#Ending was more anticlimactic than I had been expecting but I liked it

[girlscience]

just finished black sails and I am wildly confused. I could have sworn I absolutely saw a gif of Flint and Silver kissing on tumblr before I ever watched this show. It wasn't why I watched the show, but I literally have spent 40 hours expecting to see it.... and they don't kiss. WHAT DID I SEE????? WHAT WAS THAT GIF OF???? because there wasn't even a scene that looked like that gif??? IM SO CONFUSED

[ilycosy]

❝ FIGHT FOR ME ❞ | LUKE CASTELLAN

pairing : luke castellan x child of athena!reader

summary — while being a child of athena, you've never been one for athletics or academics. you never succeeded in capture the flag, or gotten anything above a c+. it seemed that the only thing you were good at was being supportive, which luke never seemed to mind.

warnings : toxic!luke , enabler!reader , reader is bullied and insecure abt it , luke is a bad guy and reader thinks he's hot for it .

aﾉn — back w another work B) hope u guys enjoy !! i personally love when my men r a little crazy + protective over me <3 this is based on this , requests r open :) so feel free to req stuff !!!

being a demigod was hard as it was, constantly fighting monsters left and right never knowing when it'd end. most of the time, it ending in a painful and anticlimactic death, the pressure was constant and only grew.

now, being a child of athena, it really should've came naturally to you. maybe not reading, but still, being wise and strong was what should've came with the deal. at last— it didn't, and that really wasn't something that you could get over at a camp that relies so heavily on glory.

'glory', better known as kleos here, was something that every demigod craved even you. which is why you tried so hard to learn, sword fighting with anybody who would bother, attempting to plan for things with your half-siblings. but it never worked.

at first you were angry, angry at the world, angry at your mother. how could she claim such a screw up? you'd ask, and others would agree with you. taunting and sticking up their noses as if they were better, in a way, they were. not completely— but in the ways that mattered, they were.

then, you became bitter. you had met your shining star during this stage, at the age fourteen you were introduced to a boy your age, luke castellan. he came to the camp with a young girl, talking of stories about life outside the camp and the monsters he killed. holding onto the memory of a forbidden child he fought by, you were envious.

until he took a interest in you, constantly talking to you trying to make you laugh or smile. at one point he fell into a lake while trying to get your attention, it was endearing— and stupid. you never understood why he cared so much, or why he wanted to be friends so bad.

at sixteen, you accepted the offer. not having many friends due to everybody seeing you as useless— just another child that must've gotten accidentally claimed. you allowed him into your life, slowly but surely breaking down your walls until by seventeen there's nothing left to talk about.

the bitterness lingers, though he could never relate— until the quest. that awful quest that you cried to him about going on, wanting him to stay, half in fear of him dying but also the fear of the ridicule you'd face without him there. the lack of his reputation to protect you.

you had gotten harassed while he was gone, the constant remarks about how you were the pretty face of the cabin was back-handed at best to you. but you always sneaked off to his bed in hermes' cabin, crying into his pillow when you were sure nobody else was awake.

but when he returned, everything was different. it was like he finally understood you on a deeper level than before— your frustrations with your mother, not living up to the expectations of her, he understood. he understood and more, he was angry for you, for himself and every other camper.

he talked very little of the quest, the only genuine emotions he allowed himself to feel around you being happiness and anger. brief words of anger for his father and your mother, then hushed whispers of adoration for you in the nape of your neck.

you never fully knew when luke became your boyfriend, but it was never a secret. his head buried in your shoulder during breakfast, the hand on your back when he was hiking with you and other campers, even the soft kisses he gave your wrists publicly.

so he never understood why people had grown so confident— arrogant enough to ridicule you while he stands so close by. their loud laughs mixing in with the barely concealed hisses of their disapproval for you, talking about how you're the shame of athena cabin. how you've never used your brain, or a weapon in your whole life.

nobody knew when luke had snapped, all everybody could say was that it was bloody. the beloved camp counselor defending his loves honor— by pounding in another boys face, leaving him bruised and bleeding on the hard dirt.

all he remembers was being dragged away by chris, the ringing in his ears being too loud to hear anything other than "you got him luke calm down!" and "mr. castellan, meet me after you're done with the medic." before he was hauled off to the apollo children.

he remembers waiting, a long time. being patched up by an apollo girl, her harsh words of how stupid he was and how girls don't like violent men barely processed in his brain. he was on autopilot without you— he barely ate or drank until you were allowed in the medic office.

you had waited for what felt like years before you were allowed in, you couldn't help but bask in the spotlight for a moment after the fight, just thriving from the fear he had caused for you. you rushed to him as soon as you could, running your fingertips gently over his scar and down his jaw.

his jaw unclenched when he realized it was you, leaning into your touch he presses soft kisses from your palms to your wrists. he swears on the gods that he'd kill for you if it meant you touched him as if he was this delicate for all eternity.

"luke," you say, as if your lungs can't take in enough air. "are you okay?"

he almost laughs at how dumb the question is, is he okay? he feels awesome right now, a sense of pride resonating deep within him from the adrenaline and the attention you feed him as you sit on the medic cott.

"im fine, baby." he rasps out, running his hands up the tops of your thighs until he can pull you by your hips. your body flushed against his. "are you alright?" he whispers against your neck, the bandages on his face tickling you.

you barely know how to respond, you're not okay but at the same time you've never felt better. "im hurt," you mumble, being honest with your feelings even though you know his are bottled. "but im glad."

he feels another spike of anger, your perfect self should never have to be touched by the ugliness of others words. but he tilts his head to the side, almost as if to realize and ask why you're glad.

"you defended me," you whisper, quietly as if you're ashamed of how you feel. you bite the inside of your lip in shame before pressing a soft kiss to his head. "you fought for me, and im thankful."

his hands lightly trail from your hips and up your sides, gently leaving adoring touches in his wake before cupping your face. he leans his forehead against yours, looking at your lips before focusing on your eyes.

"id kill the gods for you," he whispers, his eyes darkening as your eyes light up. "just say the word, baby."

[sshadowritestoriess]

hello! could you write something with zen echo and ramattra (sorry if that's too many characters) with a human reader who kisses them even tho they don't really have a mouth, I'd like to know their reactions

Kissing robots is so good <3

Kissing Zenyatta

Kisses aren’t a display that surprises him, really!

It might have been pretty anticlimactic the first instance that you had press your lips to his faceplate, a gesture of which he gently leaned into and remained patiently still, until you pulled away

But he would still sometimes entertain you with a prized “oh!” as if he hadn’t expected it

He only apologized the first time for not being able to return the favor the same way, but he was delighted by receiving such a human affection! It pleases him immensely that you would demonstrate this kind of love as if he were human

The best he could do to reciprocate was to press his forehead against yours, lean carefully into your touch, or nudge his jaw against your cheek

He’d be ridiculously gentle doing these things, highly aware that he was of metal and that humans bruise quite easily.

When you would kiss him where he would have a mouth, he liked to respond with a verbal “mwah!” or other kiss sound

You both would also have a habit of blowing kisses to one another as well. He loves pretending to catch yours, and would feign placing it on his cheek before signing “I love you” with his hand

But he also liked to take your hands in his and press your knuckles to the nine lights of his forehead, feeling the warmth of his glow against your hands in his own means of returning the gesture

Sometimes he even asks for kisses, very politely. It’s hard to refuse (but why would you?)

Kissing Echo

Considering her face is just a hologram, you both occasionally forget that and share an amused moment when trying to kiss each other

Sometimes it’s definitely on purpose though! Feigning a kiss upon one another’s mouth with sweet smiles, and an especially elated giggle from Echo

Your one-sided kisses always make her gasp, an expressive look of joyous surprise on her face that leaves her mouth agape

She finds it so interesting, curious, and will lift to you her hands and turn her head from side to side asking “Can you do that here? And what about from here?”

So it’s not really a one-and-done— if you kiss her, you’re gonna end up doing quite a couple. She loves it very much

She doesn’t seem bothered that she can’t truly kiss you back, and if asked she’ll tell you “I think there’s something just as special about pretending!”

And it’s true. The make-believe gestures of affection are something very unique to her that may as well be real in its own way

Just because she couldn’t kiss you doesn’t mean she wasn’t. It may not be the same, but it felt no different than if she could. And it was fun, and worth her reactions

She could never bore of your kisses, nor tire of returning them.

Kissing Ramattra

Ramattra, on the other hand, would somehow end up shocked by your kisses every single time without fail. Subtly flinching as if you’d accidentally surprised him

He’d make a disgruntled noise after your display, but he’d never ask you to stop. He would, however, make sure now and again that you didn’t think he was going to be able to suddenly kiss you back one day

Sometimes he’d mutter something about “human gestures”, but it was hard to discern if it was bringing him offense or not. But again, he never told you he didn’t like it— and he was pretty open about telling you the things that brought him unease

It was more like he was just tolerating it for a while, but he’d eventually begin appreciating it

While he can’t kiss you, he does have a similar gesture that brings him a lot more satisfaction when you attempt to do the same

His specific model can summon a very brief vibration from behind the “mouth” of his faceplate, an old discreet means of communicating that uses the gentle buzz as something similar to Morse code. The pulses produce no sound, but emits a small encoded wave between omnics— like sending a text directly into someone’s mind

It wasn’t a language any human could decipher, but he’d press his ‘mouth’ to your neck or cheek and speak a quick note of affection there, anyway.

You seemed to understand it was loving. And when one day he’d tucked his face into your shoulder and his faceplate pulses ticklishly against your skin again, he was suddenly ecstatic when you leaned your throat against his head and hummed quickly, in the same rhythm he did, mocking his gesture

So, technically, you were telling him you loved him back by repeating his ‘message’, and you had no idea.

He wouldn’t admit a thing to you, but you could tell it made him pretty happy.

And while he preferred his version of “kisses” to yours, he would never turn down your ways of showing him that you loved him

[shima-draws]

Okay so a few things about the ending to the DLC. Spoilers below obviously

-Really REALLY disappointed they didn’t go with the whole toxic possession arc thing with Kieran and the new mythical (Pecharunt?) TO BE FAIR that was more of a fan theory than anything but it was one that made a lot of sense and had a lot of evidence to back it up. I guess I got too attached to the idea and was inevitably let down when the game didn’t go in that direction. Still it would have made more sense to give that extra edge as to why Kieran’s treating everyone so awfully,, and having him finally break free of that control during the final fight VS Terapagos would have been SO sick. Either that or before we even get to Terapagos Carmine calls Kieran out and that’s when he finally fucking explodes and rages and vents about his inferiority complex—and THAT is what summons Pecharunt, those negative feelings that it probably feeds off of or smth idk. Then we’d get a split second of Kieran finally being back in control and begging for help. And then Carmine realizing her brother has been under the influence of this Pokemon the entire time and. Okay I’m getting off track into AU territory now lmao sorry moving on

-Switching back to the Terapagos fight, I really enjoyed it! It wasn’t too long of a fight to be drawn out, but it was just long enough that it didn’t feel anticlimactic (also the MUSIC? STELLAR. Pun intended). ALSO ARGHFHH the five stages of grief Kieran goes through in that fight to finally accepting that he’s been going about this the wrong way and has been an awful friend and the way the LIGHT COMES BACK INTO HIS EYES I ALMOST CRIED. This is 10000x more emotional and powerful if you choose to bring Ogerpon with you and fight with her bc that really just. Hammers in the fact that despite all the bad blood and bitterness, Kieran still chooses to fight alongside you and the Pokemon he coveted so much…AND he even processes things enough to fully let go of all his hatred and anger and allows you to catch Terapagos because he KNOWS you’ll take good care of it and after all this time he still trusts you even though he’d probably hate to admit it. #GOOD WRITING

-Something really scary I realized. Kieran brought a Master Ball with him to catch Terapagos. 1. Where did homie even get that. 2. The fact that he was READY and didn’t even give Terapagos a chance to react, that he was essentially catching it against its will (which probably led to its power going out of control), that he was enforcing his own twisted desires and beliefs onto it and not considering its feelings (sound familiar? Looks at Ogerpon). BOY. 3. We’ve only ever seen ONE other person use Master Balls in SV. The AI Professor. I don’t know if this is significant in any way but if the Pecharunt theory WAS true that would make them so so similar and that’s eerie to me. Two characters controlled by something greater than them that they can’t fight…can you imagine how INSANE the dynamics would be listen to me

-Another thing I was kinda disappointed about was Briar? I guess I was just picking up on the vibes that she was actually a villain and would try to steal Terapagos from the player, but I probably gave Nintendo too much credit on that one lol. I do like that she’s not inherently evil, she’s just too absorbed and obsessed with her research to really pay attention to what’s going on around her. BUT. They should have pushed that WAY further. Either commit and do the full villain arc where she snatches Terapagos from Kieran right after he catches it to use it for her own purposes, or pressure him into Terastallizing it so much that it makes him uncomfortable. I want to see Lusamine levels of unhinged obsession. What she had was just a little bit too excited about Area Zero, not a full blown unhealthy and dangerous thing that puts everyone around her in danger.

-Following up on that. Drayton. I kept expecting him to also go villain arc IDK LOL I guess I want everyone to be gay do crime in this DLC 😂 But I seriously kept thinking he was just using the player to knock Kieran off his thrown so he could take it right back from us. But no he actually genuinely cared about Kieran and kept pressuring us to beat the Elite Four so WE could knock some sense into him since Drayton wasn’t strong enough to do it himself. Which is a very sweet sentiment, I think :’) But am I the only one who was like bro calm down right after the fight where he was getting up in Kieran’s face and calling him ex-champion…..either he’s way too honest and doesn’t realize he was being cruel OR he was doing it on purpose to be a silly goober (but everyone else was like DUDE. LOW blow.)

-I still have questions. HELLO. HELLO. The notes in Area Zero mentioned the professor meeting a child with a white(?) book? Is that the Scarlet/Violet book? We still don’t know how the whole time travel paradox happened and why Heath talked about meeting Paradox Pokemon DECADES before the professor even brought them to Area Zero through the time machine? What is with the weird ass crystal tree sitting in the middle of a lake in the depths? Is there any significance to the Crystal Pool in Kitakami being connected to terastallizing and Area Zero? I’M JUST. AGHHH. I’m fairly certain we’re getting more content, maybe an epilogue to the DLCs but I’m going CRAZY I NEED TO KNOW NOWWW

-Also isn’t Area Zero like. Top secret hush hush. Why did Geeta let Briar publish a whole ass book about the HIDDEN SECRET of Area Zero that was miles under a closed off SECRET lab. I thought they were denying Briar access to Area Zero for YEARS, probably because they didn’t want her blabbing to the public. Idk. Maybe my memory is fuzzy on that one. Just feels very contradictory fhhdd

-The small little subtleties of Kieran regaining his regular personality as we went down….I ADORED that. His little smiles and him unable to contain his childish excitement and Carmine smiling at him with a knowing look bc after all this time her brother is FINALLY acting more like himself. And Kieran trying to brush it off like “wh-whatever” like he’s some sort of edgy teenager pretending he doesn’t care. GAHHHH it was so cute I wanted to cry 😭

ALL IN ALL it didn’t QUITE meet my expectations but it was still really good, especially considering this was all DLC content. Nothing will ever EVER top the main story of SV but the entirety of TTM and TID came pretty darn close. Kieran my sweet baby boy my blorbo I’m so glad you got your redemption arc and that you finally came to terms with your perception of strength and how it affects others. Baller DLC Nintendo do it again 👏

[justanotherwriter140]

Kung Fu Panda 4 - The Movie

The last really, really long discussion post (for now).

Major spoilers ahead!

This review is full of spoilers, so please refrain from reading through it until you've watched KFP4. I would highly suggest doing so, as I want everyone to form their own opinions without my influence. The movie has its flaws (some of which admittedly being a bit distracting), but it's a fun film that has things to offer.

Kung Fu Panda 4 is a fun movie (take that as you will) that takes its audience on an action-packed, surprisingly funny, yet relatively contained adventure on which Po doesn't really do much. It's an inconsequential, safe sequel that doesn't really hurt the franchise but adds close to nothing.

I had a good time watching the movie. It was obviously produced with its theater experience in mind and the action scenes especially reflected that priority. The humor was actually funny sometimes and I enjoyed Po and Zhen's dynamic. During the film, I was able to put most (most!) of my grievances aside and take the movie for what it is. I've discovered that the best way to watch KFP4 is with low expectations and an open mind.

I have a lot of things to say about KFP4, both complaints and compliments (though the former might be taking the forefront in this review), and I hope this review can help those of you who have seen the movie organize your thoughts. I've been having a lot of trouble with that specific aspect of things myself. Those who get it get it.

With that said, let's get into my full review of KFP4! I've been waiting for nearly 2 years to write this and I'm so excited to share every single thought.

I'm going to follow the format of my first discussion post and curate a bulleted list of my thoughts, followed by an analysis of each of these points. Keep in mind that everything I say is IMO and this is more of a rant post than anything else.

Here are my main points:

The Furious Five's role is comically minuscule in the context of the film. Their actions are inconsequential and add nothing to the plot (a confirmed last-minute add), and they have 30~ seconds of screen time. Shifu is also largely irrelevant.

Mr. Ping and Li's presence has little to no effect on the movie (though I won't complain too much because they were pretty fun to watch and this movie has bigger problems). In almost any scenario, I am adamantly against having characters present that don't add anything to the narrative; however, Mr. Ping is an exception. I love Mr. Ping. James Hong is a gem.

Zhen's screen time is not utilized well and her character is underdeveloped. She definitely wasn't annoying, but I didn't find her either compelling or funny enough to warrant the screen time she was given, especially considering it wasn't used to establish a backstory/strong motives. This makes me feel bad for the character because the movie kind of screwed her out of any substantial development.

The Chameleon, while complimented greatly by Viola Davis, is an underwhelming villain. Viola Davis is amazing in this film and I would suggest watching it for her performance if for nothing else, but the Chameleon is underwhelming considering the super cool concept behind the character.

The film feels very rushed. Apologies to those who disagree, but I think the pacing is atrocious and the final fight is anticlimactic. The movie felt like a word-vomit with no discernible intermissions that stops abruptly when the film ends.

I felt as though Po didn't change/grow as a person and the audience never had a chance to either bond with or relate to his character. His internal struggle is kept to a minimum and we don't spend a moment alone with him as an audience, which is disorienting and distracting. Watching the film felt like running into an old friend at the store who's too in a rush to have a real conversation.

The action scenes were strong with few exceptions. Creative art direction was utilized and I thought the martial arts choreography was entertaining and dynamic. I love the color palette of the film and many scenes were very impressive visually.

With my main points established, I do believe it's ranting time. Strap in, folks.

Let's start strong with the Furious Five: I'm gutted. Chagrined, despondent, crestfallen, etc.

The lack of the Furious Five negatively affects KFP4 so much, because not only does their absence hurt the atmospheric integrity of KFP as a franchise, it also forces KFP4 to bring in a slew of different characters—all while still noncommittally including the FF at the very end because I believe the marketing team required it—that clog up the cast a bit. It all goes to show how important strong, established side characters are.

The Furious Five are side characters, but the role of "side character" does not equate to being irrelevant, expendable, or exchangeable. I recognize that the Furious Five aren't super developed as characters beyond a handful of lines that allude to traits sprinkled sparingly among the members; however, I believe that the tiny bits of development we have been given have proved impactful in the past. Tigress's development in KFP2 is a prime example of how much narratively conscious changes (however small they may be) can positively affect these movies.

Because of limited runtimes, the Furious Five often operate as more of a singular unit than five individuals. Even so, I don't think discarding them is valid. They're so important to the KFP universe (to Po's universe!) and not having them with him feels so wrong. The Furious Five are fully integral to the heart of Kung Fu Panda, which is why I believe a lot of those who have seen the new movie have expressed something feeling "off" or something being missing.

I agree with this sentiment. To me, KFP4 didn't feel like a KFP movie. I don't need a Furious Five spin-off movie and I can be fully content with a KFP5 centered around Po's journey as an individual as was intended from the beginning, but he can't carry an entire movie on his back. As strong as he is in every sense of the word, he is only one character. He's the centerpiece of the franchise, but a centerpiece can only go so far without the rest of the design, so to speak.

For me, the Furious Five's absence is one of this film's biggest faults. It's huge and glaring. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way, either, because the friends with whom I saw the film refused to talk about any other aspect of the movie after seeing it. Seeing them at the end was better than nothing, of course, but it was a disappointing culmination after eight years of waiting.

That all is to say I feel robbed. Despite all of this, though, I understand that there were reasons why the Furious Five weren't included in the movie. I don't believe the production team would exclude the Furious Five unless they weren't given a choice.

Shifu and Po's dynamic continues to be thoroughly delightful but their interactions are short and simplified. I would have loved to see more of them in this film, especially considering the extreme relevance of teacher-student relationships in KFP4. I (somewhat) digress, though, because the idea of Shifu having to live at the Jade Palace with only Po for an extended period of time is hilarious enough on its own. Maybe that's what the short film is about!

The comedy is odd but has some jokes that stand out. Po maintains a healthy relationship with his inner sass, which I think makes him more fun to watch and kind of eradicates the man-child verdict. Some jokes don't land, of course, but I genuinely thought KFP4 had some funny moments. Mr. Ping was consistently awesome and Po had some good lines sprinkled throughout the film.

As for Mr. Ping, he and Li Shan are the subjects of the film's B-plot as they follow Po to Juniper City out of shared concern for their son's safety. In my mind, they don't add anything to the story that couldn't have been brought about by other characters, but they had their moments of being entertaining. I enjoyed their silliness and thought they had a cute dynamic if nothing else.

Speaking of other characters, I want to discuss KFP4's deuteragonist and why I genuinely feel bad about the way her character was treated.

I want to let it be known that I'm still not on board with Po passing the Dragon Warrior torch to another character. While I agree that his arc is now calling for him to have a student, I disagree with the notion of him retiring from his DW role.

As I stated in my first discussion post:

Didn’t the initial significance and nuance of the title come from the fact that there is only one person who can be the Dragon Warrior, because the concept of the “Dragon Warrior” isn’t so much a title as it is Po himself? The universe (Oogway) must choose the Dragon Warrior because they are a singular being of legend. It is one person, and that person is Po. Wasn’t the point of the first film that the title ultimately doesn’t really matter because there is no “secret ingredient,” so to speak? The title doesn’t actually give Po anything. “It’s just you,” Po says, and that was the resolution.

When it comes to Zhen as a character, contrary to what I predicted I would think of her, I thought she was okay. While I was still a bit distracted by how out-of-place her design looks, I wasn't truly annoyed by her at any point and she and Po had some cute moments. Even so, I think their relationship could have been a bit more refined and developed.

While it's evident that Po and Zhen are meant to have a teacher-student/mentor-apprentice dynamic, I think their relationship feels half-baked. There were parallels that contradicted one another and ended up being confusing come the film's conclusion, and the nature of their relationship seems to vacillate depending on the scene. Additionally, the strength of their bond goes from zero to one hundred within thirty-ish minutes and left me with a bit of whiplash.

We're shown that Po and Zhen care about one another, but we're never shown why. They have a brief conversation during which they bond over being orphans, and Zhen says at one point, "You're actually a good guy," but that's it. This obvious lack of development is a bit disorienting because we're later led to believe that Zhen and Po care very deeply for one another when there's almost nothing to back it up.

A scene that sticks out to me when discussing this is when Zhen attack-hugs Po in a way that explicitly mirrors Tigress's hug from KFP2. This happens around the beginning of the third act, and while it had the potential to be an endearing moment, I think it fell flat.

The impact of Tigress's hug was brought on by her character's hardcore nature and reputation of being heartless, further strengthened with the knowledge that she was hugging Po (which was obviously way outside her comfort zone) as a show of companionship and fundamental understanding. Tigress hugged Po because he needed someone to recognize his strive for closure.

Zhen's hug had little to no impact because she had no reason to do it and it didn't indicate growth. She hugs Po because she's sorry for betraying him and doesn't want him to be killed by the Chameleon, but neither of these things are newly-established via this hug; we have already gathered by now that Zhen regrets betraying Po and doesn't want him to get hurt.

The hug is far from the movie's weakest point, but I think it's unnecessary given the context. I'm big on hugs in movies (an underutilized form of platonic affection, in my opinion), but it didn't fit here. I don't hate it, and I see it as an honest effort to bring emotionality to Po and Zhen's relationship, but it seems arbitrary.

Zhen and Po's relationship has a lot of potential and I'd be open to seeing more of them in the future, but I think some more thoughtful development needs to occur before I can humor it further. Even so, I can see myself featuring Zhen in some future post-KFP4 one-shots—sparingly, of course, because we have a lot of Furious Five content to compensate for.

Overall, they had a cute dynamic and some sweet moments but I'm not attached. I'm on board with Po having a student but I think their relationship needs a lot more development, something that this film unfortunately didn't give them time to either accomplish or earn.

Now, onto the Chameleon!

The concept of the Chameleon's character is admittedly super interesting. She's the deuteragonist's fastidious mother figure who feels that Zhen owes her a debt and as a result holds her to an impossible standard. That dynamic had the potential to be so interesting but I didn't think it was explored at all. There is no indication of Zhen having any internal conflict about fighting the Chameleon, no emotional complexity between them at all; it's disappointing because I think it would've added a bit of earnestness to the film.

Additionally, the idea of a shape-shifting villain is versatile. A shape-shifting villain gives those telling the story a lot of room to experiment with the protagonist and different ways in which the main character can be challenged and tested. It's yet another good idea utilized poorly. Just one idea: the Chameleon could have disguised herself as one (or several) of Po's family, friends, etc. and brought to fruition a new arc with his character (seeing as he arguably doesn't have one in this film), but she only disguises herself as Zhen very briefly in the movie.

Furthermore, the Chameleon completely relies on the powers of previous villains to pose any sort of threat to the main characters. She summons Po's former nemeses from the Spirit Realm (despite there being little logic in doing so considering Kai's literal evisceration) and takes their kung fu abilities for herself.

An excerpt from my first KFP4 discussion post that I think is relevant to the point I'm trying to make:

I don’t think it would be in the best interest of anyone if the past villains were to come back in any way that’s not a flashback (even then, I’m not sure I’d see the point). In all honesty, I thought that the whole point of the villains was that they died and stayed dead. They were defeated by Po once and for all as a testament to the idea of establishing Po's character growth and journey as a person through the bad things he’s able to overcome. It’d be highly contradictory to the messages of the other films if these villains were to suddenly come back.

While there was an honest effort made to portray the Chameleon as intimidating, I never felt as though any of the characters were endangered by either her or her army of lizard henchman. She's a visually appealing character (aside from her eyes, which I thought more resembled those of a gecko than a chameleon) and I greatly enjoyed Davis's performance, but overall I don't see the Chameleon as a notable villain.

The return of Tai Lung (had he been on his own) had the makings to be an excellent story, especially considering the importance of teacher-student dynamics in KFP4. To see him interacting with Shifu would have been incredible and could have led to further closure on Tai Lung's end (because I think that's kind of what the team was going for anyway), but it didn't happen.

It was nice to see Ian McShane reprise his role, but I wish Tai Lung's characterization had been more reminiscent of the way he was in the first film and more complimentary of his overall character arc. Tai Lung isn't a one-dimensional villain with a singular goal and motivation, and I couldn't help but feel as though the complexity of his character was simplified for the sake of KFP4's narrative.

Tai Lung's presence in KFP4 may be odd, but Shen and Kai's appearances are even more so. Kai, if I remember correctly, was fully obliterated by Po, reduced to literal particles on screen (which is kind of wild now that I think about it). Shen being in the Spirit Realm makes sense all things considered; however, Po and Li had no visible reaction to his presence, which seemed a bit unlikely considering Shen's deeds. This plot hole can likely be attributed to the fact that Shen and Kai's cameos (to my knowledge) were last-minute additions to the movie.

I have to talk about the pacing. I have to. I'm sorry, bear with me.

To me, the film's pacing is erratic and disconcerting. While I can appreciate a quick-moving narrative that doesn't dawdle on storylines that aren't interesting/important, KFP4 kind of flings itself too far in the opposite direction and ends up being frighteningly fast-paced. Once the credits began, I felt like I had been holding my breath for the entire movie.

KFP4 is confusing because while the runtime is standard for a KFP movie, it feels incredibly short. At the same time, the film's story moves at a breakneck speed and leaves little time for heart and development. These things culminate into a barreling boulder of a movie that simply doesn't have time to let its characters, story, or audience take a breath.

A fast pace is not inherently negative, but I don't think it worked in the favor of KFP4. The KFP franchise has always been very emotionally grounded (and just very grounded in general), so to see a film in which emotion/heart takes an aggressive backseat in comparison to action and comedy is jarring. While I think it's unreasonable for fans to expect the same emotional integrity as the original films to be present in the current and upcoming ones, I still think there's room for Po to grow and I felt as though the notion of him developing further was brushed aside in this film.

As for Po's growth, I felt it was nearly nonexistent. The previous trilogy wrapped up his character's journey beautifully and I know that KFP4 was bound to struggle with this particular aspect of making another KFP film; however, just because the strongest pillars of Po's character are established doesn't serve as a valid excuse to reverse his development and repeat what he learned in KFP3.

In KFP3, Po learned firsthand that he is capable of spreading wisdom and teaching kung fu. He also learns that he is constantly growing and that change is inevitable; there is always something more to learn.

"If you only do what you can do, you will never be more than you are now."

"I don't want to be anything more, I like who I am!"

In KFP4, Po pushes against this narrative despite fully accepting it in KFP3, actively reversing crucial parts of his character development achieved in the latter. KFP3 was non-ambiguously about learning to cope with change and responsibility, and I can't help but feel like KFP4 is simply copying this message while not adding anything to it.

Additionally, I felt that KFP4's Po generally felt less personal than he has in the past. In every KFP movie up to the franchise's most recent addition, I felt very connected to Po as an audience member. I felt like I was truly seeing the world of KFP through his eyes. I consider this to be one of the franchise's most impressive feats; it's incredibly difficult to build a universe around a character without making the audience feel limited to one perspective and one part of the world.

With KFP4, I felt both limited and disconnected. The world didn't feel as vast and all-encompassing as it has in the past and Po didn't seem fully like himself. This could be me nitpicking (as I'm prone to do), but I can't recall a single moment in the movie in which Po was alone on screen. Scenes like these are crucial for me because I see them as a meet-cute between the character and the audience, a moment for us to cross the bridge into their world in a way that's silent and intuitive. These little bonding moments are absolutely integral to feeling connected to a character.

Po's dream sequence in the first KFP movie is one of the best examples of this. It presents his aspirations, alludes to his way of life up to the point of the movie, and showcases his personality. During Po's dream sequence, the audience is quite literally inside Po's mind; we're there with him, seeing what he sees, subsequently feeling what he feels. Po is a dreamer at heart and makes the audience feel like dreamers, too.

In KFP4, I felt like I little to no point of reference when it comes to how Po was feeling. I didn't feel immersed in him and his world.

I know I've been very "doom and gloom" throughout this post, which is an exhausting mindset for everyone involved. I want to end my critique with something positive because I think some praise is deserved. Let's just say the movie could have been a lot worse, the details of which I'm sure you're all well aware.

The color palette of the movie is beautiful and somewhat reminiscent of the first film. While the animation style of KFP4 is far more simplistic than its predecessors, I was very impressed with its use of shadow and light. Po's many faces were also hysterical, props to those who helped make him as expressive as he is.

Additionally, the movie's action sequences were clearly thought out and discussed in great detail. The experimentation with camera angles was really fun to watch and I enjoyed the majority of the film's fight scenes. They were fun, bouncy, and entertaining, and quite likely reinstated audiences's love of watching a cuddly panda kick butt.

Congratulations, you've reached the end! Thank you so much to all of you who took the time to read this unnecessarily long and detailed review. As long as I help someone translate their conflicted feelings into coherent thoughts, I'll call it a win.

I want to reiterate that I don't hate Kung Fu Panda 4 and I had fun while watching the film. It has its flaws and there are a lot of aspects that I dislike, but the effort of the crew is obvious and I greatly admire and respect the hard work put into the film by those who worked on it. This does not at all excuse my issues with the movie, but it's worth saying.

As for the future of the series, I only hope that the next installment is more considerate of the franchise's origins and why Po's story is being told in the first place. I fully believe that another sequel could be good given a strong, passionate crew with a great understanding of the characters and world (and I wouldn't be averse to some previous directors returning, just to put it out there).

Thanks again to those who took the time to read this crazy excuse for a movie review. Feel free to either disagree with me or add things in the replies/reblogs, I'm always looking for more thoughts to think.

Until next time!

[genericpuff]

So I just read episode 275 and I’m sort of confused?

(I took screenshots, but the ask won’t let me include them so) At the end of the episode Hera summons these little balls of light(?) , maybe small stars(?) and then she casts them down onto Kronos.

I feel like that was really anticlimactic and not illustrated well. Along with the viewer not seeing Hera fight Kronos, a God that’s been tormenting her, her last attack(?) doesn’t feel right — like, there’s no power behind, if anything, I’d compare it to what a healers animation in a game looks like.

Rachel even emphasizes how strong and brilliant Hera is with Persephone, but then doesn’t show us anything. I know the scene was split between Hera and Hades dealing with Kronos physically and mentally (asleep), but it was sort of disappointing.

What I think really sucks about the setup for the Hera vs. Kronos fight is that, as cool of a concept as it is to have Hera and Hades both fighting Kronos in separate timelines, it fails on multiple levels:

1.) All the build up of Hera saying "I was created to destroy you" winds up meaning nothing because it cuts away to Hades for the entire fight

2.) When it does cut back to Hera, she's just kinda... sitting on Kronos? Like what did she do besides just breaking one of his fingers? Why weren't we allowed to see that? I think this is more so clearly Rachel's inability to write/draw fight scenes showing through, so she relied entirely on the Hades' sequence which was less physical fighting and more just Hades monologuing before turning Kronos into a diamond.

3.) And speaking of the diamond thing... so we're just expected to believe Hades could turn not just people, but Titans into diamonds? This whole time? How is he just suddenly able to do this? It feels like a shonen anime where the main character has a flashback to a scene from 3 seconds ago (in this case, Hades' conversation with Melinoe) and then unlocks a new special ability through it, but it somehow feels even less earned than it does in anime (and trust me, I can't stand that anime trope at the best of times LOL) Like at least in something like Naruto it's like... okay we have this ability Naruto's been trying to master and we've seen him work at it for a few episodes so seeing him finally nail it on the brink of defeat is like, really hype and fun. But Hades just turns Kronos into a rock out of nowhere when we had zero reason or build-up to believe that would ever be possible. Why not, IDK, have Morpheus finally master her ability to dream dive and use that to trap Kronos in an eternal sleep? At least that would have had some pre-existing foundation especially with how much of S3 was focused on the dream diving shit. IDK, the whole thing's really contrived and silly and relies a lot on the reader just going "okay! yeah that makes sense!"

4.) So Hades turned timey-wimey Kronos into a diamond... but then it cuts back to present Kronos who's just been somehow defeated by Hera through ✨magic✨ and that's just it? What about present Kronos? Is he just still trapped in Tartarus now? Why isn't he also a diamond if Hades turned some past form of Kronos into a diamond? Or was the goal just to free Melinoe so present Kronos couldn't keep using her powers? But who's to say Kronos can't just do what he did again by reaching through time to grab Melinoe and start the whole thing over again? Especially now that Melinoe doesn't remember what happened and would be none the wiser that Kronos has attempted this before? Is it because this is present Kronos whose time abilities were 'exhausted' to him 'long ago'? Then how was he able to pull Hades into the time-bowl to begin with? Again, just like the diamond thing, this entire conflict relies a lot on readers just shrugging and accepting it because there's zero foundation for the concepts that are being portrayed and thus zero logic besides "just go with it".

I can go on and on about it but at the end of the day LO just isn't a comic that should have attempted having any big Marvel fight scenes. This is an issue in a lot of romance comics that have gone on too long, they start to lose the plot around their third season and then just throw everything out the window for some other big plot that makes no sense within the context of the story. Somehow LO, a Greek myth fantasy adaption, made fighting the God of Time seem out of place and boring.

God I can't wait for Hades 2.

[ryuryuryuyurboat]

under the mistletoe

synopsis: christmas brings out quite the interesting sides of people.

genre: fluff, little bit of crack at the end

characters: lyney x gn! reader

warnings: reader is referred to in 2nd person, mistletoe, uhm reader n lyney interaction is a little awkward, i'm going by my personal thoughts on how the house of the hearth (and arlecchino) would be like (kind of)

a/n: i really really wanted to write this and i had to get it out of my system so here is a very belated christmas fic for y'all hehe likes, reblogs and comments highly appreciated!!

©2023 ryuryuryuyurboat. do not repost, translate, plagiarise, or modify in any way, shape or form.

masterlist

christmas at the house of the hearth had always been rather… anticlimactic, to say the least. ‘father’, of course, would make time to celebrate with her children, with a larger-than-usual spread for dinner, and she would make sure to prepare small gifts for everyone, but there was always something about the atmosphere that simply felt off. maybe because of the nature of this family, you’d tell yourself, but you just couldn’t help feeling hollow every time the festive season rolled around. this year was no exception.

you’d volunteered to help out in the kitchen with a few others; and you were assigned to deal with the pastries with none other than lyney. big win, considering how his deft magician fingers would make folding the puff pastries much easier. 

to no one’s surprise, thanks to great teamwork (read: him doing the work and you being moral support with a side of helpfulness), you both sped through your task and completed it way earlier than you were expected to. a little disappointing, though, for you were hoping to spend more time with him– you inwardly sighed as you rinsed the flour and butter off your hands.

it seemed your hopes weren’t completely dashed— for you did run into him again, quite literally, just as he re-entered the kitchen hoping to nick a quick snack. a quick apology, and you moved to your right to walk past him; he moved to his left in an attempt to walk past you. he smiled apologetically, moved to his right— alas, you’d also moved to your left. repeat. then a sigh.

“we’re quite the uncoordinated pair, aren’t we?” lyney shrugged, no sign of exasperation anywhere on his face.

“seems like it.”

“yeah, well–” he stopped himself, looking upwards. “mistletoe,” he observed, and your breath hitched.

“...yeah.” well, you know the rules; and so do i.

a beat of silence.

“you could’ve moved away, y’know.” his periwinkle eyes bore into yours. 

“so could you.”

lyney gave a light laugh, though it sounded forced. “but i didn’t.”

you could hear your heart pounding in your chest– it was a wonder he hadn’t. now or never, hm? “yeah? well, neither did i.” you finally pointed out, watching as his eyes widened ever so slightly.

“so…” his voice was barely above a whisper now. “does this mean that, you– i– um.” 

he glanced aside, something forlorn in his expression. “you’re sure?”

it took you a moment to formulate a reply. “i don’t think i’ve ever been more sure about anything.” you finally breathed. 

his face was inches away from yours– you could feel his warm breath fanning your face, he was moving even closer…

a clink caused the two of you to jump apart, looking around for the source of the noise. 

“...sorry.” a pair of cat ears twitched as his silver-haired twin blinked at you both.

“lynette!!”

taglist: @yinyinggie @lynyluvr @kazemiya @meidnightrain (send ask to be added to taglist!)

if you liked this, do consider dropping me a follow for more :>

[jedimasterbailey]

WARNING! AHSOKA SHOW RANT DOWN BELOW! SPOILERS!

Furthermore, I’m going to be completely honest in this review so if you’re someone who truly enjoyed the show, you’re a Rebels stan, etc. then this post isn’t for you. Haters will be blocked immediately so take your negative energy elsewhere. You have been warned!

For everyone else, buckle up because I’ve got a lot to say and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this as well. All comments are welcome so long as they are respectful to everyone.

Okay, so now that the show is done for now. I’m going to be listing some major talking points. We’re there some aspects of the show that I enjoyed/appreciated? Absolutely! But overall, I’m leaving this show very disappointed, confused, and frustrated. The finale left me feeling empty and never have I personally been more silent after a Star Wars show. Now mind you I think this has a lot to do with the fact that I love Ahsoka’s character dearly as well as the Clone Wars and the prequels so there is bias here. Furthermore I am pretty indifferent with Rebels so going in knowing that the Ahsoka show wasn’t going to be…well about Ahsoka but rather a Rebels sequel, that already put a bad taste in my mouth and I was very nervous how this show was going to go and well…it was exactly what I expected from a Filoni/cheap Disney production. Without further ado, here’s a list of all my beef.

1.) Lack of a Coherent and Cohesive Story

So I’ve mentioned this in a previous post, but my main issue with Dave Feloni productions is that the story seems to be going all over the place and there’s a lot of moving parts that don’t necessarily meld well together. I often think to myself that Ahsoka is an example of a poorly written fanfiction brought to the screen. So the plot of the show initally was focused on Ahsoka bringing Ezra home. Okay, that’s simple, there’s many different ways we can make that cool and interesting but that’s not what happened here. We’re just filled with a ton of confusing information and we’re in for a very boring journey heading for a very anticlimactic and unsatisfying ending.

For starters, we the audience are informed that Ahsoka and Sabine had started an apprenticeship (which I have ALOT of issues with but that’s for another talking point) but they got into a tiff (which we never find out about and/or see) and now things are just depressing and weird between them. First of all, anyone who has seen Rebels KNOWS that Ahsoka and Sabine literally had very little to do with each other; I can’t recall a single conversation those two have had in the past, nor was it ever eluded to us that Sabine is Force sensitive.

Second we see that Hera and Sabine don’t have anything to do with each other for some reason? Which is weird considering all that’s happened and their history but okay suddenly Sabine, a grown ass 30+ year old woman is Ahsoka’s responsibility, which again why? We don’t get any background information, we’re just expected to accept and go with it.

Third, Ahsoka and Hyuang are reunited and working together immediately but again do we know how that became to be? No. We see none of that.

Fourth we are told that Morgan Elsbeth, a one off antagonist from the Mandalorian that Ahsoka fought is suddenly a Dathormirian woman even though she looks nothing like one besides her outfits in the show nor was that eluded to previously.

Fifth, we are introduced to these two new…I don’t even know what to call them “dark siders” “non Jedi” Shin and Baylan (who is apparently a former Jedi from the Clone Wars but did we see that or see how he knew Ahsoka and Anakin? No.) but we aren’t given any reason to care about them other than they’re in Ahsoka’s way of completing her mission. They end up being more like time fillers that anything else and end up walking away from the big conclusion. Like…why are they even in this show and why should we care?

Perhaps Dave Feloni has this big grand story in his mind but he’s so far up his own ass that none of us get to see this story. It’s like seeing a little kid play with their action figures and they’re super passionate about it but as a outsider you have no idea what’s going on. Now this isn’t good not only for the sake of good storytelling but it’s bad for business too.

Disney wants to make as much money off of Star Wars as they can. That’s extremely obvious. However here you have a show that isn’t going to pull in a casual Star Wars viewers (they would have to watch so much content to catch up on whose who and what is going on) nor is it really going to pull in fans of Clone Wars and Rebels because while they overlap, the fandoms are different and Feloni hasn’t done a good job melding those worlds together thus the divisive opinions on this show. This leaves for an incredibly small niche of people and honestly I think whatever toy sells they make from this show will do better than the actual ratings. I would be shocked if they greenlit for another season because I’m pretty done with this story as is many of the people who would be willing to watch.

All in all this is embarrassing how Feloni and the gang with all the money and resources can’t pull off a simple and epic show when there are thousands of unpaid fanfic writers that could pull off a much better story and build these beloved up characters, which leads into my next point.

2. The Characterizations of Ahsoka, Sabine, and Hera Are Bad

Now I have mentioned previously how much I love Ahsoka but damn it upon watching this show, she may as well be dead. Ahsoka has been given the Luke Skywalker treatment in that Ahsoka has been stripped of everything that made her lovable in Clone Wars and Rebels and is left as a sorry shell of who she once was. Her dialouge is hollow and lifeless not like the lively Ashley counterpart that made us all love Ahsoka in the first place. And no don’t give this “well she’s older now” bullshti excuse because Obi Wan Kenobi never lost his cheekiness and charisma as an old man, neither did Yoda, or Leia, etc. Just because you age doesn’t mean you have to be lifeless. Maturity does not equate to emotionless. Secondly for a woman whose well into her fifties and still acts very much like a Jedi Ahsoka’s views on the Jedi and their philosophy seem very warped and the audience is again left confused as to where she stands on the Jedi. I mentioned in a previous post how I couldn’t stand Ahsoka’s negativity towards the Jedi and how nobody seems to matter but Anakin (even though he’s put her through a ton of trauma and has tried to kill her as Vader) because it’s just so distasteful to the people who raised her and loved her that died by genocide no thanks to Anakin. Ahsoka has zero character development other than she seems to forgive Anakin for his wrongdoings despite the nonexistent apology. For a show that has her name on it, she sure is boring. Makes me miss Ashley and old Ahsoka even more.

As for Sabine I probably could write a whole thesis on how unlikeable she is but I’ll keep it short. One, I find it sick on Feloni’s part that he’s having a grown 30+ year old woman act like a teenager and be snarky with just about everyone. Ezra, who annoyed me immensely in Rebels, was WAY more mature and grounded. And again I’m sick and tired of the Mandalorian excuse of you getting to be an asshole because youre Mandalorian. Shut up. No one is above manners and decency. Sabine’s actions in this show have been far from Jedi like and thanks to her immaturity, she left Ahsoka for dead once and is indirectly responsible for the death of New Republic officers who were trying to stop this very dangerous mission that could possibly bring Thrawn and the Empire back ensuing more death and destruction of innocents. Ahsoka deserves to be angry with her for her words and actions, but of course Sabine gets a free pass and her bad behavior will continue to be enabled.

As for Hera…when did she become such a Karen? Just because you’re an officer doesn’t mean you get to abuse your power for your own personal agenda. That Senator was right about her. Finding Thrawn is a threat to the galaxy and using resources and putting lives at risk for it is a big deal. Hera was depicted as honorable and responsible in the Rebels series and I swear I was watching a different person on screen. Also she is a major Sabine enabler and that needs to stop. Sabine is grown and needs to grow up and fix her attitude.

3.) Anakin’s Role In the Show

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Hayden and I love Anakin, I have the dude tattooed on me for Force sake so don’t come at me for that, but I had some issues on how his character was used here. First, I’m tired of Ahsoka’s relevance to Anakin being the only defining trait about her. Second, I’m continuously annoyed by Anakin’s lack of accountability in these shows; he never once apologizes to Ahsoka for all that’s happened, he never once’s has a meaningful conversation with her; he just basically beats her down until she finally lets go of her past. Did I love the Clone Wars flashbacks! YES! They were my favorite part of the entire show and I want MORE of that; but I so wish Anakin could have been reflecting on his own actions with Ahsoka instead of being like “Is ThAt WhAt ThIs Is AbOuT?” Like come on 🙄

4.) Ahsoka’s “It’s Time To Move On” Line

Are you kidding me Ahsoka? There is still so much more to unpack with her past such as all the other relationships she’s had that completely changed her trajectory like BARRISS and REX and she could also be a mentor figure to Luke and Leia, etc. But nope the only thing that matters is getting over Anakin and all is well despite being stranded in another galaxy and Thrawn being unleashed back home. Like THIS IS NOT OKAY!

5.) The Cheap Ass Production of this Show

I’m not normally one to comment on production but it was so obvious in this show how many corners were cut. For one characters like Thrawn look god awful. Dude looking like a blue Elon Musk instead of an intimidating villain. The use of fog and the volume were very obvious and the places we went to were so boring minus the red leaves forest. The worlds of Star Wars used to be so cool and otherworldly but that’s not the case nowadays and it’s sad. Also why does Force ghost Anakin look better in the 2000’s than it does now? I prefer quality over quantity so I really wish Disney would quit churning out these cheaply made productions and have the audacity to rise their Disney plus subscriptions and not pay their people well.

6.) THE RACISM

I’m so fucking tired of this y’all! 🤬 of course make the Jewish actor in the shipyard be greedy and power hungry. Of course make the Asian Senator the asshole and not any of the white protagonists. The antisemitism and racism against POC is unacceptable to me and it should be unacceptable to you too.

Conclusion

I’m sure I’m missing some talking points but these are my biggest grips and as an Ahsoka fan I’m disappointed. Being a miserable Jedi not Jedi responsible for bringing a new evil into the galaxy but being content being stranded in another galaxy is not the future I believe Ahsoka deserves and I sincerely hope they don’t continue this story. It’s just bad all around. Except for the Loth cats… the Loth cats can stay. And Clone Wars flashbacks.

[mlmaemond]

lore olympus is over

tl;dr it was bad.

it was a long episode, i counted 110 panels, give or take a few. lore olympus has had increasingly long episodes, to the point of feeling arduous and overwrought with unnecessary details and subplots. i could feel my eyes glaze over as i was reading each episode; for years, it's felt like none of the episodes advanced the plot in any way, and mostly existed as pointless filler, delving into a plethora of subplots that never get resolved—at the very least, they never seem to be resolved in a meaningful and fulfilling way.

but enough preamble! you're wondering what happened in the episode itself, and i'm here to tell you. for context, within the last three to five episodes, apollo revealed that he was secretly a puppet of ouranos the whole time, ouranos revealed himself and tried to steal persephone's fertility goddess powers or something equally asinine, and persephone unlocked her full fertility goddess powers in order to unlock the full fertility goddess powers of all the other fertility goddesses, and together they brought back gaea from her vague undefined slumber/exile/whatever.

we start with the reveal of gaea, who defeats ouranos within five panels. a bit anticlimactic, but ouranos was revealed within the last five episodes of a 280-episode series, so i don't know what i was expecting.

it feels great to know there were no real stakes to this conflict.

gaea turns back to hades and persephone, and stares at them. the next full panel signals a timeskip. it's some undefined number of months later, and hades is on his own. the audience hasn't been shown the details of hades and persephone's confrontation with gaea, so we're led to believe something happened to persephone; all we know is that she and hades have been separated, and hades is sad.

hades goes through his morning routine, then enters the mortal realm, and the story flashes back to gaea's conversation with hades and persephone:

cool.

here, we run into an issue of bad comics formatting. i don't plan on getting too into the nitty gritty of page layout, it's more interesting to me than it is to most other people, and webcomics function fundamentally differently from normal comics, so i'm not as well versed in how to analyze them. that being said, this is what that snippet looks like when it's zoomed out:

this is the most important line in the episode, perhaps even the entire series, and neither the character speaking nor the characters reacting are in the same panel as the text. it's just this floating, meaningless bubble of dialogue, and most readers are on their phones, so it can't be seen at the same time as gaea, hades, or persephone; it has to be scrolled through. to me, the isolation seems to derive this line of anything that could make it compelling. it's also just a bad line. i am by no means the first (and hopefully not the last) person to point this out, but structuring your feminist hades and persephone retelling around persephone finding true love with a man is absolute nonsense. there is nothing genuinely feminist or subversive about lore olympus.

gaea goes on to monologue a bit, and ends up with this conclusion:

the hades/persephone myth retelling is finally complete: persephone is made to spend six months in the mortal realm and six months in the underworld, only in the lore olympus retelling, it's not demeter and hades who make this deal, it's an official decree from gaea. agency is stripped from demeter and hades and given to gaea, who had no role in this story originally, and shouldn't have this role now. ultimately, lore olympus is barely an echo of the original mythos, it keeps some aesthetics, and some names, but i am certain the nuances and complexities of hades and persephone as mythological and cultural figures have been lost on rachel smythe.

we also find out that hades and persephone are allowed to visit each other at any point, so the tragedy of their separation is completely undercut. they get a happy ending, and so does everyone else, except for the irredeemably evil apollo, and the redeemably evil zeus.

dionysus looks like this now after hardly showing up in the story:

i don't even know what to say to this:

happy pride month i guess

hades and persephone are happy and in love and everything is perfect and magical forever. the end.

but wait! there's more! you thought it was over, but there are at least 20 more panels! we skip ahead to "many, many years later," where melinoe—hades and persephone's dream daughter from the future—is now hades and persephone's actual real living daughter, no longer trapped in tartarus with kronos (long story, don't worry about it). she wakes up, and makes her way to hades and persephone's room, where persephone has just given birth:

this panel certainly is something. it wasn't until my second read through that i realized there was, in fact, a baby in hades' arms. the last panel is of hades, persephone, and their two daughters, finally a complete and happy family. where did dionysus go? i don't know, don't worry about it.

good lord rachel smythe cannot draw children. normally i wouldn't be mean about this—i can't draw children either—but rachel smythe is a bestselling author with the most popular webtoon on the site and multiple eisner awards, so i don't really feel like i'm punching down here. her art is incredibly inconsistent, and it tends to be at its worst when hades and persephone are standing next to each other, or when any child is shown. the art did not improve in the final episode, if anything, it was worse than usual.

what did it all mean? it's hard to say. i've been reading this series for years at this point, and trying to piece together the semblance of a coherent plot is arduous at best, and impossible at worst. the writing was never good per se, but the early episodes seemed to have a spark, a passion, that's completely lacking later on. the final arc was especially disappointing, smythe spent years building up apollo as an antagonist, only for him to be revealed as a puppet the entire time, and in the end, his defeat didn't feel like a victory for persephone.

i'm having a hard time coming up with a good conclusion. what is there to say about lore olympus that hasn't already been said? it's lazy, it's incoherent, it's liberal pseudofeminist nonsense. i spent three years obsessively reading it and now i don't know what to do with my life. thanks for nothing, rachel smythe.

[1960z]

I changed my mind: I do have things to say. spoilers for the latest r&m episode (unmortricken)

ok so firstly I love love love how purposefully anticlimactic and unfulfilling it was. when I, and I think when a lot of other people too, envisioned this episode it was always an episode that looked a lot like rickmurai jack, which had so much build up, both in the overarching and immediate story and so many things were revealed that suddenly made sense of everything and it felt epic and emotional and just so cathartic. that’s what I always imagined this would be like. it wasn’t, and that was the point.

instead, we got this mid-season out of basically nowhere. we know rick’s been hunting prime for a while now, but it’s always been in the background for the most part. this didn’t feel like the culmination of everything, it all just kinda happened. and then at the end of the episode rick kills prime and it’s over. nothing. no explanation or understanding of why prime did what he did — rick just gets his revenge and now prime is dead and it’s done and nothing feels like it’s really changed because it hasn’t. which perfectly mirror’s rick’s own mental state about the whole thing. it wasn’t the satisfying closure he’d always envisioned in his head (even if he’d never admit that’s how he envisioned it lol.) evil morty even points this out: “how’s it feel? better? no? exactly the same? yeah. it always does.”

like in the back of our minds we all knew that killing prime wasn’t actually gonna fix anything for rick, but because of the general understanding of how stories are supposed to work we, or at least I, put that aside an expected to get to indulge in the fantasy that the end of this revenge plot would feel anything but hollow to someone actually experiencing it. and the way this episode was set up completely shattered that.

and the look on down from the bridge rick potion #9 call back really hammered all of that home. the ending to that episode is kind of what everyone thinks of when people think about the “nothing matters, we don’t matter and we’re all gonna die” mentality of the early seasons and making a call back to it… I don’t think it’s a return to that mentality but rather showing having that mentality didn’t save rick. he always looked down on caring about “the little things” because he knew none of it really mattered. but a cosmic multi-dimensional cat and mouse game ending in a revenge killing in the name of his dead wife? now that’s something to care about. and now it’s done and it didn’t really feel all that different to all those little things he insisted were unimportant. how does he find meaning now?

more than that, it’s also a good callback because of the revelation that the scenario is basically the same. in rick potion #9, the scene is a demonstration of morty’s shell shock of taking the place of a dead version of himself like it’s nothing and then having to live on in the monotony of said dead morty’s life as if it’s also nothing. and as prime aptly points out, rick is basically doing the same thing with prime’s life. rick slotted into the life prime left behind and is now living the life prime would be living if he hadn’t gone rouge: “hang out with my grandson. raise echoes of my daughter… I just walked into your garage before you walked into mine. but eventually you did. you lived in my house.” and now, prime is dead. queue look on down from the bridge.

“hope you’re happy with your choice.”

[liontalon1]

Ok let’s talk about the final episode and season in general. Aka i dont have anyone to talk to about this show so you guys get stuck with it.

I’m starting off by saying i enjoyed it, i never really found myself getting bored during episodes though i also wasn’t racing to watch them either.

Now that it’s over i really found it lacking something the previous two seasons had. In the beginning i thought s3 had the potential to be better than s2 (my favorite), but it just didn’t deliver. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this season felt rushed with plot points and characters being added and dropped left and right. I could almost say that the show would’ve benefited from another season to allow the storyline to be fleshed out.

It also had a really weird mix of fan service and not. Like they kept on hinting that CX-2 was Tech, going so far as to put Imperial Tech in the credits (at least i think i saw that). I personally didn’t really have a preference one way or the other (i was kinda hoping they’d be Dogma), but seeing how it ended yeah we should’ve had his helmet come off. Just tie that loose end.

They also included Ventress (who i love) but what point did that cameo serve? That Omega’s force sensitive (which i hate how every damn character that is important has to be force sensitive)? Nothing ever came of that! It’s literally never mentioned again, so why was it there? It didn’t even further the batch’s character development like other filler episodes. The cadets anyone remember them? They had no purpose, which was ok if they hadn’t been on Pabu.

And yeah I’m going to go back to Tech. Because how did his death serve the plot? It didn’t, the batch were sad for a single episode, then he was barely mentioned. Which made sense if he was going to be CX-2, but he wasn’t. So why kill him? The only effect it had on the batch was too make things harder for them (same reason Echo was sidelined this entire season), so was that it? To get him out of the way and cause drama, to be an emotional blow for the fans? It just seems pointless.

Then just the final itself. There was a lot that just seemed unfinished. Hemlock and Scorch’s deaths seemed lacking, and kinda anticlimactic at least for Scorch my boy deserved better. We never found out what was up with Hemlocks hand. And Crosshairs hand, i know Star Wars likes to cut hands off their characters but it made no sense plot wise. First it was a cheap cop out of dealing with Crosshairs trauma, second Hemlock wanted to turn them into his operatives so why have them permanently injure one of them? And the Zillo beast was so anticlimactic i was expecting a lot more chaos, yeah it was how an actual wild animal would react but still.

I’m sure i could say more but I’ll stop there. Again i enjoyed the show, and will stay in this fandom for a long time.

[ven0moir]

As someone who's been obsessively analyzing ST for about a year now, it makes me so sad that the only thing keeping me at 99% certainty of Byler being endgame is the fear that we might get queerbaited.

It pains me that if Will was a girl, I would have 0 doubt left. Especially because with all of the evidence there is to back up the writers INTENTIONS (yes, they 100% intended to queercode both Mike AND Will at this point), if Byler isn't endgame then that means the Duffers INTENTIONALLY queerbaited us. In the year 2025.

And then I circle back on this thought and think ... why would they queerbait? Why would they specifically use Byler to do so? If they wanted to draw in an LGBT audience it would've been as easy as given Will a different love interest in Lenora and confirm him queer in that way. Why would they so meticulously and elaborately write a queer slowburn friends to lovers only to queerbait in the end?

I know some Milkvans are COUNTING on this, they are HOPING this is all queerbait because THEY SEE THE SIGNS as well, they're just refusing to accept it. Of course I fear they're right deep down, but do I actually think, if I go about this logically, that the Duffers would do something so ... anticlimactic? When they've described S5 as 'S1 and S4 on steroids'?

When it comes to the romances, Byler IS the big shock. The biggest surprise. Because whether Nancy chooses Steve or Jonathan or remains single, we know Nancy's options, we're just waiting to see who or what she chooses.

But most of the GA does not even see Byler as a real possibility. Hell, some of them haven't even picked up on Will liking Mike (yes, even after the painting, I've seen some people still debate this and some straight up thinking Will likes El).

And yet when you rewatch the show after considering Byler as a possibility, it becomes SO OBVIOUS. It is the perfect plot twist when it comes to Mike and Will. And I wouldn't be on board with Byler if Milkvan was written in a way that truly showed they loved each other, were compatible and thought of each other as an equal. As someone going into S4 as part of the GA, I was expecting that S4 would finally, FINALLY make me ship Milkvan because I am sorry but I picked up on that Born Sexy Yesterday bs since S1 and I did NOT like them romantically, not at that point. I wished they had been a slowburn friends to lovers that got together in like S3 or something, but even if they felt forced and rushed as fuck I was still willing to allow myself to be swayed into liking them later on. And that never happened, instead S4 presented Will as a potential love interest for Mike and I was SEATED. I was SO DONE with milkvan's drama.

When it comes to romance, it would be the dumbest writing decision I've ever seen in my life not to get Mike and Will together. And I know the Duffers might not be perfect but they cannot be THIS dumb when they grew up loving Dawson's Creek. There is no way that show did more for its gay character in 1998 than the Duffers potentially could in 2025 let's be for real.

[featheredenby]

Heroes Of The GHFA

“Oh… that’s a relief,” she exclaims,”well I’m The Huntress and I just joined yesterday.”

Written by: FeatheredEnby

Word Count: 824

Part One of: Show Your Fangs

A Superhero AU of Empires SMP/Hermitcraft/The Life Series

“Welcome to the first meeting of the heroes of the Government Funded Heroes Project, you are all here to become heroes. Would you like to share how you made this decision? Wolf Spirit perhaps please go first.” Says the director of the project.

“Uhm… it’s really not that interesting of a story.” She replies.

It had been on a Friday a few months before as Shrub was walking to the bus stop from her job working in the wolf enclosure at the zoo. She was just walking when she saw an older woman walking her dog, and out of an alleyway came a man holding a knife. Before she knew what was happening the man was threatening the woman and Shrub’s instincts took over. Before the man knew what was happening anger had caused Shrub’s hybrid traits to appear as she grew a tail and pair of ears. She had run forward sweeping his leg and punching him in the face, breaking his nose. Then the GFHA had arrived similarly to the men in black and offered her a chance to make way more money and to help others so she had joined. It was awesome she could fight for what she believed in without fear of being arrested and had a way to be in public without hiding an essential aspect of herself.

“And that was pretty much it.” Finishes The Wolf Spirit.

“WOW,” replies the man known as Hotguy,”That was a lot more anticlimactic than I expected it to be.”

“At least I did something of value,” she challenges,”all you did was show some videos of what you were capable of doing before you got sick and started needing the wheel chair!”

Oof that stung… It’s not like she was wrong, but to him it felt like a punch to the face. He had just been sitting at home watching the news with his roommate Grian when the GFHA had put out a call for anyone who wanted to become a superhero, this was the chance that Scar had been waiting for. However it’s hard to become a superhero while being disabled luckily they had offered solutions for it. So the next day he had sent out an email giving a description of who he was, his skills, and some videos of what he used to be able to do. And to his surprise within a week he was called to set up an interview and soon Hotguy was born. It was amazing too, he was given robotic legs to allow him to stand and walk and run along with a high tech bow. Now he could not worry about money or medical bills along with being able to help out his friends. There was just one problem which is that when you randomly get called out your roommate gets suspicious… so being a freelance landscaper came in handy as he didn’t have specific hours of work and could do anything he pleased.

“I guess you’re right.” He admits.

As they continue talking a pale woman with black hair, wearing partial plate and scalemail over a black sports dress bursts through the door.

“Ack,” she cries as she trips over her foot,” So sorry that I’m late I got caught with my job as a seamstress!”

“No worries!” Replies The Wolf Spirit.

“Yeah, we have all been late to a meeting at some point.” Hotguy adds.

“Oh… that’s a relief,” she exclaims,”well I’m The Huntress and I just joined yesterday.”

Yesterday had sure been interesting, between sewing band outfits for Gem, Impulse, and Scott to creepers getting loose in Empires city and her having to take care of them since she was the only person around. Let’s see she had been sitting at a table outside of Cleo’s cat cafe when there was an explosion in a nearby laboratory, it turned out that a glade of creepers had escaped and were reeking havoc around the city. So she had paid and ran over to her apartment where she grabbed her hand axes and went out to get to work. It had been a long and tedious process but it was worth it. She ended up killing most of them before she had to stop because of her injuries and went home but apparently what she did got on the news as she received a call from the GFHA offering her a spot on the team and just like that her rusty old axes were replaced with shiney new ones and she was give new armor. Now Katherine Elizabeth was a hero and a fashionable one at that.

“But I guess that’s my story,” she finishes,”I have to admit though I’m slightly disappointed that neither of you showed up to help.”

“While this is all lovely,” interjects the director,”but do you have anything else to say or can we end this meeting.”

“Nope.”

“Very well then meeting adjourned”

[distinguished-slacker]

I am saying bye to any potential redemption of writing that Shinoa’s character could have ever had right now…

(OR how to completely destroy a FMC Kagami style…)

It’s just sad when I reminisce about those 2015 times and think about how, if things had went differently, Shinoa could have ended up there up in the podium with the other select few best written female protagonists of the shōnen genre.

I know many people use “x character has so much potential” frequently (including myself) but for me, Shinoa’s character is the biggest waste I came across in all these years of watching anime, and reading manga and LNs.

In shōnen, you usually have male characters who are the son of an important clan or the vessel of an important creature or something of that sort whereas female characters don’t really have much going on. At most they will be a girl from a noble family, but this is just for the rich girl archetype and the rich girl-peasant guy dynamics between fc and mc. The family in itself most likely is not relevant to the plot or to their character development.

That’s why Shinoa was something more unique. She is all what the male characters have in one. Her story is on par with that of Mika and Yuu. She is a member of the most influential family in the story, she is the sister of one of the central figures behind the apocalypse and the weapons the army uses, she is the vessel of the villain of OnS, and her past of isolation, experimentation and family abuse has massively shaped her personality which has been quite highlighted throughout the manga and the light novels (i.e. her dry personality, her self-deprecating comments, etc.).

However, all of these just went into the drain. Shinoa just lost all what made her interesting to me. Putting aside the fact that it seems like the Hīragi family lost their relevance in the story, Kagami placed more importance on Shinoa’s feelings for Yuu than her family situation for her character arc. The arc didn’t touch upon aspects like, what Shinoa wants to do in respect with her family? When it comes to her sister, putting aside that Mahiru seems quite secondary lately, the importance of their relationship to the story is past their expiry date. We didn’t even get a proper reunion of them or Shinoa being shocked to see her after 8 years. They had hours to have a talk (the car scene could have been a good setting for it since they had nothing else to do), and if they were to talk now, the timing would be just so off that it would just completely lose its emotional purpose.

As for her being the vessel of Shikama, well, what I need to say: her character arc was anticlimactic. The female protagonist being possessed by the most powerful being in the story would have been such a big moment for the story, Shinoa’s big moment, but that only ended up in disappointment for the expectations it created. From the build up to this moment to everyone being worried about her heart stopping and every faction sensing the awakening of the First, what followed after was very underwhelming. Literally after she gets possessed everyone of her squad goes on to do their own thing and the plot’s focus just shifts onto Guren and Yuu’s fight, and Mika’s death without first giving enough conclusion to Shinoa’s arc. Thus, one big event overshadowed another big one. Nothing really happened with the possessed Shinoa, just Shikama causing some ruckus around the city. We could have seen Shinoa struggling to regain control, her feelings while Shikama was using her body, her squadmates calling her to come back to their senses, a powerful scene of friendship but nothing of that sort happened. Instead, Shinoa came back just because of some sinful keys that Guren, Mahiru and Noya used, and then those three left and went to Mika and Yuu. So basically we are left with the impression that Shinoa being possessed by the First was something to take care off quickly, 10 minutes of sinful keys and onto their next task. This at least could have been used for a powerful Hīragi sisters reunion, but again it just didn’t happen, and even when she comes back to normal, everyone treats her as if they forgot she almost died. We see no reaction of Yuu and Kimizuki. We see Yoichi being relieved to see both Shinoa and Mitsuba alive, but there is no distinction between them even though Shinoa was in far more danger than Mitsuba. The only one we got a proper reaction from was Mitsuba, and instead of being a rare moment of female friendship in OnS, this was quickly played off as a boob joke.

Ironically, some of these moments I mentioned only happened when Shinoa got possessed for a second time. We see Yuu running to her in worry (the shoulder scene) and her being the one to fight off Shikama but this in my opinion was a very poor choice of timing. All of these should have happened when Shinoa got possessed the first time. A second possession just doesn’t have as much impact as the first one. Why do we see Yuu worry for Shinoa after her second possession but not after the first one? Overall, this makes his worry come off as cheap even if the author didn’t mean it just because the timing is so wrong. Her fight against Shikama was just frustrating to look at because it was all just a Mary Sue bullsh*t when we all know that it was the drugs holding Shikama back. Then, the author kills it by making Shikama abandon her as if she wasn’t actually a necessary piece in his millenia old plan, even though he has spent centuries looking for a vessel.

Overall, it feels as if Shinoa’s character arc happened not for the sake of her character development, but rather to use Shinoa as a means for other characters’ stories and plans. One example of this could be Mika and Yuu. Every scene with Shinoa (with or without Yuu) follows or is followed by a mikayuu scene that has far more emotional impact, and a lot of Shinoa’s actions and words parallel Yuu’s actions and words to Mika, as if to use her character to tell the readers that yes, Mika and Yuu’s relationship is a romantic one because if Shinoa has romantic feelings for Yuu, and she says the same words to Yuu that Yuu says to Mika, doesn’t it mean Yuu loves Mika romantically? Something of that sort… And these parallels are way too many now that it looks like Shinoa’s scenes are a cheap copy of mikayuu scenes.

I stopped liking Shinoa years ago but I still had hopes that after Yuu’s “rejection” she would have some time to calm down, let her feelings out and maybe talk with the rest of her squad for emotional support. After all, everything happened just in one day for her. I still had this tiny hope because Kagami said he was studying storytelling, and it’s not like we have many female characters in OnS, much less active ones and to be frank Shinoa is actually the only female in OnS that has been getting substantial screentime in these last years, as Mitsuba, Krul and even Mahiru have been quite secondary. So at least I wanted one positive input of female characterisation into the current OnS events.

What I did not expect was Shinoa going full obsessive rejected girl mode and threatening the life of her crush’s most important person while also starving the poor and hungry to death. This is such a massive downgrade for a girl who said that at the beginning of the manga that she didn’t want to be like her sister. With Mahiru it felt natural and well written because her character was established like that from the beginning but for Shinoa the writing is all over the place. Now not only she is a copy of Yuu, but also of Mahiru, and this makes her lose all her originality.

Her order of burning the food of all Ikebukuro’s settlements is not only inhuman but also plain stupid and unnecessary. It’s as if this chapter tries to make Shinoa look cool with her acting like the leader but all that comes out of her mouth is garbage. After all the interesting things that she lost, what remained for her was her role as squad leader. True, she stopped acting like a leader way long ago but as I said before, after Yuu’s “rejection” this time could have been used on her bonding with her other three squadmates. Kagami could have still had performed a minimal rescue of Shinoa’s character at this point. However, the writing failed when trying to make Shinoa take the spotlight in the group before working on her leadership abilities, establishing that she was smart or at the very least, form a bond of trust between Shinoa and the other three. That’s why these scenes don’t give the impression that the rest are letting Shinoa do the leading because they know how capable she is and place their trust on her, and rather it looks like simply a matter of screentime. It’s simple: Shinoa is the female protagonist, she speaks, those three are cardboad cutouts, they don’t get to speak. Take Ferid, Crowley, Mahiru and Krul conveniently out of the picture too. That’s why her being the leader now feels anti natural.

Now I feel like Shinoa’s character is completely unsalvageable. It looks like Kagami really embarked on a journey to make Shinoa as unlikeable as possible. Her character arc should be over by now; a good portion of the manga was spent on her and she is no longer relevant to the plot now that she lost Shikama, and the story from now on should be focusing on the main events. If I remember well Kagami said he wanted to give the Hīragi sisters a happy ending but if that means Shinoa will finally learn to move on, I must say that at this point is too late for it. Too much time of this manga was spent on ruining her character to make her a “good” character ever again.

I know it’s not only her that has been ruined by Kagami’s writing, but again, to me she had the biggest potential and that’s why it’s even sadder.

[johanna-swann]

It's been a few days, I've had time to sleep on it and I changed my mind. The season 7 finale was the worst finale yet. In short: The entire thing felt super rushed, there was next to no emotional payoff, the main plot made no sense and I was underwhelmed / confused the whole time.

The end result, where the characters are at right now, the position from which they will start into season 8 I'm happier with than last season (goodbye forced heteronormativity), but the way we got there was... not good. (Long review under the cut. Like, long review. I have a lot of thoughts.)

Just as in 6x18 the pacing of that episode was all over the place. There was this main plot that they teased us with, the "whatever is going to happen? are they all going to survive? what will the consequences be?" and then halfway through the episode that big mystery was resolved and there were no consequences.

I remember the bridge collapse last year was super underwhelming because they just rushed through the incident in a way that gave us no time to even worry about the characters much. Buck finally was put in a position where he had to assume leadership and then that lasted for exactly the time it took him to get to Hen and once she was awake, she took over as acting Captain. Nobody was hurt so badly that we had to assume the worst. That one earthquake victim showed up which was supposed to be meaningful I guess, but it just felt random. (I doubt most viewers even remembered a random victim from 4 seasons ago. I sure didn't until someone else pointed out it was the same actor.) And then the danger was suddenly just over. The "big dramatic disaster" took up less than 20 minutes and there were no consequences. There's a reason why 6x18 only made 99th place out of 106 episodes on imdb.

7x10 repeated those very same mistakes all over again, but worse. In this case the two big questions concerning the main plot were "Who committed the arson?" and "Will Bobby be okay?". Both questions barely had to be asked at all because 1) it was very clear (and not at all a plot twist as some early reviews suggested) that Amir was innocent and the generic Latino drug smuggler cartel (loved that btw, who came up with this bullshit) was involved. 2) this is 911. The main characters don't die. The least I expected though were some heartfelt moments between the rest of the team holding each other up, people sitting with Bobby and talking to him, maybe some parallels to last season when we had a similar situation with Buck.

Instead it takes almost 10 minutes until the other characters even figure out something is wrong and we proceed to focus heavily on Athena who's going rogue again and keeps critical information from her Captain because she wants to take revenge personally. She then threatens an innocent civilian with her service weapon while off duty which - as we learnt in 2x08 from none other than Athena herself - under California law is an assault. Well done 911, a show who has previously criticised Cops abusing their power but keeps writing stories for Athena to do the exact same thing. Wtf.

Anyway, my point was that we spent so much time following Athena around on her nonsensical quest for revenge that we barely even have scenes with Bobby in the hospital. Once the generic cardboard cutout cartel is dealt with it turns out that Bobby despite having been without his own heartbeat for 14 minutes, despite having been seizing and on a ventilator last we saw him, despite the Doctor being unsure if he'd wake up at all is actually just fine. Perfectly happy and healthy even. Okay. My bad for expecting something more here I guess.

Bottom line, the main plot around the arson was very straight forward (I don't know which part here was supposed to be considered a plot twist and using Amir as a very obvious red herring twice just seems lazy), had little emotional impact and "the big showdown" was very anticlimactic. Basically the same things I also criticised about the last season finale and I don't think it's a coincedence that 7x10 is the second worst rated episode as of right now. At least the bridge collapse made sense.

One storyline they (temporarily) wrapped up rather well is the one around Mara and Henren. This will be picked up again in season 8, but for now we know Mara is in a safe place, she can have contact to the Wilsons and it might also evolve into Madney discussing having another kid in the next season. I don't feel bad waiting 3 or 4 months for how this continues. However I still think that they should've waited with the plot around the council woman for season 8 maybe. Have Henren take in Mara, show them growing together as a family, show Mara slowly opening up to them. But season 7 had so much personal drama going on already, maybe if they had pushed the incident with Ortiz, her son and her revenge plot to season 8 it would've helped keeping these last few episodes more grounded. They still could've shown Mara struggling to fit in in her new home and all of that.

Madney didn't have much going on this season. The wedding episode had its moments of course, but those were contained to the confines of 7x06. Now they've taken in Mara and there's potential to build on that, but nothing that has been explicitly teased at yet.

The Eddie/Kim Doppelgänger plot was just unhinged. It was sort of fun and I enjoyed it in a way that I also enjoy Doctor Who, Umbrella Academy or Legends of Tomorrow when they go off the charts again with their weirdness levels, but did it really fit into 911 as a show? I don't know. It's also not exactly clear yet if they're going to bring back either Marisol or Kim next season. And like, I get it. Tim Minear regrets killing off Shannon, but for the love of god just stand by your mistake. She's dead. It's been 5 seasons. We already had a plot where Eddie realised that he can't date just to give Christopher a mother figure, we already had an arc where Eddie realised that if he starts dating again he has to do it for himself, we've had scenes where Eddie admitted he was angry with Shannon for wanting a divorce, for leaving or that he still misses her sometimes, we've seen Eddie and Christopher keep up traditions to mourn her together (visiting the grave, smores). I get that grief doesn't follow a specific timeline, but still. Can we please just move on already.

Also I don't understand why they had Christopher move to El Paso. Eddie's parents are both retired, they could've stayed in LA to support Christopher instead. Chris is probably a lot closer to a bunch of relatives they have in LA than he is to his grandparents too, what about Tía Pepa? I'll be honest, even if I was in a bad place and my kid was angry with me, I would not let my 13 year old who impulsively and in the middle of the night called his grandparents (who have a history of manipulating Eddie into giving Chrisopher to them) move over a thousand kilometres away, away from his school, his friends and all the other family members he's close too. There are other options. (Also why was Buck there? He was in the room, but that's about it. Again, my bad that I had the expectation he'd be there for a reason.)

Then we have Buck and Tommy. Nothing much going on here either. I get that keeping Tommy around for 7x09 and 7x10 was a bit of a last minute decision, it was probably difficult to schedule filming with the actor etc. But that doesn't stop other characters from talking about Tommy. Instead we still barely know what's going on. Are they officially boyfriends? How do they spend their time together, do they have a hobby in common? How long have they been dating? They're still cute, but it seems a little superficial.

Which brings me to a big issue: The timeline. What the fuck is going on with the timeline? I don't even mean the obvious mistake with Tommy leaving the 118 "5 years ago". But Henren are talking about adoption and according to my research adopting a foster kid takes at least 9 months. The cruise ship disaster happened "last march". What? What is going on? How much time are we missing here? Have Bucktommy been dating for a year now and we don't even know? How long was the Eddie/Kim thing going on? Then again, if we're missing an entire year, wouldn't Buck have been with the 118 for 8 years instead of 7 as Bobby said? I am so confused.

Another thing that has been mentioned before is that season 7 barely felt like a procedural drama. It was so chock-full with the characters' personal drama that it felt more like a soap at times. How many calls did we even have this season, especially in 7b? Episode 6 was the wedding, I only remember the abduction case from ep. 7, ep. 8 was Bobby begins once again, ep. 9 only had a montage and no specific calls and ep. 10 didn't have any calls at all. Hopefully this change will be reversed in season 8 when we get more than 10 episodes again.

Only thing left to mention is the "cliffhanger" with Gerrard. Is it really a cliffhanger though? Doesn't feel like the stakes are high enough to call it a cliffhanger. They're stuck with an asshole for a Captain, getting rid of him will be an important storyline in season 8, but it's also not as dramatic as they're trying to make it seem. A big part of the reason why Gerrard's 118 was so bad back in the begins episodes is that Chim and Hen felt isolated. They didn't have back-up against Gerrard, nobody helped them or spoke up for them. That is very much not the case this time. They all still have each other and Gerrard will not stick around forever. It will suck, but it also doesn't seem like a death sentence.

In conclusion: Most of the finale was just plain bad. Not cleverly written, not well balanced, not emotionally rewarding, not planned out enough. There's little positive I can take away from this episode. Some storylines weren't explored enough, others did get the necessary screentime and still made no sense. Not all of these mistakes were made just in the finale, some have been happening for most of season 7. Let's hope for a better season 8.

[tadpolesonalgae]

i've read the last chapter twice and i honestly thought things would go a different way? idk i thought even if running away didn't work with the magic that maybe she got at least a bit of a backbone, it kinda feels like running to eris and have all that guilt on top of the one she already had was all for nothing. i wanna root for her but at a certain point she's really doing all this to herself. i thought the reunion would warrant some well deserved anger from both parts like a climax of sorts, i guess it did it was just more depressing and defeated than the anger i was expecting. kinda wish we'd seen azriel or even mor tell the others too

and i'm sorry but how did she pick the weirdest way to off herself 😭 like there are so many easier ways, even just with the arrow just stab it through your heart, she definitely wouldn't hit azriel like that and she remembered the wards but didnt think to mind speak to call rhys and feyre? like i get she was in shock but i just dont know how she's so smart but keeps making the dumbest decisions. i also thought the prophecy meant she'd kill him with her powers not just this

i'm sorry if this sounds a bit critical, the chapter was beautifully written as always, you're really amazing at conveying emotion, the reason it's so frustrating to see her stay stuck in her self pity is because of how well you write it but i just thought there would be more happening when she came back - 🧶

Okay…I have some thoughts drifting around in my head so I hope I’ll express them in a coherent fashion 😬😭🧡💛 (though this did get a little long, sorry 🫣🫂)

So, first of all, I think some people probably were expecting anger or some kind of emotional detonation, but in my experience anger and frustration take a lot of energy to sustain and I don’t believe reader—where she was at that moment—was capable of directing her resentment anywhere but herself? She’s exhausted from being alive; she doesn’t have the energy nor the instinct to become angry with Azriel or any of the IC.

I know this is a fanfic, so it would be quite simple to have her ‘fixed’ after visiting Eris, but that scene was supposed to be the first moment of catharsis, where reader is able to physically exhaust a portion of her magic that has been straining on her. It’s mentioned (I think in acomaf, and we also see it with Nesta in acosf) that Rhys has to constantly have magic in use to relieve the pressure it puts on him or else it will drive him insane, so reader needed to have some kind of release moment since her magic wasn’t able to manifest correctly.

I’d also like to mention that I think it might seem underwhelming or anticlimactic in some lights because it is frustrating in a way to see someone continuously be unable to stand up for themselves and just kind of melt into a puddle on the floor? Particularly if they aren’t entirely deserving of certain behaviours and it would be simpler to fix if the person just took a stand and stopped muddling about the place 😭

‘kinda wish we'd seen azriel or even mor tell the others too’

With this, do you mean that reader ran away to Eris, or that she tried to end herself, because I’m pretty sure both of those will be spoken about in chapter 16 if that’s any consolation! 🧡💛

Okay, onto the method of suicide! (Yes, I acknowledge it was a weird choice, certainly a more unintentionally flamboyant approach)

So, since she’s fae (I can’t actually remember if decapitation works?) I’m pretty sure ash is the only thing that can actually kill her? Which limited the options quite significantly? I suppose she could have taken a large dose of faebane to reduce her healing and then ended herself in a more ‘human’ (?) way?

Personally though, there were a couple a reasons I wanted to use the crossbow and arrow!

First of all, using a crossbow, letting reader set it up, knowing she just has to knock into a book and then it will be out of her hands? It’s passive. She’s again letting things be taken out of control—I didn’t want her first moments of real autonomy to be trying to end herself (though that might have been very impactful for a different direction of the story) (I’m also not counting her giving away the earrings since that wasn’t something she did entirely for herself)

Secondly, the Crossbow itself was lying inside the House of Wind, along with various other weapons and blades that the IC are just too accustomed to—I want a specific reason for the IC to understand what sort of problems are happening with reader. While I don’t feel it’s expressly their fault (again, I feel it’s passive, not active—they didn’t intend for their distance to have a negative impact on her, though it did anyway) they will feel responsible that she used something of theirs to hurt herself with.

Then, Eris was the one who gave reader the ash arrow and I would like to have a reason to elaborate on what’s going on in the background (which I’m scared I won’t do well 🫣)

Admittedly this is a slightly strange reason, but I think from reader’s perspective and without being able to understand az’s side, he’s seemed quite cold/distant from her due to external pressures and I wanted this to serve as a reminder that despite how bad things are right now he does still care about her? Not romantically or anything obviously, but he doesn’t want any of the people he cares about to be hurt where he can help it so this felt like a good circumstance that would set their reconciliation (not reconciliation, but their distance closing I guess?) in motion and give them a reason to actually pay attention to one another and figure out what’s going on

(Lastly, this one is more an allegory than anything, but being shot through the heart by an arrow is usually something done by Cupid. So revolving around her love for Azriel and how it’s kind of messing her up? This is definitely a more indulgent reason though 😭)

For the mind speaking thing and why she didn’t call out for Rhys and Feyre—I’m not sure if I expressed it incorrectly but reader was suffering through an onslaught of pretty debilitating inclinations revolving around ending herself, and then the solution to those urges was stripped away from her when Azriel took the arrow instead so she’s having to grasp with the fact she’s still alive, she’s now responsible for murdering someone rhys, Feyre etc. love dearly, she’s killed someone she loves dearly, while also dealing with small glimpses from the war—she isn’t in the right headspace to think outside of those problems.

Also, I don’t feel daemati abilities are explained very clearly, but in my mind Azriel, Cassian, Mor etc. who aren’t daemati would be familiar enough with it (through speaking with Rhys) that they know roughly where to push within their mental expanse to search for a connection point. With reader who has only been fae for two years, has little to no experience with speaking mind to mind—I don’t feel it would be at all possible for her to figure out how to call for someone mentally when she can barely control her own magic and when neither Rhys nor Feyre would have a reason to be checking on her mentally when as far as they know she’s safe and with Az.

With the prophecy/vision that Elain got, all she explicitly sees is Azriel on the floor with blood around him then a flash of green. He looks dead but that’s not something Elain can determine just through visuals just yet—no, Azriel is not dead, but he comes close enough to imitate it!

‘i'm sorry if this sounds a bit critical, the chapter was beautifully written as always, you're really amazing at conveying emotion, the reason it's so frustrating to see her stay stuck in her self pity is because of how well you write it but i just thought there would be more happening when she came back - 🧶’

I think it was critical but I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all and really appreciate it!! 🧡💛 It wasn’t malicious or mean and I really enjoy hearing your opinions on cbmthy’s storyline because it helps me adapt and shape the direction of the plot—seriously, I love getting to hear your thoughts, thank you so much for taking the time to articulate them, it’s such a massive aid 😭🧡💛 I hope none of my replies felt too harsh or absolute, and I would love to know if you have any other thoughts on the storyline!! 🧡💛