#And I'm not saying you guys who give him a villain arc are bad!!!!

[sophieswundergarten]

People talk about SQ going on a villain arc, but personally I've always thought he'd be more likely to just shut himself away for a while

He'd fall off the map, become a recluse not because he's trying to hide from his father, or his uncle for that matter, but because he's so confused and mixed up and lost he isn't thinking clearly

He finds an empty old house, one in a little town somewhere in the middle of nowhere, that he can live in. It's in much worse condition than Mr. Benedict's, and he gets to stay because he does farm chores for the nearby people who own the property

A quiet town. No one questions why this boy appeared, and as he keeps to himself no one bothers him

He comes into the general store sometimes, or maybe the hardware store. Buying basic necessities, repair materials, and asking sometimes strange questions with obvious answers in an embarrassed way

Every now and again, he stops by the pet store. Buying a small bird or two and an obscene amount of birdseed

He becomes known as a lonely artist, a mysterious figure the adults ignore for the most part and the children whisper about. He doesn't pay either reaction any mind

SQ's house is full of art

Colour splashed across the floor, tiny vines and butterflies covering the shutters, vibrant shades all over the fan blades. He etches painstakingly accurate bird footprints on every windowsill, sketches large diagrams of feathers and bird wings across most of the walls, because, who's there to tell him no?

He tries to teach himself to whittle, and there are many mishapen lumps of woods that vaguely resemble birds lined up on the back porch. (He knows they're terrible, but he can't bring himself to throw them away. He feels too guilty, after all, he's the one who brought them into existence. If he won't love them, who will?)

And he has a lot of birds. Some were wild ones he befriended, leaving food and nesting material out until they felt comfortable enough to rest in the rafters, flying in and out of the near-always open windows. Some were bird he saw, either sitting in a cage when they had no business to be, or wandering the park looking half frightened and confused. Birds that people had captured from their natural homes and probably smuggled, hoping to pass them off in a small enough town where no one would notice. Some were birds that had been "released" by their previous owners; left to wander an environment that was not their own and to fend for themselves when they'd been raised domesticated

It's these last few he feels for the most. It's not fair, he thinks. There's no one to take care of them, and it isn't their fault they were forced into a situation like this. At some point, someone had hurt them. Had taken advantage of their innocent nature, and it left some scarred.l

Some physically, like the ones who needed their wings splinted, or had lasting limps, or sometimes were even half blind. And sometimes mentally, like those that still shrank back from his touch after months of rehabilitation, or had missing patches of feathers, or would hiss instead of sing

And so he became known as sort of a wild artist. Someone who seemed to know everything about art and birds and the forest, but occasionally could be seen asking how microwaves worked or whether he would have to pay for checking books out of the small local library (He always returned them in perfect condition)

And, eventually, after he's had some time to think, he calls his uncle. He isn't sure how to contact his dad, but he isn't really surprised to hear the two are living together again. They're twins, after all

And so he tells them where he is, tells them that he wants to talk, wants to understand. And to his surprise, they come to him. And they offer apologies, and answers both

While the kids marvel at the birds and his art and the small collection of poetry and naturalist books he's been slowly building up as he shows them around, the adults confer on what it best to do

And he thinks that, if it's offered, he'd like to go back with them. But he isn't sure. And he's still caught off guard when they ask

[picaroroboto]

For the past couple days, I've been unfortunately cursed with thinking about Zenos yae Galvus. I don't even particularly like him - not that I dislike him either, Zenosfuckers you can put your scythes down - but it seems to me like a lot of the fandom either greatly misunderstands him, or doesn't even care to try to understand him, which from an objective standpoint as someone who cares deeply about writing in video games kind of pisses me off. But I'm more pissed about the fact that I'm apparently going to keep thinking about this issue until I actually write a character analysis of him.

Q: "But, what even is there to analyze with him? Isn't he all about wanting to fight the WoL and nothing else?"

Well, you wouldn't be wrong with saying that. That motivation is at the forefront of his character, and even if you look closer, everything about him comes back to either "violence" or "lack of understanding of others". But there are more meaningful sides to his deceptively simple character. That question of meaning is what I really want to look into - what does his character mean, what symbolic or thematic role does he play in this story?

Q: "Better question: why are you posting this on your art blog/Fate meta sideblog?"

Good question, with a stupid answer: I have all of 6 followers on my FF14 sideblog, and around 150 here. Let's go under the cut so they don't have to read a wall of text, unless they want to.

When you look at and compare FF14's villains, you can see a very clear change, no doubts thanks to the change in main writers. ARR Gaius and Thordan are more or less two-bit villains - Gaius's memeable iconic Praetorium speech gives us insight into how fascists try to justify themselves but little into Gaius's actual personality, while all Thordan gets as far as depth of character is an NPC in a sidequest remarking that he wasn't always a bad person and was probably doing what he thought best for his nation. Nidhogg is a little more understandable, since revenge is a relatable motivation to anyone who's been hurt by others. In Stormblood, Zenos and Yotsuyu are both presented as deserving of pity even as they do terrible things. Come Shadowbringers and Endwalker though, the story takes a greater interest on why villains like Emet-Selch and Elidibus do the things they do, and the player is allowed more options to try to understand them and see how similar they are to the WoL. Hell, Hermes and the Endsinger are barely "villains" at all, with the level of sympathy the story shows them.

What I'm getting to here is that Zenos, with half his arc in Stormblood and the rest in Endwalker, is sort of caught in the middle of this shift. He played the role of the rival character in Stormblood really well, but come Endwalker, he's standing on a stage full of heroes and villains with grand causes and deep motivations, as the guy whose sole motivation is fighting for pleasure.

It seems he's not unaware of this contrast himself - when Jullus confronts him for ruining Garlemald for no good reason, he retorts with "Would you be happier had I a good reason?" Zenos makes no attempt to justify his own actions and doesn't care that his reason seems incomprehensible and unforgivable to others. Yet in that same cutscene Alisaie hits him with the fact that if he keeps living solely for pleasure, he'll die alone. When next we see Zenos, he's alone at the Royal Menagerie waxing philosophical about what he really sought in the battle with the WoL.

See, what really motivates Zenos isn't just the thrill of battle - this guy has gotten Battle High and the joy of human connection confused. Really.

Even before he gets so perturbed by the idea of dying alone, there's other suggestions, like his proposal of friendship to the WoL when they fought in Stormblood, and then later his dying words in which he explains that he never understood others - at his core, he's just lonely. I know there's an official side story that tells it, but you don't need to know the exact details to glean that he had some sort of tragic backstory. Sad, but not a surprise, considering he's the prince of the Garlean Empire, raised to take the throne and continue the Empire's legacy of violence.

At his core, he's a very lonely person, but also a thing of violence, raised using violent methods for the purpose of causing more violence. Violence is how he lives and breathes - the only way he gets any sort of connection with others in a world of hurting and being hurt is the brief connection warriors dueling as equals can sometimes find. Don't deny that this sort of connection exists - FF14 is great at making fights that are both fun and tell a story. Hence, why he goes crazy for the WoL, but also refers to them as "friend". In their fights, he senses (or thinks he senses) similarity between him and them. Beneath all the madness is a pure, genuine joy in seeing the self reflected in the other...but he also instantly gets on the train to projection-town, population Zenos, and assumes the WoL is exactly like him, ignoring or failing to notice that they also fight for deeper meanings. The worst part is, he doesn't even notice that what he's actually seeking in fighting them is connection until Alisaie's aforementioned callout.

So he goes and angsts for a while, then turns into a dragon again and flies across the universe to help us kick the Endsinger's tail feathers, then issues his challenge for that duel he'd been longing for. But what's changed is that he starts with a question - "Such pleasures you sought for their own sake, and for no other reason, is that not so?". Dying after the duel, he's full of questions too: "Was your life a gift or a burden? Did you find fulfillment?" Alisaie's suggestion that he'd die alone actually spurred him to realize what he actually sought in the WoL, and now he's asking all these questions in an attempt to, for the first time in his life, genuinely connect with another human being.

The questions aren't important just because they're a sign of how Zenos has changed in Endwalker - they're actually the thematic heart of Endwalker! ARR may have had "Answers" as it's theme, but EW is the expac of questions. Namely the biggest question of all: What is the meaning of life? Different characters have different answers to that, leading to the grand-scale symbolic conflict being the Endsinger's despair - her belief that there is no meaning in life - versus whatever reasons the WoL chooses to live for, left, as always, up to player interpretation.

When you look deeper, Zenos isn't actually as out-of-place in the symbolic conflict as he first seems. His depressed worldview - that metaphor about drowning in a swamp again - seems to align with the Endsinger's view about life being meaningless. But he aids the WoL in defeating her. In that way he serves as part of the answer to her question about the meaning of life. He may have resented life at times, but he still found meaning in chasing pleasure. Not the strongest or most beautiful reason to deny oblivion, perhaps, but it did enable him to help the WoL triumph. I think of Zenos's philosophy as being connected to the concept of "Amor Fati"...largely because this quote explaining it sounds like something he'd say, or at least agree with on some level:

"and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event—and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed."

So he does have a meaningful role in Endwalker, as the "Amor Fati" against the Endsinger's "Memento Mori". I think that in this the story shows that his reason for living, while somewhat shallow, is not necessarily a morally wrong thing in and of itself (setting aside for a second all the people he hurt in his pursuit of that). It's just that, since it is a lonely pursuit that denies everything except for his target, it still feels empty. The core of the counterargument against the Endsinger's despair is that both pleasure and fulfillment are necessary to live a meaningful life in a meaningless universe, and that's why Zenos is here in Endwalker. Why he even exists in the story in the first place.

Even if you're one of the people who deeply hates Zenos...well, you probably wouldn't have read this whole thing if you did, but I still think it's important to read into characters you dislike, because every character in a story is written for a reason. Plus, trying to understand even their worst enemies is one of the WoL's key traits as of ShB and EW. With his last breaths, Zenos was trying to understand the WoL too - carrying this understanding of him with you as we move into our next adventures is the least you can do for your "friend".

[tevanbegins]

This is a long rant to shoot down mad BoB theories insisting that Tommy is a villain / secret spy in cahoots with Gerrard / plot device / temporary LI. The show's writers are mature adults who surely wouldn't go so out of the way to villainize a queer character? To the extent that he'd fool all the main characters into thinking he was a good guy and great for Buck for an entire season, and then start revealing his true colors in the next season? To make a beautiful storyline about queer joy blow up into flames with such a major negative plot twist? All so that Eddie can suddenly realise he is gay and he and Buck can get together? I seriously don't think a 60 year old showrunner would allow such childish nonsense to happen on his show.

I'm not saying queer characters can't play dark / negative roles — Eva's character is an example from this very show itself. But the writers always told us that she is a bad influence on Hen's life right from the start, never got us attached to her by depicting her as a great person in the beginning and then revealing later that she is bad. If Tommy was meant to be horrible for Buck, the narrative would clearly tell us that from the start the way they did with Eva and Hen. The writers cannot be so insensitive as to give the LGBTQ+ community such significant mlm representation with Buck and Tommy, first making us fall in love with their romance and then humiliating us (as well as Buck) by completely destroying Tommy's character — all to serve the end purpose of making a fanon ship go canon? That might happen in B*ddie fanfics written by teenagers, but it can't happen on a show being written for a sensible, mature audience by grown-ass career TV writers!!!

B*ddie would have happened a long time ago if the writers wanted to make it canon. They are not going to do it now, definitely not by making Tommy the scapegoat in that awful mess, just so the toxic portion of the fandom can be appeased over the rest of the audiences who appreciate the show for its thoughtful and sensitive storytelling.

Why is maligning Tommy even necessary to make B*ddie canon? Like Eddie and Buck have seen each other dating one woman after another through the seasons but only Tommy being the bad guy will suddenly lead to a feelings realisation arc? Why didn't it happen before, or why couldn't it happen without reintroducing Tommy if B*ddie canon was always the end plan? Probably because the writers aren't interested in going there at all, and Tommy is genuinely being written as a long-term LI for Buck?

Backing this argument is the fact that most of the conversations had by the other characters after Buck's coming out have not been explicitly about him now identifying as bisexual, but more about him being involved with Tommy. If Tommy was being written as a plot device or a short-term LI, I don't think the other characters (including Eddie, mind you) would be hyping him up during these conversations. The writers would have probably framed the conversations on the lines of, "Oh wow Buck you realised you're bisexual? Congratulations!" instead of "OMG you and Tommy? Tell us more / We love him for you and approve of you two together!" They wouldn't take the efforts they've been taking to make Tommy a pivotal subject of these conversations if he was just a plot device as the BoBs believe. And if he was supposed to be a villain, the other characters would have told Buck to find someone better if they thought Tommy's vibes were off. Not all of them can be foolish to not see through Tommy if he was truly as bad as BoBs say he is (especially not Bobby.) Yes, Buck's bisexuality is valid regardless of who he dates or even if he doesn't, but the fact the characters talk so positively about both him + Tommy during these convos clearly implies this is an important love story blended into the coming out arc.

If B*ddie canon was in the works, JLH and Kenny Choi wouldn't have said on their IG lives that it's not going to happen, Ryan Guzman wouldn't be referring to Eddie as heterosexual, etc. So, we cannot let the BoB comments get into our heads because they are not the ones writing the show. I think we can expect a lot better from Tim & Co. than them giving in to the delusional fantasies BoBs want to see being manifested. Wanted to say this piece because I am fed up of seeing the BoB conspiracy theories all over and don't want to give them the power to steal our joy. That's all for now!

___

[harukamitsuki]

man. spinner and shoji were two characters that i really enjoyed and wanted to see more of... until i did get to see more of them and horikoshi stomped on my dreams...

spinner goes from being one of the best characters to being ridiculously one-dimensional. the heroes don't do jack shit, until it's revealed at the last second that they did, meaning that everything the 'bad guys' did was ultimately useless. kurogiri being in a hospital made no sense; the guy is a high-ranking villain who is far too useful to the villains to give up, he should be in a highly secure location like tartarus. shoji goes from being someone who i really enjoyed to being someone with ignorant beliefs, despite him accusing his friends of being such people.

seriously, shoji's rant on how the 'people from the city' wouldn't understand because they 'had it easy'. NEWSFLASH: discrimination happens everywhere. yes, it's a lot more rampant outside of cities, but it still exists within a city. heck, i had someone scream racial slurs at me while i was walking home, and i live in a big city. to say that someone had it easy just because you had it worse is a horrible thing to say, especially when it's coming from someone who is supposed to be empathetic.

this is not shoji's beliefs. this is horikoshi's beliefs. he could have easily had shoji say something like 'you have had it hard. that being said, people are more willing to turn to extremes outside of the city'.

also, shoji's whole 'violence to get what you want never works out!!' is wrong. i'm not saying from a moral standpoint - that's perfectly fine. but it's historically wrong. yes, there are such a thing as peaceful protests, but they have never worked out as well as those that fight violence with violence. blm riots, for example, were the thing to force the government to take a closer look at why people were rioting and do things to prevent more property damage.

another thing i found troubling was how the mutants became enraged at a person of colour, specifically black, for trying to intervene and empathise with them, screaming that he could not understand. it's supposed to imply that racism wasn't a concern after quirks emerged, as people found other things to discriminate.

which is... very idealistic. if that were something people would really do, then racism wouldn't be a thing after sexism came to light. and neither of them would exist after the lgbt or the neurodivergent. but that's not what happened.

if someone else arises that people could discriminate upon, people would just add that to the list of things to discriminate on.

horikoshi could have drawn anyone for the mutants to yell at. he chose to use a person of colour. it comes off as very tone-deaf and it was just another sign that the mini-arc would screw up.

spinner losing his mind was bad. as in bad-bad. as in, there were so many ways to write this fight, and he chose this? instead of being a battle of ideaologies, it's shoji convincing the rest to step down, then trying to beat a mind-less spinner.

it could have been one of the best fights, with shoji's belief that using violence to solve your issues will only make it worse, and spinner arguing that using violence is the only way to do it with the state of their society.

no matter who won, in that case, it would be ultimately up to the readers to decide who truly won. who had the stronger argument, who made the more sense, all that jazz...

instead, shoji yells at a bunch of people about how 'destroying property isn't good' and 'violence is never the answer', all the while using violence to subdue him.

that could have been could, if it was commented on. if there were some sort of self-awareness.

but it's not and there is none. it went from being an arc i was really looking forward to reading, to something i can no longer stand.

shoji. spinner. you were both done so dirty

[evilbihan]

It's interesting how the game never calls Bi-Han a "traitor". Sure, some of the characters do, but the game itself never refers to him that way.

One of his gear pieces is called "Wayward Son" and that is what he is, someone who strayed from the right path and lost himself in his own ambition. He made one wrong choice, one he regrets, if you listen closely to his intros with some characters, like Shang Tsung or Kitana, and it's ridiculous how certain people try and write him off as an evil turncoat who is lost beyond redemption. Liu Kang will try and (at least partially) succeed at bringing him back to the light. I don't get why people are trying to deny Bi-Han any character development and pin him to that one mistake he made or force the traitor role onto him when that's never who he was to begin with.

Bi-Han is the one getting betrayed, constantly, throughout his life. His father kept secrets from him, his brothers turn their backs on him when all he wanted was for them to be part of the future he envisioned for their clan. Even Frost wants to eclipse him and will undoubtedly betray him at some point. His own allies want to kill him after he helped them escape from captivity. Bi-Han has no one he can trust. He's entirely on his own. That may be his own fault to some extent, but I genuinely can't understand how people can be so blind to his suffering or worse, want to see him suffer even more? He's already bearing the consequences of his actions and it's painful to witness.

To get back to the point I made in the beginning, has anyone else noticed how the invasions mode nodes and encounters also never call Bi-Han a traitor or anything of the likes? I've seen Tanya's nodes and even some of her seasonal skins referencing her betrayal in previous timelines, even if nothing hints at her being a traitor this time around. In Bi-Han's encounters, the game only calls him "Ice Fighter", "Chill Initiate", "Snowfall Brother" or "Matchless Cryomancer", always refering to two things, Bi-Han's skills and his affiliation with the cold. That is who he is and always was. A cold, ruthless fighter. That hasn't changed in the current timeline and it makes no sense how some fans claim he was ruined because he made one bad decision.

When equipping Johnny as the announcer voice, the most negative thing he has to say about Bi-Han is that he's bossy, as opposed to how he speaks of actual villains like Shang Tsung ("Hate this guy" etc.). There are no references to his supposed "betrayal" which is why I believe it's only going to be a small part at the very beginning of his character arc that won't hold much relevance for the future, especially as the story develops more, except to serve as a reason for Kuai Liang and him to be enemies.

The way the game speaks of Bi-Han always sounds bittersweet to me and so do the names of his skins/gear pieces. It's almost like a parent talking to or about a stubborn kid that won't take their advice. One of my favorite examples is the kombat league skin that was added this season named "It's cold outside, Bi-Han". It reminded me of Liu Kang telling Bi-Han to "come in from the cold" and I think it's heart wrenchingly beautiful how even outside of the story mode and intros the tragedy that is Bi-Han's story is being acknowledged by the game through all those small subtle references.

One could argue that I'm reading too much into these details but I think some of you don't do that enough. There's 20+ characters on the main roster, the story would have to be dozens of hours long to give all of them in depth background stories and fully flesh them out so we can empathize with their motives. It's hard to understand Bi-Han's character unless you start looking at these small bits and pieces of lore and unfortunately, not enough people do that.

[thorias]

SEASON 2 WISH LIST:

-Madelyne is resurrected as a Horseman along with Gambit: I think there's a better story to tell with Madelyne being brought back (at least temporarily) than staying dead. The X-men having to fight her too would give Cyclops and Cable a more personal stake in this Apocalypse storyline, not that they really needed one, but still...

I said in another post that I wouldn't want to dilute the "Saving Gambit" story by making a bunch of other X-men Horsemen as well, but if it's just Madelyne, then I think it's okay. And I wouldn't expect Madelyne to survive this story anyway, since, aside from tying up a couple loose threads with the Summers family, her arc is basically finished now.

Plus, I just kind of like the idea of giving Deathbit a buddy in the spurned lover department; that could be fun.

-----

-Sabretooth returns. Logan (sans adamantium) has to fight him... and loses: I've always liked the idea that Sabretooth would probably beat Wolverine in a fair fight, (dude is like 3x Logan's size after all) but it's never been a fair fight since the adamantium basically made Logan unstoppable. But take the adamantium away and suddenly Wolverine is the underdog for a change, which makes the match-up a lot more interesting. And what's even the point of doing the bone claws story if it's not to see how Logan deals with being in a weakened state like this?

Granted, I want to see this for selfish reasons since Sabretooth is one of my favorite villains, but come on! Victor is long overdue for a W against Wolverine, and if he can't get it now, then I'm calling BS lol.

-----

-Mystique returns, working for Apocalypse: I think Demayo shot down the Val-Cooper-is-Mystique-in-disguise theory, (correct me if I'm wrong about that) but it would be pretty ridiculous if we didn't see her in season 2 since she worked with Apocalypse in XTAS on multiple occasions.

Plus, there's a ready-made story there with her and Rogue. In the 90s cartoon, Mystique wanted to get Rogue back as her daughter so badly that she was even willing to turn Rogue into a Horseman to do it. So just imagine if Mystique had a hand in convincing Apocalypse to resurrect Remy as Deathbit, or at least helped him pull it off, because she saw this as a way to get back into Rogue's good graces. That would add some really interesting pathos to a story that's already super emotionally charged.

-----

-Costume changes: I get that Marvel has toys to sell, but the different suits the team got in season 1 ain't it. Sorry, they're just not. The only one who pulled it off was Storm. Everyone else got a serious glow down. I actually felt low key embarrassed for Scott and Jean trying to make those retro costumes from the 60s/80s eras work; there's a reason those designs stayed in the past, you guys.

And I even like Rogue's green & white suit in the comics, but in the show it just looked awkward with the gloves being a different shade of green than the rest of it. I'd take just about any of her other costumes over this one.

Either change the suits again or go back to the old versions because I'm not feeling these current ones at all.

-----

-Magneto has a reunion with his kids... and it doesn't go the way he wants: We saw in the season 1 finale that Mags' separation from his children is something that's at least been bothering him, (though not enough for him to lift a finger to save them from being killed along with everyone else on Earth if he succeeded in destroying the planet's electromagnetic field, but I guess we're blaming that on bad writing) so I want him to meet his kids in season 2... only for it to go as horribly as it possibly could.

It would be both ironic and hilarious if Magneto is hoping to patch things up with his kids, only for Pietro and Lorna to try to fight and arrest him the instant they see him (X-Factor doesn't seem to be a thing anymore, but let's say they're still government employees and have the authority to arrest criminals/terrorists) because he did after all murder millions of innocent people with that EMP AND try to murder every other living thing on the planet, including them.

I mean, let's not kid ourselves, there's no way this family reunion is going to be a happy one after what he did. SOMEBODY has to hold Magneto accountable for that, and his own children doing it is about the most fitting thing that I can think of.

-----

-A big story arc for Gambit: Romy fans got gipped in season 1, and even if you're just a Gambit fan, you still had to settle for scraps with him only playing a major role in one episode, which coincidentally was the one where he got killed off. Yes, the stage is set for Deathbit to have a really compelling story in season 2, but that's going to depend on how it's done and frankly, after I got burned so many times in the first season, I'm skeptical that the writers will give this the care and attention it deserves.

Demayo said it was "key" that Remy died thinking he didn't deserve to be a hero and that Rogue had chosen Magneto instead of him. These things have gone unaddressed in the show since then, so I'm going to assume they're being saved for the Deathbit story and THE PAYOFF FOR THIS BETTER BE DAMN GOOD.

I want to see all of Remy's low self-esteem, self-loathing and resentment over the Rogneto debacle get twisted into a dark rage that Deathbit throws back in everyone's faces. AJ himself said that Remy didn't feel valued by the X-men or Rogue when he died, so use that! Make it part of the story! Make them own up to it. Force Rogue to confront her own feelings about how she handled that situation, (so far, she's been avoiding doing this) so it can factor into how they bring him back.

I know a lot of us assume that freeing Remy from Apocalypse's influence is going to come down to Rogue finally telling him that she loves him. And, yeah, that should be a big part of it, but it shouldn't be the only part. That's fine as far as Rogue is concerned, but Remy needs an arc too, and I just want it to be worth the wait after they put us through all this.

-----

-Deathbit vs Magneto: This needs to happen. Aside from the fact that Romy fans will have been clamoring for it for a long time, frankly, both characters are going to want it too. Mags will no doubt view Deathbit as the reason why he can't get Rogue back, and Deathbit... well, we all know what his reasons are; he'll likely want to take Magneto apart just for the pure satisfaction of it.

Now since Magneto's so OP, Gambit wouldn't stand much of a chance in a straight fight under normal conditions, but we know Apocalypse evolves/enhances mutants' powers when they become Horsemen, so imagine if he unlocked Gambit's Omega potential, so Remy has his New Son powers now, or at least a heightened version of what he had before. So Magneto goes in brimming with confidence that he's going to wipe the floor with his rival for Rogue's affections, but then in a shocking twist, Deathbit breaks out his newly enhanced power set and turns the tables on him.

Do I really want to see Mags get taken down a peg and humbled by Gambit? Sure. But narratively, this makes a ton of sense to do. Since Demayo loves Magneto so much, I highly doubt it will happen, (certainly not with this outcome at least) but I think it would be super satisfying for fans.

[kerubimcrepin]

Wakfu OVA - Book 2, Ush [PART 7]

Bugs when you lift up a rock.

I find it very cute that Yugo acknowledges that both of them are very speedy. Yes, my brain is at that stage of Joris & Yugo friendship brainrot. To me "we both run fast" is good content.

This is very much expository dialogue, but I guess it works, since Yugo wouldn't know this.

Which means that Kerubim does the funniest thing ever here: addresses this warning to everyone just so that Yugo doesn't feel excluded, instead of saying "Be wary Yugo. This guy is a snake."

I'm CRAZY. Atcham, who used to be a loser in life, saying this, means so much. He sees value in failure...

This OVA is literally a gift that keeps on giving.

SFDGSDFGSDGFSDKFGJSDLKFGJSKDLFGJSDKFJGLKSJFDGKVSDJGVKLSDJFKLGJSDFKLGJSDLKFGJSDKLFGDSFG

A likely thing for Ush to do.

It's both in-character for him to extort Remington using his brother's condition of being turned into a cat (by him) AND infect two people with parasites so they become his puppets. He's been doing this for many centuries.

BIG NEWS: He has some respect for Atcham. (but eh, not Kerubim, which is understandable.)

I need to inject every frame of this animation intravenously.

His fat baby cheeks. Insane.

He is sooo related to Kerubim and Atcham. Keeps doing their insane little pirouettes and stuff...

It's never mentioned here, but Joris and Remington know each other

“If we can’t find this clown, we could compensate ourselves for the trip.” “Hello, sir.”

In the comic, Joris puts them through Customer Service Hell and strings them along, before being subsequently robbed by them.

Considering the absolute depths of cringe that he's seen them at, I think his words "infamous rogue" may or may not be ironic/a jab.

Why is this clown of a man legally allowed to be so cool? Makes the sheer depth of suckage Joris is about to display a hundred times funnier though.

HE'S LITERALLY SO RIGHT THOUGH. JORIS IS A "~~GRAND HERO~~" WHO IS BLINDED BY HIS OWN ARROGANCE. He thinks he's so moral, and good, and heroic, and powerful... And he is about to lose this battle, badly.

...God, thank you for making my "Joris thinks he is right to the degree that he would commit evil and justify it to himself, while being simultaneously obsessed with being morally righteous" ideas by making Mentally Ill War Criminal Dictator Joris into a reality in Waven.

Fans who Just Don't Get It could NEVER make me hate your morally gray dictator villain arc, Joris...!

I need him to get exploded so bad.

[velvet-vox]

My Top 10 Favourite Male Villains of all time.

"How arrogant of you to think that any of us are anything but irrelevant". -John Greer, Person of Interest (2011-2016).

There comes a moment in a blog's life where some things are just long overdue, and while the argument could be made that this happened way too early, I'd say that as long as this helps me to find my groove, I am free to experiment as much as I want.

So..... Villains.

Gotta love them. As long as I do not meet them in real life. This post is in particular about male villains since I have one dedicated to their female counterparts in the pipeline so expect that to come soon enough and for this part to be rewritten. By the way, "villain" is a generalisation, I can totally put antivillains, antagonists or more general antiheroes in this list; your definition of "Bad Guy" can vary greatly and so can mine, someone like Walter White from Breaking Bad could have made it in here. My taste is very unusual, so prepare yourself for some unexpected picks.

Also, since these are meant to be some big celebratory posts, for the occasion I'll reveal my Italian heritage and translate every line of dialogue in Italian and publish it separately with a link, so that English readers who are learning Italian can exercise.

But first, some honourable mentions:

Oropo (Wakfu): Once you see the number 2 spot for both this list and the female villains list you might notice that I tend to gravitate towards characters with wasted potential more often than not, but while we're just talking about this guy, I cannot stress enough the amount of unceremonious mishandling that lies within his concepts and execution. Really needed two seasons of 25 episodes each to explore it to their maximum.

Tai Lung (Kung Fu Panda): I love him, but not as much as others, it's a matter of personal preference. He's an amazing antagonist, so even if he is just an honourable mention, I wouldn't call him a lesser villain by any stretch of the imagination; I once felt like he was too sympathetic for his movie's sake, but looking back at it again, he's actually moderately evil for a lot of reasons, even if Shifu is the main one.

Bill Chyper (Gravity Falls): It's been way too long since I watched Gravity Falls, I really can't give you an accurate opinion on this guy anymore.

Flintheart Glomgold (DuckTales 2017): That season 2 episode. If you know what I'm talking about, you KNOW. Also the music for that whole sequence was a banger, really driving home the deranged nature of that twist reveal.

Big Jack Horner (Puss in Boots The Last Wish): I feel like when people praise Jack for being a breath of fresh air in a stale environment, they often forget just how good of a villain he was in his own right without the larger industry wide void of truly devious antagonists that act out of pure malice.

The Wolf (Puss in Boots The Last Wish): Two villain entries from one movie? Of course it was gonna be The Last Wish, what else could it be? Honestly I don't even wanna talk about this guy, you need to experience the movie for yourself.

Rob (The Amazing World of Gumball): Everything I have to say about this guy gets talked about much better by the number 6 Spot on this list, but as it stands Rob was my first villain OTP and the guy who opened the box of Pandora for me on what an antagonist could and should be, since then my perception of villainy only widened and now I enjoy their role in a story in much different way.

And now, with that out of the way, let's finally start with the ranking of my personal favourite male villains of all time.

Major spoilers down below:

Number 10: Silco (Arcane)

This guy is the reason that brought me to specify who or what counted for this list as trying to simplify Silco into one specific group of characters is a challenge that can only end in a misunderstanding of what makes Silco such a complex and fascinating character with an amazing character arc, that ends with him not being redeemed, mind you, but allows the audience to grieve in such a way that would make a side character death jealous.

When writing an antagonistic character, Silco is my goal and high standard, and just for that he deserves all of my respect and endless praise.

Now, admittedly, Silco's arc takes a while to kick in, but it works out to his advantage by the end of it since you don't realise just how much you've grown to care for him until he's dead and you're left with the surprise.

10 out 10, the nation of Zaun would have been much better (worse) with him than with Vander.

Number 9: The Riddler (DC)

The Riddler is literally my ride or die villain, when I'm in the mood for him, he's literally my favourite antagonist ever; when I am not in the mood for him, I completely forget about his existence.

When compared to many other entries on this list, Riddler is definitely more on the pop culture side of antagonism, and when you've been around for almost a century, you tend to have many different versions of the same character written by different writers, so I wanted to highlight here my favourite versions of him:

Arkham Games: He's hilarious. He's not my ideal Riddler, but whenever he comes on screen, his whiny rat's ass voice stimulates my pheromones.

Batman The Animated Series: I've heard somewhere that this version of him is disappointing, and to that I'll say... yeah, but only when he wasn't on screen, because otherwise, he kind of slayed.

Matt Reeves The Batman: This is the version that rekindled my love for him after so long. Out of every interpretation of The Riddler throughout the years, this is the one version that treated Edward more as a character rather than an obstacle for Batman to overcome, and for that I'll be eternally grateful.

LEGO Batman The Videogame: My very first introduction to The Riddler and the Batman universe as a whole, this version has a permanent place in my heart , I love how much information and emotion you can get out of him by just looking at his mannerisms and quirks alone; unironically, being silent helps him reach that quote on quote idealised version of Riddler that I was talking about earlier.

Number 8: The Snatcher (A Hat In Time)

There are many things that can carry on a villain in a story, their evolution, stage presence, complexity, thematic contrast to their counterpart, and so on and so forth. While an antagonist can check off many of these boxes simultaneously (like the one pictured), there's one box that is almost impossible to truly nail perfectly: comedy.

You see, comedy is subjective, and when your main antagonist is also the funniest part of a given story, it becomes hard to also match a sense of gravity and menace that allows them to also be an imposing threat, even harder is to give said antagonist depth and a tragic backstory.

But somehow, out of nowhere, The Snatcher from A Hat In Time manages to simultaneously be the funniest character in his section of the game, carrie said energy throughout the whole experience even down to the DLC, simultaneously strikes the balance between being scary, wholesome, sympathetic and tragic, exude an insane amount of charisma, all while having a deeply disturbing backstory that touches on some heavy themes and re contextualises his actions into something more complicated and out of a broken man, everything I just said + he's the biggest bastard in his videogame and never repents nor does he have his actions called out.

Snatcher really has all the right cards that make a stationary character work and uses them to his maximum potential, and it works because his character arc throughout the game is more about becoming affectionate to Hat Kid than it is about redeeming himself.

Lastly, his voice actor, Luke Sizemore, aka Yungtown, really sells the performance of this devious soul eating worm and burns his catchphrases into your brain for the rest of eternity, much like his boss theme,

Your Contract Has Expired

A song that switches around being scary, epic, energetic and desperate in a short, yet perfectly paced amount of time. You need to listen to it regardless of if you've played the game or not.

Fool.

Number 7: Judge Claude Frollo (Hunchback of Notre Dame)

You can never say no to a classic.

There's nothing that I could say that hasn't already been said by thousands of videos on YouTube, but I'll try anyway: you see, Frollo is the reason why we need a new term to identify certain villains that aren't "sympathetic" but still make you feel some sort of human emotion and a form of "I wish someone could give you the care you need to fix your life", I guess the term empathetic exists, but when do you really see it used?

Now, don't get me wrong, Frollo is absolutely not sympathetic in the slightest, he wants to r##e a Romani woman that's way younger than him, but you can still feel that he's very troubled about it in the Hellfire scene and has definitely a lot of unidentified issues and internalised bigotry that could be worked through, even if it's too late to work through them right now.

In general, I feel like people forget that the main reason why past Disney villains worked had to do more with their human traits juxtaposed to their malice rather than just their plain wickedness, otherwise the Horned King from the Black Cauldron would be top of the Disney villains league and that couldn't be further from the truth.

We should really strive towards writing more villains like Frollo, less omnipotent beings that end up falling flat because they don't have much thematic relevance aside from being a threat (Bill Chyper works because he represents Ego and he's used sparingly) and more average vicious individuals who use their power and influence to get what they want.

All in all, if you've seen The Hunchback of Notre Dame, then you know why this guy is here, but just to cite a couple of repeated points, the Hellfire scene is perfect. It's immaculate. It's unreproducible; there will never be another scene like this coming out of the House of Mouse or animation ever again, the excessive amount of stars and elements that came together to create this gothic classic is so vast that it's literally a miracle.

Frollo is truly the personification of the dark, twisted side of humanity peaking through the door and into your mind, from which he shall never escape as his performance still remains perfect to this very day.

Number 6: The Spot (Spider-man across the Spiderverse)

"You've hit me with a bagel!" It's still the greatest villain origin story of all time. There's truly something maniacal about this reveal, like the entire universe was shattered and reality was shocked at the mere realization that while Miles was having his coming of age moment back in the first film, this guy was having his normal life completely and utterly shattered by a combination of both our heroes stepping up to do the right thing and our doofus lack of foresight and self reflection; all of this stuff is hilarious and completely made up for the film but good god they did such an amazing job tying all the elements together in an unexpected way that makes sense and parallels the journey that our protagonist faced in the first movie.

Like with Rob from The Amazing World of Gumball, and a little bit like number 2 on this list, I just really enjoy the concept of turning background characters who had no relevance whatsoever into the big bad of the story who's been there all along and the heroes (and the audience) just couldn't notice.

With The Spot in particular, there's that sense of satisfaction of turning the wasted potential of a villain who has been underestimated for literal decades and treated as a "villain of the week" (God do I love the meta narrative of this movie) into an actual competent, well written antagonist that is aware of his reputation and strives towards bettering himself and his powers.

He's also the funniest character of his movie too and the voice acting of Jason Schwartzman only accentuates his mannerisms and pettyness.

He also has the coolest usage of portals I have ever seen and his whole "There's a hole inside all of us" metaphor is simultaneously hilarious and very deep personal information that can only be understood if you put yourself into his shoes.

I can't wait for Beyond the Spiderverse to come out and see how his arc resolves, more importantly, I wonder if he's going to rank higher in the future.

Number 5: Lord Shen (Kung Fu Panda)

"Happiness must be taken. And I'll take mine"

.....

What a character.

What a movie.

You cause so much pain and suffering, because you don't understand the people around you, and then those people banish you, and you can't understand why, so you start to believe that they hated you.

They never loved you, so you keep causing pain and suffering but it's not that easy anymore; the guilt starts to resurface, all those bodies keep piling up, but you can't stop because then it would have all been for nothing; so you keep chasing those dreams of grandeur because that's all you have left; the emptiness in your heart can no longer be filled by love, so you try to fill it with something else.

You try to fill it with power. You try to fill it with glory. You try to take everything else for yourself so that you can fill that cup, but it doesn't work, because that cup has no bottom.

And so you're left... with yourself.

And the damage you've done. But now it's different; you've failed. You are left with nothing. Nothing.

And so you outrage, for the last time... And then it all ends. Forever. And you've finally come to accept this, after all....... Who could ever love you?

Number 4: Spamton G Spamton (Deltarune)

You know, in retrospect, it's kind of insane what Toby Fox managed to achieve when creating Spamton.

Not only because Spamton feels like the most insane combination of ideas ever conceived, but also because Toby Fox created such a complex character with such a complicated language and personality and then not only shafted it all aside for the players to go out of their way to interact, but also made all of this in what are officially 2 or 3 cutscenes at most (4 if you consider his shop encounter as one) and only one of them being truly mandatory.

You spend so little time with Spamton, and most of that time is spent fighting him, and yet by the end of it you've become enlightened by the knowledge of him, that after a while... you forget how scary it all was.

All the memes comparing Spamton with Turbo are 100% correct and justified, Spamton truly is Turbo but better; you go through an insane rollercoaster of emotions with this character that you are left absolutely dumbfounded when it all comes to a stop and you go back to play the rest of chapter 2 normally.

His insane mannerisms and mood swings are pretty funny at first, but once you peel back the layers a bit they reveal a pretty realistic and sad portrayal of mental illness, mania and hysteria coupled with an unhealthy amount of social distancing, loneliness, and abandonment issues, that reinforce into your brain the idea of someone lacking proper healthcare and needing to be locked away from society for their (society) own good, simulating the vicious cycle that Spamton lives by: nobody wants to help him but he's still expected to act like a regular individual despite the amount of hardships he's facing and the lack of a support system keeping him from falling back into his bad habits.

I'll admit, I've considered putting Spamton in place of the Number 3 spot on this list; but then I've realised that on an objective level, the next entry totally deserves to be ranked above Spamton; plus, with at least 5 more chapters of Deltarune on our way, whose to say that one of the next gremlins won't be able to dethrone even the number 1 spot?

Drumroll for our top 3:

Nox, the Watchmaker (Wakfu)

There will never be another experience in my life as cathartic as watching the first season of Wakfu for the first time ever again.

On a later rewatch, the initial problems that you've noticed throughout the first half of the season and a little bit in the second half become too apparent to ignore, but the first time everything that goes from the ball tournament to the finale is one of the best paced arcs of television, and everything that happens when the team reaches the Sadida kingdom is just peak Wakfu.

And the king, the culprit, the crown jewel of properly paced stories and arcs is no other than the sad clockwork dilf himself: Noximilliem Coxen the Watchmaker.

Arguably, the greatest sympathetic villain of all time. There has never been another case of a character who has committed such vile, unspeakable crimes, and yet still managed to make me root for them while simultaneously not putting down the heroes.

And let's not be mistaken here, Nox is pretty evil:

Aside from the generic murder, Nox also defiled and stitched together the corpses of multiple victims and turned them into his obedient puppets in order to commit even more murder and genocide in order to achieve his goals.

Also, this is one of the funniest crimes Nox has committed: he abused his dog. It's really not that hilarious nor is it that important in the context of the show, but if you look back at it from an outside perspective then it's really like: Oh yeah. That happened too. Lol.

One of the best parts of his entire arc is his defeat. The "20 minutes" scene deserves a "One Villainous Scene" coverage video to forever immortalise it amongst the greatest. Everything from the music, the subversiveness, the cinematography, the voice acting and just the general art direction of it is worthy of an Eminem award at the Oscars, there's genuinely nothing wrong with this scene, it's truly immaculate.

Words alone cannot do justice to the treacherous, gut wrenching emotional rollercoaster that is experiencing his story for the first time. An hour long video essay would only serve to cover the basics and fundamentals, while for the real deal you need to watch the first season of Wakfu for yourself.

Number 2:

Bradford Buzzard (DuckTales 2017)

And now it's the perfect time to pull out my final wild card, the hole of the sink of my autism, the masterpiece of wasted potential that is Bradford Buzzard from the DuckTales remake of 2017.

When you'll also see the number 2 spot on my villainesses list, you'll come to realise that this spot is more of the "I really wish I could put this at number one but I can't because objectively he doesn't deserve it and the majority of things I love about him in canon were probably an afterthought and in fanon were never plausible to begin with."

And that's how I feel about Bradford Buzzard, an antagonist I spent more time thinking about than probably anybody else on the Earth.

The show runners were so genius for this: we are going to create an original character that will probably struggle to maintain a foot print on the franchise due to the way the Duck verse works, we'll give him an insanely cool backstory and motivation, all coupled with interesting character traits and ideology, we'll make him the ultimate foil to Scrooge McDuck that has been working with him for literal decades, we'll make him the one who has got the closest to isolating Scrooge and destroying his family, and THEN we'll turn him into a generic anime villain that shoots lasers and fumbles his own plan and loses because of insane plot armour and contrivance. Good job writers.

Anyway, I should probably make the case for why this guy ranks so highly in my mind to the point of almost taking the podium for my most liked villain of all time, especially when compared to the stiff competition that we just went through.

Now, part of it is just because this is a personal top 10 and so I can put whoever I want in whatever order I want. But also, with Bradford in particular, there's a personal aspect of relatability, various interests, and passions all coming together to make him stand out in my brain.

The thing is, I've had a pretty strong connection to Disney's Duck's comic books my entire life, even if my love for them came dwindling over time, so when I finally started watching the Reboot and it was amazing, all of that buried passion and love finally re emerged back to the surface, turning me into an annoying super fan. But while season 1 and 2 were great, season 3 actually gave me something to latch on for the rest of time even after the show had ended: the character of Bradford Buzzard.

You see, DuckTales, both in the shows and comics, always had a plethora of villains; from the crazy, megalomaniacal millionaires, to witches, demons, and other mythological creatures, to power hungry aliens, to straight up super-villains. But while all of that is true, there has never been another villain, aside from Magica, Glomgold and Rockerduck at traits, that was built specifically as the anti Scrooge McDuck, and even further, there has never been another antagonist who challenged the very core ideas and concepts of the entire franchise.

Bradford is like the Frank Grimes of DuckTales: just a regular, average, real world guy who's fed up with the nonsensical constant state at which their fictional universe operates and seeks to correct it in the most logical way possible. And while Frank was ultimately a victim of a world in which he couldn't conform, Bradford's outrageous and extreme plans and methods put him on everybody's hit list until he was left all alone, but not before indirectly causing every major disaster throughout the reboot's runtime.

A cold, calculating, machiavellian mastermind whose impact and presence secretly permeates the show, right till the very end.

Shame he wasn't written better.

And now, for the one and only,

Number 1:

Qilby (Wakfu)

Qilby is the biggest example of an anomaly that you could ever observe in a work of fiction. The first time experiencing a story is the most important and impactful moment of that story, as every future rewatch won't be as good as the first. In particular, this is an important aspect of twist villains, as they can only surprise you the first time, since at future rewatches the twist becomes predictable.

Furthermore, if the twist ends up ruining the character that was established up to this point, or it doesn't make any sense, then the story is kind of ruined and it only gets worse on future rewatches, since now you know that everything that you are seeing right now is ultimately worthless and doesn't provide any value.

So why do we love twist villains and keep churning them out? Well, you see, it's a matter of execution. A bad guy introduced in an unconventional manner is much more memorable than one introduced in a straightforward way; the twist can also serve to showcase different aspects of the character before becoming an obvious obstacle, be it quirks, interests, personality in casual settings, or cunning.

Let's not beat around the bush.

If Nox is the single greatest sympathetic villain of all time, then Qilby is by far the greatest twist villain of all time, and the crazy thing is, that he surprises you two times in a row, at first by revealing himself as more evil than you could ever imagine, and then, by outing himself as more complex than you could have ever anticipated.

Let me paint you the picture: you just finished the first season of Wakfu, and you are still pretty fresh of the hype surrounding Nox, so you think to yourself "Oh, now every future antagonist is ruined because nothing could ever top the emotional gut punch that I just went through. Whatever, I'm going to stick around just to see if the story gets worse" and you start the second season.

So far, everything is normal, even better of the first season in terms of engagement value, but you can't help but feel the lack of a Nox like figure inside of the story, but at this point, you just accept it.

Then the final six episodes roll around and OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING, HAS THE WHOLE SHOW JUST GONE INSANE?

Somehow, in some mystical, french, magical way, the season 2 finale is arguably even better than the ending of season 1 despite the fight having less buildup and introducing a lot of brand new characters and an entirely irrelevant faction into his conflict.

The entirety of the scene in Emrumb is some of the best writing I have ever experienced in any work of fiction, and the music accompanying it only accentuates the repressed dopamine being released after various episodes of filler, all of them important for this moment to be as impactful as it is.

Qilby is also just a great, tragic character, that is simultaneously an unforgivable bastard that tried to kill his family and doomed his entire race for a family trip, and a sad, nihilistic man still trying to reconcile his love for his family and his need for knowledge and discovery; his curse never truly allows him to move on or relate to others but his ego and need for his forgetful brothers attention just pushes him even further into resentment, ending up damaging himself and those around him, until he's finally isolated again by the vary people he harmed and showed his love towards.

He's as good as the evil secret sibling trope can get and I never get tired of watching him on screen. His reveal scene to Adamai still gives me the chills to this very day and demonstrated me just how good the surprise villain concept can get when it's executed correctly.

Just an all around great show.

[deliveryboysomewhatequaltoheaven]

The Macaque Problem

I would definitely say Macaque's character is an issue for the show. His redemption arc is not good, and it brings down the other characters and takes up their time and arcs.

When we first see him in S1 and 2, he is an old frenemy of Wukong's bitter over an unspecified falling out. He is angry and lashing out at MK and his friends, projecting this feud onto them. He claims MK didn't notice his friends were gone, but we see him trying to call Mei, and that the others were resentful, but we see tang looking upset being forced to attack MK. Seems like a clear enough villain concept with some room forward right? But S3 and 4 derail that.

Chronologically, we can talk about the Brotherhood, (which he was not a part of in JTTW, and he complained abt being left behind in S2 but here he was?? Eh) He claims that Wukong pushed ahead without thinking or listening and that's what got him trapped in the mountain. But what do we see before Wukong surrenders to the Jade Emperor?

The rest of the Brotherhood trapped by the Celestial Army. We don't see Wukong fight the Jade Emperor. He was an immortal shapeshifter, I have no doubt Wukong could have escaped. But he turned himself in to save his friends. Was he in a bad mood in the mountain? I mean, yeah, but Macaque doesn't seem to consider that he's free because Wukong is not.

We still don't know about the final falling out and Macaque's seeming death, though S5 implies that Macaque pushed the situation. Still, it's not good, because if they can't properly resolve it, than it's just going to remain between them and Macaque's grudge against Wukong can't be properly moved past, which hampers his arc.

But then S3 happens, and honestly I think Macaque's motives are dumb. Why is he trying to get in the way of them stopping LBD if he also wants to be free of her? It's a positive for you! But they also start trying to portray him as someone who 'calls Wukong out' because S3 and 4 really try to make Wukong out to be a jerk. He made mistakes but it was a desperate situation against the Lady Bone Demon. I love Mei and Pigsy but they also call him out when they said nothing about the Fourth Ring/visions.

'You will make things worse for MK when I personally attack and threaten him and his loved ones for my own gain' OK Macaque!

But the S3 special is the real kicker. Macaque apparently changes his mind and we don't know why. They show some mistrust at first until MK says he knows Macaque is not a bad guy deep down... but doing one or two helpful things after three seasons of stalking, threatening, and attacking the gang doesn't exactly convince me.

And then this bit from the S3 special finale:

Uh, how??? Wukong is right, Macaque was until very recently willing throw everyone under the bus so he could get away from LBD. It's pretty rich that he would call Wukong self centered. Whatever Wukong did was trying to stop her and protect MK from having to deal with it.

In the S4 special, they also have Macaque talk about Azure Lion, and again I'm not sure why we are listening to him on characters' morality

Says the guy who wrote a play about how 'Sun Wukong is a big old meany who hurt my precious little fee-fees' if I never see or hear the hero and warrior monologue again it will be too soon but I will say he at least seems to consider he might have been wrong, though they don't really dwell on it...

Even in S5, we get this bit.

Once again, Wukong is right!! After 3 seasons of attacking and harassing MK I don't think he really gets to give advice. Plus WUKONG WAS TRYING TO TALK TO MK ABOUT IT RIGHT BEFORE THIS! But MK was not doing well emotionally and Wukong was trying to be mindful and not push!

And honestly I think they all let Macaque off easy for the S3 events, he literally choked out Mei and threatened to kill her! (Sidenote: he can call MK and Tang by their names, but Mei was just 'the girl' throughout S3... urgh)

But when Wukong gets mad at him, Macaque says "I didn't do this!" Well you forced the gang to do something that you didn't know what the consequences of would be! But Tang intervenes saying he did it, even though he awkwardly admits Macaque forced him but that he felt he should because of the golden cicada. Macaque later decides to leave the situation he forced. He later does help some, but doesn't really get held accountable for his part in everything.

But I guess it's fine bc at the end of the special MK gives him this drawing. This is actually kind of really upsetting and again makes little sense considering how much he and Mei care about other otherwise. But nah Macaque is cool now it's fine...

And Ao Guang! This is a tougher one, but in S5 they had Macaque let himself get sent to the Pagoda to buy others time... well I just say that's karma!

And Macaque comes back, of course, but we never hear more about Ao Guang. Even when they send the power of the Stones out, we do in fact see the East Sea Palace and the attendant, but not him, so his fate is unclear.

So yeah, overall, I think he was forgiven too fast, the root issue of his fight with Wukong unaddressed, and he takes up time from the others characters.

[starsoftheeye]

TMagP Live Reaction Ep 30

Finale Spoilers!!!!

Ahhhhh I am so scared. samalicelia my loves please live. also the episode title is worrying me

Pre-Statement

train time train time

sam open your damn messages alice is the designated "would survive a horror podcast" friend

celias just like me fr I'm the designated painkiller friend

... that is a worrying cough

celia being wonderfully vague and suspicious as always I love you girl

ohhh just wait til the last season sam that's when the apocalypse gets you

"we're safe here" jon watching them from the next carriage like 👀

call him a bitch alice it's okay he's earned it

ah yes, ticket prices, the real horror

COLIN HI BUDDY

oh no colin what did you do

are there people in the computer colin

welp he's probably dead

oooooh gwen meets the consequences of her actions this is gonna go brilliantly

lena also being suspicious and vague I love you too girlie

honestly iconic of her. you go lena ily

ah yes, the laugh of someone who should be in charge of a government office

celia don't act like you don't know what you're looking for

the way she said that makes it sound like they did think it was there

oh I'm sure it has its ways to get round transportation

"call it a hunch" girl you are not subtle

honestly ever since getting braces that's what I think dentists are like these days, there's no way they don't have ulterior motives

woohoo footsteps

celia "knows what genre she's in" ripley

WHOS THIS I PAUSED TO WRITE THAT LAST ONE

"that's one hell of a reflex!" scottish voice acting I love you so much. also who's this guy I love him already

oooooh scottish guy what do you know

I love him so much he's so real

LMAO I would also give up client confidentiality for 50 quid

*one normal night* begins playing

oooooh scottish guy who are youuuuu

is this a statement I hear?

Statement

STATEMENT TIME

oh god it's being pulled from him

hmmmm I wonder who this boss is

mmm lovely

oooh is it like a siren shop

HILL TOP TRAVELLERS

oooh people mannequins love that

oh god he has a daughter

woooo the boss is dead good

job so bad that it haunts your worst nightmares

hello?

HELLO? SCOTTISH GUY??? SCOTTISH GUY NOOOOOO

I'm so sorry I have no idea what you're saying my guy I'll need to consult the transcripts for this one

Post-Statement

okay sam at that point you need to call her back you can't hide from consequences forever

girlboss and malewife

ooooh what do you seeeeee

almost???

yeah what does that mean????

ah yes, they finally have the argument

tell himmmmm tell him celia

YESSS CELIA BACKSTORY

oh yeah she doesn't know that the eyepocalypse is over does she. she probably thinks she's gonna go ba k to another fear domain. I don't blame her tbh

is she gonna send him to the tma universe. IS SHE GONNA SEND HIM TO THE TMA UNIVERSE

welp. samcelia was cute while it lasted folks

AHHHHH CELIA STATEMENT

... I am taking that "get away from her" as a final samcelia crumb

...uh oh that's not good

ooh alice is gonna be pissed

oh hey scottish rock guy how's it going

ah hi gwen. it's good to see all the girlboss villain arcs starting

everyone wishing gwen luck really bodes well for her /s

THATS HOW IT ENDS???? OH MY GOD SAM NO

boy everyone's dealing with consequences now

I am not ready for the break between seasons I need more already

hey at least no ones confirmed dead. also I support celia 100% I still love her and I will continue to be a samalicelia truther despite recent events

[accirax]

initial thoughts on DCAS episode 11

oh my god

i had already guessed that Alec was lying (much like Jake did), but this was a really nice explanatory touch! Alec and Riya's friendship is, as usual, one of the season highlights for me.

would've been a lot more interesting if the campers could have chosen their own partners in one way or another, imo, but that would definitely eat up a lot of time in an already packed episode. plus, some pairings (like Connor and Riya) probably couldn't have happened this way, given how Riya wound up reacting to Connor.

"alright Fiore, here's how we prevent you from going home this week," one could say.

i was SO worried that Alec was going to have another confessional at some point being like "lol i was testing my acting skills on Fiore too" but he DIDN'T. which means this is CANON. THE ADOPTION IS BACK ON!!!!!!!!

okay, i actually love the decision to pair Hunter and Grett together here. both of them are the "very flawed but kinda mistreated partner of their appearances-obsessed date," so it makes sense that Hunter could give Grett a good perspective on this. also, is it just me, or did they rework Hunter's personality in this episode to be more like S2? i liked it.

i'm going to put every Fiore and Alec moment in this post and you can't stop me. i am initially thinking about them.

"joke's on you fucker i didn't teach her literally any of this. she's just built different."

as much as i enjoy Alec appreciating his daughter's sass, this does seem like a pretty radical heel turn from "i only voted Connor out of this game because it was what was best for him." i guess maybe spending time with Riya and the other villains has caused Alec to fall further off the deep end/forget about Connor's genuinely nice qualities...? or it's inconsistency between different writers, who knows.

i am 0% a jul(?) shipper, but, damn, the jul shippers were eating well this episode.

Yul is such an interesting little guy.

James flexing his character arc, we love to see it.

WHAT IS IT WITH THE CYAN WOMEN AND SECRETLY BEING JACKED????

society..... it's becoming more utopian........

see, this is why i didn't think Tess would be the one to return to the game.

Aiden is such a hater, i love him. but, overall, i agree with Lake. we're definitely sowing the seeds for a Jake redemption(/winner?) arc and a heroes' reunion.

Riya, finally finishing what she started in S2 of making the gays fall off cliffs.

villains are so fun. i love villains.

THE SOFT DAD SMILE IS BACK :D

ooh, nice callback.

this is an objectively funny screenshot. why does Alec yell like that

what a surprising outcome! (/s /lh)

:,) <3

i wish Aiden and James had more of an opportunity to talk during this episode :/ it's fine, though-- i think that James and Lake's characters were used more effectively this way.

they're getting back together after this trust me guys i'm disventure camp

YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY

they truly are family now. i love it.

"not that bad" is a weird way to describe your would-be crush.

this will be a fun scene! idk which episode "Saturday" will be, though. both because idk how many days will pass in any given episode and also bc i don't recall which day today is in canon.

i do wonder what evil Gabby is doing here. i guess maybe it'll just be the side of Gabby that wants to run with the villains alliance for power vs the side that wants to follow Ellie's advice? that seems kind of weird. maybe it'll be more like the side that wants to go mad with power on the revenge quest vs Gabby's more rational and strategic side? either way, strange cliffhanger.

can't we just have everyone here... always... all the time...? no? okay :( well, it was still really nice to get the whole gang back together for this episode. i'll look forward to seeing them again in the finale.

and, hey, Connor's back in the game now! and he can't be eliminated next episode, at least. are there going to be three players with immunity...? that could get spicy. we'll see how the heroes and villains smack down when the next real elimination rolls around. back up to ten to nine again... see you next time!

[cologona]

If you won some sort of lottery contest and DC allowed you to write a comic run for any character, any topic, no limits, what would your comic be like?

What kinda plot and characters would you want to etch into official DC canon? (Or would you prefer to write an elseworlds kinda thing?)

-redhoodinternaldialectical from the "main" blog

Sorry it took a while to answer this, I got pretty carried away! Jason is my favorite character and the character I know most about, so of course I'd write about him. This is going to be pretty long winded and fanfic-y, hope you don’t mind!

First things first I’m making both UTRH and Lost Days mostly canon again. Jason was a crime lord who did Mean Crime Lord Things for a while and that’s what I’ve decided everyone is referring to when they gesture vaguely to his villainous past.

I’m also bringing back the original “big boob” backstory where Jason makes Bruce laugh on the anniversary of his parents’ death. Catherine was an opioid addict due to illness, Willis was the person who taught Jason about cars (and thus how to jack tires) and Faye Gunn is no longer Jason’s grandma. (I really disliked Ma Gunn’s “redemption” in RHATO.) Just in case, I’m also reiterating Sheila’s role in Jason’s death.

Here’s a few lines I came up with for the Todds:

Jason keeps the letters Willis sent him from prison - the ones Ma Gunn hid- in the same picture frame that holds his Robin graduation photo with Bruce. He loved and resented Willis in equal parts, but mostly he regrets not having gotten more time. It’s all the same with fathers.

Catherine is curled up in bed, her expression is half a grimace. She asks Jason, who is reading a picture-book by her side, to get her ‘medicine’ for her. Jason doesn’t know how else to help her feel better so… that’s exactly what he does. In a moment, he returns with a small heart shaped box and a cup of microwaved soup.

If I can imply in some way that Catherine is in denial about the possibility of her dying I’d like to do that too.

I’m also doing a total overhaul of the All-Caste.

Essence is getting proper Tibetan braids, Ducra is going to wear a khampa chuba instead of her current old coat, and the Acres-of-All are getting reimagined as a towering Ziggurat with all the murals, pillars, curtains, and ornate trim befitting a monastery! The All-caste of memory will be bright and fantastical, but the ruins of the present will be dark and spooky.

Some references for what I'm talking about.

I’m also reframing the “Absolute Evil” part of the All-blades’ description to be an epithet for the Untitled. The sword is not literally judging Goodness and Evilness anymore; now they cut through negative psychic energy Jujutsu Kaisen style. I don’t think I need to spell out a justification for Jason being able to summon them whenever, but for any sticklers I’ll just say it’s because Jason- like the Untitled- has a lot of bad feelings and trace amounts of Dionesium in his system (among assorted other chemicals.)

Since Lost Days is being brought back that means instead of spending an entire 3 years with the All-Caste, Jason only spent a few weeks with them during his world-wide training arc. Ostensibly because a little magic would give him an edge over Batman. Ducra wouldn’t normally just give away powerful magic weapons to any chump with a free weekend, and she knew Jason was dangerous, but since the All-Blades are so specific and the ritual to attain them nigh-unsurvivable she saw an opportunity to use Jason. Sure she's one of the Good Guys, but she's not called a conniving old witch for nothing hoohoo!

Now a few plot ideas for a vague overall mini-arc.

First, Jason goes to ugly lengths to protect or prevent consequences from finding one of his family. Maybe someone threatens their secret identity…? The ‘opponent’ should be someone innocent and/or noble but not easily bought or fought. Maybe Vicki Vale, another Hero, or some kind of wealthy heir. The point is to cast doubt on if Jason’s return to the Bats is really so unquestionably redeeming. Jason has pretty much chosen to betray his morals for them after all.

Then, Jason chooses not to kill a villain who shortly afterwards victimizes more people and skips town before he can get caught. Basically a rehash of Diplomat’s Son except the Garzonas figure gets away. It’s technically a win for Batman- his presence kept Gotham safe after all. But it doesn’t feel like a win, especially not to Jason.

And finally, Jason frames himself for various murders committed by victims against their abusers. Maybe kick the story off with one of Ma Gunn’s boys killing her and telling the cops it was Red Hood in a desperate bid to avoid jail.

Obviously Jason can’t be allowed to do this long-term. It’s a bad precedent to set, an obstruction of justice, etc… Jason hasn’t broken The Big Rule though, and Bruce can only act so sanctimonious when those same complaints could be are made about him as well. There’s no way this ends any other way than Batman running Red Hood out of Gotham again and they both know it, but neither deviates from the path set before them.

One or two “monster of the week” issues where Jason fights various assassins and bounty hunters sent by his more influential enemies might be good- one should occur right after the above story. A consequence for his “return to form” so to speak. Batfamily fans may appreciate a scene where Bruce says something indicating that he ran Jason out for his own safety as well as Gotham’s. Batman may be able to hide in Bruce Wayne’s skin during the day but Jason’s only identity is that of Red Hood, and at times that makes him vulnerable in a way other heroes aren’t. This + some panels contrasting the generic mercenary look of Jason’s guns and equipment with the Bats’ spandex future-tech will be great for showing how separate Jason is from the Bats.

Now while Jason’s out of Gotham again there’s this detail in one of RHATO’s flashbacks that I want to expand on- that being how he used to be able to summon a lot more All-blades.

Red Hood Outlaw 34

“I had a lot of soul back then” - implying that he has a lot less soul now…!?

Jason’s been through a lot, in life sure but also more recently. Fight scenes where the All-blades take the form of daggers would not only be cool and evocative of the wavy dagger Talia gifted him way back when, they’d be good visual sign of his declining emotional state.

Later on as his soul ‘shrinks’ further, I’d give him a pair of mystical guns through which he can channel his All-blades into bullets. If it’s another gift from Talia I’m thinking dark brass revolvers with paisley filigree and a red Endless Knot charm hanging from each handle. If they’re from Essence or S’aru I’m thinking black lacquer and silver cloud-patterned ornamentation, with red coral embedded on either side of the gun. Beautiful Bayonetta-style guns with glowing red veins and a cowboy flair!

antique guns which inspired me

As for what he’s using the All-blades (All-bullets?) for, I think it’d be fun to have Jason exorcising some ghosts. He can solve various murder mysteries, figure out why this place or that person is haunted, and get into fights with horrific otherworldly creatures. Jason is an interesting character to do this premise with because he might just determine that some some spirits should get their revenge, and act on behalf of a ghost rather than erasing it.

I’m not sure whether I’d want to have Essence join him or not… On one hand it only makes sense that Jason would help Isabel and Essence find a way to free themselves from the Blood Blade, and that goal would provide his character with some direction. Then again, Essence/Isabel could be cool as antagonists. Jason might see some ghosts as valid but Essence probably wouldn’t see any merit in appeasing manifestations of lingering resentment. She’s similar to him in that she also turned her back on her family, but she’s different in that she did it because she believed so wholeheartedly in their cause. She’s old and sort of a Jedi, but she’s hot-blooded and she’ll never not be Ducra’s daughter in the same way it seems Jason can never escape Batman’s shadow. I bet she has some real juicy sunk-cost fallacy type thinking too, that’d be fun to dig into.

Anyways I think this is a pretty good set-up to explore the politics/morality of forgiveness. What makes the difference between an injustice and a hatchet that ought to be buried? When is forgiveness empowering and when is it coerced? Who is it that must forgive? Justice vs Revenge, that whole kind of thing.

Other than the supernatural stuff I want Jason working with Talia, and I’m reintroducing Sasha to the post-52 continuity. Duela is getting nixed.

I don’t really have any specific plot ideas for Talia, but I would like to establish Jason as one of her associates. With Lost Days back they have basis for an actual relationship again. They’re not always on the same side but Jason can sometimes do tasks for Talia (outside the purview of Ra’s and the LOA), and Talia can occasionally support Jason with various social power-play type moves.

An instance of Jason getting into a fight with one of the Bats because he’s doing a favor for Talia would be great! I wouldn't write Talia as an evil evil bad horrible dragon lady, so it shouldn’t be a huge blow to Jason’s status as a Good Guy. Also I like the idea of Jason and Talia’s relationship mostly being inferred through their actions supporting one another, rather than directly showing much ‘on-screen’ interaction between them.

Also it’ll be interesting to go into Bruce, Dick, and Damian’s reaction to finding out that they’re not the only ones Jason is loyal to. Bruce thinking Talia was a bad influence on Jason (like fanon), silently frustrated because what he really wants is for Jason to be a full Bat-Believer (like the good old days…). Dick being fine with Jason never falling fully in-line with Bruce, provided that at the end of the day his loyalty belonged to his family.

-brief topical detour to talk about Sasha-

The new timeline of events is that Jason and Sasha met as fellow patients while Jason was in his Vague Villain era. They escaped the hospital building together (Sasha in her bloody dress, and Jason naked save for his skimpy hospital gown dhoti) and having no one else they stuck together. They got close but at some point Sasha lost her memories, giving her a chance at a fresh start. This was around the same time Jason “redeemed” himself and so just like Max Dawkins, ‘Numbers’, and Gabby Christiensen -Sasha became another person from Jason’s past that he didn’t let himself have a relationship with.

Sasha was just old enough that she didn’t have to be sent into foster care, so with some help from Wayne Foundations she got her GED and her feet underneath her. Now… she goes to work, goes to her physical therapy appointments, fights with her mother over the phone, and yes- sometimes she goes to the club.

The new Sasha still has spiky red hair but her face looks entirely normal save for a subtle scar tracing around her jawline and chin- the edges of where her mask used to sit. She wears dark makeup and even darker clothes. She’s prone to false memories and dissociation. She’s lost most of her ability to feel pain. She can’t watch certain shows she used to love anymore because they trigger her. She never returned to Russia. She doesn’t have many friends.

Since this is comics, her reintroduction will come by way of a dramatic fight. Sasha will regain her memories one day and show up out of the blue to fight Jason, angry and heartbroken that he abandoned her. He tries to explain himself but she just says look what they did to my face, referring to the facial reconstructive surgery she was given while amnesiac. She’ll be difficult to fight, not only because being a partial Dollotron gives her enhanced strength but also because she’s being reckless and the longer they fight the more strain and damage her body accrues.

After Jason apologizes and they reconcile (they will both cry) Sasha can become a recurring side character that Jason visits, keeping him grounded and up to date with Gotham. I think it'd be cute for her to bid him farewell by saying she’ll hold the city hostage until he comes back. (Is Sasha going to become Jason’s love interest? No. If I give Jason a love interest it’s going to be Numbers.)

--Going back to the previous topic, I want Sasha’s return to be part of this greater arc of Jason addressing his "shrinking soul" problem. My brain is a little fried now so I’m not exactly sure how but she is related. I think she ought to be.

Jason wants Bruce to be right. He would like for his problem to be fixed by going home and saying sorry. But at the end of my run I want him to face the reality that it’s not about that.

...Perhaps it should be about Jason 'abandoning' Gotham? I don’t really want the final thesis of my run to imply that Jason’s soul would just be fixed if he killed Rogues though, and Jason always came back whenever a big disaster was happening so it doesn't quite fit anyways… Jason does believe in the value of “pure” heroes it’s just not what he’s supposed to be. Whatever his problem's “about” , it ought to prompt Jason to stop taking Bruce’s shit. I'm saying the man is literally breaking Jason's spirit.

I’m sympathetic to Bruce but I wouldn’t write him as a nice father. I would also have scene where a younger Bat accuses Jason of being overdramatic despite 'not even having it the worst’. I don't know who 'has it the worst' but I want to make a statement that you don't need to win the pain-race to be fed up.

Ah anyways, now my brain is really fried. I hope this post was coherent all the way through, I neglected to edit and organize my thoughts as much towards the end. Thank you for asking me such a great question, I had a lot of fun thinking about it! :D

[yugiohz]

i do agree with you, and i’m still delusionally hoping shigaraki still has something left to help that conclusion even though it’s not looking likely, but do you not think these endings are more “realistic”? like obviously it’s a superhero world and we are already stretching reality in every way possible but do you think it would’ve been too “and they all lived happily ever after and everything was okay yayy” if all the villains just turned out good? (in the most basic way to say that lmfao). i’m not saying that i fully think this because i do agree with you, that this ending is giving bad writing. i think hori had the guts to set up this beautifully complex world with flaws and wrongs and made some amazing villains and anti-heros with valid mindsets and then didn’t have the guts or maybe the artistic ability to fix it all.

so yeah my only “reprieving” thought i guess is the idea of like… i guess that’s real life? like the wronged people are wronged to the end, and bad people are forgiven, and life is unfair. but idk i just think hori is a coward too lol. i will say i’m at least surprised that he had natsu actually cut contact, maybe the best handled part of it all imo (or maybe it just hits home for me lol)

sorry for dumping all this i guess i just have a lot of thoughts too you don’t have to post this dhdhdhd

re: realism: yes i think everyone suffering from irreversible consequences is realistic and that's sth i expected. As i said in my previous ask, I never expected or wanted dabi to magically survive and heal from this by any means, but I think there are better ways to handle a character like him because the narrative frame of bnha allows for that.

re: happily ever after: I don't think that giving one of the biggest victims in a story some sort of good ending is necessarily a corny, wish-fulfillment type of bad writing, especially when the protagonist postulates that the other big villain is worth saving. I also find it fascinating that bakugo can survive an open-heart surgery on the battlefield & that deku's arms get disintegrated and grow back while that level of suspension of disbelief doesn't seem to apply to the villains. bnha has always been kind of corny, so I don't think it would have been weird for shoto to be able to somewhat save his brother when that has been his goal within that dynamic all along. So far, neither deku nor shoto could save their foil, so what's up with that??

happily ever after: while it has always been obvious that bnha is not a radical, anti-establishment story, to me, deku's conflict with grand torino & the vestige has allways been representative the "everyone deserves to be saved, everyone deserved to have their hero who's gonna save them". why set up characters as foils within the context of a hero story with saving as one of its core themes when 2 of these 3 villains won't get saved in the end? why do deku and shoto fail at such a point in the story? "saving" is a very tangible thing in the case of bnha, I think ep. 1 basically sums up the overall narrative paradigm of the good guy indiscriminately saving someone out of a bad situation, so to me, it just feels like there is a glaring narrative incongruence in this final arc & epilogue

re: i guess that's just real life: i think that premise is a bit misplaced here because bnha is not a story that is meant to reflect our reality, like ofc it's all a big allegory that tackles a lot of real issues, but it also is a genre-typical hero comics that is borderline fantastical, so i wouldn't say "that's real life" is a valid premise, like the established diegesis & themes of bnha would have allowed for sb like shigaraki or dabi to be granted a kinder conclusions

i'm not forcing anyone to agree with me and i'm not saying that i dislike this closure because i don't want anyone to die, i just think horikoshi's choices for the villains of his story are rooted in pragmatic reasons; shigaraki & dabi die so he won't have to think too much about how to handle the abjects of society, so he won't have to consolidate that with his decision to cling to the establishment

like i don't think it's too much to expect a victim of abuse to survive in a story that's about a boy who constantly risks his life to save random people, esp victims of grooming & abuse like i don't think it would be corny for dabi to end up in a better state, esp when we've seen deku grow his arms back and bakugo dying and coming back to live and

[miraculousdeservesbetter2024]

MAJOR Revelation & Collusion salt/vent incoming:

Look, I’m sorry if I’m misunderstanding something here, but I really dislike these episodes.

Why? To me, it seems like that guy is using Gabriel (the main villain and known terrorist of Miraculous) as the main "mouthpiece" for the fans who have the gall to take up for Chloe or call out her bad character portrayal (“You have a wonderful life, power, wife and a daughter”).

It also feels like the exact same thing when it came to Lila in Revelation, using the whole “Chloe is capable of change” speech for her own advantage, similar to what she tried to do with Marinette in Chameleon with the whole "friendship and not fighting over a boy" speech. It’s like he’s using them both as mouthpieces to represent the fans who still think Chloe can change or has potential.

So basically he's saying "Only psychopaths think that. You should listen to Marinette when she says Chloe is incapable of change because she’s the protagonist, and you shouldn’t listen to Lila and Gabriel when they say that Chloe can change because they’re the antagonists!”.

It’s really frustrating because any other time, we are made to feel sorry for Gabriel despite everything that he’s done, now we shouldn’t listen to him??? This is really disappointing to think about because he’s ruining Marinette's character this way. I still like Marinette and I really do think she deserves better, but I’m starting to see why people are starting to dislike her. She's becoming ANOTHER Thomas self-insert (on top of the MANY he already has in the series). The guy loves himself TOO much, don't you think?

I'm going to be completely honest here. As a Marinette fan, I still think the way SOME critics go about describing/criticizing/disliking Marinette and her character isn’t necessarily correct, but I must say that it’s still understandable. This guy is basically making her into his own personal mouthpiece, making S5 Marinette’s portrayal the worst as it has ever been 😓

Which is really a letdown because I love Marinette. It’s Chloe’s “Darnation arc” all over again. He’s ruining characters and development just to push his own morals and fill his own ego to the brim and it’s a shame.

And before anyone says:

“Geez! I swear to god people act like they know Chloe more than her own creator!” 🙄

Maybe your right, but MAYBE it wouldn’t of turned out that way if the show wasn’t so inconsistent and contradicting all the time! This is another reason why I think people have so much animosity towards characters like Andre, because the story portrays him as the victim “this entire time” who only got into politics to please his father and Audrey, pretending that he was never a corrupt politician on his own free will. It’s questionable because…he made his own bed. He choose the life that he has now, to have a child with a despicable woman, choose to spoil Chloe rotten, not to discipline her when she was being rotten to other people, and choose to not be there for her for emotional support.

I’m not saying that Chloe bares no blame at all, but it’s not ENTIRELY her fault just because “she’s her own person”. There is such things as bad parents & bad role models 🙄 You don’t have the right to give up on your daughter, saying things like “you have a terrible/cruel daughter” or “you tried everything in your power to help” when all you really did from the beginning was enable her, let her make everyone’s lives miserable and not be there for her like your should have. Yeah, she’s horrible, but at least she has the excuse that she’s a child. Your not only a grown man, but her father.

This goes for other figures in her life also (Audrey, Bustier, her butler, heck, even Ladybug to a degree). People are right, not everybody is responsible for holding her hand through redemption/reformation (and I agree) and to coddle her every time she does something wrong, but to say that “they’ve tried everything/their best”…just isn’t true. It’s more of an excuse to give up on her. Then JUST SAY THAT instead of trying to convince everybody that you did everything that you could.

Enabling =/= Helping.

[supernaturallyginger]

One Piece Live Action Review

Now that I've had time to watch and digest all the episodes it's time to discuss how I feel about the adaptation. This break down will be full of spoilers, so read at your own risk.

One Piece Live Action is good, actually.

Live action anime adaptations have a tendency to be soulless cash grabs that either don't give a shit about the source material or bank too much on just showing things the fans recognizes in place of an actual story.

OPLA loves the source material. It is clear that this production is a celebration of the manga series. The easter eggs and small nods to the series are not just there to make you point at the screen and say "There's the Thing!" They are apart of the world. Taking a note from Oda's writing to make the world of OPLA fill just as rich as the manga.

However, it is not a one for one recreation of the East Blue saga. How could it be? It would be impossible to take ~100 chapters of story and cram it into an 8 hour tv show season without it being a powerpoint of Luffy's Greatest Hits.

The story had to be changed to fit the medium and the pacing. Overall, I think the pacing is good and the changes made are for the better. But it's not perfect.

Episode 1 (aka mostly Zoro's intro):

Of the entire season, this was the weakest episode in my opinion. It had the most to introduce which is quite a challenge and it does so fairly well, but there are changes made here that I'm just not a fan of and I believe make the story weaker.

Zoro's introduction being changed to his face off with Mr. 7 is fine. It shows us him praying for Kuina, him being sassy to a bad guy, and ultimately him killing Mr. 7. Awesome start!

Unfortunately, we suffer when we cut to Zoro at Shells Town. He's only tied and imprisoned for a day, if that. And that's not even where Luffy first sees him. Instead, Luffy first sees Zoro at a bar starting a fight. Taking away the impact of him seeing Zoro's strong will after being tied up for days.

And it gets worse... Luffy just let's Zoro out, no strings attached and Zoro fetches his own swords. It takes away from the charm of the original scene where Luffy (a little bastard) blackmails Zoro into joining his crew to get his swords back. This change takes away two things: a showcase that Luffy is willing to be a stubborn shit to get what he wants and Zoro's willingness to give up his resolve because Luffy kept his word and brought him his swords.

While we're here, time for a Zoro tangent;

I'm really not a fan of how the character was adapted. This is not Zoro, this is some smug, emotionless samurai. All the beats were there. There were references to him being lost and a few jokey moments, but they are all delivered in the same monotone. Rarely is this Zoro shown to emote. Nor does he ever get to be goofy because YES! Roronoa Zoro can goofy. He's just a teenager in the East Blue saga, and yet OPLA plays him like he's alcoholic Batman.

Episode 2:

Oooh boy, give it up for episode 2! And Buggy, my little meow meow Buggy! I love him <3

As for the episode, the change from having Buggy being some shitty pirate just camped nearby and annoying the village to being a pirate who enslaved the village into being his audience was excellent! It's so fucked up and campy and even more fucked up.

Buggy's desires are for attention and fame. He wants what Shanks has and yet he's still stuck in the East Blue, desperate for a map that he can't get his own greedy hands on.

Buggy was such a stand out character in OPLA. I love Buggy in general and this version is a bit different than the pathetic Buggy we love from the manga, but he is like a evil cartoon villain chewing the scenery! I'm so glad they roped him into the plot to keep him throughout the season.

Episodes 3 & 4:

These are fine. Some people aren't fans of the changes and yeah, I agree taking away a lot of Usopp's agency sucks. It really doesn't feel like this is Usopp's arc, more like that he's just some guy who happens to be there.

But I was never a huge fan of the Syrup Village arc. I felt like it was poorly paced in the anime and the changes made at least kept the story condensed and Kuro's plan seemed more well thought out.

Biggest highlight of these episodes was Usopp! Jacob Romero does an amazing job at bringing the character to screen. He has so much charisma that it's hard not to smile when he's in a scene.

Episodes 5 & 6:

Anyone who knows me, knows I LOVE the Baratie arc! And this adaptation... is fine. Much like how Usopp is an after thought in his arc, Sanji is sidelined here to make room for PLOT.

Changing the Big Bad who threatens Baratie from Don Krieg to Arlong is a great choice. Don Krieg was always a lame, forgettable villain, so having Arlong show up to help push the plot towards the next arc is smart.

Much like Zoro's introduction, I'm not happy with Sanji's either. Specifically with how he meet Luffy. The scene where Sanji is the crew's waiter and has to fight some rowdy pirates is charming. But then Luffy say, "He's a great fighter." and UGGGHHHHHH

Luffy does NOT recruit Sanji for his strength. Nor does he recruit him for his cooking abilities. He recruits him because he is KIND. This is the same gripe I have with the Zoro intro. Luffy sees Zoro fight before recruiting him. When really he's supposed to want Zoro after seeing him tied up and learning that Zoro was captured because he saved a little girl from Helmeppo's dog. While Zoro and Sanji are the two strongest fighters on Luffy's crew, he never recruited them because they could fight.

ANYWAY

Luffy does see Sanji's kindness, only after seeing him fight and trying his food, and the two actors have great chemistry on screen. It's easy to believe that they are becoming fast friends and you can see in Taz Skylar's acting how much Sanji admires Luffy right off the bat. It's cute!

Unfortunately while Sanji is sidelined in his own arc, so two are the reveal of his backstory and the famous All Blue dream talk. His backstory is revealed in a random trauma dump to the crew which is only used to further the Zoro losing to Mihawk story. And the All Blue talk is just dropped randomly and has nothing to do with Sanji learning to pursue his own dreams. That's just done with a short shouting match between him and Zeff. Whatever.

Episodes 7 & 8:

Arlong Park was a good place to end the season. And the adaption of the arc is once again fine. Nami's backstory is rushed and the change to having no one in the town knowing her true intentions is a weird one.

BUT! Something I hadn't mentioned before, the sets are really fun! Arlong Park is a good example of this because it takes the design from the manga/anime and adds its own twist. The twist? Making Arlong Park look like a fairway at an amusement park. Which is a fun (horribly depressing) nod to something fans of the series can pick up on.

Other notable sets are Buggy's circus tent, Kaya's Tim Burton themed mansion, and the Baratie. God the Baratie is an amazing set! The detail of the lighthouse on top is *chefs kiss*

Something else I didn't mention before, is that there is a B plot throughout all 8 episodes following Garp in pursuit of Luffy while training Koby and Helmeppo. It's loosely based on a cover story the manga ran early on and it's fine.

The characterization of Garp is a little odd, as he seems more strict and book smart than his manga counterpart. (I cheered when we saw him finally throw some canon balls!!) But it all lead up to a moment of him meeting Zeff. Two men of the older generation. A former pirate and a marine sitting down over a glass of wine and steaks. And they discuss having to accept the changing world when really the conversation is about accepting their boys moving on follow their dreams. It's a simple scene, but it's one of my favorites.

NOW the Arlong Park battle is good, if not a little short because they have to make time for the Garp stuff. There is one line in particular that really bothers me. There is a moment where Luffy agrees with Arlong and says something like, "Maybe I can't defeat you." and... that's not Luffy.

Arlong Park has one of Luffy's most iconic moments. A moment that defines his character and the entire series.

And I think that's how I feel about the OPLA as a whole.

It's good, but it's not One Piece. Well- it's not the One Piece we already know.

This Luffy is different. OPLA Luffy has a moral compass. He has snappy lines and has maybe even read a book in his life time. He's not the same Luffy from the manga, and that's okay. Inaki Godoy is a joy to watch on screen and his version of Luffy is just as wonderful in his own way.

One Piece Live Action is witty and very charming. Filled with great action scenes, lively sets & costumes, and actors who are giving it their all in every scene.

Despite some changes I disagree with, this was an amazing adaption that is a celebration of the fans and an introduction to the wacky world of One Piece to new viewers.

[wuxianxkexing]

This face. I'm going to talk about it. Spoilers below!

So my pathetic little meow meow looks kind of unhinged here. I've said that much already. But what exactly is he thinking in this moment?

From a storytelling perspective Heaven Official's Blessing doesn't really have a main villain by this point. Pei Ming is the closest thing to one since he caused and ignored the Bridegroom and he tried to sweep his deputy's crimes in Banyue under the rug. However while those things might make him a "bad" guy that isn't quite main villain of the story material since he hadn't really gone after our main character Xie Lian all that hard. Yeah, he tried to shift the focus onto Xie Lian hanging out with Crimson Rain, but it wasn't really personal. He wasn't trying to drag Xie Lian down since he also spoke in his defense and said that Xie Lian was probably just tricked. He just wanted to shift the focus off of his deputy but failed to. Still a dick move to Xie Lian, but at least it wasn't personal? 😅 Or at least it wasn't personal until the very end when he realized that he wasn't going to be able to save his deputy after all.

But from a storytelling perspective having Mu Qing make this expression puts him on the radar as potentially being the story's main villain. At this point all we know about Mu Qing is pretty negative? He used to be Xie Lian's servant but left/betrayed him to ascend to godhood. He clearly still remembered Xie Lian though Xie Lian didn't recognize him and he seemed miffed by that fact. In the books it is revealed that he hangs out in the communication array all day every day, supposedly because he is catty and loves gossip and he has no friends. He is shown to have beef with General Nan Yang, who forgave Xie Lian's absolutely massive debt out of the kindness of his heart and who in this very episode publicly sides himself with our main character when he is concerned about him getting hurt. The audience realizes that Feng Xin is actually a pretty good dude, and naturally we are suspicious of anyone who openly hates him as much as Mu Qing does. Then Mu Qing makes that face. At this point the audience can only assume that Mu Qing made that face because he is a huge asshole and hates Xie Lian. The main villain has to be either him or Pei Ming. Right? They both have personal beef with him, and figuring out which of them is going to be the main villain gives the audience something to think about. I think this is why MXTX decided to have him make this face. The story needs a main villain but she wasn't ready to reveal them just yet so she kind of pretended to throw us a bone to keep us interested.

Ignoring the overall story reasons and focusing on the in world reason that I think Mu Qing made this face: He is just vindictive. Not towards Xie Lian, but Yong'An. Xie Lian describes him as both petty and spiteful. Up until Mu Qing makes his friendship confession and tries to kill himself afterwards the audience doesn't really know any better of him. I've seen some people say that he made that face because he was glad that Xie Lian isn't as perfect as he thought, but I don't think that is the case at all. If you actually hated someone for being too perfect would you even /want/ to be their friend? Let alone be willing to throw yourself into a volcano for them? Nah. Most people try to avoid people that they hate, so Mu Qing wouldn't have even helped out during the Bridegroom arc, or if he did then he would've only done it to sabotage the mission (which he didn't).

But knowing how spiteful and petty Mu Qing is having him make this face upon hearing that the former crown prince of his kingdom massacred the royal family of their invaders? That makes perfect sense for his character. This scene reveals that deep in his heart he is glad that the Yong'an royal family "got what they deserved." They destroyed his home country and they set into motion the process of him losing his 2 best friends as well. Arguably they are the root cause of a lot of his suffering. As for the frown after he was done having his moment I think that the revelation of why/how Xie Lian did it kind of ruined his revenge fantasy. Xie Lian did kill the Yong'an king to protect the former people of Xianle, but he didn't go on the cool V for Vendetta campaign that Mu Qing had hoped for. Which maybe that is a problem too but at least you can see where he is coming from.

Ultimately I think Mu Qing had a very real and human reaction to the news, but it only makes sense with context. Otherwise he just seems like a crazy person. Like all I can think of when I see that face is that if Mu Qing was the one poisoned by the Land of the Tenders instead of Xie Lian he would've had the worst bloodlust ever known to mankind. He is still my little meow meow though.