#completely missing the point

[songstep4002]

Do you know what's really annoying?

When you call someone or something not human, people always assume you mean less than human. Which is stupid because of the majority of the time, I don't mean less than human or even more than human, I mean different from human. But the average person's tendency is to put humanity up on a pedestal as greater, which in their mind, makes different from humanity inherently lesser than humanity. Which is stupid and annoying and I hate it.

[garagedansdisco]

"BE THE PRESIDENT!"

[werebutch]

This is my face at the tags of one of the people who just reblogged that ocd post from me. 😦

[ultraericthered]

Coming back to this 'cause really, this does bug me quite a bit (though I can't say I find it too surprising given Wish is a very shallow and restrained movie in spite of all of this depth at its foundation).

A lot of people tend to misread what the "wishes" in Wish actually are and represent, similar to how "hearts" in Kingdom Hearts actually refer to a person's very self - their innermost spiritual essence that gives them their identity and personality - is also often misread.

The wishes that are materialized as magical orbs in the movie are of people's personal aspirations and dreams for their lives that comes from the heart, because "a dream is a wish your heart makes". But as King Magnifico explains, they're even more than that: they're a core part of a person's self. The best, most precious, most beautiful parts. So essentially, these wishes are splintered off pieces of human souls.

So when Magnifico goes and does this:

Notice how Sakina looks drained, clutches her heart, slumps over and reels in agony? That's not "feeling sad for a little bit" - that's her experiencing a piece of herself getting killed. It's a temporary murder, yes, but she's left feeling a quarter less alive after having her wish, that magically protected piece of her soul, shattered. She later says "My heart knows this feeling. This is grief." A connection to her late husband isn't spoken aloud, but that's how she "knows the feeling" of grief. She's paralleling losing this part of her own self to losing her dear husband. Because both instances involve the loss of life.

Later on, we get this moment:

To forge his scepter, Magnifico crushes the wishes of three citizens specifically selected because they'd been questioning him earlier. While it takes until after the wishes break for these people to feel the despair and emptiness inside them created by the loss, the wishes themselves are visibly in pain as they're getting broken. Because, as fragmented shards of human souls, they're semi-sentient. They're alive. They sense. They feel. Splintered off shards of a larger whole, getting disintegrated for their energy that goes inside of Magnifico.

We later see that with his scepter and dark arts mastery, Magnifico doesn't even need crush wishes to kill them. He can just drain them.

Like the Dragon Balls after wishes for Shenron have been used up.

So to clarify: after discovering what power the wishes held and how alike such power and the Star's was, Magnifico's endgame was to ingest whole parts of his subjects' souls and leave them in that disspirited, grief-stricken, miserable and only partially alive state while he used his hot new evil magic, plus the magical stardust power of Star added to it, to bind them all down so they remain on the soil of his kingdom (now with a perpetually dark, cloudy sky hanging over them) and he may oppress them with an iron fist forevermore as his magic bindings plus the brokenness of their souls from the consumed wishes pretty much gradually drain the life energy out of them, to keep their lives and all proceedings in Rosas tightly controlled, all for his own personal gratification and pleasure. Institutional and magical power enhanced = institutional and magical power retained, making him stronger, more glorious and majestic than ever. That is a man who wants to play God, Savior, and Provider for the sake of endlessly feeding his ego, everyone else be damned, and if that doesn't make him a true villain, I don't know what does.

Fortunately, Magnifico did not count on the united spirits of the masses awakening within them the celestial stardust that, according to this movie, forms the whole of a living being's internal essence - heart, soul, and mind included. Their combined magical stardust power reaches Star, whose own magical stardust power activating in tandem with their hearts revitalizes and revives all the dead wishes.

A resolution so fantastical as to be nonsensical? Completely! But hey, that's just the power of Disney and modern fairy tales for you!

Hmm. When I really stop and think about it, it strikes me: the wishes are like Wish itself! In the film's development it had a soul, but thanks to King Magnifico higher corporate management and studio notes, that soul got repeatedly fractured and scattered into what we got, rendering the film less alive and less magical than it should've been.

[ultraericthered]

SDRA2 Chapter 3 is the chapter of the game everyone either loves or absolutely hates, or has a love-hate relationship with. It's the one with the Otonokoji Twins front and center of the murder case and its outcome, so of course I'm going to have something of a bias towards it myself even though I can pinpoint a slew of problems in it, many of them being severe unforced errors on LINUJ's part, that ultimately makes it fall victim to the typical Third Case Syndrome by the end.

And I bring it up now because of a post I read that ranked it dead last among all Danganronpa + Fanganronpa third chapters, for reasons that seem about right and also for reasons that seem (to me at least) completely wrong. And I really don't think it deserves that placement since I feel V3 and even DRA did a lot worse in their third chapters.

That’s no exaggeration. LINUJ has stated that his ideas for this chapter of SDRA2 changed after he saw V3′s, which gave him the inspiration for this part of the game.

Uh, not quite. I think this is a misrepresentation of what he said. When LINUJ created Hibiki and Kanade, he had them as the Double Blackened of Chapter 3 in mind from the start - that was to be their main purpose. The only thing that changed about Chapter 3 as we got it versus what he'd initially came up with was how Kanade's villainous nature was revealed. The twist that she was the truly evil twin fixated on secretly controlling and abusing her sister was always the plan, but the extra twist that she was a psychopathic serial killer with a high body count who was obsessively infatuated with her sister and had even killed their parents was added in because the similar twist done with Korekiyo in V3, for some reason I do not get, impressed LINUJ and made him want to do his own version of that.

Not only is this the worst Chapter 3 out of them all, this is honestly one of the worst pieces of media in anything Danganronpa-related that I’ve ever seen. I mean that genuinely, not out of anger, but out of disgust and disappointment.

Pure emotion-driven hyperbole. When Ultra Despair Girls' third chapter, V3's third and its final chapter, this game's final chapter, and the entirety of the DR3 anime exist, this doesn't even come close to scratching the surface of All Time Worst Stuff In Danganronpa.

First of all, this trial is too long. I can accept that trials would need to go on for a while in these circumstances, but six hours? SIX HOURS?! And most of that time is spent with Kanade arguing with Syobai over small, petty details. There is so much that goes on here that can only be explained with either heavy-handed exposition or handwaves of “Fuck you, she’s smart” or “fuck you, I’m lucky.”

YES. That actually might be my biggest gripe with this chapter, and it's one I have about Chapter 6 as well. The trial drags on and on and on for so long, it just wipes you out by the end, so it ends up harder to enjoy stuff you otherwise might've enjoyed better and it makes the problematic areas that much more frustrating. Three to four hours to complete one of these trials is the most I'm willing to spend. SIX is pushing it far beyond the limit. Initially, I'd thought Chapter 3 might be my second favorite case in the game behind Chapter 4, and it is the first case where I actually game a damn about the victim of the murder, but that goddamn Class Trial just holds it back too much.

When Kanade and Hibiki (in her puppet state) murder Setsuka, they stab her with such synchronized timing, milliseconds apart, that Monocrow can’t even decide which happened first. And this was never addressed or shown at any point beforehand, just vaguely referenced here and there. If there had been similar scenes with Kanade and Hibiki demonstrating their synchronization, even just one or two, I would’ve been more willing to believe it.

Wasn't the entire deal with Kanade and Hibiki that they're basically the Ultimate Twins Duo? Hibiki's the vocalist while Kanade's the guitarist, and the two of them perform as a pair in perfect harmony and synchronization with each other, regardless of how dysfunctional their relationship is outside of their work? If Hibiki's singing and Kanade's guitar playing are normally perfectly in sync, I don't get why it's suddenly this super huge stretch to believe they could stab a body in perfect sync. Their whole shtick set this up. Admittedly, it would have felt a lot more sensible without that "puppet state" thing...

Likewise, another element of Kanade’s murder plot is that she’s apparently good at throwing. I’m a bit more lenient toward this one, as I recall there might’ve been a scene where she was throwing darts and Hibiki was like “She’s the best at darts!” It’s not much, but it’s better. 

The dart throwing scene happened in this very chapter. Still wish there'd been a little bit more to it, though. Like if Kanade needed Hibiki to keep her steady as she thrusted her arm to throw, and this again would work better if Hibiki was in a more right state of mind.

Kanade, who manages to be both a ridiculous genius and completely incompetent at the same time. She describes herself as a perfectionist and makes sure to think about every detail of her plan beforehand, from timetables to which handbooks they need, every shot she needs to make, every tool they need, etc. And yet she leaves behind a bottle of antibiotics. One that proves to be a crucial piece of evidence in incriminating her. If she were really meticulous, she could’ve taken stock of everything she’d brought in her medical kit beforehand and then checked to see if she had it all before they left. But she didn’t, and it’s even acknowledged that it was a stupid mistake.

OK, this is the biggest fallacy out of this post I wanted to address. This acts as though Kanade leaving behind something that would serve as an incriminating clue was a careless, stupid error by Kanade that completely contradicts the narrative of her as some evil genius perfectionist who's always many steps ahead of everyone because she is so thoroughly meticulous and precise in her every thought, word, deed, and objective. Except...it wasn't. This is what set up a huge twist in the case that unfortunately contributed to the trial's monstrous length. This was very deliberate. Kanade, whether consciously or subconsciously, dropped that antibiotics bottle where she did for any one of the investigators to find so that if any one or more of the other students were smart enough, they'd put together the truth and it would lead them right to Kanade herself. That way, they'd all vote for Kanade as the Blackened who murdered Setsuka. And it would've been classified as a wrong vote because it was both Kanade AND Hibiki who stabbed Setsuka to death. Everyone else, including Mikado, would be executed while only the twins would go free. Kanade planned for the eventuality that she might get caught, and made damn sure that the emphasis was placed on that SHE might get caught, with everyone none the wiser of the part she'd had Hibiki play in the murder. That's why Sora realized something didn't feel right and they couldn't do a vote yet even when Kanade's guilt had been fully established. It wasn't Kanade being incompetent or not a genius, it was her being the Riddler playing a 4D Chess gambit that successfully nearly fooled everyone into thinking things were going to go a certain way when it actually would get them all killed.

Add to that the pins that they needed that also got them incriminated. Where did they come from? The bags Hibiki stuffed into her shirt to pad her chest and make herself look like Kanade, which contained Setsuka’s disembodied hands.

That part was weird. The whole "dismemberment and then moving the dismembered body" angle in the murder is a double edged sword because it makes the crime, who did it, where it was carried out and how it was carried out so difficult to determine, which made it a nearly perfect crime on Kanade's part, but it also means figuring that shit out lengthens the trial way too much. A lot of fat in how the body was taken apart and how those parts were moved where, by what, and at what time should've been trimmed so that the pace would be hastened considerably and we could move on to what matters more.

Setsuka’s death is absolutely horrifying and works in the moment, but things like Kanade’s reveal of being a serial killer, while foreshadowed decently, are only really effective on a first viewing. The more you think about it, the less it actually makes sense and the more it hurts both her image and the logic of her plot.

I don't think the reveal of her being a serial killer was foreshadowed decently, or at all. There was plenty of foreshadowing for Kanade being a villain, but not a serial killer. And yeah, it never really made sense in the moment and it only gets more nonsensical the more thought you give it. Her exaggerating, embelishing and straight up making shit up to fuck with people honestly makes more sense.

And I’m going to be genuine about this: this chapter is also guilty of serial killer glorification. It doesn’t matter if it frames her in a negative light or paints it as horrific, this was LINUJ trying to make her as shocking and horrific as possible, but also making her into a genius who gets everything she wants at the expense of all the people she’d hurt. The narration goes out of its way to refer to Kanade as a genius multiple times. And the fact that she was the second most popular character in a poll really shows what I’m talking about.

This is clearly a hangup that this person has. I noticed that they don't have a lot of fondness for the more morally black characters in this franchise and doesn't care for the "Evil Is Cool" trope when applied to sadistic murderers, calling it "glorification" here. Given my noted villain love, I don't feel the same. Kanade being an evil genius who applies herself to nigh perfection at everything she does and ends up claiming victory even in defeat makes her an impressive, almost twistedly commendable character as much as she is a despicable, horrific and vile person. That's why she's so popular; she earned it.

To be clear, I don’t like how much focus Genocider Syo gets in the canon games, especially with how they’re played for comic relief more than anything. However, the difference is that Toko actually has a character that grows and develops beyond Syo, Syo doesn’t actually kill any of the main characters (still highly questionable but given how desperate the Tragedy is, I can accept that) and it’s made pretty clear in UDG that even she has some humanity in her. Syo has a sense of decency and compassion, shared with Toko, that grants her some humanity. That is not the case with Kanade, who is a monster through and through.

See what I just said about a bias against morally black characters.

Kanade, by contrast, is not capable of unconditional love; she’s an incestuous, manipulative, stalking, psychopathic control-freak.

Sure, but being a narcissistic psychopath incapable of unconditional love isn't necessarily where all that other stuff directly flows from. Kanade wanted to love Hibiki and for Hibiki to love her since they're like each other's mirror image, but Hibiki's insecurity and envy of Kanade got in the way and made her lash out, driving Kanade's want for her sister to be her special someone to the point of obsession, all because the girls' parents were negligent as fuck and concerned more with raising two Ultimates who could gain them credit and money than nurturing two people who were part of their family. LINUJ tried to push the "Kanade's a demon" angle, but much like Monaca Towa, there's still an inherent humanity to her backstory and in all the factors that shaped her into the monstrous person she is.

Additionally, Kanade’s death isn’t true justice, it’s her getting to die with a smile on her face knowing that she ruined countless lives and has her sister die with her too.

As I've said before, yes and that was the whole point. Executions of the Blackened are never meant to be "justice" in this franchise, and this is one where it's played up as an unarguable injustice. Kanade is beyond the mentality and emotions that would put her in despair at the prospect of getting brutally killed alongside her twin sister, and the fact that said twin sister is despairing over it right there with her is what gives her the greatest rush of joy she could hope to go out on. And as she ensured that she and Hibiki were in perfect sync when they killed Setsuka, thus ensuring they'd both have to be voted for as the Blackened in order for it to be correct, there was never a chance left that Kanade could lose here. If it makes you feel disgusted, disturbed, uncomfortable and frustrated, good! It was meant to! You don't have to like it for that, but you do need to take it as what it is.

Fuck this chapter and what it did to Hibiki.

If by "what it did to Hibiki" you mean stripping her of any agency in her role in the murder mystery and trial, and making her suffer the worst despair with absolutely no attempts at comfort from anyone around her because they all act like she was equally guilty of the murder even when she wasn't then yes, absolutely fuck that shit.

If you mean killing her off? Well, I already covered that.

She was the biggest victim in all of this, even worse than Setsuka. At least Setsuka wasn’t aware of what was happening and died before she was chopped into pieces. Meanwhile, Hibiki not only learns that she’s partially responsible for it, she gets next to no sympathy from the rest of the cast for what happened, then learns her serial killer sister has been killing and torturing people her whole life to isolate her. And then gets to learn Kanade killed their parents before being dragged off to their double execution, screaming for help the whole time.

I like that she did at least fight back and bludgeon Kanade during the execution and try to set herself free rather than just take it. Problem is that it now kind of doesn't match up with her earlier demeanor over what all had just happened and how unready she was to face death.

And this was after a ton of character growth and development I was far more interested in and impressed with. When I saw this chapter play out, I didn’t see a tragedy with her or an engaging villain, I saw a frustrating shock-baity twist that left me disgusted, confused and annoyed. Two great characters died to glorify another shitty repetition of the serial killer plot beat, and somehow Kanade is the one who gets all the attention and all the popularity.

Already covered why Kanade came out of this so beloved and well remembered, but I also have to address this idea that Hibiki's character development getting thrown away with her life is a huge affront to the characters and the story that needn't have happened. As I've made clear, Hibiki and Kanade were always set to kill together and die together, so what you ought to be blaming LINUJ for here is giving Hibiki that character growth and setting her up for further development she'd end up not recieving. If he knew in advance that both these girls had to be dead by the end of Chapter 3, he should've written both of their arcs in a way designed to lead to that point rather than have one of them seemingly going in a different direction only for her to get dragged back in the direction of her sister's plot.

And to make matters worse, she was actually planning on framing Iroha. Iroha. A girl whose only real method of attack is crying and pushing someone off a balcony. Did she seriously think anyone would buy that she not only killed Setsuka, but dismembered her and set her body up in a weird way?

Another stupid part of the trial that ought to have been exised, though I will say that the "pushing someone off a balcony" part didn't happen yet and the very fact that Iroha was a member of Void, thus expected to attempt murder at some point, adds a layer of irony to what Kanade was trying to pull there.

Not that it matters, since her attempt at framing Iroha- knocking her out with spiked coffee- failed because she doesn’t even like coffee. This girl is not as meticulous or careful as she thinks she is.

Even a genius will have their off moments, especially a young one.

And no, I’m not going to say that all of this is retroactively justified by Sora having Divine Luck and that’s why all of this happened. That reveal coming at the end does not justify any of this by any means. Please do not use “Fuck you, I’m lucky” in place of “Fuck you, I’m smart.” Nagito playing Russian Roulette with 5 bullets and winning is not the same as Kanade being incompetent and Sora having a gut feeling that it’s not over yet.

But again, had everyone voted to convict Kanade as the Blackened due to her "incompetence", they'd all end up dead and Kanade would be scot-free with her twin sister as her puppet. So if Sora didn't have that "gut feeling that it's not over yet", you get a Bad End. That's how the Divine Luck saved not just Sora but everyone besides the twins.

But do you want to know what the worst aspect of this Chapter 3 is? I could maybe overlook all the other details- all of them- if this weren’t the case. It’s how completely irrelevant this chapter is in the greater story.

Unfortunately yes. Chapter 3 always tends to be the least relevant to anything and does the least to advance the overarching story, but this one ends up taking it a whole new extreme level. Kanade setting fire to Setsuka's letter and us never learning what Setsuka had found out and written in it sort of symbolizes the whole deal. Nothing was gained by anyone in-story from this ordeal, we're just left with three characters less than the cast we began the chapter with and a darker, more untrusting and unsettled atmosphere going forward.

But SDRA2′s? It feels like a completely separate story shoved in the middle of the existing one. Kanade has no connection to the Voids or Mikado, not to Utsuro, not to the Despairs, not to any outside groups, not to Hope’s Peak, not even the Tragedy itself plays any role in her character. All she wants is to control Hibiki, and she only did all this because she was losing that control.

If I recall, that really was LINUJ's whole idea. He acknowledged that Chapter 3 always stands as "the midway point" of any DR story, as that's where the first half concludes and the second half begins, so he wanted to present a case with a worthy mid-game culprit and something that clearly marked the first half we'd played through as distinct from the second half still to come, those distinct factors being that we didn't know much about Void in Half 1 but they're far less shrouded in mystery in Half 2, and that the Otonokoji twins are around for their own little sub-story arc for Half 1, and they're not in Half 2. Kanade as a villain with no connection to anything else took care of both those distinction needs. The problem is that LINUJ forgot to account for what the end of the twins' arc would actually do to impact the setting and characters in a way that would linger on enough to justify its whole existence, and to directly segue the events of the first half into the events of the second. It's just sort of its own little story that suddenly eats up all the focus in this chapter, then it goes away and things in the main story continue on as though it hadn't even happened. It's just a strange and disturbing detour.

When you peel away all the shock value, Kanade is ultimately, like every serial killer out there, a painfully flat and boring character with shitty motivations to be a shitty human being. Her entire personality revolves around her creepy obsession with Hibiki; there is nothing deeper there, and LINUJ has even said that Kanade would’ve killed herself if Hibiki died. I don’t find someone like that very appealing nor interesting.

You hate serial killers and really evil characters, so of course she doesn't appeal to you or interest you much. Others will differ, as we can scratch that "flat and borng" surface of that "shitty human being" to find something a little deeper and sadder in that creepy obsession with her twin sister, to make us ponder what might have been done to stop this person and possibly set them straight prior to tragedy.

I can name about three things: Hibiki’s puppet state foreshadowing Yuki’s transformation, the implication that more time had passed than they’d realized and her burning Setsuka’s note. The latter is the only piece of the story that actually feels like it connects this chapter to the others. But after Kanade and Hibiki are gone, they’re barely even mentioned and it’s clear how little impact they had.

I don't think any of those really work, especially Setsuka's note since there's nothing later in the story that lets us know what information she'd wanted to convey in it. Maybe LINUJ could've had Mikado been inspired by how Kanade almost had everyone fooled into making the wrong vote and that played a part in his plan in Chapter 5, as well as finding some way to link Hibiki to something that becomes more crucial in the end. Little things to make this an invaluable section of the story instead of a cul-de-sac that leads absolutely nowhere.

There’s also Iroha being revealed as a Void at the end of the Chapter, but that has nothing to do with Kanade and it really could’ve been placed anywhere, or even just left out entirely.

But the fact is that it was placed right at the end of this and is tied directly to how Iroha hadn't attempted a kill yet but was set up to take the fall for Kanade's murder in this chapter. That is one thing that Chapter 3 contains that needs to be seen to make sense of the stuff we get with Iroha in the later chapters.

What this means is that this is the only chapter 3 where you can skip it and miss basically nothing. Think about that: 1/6th of SDRA2- a full 16%- is completely irrelevant to the overarching story, all for the sake of emulating the worst part of V3. Granted, I don’t know how much better LINUJ’s original plan would’ve been, but I have my doubts it could be worse.

If you skipped it, you'd be left wondering where the fuck Setsuka and the twins went. Obviously. And I think DR2's Chapter 3 is just as fillery as this one, as the mystery part of it starts after Nekomaru is taken off to be healed and after it's over, Nekomaru's released from his care and back with us as a robot, which matters for Chapter 4. The entire detour with Despair Disease, Monokuma's movie, and Mikan's murders ultimately had no relevence, as while they do foreshadow things, they're never directly called back to once those foreshadowed things get their payoff. As for LINUJ's "original plan", there is one part about it that I feel would have been worse and so it's absolutely to the characters' benefit that he chose to forgo it in favor of a Korekiyo knockoff - originally, Kanade was going to reveal that she'd always hated Hibiki rather than being in lust with her, and that her goal was to make her suffer in despair and then die as the ultimate "fuck you" to her. Such a reveal would've been like "Really? You actually hated the twin sister who constantly picks on you, insults and demans you, bosses you around, and makes herself the center of everything you two do together? What a shocker! Never thought you had that in you!" It's way too expected and would've rendered the twins relationship into just a worse version of Hiyoko and Mikan. Kanade having fallen in love with the idea of a loving and obedient twin sister who she could treat like a pet and have power over was the more unexpected and interesting direction to take. It just needed stronger execution and less crazy serial killer nonsense.

Bottom Line is? LINUJ is a writer in desparate need of an editor, IDK.

[ultraericthered]

Oh no. Oh no. This is gonna be another The Last Airbender, isn't it? These guys are coming out with everything in the "bad live action remake" handbook. Is the magic that One Piece captured going to remain so difficult to capture by every other live action adaptations?

Alright now this pissed me off

What do you MEAN you're going to remove one of the most important aspects of Sokka's character arc in the first season? What do you MEAN you're going to remove Sokka unlearning misogyny, accepting change and embracing his role as a fighter and protector of the Avatar in order to end the war? What do you MEAN???

[ultraericthered]

While I've yet to see Superman (in just a few days, I will, don't worry!), I've been watching videos people have made to review or share their thoughts on the movie and there are seven particular critiques I've heard that just drive me up the wall. Yeah, I've not seen the thing yet and I can already detect the bullshit in these critiques.

"The movie relies on Pop Culture Osmosis and things established by past versions of the Superman mythos to get people's investment and understanding of this world and these characters without really putting in the effort to distinguish THIS version of Superman and THESE versions of the characters, thus establish why we should care about them or feel close and familiar with them in any way".

Based on how well the movie is doing so far and how much people have latched onto these depictions of the characters, the conclusion drawn here is dead wrong. Yes, knowing the basic specifics about Superman, his world, and his core cast members is something Gunn was banking on for much of the audience for this film, the comic nerds, casual fans, and normie moviegoers alike. But I would argue that the opposite is simultaneously true as well - that in the tradition of old school fantastical cinema, going in without knowing much of anything about an already established and developed world with characters who are already living their own stories is also The Point. Like in Star Wars, we didn't get an "origin story" for any of the non-Luke characters for years, and the first ever audiences did not know a thing about this galaxy that they weren't learning for the first time, yet that movie took off like crazy because people fell in love with the world it built, the characters it featured, the story it told, and everything else that it displayed. Same for Indiana Jones, where he didn't get anything ressembling an origin until the third film. Beforehand, Raiders was an intended one-off and Indy was already a treasure hunter just because he was, and audiences didn't question it too deeply. Heck, even recently with The Batman, Batman is, like this Superman, in his third year as a crime fighter but most viewers understood him and followed his character arc and dynamics just find while also getting taken in by Reeve's depiction of Gotham City. So clearly, you don't always have to put in extra effort to "distinguish" your incarnation of something - you just have to show it, and let it all speak for itself as the story plays out, while on their part, the viewer has to relax and "just accept things as they are" as Yurippe puts it. The clunky, forced "As You Know" dialogue incidents that even this movie itself might fall victim to at a few points is best off avoided.

"This Superman has no sense of authority to him!"

This one's honestly really alarming, the idea that Superman is meant to be the ultimate "authority figure." Really think about that. An uncontracted, unaccountable, super powerful lone metahuman is expected to act as an "authority" over his fellow man, like he gets to be an unauthorized Uber Cop to any given community on Earth because he has the power to do so and so if he wants to, he can. This is the sort of idea that breeds Superman haters, that fuels the "Superman goes evil" stories we've all been getting sick of hearing. The only time Superman is an "authority" of any sort is within the Justice League Of America, of which he's the leading senior member. Otherwise, he does not put himself in a position above any of the people he saves and helps out. The whole sentiment behind his life of public service is that he has all the power in the world with which to dominate others and do with the world as he pleases, but he chooses to lower himself to a level where the use of those powers is for others far weaker than he is and whom he positions himself as being close to equal to. The literal final line of Superman: The Movie is him saying to a police officer "We're all part of the same team!". That's who Clark Kent is - he forgoes high-and-mightiness and chooses humility. That's the kind of Superman we need and deserve. And if by "lacking authority" people mean he lacks seriousness and dignity to him that makes him unimposing to evildoers and unable to the evoke respect of others, then they forget that this is a younger Superman whose only been at the superheroing thing for two years before now, so he's not going to be as seasoned and dignified yet.

"This Lex Luthor is a pathetic, petulant, whiny ass brat rather than a credibly menacing, powerful, suave, smart, cool and dignified villain worthy of being Superman's greatest enemy."

Hate to break it to people with limited comprehensive reading skills but...a pathetic, petulant, whiny brat is Lex Luthor's character. It's who he is at his core. The "menacing, powerful, suave, smart, cool and dignified villain" we see him as in versions like the DCAU, Lois & Clark, Smallville, Young Justice, Justice League Action, and the various animated movies out there is his facade. It's the veneer of a truly powerful, sophisticated but ruthless, cool-headed, always in control and outthinking everyone else in the room type of villain. When you peel back those external layers and look into the heart, soul and mind of Lex Luthor, the guy is a sad, damaged child. A child who is a hater and a bully lashing out at the world and abusing the natural gifts and skills he has to lord himself over others and gain more wealth and power for himself. Like most evil billionaires and tyrants in the world, a small person trying to make himself seem big. He hates Superman with the passion of infinite suns and has made himself believe that Superman is both a truly terrible, dangerous alien being who must be destroyed and also lesser a man than him not because he is or even because Lex thinks and feels it has to be true for well reasoned, justified sentiments, but because Superman, "the alien", is so polar opposite of Lex that it makes him feel insecure about who he is and how he's lived his life, and he cannot stand that or accept it because his narcissistic ego demands he be viewed, by himself and others, as the pinnacle of human capacity for greatness. If you're looking for a petty hater of a villain who is also truly cool, dignified, powerful and self assured, Doctor Doom is who you want. That's never been Lex Luthor, who's really just a spoiled rotten brat.

"Eve Teschmacher is a sexist stereotype! They completely character assassinated her!"

First off all, this conflicts with that first criticism, as it claims "character assassination" under the basis of THIS version of Eve not being like some other version. And secondly, I don't really see how she's characterized and what she's positioned as here is "sexist" or "anti-woman", no more than Flash Thompson in the MCU is sexist against males or Suki from Bet is anti-gay. The ditzy, self-absorbed social media narcissist archetype is just sort of a thing these days.

"The twist reveal about Superman's biological parents and planet Krypton sends a bad message about immigrant heritage that muddles the whole core of the story!"

To an extent, I do agree that the "family who raised you/found family you choose" theme didn't entirely mix well with the immigration allegory on this front. But I can also say that in reality, immigrants, even those who still value their heritage, do sometimes come from families and/or home nations that are corrupt and in some state of moral rot, to the point where immigrants and refugees will flee these places specifically to escape their conditions and find somewhere better to call home and make a better life for themselves and their loved ones. Acknowledging that side of migrant/refugee experience is also a valid thing to do in a narrative, even if it comes with some problematic implications regarding what sparked the immigration.

"Superman kills his opponent in the final fight! AGAIN!"

Not quite. Apparently he knocks Ultraman backwards and he falls into the unstable black hole that Superman believed was deadly. We're not sure if he actually died or not, and self defense against an enemy who then doesn't save themself from something that ends up (seemingly) destroying them is not the same thing as making the conscious choice to murder your opponent rather than do anything else to incapacitate them and put people out of harm's way from them like what Snyderman did with Zod. Not in the same ballpark.

"The larger DC Universe stuff like the Justice Gang characters ought to have been left alone. This should've been entirely focused on Superman and his supporting cast in Metropolis and Smallville".

To that I say: AGAIN? You wanted to get that sort of Superman story on the big screen for a third time? Arguably the fourth time if we dissociate Superman Returns from the older movies? Like it or not, what James Gunn did with the larger DC Universe, making this movie feel like you're opening up a comic book and jumping right into the latest story set in an already developed world with lots of zany, fantastic characters who've been living out their own stories and playing their roles for a long duration of time, and there's a lot of stuff going on that instigate events and throw a lot of information at you at a fairly rapid pace, is what gives it a more distinct identity than the other Superman cinematic outings that predate it. Yes, some of that stuff could've been dialed back or cut in order to pave way for more time to spend on the Superman stuff, but the overstuffing isn't really bad enough to bring down the whole film. From my understanding of how it's been handled, I personally think It's mostly done brilliantly.

[ultraericthered]

Flashbacks to nothingeverlost in the OUAT fandom...

I mean I know a certain level of projection on fictional characters and situations is inevitable and even healthy, but sometimes you got to step back into the real world to remind yourself that Character X is not your shitty parent/abusive ex/asshole boss/bully from high school, and that people who like Character X are not personally victimizing you.

[wingsofahoneybee]

where all your dreams come true !

(redraw of this fantasy costco garf i drew in 2022)

[ultraericthered]

I remember a while back seeing some discourse on here about my girls (the Otonokoji twins) and there was the usual "SDRA2 Chapter 3 was terribly written and Kanade's a horrible character who relied on pure grimdark edginess and shock value that made no logical sense, offered nothing to the characters and contributed nothing to the plot" complaints in there, of course. But the main source of the gripes about the twins' arc and the hatred for Kanade and the way Linuj wrote her and that whole case was this sentiment of "It just wasn't fair! Hibiki deserved better, she should've gotten to live, dammit!"

I get being a fan of a character disappointed that their story didn't go the way you'd have preferred to see it go, and that the character wasn't around long enough to realize their potential for development and contributions to the plot and relationships with others and all that. That's understandable. But at a certain point you need to step back and realize that it wasn't your character and your story for which to make those decisions, it was someone else's. If you want to take those characters and write an AU fic where things diverge from that original telling, that is fine. It can be done. That's different from acting like "because this creator had something else in mind from what I'd like for this story and these characters, they Did It Wrong." Because here's the thing: Linuj never, not once at any point, intended for one of the Otonokoji twins to die while the other one lived on. They were designed as a package deal and implemented into the game as such (when you choose to hang out with them in free time events, you cannot choose which twin to hang with, it's always Hibiki AND Kanade that you're given the option to approach), because the entire core purpose behind their conception was the idea of a third chapter that reversed the usual Chapter 3 trend by for once having only one victim and two Blackened, thus a double execution for both of them. There was never any version of SDRA2 that Linuj was going to end up making that would not include Hibiki and Kanade both being put to death for the murder in Chapter 3. How it ended up written and executed could've been different, yes. But Hibiki wasn't making it out alive. Yes, it's unfair that the more innocent twin had to suffer and die so horribly along with the evil twin, who died happy and fulfilled with getting what she'd wanted. That's the whole point. That's the despair. Fanganronpa wasn't letting you have the easy, morally clean, happy outcome, and if you expected it to, what do you even think you were playing in the first place? Best to accept the SDRA2 you got for what it is and then have fun with your own AUs.

FTR, the writing for Kanade was mostly great in my eyes, and as I've made clear before, the "shock value and edginess" stuff only came in at the very end of her run: to me, Kanade's character would've been near perfection were it not for that "I killed a whole bunch of people and it traumatized my twin sister so bad it turned her into a vacant puppet I could control" nonsense. Linuj, unfortunately, could not help himself from crossing that line that did not need to be crossed. But regardless of what Linuj has said, I'm never gonna find Kanade's narrative the least big convincing - killing a dog, her parents, and a few other people I could get behind, but someone in her position with her body count stretches the suspension of disbelief even for DR. The worldbuilding was not to a point where I could buy that all the police and detectives around wherever the twins lived would be that fucking clueless and inept to never catch on. So I don't doubt for a second that Kanade's killed people but I just choose to believe she was bullshitting and her body count estimate is as phony as Kiyo's.

[heartorbit]

searching for a star that's still unknown to anyone!

[ultraericthered]

Tell me you don't understand the appeal of dark, fucked up, toxic and dangerous fictional romances....oh wait, you just did.

I honestly don’t know what to think about Guren and Mahiru’s relationship. I thought after reading Catastrophy at sixteen, I will appreciate the couple and see their story as some kind of tragic Romeo and Juliet interpretation… but I found it toxic and abusive, even before Mahiru became a demon. There are a lot of times when Guren obviously doesn’t want to do something, and Mahiru practically manipulates him into doing it. She says she cares for him, and loves him, but never even tries to shield him or spare him the pain. And she several times physically and emotionally hurts him despite not being fully possessed at the time. And after a time, Guren’s love turns into an unhealthy obsession, where he is absolutely willing to be suppressed by Mahiru - despite being one of the most proud characters originally. It scares me a little bit, how many times I saw people describe this relationship as beautiful or romantic. It seemed really dark to me. ✗ submitted by: @https://aliaatreidesuniverse.tumblr.com/ 

[ultraericthered]

Recently learned that the Dreamworks' The Prince of Egypt stage musical was a thing, and... yeah, the Disney's The Huncback of Notre Dame stage musical is still by far superior in terms of non-Broadway, divergeant musical retellings of an animated masterpiece.

And it's not like The Prince of Egypt is a terrible show the whole way through. It recieved a lot of middling reviews from people who were just whelmed by it. Some of the ideas behind what they added to the story are actually interesting and easily workable. But at the very end, they do something that is absolutely unforgivable to me in how it straight up spits in the face of the source material it was adapting. And it's ironic because I'd said with Hunchback that what the movie gave us of Esmeralda surviving, a big action climax against Frollo, and the big feelgood ending, feels like a Focus Group Ending wherea the stage show felt more like how the story naturally would play out, whereas here it's the reverse - the stage show plays out like a Focus Group Ending that the original movie wisely and boldly avoided!

Where it starts is in alterations made to Rameses' character and in how his and Moses' brotherly relationship falls apart. In this telling, Rameses is more easily won over to hearing Moses' initial argument and promises him that he will let all the Hebrew slaves go, fully intent on doing so. But when his wife Nefertiri and High Priest Hotep make him secondguess himself, he goes back on his word and doubles the slaves' work load instead. This itself is not a harmful change - Queen Nefertiri and the sway she could hold over her husband's decided courses of actions was a thing in The Ten Commandments, so it's neat to see it added back into this story, and High Priest Hotep is more like this version's equivalent to the Dathan character from The Ten Commandments than he is a Hotep-Hui composite character. The story plays out like you'd expect it to from there, with Rameses stubbornly doubling down and becoming a spiteful antagonist to Moses and the Hebrews who refuses to let them leave Egypt, with only the death of his and Nefertiri's child making him finally relent.

Then comes the finale. Rameses and Hotep raise an army to pursue the fleeing Hebrews to kill or re-enslave. Moses parts the Red Sea so that the Hebrews can pass through, but this time as the Egyptians pursue, Moses decides he will turn himself over and ransom himself for his people's safety. So he stands before Rameses, with Hotep urging the Pharaoh to kill him. Rameses has a long pause...and then refuses to kill his brother, rationalizing that there has been too much death already, and as such, "he will be the wink link that breaks this chain of destruction and suffering." This, people, is the epitome of "He Would Not Fucking Say That". The tragedy of Rameses in the movie was that his desire to be a strong leader for Egypt and to uphold the legacy of his father and dynasty without tarnishing it was all-consuming, and so was the stubborn pride, wrath, hatred, and dehumanization of others, even his own foster brother, that came with it. No matter how many plagues he and his people were made to suffer, he would refuse to relent and become that weak link; Seti's strict and abusive upbringing had ingraved this too deeply into him. Here, it seems much the same until right at the Red Sea, right at the cusp of triumph where he could kill his former brother who, need I remind you, is responsible for the death of Rameses' child, Rameses just...decides to finally stop trying to live up to the expectations set by his father and change his tyranical ways. His heart just magically softens on the whole matter. And it gets worse: he and Moses share a loving embrace, renewing their brotherhood. Again diminishing the tragedy of the film's story, the weight of what Moses had to sacrifice in order to do God's work and liberate his people from bondage and oppression. In the movie, Moses' faith and devotion to the will of the Lord, and to his enslaved people that he now could see, love, respect and dignify as people, was so strong that he had to see God's plan through to the end, had to work all of the Lord's miracles in order to free his people, even at the cost of having to be Rameses' enemy, and as a result, his loving, brotherly relationship with Rameses completely shattering beyond repair. Because doing what's righteous against an unjust reality is usually not easy and never without cost. Moses' place in Egypt and his relationship with the man he once called brother was the price he had to pay in order to win freedom for the Hebrews. Once it was gone, he could never get it back. Yet this stage play has him win the Hebrews freedom AND keep the love of his brother even if they have to go their separate paths in life, so I suppose you could say Moses ends up with "All He Ever Wanted!"

But here's the kicker - when Rameses refuses to kill Moses and the rest of the Hebrews, Hotep takes command of the army in his place, so it's he who gets swept away in the Red Sea with the rest of the Egyptian soldiers, and unlike Rameses in the movie, God does NOT spare Hotep! This is literally that "the story now acts like this cronie of the main villain is and always was the main villain who gets his comeuppance while the hero and villain suddenly become buddy-buddy with each other" stupidity from Goodtimes' Hercules! As much power as Hotep may hold as High Priest, it makes no sense that he take authority over the fucking Pharaoh, the actual antagonist of the Biblical story of Exodus. This is the culmination of what Alex Woods' review on the show was on about with how this version of the story "makes Pharaoh's power far less absolute." It hurts the narrative rather than helps it, detracting from Rameses' pathos and menace.

Can you imagine a version of Infinity Train's third season where Samantha the Cat talks Simon into using the memory tape extractor rather than him going to her to get it, and then Samantha ends up with the Apex when Simon's leading it at the end, and then at the moment where Grace saves Simon from falling off the train, he has a change of heart and reconciles with Grace only for the Cat to try to kill her and so the Cat gets killed by the Ghom instead of Simon? That'd be absolutely absurd, neutering the power in those character arcs and the haunting tragedy of the whole situation. But that's pretty much what this play does in regards to Moses and Rameses' story! It's like the script was written by someone who'd not been able to take the harshness of how things actually ended in the movie, so this is their Fix Fic where Rameses sees the light, he and Moses renew their brotherly bond, and they all live happily ever after. And it just does not work. Rameses is an animated villain I don't think I have ever seen anyone give the Draco In Leather Pants treatment to, since the film makes it abundantly clear the two truths that A: he is a complex, layered, tragic figure whose struggle to be a mighty king is pitiful because he is, in the end, all too human and fallible, and B: he's a fucking slavedriver who literally owns human beings as slaves and towards the end of the story intends to commit mass genocide of them - not something you can simply walk back from. So when he ends up losing everything that mattered to him, he's brought it on himself. This is widely understood. There was no need to change it.

If this show is ever revived, someone needs to rewrite the ending. 'Cause sometimes, the villain just needs to remain a villain, dammit!

[xsunbirdx]

I think Fugitive Telemetry is pretty funny from Indah's perspective. There's a murder on the station. You alert your government leader, and they bring their bodyguard/corporate-spy-and-murder-construct with them to the scene of the crime. Turns out it's also Sherlock Holmes. It alternates talking like it's in a TV show, and making various ominous statements, including things like "if I killed them, you'd never find the bodies." It refuses to elaborate on that one. Well that's comforting. It does go on to show that it couldn't have done the murder. But did it just confess to murder? Why did it just confess to murder? It goes on to save your officers lives (wait, did it just hack the system it promised not to hack? Eh, we'll let it slide this time.) and then mount a solo rescue mission (extremely successful, except for being shot by the people it's saving), and still hasn't killed anyone. So far. It already forgot that someone got murdered and that you were actually trying to solve a crime. Anyway, once you give it full access to your security system, it solves the crime within an hour or so. Turns out it was your coworker of 43 years. Who was actually a corporate-spy-and-murder-robot this whole time.

[uisceb]

Endlessly baffled every time I see people water down Glinda’s actions in Defying Gravity to “oh she was too cowardly or too selfish to stand by Elphaba,” as if she didn’t spend that entire sequence from Chistery’s transformation onward doing everything in her very limited power to keep Elphaba safe.

Like the second things start going wrong, Glinda’s entire focus switches to “keep Elphaba safe at all costs.” This girl does not have any magic. She does not have any physical survival skills. She probably has no idea how to throw a punch. She can barely run in those heels. Her one power is her charm and her ability to work a crowd. She is desperately trying to get Elphaba to come back with her not because she agrees with what the Wizard and Morrible are doing, but because she thinks maybe if she can just smooth things over, Elphaba will be forgiven, and she’ll be safe. 

In that regard, there’s a very obvious selfishness to Glinda’s actions - she lacks perspective; she lacks scope; she prioritizes Elphaba over what we as the audience would understand as the “Greater Good” and over her own morals about what’s going on with the Wizard’s agenda; she’s visibly horrified by what happens to Chistery but her first instinct is to comfort Elphaba above all else, despite having no understanding of what's happening.

I am the last person who’s ever going to argue that Glinda isn’t selfish, because she very clearly is, it’s one of her defining characteristics, and it’s one of the main things she has to learn to overcome in order to actually become “Glinda the Good.” This is in no way me trying absolve my very selfish girl who very much made the wrong decision.

But it does kinda boggle my mind when I see the argument that Glinda betrayed Elphaba or is a “fake friend.” Especially because ultimately she comes to the conclusion that the best thing she can do for Elphaba in this moment is to let her go. She knows she would only hinder Elphaba if she were to go with her, she knows there’s no happy ending for them if she tries to run away with her (I think in that moment she might even suspect there’s no happy ending at all). Elphaba is going through her own personal revelation which is beautiful in its own right, but it’s also impulsive, and there’s a certain level of unsustainable grandiose fantasy to it. Glinda almost lets herself be swept up in it for a moment, but her rational side kicks in, because, of the main trio, Glinda really is the most grounded in reality.

I’ve seen a lot of weirdly smug people out there proudly saying if Fiyero was there he definitely would’ve gotten on the broom with Elphaba - and honestly, I think they’re probably right. But it’s not because he’s somehow morally superior to Glinda, or that his love for Elphaba is more pure. Our boy is depressed, he’s nihilistic, he’s lost, and truly doesn’t have any attachments to anyone.

He was genuinely moved by Elphaba’s fearless convictions and he fell hard and fast for her, so I agree he’d be on that broom in a heartbeat, he quite literally has nothing to lose, and everything to gain. He’s found himself wanting to believe in something for the first time because Elphaba brought that out in him, his whole world revolves around her. And that’s very romantic, but because of that, the stakes are much lower. For him, leaving everything behind wouldn’t be a sacrifice, it would be freedom.

Glinda’s gone through the world much differently, much more carefully. She doesn’t have Fiyero’s sense of nihilism or detachment, she’s lashed herself tight to the reality of the world around her. Where Fiyero has been regularly kicked out of schools and freely wandered from place to place experiencing new things and getting into trouble on purpose, Glinda has never stepped outside the predictable comfort and safety of her bubble until meeting Elphaba. She lives in constant fear of failure and being looked down on. She is forever clinging to this persona she’s created because she’s terrified of what will happen if she’s anything less than perfect.

She has constructed her entire existence around being an icon rather than a person - in the beginning, she literally doesn’t know how to be her own self, she’s just barely learning, because of Elphaba. And it scares the shit out of her. 

Fiyero would likely play action hero if he was there for Defying Gravity, and that’s great, but Glinda is weighing a million things in her head, not least of which is “holy shit the person I love most in the world is in imminent danger and I have no magic and no strength to keep her safe, so I will beg and plead and insult and fight her tooth and nail to keep her with me inside my privileged bubble because maybe I can smooth this over, maybe everything will be okay if I just do what I always do and use my privilege to get my way.” She understands the rules of her world, so she’s going to play by those rules because that’s how you win the game.

Elphaba, of course, refuses to play a corrupt game at all, and Glinda gets angry - she lashes out at Elphaba because Elphaba has just put herself in such a dangerous situation, and Glinda is completely powerless to change it. Every little bit of control Glinda is used to having is obliterated.

Her “Maybe you’re not as powerful as you think you are” when Elphaba doesn’t grow wings is so desperate - the words border on cruel, but her tone is both painfully apologetic and above all filled with RELIEF because while her heart hurts for Elphaba, she’s terrified that Elphaba would hurt herself the way Chistery was hurt, and she’s cleaving to the hope that maybe if Elphaba isn’t as powerful as she thinks she is, Glinda stands a chance at undoing the damage, and protecting her. 

Glinda’s selfishness is just so fascinating to me because it’s so rich and so contradictory - she loves Elphaba so deeply and destructively that she fully paralyzes herself when the chips are down and it breaks them both. She fails to be what Elphaba wants her to be, and she fails to be a good person, but there’s no “fake friend” about her actions - she is acting on pure desperation to keep this person she loves safe in literally the only way she knows how, at the cost of everything else, including what’s right, which is something Elphaba could never abide by. Elphaba would never compromise her own morals, but at this point in the story Glinda is willing to compromise everything as long as Elphaba is tucked away in her bubble with her, and that difference in values is irreconcilable to both of them. 

So, realizing this, Glinda does the one last thing she can think of to protect her at this point, and wraps a cloak around her shoulders to keep her warm. That’s all that’s left.

She’s selfish and she’s cowardly and she’s brave and she’s loving and she fails Elphaba and she fails herself and she regrets her decision for the rest of her life and yes I am writing all this with glass under my tongue and between my teeth, she makes me insane.

[venriliz]

35-40% accurate simself