, which is lame, and will bring a whole lot more trauma to him. He didn’t even get to see Morgan again. Ughhh I’m just annoyed. And then Steve?? He just goes to live in the past?? The whole movie he’s been saying he doesn’t move on, and then he literally never does, he never grows from there. He doesn’t really develop at all. It’s true- he never truly moved on from the past, and so that means... he’ll just go live there??? I think a better move would be to have him grow to accept his life and try to be happy and actually move on. Or, like I said earlier, he could have realized he can’t move on and made that sacrifice play himself in order to allow others to live and move on. I think that would have been a more satisfying arc to his story. And it would show the love he actually has for Tony- to allow Tony to live with his family and show that he heard and understood what Tony said at the beginning of the movie. (Also, they never had a real conversation where they made up. It was like they kind had that “do you trust me” moment but Steve never truly apologized and I feel like we got jipped out of a good heartfelt moment between those two.) Also- the Natasha sacrifice was sad, but I’m not totally surprised by it. It feels like a very her thing to do, to save her family and Clint’s. But then after everyone got mad and had a quick moment of silence, it was kind of forgotten?? Like they could have even had a memorial or small tribute at Ton’s funeral or elsewhere but like put something in?? It feels like she was just kind of brushed aside. (Also- I didn’t like BruceNat at first but grew to be okay with it, but then it never became anything? Bruce made himself into Professor Hulk and there was no real closure or conversation between him and Natasha? So like... what. was. the. point???) Again, everything with her just wasn’t that satisfying, but it’s something I may grow to view differently. I did enjoy Clint’s arc and I actually think they did a great job with him. Probably the strongest arc of the movie, actually. The way they handled Thor kind of annoyed me. I think it’s perfectly understandable that he would end up like that. He’s lost his family and most of his kingdom, and he feels responsible. I don’t have a problem with that. I have a problem with how the movie and the characters responded to that. Judgmental looks and jokes... like I’ll be honest, I did chuckle at Rhodey’s Cheez Whiz joke, but now I regret that. Like being fat is funny, haha look at Thor, he’s out of shape! Uhh yeah he’s depressed! And Rhodey should know better, being friends with Tony, he should know how to handle anxiety and depression. Nobody was really trying to help or even talk to Thor much, they really just wanted him to help them. Like he was clearly struggling, and yet that was used as a joke... it makes me sad. And also Thor never even looked back at Loki? The convo with his mom was nice though. But that reminds me? Was Loki’s infinity war death actually real then? Bc ugh. I’d be more willing to accept him being permanently dead if it wasn’t in such a lame way. Daggers, seriously?? Loki has freakin magic, and he’s smart!! He could have duplicated himself or something, and that type of lame death is so unsatisfying. Also. Captain. Freaking. Marvel. I went to the movie in a Captain Marvel T-Shirt, hers is one of the first actual comics I read, and I loved her movie. I was soooo excited to see her in this movie and become part of the team and to have some really fun banter with everyone. But then she just... disappears for basically the whole movie and hardly speaks at all (thinking about it- I think all the female characters speaking overall was wayyy low compared to mens which is sad) and she blows up the big ship at the end and that’s basically it. She didn’t really join the team, and she could have been so helpful! You’re telling me they didn’t make a way to communicate with her and they didn’t want to include her in their time travel adventures?? She could have had a funny interaction with Nick in 2012, or stopped Nebula from getting taken in 2014, or helped out more overall, idk. But she should have been a bigger part of the team. They hyped her up so much when she was hardly in the movie at all, which was extremely disappointing. Like I feel so cheated about this. This is something I’ll probably be bitter about for a while tbh... ugh she’s a queen and deserves so much more haha. Also Okoye and Wong would have been useful assets for the time travel and yet they were hardly in the movie at all? So many underutilized characters smh.... (Also I know this would be impossible and the point of the movie is for the main Marvel characters but you’re telling me that in 5 years, there was no random like French or Chinese or any other country’s scientist that could have developed time travel or another method of reversing the snap? Or someone from one of the bazillion planets out there? Like there have to have been other smart people/aliens who went all Liam Neeson after the snap and were out for revenge and solutions and they could have come up with something in those five years. But again, I know that wouldn’t work for the movie...) I just feel that a conclusion to the first real era and characters of Marvel should be more satisfying. But that’s just me, I know there are people who are plenty happy with it, and I think that’s valid. These are just my thoughts. Also, that was a long rant but I don’t want to be completely negative. Here’s some things I did enjoy. -Clint’s arc. Again, I felt it was really strong and emotional and hit all the right notes. They did a good job with him and I’m glad he got to go back to his family. -Nebula. She’s grown so much y’all. I do wish she got the final blow on Thanos, and that she clicked the button to go to the present faster so Thanos couldn’t come after them, but other than that I thought her storyline was great. She’s awesome. -That moment with all the female characters after Peter got hurt. I cheered. Marvel has so many amazing women and it was great to see them all together. I kinda wish they were given more lines and screen time though but this moment was super cool. -Morgan was adorable and I love her. -Pepper’s understanding of Tony was also great. She knew he needed to do something if he could, especially for Peter, she’s grown so much and she loves her mans I love her. -Almost the whole 2012 time travel thing was great. Some good humor and nostalgia, it was fun, I really liked it. The Loki alternate timeline would be cool to explore and I wonder if that’s what the show will be about. -Wanda had a great moment against Thanos. -Okay, while I do think that whole final battle was ultimately pointless and could have easily been avoided, the moment when T’Challa and the Guardians and everyone came in through the portals was amazingly epic and beautiful and powerful. The audience cheered and I did too. It was a cool scene. -Tony and Nebula in the ship at the beginning was great. -If Steve isn’t gonna be Cap anymore, Sam deserves it and I’m glad they went with him. -The Ancient One, Frigga, and other’s cameos were pretty cool. I liked those moments. -Tony’s convo with Howard was great. I like that he got a little bit of closure with his dad. There’s probably more but I’ve written a lot so I need to be done haha. Let me know your thoughts!! :)

#avengers endgame #endgame #endgame spoilers #avengers endame spoilers #spoilers #tony stark #captain america #Captain Marvel #thor #natasha romanoff #clint barton #I really just needed to vent #sorry y'all #so many emotions #I don't even really know how I feel #ughhhh #mostly just sad I think

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