You see, I’m not a J.D apologist.

I’m his defense attorney.

any new lmk hot takes 🔥🔥🔥

The LBD host - known in the active fandom as Bai He - does not need to become a major character and especially does not need to be a new member of the main cast.

Is there a lot of potential for her? Yes.

Could a lot of awesome storylines and character arcs come from her? Yes.

Does that automatically mean it’s best for the show to include those? No.

The “Embrace Your Destiny” specials really solidified a problem I’ve noticed from the beginning with the show’s writing by bringing all of the issues to a peak.

They’re trying to do too much in too little time.

In my initial analysis video of the show from when all that was out at the time was up to the Spider Queen Special, I brought up how I felt like the writers were forgetting to ‘Let your audience BREATHE’ because of how fast everything went. “Embrace Your Destiny” is the biggest example of this issue because there’s so much information being thrown at the audience that we hardly got any chance to process before the next big story-beat happened.

I could go on about that issue for forever and I’m considering making a video on it but after talking about it more than once in a server I’m in, I don’t feel it’s as big of a hot take as the Bai He thing.

The reason I bring it up, though, is because I feel a big reason FOR so many major story elements feeling rushed through is that there are too many characters that the writers are trying to develop.

Think about poor Sandy. We have three seasons - THREE SEASONS - of episodes and only ONE that touches on his character. This is made worse because the inner-conflicts we’re clued in on with him in “To Catch a Leaf” do not go ANYWHERE. I’m not saying they can’t or aren’t planning to in the future, and I’m not saying they’re required to give him a character arc for a good story (tho I could argue that it’s expected since he’s in the opening alongside everyone else and is presented as equally important), but it currently feels weird that he was so quickly regulated to “We don’t know what to do with him because we don’t have time to flesh him out at all so let’s just give him funny lines and faces while every other main character has a part in either developing their own arcs or the overarching plot.” AFTER they opened up an arc for him.

I honestly feel like if they didn’t have the time to explore his character and the conflicts he has further, then they would have been better off using that time for something else and saving the tease of his past for later.

The writers made a good call not including Red Son in Season 2.

You read that right.

Me, the person referring to Red Son as “My Dulcinea” because “Comfort Character” doesn’t do the subconscious emotions I discovered I have with him through hindsight justice and so the only terminology I can think of to do those feelings justice is referencing my favorite musical of all time that no one else has listened to in five ever and a day.

Me, the person who feels there’s so much to explore with his character and could easily find ways to fit him into the story of Season 2 narratively speaking.

I feel it was the best call to not include him.

Why? Because they didn’t have time to write the story they wanted while including justifiable reasoning for him to be there.

(Note that by ‘Time’ I’m referring to how long the episodes are and how many episodes they have. Not the deadlines to finish scripts)

If the show writers are already rushing through major plot elements in order to make sure they have plenty of time to close off Macaque’s arc (like when Red Son TOLD us that DBK and PIF ‘succumbed’ to the Lady Bone Demon and we saw NONE OF IT until they were released from her magic at the VERY END of the special which showed that Red Son and Mei had both ALREADY KNOWN THAT by the time we rejoined them as Mei wasn’t shocked to hear it) AND completely dropped/paused exploring/elaborating on Sandy’s inner-conflict that was already introduced to us in favor of having an entire episode introducing and solving a new one for Tang that we didn’t have any sign of him having before (that’s a whole ‘nother hot take)

Then what has everyone so convinced that they have time to explore possible major character arcs with the girl that was possessed by Lady Bone Demon?

We can justify it narratively and I could go on all day every day about concepts for the Fake Mayor being a past host that has been influenced by LBD for so long that he is a shell of his former self and that he and Bai He could have a beautiful bond over the understanding that no one else could possibly know what they went through better than they both do.

But does it fit in the shows genre/target audience AND do they have time?

I argue no to the latter and maybe to the former.

The girl the Lady Bone Demon had possessed will be best served as a character that occasionally comes in for some noodles (heck, I’d argue that she could work as a supporting character that is involved in some conversations about stuff going on because she’s around but still doesn’t have any full character-arcs of her own being explored in depth)

The show is adding too many characters and doesn’t have enough time to properly explore all of them.

Stop hiring more cooks.

Sandy doesn’t have room to make tea in the kitchen.

Actual picture of me rn bc of Jake.

i just watched the new into the spider-verse 2 trailer and why is everyone trying to jump my man miles morales 😭😭 what did he do i don’t understand 😭 surely he couldn’t have done anything too bad that EVERY SPIDER PERSON NEEDS TO FIGHT HIM????? miles couldn’t have done something that bad cmon now

live reaction of me watching the trailer:

me wondering just how chill this barn cat is so i decide to try to pick him up and he just. goes boneless and starts purring ever louder. okay.

I have but one purpose in life, and that is to bully Jonathan Harker

Betrayal!

Anyone else here watch 11+ hours of Hermit charity streams today?

Discuss

We have moved past Maya and Franziska wingmanning narumitsu as a society. They would not fucking do that. We need to realise the truth which is that Larry and Gumshoe would try to wingman them and only succeed through failure

I draw a funky silly little guy and what does my family call him? creepy! Well maybe next time YOU should draw the funky silly little guy!

Prompt 207

Danny does not come out of the portal. 

In fact, he’s lost. Very lost. He just wants to go home and is getting scared of everything around him because he doesn’t know what’s going on. But! But he’s found an (admittedly also terrifying) castle or keep or whatever they’re called that all the ghosts avoid!

It never exactly enters his mind that they might have been avoiding such a place for a reason. 

In unrelated news, the first thing Fright Knight sees after his sword was (accidentally) knocked free from its prison is not a blob ghost- they’ve done it a few times over the eternities- but a ghostling. A newborn ghostling, who promptly bursts into tears to his genuine horror. What did he do?!

can’t stop crying over arthur loving merlin for merlin. like he fr thought he was just some guy but guess what? that’s his some guy. and he’d stick with him forever. i think i’m gonna throw up

shiv was not being altruistic nor intellectually self-interested when she voted against kendall. that was pure raw visceral desperation to maintain some semblance of dignity that she felt kendall being ceo would shred her of. sometimes people do not act in other people’s best interests or their own best interests. sometimes people do the wrong thing for the wrong reasons just because it feels like the right, the only, thing to do. shiv could not let kendall be ceo. she just couldn’t. not because she wanted to sacrifice herself to “stop the cycle,” not because she made a calculation and decided tom was her best interest — because the thought of kendall being ceo and acting like That the rest of their lives when shiv earned that job, she fucking earned it, that was too much to fucking bear. watching him sit in dad’s chair, conduct that vote, grin with entitlement and cockiness and certainty — seeing that elicited a visceral painful all-consuming sensation not dissimilar to overwhelming nausea that, summed up in two words, would simply be: fuck. no. she couldn’t live with that. she just couldn’t. it’s not kind. it’s not smart. it’s just human. painfully, destructively human. because sometimes, that’s all there is to it. not just for shiv, but for everyone. god knows roman and kendall have had those same feelings, made those same self-destructing yet necessary-feeling decisions throughout the show. why does it have to be different for shiv? why can’t she be painfully destructively human, prone to impulsive ill-conceived viscerally felt actions, like everyone else? why are we incapable of allotting her the same nuance and humanity (the good and the bad), the same trauma-informed self-destructive life-ruining hamartias, as we do her brothers? why can’t we fit a whole woman in our heads?

Every day I’m haunted by the fact the boys happily swim in sewer water

Even if it’s filtered somehow there’s no way it’s not still nasty 😭 Bet they can defeat any of their villains just by accidentally giving them diseases I swear

got curious how raphael’s human form must’ve looked like around the time haarlep took his form so i played a bit around with editing

yet all i can see is

Eddie’s live-streaming, just chattering away about nothing in particular when Steve comes into the room. Hes holding his phone away from his face, frowning at it before rolling his eyes.

The phone is not on speaker but you can clearly hear the lecture that’s Steve’s ignoring when he turns to Eddie and gives him that smile that gets him everything he wants, “Hi, baby.”

Just because Eddie is aware that he’s being played, doesn’t mean he doesn’t love the game, “Stevie, do you want something?”

“Nothing big,” Steve nods. “Just the number of that lawyer you have on retainer.”

The audience at home can visually se Eddie’s brain come to a screeching halt, “I don’t have a lawyer. My recons label has a lawyer.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

Eddie leans in and whispers, “…What did you do?”

“Nothing, yet,” Steve replies, dropping the act all together. “My lawyer says she won’t defend me if I get arrested. Traitor.”

Oh, yeah. That is definitely Erica’s voice lecturing him on the phone. Cool. Eddie nods to himself, “Arrested for what?”

“I’m going to throw a rock through our neighbor’s window.”

There’s a beat where Eddie realizes he’s serious and is like, “Is that a reasonable response to a guy accidentally backing his truck into our flower bed.”

“No, we’re pass that,” Steve says over his shoulder, leaving both Eddie and his phone behind. “I’m going to burn down his house though.”

Eddie shakes his head, looks back at his live-stream but then hears a sound and is like, “Was that front door? Did he leave? Shit.”

And then Eddie’s gone.