#I FORGOT ABOUT THEIR BLOG BUT REMEMBERED I WANTED TO DO A VILLAIN ARC

[ask-stopwatch]

My name is Stopwatch. I'm not of this world, but I was turned into one of your kind so I can stay. I'm looking for sombody to teach me how to use the powers I've been given.

Hello? Are you a watcher?

@ask-stopwatch

Of course. And who might you be?

*Xelqua doesn't turn to face the person, and instead just keeps his back to him*

[wherefancytakesme]

Salty Ask List

What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?* /W/anDom! It just feels really heteronormative to me, and the art I’ve seen looks far too lovey-dovey for those two.

Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP?* /S/ylander. Wander and Sylvia are one of the very few male/female duos that are really close purely as friends. It should honestly stay that way, if not just to show how close you can be to your friends too. Also /S/keleton Dance. Wander is asexual af to me.

Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion? Nope, I only follow crew and art blogs. But I’ve defs blocked artists who were homophobic.

Do you have a NoTP in your fandom? Are they a popular OTP?* /B/lack Eye. I just think of those two as they gayest of all 5 mains, so there’s no way I could possibly be comfortable imagining them together.

Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?* I almost had Sylava ruined for me. Almost. Because of... uh... a certain someone I think we all remember.

Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?* I started coming around to Tumblesquid. It counteracts with my headcanon, but I love the idea of Wander being subtly married to Jeff the whole time.

Is there anything you used to like but can’t stand now?* I didn’t mind WOY nsfw before, but now all it ever is is Dominator or one of the female characters made to look sexier than they are. People who think Dominator’s hot should actually take a look at the series as a whole, dammit. It’s good.

Have you received anon hate? What about?* Nope! I don’t allow asks.

Most disliked character(s)? Why? Lil’ Bits maybe? She’s a little gimmicky for me as a villain. At least Awesome is fun to hate... Sort of, lol.

Most disliked arc? Why? The arc that got teased in The Robomechabotatron, but ONLY because we never got a 3rd season to develop it. Now it just looks like, “Haha jk we’ll never team up again, we learned nothing.”

Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why? The only I can think of are the sexy princesses from The Hot Shot. I think it’s funny that the staff wanted to joke about Disney princesses who are conventionally attractive and look nothing like their cartoony fathers.

Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why? I guess no one’s a big fan of Hater crushing on Dominator, but while it IS a little typical, I really loved watching Hater be a dork when we know that Dominator WILL NEVER LOVE HIM.

Unpopular opinion about XXX character? Dominator’s not that hot? Just because she has an hourglass figure doesn’t make her automatically attractive. That said though, I’m not usually into those types anyway. Goth OR femme fatale.

Unpopular opinion about your fandom? Are there any opinions on us at all? We’re so small, haha. Um, I guess that we’re more determined than some think. I bet Disney’s like, “Look, see? They’re quiet now, they forgot about #SaveWOY just like we thought”. Bitch nah.

Unpopular opinion about the manga/show? Um, the old dA beta comics? Um, I guess I don’t like beta Sylvia. Maybe everybody didn’t like what a buzzkill she was, but I also found her super ugly.

If you could change anything in the show, what would you change? I’D GIVE IT A THIRD SEASON, OF COURSE.

Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen… Instead of only getting queer rep past with little jokes, I’d put in as much blatant rep as possible. WOY’s in space, there’s no such thing as human sexuality/gender standards.

Does not shipping something ‘popular’ mean you’re in denial and/or biased? In denial, not really. Biased, it depends on the situation.

What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom? That it’s getting smaller and smaller.

What is the purest ship in the fandom? Demurra and Drake! That’s canon, but still. They are so healthy and wholesome and defy all expectations!

What are your thoughts on crack ships? They’re usually pretty fun, purely for the sake of messing around with characters that would never interact.

Popular character you hate? Awesome. I just... wanna friggin’ curb stomp him whenever he’s onscreen. (But I do like watching him get wrecked.)

Unpopular character you love? Was there ever anyone unpopular? Frederick the worm faded into obscurity pretty quick I guess, but I still love thinking about him and Ryder teaming up and the latter working out his issues through the former.

Would you recommend XXX to a friend? Why or why not? OF FUCKING COURSE I WOULD! Who the hell DOESN’T support SaveWOY?!

How would you end XXX/Would you change the ending of XXX? Oh no, I ain’t touchin’ that one. All I want is to know the intended ending. THEN I will tell you what I might have wanted.

Most shippable character? Wander, dude. He’s the fandom’s shipping bicycle. But for me personally, I ship Peepers with most everybody. Everyone male at least.

Least shippable character? Brad. He’s eventually happily married, but the dude did not deserve anyone before then. And I mean, now that he IS married, he’s off the market anyway.

[darlington-v]

I know different interpretations of a work are generally enriching and cool... but c!dream villan interpretations is like how to tell me you only watch Tommy without saying you only watch tommy.... which would be fine but its not a great place to be making statements about the whole nature of the dsmp lol

Wild speculation, but sometimes I wonder if like, because the dsmp didn't really start as a narrative, and a lot of fans don't nessecarily enter it expecting a narrative, but then there is one and the fandom is really discourse heavy and everyone is sort of excpeted to have an opinion while maybe not expecting to form one from the begining or not having a ton of experience with narrative in a way that would "expect" them to have an opinion or not take things at face value??, I don't know if I explained that well at all... and I don't really even think thats right nessecarily... but like wow sometimes some of the takes about power and government and villany...

Honestly, it makes sense!!!

I think something interesting is like.... looking at how animatics have shaped the like tone and culture of the fandom essentially. Like, an interesting fact that I didn't really fully grasp until SUPER recently is like...

c!Wilbur out the gate admits he is manipulating c!Tommy. Like his first youtube video on the Dream SMP he admits his goal is to manipulate c!Tommy and people like c!Tommy into helping him achieve a potion ("drug") empire to monopolize on potions because there were a lot of people on the server who like to min-max, which is to put all of your effort into this one specific skill essentially. so like... i know minecraft doesnt have a skill tree but if it did, it would be putting all your points into that one specific branch of a skill tree. So he wanted to exploit the labor of all the TommyInnits to.... maintain a Potion Empire.

THIS IS A LONG POST BC I GOT CARRIED AWAY SO BUCKLE UP

And I don't think a lot of the fandom who joined later on knows this. I certainly didn't until like a week or so ago? Like... I knew c!Wilbur had been manipulative from the start because I'm a mod of (shameless self promo incoming) @dsmpanalysis and we have a lot of different POVs in that mod team and discord and we talk about it really frequently. I joined the fandom as someone who was really big on L'manburg ESPECIALLY crimeboys, and have turned into.... *gestures vaguely to my blog*

And ngl I owe a lot of it to @1-michibiki-1 in terms of c!Dream "Apologism" but all of the mods there have expanded my thoughts and views on the storylines of this narrative.

My application consisted of like largely essays about like... how I think Dream was the villain but he was meant to be the villain because you don't get any insight into his character WHICH.... IS A FAIR ASSUMPTION AT FIRST GLANCE. People are easily villainized when you cannot get a glimpse into their thought process. It's easy to dwindle someone down into this flat character and starting out I knew Dream didn't stream the SMP on purpose.

And I personally came to the conclusion of "Oh! So Dream is supposed to be the villain." However as the story continued and I learned more about what Dream went through I began to realize that... it's more than likely a form of a red herring. My opinions on this were immediately solidified when I watched Ranboo's 2 MIL stream because both Ranboo AND Dream agree on enjoying red herrings.

There have been MANY times were Dream has said that c!Dream is a complex character and he's not a wholly evil guy and there have been times where the narrative has honestly just proved that.

Anyways, what's important though was that... I learned most of this from other people who were more focused on c!Dream rather than myself. Eventually I shifted from c!Tommy to c!Ranboo and c!Techno after c!Tommy betrayed c!Techno and I began to realize.... everything I learned before hopping in wasn't exactly what it seemed.

Part of this is because I'm older, I heavily identify with c!Techno's sense of loyalty and philosophies on government, but I especially identify with the anguish c!Techno voiced in... a lot of lore but especially the lore around Doomsday.

I'm not 16 anymore. I don't always feel wronged by adults, or older people in my case, whenever they absolutely have done something wrong by me, but I do feel wronged by my close friends. I also felt like c!Tommy's sense of loyalty didn't line up with mine after what felt like him constantly flip-flopping and refusing to understand c!Techno's morals on government didn't line up with his.

In short, it was easier to identify with Tommy in these animatics versus in the actual stream content because c!Tommy is played by a 16 year old. I'm not a teenager and my line of thinking doesn't entirely line up with people that age anymore. It's harder to place myself in the same shoes of someone's OC who is played closer to their actual age, because I'm not that age.

Regardless, I was still on the c!Dream is a villain train. I wasn't ever like... c!Dream is repulsive I hate him, but I was like omg hot villain lad go brrr.

Even when the first like... mellohi, panic room, Ranboo lore stream popped up I thought "Oh! c!Ranboo corruption arc?"

And I was excited because I really wanted this shy, nervous character to turn into villain buddies with his good pal c!Dream. I'm a total sucker for villains and corruption arcs and all that good shit.

SO I STARTED GETTING REALLY INTERESTED IN ENDERSMILE. I'VE BEEN ON ENDERSMILE SQUAD OUT THE GATE. NOT THE SAME WAY I AM NOW, BUT I'VE ALWAYS WANTED THEM TO TEAM UP.

So... upon not really keeping up with c!Dream and being relatively??? indifferent? I don't think I started arguments on c!Dream back then, but I might have. But I remember like... starting to participate more whenever c!Dream came up and looking more into Dream's character BUT ESPECIALLY TALKING WITH OUR SERVER'S C!DREAM SPECIALIST MICHI ABOUT DREAM A LOT MORE.

And because Michi has been a watcher since day one and was a DTeam fan rather than a SBI fan, she was able to provide me with more information on how the server worked pre-Tommy but especially pre-Wilbur.

Now, you could definitely argue well Michi probably has clear bias but it made sense to me when I looked back on how the storyline had been constructed and was going along, and everyone in the server talks a lot about our own biases and how we want people to maybe not lean so hard on them. Michi would also provide like anecdotes on what had happened and I'm sure links were probably provided at one point but the point was I felt like Michi had no reason to lie or manipulate how the story was told and if she did, eventually someone would have pointed it out because... Group of like... right now it's around 20 or more analysts but I don't remember how many at the time there were. POINT BEING, WE'VE ALL GOT POINTS TO PROVE AND IN MY EXPERIENCE NOT MANY OF US HAVE BEEN SHY TO PROVE THEM.

So if anyone ever had any differing opinions they would be talked about and we literally had and still have discussions.

REGARDLESS.... I DIDN'T FACT CHECK IN DEPTH BECAUSE I THOUGHT PEER REVIEW WAS ENOUGH WHEN YOU HAVE LIKE HOURS UPON HOURS OF STREAMS TO WATCH.

Anyways. Eventually I started paying closer attention and looking more into c!Dream lore but only recently have I started to triple check before speaking about c!Wilbur lore because I know everyone has biases and while I did trust everyone's thoughts and analysis in the discord, whenever I make essays I typically like it to be largely air tight and if theres a mistake, I want it to be because I forgot not because I just trusted what was said. Plus, I wanted to get down to the specifics of how Wilbur had always started with manipulation on the mind.

SO I WATCHED HIS FIRST VIDEO ON THE DREAM SMP.

AND WHAT I WAS NOT BY ANY MEANS EXPECTING WAS WILBUR TO SAY WORD FOR WORD, VERBATIM,

"SO WHY DON'T I START AN INDUSTRY WHERE I USE THE TOMMYINNITS OF THE WORLD TO WORK FOR ME, TO CREATE THINGS THAT THE MIN-MAXERS OF THE WORLD WILL WANT."

Like... this is in no way an attempt to like hardcore villainize c!Wilbur like everyone does Dream, it's just more so to like REALLY outline how far off a lot of fandom interpretation of c!Wilbur is....

Because of SBI focused animatics.

Now, when I joined I watched A LOT of animatics that really highlighted like... Wilbur being this self-loathing JD-esque, "I destroyed it because I had to because the world was against me because no one loved us, Tommy" type of character. At least... that's what it came across as.

And it definitely highlighted the fact that Tommy was a victim, which he is. He is undoubtedly a victim and no not even any dream apologist can change my mind otherwise. Tommy, despite being an instigator sometimes, didn't deserve the abuse he received.

But these animatics never shown the fact that c!Wilbur started L'manburg as a shady ploy to exploit people like c!Tommy and vilify c!Dream so he could have power.

And that was easy because Dream and Tommy had wars before. They had spars and pranks and here's the plan to take back my disks and here's the plan to out smart the thieving little child etc etc.

And all of the animatics I watched never mentioned this. Neither did the recaps though. The recaps gave the events flat out, there didn't sound like there was bias, and honestly I don't really know if there was rather than like... a lack of nuance. And it's hard to provide a recap with that much nuance in a short period of time for a youtube video, to be perfectly fair.

However, this creates a perfect formula for entirely rewriting the history of a server. c!Wilbur quite literally fucking succeeded TO A META LEVEL. He slandered and ran smear campaigns against Dream and like he even does that with Sapnap in the beginning. But what's crazy is that it transferred over into the meta! Most of this fandom understands Wilbur as a victim of mental illness, and yeah maybe? He definitely wasn't mentally well by the end of pogtopia, but he never started out with honorable intentions. L'manburg was never a victim, only its citizens. The TommyInnits of the world.

I just think it's like... such an interesting case study. Because this is like... an opinion like shared by at least half of the fandom, but the vilifying of c!Dream is shared by MOST of the fandom I would argue. Which is like even more crazy for me because that was c!Wilbur's goal!!!

LIKE I GO INSANE WHEN I THINK OF THIS BECAUSE HIS REACH IS JUST TOO POWERFUL. HE'S NOT EVEN ENTIRELY REAL, JUST A MANIPULATIVE PERSONA OF SOME BRITISH GUY.

And I mean... maybe people who have watched Wilbur's video on the SMP still maintain this idea that Wilbur wasn't always the bad guy, but honestly... I wouldn't be surprised if their introduction was still an animatic. Like bias is hard to check and I'm not going to lie I could have sworn I watched both Wilbur's AND Tommy's video on the SMP in the beginning and yet I STILL was a ride or die for tragic yet on some level still honorable Wilbur and a resilient Tommy.

Like... upon watching Wilbur's first video... possibly again I was surprised because I thought I did watch it like right before I even started watching the streams and yet I was still so invested in c!Wilbur as this tortured anti-hero.

It took 6 months of... not being in an echo chamber, full of multiple different people of different ages, different stream POVS, and people who joined the fandom at different points in time.

IDK IF THIS WAS EVEN ENTIRELY RELEVANT IT JUST FELT TANGENTIALLY RELEVANT AND THIS WAS SOMETHING I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT FOR A HOT MINUTE AFTER LIKE WATCHING WILBUR'S FIRST VIDEO AGAIN.

TLDR;

SBI CENTRIC ANIMATICS HAD A LASTING AFFECT ON THIS FANDOM AS IT'S HARD TO GO BACK AND ACTUALLY CHECK THE NARRATIVE FOR SOLID FACTS FOR YOUR OWN INTERPRETATION BASED ON THE FACT THAT THIS NARRATIVE SPANS OVER HUNDREDS OF HOURS WORTH OF TWITCH STREAMS.

[shirophantomvox]

Illumi Analysis | Hisoka Analysis | Killua Analysis

What’s up, everybody! I am back yet again with another Hunter x Hunter post. You all really like my Hisoka and Illumi character analysis and thoughts. I figured why not analyze Chrollo as well? Apparently, Chrollo, Hisoka, and Illumi are considered the Adult Trio on here so that is why I used the tag. I understand that this is a Voltron blog but I changed it into a multi because I have a love for other shows that deserve to be talked about. I post these character analyses because they will help me define and develop characters of my own and I love talking about them. Where are they from? What do they do in their spare time? And so on. Read the entire post for links and references!

Let’s get into the post!

I’ve stated in my "Hunter x Hunter Thoughts #2" post that Chrollo caught my attention immediately in the Yorknew City Arc. It was a combination of his large eyes, his calm, smooth voice, the tattoo on his forehead, and his hairstyle. I’ve noticed that my heart flutters a little when these characters speak (don't make it weird. You know what I mean) because their voices are smooth and calm. I think this tactic often used to get the viewers to “love” the villain regardless of any wrongdoings they do in the show. I noticed numerous things about him that made me wonder why he dresses the way he does, why is he so calm and dark, and why does he lurk in the shadows?

I have to be honest. One thing that often annoys me about several anime/manga(s) is they introduce SEVERAL characters at once, push some characters off to the very end, and do not give proper backstories for villains, especially. I don’t side with villains but a backstory should be a necessity. The only main antagonist that has a proper backstory is Illumi because we know that he was raised by crazy assassins. Hisoka doesn't have a backstory except for a one-shot that isn’t canon and neither does Chrollo.

I’ve only seen 2 flashbacks regarding Chrollo and his past. He was born in Meteor City which was a town full of trash; no houses, plants, or schools. It is implied that he only survived from stealing from others. His current members are people he met in his hometown. Chrollo often states that he is the head of the group and if he dies, he trusts that they’ll make a great decision on who the new leader will be. In the present, Gon asks him how he could kill people he didn’t know. The silence and rhythmic thunder-claps imply that he doesn’t know why.

Is it something he does...impulsively? Throughout this arc, it seems that Chrollo is having somewhat of an identity crisis. He has stated several times about trying to figure out “who he is”. By that, Chrollo must not like to steal and destroy but to him, that is what he needs to do to survive.

This raises the question of: “If he has stolen for all these years, why is he still living in a destroyed church?”

He’s been a bandit for years. I’m sure he’s on the radar somewhere. He can’t walk around with the troupe members in broad daylight because someone will recognize them. Maybe this is why they only travel in the dark. Machi was brave for walking from Heaven’s Arena in the dark.

He can’t buy a house. What name, card info, or co-leaders would sign the lease? He’s a bandit, remember. His face is somewhere waiting to be caught.

He has accepted this state of living. I thought that since he lived in a trash town that he would want to live in a luxurious place if he could, but no. He lives in a destroyed church, in darkness, and only speaks to his members.

When Chrollo stole the girl’s ability to tell the future, he took it for two reasons. A) because he needed it to see what would happen to Uvo in the new world and B) because the girl’s father used her ability for money and didn’t care for her.

The only reason why I feel an ounce of sympathy for him and not Illumi is it seems like Chrollo raised himself. He took it upon himself to steal and whatnot so he could eat. Chrollo came from nothing while Illumi had a mansion, butlers, protection, and anything he wanted. FYI, just because you have a luxurious lifestyle doesn’t mean you’re happy but in this case, Illumi had shelter while Chrollo didn’t.

Face

Chrollo’s face is what I aspire to create for my own OC’s but manage to fail every time. His face matches his body. If it weren’t for his tattoo and his main hairstyle, I wouldn’t have thought he was a threat to anyone. His face is well-rounded and reminds me of a young adult. His skin is pale and often covered in shadows because he is always in a room that is only lit by a candle. His ears are rather large for his head, but they match ok. Although, I wish his tattoo was removed. To me, that ruins his character design. He already has an inverted cross on his coat and is implied by the destroyed church he lives in. The tattoo just reminds me of a cult for some reason and that is why he gave me unsettling feelings at first.

Eyes

Chrollo’s large eyes are another feature that had me aghast. Some people love big eyes, but his grey pupils capture you almost like you're hypnotized to do anything he wants. They’re a pretty shade of grey, though.

Hair

I am going to say this loud and proud: CHROLLO LOOKS MUCH BETTER WITH HIS HAIR DOWN! Yes, to me he looks much respectable, mature, and serious with it down. His hair is jet black and is shiny like Illumi’s. I could only imagine if I had the chance to touch his hair, the dye would come off on my hands. The down look? The best way to go!

Clothes

His clothes are very stylish. The coat he wears would be PERFECT for the winter seasons! If I ever cosplay, I’m wearing that coat while it's snowing. In the first scene, he was seen wearing a black shirt with white lines going in numerous directions. After that, the creators decided to let his rippling chest show for the rest of the arc. Damn, rippling chests have been a popular decision and NO ONE is complaining! His black pants remind me of skinny jeans and even if they are, he’s lucky because I CANNOT wear skinny jeans. Once I wore them, bent over, and ripped them! I said to myself, “WTF? I paid $35 for these!”

Shoes

He wears black boots that reach up to his leg. He isn’t as stylish as Illumi and Hisoka, but that’ll do. His clothing is much simpler for anyone to cosplay.

Voice

As stated above, Chrollo has a soft, calm voice. He is the only villain I’ve seen that maintains composure during tough situations. I don't know if this was planned or not, but the main antagonists have calm soothing voices. When Chrollo went out with the fortune teller, I forgot he only did that for his selfish gain. I thought he generally enjoyed the date.

In conclusion, I wish Chrollo had a backstory like many characters in this manga. I think Hisoka and Chrollo’s backstory would be the most interesting to me. When these twisted characters appear before us, you want to know why they became this way. Having an empty villain isn’t good and is quite annoying.

Thank you for reading this post! If you’d like me to analyze any characters from Voltron or Hunter x Hunter, send me an ask!

[incorrectlumityquotes]

FULL REVIEWS: “I Was A Teenage Abomination”

So if you read my previous review you know that I didn’t like the last episode. That scene of Eda and King mocking Luz almost made me drop the whole show, but the lesson at the end convinced me to to give the show another chance especially since the season just started. Good thing I did because wow did the show deliver.

I’m not the biggest fan of the magic school trope, but I can see why people use it. The most common settings for fiction are schools, homes and work places because they all force people to come together and interact. And while I do think all magic schools look alike (almost all of them) because they’re just castles, I don’t know if Luz, Eda and King can carry an entire show by themselves. A school would force new and different characters in. Variety is the spice of life as they say. What Luz needs is more people her age to bounce off of and we got them.

The episode starts hilariously with The Owl House fam at the beach collecting crap from a dead giant ass slug. It’s when Luz suggests that she might some actual witch apprenticeship in her...witch apprenticeship that Eda accidently lets it slip that magic schools are a thing that exists in The Boiling Isles. BTW, if everyone could do magic on The Boiling Isles, wouldn’t magic school just be called school or is there a separate school system where magic is just an elective you can opt out of? I’m thinking too hard.

Luz decides that being knees and elbows deep in garbage isn’t for her and walks off to find our first new friend, Willow.

Willow is just a little sweetheart. Friend to all plants, kind of a pushover, but kinda really not. She lets Amity walk all over her but that could be just because of their past history together. But as soon as Amity is out of sight, Willow lets the anger flow through her like the Emperor’s dialogue in a Star Wars movie. Also looking back on this episode, it’s so weird to see Willow wearing the abomination purple uniform. I guess because she wears plant track green for the rest of the season that seeing her in her old uniform is unnatural or something.

And here comes the spice of life, baby. When I first heard about Amity I didn’t think twice about it until I heard that she was going to be voiced by Mae Whitman. Freaking Katara from Avatar: The Last Airbender, Yuffie from Kingdom Hearts 2, April O’Neil from TMNT 2012, Rose/Huntsgirl from American Dragon Jake Long, Tinker Bell in...Tinker Bell and Roxy from the live-action Scott Pilgrim movie. I had to see it. And wow. She’s so good at being such a bitch. It’s delightfully mean-spirited. But I think if you compare her performance here to later episodes (especially her first lines) you can sort of hear how Mae Whitman finds her groove to become Amity. Kinda like when you hear Marco Diaz in Star vs the Forces of Evil in the first episode and then in the last episode. But that’s nothing new.

My first impressions of the character were that she was going to be a Draco Malfoy clone, especially after how she put down Willow. Also this filled out enough Harry Potter tropes to make me think that they were going to go down a checklist or something. That’s just the way the world is now. Someone says magic school, first thing you think of is Harry Potter.

Luz has seen enough hentai to know where this is going!

But seriously back to the episode. Willow is surprised to see a human on The Boiling Isles and we see Luz pull her first scheme to help Willow: dress her up in as her abomination and sneak Luz into the school. Willow gets a good grade and Luz gets to see the school. Easy peasy, one two three-sy.

Another thought that I remember having when I first watched this episode was what the H is an abomination? I’ve known people to use the word when they don’t really like something but other than that I have no clue. It’s not the Marvel villain, and it’s not something that causes a feeling of disgust. It’s not even a biblical reference. I checked. It’s more like a golem, but whatever. It’s Dana’s fantasy world. So it’s not really a reference to anything.

And then we have our other friend, Augustus. A supposed human expert who thinks Luz should’ve had gills. Luckily Luz knew an Augustus in the human world that everyone just called Gus, so new nickname. He’s...smaller than the others but we find out in a different episode that he’s actually younger than everyone else and skipped a grade. He’s smart but still a kid.

“Boy, let me tell you what!”

Luz helps Willow get a good grade and this pisses off Amity something fierce because she’s (in this episode) the kind of person who needs someone who she knows she’s better than to feel good about herself. But we find out in a later episode it’s because she’s a stickler for the rules and abhors cheaters. (That’s a good word, abhor.)

Amity’s freakout at the cafeteria gives her an opportunity to call Principal Bump into the situation, but I’m still stuck on Luz being excited over a PB&J. LIke seriously? What has Eda been feeding her? Or not feeding her? She knows her has to feed Luz right? Humans gotta eat too. I have concerns.

Yeah no, your ass would be fired.

Bump tries to bump (lol I’m funny) Luz and it’s out that she’s not an abomination; she’s an intruder. The climax happens which is fine, but Luz punching out abominations reminds me of my argument on why zombies aren’t scary. I mean, if they are decaying flesh how would they have super strength or any strength? It makes no sense. If abominations are just walking piles of goo how would they have super strength? Magic? Is that gonna be your answer to everything?

“Curse you Boiling Isles public school system!!!”

I forgot to mention the B-plot with King and Eda and I really like it. I love the comedy in this show and the B-plot has all of my favorite jokes in this episode. I just get upset talking about it because I know some asshole is going to call it filler. I remember a time where “filler” was used to refer to anime only episodes or story arcs that were produced to let the manga catch up with some more chapters. Now everyone uses it to refer to stories they don’t like. Not stories that don’t further the main plot, but stories they don’t like. 

Animation is difficult and takes a lot of time and money. If they do something, they do it for a reason. If it doesn’t further the plot then it develops the characters. It’s okay for a comedy to just have an episode that tells jokes. That’s the point of a comedy, to be funny. It’s okay if an action show just wants to do a fight scene or a set piece. That’s what action does. But I know some dipshit is gonna reblog or reply and argue with me about what filler means or what it really means and yada yada yada. Free tip, do that and I’ll block you because this is my blog and I can do that. Also, fuck you.

“I have no son!” My favorite line of the episode.

The episode ends a little too neatly with Willow telling Luz that everything was resolved offscreen. Willow is now in the plant magic track. Amity is begging Bump for a good grade, and Luz is banned from Hexside. For now...

FINAL SCORE: 5 - Loved it!

This episode was a bunch of fun. It was super funny, introduced some great characters and saved my interest in the show. I knew I made the right choice to give this show another chance and it paid off. I wondered why they would introduce the school only to have Luz be banned but I just figured we would have more sneaking in scenarios. Egg on my face, huh?

Still this episode was a great time and I couldn’t wait for the next one.

[wizardysseus]

i was thinking about once upon a time (abc) in bed this morning so i decided to write this list

subject to change, since awhile ago i was in the middle of season 6 when they took it off netflix and i never quite got around to picking it back up. i’m gonna finish if it kills me i promise

top 5 things about once upon a time

5. anna frozen

when ouat introduced frozen characters, most fans decided the show had jumped the shark. they were not wrong. however, it was this very thing that allowed the show to be fun again! after an excruciatingly bad season 3 (we will get to that), bringing on anna and elsa literally transported directly from their own unaltered story in cheap ass versions of their unaltered movie costumes allowed the show to let loose and do... basically whatever it wanted. this became the hallmark of the show for those who stuck with it: absolutely not making sense at all, but being fun about it. post-season-three ouat becomes a totally different soap opera from season one, but by god you are never bored.*

personally, the flashback episode where anna annoys rumpelstiltskin and gets the better of him and he’s so fucking mad about it is like top 10 episodes**

4. 2x16 “the miller’s daughter”

this episode is just another personal favorite. it exemplifies what this show was really good at when it was good, and also where everything went wrong. i think cora is a great example of a good ouat villain, i think the twist on the rumpelstiltskin story is great, i think the dramatic beats really work.

...and in typical ouat fashion, cora immediately dies and two more villains we don’t care about at all are introduced. (sonequa forgive me you know i’m in love with you but tamara was nothing. it’s not your fault.) yes we get that great scene of snow aggressively doing archery practice while listening to “bad reputation” but was it worth killing off a compelling villain just as you’d dug into her story?

3. the commitment to regina’s redemption

and lana parrilla in general. i mean i’m gay and she’s hot but the worse the show got, the more acting lana gave it. and this is just speculation, but i think lana is more comfortable with drama than with camp? because regina becomes a much more interesting character as someone conflicted and on the path to redemption than as a villain. and by god, they were gonna redeem regina.

if only she had been gay we really could have had it all.

2. rumpelstiltskin

the sweet spot with rumpelstiltskin for me was seasons one and two when he was unabashedly bastard, there was an attempt to make him sympathetic but nobody except belle actually liked him, you weren’t quite sure how much he knew, he was pulling all the strings, and he was just really fucking weird. it will surprise no one who follows this blog to hear that that is my type of wizard.

1. season one

it’s a good season. it’s a good season. there are some bad things about it, but it was extremely watchable. it was doing fairy tales with occasional disney nods in a (mostly) cohesive fashion. the lore and the magic hadn’t sprawled out of control yet. it had the strongest relationship, imo, between emma and henry, and emma and snow. as for iconic episodes, most of the greats are here, plus sebastian stan as the mad hatter and giancarlo esposito as a series regular. the crowning moment for me is the scene at the end of skin deep, when regina confronts gold in the town jail and he reveals that he remembers his real name (after beating the shit out of belle’s dad with his cane obviously). god. that is some good television.

worst 5 things about once upon a time

5. the adoption politics but everyone knows this one.

4. WASTING the talent

you had the love of my life sonequa martin-green and gave her nothing. you somehow scored oded fehr as jafar and gave him nothing. you had giancarlo esposito and regina literally forgot he existed. i will kill you

3. rumpelstiltskin.

it’s no secret that robert carlyle was acting circles around most of the cast; my opinion is that the showrunners felt that if they committed to either his redemption or his villainy, they would never find someone else with the talent to fill his shoes as bastard wizard. so they flip-flopped on him every half-season, which ruins his story longterm, slowly kills the light in robert’s eyes, and gets reallllllly old. it’s also no secret that my favorite rumpelstiltskin is bastard wizard, but they screwed over belle BIG time in the process and for that i will never forgive them.

also like. the rumpelstiltskin fairy tale is antisemitic to begin with and they did not minimize that by comparing him to a lizard and naming his storybrooke counterpart mr gold. they just. did that.

2. THE FUCKING NEVERLAND ARC GOD IN CHRIIIIIIIIIIIST THAT HALF-SEASON IS EXCRUCIATING

1. captain hook

*it’s my opinion that if you are bored, you’re watching a hook-centric episode. every time i dropped the show and forgot about it for months at a time, it was because i had been in the middle of an episode about hook and just could not get through it. how do i describe all the things i don’t like about what killian hook jones did to the show? with subpoints!

1a. the episode where gold gives him back his hand and he never changes.

**this is actually the same episode i mentioned about anna and, like i said, it’s one of my favorites and not at all boring. look, i’m not pretending this list isn’t subjective as hell.

remember when hook blackmailed mr gold into magically reattaching his hand, which gold has been keeping in a jar, because hook has a date with emma and wants it to go well? but also, gold tells him that if he reattaches his hand with dark magic, it will turn him evil? and then hook spends the episode doing evil things, only for mr gold to tell him “i was just messing with you! the hand was not evil, you gave yourself permission to be evil ;)”

yeah, that’s basically hook’s mo.

1b. episode where emma tells him his brother is lying to him and he learns the exact wrong lesson from this and never changes.

so emma goes to the underworld to get hook back after he dies (while being evil and doing villainous things). they find his brother down there, too, and emma senses that he has a dark secret (because he does) and is lying to them (because he is). but hook always idolized his older brother, so he won't believe her. when emma confronts the brother directly, hook interrupts to rant to her about how he knows what this is ~really all about.

actual dialogue:

HOOK: i don't need proof to know what's really going on here. emma, when are you gonna admit that this isn't really about my brother? EMMA: what else would you think it was about? HOOK: us. you think if you can prove that liam is a villain, then i’ll somehow feel like i was less of one.

who... would EVER come to that conclusion. and why is the lesson he learns at the end “perhaps i do deserve saving after all” (another direct quote), and not “NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT YOU, BECAUSE EMMA WAS LITERALLY RIGHT ABOUT YOUR BROTHER LYING TO EVERYONE”????

1c. the emma dark one arc, where hook never changes.

this would be the arc that leads up to the above underworld arc, and it is deeply dumb, entertaining, and hard to explain. suffice it to say, during this whole arc, killian (along with emma) has all the powers and ~~~Darkness~~~ of the dark one (formerly rumpelstiltskin). unlike emma, he is not aware of this for most of the season. the moment he finally finds out, he turns on emma and goes through with all the revenge plans he’s apparently been holding onto since season two.

it’s supposed to be sympathetic, because emma made this choice for him to be a dark one, which is clearly awful, when he didn’t want it. so i get that. but on the other hand, it is..... boring. because (a) it's nothing we haven't seen him try to do and fail at before, his motivations really aren't that complex. and more importantly, (b) he was the dark one the whole time! the only thing that changed, that made him act evil, was finding out about it. at that point, it's not the ~~~Darkness~~~ making you do evil things. it’s just you. because you’re a dick.

how is this arc resolved? well, he dies. after the underworld arc (which i very much enjoyed tbf), a sizable part of robin hood’s death episode is devoted to people telling emma to slow down and grieve for killian, since at least two arcs have revolved around her inability to let hook go when he is literally dying or dead. (it’s been said a million times but being his girlfriend really sucked the personality out of emma and i miss her.) and in the end he just... comes back anyway. no explanation given; he says it must be a reward from zeus for killing hades... while he and emma make out literally in front of the coffin of robin hood... who actually died fighting hades. killian died half a season before. while he was evil. and emma reverts to tearful girlfriend.

it’s insulting. it’s grating. and it is a Killian Hook Jones Guarantee that his episodes will involve some measure of this.

like, is it more or less the same shtick that the writers kept giving rumpelstiltskin, too? backsliding and screwing over his love interest who gets less and less say in the matter? yes. definitely. the crucial difference is that i, personally, love rumpelstiltskin, while i find hook boring and not self-aware. but clearly i have had a lot of fun complaining about him! again, this is not an objective list.

conclusions

this show ran for 7 years. it got cancelled not because it deserved to, but because no one liked the soft reboot. it was on until 2018.

[class1akids]

(1/2) hi! before anything just wanna say how much i love your blog and your metas! they really made me enjoy bnha on a deeper level so thanks for that <3 now getting into my ask: dabi = touya is confirmed and all the clues have really pointed to that, but there's just one thing i can't reconcile. why didn't endeavor realize dabi = his son after seeing him use his quirk? endeavor has been training him for a long time so i just don't get how he couldn't have recognized this specific quirk and...

(2/2) ... realized, "oh hey isn't that quirk hella familiar? didn't touya have the same quirk?" and I get that maybe fire quirks are pretty ubiquitous in that universe, but still. (or maybe i messed up and forgot that endeavor hasn't seen dabi in action? but i think he has in one way or another in the pro hero arc, hasn't he?) anyway, what are your thoughts on this? :O

Endeavor only met Dabi in canon once (he did in the Heroes Rising movie too, but I think we can disregard that for manga purposes), at the end of the Hood-fight, when he was already gravely injured, and the narrative emphasized that his vision was blurry. 

Also, we have a timing for Touya’s presumed death which happened the same time as the Shouto-scarring incident; so about a decade ago. 

We don’t know for the moment anything about what Dabi did in that decade, until he showed up at the doorsteps of the League just after the Stain fight. 

Endeavor knew that his fire was exceptionally strong, but it doesn’t mean that it was blue back then. 

In none of the flashbacks, nor the burial photo do we see any scarring on Touya. 

So I think that once Endeavor realized Touya’s weakness to his own fire, he stopped training him (which now we know Touya resented, because he wanted to become the strongest and to gain his father’s approval). 

So it’s possible he sought out training elsewhere prior and after his presumed death - which could very well be his hinted link with Hawks and that Hero Commission child-soldier program or perhaps from some other villain or vigilante. 

Training his quirk could have made it look very different. (Just remember how Kirishima’s hardening looked like before he got Unbreakable - many  quirk upgrades or ultimate moves start to look different with lots of training). His current quirk is “incineration”, an instant of very hot flash of flame that kills almost immediately. I’m fairly certain that it’s not a move he learnt from Endeavor, who had a strict no-kill policy, as heroes ought to. 

Back when Endeavor was training Touya, he tried to pass the flash-fire technique on him, but he didn’t manage or couldn’t handle it, so I suspect that back then his fire was similar to Endeavor’s in colour and intensity. 

[denkilightning]

IM SO GLAD I FOUND YOUR BLOG!!! I really connected with Denki and I don’t understand how the fandom likes Jirou so much??? Like she doesn’t mean it or whatever but she’s lowkey ableist. How are you gonna hc Denki with adhd then have her calling him stupid all the time as a joke?? Idk, I have adhd and Jirou reminds me of those ppl I would laugh with cause I was too embarrassed to say anything else and it’s giving me rancid vibes

fdajkahgjk thankk uuu

i think no one really calls her out is because she’s cool and shit. like the only reason why its not the discourse on the level of bkdk is a) jirou isnt even in the main 10 of the cast and their relationship is not the main drive of the story lmao b) shes not a character like bakugou, you dont get her anger and all the other emotions thrown in your face at all times, and she never went to the extreme of telling kami to kill himself (which was the lowest point for bakugou). she lashes out sometimes, but all other than that she’s super cool! she’s kinda cold, but gets embarrassed easily and shes shy about her hobbies and shes a good friend! /s

well to everyone except kaminari. being a good or even a decent friend isn’t just worrying over them when theyre in grave danger. thats just,,, a thing most of humans do. and she doesnt even respect him that much, and at usj she literally kicked him at a villain. if his self defence didn’t activate he’d probably get seriously injured or even fucking die. like??  

coming back to bakugou and jirou, i kind of think about them as two different traumatised kids (collective trauma is a thing yall): bakugou is the loud, angry and ugly one, while jirou is the quiet, and cute and talented one. she’s what people want to see. and because shes “good” and people want to see her, they dont acknowledge her flaws.

no one acknowledges jirou actively picking on kaminari (remember when they were thinking of hero names and she had to attract his attention first to then proceed to make fun of him? yeah. that.), or how she laughs the loudest at him, because to those people its funny too. its written as funny. 

and like at this point its pretty toxic, if not borderline bullying ykno

and kaminari doesnt think of her as a friend, either, to be honest. like in the cultural festival shes just ‘that girl jirou’. and remember he drove the whole arc by encouraging others to encourage her to do the concert.

but yeah if it wasnt prominent enough: i agree so much. also someone should take NT’s right to write denki away. they dont deserve him. iida, too.

what i just said is probably incoherent but thats because i forgot to eat so yeah im gonna eat now, but yeah love you nonnie

[kdtheghostwriter]

The Dust Up in Jaku

You sure are!

Okay, housekeeping first. I don’t often go here. In fact, this is my first proper visit. I’m caught up with the manga entirely to be clear. I just don’t always go looking for feedback. This blog is miscellaneous, tailored mostly to my whims at the time, but it’s known primarily for its monthly posts on Shingeki no Kyojin. That series is ending soon. These posts have been for practice primarily. A way for me to keep my writing chops warm for other projects. They’ve been incredibly helpful in that regard. I’m not sure yet what I’ll do to supplement that practice after the series conclusion. I don’t see myself doing monthly meta posts anymore. I started doing One Punch Man write ups a couple years ago and doing the occasional meta for big plot developments is probably the ticket. But then there’s BNHA.

My Hero Academia is a bit more…shall we say ‘aggressive’ in its storytelling. That’s what I’ve seen in this latest arc anyway. I’m a fan. And I figured, hey, I can dip a pinky toe in the fandom for a bit. So, before reading any further, please note that this will read as the perspective of a reader that has one eye on the story and doesn’t spend a great amount of time in the discourse.

Okay so let’s start with the obvious or what should be the obvious. Bakugo isn’t dead just yet. If for no other reason than Gran Torino getting spiked by Shigaraki only to supply a sassy quip moments later. You don’t die in a shonen series without permission. Besides that, though, no one I’ve seen seems to be asking the important question here.

What is All For One’s idea?

We saw him reach out to Tomura who was himself on the verge of death and took full control of his body. Those telltale black tendrils have seldom caused bodily harm on their own and there’s little evidence to believe they’d start now. We then can make one of two assumptions.

Quirk theft: AFO has the ability to steal and redistribute quirks and Shigaraki made clear that stealing One For All was his main goal in this fight outside of surviving. Bakugo is one of the few people who know about this secret war and he more than anyone there would recognize that losing OFA to Tomura would be in the nicest terms a disaster.

Forced Quirk Activation: Considering that Kacchan is a walking napalm bomb, this is another possible disaster. Using a massive explosion to escape the battlefield at this moment has some very “I’ll get you next time, Gadget!” energy.

And Tomura has to escape this. I’ll explain that later. But first I must laugh.

No, that’s not Garou after his first hour in the Monster Association. Tomura has been annihilated over the course of this fight. He’d probably be dead two or three times over if it weren’t for his fancy Deadpool Healing Factor which itself wouldn’t be working if Eraser Head wasn’t out of commission.

Shout-outs to Aizawa by the way. There’s a reason Tomura stopped in the middle of the battle to tell him how cool he was.

Anyway, more to the point: Shigaraki can’t beef it here. Don’t get me wrong, as tragic as his story is, there really is no other option currently than to destroy him. The only other course of action is to say, “Please, Tomura, don’t make this entire city and the innocent people living there disappear into dust.” Which…yea. On top of that, he’s the series antagonist and the clear foil for our hero Deku. Narratively it just wouldn’t make sense to have him climb that mountain before he’s ready. And he’s still not ready. His arms are thrashed yet again from his current onslaught.

For anyone having trouble visualizing this, imagine Shiggy as a red rubber ball and Deku is a paddle, smacking him repeatedly. I have this great picture in my head of the news chopper zoomed in on Deku as he calls out every state and major city in the contiguous United States. Jokes aside, the art is phenomenal. This panel in particular really hammers home the aforementioned duality like so many haymakers to the face. The damage is stacking up faster than his regeneration can supply but All For One has stepped in to take the reins, surely saving his neck but that isn’t the only reason Shiggy will see his way out of this spot.

Yeah! Remember him? This big fucker is still on his way. And he’s got the League of Villains in tow. Why is that detail important?

The only thing more important than a major plot event like this is the aftermath. You can easily develop your characters through the way they react to the events that occur to them. Somebody has to break it to Tomura that Twice is gone and I don’t envy the one who gets that job.

Also…lol okay, I don’t wanna do the trolly thing of “oooh Dabi’s a Todoroki!” but c’mon man Dabi’s a Todoroki. I’ve barely paid attention to this subplot and even I know that. Shonen series are by their nature very melodramatic and it would only make sense for such a massive bombshell to be dropped now, in the midst of life-or-death struggle, with direct implications for the Number One Hero and his children – one on each side of the law. Point is! None of that can happen if Shigaraki bites the big one so I’d expect the dusty lad to keep kicking for now.

The same goes for Bakugo, although, he may have early retirement in his future. The main reason Kacchan can’t die here is because, despite what you may think of him as a character – and I’ve seen enough discourse to know that many many people are not fans, such is your right – having a teenaged bully redeem himself by sacrificing his life is a bit much. Especially when you consider this little nugget.

All Might has him pegged here. I would never endorse someone telling another person to kill themselves even when done ironically but Katsuki was a child and children say any manner of dumb, reckless things. More than that, children lash out when they’re scared, and nothing scared him more than being surpassed by Midoriya. All Might goes on to point out that Bakugo earnestly helping with Izuku’s training is his way of atoning for his past behavior. I agree with that stance and I think it’s more than enough. He knows he was wrong and more recently he’s discovered that he knows he wants no harm to come to Deku. Bakugo learned a big lesson in this chapter; by extension, Deku must learn a lesson as well.

Then there’s this geek.

Disclaimer: I don’t hate Endeavor so much as I’m apathetic towards him. He’s the Number One hero by default and it shows throughout this arc. Even here, we see the rookie Kacchan barking orders at him and Shoto and coming up with a pretty solid plan to finally end this damn fight. It didn’t work, but that has more to do with outside interference than inexperience, and it’s not like Endeavor was rapt with ideas to begin with.

I will defend him slightly, however. Some people have gone so far as to call him useless in this fight and I wouldn’t. Shigaraki got a massive buff even if he’s only at 75% capacity. Enhanced speed and strength, plus a healing factor means he has a threshold that Endeavor just can’t overcome. The days of one guy taking on the Final Boss is long past gone. Even so, this must be pretty mortifying for a guy so obsessed with climbing the ladder. His second real test as the top hero and he gets his ass kicked for an hour or more by a shaggy kid who forgot his lip balm at home. LOL is what I’m saying.

Thanks for indulging that aside. Back to Deku. The very first panel of this chapter is a nurse warning him that repeated injuries could result in him losing the use of his arms. Naturally, this follows with Deku smashing Shigaraki in the face five or six times in a row. The combination of Float and Black Whip is keeping the villain suspended in the air where his disintegration    quirk can’t reach the support team below. A fact that Deku points out when Bakugo shouts at him to disengage. This is a great bit of dramatic tension, because neither one is wrong. Izuku’s body is falling apart. I mean, Tomura’s is too, but Tomura can lowkey ignore that and if he reaches the ground, everyone is screwed anyway.

This plays into Bakugo forming the plan with the Todorokis in the first place and then intercepting AFO’s attack on behalf of the helpless Deku. He sees One For All as a cursed power, but he’s smart enough to know that this power is the only chance they have of winning. He then saves his friend to help them win.

Now we come to the bit that has me more interested than even Kacchan’s fate. That being Izuku’s reaction, both in the moment and after the battle is done. As previously noted, Deku is not in less danger now. He’s emptying the tank right here despite possible long-term damage to his body.

The implications of that statement are terrifying. More so coming from a teenaged boy that hasn’t even made it through a third of his life yet. The legacy of OFA is dark and bloody. It was Bakugo who pointed out that the previous holders of the super strength quirk all died young – all murdered at the hands of Tall, Dark and Faceless. Toshinori would have suffered the same fate if it weren’t for a time sensitive cocktail of rage, survival instinct and adrenaline. Deku is sipping from that same cocktail right now and he’s in better shape than All Might was (barely) but it’s clear that he cannot 1v1 a boss with a replenishing health bar. Perhaps if he could sustain an attack without his limbs exploding like Squidward after too many Krabby Patties? Oh well.

My Hero Academia is an origin story. The story of the hero Deku and his journey to number one. With that in mind, we know he can’t lose but he doesn’t necessarily have to win. Not here at the very least. I have no clue how this arc resolves itself but finding out is going to be much fun.

[adoratato]

I want to preface this by saying that I am autistic and I don't always recognize when something I write is too blunt or rude, so sorry in advance!

If you don't KNOWtm you can check the anti cc and anti cassandra clare tags of blogs like celiathorne, spaceshipkat, discountalien-pancake, karmacharmeleon18, basilico-e-mentapiperita.

The anti tag on tumblr is full of posts from a miraculous ladybug blog rn so I suggest you check those blogs first. Or you can sort the tag by most popular and find lots of posts! Or google cassandra clare problematic, cyberbully, laptopgate.

Basically: cyberbullying, racism, sexism, queerphobia, plagiarism in her ff days and published works (that got her banned from a fanfic site and recently in a lawsuit with a published author for SH, specifically TMI), money scams (laptopgate), trying to sell merchandise about her HP fanfic (which was stopped because it's illegal), TMI was the title of an incestuos fic she wrote (RonxGinny) and she supports ships like DamonxStefan because they're brothers and says that the fact that it's abusive makes it betterbetter, slutshaming (not only in her books: she criticized show!Izzy aka and ACTUAL person saying she looks like "one of Sebastian's girls" ie a slut), misogyny (not like other girls, girl on girl hate etc.), ableism, and more.

There are so many similarities between her books and other works like Nightrunner (protag is a archer named Alec with blue eyes who falls for an immortal warlock + plot points), The Mortal Engines and The Infernal Devisces (by P.Reeve, set in steampunk London, the villain Valentine is the father of the female protag), The Secret Circle (TMI is sooo similar, down to characters, names and some scenes/plot points like the ring found in the ashes of the manor) and so many others I lost count!

And of course the Dark Hunter series (the lawsuit). In the past hundreds of thousands of SH copies were printed with the DH logo on them because they were so similar and there was a misshap in the printing process. They had to be thrown out. Character names, arcs, plot points.

Anytime someone criticizes her, she calls them misogynists and gets her stans to harrass them by posting teary posts with names. Minors included (as they are the majority of the people that interact with her).

Anytime POC ask her about the racist issues in her books, she blocks them.

When people asked about how she used sexual assault for shock value (it happens and then the characters involved just forget about it), she wrote a long rant about how misogynistic readers just "want to see a girl suffer". Nevermind that the people asking were teen girls and survivors.

There are so many instances like these. She also started hating the show when the writers started changing her problematic writing, and she made no mystery of that on her social media (the fandom was divided in two: book fans and show fans, and she took every chance to make the situation worse, even giving book fans the Twitter of a writer so they could complain directly to him, and insulting the characters's appearance (aka the actors)... but when the show got more popular she "hope to be more involved!")

...

In the past I saw you reblog posts from some of the blogs I cited, that's why I'm surprised you didn't know! And you're a blog that I really like so I wanted you to know what you're supporting with your posts and most likely money.

...

This is so long so don't feel like you have to post it! I don't want to clog your dash. But please don't forget about this!!! Gimme a sign you read it, blink twice idk 😂😂😂

Oh yes I do remember this now! With everything that's happened in life I just forgot, particularly since its not as talked about as much as controversies with say Chris Pratt or JK Rowling

Also you weren't that blunt but maybe that's me talking as an autistic person lol

Also thanks for liking my mess of a blog ❤

[pega-chan]

for the eoa asks: 💃🏽🌼⚔️

thanks for the ask!!

💃🏽- how did you first learn about elena of avalor?

wow it was so long ago i nearly forgot...but i'm pretty sure it was through tumblr. some of the blogs i followed were tracking EoA's release and reblogging content about the show before it aired and i thought it looked interesting so i gave it a shot. my reasoning was that i liked sofia the first's vibes but didn't want to bother watching it all from the beginning, so i'll watch the spinoff instead (guess who's invested in StF now 💀). i followed the show as it aired all throughout the first season and The Secret of Avalor and i remember being part of many early fandom discussions lol. i stopped watching consistently for a while for season 2 and a large part of season 3 before picking it back up close to the series finale

🌼 - favorite episode?

every single Isabel episode

Dreamcatcher was obviously a fantastic episode, and i love how it was written (the animation was really lit in that one too). Norberg Peace Prize is my other personal favourite bc i really liked the message it delivered: you don't have to be friends or even like the person to work with them, you just need to be civil enough to cooperate. i relate a lot to that, and i feel kids could benefit from this lesson too, bc there's still this ongoing myth (especially in schools where they have you work in groups) that all kids can be friends with one another if they just try. the fact that Isa is the one delivering the message makes it more impactful bc she's closer in age to EoA's target demographic. i liked seeing her ongoing animosity towards Javier too LMAO especially when she gets annoyed whenever Elena would refer to them as "friends". I had adults do that to me a lot growing up, it is exactly as irritating as Isa makes it out to be.

⚔️ - unpopular opinion?

i actually don't like carla and victor that much. you would think as a lover of reformed villains and redemption arcs i would be more sympathetic to them, but i feel like they haven't really given me enough reason to root for them. i don't particularly like them as villains either, bc their goofiness doesn't really work for them. i can't take them seriously bc of it, and it ruins any threatening aura they have when they become a legitimate threat. i'm so used to them being and acting like lackeys, i can't see them as their own thing. overall just not invested in these two, but good for those who are

[queerscifinerd]

Terminator Dark Fate spoiler-free review

I went to see Terminator Dark Fate yesterday and here’s my spoiler-free review/recommendation for everybody that is thinking about seeing it ;).

First of all is it worth watching: YES ABSOLUTELY!!!!! I give the movie a 8/10, maybe even a 9/10. While this movie does have good reviews already out there, there are also some that rate this movie as mediocre or bad: DON’T LISTEN TO THOSE!!! You will have a BLAST watching this movie if you like:

Action movies that don’t just rely on special effects (although there are PLENTY of those don’t worry!) but also on three-dimensional characters and a good story.

Not only strong but actually WELL WRITTEN women, all 3 different, all 3 going through a great and individual story-arc!

I’m even going out on a limb here and say that this is actually my favourite Terminator movie of them all. Yes the first two will always remain the classics, but with this one the characters and story actually resonated much more with me! And the main reason for that are the main characters!!! Linda Hamilton, Mackenzie Davis and Natalia Reyes all knock it out of the park and I loved them all so much in this movie (EDIT (can’t believe I forgot to put this in the original draft, I know I’ve written it!!!): Especially Mackenzie Davis killed my poor queer heart!!!! GAH!!!!!) Relatable, funny, sad, badass and so much more, all in their own way. The different dynamics between the 3 women are the HIGHLIGHTS of the movie IMO!!!  Here’s a very good article that explains this even further (careful, this one has spoilers in it!!!) 

Since I’m mostly an Agents of SHIELD blog, most of my followers are probably wondering about Gabriel Luna ;): 

Gabriel Luna SHINES as the Rev-9 and gives an incredible performance as the villain (and looks very good while doing it!). Most of the time he did have to play an emotionless robot but unlike the T-800 or T-1000, the Rev-9 is actually able to copy some human emotion, so you’ll definitely be treated to some smirks and even snark ;).

Sidenote for everyone that hasn’t actually seen any Terminator movies or only remembers them hazily but still wants to see the movie (probably because of Gabriel Luna and/or Mackenzie Davis and/or Natalia Reyes ;)):

While watching T1 and T2 prior to Dark Fate is recommended, if you haven’t you will have no problem following the story because what you need to know of the first two is actually rather well explained in this movie!!

Saying this, if you are an avid Terminator fan you will love this movie!!! It pays great homage to T1 and T2 and Linda Hamilton is absolutely INCREDIBLE and it’s clear that she was the missing element in the previous sequels!!! And Arnold Schwarzenegger gives a new spin to the T-800 but this time in a good way while still staying true to the original(s) from T1 and T2! 

Tip: I treated myself and went to watch this movie in 4DX and it was AMAZING!!! Dark Fate is definitely one of those movies that is worth paying the extra cash for 4DX for!

[kuiqejw]

MXTX interview(3)

After scanning through this review by @bigbadredpanda,  I got inspired to do a translation of the scum villain / tian guan ci fu parts of this interview. Bear in mind that I have yet to read other interviews and stalk MXTX’s weibo, so I may be unaware of other perks.

The first part of the interview is here. I had accidentally posted it to my main blog.

Those that @sakhyu and bcnovels have yet to translate would be spoiler tagged. 4 are spoiler-tagged, don’t bother unless you’ve read beyond the HOB Wind Master Arc.

Q21. [SPOILER] 花城小时候为什么绑着绷带？为何掉下城楼？他为何总是被人欺负又体质非常好？(Why did Hua Cheng have bandages when he was younger? Why did he fall off the city wall? Why was he healthy even though he was beaten up by other people?)

[SPOILER]被打的，他右眼是红瞳，别人觉得很恐怖，脸上很多伤也要遮一下；

有一天他被打得受不了了想自杀，而且他是个戾气很重的凶小孩，听说马上要到祭天游，如果出了事整个国家都要遭殃，特地挑了这一天准备毁掉祭天游，总之就是“老子不幸，老子要你整个国家都陪葬”，这样。结果爬上去第一眼看见未来老婆看傻了，忘了自杀。但是因为太想看清楚一点了，太想靠近了，所以不小心掉了下来。

他就是生命力很顽强啊！跟谢怜一样顽强，百打不死，永远能留着最后一口气，爬起来逆天逆袭。

It was because he was beaten up. His right eye had a red pupil, others thought it was scary, and even though he was beaten up, he still had to hide it.

There was one day, he could not take the beatings any longer and wanted to commit suicide, and despair drooped around him. One day, he heard that there was about to be a festival. If there was an incident, the kingdom would fall into ruin, so he chose this day to wreck the festival. It was a feeling of “Since I’m so unlucky, I want everyone to die along with me”/”I’m taking down everyone with me”. Thus, when he went up to take a look at his future wife, he was stunned and forgot about his suicide attempt. But because he wanted to look a bit closer, he toppled over the city wall.

He’s a tough person to kill! Like Xie Lian, he’s stubborn, and can’t be killed so easily. When he crawls up from despair, it’s akin to having one last breath to wreck everything else behind him!

T/N: Everything is angst about this. Everything!

Q22. 花城为什么对自己颜值没有信心？(Why wasn’t Hua Cheng confident about his own looks?)

因为小时候总被人说丑、怪物，形成了根深蒂固的“我很丑”的印���。后来才慢慢开始怀疑自己“可能长得不错”。但是在最喜欢的人面前，还是会下意识自卑，偶尔又会悄悄怀疑自己是不是丑八怪。

Because he was often criticized as being ugly, or a monster, it deeply implanted a ‘I’m very ugly’ outlook in his mind. He only started to question his looks, but when in front of the person he likes the most, he would still doubt himself, and start to question if he really is as ugly as he thought.

T/N: Your prince doesn’t think so.

Q23. [SPOILER]慕情把花城赶���军营时到底说了什么？(Why did Mu Qing chase him out of the military?)

慕情讲话不就那个样子嘛（。你这种小鬼对太子殿下根本没用，只会拖他的后腿，军队里不需要你这种废物，你不要以为你真的有天赋！之类的。而且因为在军队里这样的少年死亡率的确很高，所以慕情觉得自己赶他出去也有一点没错。

[SPOILER]Mu Qing’s manner of speech is always like this: You’re of no use to his Imperial Highness, you’ll only be a burden on him! The army doesn’t need trash like you, don’t think you have that much talent!

Because young people like the mortal Hua Cheng had a high mortality rate, Mu Qing thought that he did nothing wrong in chasing him out.

T/N: Faced with that, I think I can understand Mu Qing a little more...

Q24. 谢怜为何给自己取“花”姓？(Why did Xie Lian give himself the surname Hua in Halfmoon Kingdom?)

因为他喜欢花，还曾被称为“花冠武神”。以及，在最初的设定中，谢怜被贬时去做过花神，掌花开花谢。

It’s because he likes flowers, and he was often titled the Martial God Crowned with Flowers. Also, in the initial plan, when he was banished, he became a flower god, determining the flowering and wilting of flowers.

Q25. [SPOILER]师青玄是凡人了吗？手脚能恢复吗？如果死后轮回还会是烂命吗？师无渡是不是真的凉了？黑水拿走水师的头做什么？黑水岛上他最后和师青玄说了什么？(Is Shi Qingxuan a mortal? Can his limbs recover? When he reincarnates, will his luck change? Did Shi Wudu freeze? What did Hei Shui do with his head? What were Hei Shui’s final words to Shi Qingxuan?)

[SPOILER] 是凡人。不能恢复，他也不想恢复。天官没有轮回设定。15°凉了。头拿去当祭品。一个字都没说，因为师青玄当时呆滞了，说了也听不懂。

He’s a mortal. He can’t recover, and he doesn’t want to recover. There are no reincarnations for Heavenly Officials. 15 degrees frozen. [This is a pun Shi Wu being a direct homophone for fifteen]  Water Master’s head was taken for offerings to the dead. Because Shi Qingxuan was paralysed, even if something was said to him, he wouldn’t understand.

T/N: Press F to pay respects.

Q26. 对于《天官赐福》创作期间剧情结构的争议有什么想法？(What were the thoughts you had about the plot and resulting debates of HOB?)

T/N: This is really long. Hold your horses!

这个其实我很早写过相关的，有的放在JJ的作者有话说里了，有的本来想放在后记，但想了想还是没有放，正好趁这个机会整理一下，一起发出来。

Actually, I had written something similar to my thoughts on this. Some have been placed in the author’s notes (on JJWXC, the original website HOB was posted to), some I wanted to record down but didn’t after thinking, so I’ll take this opportunity to tidy up a bit and air my thoughts.)

讲实话，还是有点无语的，我感觉没有哪个别的作者会有我这种争议。一个作者几本你爱看几本你不爱看，这不是很正常的事么，我喜欢的作者（非耽美）我也不是本本都喜欢的。世界级的大师也不可能保证本本都是世界级名著吧（当然我这不是在脸大自比世界级大师，预警一下不要断章取义）。所以不太理解为啥有人会一本不喜欢就翻脸转黑，或者居然说怀疑我有团队代笔之类的。

To say the truth, I’m still a bit speechless about this. I feel that other authors wouldn’t have as much difficulty about the debates as I did. There are some books that you like and some you don’t from the same author, this is pretty normal. There’s this author I like ( 非耽美  ), and I don’t like every single book she has written. There is no author in the world that can be assured that every book they have written will become a bestseller (I’m not comparing myself with these authors, please don’t quote me to your liking!) So I can’t understand why some people object once they read a book that they don’t like, or even say that I have a team of ghostwriters.

但我发现争议永远都会有。在JJ，只要不是软萌甜文，评论区多半都有点乌云。至今记得我收到第一个负分，就是渣反刚入V时，有个妹子骂冰妹渣攻去死吧（。当时为攻渣不渣吵了几个话题楼，放到今天来看这种规模简直是小猫挠爪子，但当时比较没见识，真的被吓住了。魔道连载初期，我收到的第一个扎心的评论大概是这样的：“你已经耗尽了我的耐心，我不想再容忍你的回忆杀了”，那个时候我才在写第一段云深不知处求学，我心想妹子你这就容忍不了了，那后面你怎么办啊！也有人坦言“感觉大大你这本没什么意思哦，我还是比较喜欢渣反”，这种评论我看了不舒服，但我也不会说什么。到后期评论区人多了，乌云也多了，兵荒马乱，前面那点都觉得没啥了。也是从这里，开始养成了我说不看评论区就不看评论区的好习惯。

But I discovered that there would always be debates. On JJWXC, as long as it’s not a sweet fluffy story, there will always be some clouds hanging over. At least when I remember the first criticism, that is when Scum Villain was first published, there was a fan who told Luo Binghe to go die.

At that time, I wasn’t as mature, so I was really shocked. When GDC/MoDaoZuShi was being published, I received a heart wrenching criticism that went like this: “You’ve already exhausted my patience, I can’t stand all of these flashbacks!” This was when I had just written the first part of the time at Cloud Recesses, when they were all studying together. I was thinking: if you can’t stand this, then how are you going to stand it later?

There was also someone who wrote: “Big sis, this book doesn’t have much meaning, I still prefer Scum Villain!” These reviews are discomforting to me, but I won’t say anything. At the end, there were more people in the debate, more clouds over this novel, it was chaos, I was eventually numb to this. So at this point, I started having the habit of not reading the debates in the reviews corner.

所以你看，其实争议从来没有停止。永远有人不满。以前的争议现在淡去了，就给人一种“从来没有过争议”的错觉。就像总有人喜欢缅怀过去的时光如何美好，时间会加一层滤镜。

So you see, debates have never stopped. There will always be people who are unsatisfied. Previous debates that have become less intense, it gives the feeling that “there has never been a debate”. Like some who think that the past is better, time would give a nostalgic feeling.

写作中出现的困难有什么大不了的，没作者敢说自己写作过程中不会出现困难吧。但是有的作者很聪明，会扬长避短，就写自己最拿手的。这当然很厉害，不过我觉得，还是要不时走出舒适区试探一下的。

No author has dared to say that they have never come across trouble in writing, but there’s nothing wrong in troubles. But there are some authors who are smart, who would write what they are good at. This is very powerful, but I feel that there has to be some attempts at going out of your comfort zone.

既然是探索，就不能保证每一步都走得稳。如果我摔倒了，我自己会爬起来。不能说因为我会摔倒，就不让我走这一步，非逼我另一条路，或者要夺走我自己走路的权力。

Since it’s an investigation, so you can’t be sure that every step you take would be safe. If I fall, I would climb up myself. I can’t say that because I’ll fall, I won’t take this step, I need to take another route, or make this cautious step prevent me from walking on my own.

如果实在不喜欢，其实放手就好，我一贯是希望好聚好散。但有的读者比较奇怪，一定要一边不喜欢，一边逼迫自己读，一边发泄负能量，这何必呢。毕竟，你不喜欢，有别的读者是会真心喜欢的。这样你自己也不舒服，其他读者也不舒服，还会引发掐架，这个时候我就很尴尬。因为人捍卫自己喜欢的东西是人之常情，我不能说拦着读者们不让他们保护自己喜欢的。我很明白自己喜欢的东西被人攻击会有多难过气愤，我心疼这些读者。

If I really don’t like this, letting go is always good. I hope that everyone will break up peacefully. But some readers are a bit strange, they don’t like what they read, they will force themselves to read while complaining about it and wasting their effort. Why do this? You may not like it, but there are other readers who love it. So you will not feel comfortable, so will others, and you get into a fight and I feel embarrassed about it!

People feel protective about what they love, this is perfectly normal and I can’t prevent readers from being protective. I perfectly understand the rage some feel when what they like is being attacked, and thus I worry about it.

可我也尊重读者发表评论的权利，所以对于很多不怎么友好的评论，我从来不会去反驳争辩（除非恶意造谣），有读者反应过激，我还会去劝阻。

However, I respect other readers with their right to disagree, so in debates that turn sour, I will not intervene (unless it’s to stamp a rumor) and I will try to allay those whose reactions are too energetic.

不过这里我还想说说，我可以无视负面评价，但我并不太喜欢所谓的“建议”。

为什么呢，因为写文这事，没写过的人真的就只是纸上谈兵。就像教人写作文，建议人家“用词生动，结构精美”，教人做数学题，建议人家要“举一反三，细心计算”。听上去都没错对吧？但这些都是太笼统抽象的东西，所有人都知道，太空泛了。真的要做到，只有一个办法：自己写。

I would like to speak up about “suggestions”. Why?  Because those who have not written before are only good at talking. Like teaching someone how to write a composition, you say to use phrases to invoke feeling and paragraphing to structure your essay. When you answer mathematical questions, the suggestion is to think of alternative methods and be methodical in your working. It sounds good, right? But these are too vague, the space for error is still too wide. If you really want to do it, I have only one suggestion: write it yourself.

而如果“建议”太具体了，比如“这个地方他说话用词应该文雅一点”“这个地方他应该同情而不是漠视”“全部用排比句看起来比较有文采”，这就越界了。

写文是很私人的事，一篇文有无数个读者，但只能有一个作者。大家是看来看作者写文的，不是来看一个傀儡写文的。每个读者心里或多或少都有自己想要看到的东西，如果每个人都对作者提出要求，作者到底该听谁的？为什么只听这个不听其他的？也许你会说要听正确的，但是谁的意见才是正确的？怎么证明他是正确的？阅网文无数的人可太多了。最关键的问题是，到底是谁在写文？表达者是谁？　

And if the suggestion is too general, like this: “This paragraph, the character speaking should be talking with more of a cultural flair”, or “This paragraph, he should be sympathetic rather than apathetic”, “You should use comparisons, this writing technique is better”, this is beyond the scope.

Writing is personal, a story has many readers, but there could only be one writer. Everyone is here to see the author’s story, not something that they suggest. Every reader has his own opinion and what he wants to see, so if everyone suggests what they want to read, who would the author listen to? Why him in particular and not others? Maybe you’ll get something good, but whose opinion is the best? What can determine that he is correct? There are too many people on this website. The most important question is: who is writing this? Who is the one expressing his thoughts?

作者谦虚是好事。但作者的谦虚，意思是作者要多读，多看，多写，自己把握，自己心里有杆秤，再自己去调整和练习就行了。而不是整天根据别人的建议改来改去。这种事别人插不上手。

以及，我不建议随便揣测作者心理。因为大多数都是错的，可揣测者却对自己的想象深信不疑，最后都会偏向恶意。

The author being humble is a good thing. But the author’s humbleness reflects that he needs to read, to examine and to write even more. He needs to practice and edit his own words. It’s not up to everyone else’s suggestions to improve his own writing. Others cannot intervene. I do not suggest trying to guess what the author is thinking at the time. Because the majority of what you think would be wrong, so the guesser would be confident in what he thinks is the right answer, and it would turn out sour.

无论我写什么，都会有人有意见。有人说我太任性了，故意折磨读者，整天写苦大仇深的东西，商业作者就该有商业作者的样子，不许这么任性，要懂得小心翼翼讨好粉丝。同时也有人说我变了，我无脑发糖，就知道讨好粉丝。真的很无奈。要不然，先统一一下意见吧。

No matter what I write, there will be opinions about it. Some have felt that I’m too flighty, I torture the readers, I write things about bitterness and revenge and published authors should have the behavior of published authors, I can’t be this choosy and picky, and I need to pacify the readers. Some have also said that I have changed, and I only know how to appease the fans. I cannot help but think: why don’t you unify your own thoughts on this.

但我也不喜欢评论区吵架。如果双方吵起来，又要被说这个作者粉丝好可怕啊见不得人家说不好，进而发散成粉丝脑残、作者好自大狂妄膨胀了——反正怎么说作者这边都有错，我很吃亏，很被动，所以我衷心请求大家，在评论区看到这样的评论，不要理睬，让它自然沉没就OK，不然越吵越久，打扰的还是大家看文的心情。

But I don’t like arguments in the review corner either. If two parties argue, there will be talk about how the fandom is quite scary, people here can’t agree, fans in this fandom will be braindead, the author is too proud. Whatever happens, the author is always wrong. I will always lose out, so I wish that everyone will not bother with this debate, let it sink and it’ll be ok, don’t argue more and more. All it will do is ruin everyone’s mood upon reading this.

T/N: This is the author’s thoughts about this. There are some parts I have trouble trying to translate because it is so hard for some vocab in Chinese to be directly interpreted. I did my best in this.

Okay. Back to other questions!

Q27. 《天官赐福》计划什么时候修文？(When are you editing HOB?)

其实现在已经开始修了，修好后会统一贴上去并发通知的。但因为这文修起来工程太大，JJ对修文也有很麻烦的限制，不知道会多久，在老四前还是老四后无法保证。还要看三次元和老四的破壳欲了。

Actually, it’s already in the process of editing. Once it has been fully edited, I will publish it as one post and inform everyone. However, as this job is too big, JJWXC has some issues and constraints as well about editing, so I have no idea how long it will take be it before or after the fourth novel is published.

Q28. 《天官赐福》还有哪些番外？(What other HOB extras are there?)

很早就想写个民间故事集，一个一个短小的童话故事，不长。

I want to write something about the mortal realm. A short fable maybe?

T/N: The remaining questions are about the fourth novel and MXTX’s thoughts on CP and such. I will translate them when I have the energy; I think MXTX’s answer to question 26 has killed my mood to translate further.

[him-e]

I'm not the previous lovely anon but when I read their message I thought I might've written it and then forgot about it, because honestly same. You've been one of my fave blogs for the 4 years I've been on tumblr since I was sixteen. Your meta and commentary mainly on asoiaf and sw helped me shape the way I see fandom, there were so many moments when I've read something of yours and went "Yes! This! but will I be able to ever express myself so eloquently?" There are so many strong opinions(1/3)

on this site and you’re always willing to explore different perspectives and offer a deep insight in the story with such levelheadedness! Also it was through your blog that I first saw things like monster romance, empathizing with villains, redemption arcs, female gaze narratives etc. discussed. I knew I liked these types of stories since I was a kid but I didn’t knew there were names or actual analysis for them and you lead me to discover similar meta writers and pieces of work. Like one of your meta on your sideblog about how villain love interests appeal to teen girls not only because they desire them but also because they see themselves in them? It was so poignantly written and so opposite to the condescending and misogynistic views of antis and I still remember it because it deeply touched me (I seriously had a “holy shit this is me” realization).So uh..excuse my word vomit but what I mean to say is that you are amazing and I hope everything in your life works out in the best possible way because you deserve it 1000%.

Since SIXTEEN? *clutches chest* All of this makes me so happy because it’s exactly the same brain sparkles I got when I first joined Tumblr, MANY years ago (and even before that, when I started interacting with other female fans on LJ and other forums, but Tumblr made the difference because it made it easy to widen the scope of the discussion from a specific fandom to fiction and media at large). 

Honestly, and I can’t stress this enough, 98% of what I do on this site is sharing ideas that aren’t original at all, but the echo of years of interaction with different brilliant minds, each of them has helped me go from passive consumer of fiction, to feminist interrogating the media I consume on its “problematic” content (yes! I went through that phase myself too, although not in the same way antis do these days), to what I am now, i.e. a feminist who is trying to do her best at intersectionality but also wants to experience escapist fiction freely and without guilt trips, and reclaim those tropes and narratives that i know have made me happy in the past, from a visceral, empathetic perspective, for a reason. So I’m glad that other people, especially this young, are reaching quickly stage 3 and getting familiar with a meta culture that is less about swallowing fandom factoids passively and more about mutually sharing ever-evolving views and interpretations. 

But the best thing is knowing that young people like you are clever and mature enough to handle all of this in a way I don’t think I was able to do at your age (tbh I only experienced fiction from within my own bubble, back then—I had no concept of sharing my views with people who ruminated on things just as much as I did. At best, I read reviews or even essays, but not from a fan perspective. But who knows, maybe forming my own opinions in a pseudo void rather than the echo chamber that fandom can be now was formative too). 

I really hate the idea of having to be condescending to teenagers, of having to “protect” them from terrible fiction or *shitty villains*. Of feeding them only good narratives, and guilt tripping them into denouncing as bad anything they might feel instinctively drawn to, but that isn’t *approved* by the fandom police. At that age, you should already be able to think with your own head, and tell the difference between an ideal you’d want to pursue in real life and a fantasy you want to engage with in the privacy of your room just because it feels FUN. or scary. or sexy. or, well, wrong. You should be able to do that. I honestly can’t imagine my existence if I hadn’t been able to do that.

The thing you referenced, about seeing yourself in certain types of villains, because they fill a representation void in male-centric narratives that more often than not female characters (who are often pushed to the margins and deprived of any real agency or personality in those stories) can’t satisfy on their own? Let alone good standard masculine heroes with exactly the right amount of good standard “soft” qualities to not overall compromise the perception of their masculinity? When I first heard of this idea myself, a lot of things just clicked into place for me. Haven’t I liked all my life a certain type of characters and tropes? Was I brainwashed by the patriarchy, or was there something deeper and more complex going on there? How can I look at fiction critically without also having to beat myself into liking unproblematic narratives with the “good” kind of characters and representation, sanitized to a point that I don’t find anything relatable in them?

digressing as always, ANYWAY: I’m glad you wrote and glad my blog was for you an intersection of different perspectives and roads to follow. I’d rather be this than a “role model” (because I suck at modeling, and because fuck role models anyway). Hope you continue on these paths!

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Ep 24 S3: Blimp’s Ultimate Form

So, I realized as I sat down to the blog today that I’ve been doing this for like...a year and half now? I think? So I figured...how many of these have I MADE? Cuz I thought...I MUST be getting close to the 100th recap pretty soon, and guys, the answer was shocking.

This is, in fact, the 121st recap (including Season 0). That is a LOT of content. I don’t think I have that many pages for my own webcomic (which basically only tells you how long and physically exhausting the drawing process is more than anything else). Along the way I realized I was a.) really bad at numbering episodes, and b.) reaaaaally bad at spelling Kaiba at the start of this series, really cringey how I used to spell everyone’s name, I can’t really look back there.

Anyway, in case you are curious, the 100th episode was the “Pharaoh turns Karibo into a rainbow for some reason” episode. So, unfortunately it wasn’t that extraordinary. I forgot to write down which episode was 69, which is a colossal failure on my part.

So that being said, this is the last episode of this arc! Honestly, this arc could’ve been a lot shorter because at this point the only resolution left is for Noah to be a decent person once in his life and for Kaiba Sr. to die (which he’s already done, so...mission already accomplished)

Noah recently came on the PA system to inform us that he accidentally decided to kill everyone (congrats, recently reformed Noah), and so he’s going to do the decent thing and let them know where the exit is without actually doing a damn thing to make a portal to get them to said exit.

Guess where the exit is?

I don’t know why the hell this show keeps going back to the local Dave and Busters where Tea got attacked on a dance machine.

At this moment, Gozaburo decided to turn into some sort of giant red ghost devil.

Yes. Exactly what it sounds like.

Apparently this was a thing he could just do this entire arc.

(read more after the cut)

The fact that Seto’s Dad can just morph into a giant red demon is like...not even a problem for anyone on this cast. He literally goes back to his side of the field and goes right back to playing cards. Cuz youknow. Cards.

It’s basically a "Anyone with a millennium item can shoot lasers but never actually does” but demon format. Gozaburo *could* turn into the hulk but like...why?

Meanwhile the rest of the cast are playing cards against the card monsters, that are really just 3D models that Gozaburo had on file. He could have used...literally anything to throw at these people and he went with cards. He could have just dropped a boat on them but...I dunno, maybe he didn’t know where the boat folder was.

Yugi trying really hard to not acknowledge the annoying as hell Joey face and give it any more attention than it already has.

Tea and Serenity scramble to the exit largely unscathed, dragging Tristan with them because he is too small to hold a card hologram and is too monkey to be at all useful back on the front lines.

And they just wake up. Just like that. Just like they woke up from a simple nap or something.

And voila, Tristan is no longer a monkey, his brain is back to normal, the writers were like “we really have to focus on Noah right now, please forgive us if we just pretend line all that brain damage Tristan went through, his brain being 5 DIFFERENT PEOPLE at the same time, having his brainwaves turned into an actual monkey, and then back again within the space of a few hours- just pretend he’s fine now. 

It’s fine. Tristan’s fine.

Tristan wasn’t really...all that bright to begin with so...he’s fine.

And so, as our B team is getting back into the real world, Noah sees this little post-it note on the side of his computer that says “PS, Yugi is a main character and must be present for the finale although he will serve little purpose there” and so Noah pressed that intercom mic button to say:

And it’s at this point that Noah says “I’ll just make you a portal and warp you right there” and then I guess everyone standing around Noah kind of looked at eachother and was like “NOW you do that? NOW? AFTER the chase through the monster copy-paste factory?”

The show is desperately trying to convince me that Noah is now fully a good brother but ehhhhh he’s not. Like, I’ll be honest, they give him the best send off they could have possibly given to such an irredeemably evil character. Like, Seto himself is such a bag of pistachios that you really have to stretch Noah pretty far into evil territory to make Seto look like the good guy in comparison, and it sort of made me not really buy this whole Noah redemption arc.

It’s more like a prequel to a redemption arc that apparently won’t even happen in this series of Yugioh. He comes back at some point, and I only know that because I had to do a google image search of this kid for some reason and it was like ah, yeah, this is definitely a screen cap of a later, glossier looking Yugioh. But, for now, I’d say that Noah’s arc isn’t so much about him coming closer to his family or turning towards the ‘light’, as Pharaoh put it last episode. It’s more about Noah finally letting go of his Father, which should have been the arc of Seto Kaiba.

Instead, Seto did absolutely nothing to let go of his Dad, to the point that Seto is now fighting a computer that just kind of looks like his Dad during a missile strike aimed at Seto’s own face, and Seto did not stop till he won, because of his own damn pride.

Like I think I mentioned this in the last recap, but if they wanted to have Seto show any changes in this arc (which he hasn’t done) then he should have walked away. Instead, he’s very clearly still using his past trauma to fuel the obsessive reasons why he’s playing cards in the present.

Oh, and PS, Yugi’s here, I don’t know why he is, but it does make for some good scenery shots for the commercials so you know, why not.

Gozaburo decides it’s about time to turn into a 50 ft rage monster, and he pushes them to a ledge. Ah, dangerous ledge trope, it’s been a while.

And, finally, as was hinted basically since S1, Yugi gets Seto to jump directly off a ledge of a very tall structure. It finally happened.

Don’t think about it.

And into a portal? That gets them to the exit? Like y’all...this is a kid’s show and all so I shouldn’t question any very convenient plot devices but like...what?

Anyways, they’re fine now, don’t worry about it.

And so, now for a brother pow-wow between Mokuba, who is either still very, very much in Stockholm Syndrome Territory or maybe just doesn’t know that Noah dropped a rocket on his face while Moki was AFK.

And so Noah walks off into the fog cloud because he is the only person on this entire show who would rather die than share a brain (and you know Moki would’ve been down. Moki/Noah as the next Yugi/Pharaoh could’ve been a great thing but youknow, also very much way too complicated for this already complicated show).

It was very melodramatic.

And TBH, I will miss Noah a little bit, he had a fun, insane sort of snobby sass, but I can understand why they might not want to keep even more villains around on this show that is already like...dozens of villains, just so many villains.

Anyway, remember that they woke up in a lab and not in a blimp, so they still have to like...get off this damn boat.

Lol nearly forgot this was an anime. Glad Noah got a magic girl moment before he kicked it.

Also, I’m pretty sure it was shirtless Noah in this glowing yellow farmer’s tan that got this episode flagged for Adult Content when it was still in my drafts folder. Tumblr’s bot got super excited to shut this one way down lol.

And then what follows is like one of the best animated loops in Yugioh. One so good that you bet your ass I clipped it to view for my own leisure.

Mokuba, sensing he’s slowing down for no reason makes the mistake of telling his brother “I’m not going to make it” and so, as an unsuspecting Duke Devlin reaches out and says “grab my hand,” Kaiba does...THIS

when the entire time Kaiba was strong enough and had enough jumps to do THIS

Like he could have easily picked up Mokuba but youknow, any chance to throw a kid at Duke Devlin’s face shoe-first, I guess.

Maybe this is why Moki wears a puffy vest?

And so it was here, as the flames encroach on my wonderful blimp baby that I was getting ready to say goodbye, but guess what, she ain’t dead because...of a completely insane reason we’ll get to in a bit.

Oh, and PS Kaiba’s Dad is a flame monster now. Because of...technology?

It’s probably supposed to be metaphorical flames but youknow, apparently Kaiba had the foresight that someone at some point would become a flame demon and try to devour his entire blimp, and so he made a feature you can add onto what ever blimp you decide to buy from him just so you can outrun fire people attacks.

And it turns out Blimp was the real Magical Girl all along.

Blimp lore is getting pretty wild y’all.

Imagine playing cards on it now...

And then everyone collectively decided that Noah WASN’T DEAD. It was very unhealthy! Thanks 4Kids!

The irony about this exchange is that it is Bakura who is the one who’s uploaded to a flash drive, not Noah--Bakura is on a flash drive around Yugi’s neck but they have never discussed this. Like I’m pretty sure no one even has still picked up that Bakura died and that’s going to be the thing I look forward to the most next episode. If they even address it. Which they might not.

And so, Kaiba looks at the wreckage and the rocket parts that he now has to explain to the UN (and probably not for the first time) and he says:

And thus ends the Kaiba’s Kojima-esque War Crimes arc.

Oh man, next time we get to go back to Marik.

Man oh man.

I don’t even REMEMBER what was going on in that arc guys. It’s been like...man.

I might have to read my own blog to refresh myself haha, I honestly have forgotten a lot of details.

Anyway, in memory of when the blimp still looked like a blimp, I guess this is the last time I can ever post this song:

And here’s a link to read these recaps from the beginning in chrono-order

[redroseredemption]

Gogo Sentai Boukenger Review

CW: Mention of Sexual Assault and Rape Man, what an adventure it’s been. Can’t believe it’s done and now I’m ready to review it.

So how I’ll be doing these reviews is I’ll be splitting my opinions into sections: What I love: What was meh.. What was terrible and WTF?! Let’s get started! Note: Any suit designs or mech designs that show up on this list have no effect on my enjoyment of the show overall and are just here for aesthetic purposes Loved: 

- Akashi is, so far, my favorite Red Ranger. He’s everything a red ranger should be. A serious leader when he needed to be but wasn’t afraid to show a softer, goofier side when the time was appropriate. 

- Sakura and Eiji were also great. I wish Sakura had a little more development, but she’s still a great character and one of my favorite pink rangers. It’s nice to have a serious Pink Ranger from time to time. (Yuri from Timeranger will forever be my all time favorite though)

-Eiji’s story was one of the best parts of this show. The only time I teared up in this show was when he finally realized his mother loved him. The conclusion to his arc was phenomenal and is one of my favorite multi-part episodes in sentai yet.  - I loved a lot of the humor in this show. It never went got to “LMAO” levels of funny, but I had quite a few good laughs

-While all the villain factions were pretty good in their own right, Gaja is the most memorable for me. He was not only hilarious (both intentionally and unintentionally) he was also the final main villain. His actor looked like he was having the time of his life playing this character and that also gets a plus in my book.

- Ultimate Daibouken is the best-designed mech in this show and I love it! It looks like a Boukenger with the way its helmet looks. -Henshining off of swords, peoples bodies and BULLETS is badass. This show definitely has the best way to use their henshin device  

Meh...: -While I liked Shouta, he wasn’t as developed as Eiji or Akashi was. Most of the time he was just kind of...there. It’s a shame cause, in the beginning, he was my favorite and he had such an interesting backstory what with being a former spy for the government, but noooooo, instead he falls in love with a cat... -Natsuki’s story about finding out who she really is, while interesting, didn’t end all that great. It wasn’t bad, but it ended too soon and it honestly should have been saved for the end of the show. It would have worked out better - Other than Ultimate, most of the mecha designs were this for me. It was cool that Daibouken’s main weapon was a pickaxe and shovel, but the mech overall just looked ok-ish to me.

Terrible: 

- If you’ve been following my reactions to Boukenger, you’d know that I don’t like Masumi. He’s whiny, he’s an asshole for no reason and his story is underdeveloped and should have not been the main focus in the final episodes. Seriously, we get maybe like 2 episodes showcasing his history and rivalry with Yaiba and then suddenly he’s thrown into the main spotlight of the last 4-5 episodes. His “rivalry” with Akashi is brought up like maybe two times.  It wasn’t even a rivalry at all, Masumi simply says “ I wanna be better than the Immortal Fang” and that’s it!  Throughout the 45+ episodes of this show, Masumi and Akashi were working well together and then all of a sudden when Masumi reads his diary he goes “Oh yeah, I forgot. I was supposed to beat the Immortal Fang. I hate him now!”  Don’t even get me started on Masumi’s “inner struggle with his darkness”  That was a serious asspull from the writers. His story either should have been thought out better OR it should have been replaced with Natsuki’s. Natsuki’s story would have been perfect for the final episodes, but NOPE! We gotta focus on Masumi leaving the team cause he has “darkness” in him... -The treatment of Natsuki is by far the worst thing in this show. She not only gets chocked out several times in very uncomfortable ways, but she also gets mind-controlled twice and two times she’s put in situations where there’s a heavy implication that she’s about to be sexually assaulted. The first is in episode 13 with the group of Curses looming over her with grabby hands and the other one is where she becomes chief and these sleazy guys come up to her asking her if she wants to take a ride with them and they aggressively guide her to their car.  If this was a case of a simple damsel in distress, that’d be one thing, but this is far more than that and it’s sicking and disturbing to watch. Thankfully around the halfway point, they stop, but it’s  still a huge blemish on an otherwise solid show -Nowhere near horrible as the first two in the terrible section, it’s the Boukengers suits. These are not good suits. There’s way too much going on with them, from the chrome bands and shoulder pads to the logo

WTF?!: -Why was Akashi still wielding Zuuban even after Natsuki’s story was complete? I don’t care if he’s the red ranger, why doesn’t she wield him until the ending credits? ( I know she wields him when she’s under mind control, but she’s unwillingly wielding him so it doesn’t count )  That’s my review. This was the first sentai I’ve live-blogged in full and I had a lot of fun doing it. Overall, I like this show a lot. Even with what I just talked about, it’s a great sentai with a mostly amazing cast of characters from both the heroes and villains. If you’re into Mcguffin hunting and adventures, check this one out!