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incurablyromanticsblog · 3 years

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Don't know how people are gonna feel about this but Loki should've been dealt with the way they dealt with Lucifer (from the Netflix show) I mean while the show straight up dismissed loki's feelings, lucifer netflix really showed us the natural and organic character growth with ups and downs while still maintaining the comic hilarity (WHICH WASNT AT THE EXPENSE OF THE MC). It's love interest and side characters are all original characters dealt as independent characters rather as brownie or plot points.

And the scenes that prompted me to think this?

1. Lucifer asking his Mazikeen to cut off his wings because he's moved past being a pawn in his father's 'Great Plan'. We could've had loki come to this conclusion and tell Mobius (who would've been an actual all out ally who was forced into doin lg what he did) that he no longer wanted any place in a land that hated him. (Once again like Lucifer calling the silver city hell)

2. Lucifer actually being the way he's supposed to be (angel of light, light bringer etc.) We could've had Loki act like the way he Actually Is. Not like how @iamnmbr3 so eloquently put it 'like larry the dumb lookalike'. We could've had Loki being stern yet having that air of sarcasm and wit that he had in his the films. His eloquence, his physical prowess (none of the falling flat on his face stuff, a lot of people talk about how he was trying not to hurt the people in ep 2 but srsly Loki would just immediately disarm them), and most of all his agency and refusal to cower or the pathetic attempts at lying.

3. Costumes. The lucifer netflix team had an extensive costume department that ironically pales in comparison to what disney is capable of but still we see Lucifer have a wide array of clothes and styles. Have Loki take the first chance to change his clothes. If he wants the 50s aesthetic have at it! he can wear the tuxedos and the nice leather. Or maybe change into some nice Viking-inspired leathers and battle armor. Have him as a pirate, or a knight or a cowboy. You're traveling through time good man! you can at least hit some of the cool spots.

4. In depth analysis of lucifer's mental health. the only episode of the Loki tv show I liked (loose term) is the first one cause it's the only one that gave a fraction of what we were promised: an insight into loki. That's it.

5. Lucifer's organic growth. This is self-explanatory. Loki watched one video and was good. Very good five stars. I understand that they only had six episodes but come-on. You could've had the subtle changes through out all the eps and lead to the big finish finally. With each episode focusing on certain aspects of Loki.

5. Lucifer's exploration of self-loathing. This deserves to be a separate point because Istg it was done so well. Basically lucifer messes up and he's faced with the hatred that's been conditioned into him (not unlike Loki) and then he learns what it is and actually tries to love himself. And not by kissing a female variant of himself (ew and also respect the gender fluid persons). He actually saw the good in him by reflecting and his actual good friends helping him.

6. Lucifer actually wanting to be good. Look Idc what shut mike waldron wrote, loki is not selfish when his whole arc has been doing things for asgard, thor, odin, frigga etc. We all know that New York was mind control, I do not know why it's being swept under the rug. But here's the thing, that self loathing I mentioned earlier is a huge part of Loki thinking he's some monster and intent on proving it.

7. Lucifer facing his 'devil-face'. Loki should've come to terms with his Jotun heritage. The TVA could've had a case in Jotunheim concerning the Royal Family and Loki could've seen the entirety of Jotunheim and it's people not just that most-likely war propaganda the Asgardians force-fed him. Maybe have him meet his siblings or better yet his mother. There's a very nice fic on A03 called Asgardian Galdr that deals with this beautifully.

8. Luicfer having a Breakdown and Crying: First off this happens gradually, his problems pile up etc etc. and he faces off his father and gets angry until he finally breaks down. And basically God says, "I'm sorry but i can't fix you," And Lucifer in all his grief and desperation asks, "But you're God,'. I know we talk a lot about Loki being made weak in the Show but that's specifically about him being made weak and helpless to make Sylvie seem like a stronger character (Don't get me started on the Sif and Narcissm scene istfg), But maybe seeing Loki try awkwardly to be good and near the finish of the show we see it blow up in some angsty way? only for some conversation like this to happen and have Loki understand that being good is something that is innate and something he already had the potential for all along. Maybe learn that he's not lawful good but as always the morally grey character we know him as. (Protector of misfits, god of outcasts i.e all the shit Marvel shat on) and rise as the God of Chaos and Stories against the rigid bonds of The TVA and essentially Kang.

9. Lucifer having a nice healthy romantic interest and relationship. Lucifer and Chloe's relationship is more often than not the main point of the show but no matter how much it is focused on it remains health, organic and not a weird allegory for something disgusting. Even if Sylvie weren't a Loki (once again ew) the whole dynamic was toxic. She constantly put him down, and invalidated his feelings (Sounds like Odin huh?) and guess what Loki fell in love with her after one day, one conversation of what love was and Mobius calling her his girlfriend (he also said that it was freakish and i agree). We could've had Sigyn sweet lord. (I'll make another post about this)

10. Lucifer's Sexuality. There is a whole episode in which Loki's paramours are getting murdered and they all vary from men to women to all that comes in between. And there's no shame, no offensive jokes. Have Loki flirt with dudes, i understand ms.karen that this is for children, don't worry the casual sex ;) was offscreen. Have Loki turn into a woman and flirt with woman cowards, maybe make some questionable remarks about horses (That make Sigyn laugh)

11. Lucifer's Powers: lemme sum up, Lucifer can, let's call it, use compulsion on people. He is known for his strength and prowess and abilites to grant favors. Have Loki shapeshift into animals, absolutely mauling people. Have him use his silver-tongue to coax people into making or changing history (Yes Brutus, Caesar is getting to be a bit much, say have you heard how sharp knives are?)

I'm pretty sure there's more that i can't remember rn. And here is one thing i would like to make very clear.

You are not bad for liking the show or hating it whatever. The problem is that the show framed a lot of bad things as good (Anything the TVA did, Mobius' torture session with Loki, the way Sylvie treated Loki only for them to become romantic partners, the Sylkie fiasco as it was offensive to genderfluid people and the bare fucking minimum of LGBTQ and POC rep). The show was also marketed specifically to make us think hey! Loki might actually be the main character only for it to blow up in our faces. We were also promised an actual plot rather than a constantly plot twisting concept that could've been worth something.

Also i'm still working on a Loki fic rn after which i will write a Loki(TV) Rewrite but unitil then ig.

#loki criticsm #loki negativity #sigyn #loki x sigyn #lucifer #lucifer netflix

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multimetaverse · 3 years

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HSMTMTS 2x12 Review

Second Chances was a lacklustre finale for an uneven season. Let’s dig in!

Earlier this week I re-watched S1 in preparation for the S2 finale and the contrast between the two seasons is jarring. In almost every way S2 has been worse and after seeing this finale I’m less optimistic that Tim will be able to fix the long list of things that have gone wrong. Tim has said in some of his interviews today that pretty much all of S2 was written before the pandemic and that they didn’t have to do as much re-writing as people might think due to the stringent safety measures Disney put in place. Of course, that removes an excuse for the bad writing we’ve seen so much of this season as according to Tim what we saw of S2 is largely what he envisioned minus big crowds and background dancers.

Across his many interviews today, the one consistent point is that Tim does not have any real plans for future seasons; things like Ricky’s endgame he hasn’t decided on and he can’t even guarantee the summer season the finale sets up due to the weather in Salt Lake. I do think a S3 is an almost certainty given the show’s popularity but I’ll take Tim at his word that he truly doesn’t know if they’ll be renewed since it seems to be a new Disney tradition to wait until seasons are done airing before making a renewal decision (the same thing happened for the popular and well received Mighty Ducks: Game Changers which got a silent renewal only after all of S1 aired). That being said as poor of a season finale as Second Chances is it is also a terrible potential series finale. In large part it goes back to his lack of planning, he wants to keep all options open but in doing so Tim is crippling the show’s ability to deliver any pay offs or tie up loose ends.

The one mostly well done plot line this season was Portwell which got a happy ending tonight as they canoned. The only good thing about the big brother angst was that it was so insane that it had to be addressed and sure enough it was and Gina got her first kiss with a guy she really liked. If Tim is to be believed the reason we didn’t get an on screen Portwell kiss was not because of their age difference or covid concerns but because he felt that everyone’s first kiss was different so he wanted it off screen so viewers could fill in the blanks themselves. Tim’s line of reasoning is profoundly stupid. Imagine if they had Jamie show up and he and Gina talked off screen and Tim tried to claim that because everyone has a different relationship with their own siblings that he wanted the audience to fill in the blanks as to how their conversation went!

Still we saw great character development on Gina and EJ’s part as both really grew from the people they were in S1. As Tim noted, EJ bringing Gina back in 1x10 was kind of the set up for this story line. The only thing missing was a brief Portwell scene sometime in eps 2x01-2x04 to set them up. The consistent development they got from 2x05-2x12 is unlike any other ship on the show; only Rini exceeds their development.

Unfortunately I don’t think that will last in S3 because Tim will always favour Ricky over EJ and if he wants to do Rina he’ll dispose of Portwell before doing so. I was surprised that they never bothered to have Ricky and Gina have a conversation about Gina’s S1 confession. It was a huge mistake to have Gina pine over Ricky for half the season and it was no surprise that Gina’s story line got instantly better once she stopped interacting with Ricky. Tim has made clear in interviews that he’s still interested in the possibility of Rina which makes his poor writing of them even more bizarre. What conclusions are the audience supposed to draw from the Rina story line this season? That Ricky never cared that much about Gina? That it’s totally fine for the show if they don’t interact for 6 eps in a row? That Gina has moved on? I’ve said before that a wiser man than Tim would recognize that doing both Portwell and Rina will do tremendous damage to the show and he should pick one and not do the other. Of course he’s not that smart but it is wild how he’s accidentally written their story line to make for a perfect end to Rina.

Second Chances was great and is the only part of the finale that would have been well suited to being part of a potential series finale.

The Rini closure was a sad inverse of their S1 opening night confession. They’ve fallen so far from being the it couple of the series and I fear Tim doesn’t actually know what to do with them now. He really needs to decide if he’s tearing down that treehouse for real.

The less said about the Valentine’s chocolates the better but at least Gina and Nini are cool again and Nini can explore her budding music career with Jamie’s help. Tim repeatedly said in interviews that the scripts about Nini’s music career were all written before Driver’s License came out and I think he understands that the audience is just going to see the show as copying from Olivia’s life.

The wildcats just deciding to drop out of the Menkies was a lame cop out. Tim has said he always meant for that to happen though they were originally going to compete at the Menkies then drop out (presumably that’s where we would have heard Lily singing Home). Somebody should have mentioned the $50 000 prize money which the East High theatre department could surely use after Miss Jenn and Mr. Mazzara burned it down (remember that story line that had no consequences?). And that NYU scholarship could have been life changing for one of them and yet no one even brought it up once this season.

I did like the twist that it was EJ and his dad who got Mazzara into Caltech. He’d be a fool not to take it but I’m glad he confessed to Miss Jenn. She’s had a really rough season and I hope she redeems herself in S3.

Howie was acting so weird tonight and last ep that I have a hard time believing he was really so awed by Kourtney’s talent rather than feeling guilty for helping to steal the harness. The harness is another useless plot device; there are no consequences for Lily stealing it, she’s not caught, East High pulls off another version of the transformation off screen, and then East High withdraws from the Menkies anyways. Doubtless the harness will eventually come up to serve Rily angst.

At least Lily was straightforward, I’ll give her that. She has such an odd way of speaking, almost child like. As awful as it is there is potential for a forbidden/secret romance story line with Rily. It really does not speak well to Ricky’s character that he’s so easily fallen for Lily’s act when he has no reason to trust her and she never apologized for making fun of Big Red during the auditions or making Ashlyn feel insecure during the dance off.

The one way in which S2 was drastically better to S1 was in regards to the Seblos story line. Clearly Joe being bumped up to regular made a big difference. We got the first same-sex kiss between two boys and the first love song sung by one boy to another in Disney history and that is a legacy to be proud of. Of course, there was still some Disney censorship such as Carlos and Seblos being unable to use the word gay in the same ep that focused on Carlos singing In a Heartbeat to Seb.

S1 of HSMTMTS had a clear direction, the wildcats would have to try and come together to stage High School Musical and Ricky and Nini would have to decide if they still had a future together while Gina and EJ had to work on being better versions of themselves. It was simple sure but it worked very well. There was a lot of heart but also a lot of humor and the show never took itself too seriously. What has S2 had? Beauty and the Beast was hardly the main focus of the cast or the writers and the central couple that S1 was built around is now broken up either for a long time or for good. There was a lot less of the meta moments that jokes that made S1 such a hit, for far too many eps this season the show took itself way too seriously. Hell even the lighting this season was darker than in S1.

Olivia Rodrigo’s team had complained in a recent article that Olivia wouldn’t be able to potentially tour until fall 2022 due to her contractual commitments which is a sign that they think a S3 is very likely though I wonder how late S3 filming would have to start to keep her occupied until late 2022. There’s no confirmation of this but I thought it might be worth keeping an eye on; a post on r/hsmtmts by someone who claims to have a source working on production says that the plan is for S3 to be a summer theatre camp possibly with Camp Rock renditions and the plan for S4 is to jump 6 months ahead to the final semester of senior year and end with Ricky, Nini, Big Red, and Kourtney graduating from East High. They also say that part of the delay in the S3 announcement is a conflict between Tim and Disney executives. Tim wants to move production to LA and film on sets as it’s easier and cheaper while the Disney execs still want some on location shooting in Salt Lake. Again this is all unconfirmed but if it pans out it will represent a major shift in the series.

Regardless if Tim wants the show to remain successful he needs start planning out what he wants to happen. He should not assume he’s getting more than 4 seasons. If the series gets a S3 but then is suddenly cancelled then how would he want all the main story lines to wrap up? And if they make it to S4 where does he see it ending? The graduation of the current juniors is a logical series ending point but if Tim wants to do something different he needs to start thinking of that now. I can’t say I’m excited anymore for S3 but I do really hope that Tim and his writers can turn things around and that will only happen if they recognize what they did wrong and learn from their mistakes.

Until next season Wildcats

#HSMTMTS #Portwell #Rini #Gina Porter #EJ Caswell #Ricky Bowen #Nini Salazar-Roberts #Kourtney Greene #lily #HSMTMTS Reviews

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jq37 · 3 years

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The Report Card – Fantasy High: The Seven Ep 3

Let’s Split Up and Look for Clues!

Welcome back to the Seven and the Museum of Adventuring. My previous pronouncement of combat was a little premature but hold tight, we’ll get there. For now, we’re back with Antiope who just saw a glimpse of the Ending of Things (aka, Ending) and is freaking out a bit. She tells the others and they all do various checks to see what they can find out.

Ostentatia casts Commune With City and clocks that there is some kind of abjuration shield magic on the government buildings in town, stopping them from being spied on. She also clocks some lingering undead-ish magic and a weird divination effect on Antiope, specifically on the Aguefort logo of her jacket, like someone scryed on her and just got that she had something to do with Aguefort. At this, Penny reminds her that the only true piece of info they gave Ending when they broke her out is that they were from Aguefort.

Sam with a 19 Insight still feels the connection she and Ant have with Ending because of their spells turned against them in the initial encounter. Yelle does a Perception check (27) and once again doesn’t really get bad, dreadful, menacing vibes. But also, she recognizes that she’s chill with a lot of things most people don’t love.

Antiope reiterates that she texted Charity that she’s interested in the internship so she can learn more info--even better now that they know the buildings are safe from scrying. Yelle remembers Aguefort’s warning about people watching them and Sam asks Zelda if her “weird boyfriend” (“he’s actually really cool”) is friends with the elven oracle. Zelda says yeah, they’re both friends with Adaine, she can ask about any weird divination stuff. Sam makes sure to specify she should look into TK but NOT Ending, no doubt remembering what happened when she tried to do a spell on her.

It’s been a big day as Zelda says so they all go to the TGIF-esque Slappy McFinnigans to celebrate (which Sam has problems with--the fact that they’re celebrating I mean, but she’s mainly ignored). They’re quickly kicked out because Katja can’t help herself from trying to brush the mane of their centaur server and they reconvene at the more their speed SlamBurger, where a horse can fully destroy a soda machine to absolutely zero reaction. Zelda says that Ostentatia was right in that they should all do the quest because it doesn’t close any doors and they have the 2 weeks to figure things out. They all seem a bit more on the same page (though Sam is still pretty frosty towards Ant) and start making plans.

Before they leave, Yelle pulls aside Ant and Sam and says hey, first of all, you two are still linked to Ending from before. Second of all, I know y’all are Going Through It right now and you don’t have to talk about it or make up right away but you need to get your heads in the game and you need to know that you’re both loved and still family.

Penny, Zelda, Katja, and Ostentatia go back to the museum to try and get more information for their quest. Katja goes to the information desk (horse in tow, of course) and just starts asking information about TK. She’s told that she’s one of the museum’s benefactors and has been missing for years, and hey, do you understand that a museum’s info desk is about where the water fountains and exhibits are, not just random information about the world?

Ostentatia bails her out by calling her over so she can do her plan which is just to walk into the back area like she owns the place. Now, Aguefort students do have a certain level of clearance to be back there and she does have her school ID. But instead of explaining that, she tried to use her Earrings of Diamond Charm to charm the employee she runs into which fails. And then she does a pretty good tag-team lie with Katja about how they NEED to pass a class but that doesn’t fly. Then Ostentatia tries flirting which ALSO doesn’t work. Zelda at this point steps in and just headbuts the dude so they can book it away. I personally would have gone with, “Do you know who we are? We killed the dragon that’s your current main exhibit,” but you know. No backseat adventuring.

While this is happening, Penny is stealthing like a pro, looking for anything Arcana related. Ostentatia and Katja also did checks (O getting a nat 20) and we’ll go through all their info gathered now.

Katja basically gets info on TK we kind of already knew. She was a benefactor of the museum. She’s centuries old like Aguefort. She was concerned with consciousness and divinity and specifically how will and divine will manifested, as well as elemental magic.

Ostentatia gets a lot of info with her Nat 20. She gets a full map to the temple where TK went which is called the Temple of Earth Defiant. The point of the temple is that it’s up in the open air and harsh winds--wind being a symbol of chaos and unpredictability to dwarves--but they still use it as a place to honor their heroes and they rebuild and upkeep it despite the erosion and how hard it is to get there. It’s hallowed from evil and lots of stories about it involve heroes racing there for sanctuary. It was made by dwarves but it’s a pilgrimage site for other primordial beings like goliaths and earth genasi (which is what TK is). There are 3 heroes who have big statues here: Asha Hammerheart (a SUPER dope name I must say), Yvonna of the Sundering Hills , and Kora Ironbrow.

Penny finds that, amongst Kalvaxus’s hoard there were 7 unrecovered artifacts--the Mirrors of the Eidolons (which are the smashed mirrors they found it seems). Eidelons are kind of like the elemental plane version of angels/celestials. They’re primordial (remember Katja saw primordial language on the wall of the dragon cave) and kind of aligned with things like titans and genies. Raw element with no agenda (unlike celestials and demons and such which have a clear alignment which makes up the D&D religious system). It is said by wizards--who look at these things in more of a nuts and bolts way than say clerics who take the fuzzier religions view--that Eidolons are the hands of the gods because gods are beings of spirit--how could they form the physical world. Will of the divine manifested by elemental beings? Sounds right up TK’s alley.

Sam decides she’s desperate enough for information that she calls her mom who she is understandably snippy with. Her mom gives her a contact to talk to when she asks about TK but Sam stonewalls her on show business talk. She tries to play the “mother knows best, you’ll thank me later,” in a kind of Gothel-y way while acting like anything in the past never happened and says Sam is attacking her but when Sam accuses her of neglect, she proves her right by hanging up the phone.

Sam then calls the number and it turns out to be Lola Embers (Fig’s agent) who has been waiting for Sam’s call for ages and wants to talk to her, even though she’s currently chasing her dog across the park. She says she met TK once at a genasi woman networking thing and also says she once saw Charity get into an argument with TK over government funding or not getting a grant or something similar. She then says she’s in a lake trying to get her dog and Sam, being a water genasi who can breathe underwater and also a fundamentally good person even though she’s currently being aggro as hell, goes to the park to help her. Lola assures her that if she’s ready, she’ll help her get new acting gigs and that the world is ready for the new her.

Yelle meanwhile casts Speak With Plants on some trees near TK’s office and, after a super stoner to stoner conversation, gets a magical footprint trail of where she ran off to when she absconded 12 years ago.

Antiope (who is in a sports bra because she destroyed her top with the Aguefort logo since that’s what was pinged, revealing in a wild, nat-1 fueled retcon that she got a tramp stamp reading “Leader” in the Red Waste) goes to see Charity to fill out some paperwork, ingratiate herself, and perhaps get some info. Charity has her hot, young, assistant (who Antiope is instantly crushing on) give Ant his shirt (and Charity’s lack of surprise at seeing his 4 horses pulling a chariot tattoo makes the group think they’re def banging). She kind of explains what the Ministry does and Antiope boils it down a bit to snitching on other adventurers. Charity says it’s more of a who watches the watchmen situation and visibly twitches when she has to say the word “snitch”.

When she takes a second to call Antiope’s dad, she accidentally leaves a tab open on her computer which has TK’s file open (probably up from when the Maidens asked about her earlier). Antiope sneaks a peek and learns that the artifact that TK stole is called the Legendarium Extrodia and it tracks quests. It seems that at some point TK must have had top level access to get her hands on it. It also shows that TK was marked for assassination (which seems like a pretty good reason to get the heck out of dodge). Brennan also says she’s learned enough that she can use the L.E. if she finds it.

At this point, Yelle tells everyone to come back ASAP so they can follow the magic footsteps. Antiope wants to come but doesn’t want to burn bridges with Charity (or chances with Preston--equally important) so she, at Katja’s suggestion--pretends to have diarrhea and is Nat 20 convincing. Interesting choice for the end of the first meeting with a person you’re crushing on. But Preston is actually pretty supportive as she races out the door as fast as possible.

The Seven follow the footsteps out of Solace and it becomes clear that TK was headed to the dwarven temple Ostentatia learned about. This is a multi-day journey so Cinnamon sings a glorious, magical, horse song and summons mounts for everyone which I will now name because this is obviously the most important part of the episode:

Snowfire - Danielle

Taffodill - Sam

Alagonia - Antiope

Candyheart - Penny

Starforge - Ostentatia

Strawberry Dancer - Zelda

Crucial info.

As they travel, Antiope casts Primeval Awareness and gets that there is something ancient in the mountain. They travel through Pilgrim’s Pass (a village area most travelers to the temple pass through) but find it completely razed to the ground. They investigate.

With an 18 Survival check, Antiope finds tracks that seem halfway between dog and cat. There are more than 4 legs and it’s hard to tell how old they are because there’s not a lot of rain in the area. They could have been left long ago and been undisturbed. Regardless, these are clearly from monstrosities. On a 26 History Check, Katja knows that this area used to be protected by Blink Dogs (teleporting dogs) but they seem to be all gone now. On a 22 Nature check, Yelle sees a weird feather made out of plant material. It seems like fae stuff but bad vibes. On an 18 Insight check, Sam knows this was a purposeful slaughter.

And on Penny’s 30 Arcana check, oh boy. Penny finds broken common scrawled on the wall in human blood talking about a queen of the mountain who rules the skies. That only the queen may see and none may see themselves. And that the people were told to destroy the seeing glass and did not obey. In from of that message is a bear hide covering something magic. Penny lifts it with reckless abandon and sees tons of mirror shards.

Friendship bracelets! She thinks.

Gotcha bitch, the thing in the mirror says.

Uh-oh.

Penny calls over her friends to let them knows she may have made a tiny mistake. The group is pretty split between, “Understandable,” and “Girl, WHAT?” In her defense, she did try to cast Friends on the person on the other side of the mirror shards but that’s not enough to stop an entire pack of 50-60 Displacer Beast (magic tentacle cats)/Blink Dog hybrid monstrosities along with the Harpy Queen (voice from the mirror) and her plant feathered harpy minions to start rapidly making their way to their location.

It is at this point that Ostentatia remembers that abominations and monstrosities cannot step into the temple which means it’s time to RUN.

And NOW it’s combat time.

The premise of this fight is that the girls are on their horses, moving towards the center of the temple as fast as they can while fending off the closest enemies. I won’t give an exact play by play but the two highlights are as follows:

Yelle conjures up a bunch of geese with raptor stats (...so normal geese) to swarm the head cat/dog abomination and has to do a truly stunning amount of math for which she is rewarded with SEVENTY POINTS OF DAMAGE.

Antiope does some insane arrow trickery and gets the Queen Harpy in the wing (which Ostentatia helpfully gets on video so she can show Preston later) and then forces her to take damage as she falls. If not for an extremely lucky Box of Doom nat 20, she may have been down for the count. Antiope still comes away with more than FIFTY points of damage on her though.

And we end the episode mid-combat! We will catch up on our girls next time!

Superlatives

Penny: Most Likely to Make Friends During a Hostage Situation

As a companion to Danielle’s superlative last episode, Penny gets this award for reading or misreading every situation as an opportunity to make friends or make friendship bracelets for the ones she already has.

Random Thoughts

Did you guys notice that with Katja having Cinnamon and Charity’s assistant being Preston, that’s two of the main pet NPCs from A Crown of Candy?

Antiope’s Reaction to Yelle Saying That Maybe Things Ending Isn’t So Bad: Rail against the dying of the light! Why are you OK with this?

Penny’s Reaction to Yelle Saying That Maybe Things Ending Isn’t So Bad: Entropy is TERRIBLE! Everything needs order!

The greasy cashier’s response to Ostentatia’s flirty, “Come here often?” is “To my job? Honestly no.” Brennan? Chef’s kiss.

My other fave line this episode is from Sam. “I believe Cinnamon fucks.”

It’s very cute that Penny is like, “I gotta text Riz about this Eidelon stuff!” Not because she wants help. Just so they can geek out together.

The joke that Brennan didn’t think about the birds is so funny considering all the bird facts in Misfits.

Also re Birds attacking: “They made a movie about this Brennan!”

Good on Ant for refusing an Aguefort sweatshirt from Charity when offered after the little scrying incident before. Remembering things like this saves lives.

It has been brought up several times that Ending isn’t necessarily Bad just Ancient and Powerful and I trust Yelle’s vibe check but also, like, a forest fire doesn’t have malice behind it but it can still devastate a city while it clears out dead trees that need to be cleared, you know? Not ready to start wild speculation yet but I am curious. And am similarly curious about the sisters Ending has mentioned. Oh and the parallels of 7 Maidens, 7 mirrors. It’s all there, we just need a little more info.

Honestly, get you a man who will see you rushing out of a building, loudly claiming to have diarrhea, and instead of being grosses out will just supportively confess his own stomach issues. I wish he was just a little younger cause I want that for Ant.

I do like that D20 has been playing a little more fast and loose with the RP ep/combat ep format. I think it really helps with story flow.

In this episode Antiope and Brennan as various non-Zelda NPCs rolled 2 Nat 20s. O rolled one. Ant rolled 1 Nat 1--which was on a self imposed roll to see how she responded to Sephie’s tramp stamp improv. And O may have rolled one for initiative also but I wasn’t sure.

#dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #fantasy high #the seven #spoilers #sorry this is a little late #life happens

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dangermousie · 3 years

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2020 End of Year Post - kdrama edition

You can find my 2020 cdrama post here: dangermousie.tumblr.com/post/638449659546845184/2020-end-of-year-post-cdrama-edition

This is only going to cover kdramas that aired in 2020; if it originally aired another year, it’s not on this list.

It’s been a pretty lackluster kdrama year. There are probably only 5 kdramas I truly loved and only three of them I was really obsessed over. Better luck in 2021!

DRAMAS WATCHED

(In order of liking from least to most as opposed to pure quality; I am including if I’ve seen enough to make up my mind; yes I realize that’s inaccurate, but that’s my list)

42 Born Again - so bad, so incoherent, so insane, I have no idea why the leads signed up for it (and unlike some of the other watchers, I think it was awful from the very start.) There is literally nothing about this drama that makes sense.

41 Love with Flaws - a bunch of people who should be tried under the Geneva Convention.

40 Sweet Munchies - Jung Il Woo proves his inability to pick a functional script.

39 Meow the Secret Boy - if you ever wanted to bang a cat, this drama is for you. Not being a furry, however...

38 Do Do Sol Sol La Sol - I lost braincells just typing out this title.

37 When I Was the Most Beautiful - the only way it’s not the dumbest, most pointless melo of 2020 is because Born Again considerately came out the same year.

36 Woman of 9.9 Billion - if you want to watch an artsy French movie about miserable people, but only badly made, boy do I have a drama for you.

35 Lies after Lies - screams after screams.

34 Backstreet Rookie - people were up in arms about various problematic plots. I am a survivor of many plots much more problematic but even I couldn’t survive how utterly boring and annoying this drama was and how utterly irritating the leads were. This has taken Ji Chang Wook off my top favorites into “should I even check his latest Lovestruck in the City? Probably not” territory almost single-handedly (Melt Me helped, to be fair.)

33 Men Are Men - boring is boring.

32 Dinner Mate - two beautiful boring people eat out a lot.

31 Was It Love - no it wasn’t.

30 Alice - Joo Won in the shower can make up for a multitude of sins but not plot nonsense of such magnitude. When you find yourself thinking it would be better if he hooked up with the alternate universe version of his mother because at least then something entertaining would happen, you know it’s bad.

29 More than Friends - started out OK, then made me hate basically everyone and kept going.

28 Start-Up - honestly, it’s probably more decent than its place here, but the toxic and batshit fandom for it (the worst this year) made me feel like breaking out in hives any time it’s even mentioned.

27 The Spies who Loved Me - how to take a good cast and waste it.

26 Private Lives - it was good but it never took off with its concept and spent more time on the incoherent plot than the OTP which was its one strength. It’s a decent drama but coming after Heartless City and My Beautiful Bride from the same writer, it’s a disappointment.

25 Record of Youth - as high as it is due to Park Bo Gum hard carrying this entire awful drama on his shoulders and doing it so well I finished it. Alas, while he is in one drama (and that drama is great), the rest of the characters and the entirety of the script are a pointless useless mess.

24 Do You Like Brahms - excellent first third, mediocre middle, and terrible last third. I don’t know what musical term applies to this? Diminuendo, I think.

23 I’ll Go to You When the Weather is Nice - nice and mellow but nothing much happens.

22 Forest - mainly for Park Hae Jin’s excellent and frequently naked bod.

21 The Ballot - I didn’t love it as much as everyone did but it was well-made.

20 Hyena - more romance and less weird law stuff would make it better.

19 365 Repeat the Year - surprisingly solid.

18 The Game Towards Zero - see 365.

17 When My Love Blooms - very old fashioned, very lovely.

16 Chocolate - also very old fashioned and very lovely but also with Yoon Kye Sang performing medical procedures bleeding and shirtless. MMM.

15 (tie) Secret Royal Inspector - a fun if run of the mill sageuk.

15 Find Me In Your Memory - best melo this year.

14 Mystic Pop Up Bar - surprisingly good even though I wasn’t planning to check it out.

13 Where Your Eyes Linger - came out of nowhere but was tender and hopeful and lovely.

12 Itaewon Class - Park Seo Joon hard carries a drama that is already excellent. Love it.

11 Psychopath Diary - Yoon Shi Yoon is such a treat in a hilarious, cynical, dark comedy.

10 Kairos - more like ouroboros.

9 Queen Love and War - in a year where sageuks are very rare, this was solid and surprisingly moving and shippy.

8 The King Eternal Monarch - people didn’t like it but I did. It’s no masterpiece and both the leads and the writers have better dramas, but it was a lovely romantic fairy tale for me.

7 Mr. Queen - sharp, hilarious, and some of my favorite actors.

6 Psycho But It’s OK - healing, sharp cinematography and even sharper chemistry.

5 Crash Landing on You - the last ep pissed me off so much this drama is dead to me but I loved it so much until then I can’t place it lower in good conscience.

4 Train - who knew I would go this hard for an OCN drama or that OCN would do romance so well? But this time-travel mystery romance is just incredible and I shipped the OTP and rooted for the characters and loved every last bit of it.

3 Run On - this is the drama Record of Youth wanted to be but failed. Smart and lived in, you feel like you are peeking at real people, but also even four episodes in, I am so invested in the main characters separately and together, and care for them so much, it’s a little frightening.

1 (tie) Tale of the Nine Tailed - my perfect fantasy romance. I liked it better than Goblin, yeah I said it.

1 Flower of Evil - all the tropes I love in one incredible package. I would rewatch episodes waiting for new ones trying to puzzle the story and to stay withdrawal but it works just as well on rewatch. Lee Jun Ki brings his trademark tortured intensity and for once, both his leading lady and his script back him up and are worthy of that. It’s perfect.

FAVORITE DRAMA

It’s a tie between Tale of the Nine Tailed and Flower of Evil but if I had to pick just one, FoE, because it had me seriously obsessed and guessing about the protagonist and gave me the narrative tropes I love so much and an OTP that statisfied all my hurt/comfort kinks and then some.

WORST DRAMA

Born Again - honestly, this is so bonkers it almost becomes good but alas...

FAVORITE MALE CHARACTER

Do Hyun Soo/Baek Hee Sung, Flower of Evil - he is so messed up, so on edge, so traumatized. Yet capable of so much warmth and caring even as he himself doesn’t realize his humanity. FoE is basically a story of a man pushed and punished by the world for his entire life who, because of one woman, finds a safe place and peace and slowly comes to life without realizing it, and watching his desperation to keep this small bit of normalcy is so heartbreaking and exciting all at once. Plus, you start the drama thinking he’s a psychopathic serial killer and end it (if you are me) thinking he must be protected at all costs and if anyone even looks at him wrong they must suffer, and that’s quite a change!

FAVORITE FEMALE CHARACTER

Nam Ji Ah, Tale of the Nine Tailed - she is so funny and tough and smart and loving and amazing that I will totally buy that a literal demi-god will do anything and everything for her and love her for literal eternity.

NEEDS TO BE MURDERED

Dad in Record of Youth - yes in a year with serial killers and supernatural demons, I picked a normal character from a mediocre drama. It’s his everyday awfulness to his family that hits so hard and I am sad he never got his comeuppance.

FAVORITE SHIP

Ji Ah x Yeon - a fearless reporter and an immortal demi-god who’s been hoping for his human beloved to reincarnate. A really rare set-up where the OTP is equally ride or die, so compatible and completely BAMF. I got why he waited for her for that long and then fell in love with her all over again. Perfection.

Runner up: Flower of Evil - he is so messed up he literally does not believe he is capable of love or empathy, but he falls in love with her anyway and so utterly she permeates his entire life. She is tough as nails and only believes what she sees and is the sole person who believes in him against the world. She loves him but he needs her. She needs him but he loves her. They are amazing.

FAVORITE SECONDARY OTP

Seo Dan x Gu Seung Jun, Crash Landing on You, North Korean x Conman were so good I shipped them harder than the main OTP and the end of that storyline pissed me off so much I dumped the drama and didn’t finish it for months (and it’s still dead to me.)

NOTP

Record of Youth - it started out and they didn’t have much chemistry but the dialogues were interesting and I thought the chemistry would grow. It didn’t and deteriorated, their dialogues became boring and relationship had zero development (about as much as the supposed female lead.) I think we were supposed to feel bad they broke up and they were going for a bittersweet open ending, instead I found myself happy about the break up of two incompatible, chemistry-less people and hoping for the love of God they never get back together.

FAVORITE SCENE

Yeon and the bridge of knives, Tale of the Nine Tailed - Yeon choosing to undergo the creeptastic bridge of knives for a chance to save Ji Ah, who at that point he is not aware is the reincarnation of his Joseon love because, as he says, he doesn’t care if she is or isn’t, it just would be more horrible to have her die than to undergo the horrific torture he is undergoing, and then the sequence with his catching her, her weeping over him and the fact that she is the original Joseon girl revealed and all the bandaging and his watching her sleep and all that loveliness, is everything for yours truly.

Runner up: Hyun Soo having that break-down at the cliff at the end of ep 15 of Flower of Evil as Ji Won desperately tries to convince him she is alive and he finally stumbles to her.

Runner runner up (it’s my list, I will do what I want): Do Won preparing to blow his brains out to give a chance to Seo Kyung to live in Train.

BIGGEST CRUSH

Seon-Gyeom, Run On. Yeah, I know. Im Siwan is tiny, delicate featured and has a runner’s build, none of which are things that normally appeal to me. But his character is so odd, so honest, so unflinching in pursuing what he thinks is right, so incapable of self-pity despite plenty of reasons for it, and so ridiculously attractive when he smiles, I don’t even care.

BEST SCENE STEALER CHARACTER

Kim Bum, TotNT - I started out being annoyed by him and ended up looking forward to his scenes and being distraught by his ending.

NEEDS A SEQUEL

Honestly, none. I was fine with all the endings. I wouldn’t mind seeing post-end life of Tale of the Nine Tailed characters or the OTP settling into their literal new world in Train, but I am good.

TROPE THAT NEEDS TO DIE

Time jump that solves all the problems off screen or alternatively years pass and everyone is frozen - something that kdramas need to learn and need to learn badly. See Record of Youth, Brahms and Start Up.

FAVORITE TROPE WE’VE SEEN A LOT OF

Men who are ride or die for their OTP - this was a great year for this - the male leads of four of my five dramas were beyond anything on that scale (only exception is Run On because it’s still too early to tell there.) Yes PLEASE.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT

This was a banner year for that what with Start Up, Do You Like Brahms, Record of Youth, and Private Lives all starting out well and nosediving off the cliff but winner is Crash Landing on You. I loved it so much for bulk of its run but the last episode pissed me off so much I deleted all my files and called it a day.

BIGGEST GOOD SURPRISE

Flower of Evil - I had no expectations of this drama and wasn’t even planning on watching it despite liking both the lead actors because yet another “look at evil serial killer be evil” drama with no romance was not my thing. Luckily someone convinced me there might be some romance and I peeked curiously. Honestly, their promo campaign was the most misleading and dumbest thing ever.

Runner up Psycho but it’s OK - I have never liked Kim Soo Hyun in anything before and the drama premise seemed WTF but it was shockingly good and KSH totally blew me away.

Hardest Working Lead

Yoon Shi Yoon - he starred in two (!!!) dramas in 2020 playing three characters and not only were both these dramas awesome in a lackluster year, but if it wasn’t for the fact that I knew it was the same actor and the fact that the characters shared a face, I would have never believed that they were played by the same actor. So good!

2020 DRAMAS I HAVEN’T SEEN THAT I MOST WANT TO WATCH

None. Covid Year gave me PLENTY of time

BEST NON-2020 DRAMA I’VE WATCHED IN 2020

My Beautiful Bride and Deserving of the Name - I was obsessed with both of them and honestly, they were much better than the bulk of 2020 kdramas I watched.

MOST ANTICIPATED IN 2021

The Moon That Rises in the Day, Hong Chun Gi, Joseon Exorcist, Island, Frightening Cohabitation, Snowdrop.

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Darkwing Duck: Just Us Justice Ducks

This is it. 7 reviews, 10 episodes, 2 teams, 7 brave heroes, 13 villians but only 5 of which are relevant here. All leading to this. One big final review of one of the most loved, most important and most awesome Darkwing Duck episodes, the ONLY two parter outside of the pilot in the show’s long history. If your just joining us, as hinted at in the opening sentence i’ve been doing reviews of every episode of darkwing duck featuring the first apperances of the Justice Ducks and Fearsome Five. The only exception was Megavolt, but I ended up doing Negaduck instead, so I could cover both Megs and the original version of Negsy in one fell swoop (A great idea and comission from longtime supporter of the blog WeirdKev27). All so I could give this the build up it deserved and get the background I didn’t have years ago when I wanted to watch this, wanted to see all of the first apperances first.. then just didn’t get around to it, not even finding out the episode order is an utter nightmare. While i’ve given out about this before, allow me to do so again: Due to prioritzing what got done first over proper order, ALL of the justice ducks first appearances eps were aired after this and while Morgana at least got an episode before this, it was her second appearance. Same with LIquidator and Quackerjack though like Morgana, Quackerjack still got an episode or two before this one. So yeah as a result to most kids it was a bunch of heroes just introduced, up against two new villians and 3 old faviorites. You kinda see the problem. It’s why I watched it in chronlogical order: to have this be a gathering of established heroes against darking’s worst foes... and the debut of the worst of THE worst, the true Negaduck at long last. So with the proper build this deserves and not much else to say, let’s look at this two parter and see if all my effort was worth it and if the hype is real. Let’s, get, dangerous under the cut

We open in St. Canard in Darkwing Duck’s secret HQ over the bridge, where he’s getting ready to go out with Morgana and does... things to his hair.

Excellently terrible hair do.. seriously I love a good pompadour as much as the next person, probably unheathily more than the next person, but this isa bit much and adding a curl to it is just..

I mean Superman’s hair looked better at this point, and for those wondering “Wait superman usually has a pretty good look”.. welll.

Yeah.. post-ressurection.. he had a mullet. Look there are only 4 people in the world who can pull of a mullet: Brock Sampson, Patrick Swayze (God Rest his soul), Hank Venture and Daniel Cooksy as a teenager. And he ALSO put a curl in it and it still looked okay because that’s one of this things along with being selfless, and idiots calling him bland for you know, being a kind hearted symbol of humanity at it’s best. But man the mullet was just not for you bud.

Morgana naturally tries to change it while Gosalyn watches and...

Yeah as you can probably guess a LOT has happened.. and all off screen. Morgana is not only fully on the side of good apparently, but she and Darkwing have gone from simply flirting with one another to dating AND Gosalyn has met her and they fought the astro mummies together.. no wait that was the Caballleros yesterday.. but still eveyrthing else is PRETTY important stuff and even with the messed up episode order the kind of thing you’d ASSUME an episode would be made about. I mean this is her meeting darkwing’s kid for fuck’s sake. That’s a big step in any relationship let alone one just starting out. And trust me, I didn’t miss anything: every other morgana ep seems to have them already in a steady relaionship. I DO think it’s stuff like this why some fans aren’t crazy about this relationship. Me I think he’s honestly too good for her.

But before they can go out for whatever vauge date they were going to have the power goes out and DW notices it’s megavolt and prepares to go after him only for Morgana to question him about their date.

Morgana.. sweetie.. the entire city is blacked out. Nowhere will be open. But Gosalyn offers an alternative, Morgana go along with him and while both are reluctant they go with it. So Darkwing confronts Megavolt... and soon finds a bunch of chattering teeth. Yup, it’s Quackerjack as the two have teamed up, and together easily defeat Darkwing, putting him in an electric chair. The two also really get along which makes sense: Both have similar personalities, being kinda nuts indivdiuals with a singular obession , which compliment each other as toys often need electric power after all. THey strap darkwing into an electric chair, that got dark fast and he begs morgana to save him.. only for her to accidently turn him into jello. I mean.. they say pudding but.. their diffrent things. Just because world famous sexual predator Bill Cosby promoted BOTH for the jell-o brand doesn’t mean Jello is magically pudding. If he could magically make one thing

Point is Darkwing is jello, the villians mock him then set up some kind of device and head off.. while also mentioning a mysterious boss. I wonder who it could be.

Nah.. too obvious. Darkwing is humilated and of course blames. morgana.. for saving his life.. as while the jello humilated him he’s also you know not dead.

Anyways Darkwing storms off while Morgana worries he likes her. Morg.. the guy got pissy because you saved his life the wrong way with some bad aim. And before that clearly just wanted you there as a trophy to impress you instead of because he valued you in any way but your looks, because let’s face it he’s shown no intrest so far in any way that isn’t superficial and neither have you in him. You both need to actually try to deepen this or end it. Anyways enough me ranting at 90′s cartoon characters, it’s time for our next Justice Duck to enter the episode as Stegmutt is selling hot dogs now, but no one stops because they just.. run in terror. Poor guy, good thing he’s too oblivoius to notice. Maybe Dr. Fossil had a point. Back to the plot and it turns out the next phase in the Fearsome Five’s plan is to take out the police... okay so wait are they the bad guys or not? Questions for later. Point is we get a nice mismatch as Bushroot’s timidity contrasts perfectly with Liquidator’s showman ship and he drowns them out. Darkwing prepares to attack, but gets interrupted by Stegmutt, refuses his help.. and we get the best and most iconic gag of the episodes: Darkwing makes a joke about playing pretend.. and senseing Stegmutt is a dummy have him pretend to “put out the darkwing”.. which equates to pulling a Droopy while saying “put out the darkwing”. So the two villians finsih their job and high five and this is one of the most charming parts of this 2 parter: the camradere between the five minus negaduck. The other four just.. easily bond and enjoy each ohters company, only fighting ONCE, and then being on the same page after that.

It’s also what makes them so deadly: the go too for ANY superhero team in any medium is to simply get the vilians to fight each other as most vilian teams are built on REALLY shaky ground, a mixture of egos and ambitions that unlike with most superhero teams, can’t really be overcome with the greater good.. because their only in it for what they want. The thing that keeps any of these groups together longterm.. is camradere. I’ts why the Flash’s Rogue’s gallery is easily one of the most dangerous; while there are outliers like the reverse flash, most of them are part of the rouges, and ascribe to their rules and morals.. and thus the camradre and support that comes with it. One guy with a cold gun or a super flamethrower or a weather wand or mirror powers.. is pretty damn tough. All four and more together, willing to bail one another out, having their own tailor and weapons hookups. The four remind me of that: a bunch of guys who have the common goal of beating darkwing but likely just.. hang out when not trying to do crimes. Well except negaduck, hence the four thing. By not being able to just easily turn them on one another, it means you HAVE to take them all at once. Even if you got rid of negaduck as both the comics and the 2017 reboot have shown.. you still have 4 immensley powerful, quackerjack included, supervillians who easily can work together instead of a bunch of angry assholes who tend to work better one at a time and just with a united goal. Point is Darkwing Duck is Darkwing Fucked. Darkwing once again refuses help and yells at Stegmutt, because he’s been evne douchier than usual, and then makes the mistake of yelling at Neptunia, who promptly has her octopus friend throw him into the distance because .. well he deserves it. So while Darkwing patches up that wound to his pride and his spleen, we finally meet our vilians new boss: NEGADUCK. And... they do not explain why a guy who looks exactly like drake is here, if he has any relation to the other negaduck he was inspired by, or why any of them would trust him. This would bother me more.. if A) it wasn’t too much of a stretch for darkwing to have foes we hadn’t seen given the whole casefiles thing and B).. well okay this isn’t really a logical opinon but since when have that stopped me.

There’s a damn good reason that Negsy has one of the biggest episode counts of Darkwings villians. The guy is just.. the perfect foil to Darkwing, the Joker to his batman, the reverse flash to his flash, the green goblin to his spider-man, the sabertooth to his wolverine. He’s Drake’s equal and opposite number. While Drake can’t take two steps as Darkwing without wanting some attention, Negsy is happy to avoid having any until the moment strikes. While Drake wants attention as much as he wants to do the right thing, Negsy just simply loves doing what he’s doing. To quote the Spies are Forever song “Somebody’s Gotta Do it” “Can’t you see.. how much I enjoy this, i’d never avoid this, cause buddy i’m a diffrent breed. This is my calling, and though it’s appaling, I love making people bleed.”

He just LOVES being evil. He’s as comically devoted to being a bad guy as Darkwing is to being a good one. He loves the idea of being able to shoot a bunny, he revels in his villiany and he loves every second. But as I said unlike darkwing he dosen’t let his flaws get in the way of his villiany as much. He still does on occasion, he’s still a version of Darkwing after all, but he has his eyes far more on the prize and is far less prone to distraction. He dosen’t care about toy deals or infamy.. he just wants to watch the world burn and laugh manically over the flames. While his obessions CAN be used against him.. as this episode shows it only lasts for a bout a second and he’s usually ready for it. He’s a Drake with no morals, no connections and few drawbacks. And he’s also every bit as clever, with him winning for most of the two parter. And not because the plot needs him too.. he’s simply THAT good at planning, with his plan here being geninely clever. I’m REALLLY hoping for Frank to lead the reboot because combining ALL of this with his reboot backstory will be divine if he gets to. Negaduck was very much worth the hype.

So his next plan, itself clever.. is to dress up as Darkwing and inflitrate SHUSH, taking out the next possibly thing that could stop them. And he does so easily, even while Darkwing is there and to show off just how friggin awesome he is predicts what Drake will say. The only thing that trips him up is drake hilarious pointing out a cute bunny, because he and the other Negsy apparently share the same burning hatred, causing him to get out his shotgun. And can I just say how wonderful it is he can use a shotgun? That’d never pass nowadays, which isn’t the worst thing but i do question why VILLIANS can’t be shown being reckless with fire arms. Their the bad guys, kids aren’t going to see it as a good thing. And they still equate laser guns with guns. They aren’t going to trivilaize gun violence because of Darkwing Duck or Looney Tunes.

Even being found out Negaduck still acomplishes his goal and floods thing. So now both the cops and shush are down, and things aren’t looking great. Darkwing’s still determined he can do this himself and beat them.. but it’s transparent that not only he CAN’T and won’t admit he’s outnumbered but freely admits he just wants the biggest win of his career by taking them all out 4 to 1. Probablem is.. he’s not spider-man and this isn’t the sinister six. As I said he’s not fighting a villian group whose egos clash so badly , at least whent hey first formed, they have to take turns or in later iterations have some member blackmailed in> Their working in concert. He needs help but as we’ve seen multiple times now Darkwing just can’t accept it. He has to be in the limelight and while he does have to relearn the lesson .. it works better here as personality flaws aren’t the kind of thing that fixes itself overnight. Sometimes never. It feels less like it does sometimes in cartoons, where the character just.. never fucking learns, and more like Darkwing has learned it.. he’s just so very human and thus can’t resist sliding black. Less peter griffin more bojack horseman is what i’m saying. I mean there are still bits of just poor writing, but for the most part his ego is like most of his enimies: he just can’t get it to stay beat.

So it won’t suprise you that when the national guard and gizmoduck are called he’s not happy. You may recall when I reviewed “Tiff of the Titans” I REALLY hated this verison of Gizmoduck. He was concited as Darkwing but treated like he wasn’t, treating the daring duck of mystery like a criminal for stupid reasons and was generally pretty useless and obnoxious. The fact that hamilton camps gizmoduck voice sounds not like a 20-30 something like Fenton is but like Grandpa Simpson mixed with a dash of dudley doo right dosen’t help.

It’s not lost on me that Dan Castellaneta’s character is NOT the one that sounds like Abe Simpson either. But while that problem is still around... the rest of them.. aren’t. Gizmoduck’s character development actually stuck from last time, so rather than be a dick to darkwing he’s warm, friendly and happy to accept his help when Darkwing shows up, thinking his old “Buddy” is just volunteering to help instead of screaming at him for doing his job. Not only that but while he still has elements of a standard superman type “Cape” hero parody... their more toned down and actually funny with him giving giant speeches, and that being useda gainst him and being over the top.. but still being the noble, big hearted hero you’d expect from the roll, just wanting to do good not for the Glory he gets anyway, but because people need him. In short.. he’s 100% better thsi go round. Well okay 80.. he still sounds like this.

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Gos also brings Morgana along, because apparently she forgot the entire episode where her father was so obssed with being noticed he tried to upstage his 10-12 year old daughter... and you know the hundred other times Drake put his ego over his job.

So he naturally wants to shoo her while Gizmo. .warmly welcomes the help because he recognizes that people are counting on them not counting on him. Just then the villians make their move and activate the electro slave device from earlier which.. does nothing like that’d sound like and just creates a giant electrical wall, cutting off ST. Canard and bringing the plan full circle: The villains have now cut off the town and taken out almost anything that could oppose them. And despite you know everything Darking only gets more pissy when Stegmutt and Neptunia show up., Stegmutt because he still wants to return Darkwing’s change as Darkwing bought a hot dog from him and Stegmutt’s also a really sweet guy and Neptuina because well... .the ocean’s her thing and a bunch of bad guys just put a giant line through it she’s now on the other side of. Gizmo suggests the obvious: It’s a day unlike any other when a threat no one duck, or fish or dino duck, can face alone. It’s time to assemble! And Gos is more than excited about the idea, suggesting the name Justice Ducks which.. is honestly fairly weak in my opinon. Not BAD but very clearly just “Justice League” with Ducks in it. Given how good the series is at names, you think they’d of taken more than five minutes on this one. Maybe it was disney mandate I dunno. But the concept itself.. is brilliant and I wish it came back in other epiosdes; Taking a bunch of other heroic characters in a setting and making them into a team is always a great idea, it’s why the tmnt unvierses have been using the mutanimals more and more lately, and they do ballance each other out nicely. You have a nice contrast of powers: while multiple have super strength, stegmutt is your bruiser, Gizmo is the tech guy, darkwing’s the strategy, morgana handles magic and Neptuina can swim in anything and is super strong and agile outside and inside water, so as long as she can keep hydrated, she’s useful> Which by the way has ALWAYS been the case for aquaman.. except the superfriends version.

He really does suck and ruined it for the rest of them till Jason Mamoa and his mighty abs, coupled with Geoff Johns run on the charcter that served as the foundation for that movie, finally rescued the character from a fucking decades old cartoon’s smear campagin. They have the makings of a great team.. it’s just Darkwing dosen’t want a team and screams at everyone to get out and that he dosen’t need them.. I mean he does try to be softer on Morgana but.. he’s still a dick and she really should dump him. Seriously, their attraction is superficial, at this point at least we’ll see in Feburary if it gets any bettter, he dosen’t respect her as a person, and now he’s having to restrain himself at yelling at her.. for HELPING HIM. When he clearly needs it. Holy shit... I was not prepared for that amount of douche. And this would sink the two parter.. were this not clever setup for one hell of a downfall and not a key part of his character. Like has been said: Ego is a massive part of him, and as Tad Stones has put it his real arch enemy. It’s been the basis for several episodes and as we saw in the pilot was his motivation for getting into crimefighting in the first place. He means well and clearly has a heart.. but this is just as much about thwarting evil as it is the attention. And here it’s used perfectly as in the reverse of the gizmoduck episode, where he wanted attention but for fully understandable reasons and judged Gizmo more on stealing his thunder, which while petty i’ll admit is a bit fair given Gizmo did NOTHING in St. Canard but got the key of the city while Darwing had saved it multiple times at this point.

Here he’s being petty and selfish.. and he has no good reason. It’s just his own ego wanting the credit for everything when it’s not what he or the city needs. Honestly this feels like an ahead of it’s time parody of how Batman would be written when written poorly sometimes in the years after this episode: a massive dick who thinks he knows better than everybody else and everything else should be entrusted to him because he’s the goddamn batman, the kind who throws people out as potential parts of his family for petty shit and acts like a controlling ass and okay maybe this is spiralling a bit. But the refusal to see any other way is right? Yeah that defintelyf its darkwing like a glove and eveyrone leaves either bummed or pissed at him. And the most pissed? Launchpad who while agreeing to it, his face and tone clearly mean he’s disapointed in his buddy for acting like this when now is REALLY not the time.

And I wish.. we got more on this because Launchpad disappears till the ending scene after this. No really. Despite being Darkwing’s best friend and sidekick and despite warranting a spot on the justice ducks and despite having every reason to pitch in. he just vanishes. I mean Ducktales may of gone overboard in not having him around since Let’s Get Dangerous, but at least that’s a valid reason: he has another family, he’s really busy and Scrooge has another talented pilot to do the job for him. Granted he’s clearly still doing it offscreen at times but he was both a major part of an hourlong and will be part of any possible spinoff. And hell even back in season 1 when the character ballance was at it’s worst... Donald and Beakly at least HAD reasons for not being in a whole lot of episodes: Donald HATED his uncle, HATED adventure, and HATED the fact his kids were following in their mothers footsteps as he only saw death at the end of it. While they SHOULD have found ways to include him more and his exclusion was pretty bad... he at least had a reason. Here launchpad just has to go now his home planet needs him. And he’s not the only one Gosalyn gets more, she’s worried about darkwing, we’ll get to why in a second and wants to go but Gizmoduck refuses.. and then ALSO vanishes. Which makes even less sense as when has Gosalyn EVER listned to an authority figure? Especially when her dad might be dead? It’s just grossly out of character for her to agree to sit things out and not just tag along with steggmutt anyway once gizmo can’t stop her. I do get this is about the justice ducks but there’s no reason to neglect the other main characters. At least have Negsy capture them too or something. Cripes.

So yeah the “thinking he’s dead part”. Darkwing sets out to find the five’s lair and misses the big honking flag Negaduck set up, but finds a crumb, puts two and two together and finds them.. as Negaduck planned. Down to the crumb thing as, in my faviorite line of the episode, he planned on Darkwing missing the flag and focusing on the flimisiit clue instead. Naturally they kick his ass, EASILY, and throw him out a window to his death and in classic bond villian fashion don’t check for proof of death. Krakoa would be ashamed. So part one ends with darkwing duck getting thrown to his possible death...

Only for part 2 to pick up with him landing in a trash truck before exiting. And this.. is what makes the ego parts tolerable.. Darkwing.. earnestly reflects, depressed he let his own ego get in the way of things and shoo off his only hope, and thus let the villians take over the city, with Bushroot’s plants harassing people, quackerjacks teeth running the police, and Megavolt having taken the power company and using it to shake down locals and Liquidator flooding part of the city for a plan we’ll get to in a moment. He’s at his lowest point and tht’s while it work: his hubris DOSEN’T get unpunished, he’s fully sorry for it and while he dosen’t out and out apologize to them, he’s not only genuinely contrite but does work well with them and evenly when he finally does get back to them.. but we’ve got a bit to go before that. So with Darkwing missing Gizmo takes over as big good and not bein ga prick eagerly takes the others help Neptuina nopes out of helping, which fits her personality, so with only three left because he dosen’t consider children useful which shame on you. I mean i’ts responsible from a real world standpoint but not from a cartoon show standpoint. But anyways they split up gang: Gizmo will go take the power plant back, Morgana will try and use her spells to find the lair and Stegmutt will find darkwing. I do like despite how they neglect Gosalyn that her friendship with Stegmutt was remembered and used as a plot point here.

So we then get to a rather repttitive part of the two parter. It’s not lacking in good gags or character moments but it’s basically the same scene repeated 4 times just with a diffrent scenario and gag for each of the justice ducks and the fearsome five member they encounter. They do their respective schicks the hero is defeated.. this is 5 or so minutes of a 20+ minute episode. Not TERRIBLE stuff, iv’e seen worse repttition, but not terribly intresting compared to the rest of the four parter. So, Neptuina encounters Liquidator, whose scheme is selling rafts to people to not drown in exhange for a millioin dollars.. or whatever they have he’s not picky, and they fight but Liqui ultimately wins, Gizmoduck, in the best of the four sequences, swoops in to stop Megavolt and not only lands on his foot.. but spends so long speechifiing Mega gets him from behind, phrasing. Stegmutt hilariously tries disgusing himself with Groucho glasses and is bested by Quackerjack, and Morgana finds the lair but gets taken out by bushroot, though her pet spider archie escapes to go warn the others.

So after all that Archie makes it back to darkwing’s hq.. only for launchpad to squish him. “ew a bug!”.. just a great quick laugh. Thankfuly he’s more resilent than the average spider and is fine once Gosalyn scrapes him off and they now know the five are in trouble. Also I was wrong Launchpad does return.. for this one scene. And neither get into action once Darkwing returns and after an overly long bit of him deflecting blame to the point I was screaming.

That being said it is nice when once Darkwing is aware of the situation he gloats a little.. but still goes to save them without any hint of caring about doing it all himself. He learned his lesson. So at the Lair of the five, Negsy shows what a sadsitc bastard he is, another great side of him.. from a writing standpoint at least. It shows that like darkwing despite a comedic exterior.. he’s VERY dangerous. And he’s set up speciic tourtures for each of the five he has: He’s hooked up Gizmoducks armor to a device that lets him control it’s power flow, so right now it’s entirely drained.. but he can overload it and electrocute him to death when he flips THE SWITCH. Neptuina is stuck under a heat lamp and will fry when he hits THE SWITCH. Stegmutt is stuck in a weightless enviorment that will also loose air when he hits THE SWITCH and morgana is in a chair that will crush her tod eath when he hits.. THE SWITCH... he really loves THE SWITCH and props to him. A lesser villian would’ve had all the traps have a diffrent trigger which while making it harder on any rescuers is just a time waster asking for the heroes he hasn’t gotten to yet to break free. And while it is based in his sadism he still fully intends to watch the deaths personally. Seriously he’s got all his bases covered.. and would’ve won.. if it wasn’t for the rest of the five. The rest of the five are fighting over territoiry: Buddies they may be but they all want the pie. Negaduck, in his most badass scene shuts them up by pulling out his signture chainsaw for hte first time and scaring the crap out of htem, then using it to carve up the model of the city: They each get a quarter.. and he gets all the loot. Which they dont’ like but agree to to not die today. Though really... what’s the value of that? They have a full city held hostage, control over a quarter each, and no real way to SPEND the loot without letting someone else, say scrooge mcduck, in to stop them. Just give him the money and let him sit on it Smaug style. You get a quarter of a new york sized city to yourself to live out your dreams. I’d love that... maybe nto become a supervillian for that but still, point is you have carte blanche jsut take the W. Darkwing meanwhile uses Nega’s scheme against him and plans to be delivering skulls, after flowers only piss nega off, and then knocks the guy out.. though his attempt at playing Nega fails as the Four have wisely decided that since they outnumber him and a four way split of the loot is better than none of it, to kill him. Nega.. is not pleased and just wants them to attack him, and they do, and it seems darkwing’s going to have a front row seat for THE SWITCH. But Darkwing recovers, and we get a great tug of war between him and negsy as the switch is turnd on and off on and off till Darkwing finally wins, and then frees Morgana and apologizes and has her free Gizmo, and so on and so on. So our team is reunited, Darkwing’s finally ready to lead and thus we get our battle cries “Justice Ducks, ASSEMBLE!” “Fearsome Five, GET OVER HERE!” And the two face off

And the battle.. is fantastic. Easily the series best so far as everyone gets a moment to shine. Neptuina takes out both Liquidator and Megavolt, this time beating liquidator by creating a whirlpool inside him and turning him into a watery tornado and crashing him into megavolt before he can get stegmutt. Gizmoduck beats Quackerjack handily by using a drill on the teeth, great gag then giving Jacky some ansteic.. a boxing glove to the face. And Stegmutt takes on bushroot and when unsure of what to do.. we get a truly wonderous callback as Stegmutt.. honestly dosen’t know what to do.. so Darkwing gets some payback and tells him to “put out the bushroot, put out the bushroot” you can guess what happens next

Or if you want the more recent versoin

Point is three down two to go, and we get a call back to the pudding thing with Morgana trying to hit liquidator.. before Darkwing in a show of how much of a team player he is now, offers his help, simply having Morg teleport some instant pudding mix over the guy... I mean at least it’s brown this time even if i’ts still in a jello mold. And to finish it off he and gizmo awesomely use a mixer on both sides. So our heroes have triumphed.. almost. Negs has the controls for the barrier and runs out planning to destroy st canard if they refuse.. then being Negaduck decides fuck it i’ll do it anyway... but Darkwing stops him and we get a slapstick beatdown as DW uses an anvil a pie and other classics and utterly curbstomps his nemissi in an wesome scne. The day is saved, the generator shut down and the city freed. So we wrap up with the Justice Ducks celebrating.. with Gos and Launchpad. I have an inlking how that conversation went.

Darkwing relcutnatnly is forced to eat his own words and admit he both enjoys the team and needed their help, before heading off on that Date with Morgana.. though Gizmoduck tries to make it a group thing. Dude no one likes a third wheel.. not even when i’ts ninja brian. So Darkwing uses the iris out to escape, but Stegmutt does try and give that quarter back first, with Darkwing, in a genuinely sweet moment, telling him to keep it and then going off, having earned his happy ending and grown as a person. Final Thoughts: This episode was WORTH the build up I gave it. It turns out I really didnt’ need most of the intro epsidoes, as while it enhances the villians the heroes are all given decent enough introductions apart from morgana so tht even without the context of how darkwing knows these people it still works. It’s a thrilling, tightly paced for the most part, hilarious and wonderful two parter that ties a huge chunk of the show together into one hour long masterpice. I had my issues of course and i’ve stated them: Gosalyn and Launchpad doing nothing, the pacing towards the middle of part 2.. but otherwise.. it’s perfect. It’ has a great character arc for darkwing on top of everything, once again having his ego bite him in the ass but in a unique enough way it dosen’t feel like a retread of the pilot, and having him genuinely feel bad about it and grow. a bit smug when he learns he has to rescue them sure but he’s never smug to the heroes themselves. And ironically.. he gets his big moment. While he dosen’t beat the five himself he still infliatrated their hq, beat up their leader, saved his friends and then beat negaduck all by himself AGAIN. It may of not been the big moment he wanted.. but it’s the one he needed. As for the road to the justice ducks itself.. it was a fun ride. Only one honestly two bad episodes; Tiff otf the Titans and Paint Misbehavin and even those had their moments, paticuarlly Misbehavin’s art sequences. The rest of the episodes ranged from alright to standout and overall it was a hell of a time.. so i’m going to rank all the ones i covered leading up to this review. Just Us Justice Ducks (Both Parts) Negaduck Beauty and the Beat Dry Hard Jurassic Jumble Ghoul of My Dreams Something Fishy Fungus Amongus Whiffle While You Work Paint Misbehavin Tiff of the Titans And i’m proud to say this is the first ongoing project on the blog, the first story arc or what have you, i’ve completed. While I DID do a four parter of catch as cash can, this is the first one i’ve done over several months that i’ve completed and i’m proud of it. Does this mean i’m done with Darkwing?

Next week we’ll be wrapping up some more unfinished buisness with another Darkwing Double Feature, this time covering the short career of Quiverwing Quack and in Feburary, and the reason I spent so much time catching up, we’ll be seeing both Morgana and Negaduck again just in time for Valentine’s day. After that?

We’ll just have to see won’t we? So until there’s another rainbow, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

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vaguely-concerned · 3 years

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The Mandalorian s2 ep1 Reactions Post That’s right I’m BACK

and none of you not even god himself can stop me from rambling about space cowboy dad and tiny green baby stuff for much longer than any sane person should

the TL;DR is that I still love this show SO MUCH, beware a bunch of spoilers under the cut!

- costume design wise I LOVE how badly the armour fits Cobb Vanth

especially when you get shots with him and Din side by side for contrast:

It’s not just that it’s clearly not made for him (it seems he’s a lot lankier and more wiry than Boba is), he simply doesn’t know how to wear it, and he doesn’t know how to take care of it, because he doesn’t know what it means. Remember when Din’s breastplate got bent completely out of shape by the mudhorn and he had it repaired to the best of his ability long before they even finished with the ship? That’s why he looks so grounded and natural in it and Vanth has sort of a clumsy Spiderman-in-his-first-home-made-costume air about him. (also Boba’s helmet has a beautiful heft and solidity to it in this, they make all the beskar have a Feel and weight to it, makes it feel important)

I like that Vanth is taller than Din; everything that drives home that Din’s strength doesn’t come from being naturally physically imposing or impressive is a joy to me

- Boba’s armour seems to be confirmed to be real beskar, which gives me so much hope that they’re doing something actually nuanced and interesting with Boba and Jango’s cultural identities as Mandalorians (whether they do consider themselves that or not, for example), unlike George Lucas’ inexplicable yet unbending stance of ‘They aren’t and never were lol get fucked Fetts’

the way the triumphant heroic part of the mando music sputtered and died when the man himself showed up tho... uh-oh this might be bad news

man but that’s a stunning and surprising way to introduce a well-known character divorced from what makes them so iconic, though, just from that I’m going to trust they know what they’re doing (AND they got temuera morrison back I’m so EXCITED!!!). without the armor there’s the face of someone who shared that face with literal millions and at the same time must be looking older than his father ever got to at this point, and that’s super interesting as a starting point to me. (I... guess there’s still a chance it’s a fakeout and that it’s actually another clone, but that would be such a letdown when they’ve already given us this haha)

- an excellent [mando sighs] moment

this opening scene did a great job of re-summarizing him for the audience -- establishing again that he gives you one chance at dealing with him fairly and if you insist on continuing to be an asshole about it, you’re toast, the fact that his fighting style is so much about being able to tank blows rather than not getting hit in the first place, the horror movie monster mando setup as he stalked the dude down and strung him up, the Poetic Justice predicated on some very careful word choices, and most importantly “where I go, he goes”... all wonderful, I’m sure I’ll watch this scene back for fine details and better looks at the background characters many many times

(word seems to have spread about him and the baby for real now, which makes me VERY nervous btw)

- Pulserifle’s back! Jetpack’s back! Razor Crest’s back! Grappling line’s back! PELLI’S BACK!!!!!! Tattooine... is also back *Finn voice* Why does everyone want to go back to Tattooine????

I really enjoyed the way they fleshed out and (for lack of a better word) humanized the sand people, though, if you are going back to this desert hellplanet again that is a worthy reason to do it

- Din swearing :O!! and one of the less egregious star wars swears too, I’m fine with this

- in campaign star wars news: I guess there was sort of both a binbon and a jubna in this ep! what a time to be alive

- as usual I love the jawa. a bright spot in any day, just a bunch of lil goblin-y friends hanging out having the best time loving sparkly crystals and rescuing silver foxes.

get in loser we’re going shopping

I uh. Do you think. Hm. Is there maybe a metaphor here somewhere. Is there perhaps a hidden, one may say double, meaning, at play, right here, in this image? Who can say, it’s just niggling at me (there’s a very similar set of shots with Toro in season 1, but seemingly the show went ‘I fear we might have gone too subtle with it, let’s amp it up this time’ over the season break loool)

honestly though this dynamic really highlighted everything I love about the ways Din performs masculinity. It’s so much softer and more community/collaboration focused and more comfortable to be around than Vanth’s version -- and Vanth isn’t a bad dude by any stretch of the imagination, it’s not hard to see why he’s like that considering where he’s from, he’s just such a... man. The lone person who can protect this village! The only man who’s got what it takes! It’s all on his shoulders and no one else’s, so do exactly as he says or he’ll put a hole in you! (I think it’s telling that one of his first comments to Din is ‘I’m sure you call the shots wherever you’re from, but ‘round here, I’m the person who tell folks what to do’, because as we as the audience knows, Din very much does not call the shots of where he’s from lol) I guess it says some nice things about the tribe of Mandos Din is from that this is how he approaches things, and it says some good things about Vanth how quickly he comes around to this smarter and less confrontational/domineering style of doing things once he’s been exposed to it and sees how it works. it’s just neat

(it’s smart of Favreau to set his ~*lone gunslinger*~ character up like this, too, it makes him so much more interesting and versatile)

- With the way Din says ‘a Mandalorian Armorer sent me on my path’ it does seem confirmed that’s the equivalent of a priest role or a sort of shaman -- I wonder if he knows the name of ‘The’ Armorer or if they take on the role as a whole identity

- the sheer contrast between the two people who wanted Din to take his helmet off for them in this ep tho... wants Mando’s armour off for horrible awful reasons and got exactly what he deserved:

wants Mando’s armour off for entirely sympathetic and understandable, just culturally uninformed, thirsty thirsty reasons & also having drinks together:

(the sort of... little lick over his bottom lip he does there? keep it in your pants vanth my GODjflsadf he’s a good dude tho he understands and respects the ‘no armour removal before marriage’ thing and backs down gracefully)

- This is a nuanced thing: I don’t think I actually ship it (not in a requited way from Din’s side, anyway, Vanth I’m 100% sure about lol), but the incredible potential for out-of-context-taking of “Take it off, or I will”/”...we doin’ this in front of the kid?” is uh astounding

(anyone got the vibe Vanth sort of had something with the bartender too? no just me? well well)

- I was never really scared Din was actually dead or hurt b/c baby wasn’t scared and I figure he’d know lol, a very useful fear barometer

- “What’s the plan?” “Take care of the child” “What are you gonna do?” “I don’t know, but wish me luck *yeets his new bro out of harm’s way before diving in head first himself*” fksdjhfkjlashdfkjsldahfkasldjhfskldajhfsadkjfh WHAT a summation of Din’s entire approach to battle & life, dad please you carry a not insignificant part of my heart around with you be careful

(Also with the heavy implication that Boba was watching the whole thing... can you imagine him just looking on as Din throws himself down that gullet like a madman. There must have been some ‘o_-7 *headscratch headscratch* ???’ going on for him there)

it’s kind of sweet that din trusts vanth will take care of the baby if something happens though, they really bonded quickly huh

- the sand people who kept willingly going over to the krayt dragon’s cave are honestly braver and more admirable than anyone else has ever been, I kept just shouting in anguish as they were gobbled up, they deserved better

- can we talk about how clear it still is that Din’s just... lonely. When he thinks he’s found another Mando and he sounds almost reverent with relief... and then it gets odder and odder (’uh... drinks? I guess... does he have drinking straws with him or -- HE’S TAKING THE HELMET OFF???’ oh buddy)

I wonder if they’re building towards something about him realizing it doesn’t have to be Mandos for him to trust and bond with people longer term? Basically all the characters he’s met and we’ve watched him form attachments to and get help from are non-Mandos -- Kuiil :’^(, Cara, Omera, Cobb Vanth, IG-11 :^’’(, Greef Karga to a degree. Establishing so firmly what he’s looking for this early would be good setup for a ‘what a character thinks they want vs. what they need’ thing later on just on a writing level, anyway, Boba Fett could bring in some interesting points of view about Mandalorianness too

- baby’s happy gurgles when he sees pelli!!!!!! din speaking sand people language and petting alligator doggies!!!!!!

- pedro pascal’s voice work remains an utter joy to me. din’s measured, earnest, occasionally slightly stilted way of talking is still so good, and then he does things like inserting some more... idk life is the wrong word but that more charged and dynamic tone he took on when he said (”I thought you weren’t a gambler”) “I’m not”. *chef kiss*

- if the pulse rifle’s stun is able to do that to a fuckn krayt dragon... that’s some serious shit din is carrying around with him lol (interestingly the actual shooty pew-pew part of it didn’t seem to do much to it, but then I guess he was shocking it from the inside out and not through thick hide, so idk)

- my only real complaints about this ep: Vanth’s backstory ran a bit long, and not enough baby & dad interaction. the concept art’s got me tho:

(din often wears his original/old armour in concept art still, incidentally, don’t know what that’s about)

awwwwwww

+ omfg ;______;

- this sand people person conscientiously brushing a bantha’s teeth... blessed

- Customary flame thrower report: there was a rare useful deployment of the flamethrower. Good job Mando’s flame thrower for furthering the field of diplomacy

ETA: I CAN’T BELIEVE I FORGOT TO MENTION THIS: DIN BEING COMFORTABLE(ISH) AROUND DROIDS NOW!!!! GROWTH????!?! IG-11 WE MISS YOU??????????

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian spoilers #star wars #the mandalorian meta #meta #(I'm trying to label my meta more specifically these days b/c the general meta tag is a MESS on my blog lol)#mmmmmmmm feels good to break out the overanalysis goggles again it's time to OVERTHINK SOME SHIT my friends

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clandestine-j · 3 years

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Gossip Girl Reboot, Ep. 1 Reaction / Review

This was posted on reddit first, crossing posting it here since I’ve chosen to review the ep’s and post on tumblr as well. So, this post is geared more towards reddit as a whole, was posted about two days after ep 1 aired.

so, i read the reddit before watching to get a general idea of what it was like before i started (spoilers aren't a big deal for me )

..i was waiting for zoya's huge blow up as people called. some were going in on home girl and kind of treated julien like she was doing nothing wrong / just not the best but not a big deal but in the concept of the sisterhood and the show and from zoya's perspective it was.

now, i don't think julien is a horrible girl or character but she is complicit and as of now, cares more about her image and rushes to smooth things over. now, i don't know if it's a an acting thing or a directing thing but when they smiled in the bathroom, her smile was not just happiness of seeing a sister. ( zoya, embraced, eyes closed and happy, julien, smirking slightly, looking off to the side little things but little things matter.) it was slightly jealous and she was not as unaffected as she claimed she was (which isn't a bad thing but it shows that deep down, she's feeling some type of way and that would color her thoughts) i really do think a part of her really does want to have this sister bond despite that.

she clearly is nice or at least a little down to earth but her persona (and the people around her) needs her to put on more of a show. she loves her friends and know they can be nice and loving even if they're straight up bitchy most of the time. she does mean well, might go about it the wrong and wants to everyone to be happy while achieving her dreams. she's an interesting character and overall, i'm more invested in her character arch over zoya's right now because of that but...how else do ya'll expect a 14 year old girl to react? her blow up wasn't even a blow up.

julien's friends are out-right rude about her before even meeting her and when seeing her, monet offers to throw coffee on her, she's seen as stalker, sure, julien tries to smooth it over but she wants to ignore it more than she addresses it.

then they disrespect her sister to her face and once again, julien doesn't really stand up for her sister

and then they do it again at the club, she's the butt of the joke and she knows it and while julien tries to smooth it over, it's once again just glossed over.

then we find out that zoya wanted to go the school because julien asked her and thought she got in her own merit, she wonders if she stole it.

intentions are good but once again julien wants to gloss over it when it's obvious her sister is in distress and wants photos, yeah, we can take it as panicking because she was but it was also dismissive

then after the blast, once again her friends want her to destroy her sister with such obvious dislike and she again tries to vibe past it.

and now zoya's naked body has been spread across the school and she's been dubbed a cheater and julien has a plan to take the power back, not show a united front and stick up for her sister and once again, her 14 year old sister is going to be the laughing stock.

but zoya does it anyway and julien thinks it's alright to leave the plan in the hands of friends who only two minutes before were talking about how bad they want to destroy her little sister, she's ignoring the problem and giving the task to the two worst people thought possible.

and then the blow up, it wasn't even that big of blow up for a 14 year old girl who's been publicly humiliated for a 3rd time. the girl that got her sister to get her a spot, stole her boyfriend and air-dropped dick pics.

and you can tell how much this messed her because she needed her dad to tell her that she was talented and worth it.

and then ending lines, with the extra sting that she might've really did steal a spot from a student who deserved it more.

what i think zoya wanted to hear was 'i couldn't stop because i didn't know they'd change things like that. we had a plan and they did something different. they were assholes and haven't been treating you, i'll stick up for you like sisters are supposed to.' zoya wanted to be understood and julien wanted it to blow over, move on for her image.

i know julien didn't know about the airdrop, she likely did feel bad, she couldn't just hop off stage but she was completely dismissive. it's not petty high school drama for a legit child. i think they were both wrong in the argument but zoya's is coming from complied hurt from a sister who wants her around but doesn't want to give up the front to firmly stand up for and with her. zoya will very much get swept up by obie because he was the only one in the group of friends that didn't ice her out or make a snide remark ( aki was cool but like, he was doing the nicer version of luna's ignoring the freshmen )

that being said, i don't hate julien, she has moments where it really make it clear that's it's the people and the glamour that brings out a meaner side. it's interesting to what her struggle with it. she's honestly a fav but i feel like zoya was justified in her feelings, it wasn't the blow up people said it was and it didn't just come out of the blue. if it was me? no, you wouldn't be getting the power back by making me look even more like a fool in front of people. why would you even ask that of me? why do you want me to hang out with people who openly mock and hate me...for existing.

other things

despite being bitchy, i love monet and luna, stylish, confident, we just need growth.

obie...dude...i get it, you mentally dropped out of the relationship a long time ago but c'mon, wake up. zoya would be a good friend, not a good girlfriend. and unlike others, i don't think it's strange that he moved on so quickly because he found someone that he had connected with in a way that he hasn't for a long a time with julien. i know people hate him and love her but what from what we've seen, yeah she really does like him but it's also easy to see for that their relationship takes a back seat to her influencer status. hopefully, if they won't get back together, they'll introduce a new love interest for him.

the teachers....i'm assuming they'll be jailed or fired OR someone hacks gossip girl and things get really out of control but i did like that blonde haired teacher might've felt guilty at the end

max...i don't know about you yet my bruh BUT he's up front about him so who am i to say anything? do you king ( and possibly two other people )

audrey, i love with her the group, with the guys, a bitch for dropping the sister info but on her own, ehhh. her character doesn't give me much and she's as much of a bitch to zoya than the real mean bitches

i'm firmly #teamaki, it's my fav, my child. based on what i read, aki-max-audrey might not happen or even aki-max. whoever he end-games with, i just want them to love him. that's all, i'll fight.

overall, i'm enjoying it. i think it's dropped a lot of good nuggets that could go good places and while, yes, it will be compared to the original, i hope people let it become it's own show without it's own standing and come to love or hate it because of it's own content.

#c;gg #gossip girl reboot #gossip girl hbo

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spacetalin · 5 years

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Interview with Crystal Cola

Hi, Crystal Cola! Thanks for agreeing to speak with us about your music and other stuff! Tell us please, how was your project created?

I first started this project back in late 2015 just for fun. I didn’t plan on releasing anything at that time and just wanted to challenge myself to create music influenced by my favorite artists and video games. After I recorded a few songs, I thought to release it for feedback and people seemed to really like it, so I decided to take it further and eventually made my first album, Ocean Breeze.

https://youtu.be/2irEYetjQe4

When someone’s talking about original city pop music, it’s mainly about Japan during the economic bubble of the second half of the 1980s and j-pop artists of that time. In your opinion, does the modern city pop have these elements which were in 1980`s music? Can modern city pop be regarded as a sort of vaporwave music?

If there was any kind of influence economically on the music from the bubble era, I don’t think the economy of today is the same as it was back then since we are in more of a recession now. I think it could be that we are looking back at a time of great prosperity and want to re-create the feeling of that era by making music that sounds like the kind from that time period. I suppose you can say it’s got elements of the vaporwave pastiche, but that also feels like it takes away from some of the truly solid efforts of musicians making new city pop.

What is the source of your creativity? In your opinion, where’s the source of 80`s Japanese pop uniqueness and why it`s the huge source of future funk remixes?

I think like most of my peers, we like this style of music because it was popular when we were young and listening to it and writing music like this feels very nostalgic. In Japan there was city pop but in the west, there was similar music like yacht rock, jazz fusion and even music in anime, which was becoming popular and mainstream in the west, so we were all exposed to this style in one way or another. Future funk uses these songs as a source because they have this nostalgic quality and much city pop is disco influenced which lends itself to be remixed easily because of the 4/4 time signature.

Tell us your secret: how do you manage to achieve such atmospheric sounds like from 80`s retro anime or TV shows? What is the world created in your music?

The best way to achieve the sounds from the 80s is to use technology from that time period. Synthesizers and VST’s based on synthesizers from that time period are what I use. The Korg M1 is used a lot in my songs, along with the D50 and DX7. I spent a while researching equipment set ups by city pop musicians. I also watched a lot of Youtube videos of them playing live to see playing techniques and instrument rigs. Analyzing songs was very helpful to me when it came to constructing my own music. I grew up with retro anime, so it remains a big influence on my music and some of that songwriting comes naturally.

If talking about something closely connected with Japan, it`s impossible not to say about anime. Do you think old anime is better than modern? Name us your three most beloved titles!

A lot of my favourite anime is older, but there is a lot of great new anime’s now! One Punch Man, Mob Psycho 100 are excellent new anime, and my friend introduced me to an anime called Overlord which I really like. My top 3 anime however are Kimagure Orange Road, Ranma 1/2, and FLCL. I’ve heard really good things about Heart Cocktail and I want to watch that next!

Imagine that you got in 1986 in Tokyo`s center, say, through time travel. Your next steps?

Hmm, after a period of panic, probably I’d try to figure out how to get to the Air Records HQ and try to work with my favourite artists from the time period, as unlikely as that would be, haha.

Have you ever performed anywhere with your music? If not, do you have any plans to do so? What would you prefer: to play on 100% Electronicon fest or some small concert area somewhere in Japan?

I have not performed live yet, though I am not opposed to it. I would have to work out the logistics of performing it live, I’m not sure how I’d do that. I think I’d rather start with a small concert area before moving on to a bigger festival event.

I noticed that on Bandcamp fan page you have many chillwave releases and not a single one city pop album. Do you plan to close your project in future and move to chillwave?

A lot of my friends in the online music scene are in the chillwave genre. I was introduced to them after meeting my friend A.L.I.S.O.N. We both enjoyed each other’s music and began working together on some things which led us to other artists who we all talk with on the chillsynth community discord group. While I am a part of this group, I wouldn’t describe my style as chillwave. I’ve tried making music in this style, such as the song Zenith from my EP Orion, but I didn’t feel it was very successful, my style is too city pop at heart, haha. No, I don’t think I will stop my city pop style. In fact, my next album is looking to be even more city pop than my previous releases.

https://soundcloud.com/crystalcola/zenith

So the last question is: your project is anonymous and you asked me to not talk about your person and geographic location. Do you think the anonymity of an artist is an important part of the music aesthetics or it`s something else?

I dont think it’s important to the aesthetic as there has been many artists who are not anonymous and do quite well with fans. For me, I just like having my music as the centre of attention rather than myself, so I try to maintain a distance from it if I can.

Thanks a lot for this talk! Hope this meeting is not the last one. Arigato!

Thank you for the questions and thank you for the love and support! I really appreciate everyone who listens to my music! You are all the reason why I continue to release music! どうもありがとうございました！

______________________

CRYSTAL COLA BANDCAMP: crystalcola.bandcamp.com/

TWITTER: twitter.com/Crystal_Cola

YOUTUBE:www.youtube.com/channel/UCwFCCP_wvhV4Svq5BYEzsBg

INSTAGRAM: www.instagram.com/crystal_cola_/

SOUNDCLOUD: soundcloud.com/crystalcola

#music #interview #crystal cola #japan #city pop #anime #vaporwave #kimagure orange road #ranma #1980s #retro #vintage

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head-full-of-things · 5 years

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Game Of Thrones episode 3 thoughts

Alright ep 3 is done and... I have to say I'm a little bit disappointed. The battle was beautiful with the fire versus the darkness and all of that but... That's it?

Main stuff that I had a problem with:

The death count - really? You had me invest so much emotion last episode in worrying and being sad and in the end it's over nothing? I mean I don't want people I love to die but like at least Gray Worm or Brianne or something right? Ed, Baric, Theon, Jora and Malisandra who decided to go die on her own for some reason and that's it?

Handling of the dead - so some deads were risen in the crypts but no dead beloved Starks? And we didn't even get any shot of someone having to kill a recently dead friend who was risen and it's all emotional like... Why not?

End of the war - So the army of the dead is defeated in ep 3 and then the rest of the season is... The game of thrones? The big bad is Cercei? How can she be more important to the endgame than the Night King?

Arya killing the Night King - I don't know how I feel about this. On their behalf I have to say the forshadowing was surely there when you look at it. She was always connected to death and the White Walkers are death incrinated so that makes sense. And the part about the blue eyes? Genius! Did they know they're going to do this since that episode in season, what was it 3? If it was planned so early then honestly kodus to them! That's a line that didn't appear in the books and the character of the Night King doesn't even exist there so that forshadowing belongs to the show, which it's probably the only foreshadowing the show did that was so long and serious which is amazing.

On the other hand - in the way narrative and plot usually work, the Night King belongs to Jon. Jon should have been the one to take him down because he's the one who has the history with him and the buildup of so many years that he dedicated to fighting the White Walkers. Who is Arya that she deserves to take him down, while Jon was preparing for this war she was still doing whatever it is that she did in Baraavos lol.

Small(er) things:

Good:

Beautiful cinematography wow, the shot of the dothraki with the flaming swords like dots of fire progressing to the mist was the best thing I've seen.

Related to that - there were these beautiful transition effects when there was the battle scene and then fog crept in and when it left it was another scene.

It was interesting seeing Arya dealing with everything. She's a great assassin but she's never actually been to a war. She dealt with it pretty great, but in the end Malisandra reminded her that she's better at being an assassin after all, which is exactly what she did. But she still had some great moves with that spear.

Damn Lyana mormont. What a shot, such a tiny girl being held by a giant and then taking him down. A new David and Goliath. The true MVP of this ep. You will be missed small badass girl.

Theon was a surprisingly good fighter there. Kind of teared up at Bran saying he's a good man, because that approval is what he was trying to get all of his life, and he finally did! Damn Theon you will be missed.

Bad:

The darkness problem Oh My God. Watched the ep in the morning with some natural light coming in and I couldn't see anything. I thought Jora died like four times (before he actually did), and somebody was thrown from the wall into the wights and I still don't know who that was.

By not opening the door when those soldiers screamed for help Sansa sealed her fate to forever be a cold hearted bitch. I mean I love her but REALLY? And did she end up using the dagger and protected somebody in the end? Because again I didn't see sh*t because everything was so dark.

Why the hell did Dany decide to give up the plan? And it looks like Jon said 'fuck the plan' too and joined her. Poor Bran I guess nobody cares about him.

Interesting:

Out of the people who said they're gonna be in the crypts last ep, Gendry and Sam went out to fight, but Tyrion stayed in. Why?

When Dany fell of the dragon she looked so tiny and afraid, with this fur coat that doesn't suit to fighting at all. I felt like there was kind of a parallel there to Jon, who while is a badass on the back of a dragon is also a badass on foot with a sword. But she did caught on to fighting pretty quickly and even killed a bunch of wights, unlike Sansa who was so afraid to do anything. (Yeah I'm still bitter about that. Why did they include this side plot of Sansa being afraid at all? What did it bring?).

Ghost was there for like 2 seconds! But since Jon is doing dragon riding who is giving Ghost commands? Or is he that well-trained?

Jon this ep was like a level 1 dragon rider who had to do like level 7 dragon air battle.

Malisandra! What a weird time for you to get there, right in the start of a battle. Or maybe she already got there last ep and we weren't shown? And what the hell is all of this lord of light cheating. At least it looks like all those Gendry pants leeches and Shereen burning were worth it.

Bran warged into Raegal right? Because at one point Jon said "Bran!" and looked at the dragon.

That's it I guess.

#game of thrones #got #got spoilers #battle of winterfell #episode thoughts

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twyllodrus · 5 years

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get to know me tag game – magicians edition

was tagged by @thehighkings, @ohmarqueliot and @assuredentropy <33

name: alex/sasha

when you started watching the Magicians: back when s1 was still on-going. idk which episode was out by that time, but i distinctly remember having to wait for new eps, wasn’t paying much attention lol and was mostly watching for my mother’s sake because let’s just say the magicians & i weren’t a love at first sight kind of deal sdjfkhsdkfjhsd

favorite season (so far): season 2. idk i have this all-enveloping, overarching feeling associated with it that i can’t totally grasp. or maybe it’s just the opium in the air from all the fillory stuff we got that season :^) and also it’s the season when i started to uncynically enjoy the show so yea

favorite female character(s): all of the mains + marina & jane

favorite male character(s): all the mains but especailly penny & eliot

if you were a magician, what would be your discipline? (i.e. your specialty, options here). according to the test provided by the brakebillsu dot com – knowledge, which is fine, i guess... actually, now that i think about it, it’d be quite cool to yeet myself in some attic to never see the light of day ever again :^)

which of the main characters would you best get along with? again, acc. to the quizzes from the aforementioned site – penny, and i *really* don’t mind it cool cool

which of the main characters do you relate to most? hmm, i honestly can’t single out the one, but i guess i relate to some aspects of diff. characters? i.e. quentin’s hyperfixation on some nerd stuffs, alice’s social ineptness circa s1, kady’s entire fashion sense, eliot’s inability to be bothered to pay attention to a single book passage for more than 3 minutes in total etc. etc.

favorite unlikable character/villain: martin & the fairy queen, but also the library as a whole is such an interesting entity gosh

favorite pairing(s): fargo is really in these days for me yea, but also queliot, wickadiyoff is pretty neat, oh and also penny x alice (i’m never calling them pennywise) own a manor-sized part of my heart :’)

favorite episode(s): per each season: s1 – the world in the walls, s2 – plan b (this one’s a fav of all time <3), s3 – be the penny, s4 (so far) – a timeline and place

top 3 fandoms outside magicians: legends of tomorrow, downton abbey, mr. robot

dream job: literary translator? yea sure why not

what one thing do you wish people knew about you? if i had to have an eye poked out – i’d go for the left one.

@dianarigg, @taliawinters, @quentincoldwaters, @officialstarfleets, @waxanie, @pahuka, @nokingbutme, @kadyorloffdiaz, @juliawicker, @jacelightwood, @lala-sara, @archdruidkeyleth, @silvermarmoset @salazarsmaria, @chertonis, @sabrinachill, @thehollowprince, @anaisninn

some of yous might’ve been already tagged or done this before and i’m just absent-minded; some of you might not be into that kind of thing or just not feel like it rn and that’s okay c:

#tag thingy #well this was nice :)#the magicians

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latinalesbi · 5 years

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I don’t think they’ll get much of a bounce in the ratings with the moms - it appears everyone is boycotting it and will wait for it to appear online (hint 😜)

Hee, there’s no reason to watch the whole show. I mean, someone who watched can maybe tell me, how much was Jude on? Was it satisfying? Did it feel like the bone it was?

It’s going to be bad enough to watch them propping up these lame characters, I can’t imagine watching the rest of the episode.

I would like the ratings to be higher for a mom’s episode, but ultimately it’s not going to make a difference. They aren’t giving us a mom show. No one involved cares.

Anonymous said: Giving Cierra and Maia ex producer roles was the kick in the teeth for me. Not only did they get a spinoff off the back of the whole of The Fosters cast work and popularity but that as well. It wasn’t deserved, people they worked with, ‘family’ apparently lost their jobs so they could prosper. All the crew is the same, so shady.

Yeah, the fact that all the writers came back except the lesbian one (I am not talking about the betrayer joanna johnson) will tell you all you need to know about how seriously they take their lesbian character. These people are disgusting and have no sense of loyalty. They deserve the failure this show is becoming.

Anonymous said: Callie and Marianna we’re never popular enough as standalone characters to carry a show. Maia,Cierra having lots of followers on social media doesn’t mean instant popularity. There are so few family shows on tv nowadays and Freeform had one and dumped it. Could u imagine if they gave The Fosters the publicity they gave the spinoff. Once Freeform took over from ABC family family shows were out, no promo. The creators will never admit it but it was a mistake. They’ve pissed their original fans off

Yeah, they mistook their social media following for an interest in those characters. I think giving those two a reality show might have drawn in more audience because I think that’s what their following is about, the D celebrity list lifestyle.

The amount of publicity on this show… yikes. What a waste of money. They never even gave us decent promotion pictures. They hated us. They tried to bury us and we’re still near the top if not the top if their network ratings. Our show should have been out there winning wards. Good luck now.

Anonymous said: All the money FF invested in promotion for GT they must be disappointed. The Fosters never received that ever. All the bull about it being the most anticipated show of the year was just trash. They’ve lost their loyal audience that would watch The Fosters religiously regardless of how poor the writing got. Fans became invested in the family dynamic. That has gone now. They tried to justify the first eps ratings due to it being on Hulu first- can’t be any excuse for the 2nd ep- terrible ratings

Oh, the most anticipated show by buddies of the network. The terrible ratings of the second episode are unexcusable. They should have gone up, if there’s any logic to the Hulu. Be prepared to hear that over and over, but we’re great on Hulu. There’s no way to know how many people are watching. People are waking up to the fact that Netflix reported number do not tell any kind of story. They aren’t verified by anyone, they selectively report numbers that don’t even tell you how many different people watched anything. Hulu is holding on to some desperate network in order to provide new content. That’s the only purpose.

Anonymous said: I know Good Trouble isnt doing well on the neilson ratings but for all we know its Hulu streaming ratings could be very good. These ratings have become important as its how most young view their shows. It maybe more successful than we know

blah blah blah blah - Must watch television is must watch. People can’t wait for it to be on Hulu. Does anyone really think the masses are clamoring for this shit? Let’s talk about something young and hip that’s really measurable, unlike the supposed good ratings on Hulu that are never released (hint, there’s a reason for that). Trending topics on twitter. The fosters would generally trend top 5 nationally on the days it aired. I have kept track of it and Good trouble has not cracked the top 10, not even on premiere day. That day they topped out nationally at around 16. I didn’t get to track it this week because I was bone tired from picketing. I did look at it a couple of hours later and it did not crack the top ten. I did see that it cracked the top 10 in Los Angeles in the 5pm hour. I asked myself, why? The show doesn’t even air at 5pm in LA. And my friend suggested that it was probably because that’s when the “stars” of the show tweet and so their tweets and replies are enough to get it trending in LA. This show is not generating that much interest.

Anonymous said: I just want to say thanks for making cuts of all the Stef and Lena scenes, and for planning to do it for GT. I got into the show because of these two, and I hate having to sit through all the kid’s drama just to see moments of them

My literal pleasure. I am doing it for me, so might as well share.

Anonymous said: If TPTB really wanted this spin off to succeed they shouldn’t have been so arrogant in believing they would keep the old audience. They should have let the Fosters end and let it breathe for six months or so before announcing. They really thought we all be happy with the news lol! The truth is they should have had a season six and run the spin concurrently, they would have kept the audience and lessened the blow. xx

Yeah, I think they thought everyone would jump for joy because we still get an occasional peek at our favorites. As I said on twitter, I am not one for crumbs. No thanks. The fact is we all knew they negotiated the spin off months before they announced the cancellation. It was really shitty. Really shitty. You might be right, had we grieved the show it might have been better. As it was, I was mad and nothing that came after that was going to make my pain better.

#the fosters #gt #Anonymous

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huffletiika · 6 years

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Back then when we met

Don’t kill me? okay, but I just wrote this and I HAD TO share it. So, I guess you all remember my figure skating AU for Lutteo Ficweek, right? well, if not, I will leave it for you to read over HERE because this is a prequel to that fic. This is dedicated again to my FS squad @silveranchor and @from-red-string ... and, of course @deliverychicafresa this is also dedicated for you. I hope you like it as much as I do.

Btw, what is proofread? I don’t know her.

Matteo was late for his practice with Juliana and Ambar.

He was never late.

But, last night, some amazing melody came to his mind while he was about to go to bed, and he had to write it down at that moment, or it would be long gone by the time he woken up. Needless to say, when he finally went to sleep, it was very late, so waking up at 5 in the morning to be at the rink by 6 became impossible. Now, it was 20 past 6, and he was sure as hell both women were about to kill him.

“You’re late”, those were the words his trainer gave him when he took off the blade covers and skated into the rink.

“I’m sorry, I overslept”, he answered with a yawn, and his skating partner frowned in his direction without saying a word. She had a murderous stare, though. “something kept me awake last night”, he added, when he didn’t get any reply.

Ambar rolled her eyes.

“Another of your stupid songs?” she asked, bitterly, as Juliana skated to the corner of the rink to give them space.

“Ambar…” he tried to explain himself.

“What?” she skated towards him. “I don’t get why you would waste so much of your time on that, when the season is about to start, and we still have a couple of lifts from our free program that we have to polish”, she put her hands on her hips. “I mean, is not like you are planning on sending your demos to a label, or something.”

Matteo sighed and looked away.

Yes, she was right. He had thought about doing that, about making an EP with some of his songs and sending copies around, see if they are good enough for him to deserve a producer. But he is afraid of being rejected, so he sticks in what he knows best: he is a professional skater, an Olympic silver medalist, there’s no time in his life for that kind of things.

They both are royalty on the ice, after all.

“Ok, you two… I have a training session with a new girl scheduled at 8, so stop talking and start skating, because thanks to sleeping beauty we only have half an hour for this session”, their trainer told them, before playing their music.

Was it his girlfriend looking disgusted at the mention of the other skater? He doesn’t get the reason why she would do such thing. Besides them, there are many talented skaters who train with Juliana: Jim for female singles, Ramiro and Gastón for male singles, and Pedro and Delfina for pairs, and the blonde never showed that level of annoyance towards any of them.

Well, maybe a little to Jim, but it was more something like boredom.

Despite everything, the training went pretty good, they got to improve their step sequences, and Juliana congratulated them about their twizzles and lifts.

They were almost ready for their first competition of the season.

Matteo walked into the dressing room and started taking off his skates. Ambar was walking right behind him, but something must have stopped her, as when he took off the first boot she was still nowhere to be seen.

He yawned.

The midnight writing sessions had to stop, or he won’t be able to keep up with the next months of competition.

Matteo was closing his locker when something… or, to be precise, someone, stormed into the room like a fireball. It was a girl around his age, a little bit younger possibly, her brown hair was full of locks that fell around her face like waterfalls, and her body was so petit he was sure he could lift her without even putting any effort.

She was cute.

Yes, that’s the best word to describe her.

He tried to move out of her way when he saw her coming, but the lockers wouldn’t allow him, so she ended up crashing against his chest.

With his hands on her waist he prevented her from falling to the ground, keeping her standing, and for a second there he felt like time stopped passing, because her eyes met his, and that was the most beautiful shade of green he had ever seen.

She seemed to be a victim of the same spell, because only after a few seconds of them looking directly into each other’s eyes, she stepped back and put distance between their bodies.

“I… I’m sorry”, she said, blushing.

A cocky smile appeared on his lips.

“It’s okay, girls are always falling into my arms”, he replied, causing the soft pink that was covering her cheeks transform into a fierce tone of red.

She nervously looked away, but didn’t say a word.

“You have to be the new skater Juliana will train”, Matteo spoke, leaning against his locker. She looked back at him, and nodded. “Well, if I was you I would put my skates, and very fast. You don’t want to be late for your first session ever.”

She looked the time on the screen of her phone, and a high-pitched sound came out of her mouth, before pushing him out of her way to the bench, and starting to put her skates on as fast as if she was in a marathon.

He giggled, as he looked at her with amusement.

She didn’t seem to notice he was still there, until she finished putting her skates on, and when she did she frowned in his direction.

“You are still here”, she said, putting her backpack inside an empty locker.

“How could I leave without knowing your name?” he asked, pretending to be utterly offended. “I mean, I saved you from falling to the ground, I deserve that at least.”

The girl rolled her eyes.

“I wouldn’t have been in risk of falling if you weren’t on the way”, she replied, stubborn. A wide grin appeared on his lips, as he got closer to her. Oh, he was going to have the time of his life bothering the new girl.

“You crash into me and then blame me?” he takes his hand to his chest.

She sighs.

“Look, Balsano. I don’t have time for this”, she said, looking at him with desperation. “Juliana will kill me if I don’t go to the rink like right now, it’s my first session, I don’t want to give a bad first impression to my new trainer,” she begged.

“So, you can know my name, but I can’t know yours?” he frowned.

“Is there someone from figure skating world who doesn’t know your name?” she asked, sarcastically, and the cocky smile re-appeared on his lips.

Her words inflated his ego.

“Touché”, he replied, and was about to ask her name again, when his skating partner, slash girlfriend, entered to the room.

“Hurry up, Lunita! Juliana is waiting for you”, the blonde said to the other girl, and then went directly to give him a peck on his lips, something that she doesn’t usually do. “Thanks for waiting for me, Babe”, she said, with a condescending smile and a honeyed tone. “I see you and my little cousin have met already... I hope you weren’t bothering her, were you?”, she added, and he knew her well enough to know she was faking her concern.

So both girls were related.

He didn’t see that coming, specially because they couldn’t be more different.

The brunette shook her head. “No, he wasn’t. We were just… talking”, she tried to explain, and he couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle.

“I was just introducing myself”, he explained, with a shrug. “and telling Luna I’m around, in case she needs help with anything”, he winked with the eye his girlfriend couldn’t see, and pleasantly smiled when he saw her nervously look away.

“Don’t be a fool, Matteo, she has me”, that fake friendly tone in Ambar’s voice made him very curious. “and there’s also people who gets paid to do so…”

He was about to say he was only trying to be friendly, but Luna’s voice interrupted him. “I need to go”, she said, leaving the room as fast as possible.

He looked at her back until she disappeared from his field of vision.

It was Gastón who told him the whole story.

His best friend has this like sixth sense to be able to know what’s happening around, even before Jazmin, who is the owner of the most known gossip blog in the vicinity of the club. Just imagine if they joined forces. But, luckily for everyone’s privacy, the singles’ skater wants nothing to do with gossip sites.

And before anyone asked him why he didn’t ask his girlfriend, he did, she just gave him the vaguest answer ever.

The girl, Luna, comes from México. She is Ambar’s godmother’s long-lost niece, who everyone thought was dead, after a fire that happened in their home many years ago. Her real name is Sol, but she grew up as Luna her whole life, so she wasn’t going to change it. The girl participated in many junior tournaments to the date, he even saw some videos in YouTube (Gastón sent him the links, unlike his best friend he is not a stalker), and she is really talented. But, the lack of sponsorship and support from her country’s delegation haven’t let her become well known in this world, so it’s understandable he didn’t know a thing about her before the present days.

Her grandfather was the one who suggested her to move to Buenos Aires with her adoptive parents after finding her in México, the details about how he did so are still a mystery for his source, and then talked with Juliana to grant her a spot at the club to train with her, just like Ambar has done for years.

His girlfriend wasn’t very happy about it, that he could see.

He’s sitting at the benches next to the rink, Gastón by his side watching some funny cat videos in his phone, while his attention is on her skating on the ice. She is amazing. A proud smile danced on his lips as he saw her do her spirals. They were perfect, like the ISU should use her as an example of how doing that element correctly, and her flexibility is something he hasn’t seen in any female skater in a while.

“Are you still with me, or I lost you at the moon?” his best friend took him out of his thoughts, and so he had to look away from the girl to look back at him. He didn’t like the grin he saw on his mouth.

“I don’t know what you mean”, he does.

Gastón shook his head.

“Go and talk to her”, he said, ignoring his words. “It’s been weeks since she started training here, and the only thing you do is staring at her like a creepy creep creep. It makes me uncomfortable”

“I have a girlfriend”, he reminded him, and Gastón rolled his eyes.

“So, what?” he asked, and Matteo’s only reply was a frown. “Look, I’m not telling you to go make out with the girl in the middle of the rink”, he continued. “I just want you to go there and talk to her, show her how charming you can be, and stop ignoring me while I’m trying to show you the greatest cat videos ever.”

Matteo sighed, still not capable to stand and skate towards the girl.

“She will ignore me, anyway”, he explained to his friend. “She usually does”, he added.

He has been trying to talk to her many times, but she always ignores him, or make up any excuse to leave as fast as possible.

The Italian couldn’t understand such behavior from the girl.

“Then I should thank her for showing you how it feels”, Gastón said, standing up. “Anyway, I have to leave, my virtual class is about to start, so I’ll let you admire the moon in peace”, he told him, with a grin. “Please, don’t flood the rink with your drool, everyone here needs the ice to be in perfect conditions.”

Sadly, his best friend ran so fast the water bottle didn’t get to hit his back.

With a soft sight, he looked back at the ice, and there she was skating, totally unaware about the fact she was the topic of discussion between him and his best friend.

He stood up and took a deep breath, maybe his best friend was right, he had to give it another try.

He was Matteo Balsano, after all, the king of the rink, the owner of an Olympic medal, no one could ignore him for long.

After taking off the covers of his blades he skated around the rink, warming up a little, trying to act like he is just casually doing his training and not trying to start a conversation with her, waiting for the right moment for them to talk.

She tried to do a triple Lutz.

She fell.

Matteo skated towards her, with concern.

“Are you okay?” he asked when he got next to her.

“Yes, yes... I am”, Luna replied, without even looking at him. “I’m just having a hard time with this jump”, she added, trying to stand up by herself, so he offered her his hand.

She hesitated, but ended up accepting his help.

Matteo might have miss-calculated how much strength to use to help her stand, because next thing he felt was her chest crashing into his torso, and the proximity of their bodies took his breath away.

He looked down at her, and she slowly looked up at his face, so their eyes met, making everything around fade into oblivion.

A quick glance at her lips, and his mind was already making many images of them kissing.

But she was fast at putting some distance between them.

“T-thanks”, she said, avoiding his sight. “I- I have to continue with this jump, Juliana wants me to do it for my short program, and…”

“It’s the counterrotation”, he interrupts her, crossing his arms. “It’s a common problem with the Lutz, you just have to be aware of it and try to correct it for the landing. But, I’m sure you will be able to do it after some practice.”

Her face told him she was taken by surprise.

“What do you know about jumps, Ice Dancer?” she teased, and the grin got wider on his lips.

She had no idea what she got herself into.

“I’m sure I know more than you, Piccola”, he skated around her, like a predator surrounding its prey. “I’m very good at jumps, indeed.” He’s trained many times with Gastón and Ramiro, as both boys seem to appreciate having him around while trying new elements, to get some feedback, and they like to challenge each other during these sessions. Besides, he loves showing off (he won’t even deny that), so making jumps during ice shows gives him the praise he craves.

Luna snorted.

“Whatever you say, Chico Fresa”, she said, and he laughed at the nickname.

They already had a discussion about its meaning when he went to have dinner with Ambar at the Benson’s.

Oh, he was going to prove her wrong.

“If I was you I would take back my words, Luna”, he said, and then started skating around while getting some speed. One, two… he turned around to skate backwards, a cocky smile got in his lips as he prepared himself for the jump, and stayed there until he perfectly landed on the outside edge of his right foot.

Luna was shook, and he loved it.

“You were saying…?” Matteo asked, as he skated towards her. She was still speechless. “I mean, I can give you some private lessons, if you want,” he added, and that seemed to bring her back to her senses, because she starting shaking her head.

“I’m fine with my current trainer, thanks”, she said, putting more distance between them. “Besides, I don’t think my cousin would like that idea.”

He didn’t see the reason why she wouldn’t.

“You are her cousin”, he said.

“Yeah, but she doesn’t like me… like, at all”, she explained him. “Look, I have to go. Thanks for your… erm, help. See you around.”

He wanted to stop her, to tell her something else so their chat would last a little bit longer, but nothing came to his mind.

It was late when he arrived home after having a couple of drinks with his friends.

Gastón and Ramiro organized a guys’ night out and called it the “Double break up therapy” as, according to them, he required to do a lot of mourning because not only his three-years-long relationship with Ámbar Smith ended that day, but also the one he had with figure skating.

He had taken the first step required to follow his dreams: he told Juliana and his now ex-skating partner that he would retire from figure skating.

His trainer took it pretty well, much better than he expected, to be honest. She understood his motives, wished him good luck on his career choice, and promised him to send the contacts of some people she knows at the music industry that could help him. On the other hand, his girlfriend… correction, ex-girlfriend, made a tantrum. The biggest he has ever seen her make, and he has seen plenty of them. She started to call him selfish, stupid, and many other insulting words he is not going to repeat in order to keep it PG over here, but they were very enlightening to make him question their entire relationship.

Her last words before storming out Juliana’s office were used to break up with him and, sincerely, he was already expecting that.

He should be feeling bad, like the biggest traitor on earth, because he knows his decision affected other people. But, at that exact moment, he just felt free, like he had taken a lot of weight out of his shoulders, like he was floating through the hallway instead of walking. And it wasn’t because of the level of alcohol in his blood, that he was sure. Well, maybe a little, but he wasn’t drunk-DRUNK, just a little tipsy, as he was functional enough to be able to open the door of his apartment without any complication.

He was thankful his newest neighbors had already freed the aisle from their boxes, though. Avoiding them to get to his door would be an impossible mission for his numb brain.

He let out a soft sight as he walked into the living room, collapsing on his couch, deciding to stay there until he felt like walking again.

And then, all of sudden, his mind decided to think about her.

What would she be doing at that moment? Did Ámbar tell her about his retirement? About their break up? Would she also believe that he’s making a mistake? That he should have stick to figure skating? No, she would be glad for him, she had to be glad for him.

She, unlike Ámbar, would be happy about people following their dream.

Gastón and Ramiro were wrong about something: He didn’t need to mourn his skating career, he could still do it as a hobby, much less his relationship with Ámbar Smith, contrary to everyone’s beliefs, he had never felt happier about something being over. No, what he really needed to mourn was seeing her every day, watching her training sessions from the benches, crashing into her everywhere, and having the excuse of going to talk with Ámbar to see her in her house. Saying it that way, he sounded like some kind of stalker.

Matteo giggled and closed his eyes.

How pathetic.

He was glad his best friend wasn’t there at the moment, because he wouldn’t stop teasing him if he knew about the content of his thoughts, about how crazy he was about the moon.

At the thought of the celestial body she appeared in his mind, right in front of him, wearing a loose yellow dress that looked way too good on her. She was smiling at him, like she would never do in reality, and offered her hand for him to take it.

He did it, interlacing their hands, and pulling her closer by it, getting lost in her eyes.

She was like a princess, the most beautiful he had ever seen.

Inspiration hit him at that moment, and he had to stand up from the couch, looking for a notebook and a pen. The numbness was long forgotten. With everything he needed in his hands he sat back at the couch, his heart racing as he started writing the words that came to his mind, being fueled by her, only by her.

Cómo es que se elige a una princesa,

Día y noche pienso en ella,

En su Mirada,

Que me habla del amor.

Cómo es que descubro la manera,

De encontrarme frente a ella,

Escuchar su corazón.

#Soy Luna #Lutteo #soy luna fanfic #lutteo fanfic #matteo balsano #luna valente #FigureSkatingAU #written by me

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hallelujuh · 6 years

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shay’s favorite tv shows from 2017

this has been in my drafts for.... nine months.... fuck.

Written in December 2017, updates are from September 2018.

Considering how many new, innovative shows are around these days, I didn’t get too adventurous this year, but I’m satisfied with the ones I did watch. I discovered new shows, I was impressed by the shows I’ve been following for years, and I learned to appreciate the work that goes into television more. Here’s my top ten TV shows..

10. Thirteen Reasons Why - In all honestly, this is only here because I haven’t been able to watch Peaky Blinders yet, and it’s probably too late. (UPDATE: Watched it in Jan and it was amazing.) This show received a lot of backlash, and for good reason, although it had its moments. The characters were well-written, the relationships were given depth that is often lacking in other high school-set narratives, and the tone was great. I’ve always loved watching things that make me profoundly sad, and this show did just that. (UPDATE: Season 2 was fucking garbage lmao.)

Standout episode: Tape 1, Side B. It’s a cripplingly depressing show, but this episode stood out as a moment of light in Hannah’s dark reality. Her friendship with Jessica and Alex was nice in the beginning - their banter, them having a spot in the coffee shop. I remember assuming Alex was gay (I believe his actor is, so I wasn’t too off) and thinking that’d be good for Hannah, to have a guy friend who wasn’t interested in her and wouldn’t add relationship drama to her life. Boy, was I wrong. Still, having seen the show at the beginning of the year, this episode is the only one I remember as enjoying, so it gets this spot.

9. A Series of Unfortunate Events - I read the books in elementary school, and they’re one of my favorite series of all time. I’m also a huge fan of the film, though I know most aren’t. So I was very excited for this series, and it didn’t completely disappoint. While I found myself longing for the actors from the 2004 motion picture, and some of the directing decisions weren’t choice, it was cool to see The Miserable Mill finally come to life, and I loved the Baudelaires just as much here as anyone else. I’ll be tuning in to next season, since I’ve very, very excited to see how they handle the next three books. I can’t wait to meet the Quagmire triplets, and Esme, and Jacques! It’ll be awesome. I hope they portray it well, but there’s no film to compare it to from here on out, so maybe it’ll be different.

Standout episode: The Reptile Room: Part One/Two. Like I said, I wasn’t a huge fan of how most of the characters were portrayed in this adaption, but I did love Uncle Monty. He was just as wonderful as he was in the film and books. Watching his interactions with the kids was really nice, and as always, made me wish they could’ve remained with him. Stephano wasn’t as menacing here as he is in the film (that knife scene is the point in the film where you go, “woah, this dude’s for real. he’s scary”), which was a bummer because I still thought Olaf was a laughably bad and incompetent villain by the finale, but I did like Poe’s hysteria, and I really loved the movie theatre scene.

8. Riverdale - Oops I never wrote this dfdsbfjdbfjds.

7. South Park - While we all can agree the last season was a mess, and this one was only a slight improvement, it did have it’s moments. I’ve been a fan for five years now, so at this point, they’ll never disappoint me, tbfh.

Standout episode: Doubling Down. While Put it Down was wonderful, both satirically and because of Craig and Tweek’s adorable relationship, the eighth episode of the season was my personal favorite (UPDATE: Not sure why ‘cause I didn’t specify then and I’m not sure now.)

6. Dear White People - I didn’t do this one either damn.

Standout Episode: Chapter V. While the show is a comedic take on racial relations, this episode is an emotional, serious change. The Barry Jenkins-directed episode shows us that the subject is no laughing matter, and it very clearly deserves this spot.

5. Rick and Morty - Yet another show I discovered this year, during the summer. I’d been meaning to watch it for ages, and I finally got around to it. While the fanbase is pretty much poison, the show is pretty damn good. Maybe not what it’s hyped up to be, but great none-the-less. I’m a big fan of adult cartoons, and RaM isn’t entirely satirical like South Park, and it’s not self-aware like BoJack, but it holds up. It’s probably so popular because of how unique it is.

Standout episode: The Ricklantis Mixup. While my personal favorite of Season 3 was The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy, because I adore Jerry, I think we can all agree that the was the best episode of the season, if not the series. Like, really. Holy shit.

4. Gotham - I began watching this show last year, and caught up to season three around halfway through it. It began to drag a bit, admittedly, like it couldn’t carry it’s own weight - but now the show’s on season four, and it gets a little wild sometimes, but it’s holding quite a bit better, I’d say. I was pretty fucking impressed, especially with the Nygmobblepot stuff.

Standout episode: A Dark Knight: Queen Takes Knight. Although Mad City: The Gentle Art of Making Enemies from Season 3 is a close runner-up, for all the loose ends it ties up, and so cleanly, too - the winter finale gets this spot. It had me on the edge of my metaphorical seat (since I was actually curled up in bed) the entire time. While Sophia’s character and her motivations had remained muddy since her introduction, her badassery finally came to the forefront, and it was awesome. The way she tore down Penguin from his throne? Incredible. We know he’ll return, as he has so many times, but really, that was so incredible. Considering he’s my favorite character, I should feel worse. However, Sophia executed her plan so well, I was too awed to hate her. Also, Jerome’s back! I’m extremely excited to see Jerome’s role in the upcoming episodes. (Update: Oh, honey, you got a big storm coming...)

3. BoJack Horseman - I binged the hell out of this show just before season four came out, because it was so creative and thought-provoking and hilariously depressing. The fourth season was notably wonderful in a lot of ways, particularly because of Todd’s sexuality arc (the first out asexual character in a TV show!) and how well it was handled, but also because of the mature themes they took on. Princess Carolyn’s miscarriages, Diane and Mr. PB’s failing marriage, BoJack’s struggle to forgive his mother, Beatrice’s own troubled upbringing, Hollyhock’s eating disorder. I watched the whole season in three days when it was first released, four months ago, and I’m currently considering re-watching it after rereading the summaries of each episode to refresh my memory. I’d forgotten how phenomenal it was. It’s on another level - it really is.

Standout episode: Time’s Arrow. Though there wasn’t a single weak episode this season, this one definitely stood out. Following the tradition of uniquely depressing eleventh episodes, Time’s Arrow focuses on BoJack’s mother and how her turbulent childhood affected her. Gorgeously executed, it makes us pity the woman who made our favorite alcoholic horse the way he is, and it concludes with BoJack making peace with his mother, who he had spent so long resenting. It’s just a gorgeous episode. I think I’m going to rewatch it right now, haha.

2. Mr. Robot - I’ve wanted to watch this show since it came out, but I finally began and finished the first two seasons just weeks before Season 3 came out. Since I’m discussing my favorites of 2017, I won’t be talking about those first two seasons here. I’ll be focusing on Season 3, which has been, in my opinion, incredible. What began as a modern, nerdy take on Fight Club has become so much more; a masterfully dark and suspenseful fictionalized look at the looming political state of our world. We’ve gotten new characters (Irving, who’s a gem), we’ve learned more about older but mysterious characters (poor repressed Dom), we’ve had to say goodbye to old characters (I’m still mad about ******), and best of all, this season has been Tyrell heavy, and we even got to see Elliot make peace with Mr. Robot.

Standout episode: S3/EP8, eps3.7_dont-delete-me.ko - The previous episode had already established a gorgeously melancholy setting through the use of Mac Quayle's gorgeous production 2.0_6-madame3xecutioner.oga, which, as a huge fan of film scores, I instantly fell in love with. The song is featured during a scene I watched several times - the scene when Angela repeatedly rewinds the explosion, unable to cope with the reality of it. It left me feeling similar to the way I had after watching American Beauty for the first time - like the world was a different shade. I thought this would be the only moment the show could invoke that response from me, but then the next episode came out. Unlike Ep. 7, Ep. 8 didn’t have a single moment. The whole episode brimmed with pain and sadness. The show’s already sad, but the lonely, isolated feeling is often overwhelmed by the suspense, drama, and excitement. This episode let the characters hurt without interruption, and it was wonderfully emotional.

1. The Get Down - I was so thrilled when I discovered this show in April, literally a few days after Part 2 had aired. I downloaded all the episodes for a road trip, and literally could not put it down the entire tme. It blended all my favorite things - the art of rap, the origin and evolution of hip hop, how battle rapping/deejaying came to be. The music was stellar, the cinematography was breathtaking, the acting was (for the most part) wonderful, and the cast was fantastic. I’ve seen some criticizing it, because of its occasionally choppy narrative and the fact that Baz Luhrmann added his usual whimsical take on something that was historically fairly dark, but I thought it was flawless. It was definitely groundbreaking in its amount of representation, and it was fun and colorful and emotional and, overall, just absolutely wonderful. Like many others, I was pretty devastated when they cancelled it. I understand why, but I wish it could get the Sense 8 treatment and receive a movie. There’s too many loose ends - it’s a real bummer. Still, I’m grateful we were blessed with this gem of a show at all.

Standout episode: S1/EP11, Only from Exile Can We Come Home - The final episode gets this spot for a single scene; the one where it alternates between Mylene singing “I’m my #1″ in the hotel room with Jackie and all the drag queens, and the scene where an unreleased Miguel song is playing while Dizzy & Thor paint on each other, and then Shao calls Dizzy his “alien brother.” That scene was easily one of my favorites I’ve ever seen in any show, in my entire life. If that episode was a film, that scene alone would guarantee it a spot on my favorite films list. It was that good.

#mine #txt #2017

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