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moonlight-tmd · 1 month

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I guess the last post on Celestial!Bee AU since no one seems interested. Anywho-

I suppose after the last one where Sari blasted Bei, nearly killing him Bei got to training Sari to learn to control her new powers. He still got the shivers down his spine when Sari used said powers in training but if you were immortal deity and something nearly ended you ya would be wary too.

Then the whole deal with Megatron and Decepticons got in the main picture- Earlier when Megatron kidnapped Bee to interrogate him, he didn't expect to be face to face with the one who had granted him his powers long ago... The Lord of Wishes himself. They had a talk, in the end Megatron was allowed to do whatever he needed to do under a condition to not kill any of Bee's comrades. His troops knew the order, few were confused as to why the warlord didn't want any corpses and in fact strictly forbidden finishing them off in fights, but they were to intimitated by him to question that.

After the near-death incident the fight for the Allspark happened. Bei wasn't really allowed to interact with any of the mortal conflicts but he still made an effort to go with them and help out on the sidelines without hurting the enemies... Then a bright flash from the tower appeared and a beam of light descended down to strike the giant mech Megatron had created to march on an take the Allspark. Everything around was in ruin, the Decepticons either lay dead or injured, few scampered off before the battle took a more heated turn. In amidst of chaotic serenity they dug Megatron out of the rubble and arrested him but at a great cost... Prowl had died in attempt to sway the fate's favor onto them and succeeded.

After the captured had been put in ship's cells for transport, both Team Prime and Elite Guard had gathered around a table he laid on to honor Prowl, well, all except Bee- the scout has vanished since the aftermath. But not for long... In fact, he was sitting right there on a container- oh wait he looks a lil fucked up-

"Oh, what a loss... Truly a waste of talent, so sad..."

Team Prime has gotten accustomed to Beisilan's antics by now to know he was being empathetic... Elite Guard however- yeah they screamed. Well, except Sentinel- he's "met" this thing before, Bei paid him a nightly visit as a 'sleep paralysis demon' as he put it and threatened him to be nicer or else. It kind of did the trick, at least he wasn't rudely commenting about anything being not the way he wants it.

There was a brief exchange of words between them and Bei before Sair perked up suggesting that if he has god powers he could revive Prowl, right? Sadly, Bei could not... at least not with those that haven't made a deal with him- oh wait what is this scroll- SO turns out that a while before this whole fight went down, Prowl talked with Beisilan about the possibility of their success. It was then that Bei proposed the deal- Prowl was aware that after he had died his sould would serve Bei as a guardian to the Dream Realm, in everything that could go wrong it was a reasonable price, so he signed it, making his soul an asset in Bei's servos.

Prowl's soul was at his command and Bei could do whatever he pleased with it... "Now, I don't know about you- but celebrating a victory isn't a time to be sleeping!" He giggled in his multitone voice before blowing the scroll like a candle- but instead the scroll set on fire that the smoke that came after the flame surrounded Prowl's body. Then a spectar air horn popped out and blasted the sound and in an intsant Prowl jumped awake and fell off the berth. All colored and alive. And spooked for his life, just like he'd been woken up for real. Prowl's contract was terminated and the binding was revoked. He was once again a free mech- but Bei warned that this won't happen again so they better be careful what they do. Then when they were talking Bei lowered himself to the ground and in a puff of smoke he was Bee again- "So- who's ready for a celebration party?!"

So the Elite Guard got to learn what Bee really is and has gotten hit with flashbacks to all the times they were mean to him. The Jettwins may have been scared of him briefly but after Bee showing them few neat tricks they were good, if not a little curious about him.

A long while after the battle and everything settling back into place, Optimus was offered to join in the higher status in Cybertron. He however declined and chose the peaceful life on earth. Their Base had gotten a major upgrade to a proper state instead of a near-ruin thanks to Bei so they did not have to worry about anything. I would sare say Prowl and Jazz had turned their attention to the small altar they build in one of the rooms to leave offerings- they had been taught about the greatness of Primus but after hearing stuff he did from Beisilan they decided to aid the weaker god instead. (no, they didn't start a cult, they were just paying their respects to Beisilan instead of Primus) (altho at this point the whole team would do that so i guess they became some sort of a cult) Bee pretends he doesn't know about the altar or whatever they do in that room but on the inside he's very happy that someone has given him worship at last in over few hundred neons. He continues to unnoticingly bless each and every member that leaves their gifts and prayers at the altar.

And of course, he wouldn't be a mischevious god without some good ol' pranks! It's very fun to mess with the mortal, regardless if he's friends with them or not.

And I think that's it for now. All of the events I had already thought of had been written, up to you whether you wanna know more.

#maccadam #tfa #tfa bumblebee #tfa au #celestial!bee au #long post

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self-indulgent-paw-patrol · 2 months

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Y'all want my hot take on why we didn't have a Marshall movie for the second movie, but this time not focusing my answer on Skye?

THEY WERE AFRAID OF AUDIENCE REACTION.

No, really.

Marshall is a fan favorite, NOT ONLY AMONG KIDS - they gotta please the kids parents and relatives too, it's the parents and relatives who will spend their fortunes on buying Paw Patrol merchandise for their kids and throwing birthday parties with custom "I'm the Paw Patrol kid's dad/mom" matching shirts.

THEY KNOW IT'S NOT ONLY KIDS WATCHING THEIR SHOW AND MOVIES, heck they're all adults working there and you need TO LOVE kids stuff to create and/or work on GOOD kids animations. And EVEN MORE NOW after the Mighty Movie, they KNOW two things:

1- The younger kids might not care MUCH, but the older ones will and the percentage of adults that follow the show will as well: Everyone who loves Marshall will NOT be satisfied with just anything.

Usually the people who work on movies are not all the same from the show, so both things can run and get produced without interfering with each other. The people working in the movies are bound to know how the audience is reacting to the show in order to get things done okay in the movies as well, or at least do whatever they can do under what orders they receive.

They know people have been unhappy about Marshall being put more in the sidelines, they know people are unhappy with how they're following orders to give Skye more spotlight in the show which means she's been doing rescues that usually would be more suited for Marshall. It's like she's pushing Marshall to the sidelines. I don't even remember when was the last time I saw Marshall work as EMT and I don't remember last time I even saw his Ambulance in the show (I'm currently at the beginning of 7th season). They might even know how people miss Marshall's interactions with other pups, especially with Chase, as in the beginning they were portrayed as best friends, playing together, doing things together, and now it's like they're all just coworkers. My guess on that is because they're avoiding situations that can be used for shipping characters XD Given the whole issue with ideologies and whatnot now, I wouldn't be surprised they're avoiding anything remotely close to that.

They know people are unhappy and wish for Marshall to get his spotlight back.

2- THEY KNOW WE'RE UNHAPPY WITH HOW MARSHALL HAS BEEN PORTRAYED IN BOTH MOVIES SO FAR. Especially the whole issue about his clumsiness, which is barely hinted at in the movies, even if we see a lot about it in the show. Not to mention how it's treated mostly as "natural clumsiness", things that could have happened to literally ANY of the other pups, not because of his "clumsy condition". I mean, tripping while dancing, yeah, that's normal. Getting startled when a hologram shows up in your face? Any of them could have gotten startled outta their fur at that. Chase literally spawning by his side when you had just seen him all the way across the room not even half a second ago? I'D HAVE SCREAMED AND THROWN THAT FIREBALL OUT AND AWAY DUE TO SUCH JUMPSCARE TOO.

He didn't do MUCH in the movies at all, maybe just taking over the matters when Chase had his panic attacks in the first movie. Which also makes sense, we gotta admit that: Police AND FIREFIGHTERS are usually the ones who are more suited to do crowd control and deal with people. I'm not even going about how Marshall would take over, it's just that he's the more suited to go substitute Chase in ANY CASE. It's not just because they're close friends.

But aside from that? The main focus were Chase for the first movie, and Skye for the second. Marshall was along for the ride, as well as all other pups, but fans are ESPECIALLY UPSET literally because they felt Marshall was supposed to have the spotlight for the Mighty Movie and it turned out it just wasn't going to be about him XD He didn't do muuuuuch, he barely had not even a fraction of his signature clumsy moments.

And after how people complained after the first movie, they weren't going to do anything about Marshall just yet anyway. Now fans are even more pissed and I'm here holding my bucket of popcorn watching this circus catch on fire and waiting for our beloved firepup to come for the rescue.

Sort of literally XD

At least we know we're gonna get a third movie by 2026. Now it's a game of wait and see what it'll be like.

#HI HELLO HERE I COME AGAIN #Idk if this will become habit but yes I like to go off about these kinda things #You want my thoughts on something you'll probably get a whole essay on it #People said I should make Youtube videos like that but I don't have a nice background to put my webcams to proper use XD #Unless you wanna know the main reason why I relate SO MUCH to Rocky lol #Then you'd see it #Paw Patrol #Paw Patrol The Movie #Paw Patrol The Mighty Movie #Marshall #Paw Patrol Marshall #Chase #Paw Patrol Chase #Skye #Paw Patrol Skye

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ragnarssons · 1 year

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you know what, last episode really was the one where i started to feel like din djarin had taken the role of side-kick on his own show, being replaced as a main by bo-katan. up until then i was fine because din working as a team with his family isn't din being sidelined, he was still making his own decisions and his bond with grogu was still somewhat explored.

but then last episode happened: we don't even know why din came with bo, like no scene at the beginning to explain din's motivation to accompany bo in some kind of exile to find the other mandalorians?? when all he supposedly wanted during the whole season was just raise his kid to become a mandalorian?? when a storyline on nevarro for him was just there?? his ship isn't even there anymore?? the main interactions with grogu are bo's?? din just sighs at his son jumping in lizzo's arms and that's their only interaction through the whole episode?? because din djarin... DIN DJARIN paranoid!papa "where i go he goes" papa... leaves his son with two complete strangers?? one being ex imperial on top of that?!! ("reformed" but oh we know how well that program is going huh?). it's one thing that he leaves grogu with his family, the armorer, heck even paz fcking vizsla because they're his family. but rich entitled capitalist-royalties, one of them being - a g a i n - EX-IMP? like were they secretly holding grogu hostage or something? because there is no justification to me as to why din would just leave grogu in THAT place of all places. (i guess there was that time with peli too, but it's peli sooo i'll just say that it was natural to trust her lol). and at the end of the episode, he's like "nahhh the only plot element that could tie me in significantly to the final episodes, imma give it to bo because like 4 episodes ago she did some stuff but yknow actually never explain my actual motivation in all of that". the only scene showing him as the character we've followed was the one with the ugnaugths, a good callback to kuill...

it's like... i wouldn't say he's ooc for the sake of the plot or bo katan's story, because he's not but it's not delved into or explored. the story doesn't take the time to shine a light only on din on this episode, and tbh even tho i sure have accepted din's covert as part of his story, i sure hadn't expected bo katan kryze to become the main focus of, again, what is supposed to be din's story.

also before anyone comes and say "well actually the show is called the mandalorian so it could be about any mandaloriaaan-" well maybe they should correct their marketing techniques then because i'm pretty sure DIN AND GROGU are still front and center of all the promo materials we had before s3. and i'd be fine with some bo katan storyline, yknow if it were like the covert's storyline, to enrich din's storyline and grogu's storyline and journey, not the other way around. (for example one of my favorite scene this season is grogu getting is armor piece: din isn't even there with him but it was such an important moment of acceptance, of belonging and hope for the future between grogu and the armorer that i looooved it!)

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian critical #im just trying to wrap my mind around that last episode tbh #like im sorry the other episodes to me it still felt like din was an active part of the driving force #on that episode?? nah #and honestly i was super pumped at the idea of grandma!armorer taking care of grogu #and some paz/din rivalry and daddiness #these were episodes i liked even tho i could sense they were pushing bo katan more and more to the front #but this episode ugh the more i sit on it the more i hate it #kinda like tlj #i was really happy about episode 3 and i feel like it'll be a big payoff soon on that one #but THIS episode felt unnecessary tbh #politics but not enough to justify it yknow???#yeah i think i found it #to me especially at the end of the season they could have written a way more complex and significant episode #of bo and din getting some army and all #but it was just.... THAT ???

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otakween · 17 days

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One Pound Gospel - Volume 1

Yay, new series! (This one was next on MAL after 0 Man). Happy to be reading something by another icon (Rumiko Takahashi). I've never heard anyone talk about this one at all, so I don't know what general opinions are nor do I know anything about the plot. Let's go!

Ch. 1

So we got a boxer in love with a nun...I saw a commenter comparing this premise to Nacho Libre and now I can't unsee it.

(I might need to include a rewatch of that movie, for the meme).

Anyways, our leads are Kosaku and Sister Angela. Kosaku seems like a head empty jock who thinks with his heart and stomach. Sister Angela seems like she can whip him into shape (emotionally lol).

Despite having watched most of Ranma 1/2, I don't think I've ever read a Rumiko Takahashi manga? Craziness! This isn't her first work but it's one of the earlier ones from the 1980s, so I'm expecting some newbie scuff (or maybe she was just a legend from the start?)

Christianity in anime/manga isn't that uncommon, but to have it be one of the main focuses is intriguing. I wonder if we'll find out how Kosaku and Angela came to the religion as Japanese people?

I don't care about boxing at all IRL, but I don't mind reading about it and learning the lingo. Maybe I'll gain an appreciation I didn't have before lol.

Didn't like Kosaku forcing a kiss on Angela (her being a nun makes it extra scuzzy). Oh the 80s...

Ch. 2

See? I'm already learning stuff. Apparently boxers aren't supposed to drink water during a fight (just rinse) and they're not supposed to have sex prior to the fight (I already knew about that one, but this reminded me). That second one's more of a superstition though.

I wasn't sure if Sister Angela wearing her habit all the time was realistic, but I googled it and apparently in some cases that is enforced. Also, I've seen nuns in public wearing habits, so I guess it's legit.

Sister Angela getting plastered was kind of funny but her breaking her wine bottle was a bit extreme. She's kinda unhinged in general, she shows up at Kosaku's match and tells him she'll never forgive him if he loses? (Seems toxic but okay)

The strategies Kosaku's coach has him using to make weight are kinda fucked up (borderline disordered). Starving himself, laxatives and sweating the weight off. I'm sure that happens plenty IRL though. Pretty sad that athletes feel the need to put their bodies through that.

Ch. 3

People in Japan...they can't actually down like 5 bowls of ramen right, that's just an anime thing? I eat one bowl and I need to lie down lol.

I look forward to seeing the food in the adaptations of the manga. Particularly in the live action.

The crucifix falling over when Angela prays for Kosaku was a funny gag.

At this point in the story the focus is definitely more on Kosaku's boxing career than on romance. I wonder if it will kind of go back and forth between the two or if the romance will always just be on the sidelines?

Ch. 4

I can't tell if Kosaku has a food addiction or if they're literally starving him. They never show him eating healthy/low calorie food that's approved by his coach so it kind of feels like he's just not allowed to eat at all. Anyone would obsessively seek out food if that's the case! He did mention "diet" earlier, so I'll hope it's not...

If I was let loose in Tokyo I'd struggle with food temptation too lol. So much street food... (Wait, is this set in Tokyo?)

Ch. 5

Kosaku stumbles into a win after throwing up in the ring again. Apparently you're allowed to win by yeeting your opponent outside the ring? Seems wrong, but what do I know

All this starvation-binge stuff is making me a little nauseous. There's gotta be a better way!

Ch. 6

You know how straight dudes in the 1980s dressed in a way that seems gay-coded by today's standards? That's kinda what Kosaku's giving. He's really cute. (Not much of a personality tho)

Takahashi sure likes her repetitive gags doesn't she? A lot of "comedy" anime do this and it's frankly kind of frustrating. I'm not gonna laugh when you do the same joke for the millionth time...

They seriously just should have put him in a heavier weight class sooner, but it feels like I'm missing something here. Why does it matter which weight class you're in and why are some more sought after than others? -shrug-

I also don't get the "4 rounds" vs. "6 rounds" thing. Is it like baseball vs. softball or something? At least Sister Angela is just as clueless as me!

Ch. 7

Okay so apparently you pick your weight class based on your bone structure, I get it I don't really get it

Ch. 8

Okay, I immediately hate Onimaru for begging his pregnant wife to have a son and not a daughter 😒 I hope Kosaku kicks his ass

It almost seems like a conflict of interest to have your friend do your confession, no?

This series is reminding me of Spy x Family. Like you know how in that show Yor's plotline is mostly sidelined compared to Loid's? That's kinda how the Kosaku/Angela balance feels here.

Ch. 9

I really don't know anything about boxing, so I don't know what makes a good or bad fight, but this one seemed really pathetic lol. I'm glad at least Onimaru wasn't a sore loser, he probably needed to be humbled anyways.

The manga seems to be implying that Kosaku is fat which...huh? He doesn't look fat at all? Sure, he eats like a fat person but...I think 1980s "fat" meant something different lol.

IDK why Angela is so set on Kosaku being in the lower weight class. I guess it's good to be disciplined, so she sees that as the morally right thing to do?

So so far this seems like a very low stakes manga. It's leaning more towards the sports genre than the romcom, which isn't really what I expected. Well, after 0-Man I could definitely use an easy-breezy read like this. Onto the next volume!

#one pound gospel #manga

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reflections-in-a-critical-eye · 1 year

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Thank you for your write up on Jimin's wkorea interview.

Maybe the questions are reviewed and approved by his label/manager?

Because when you get to ask Park Jimin questions, why would you stick to some general topics? He's such a mysterious man, ask him something/anything so we can deep dive into the man he is. He's like an unsolved puzzle. You would think he'll do x but he'll turn around and do y and surprise you. You never know what his next steps are or what he's doing while he's quiet on sm. That's how he drives his fans and also his antis crazy.

Iam fine that he didn't reveal much about his album and kept the expectations low saying it's his first and it's not grand. That's humble but also clever.

Considering he's in the middle of his album, they could have asked questions about his past work.

They could have picked a few of his memorable/viral acts and asked more open ended questions about his preparations, his feeling, thoughts on them. His routine with learning those choreos, the idea behind how they come up with it etc.

But again, that might lead him to talk about the group I guess. But this was supposed to be only about him.

But they could have asked atleast some dance related questions. It bothers me that his dancing is almost sidelined. I really want someone to discuss dancing at length with him.

Honestly I thought this interview was not meant to reveal anything about his album or future plans. It was just to get some pictures of him in Dior outfits.

Finally, Jimin has a way with words. When you're listening to him, your listening to him thinking he's telling you soo much. But he really isn't. He seems vulnerable and open about his feelings and thoughts but same time he's also guarded. I don't know how he manages that.

I'm going to rant here because the more I think about it, the more disappointed and frustrated I am because somehow, I still have high expectations.

Indeed, the main point of the photoshoot was to be linked to the official announcement of Jimin becoming a Dior GA. They dedicated one question to that and Jimin said it's an opportunity for him to learn more about fashion. Great. But the logical follow up question wouldn't have been about his own fashion style throughout his career? How it changed along the years, how/if it was influenced by the changes happening to him throughout his 20s in the public eye? Or how about something related to his photofolio where obviously clothing was used as a metaphor for what he wanted to express about himself. Damn, it was called tailor of chaos. So many missed opportunities there.

As to his performances and him as a dancer, there were ways of talking about it. How about his work in Filter? Or the fan dance? His contemporary solo in 2019?

I reached the conclusion that perhaps it's pointless to want him to talk about the creative process in detail, when that's something that never happened. He has the skill, he spends countless hours practicing in the studio and the final product is an amazing performance, but maybe sticking to just doing that is all there is to it. I want to hear Jimin talking in depth about the inner meanings of Filter, but does he want to do that? Is he capable of doing that? I see Jimin as a great speaker and master of his words in so many occassions, but what he actually says leaves me with barely anything (and he's not the only one, I will say the same about Jungkook too. Tae and Jin fall in that category as well. The only in depth talks - at the BTS level - came from the rap line in terms of creative process. But that doesn't mean just writing lyrics and producing songs. Dancing gets in there as well, their involvement in the concepts. They seem to be ignored and not offered as a chance for the vocal line to talk about). I don't want to be fully missunderstood here and I hope that those who know my blog will understand nuance. I know incredibly talented film directors who made some really great movies which shaped an entire cinematic movement while at the same time, they were shit at talking about their films and what meaning they were trying to convey. And let me tell you, it was high level stuff from an ideological point of view. But they didn't know how to express that through dialogue. More or less, I see the same situation with some BTS members too. Not to mention Black Swan, a highlight of their career conceptual wise and nothing was or will be spoken about it more in depth.

This is an issue that is visible in the type of content the company releases. They focus on providing footage of them giggling in between rehearsals and a quick 1 minute montage of rehearsal, without actually showing the work. And it became worse and worse as the years went by because there is evidence that for at least a few years, they still cared about that. As a fan, I would love to see the work, or at least hear them talk more about the work. I see fans praising Jimin for coming up with bridges and melodies for what ended up as famous songs for them, but no actual real talk about that work. They push the cameras in their faces for Bangtan Bombs and they are asked to say something about the most insignificant thing ever (and it shows through their responses), but they wouldn't focus more on the recording process.

And why would they change the strategy when it proves to be enough for the fans? They can sell their Memories DVDs with more than half of it already released as free content on youtube, the fans buy it, half of them waste their time fighting over the ship content, while the other half just fucking loves it and we all see it through gifs and short clips on twitter, reposted and quote retweeted ad naseum.

To end all this and go back to my initial point, there's many ways of giving a valuable insight about someone's work through and interview, but I have yet to read something actually good. Will I be naive enough to believe that it's going to be different when Jimin releases his album? Not as much as I would have been in the past. But, to end this on a more positive note, he still has time to grow and gain experience on doing stuff on his own. And perhaps that once it happens, it will open the door to a different way of talking about his work.

#bmt asks #jimin #jimin w korea interview #bts #bighit

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detshin · 2 years

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So... V2 of kinda sucked. Don't get me wrong, I cried like a baby and its was fine for the most part I guess. (We don't talk about Eddie here, I'm just going to pretend it didn't happen) But I just couldn't get myself to enjoy it after what they did with Will's and Mike's characters.

Did I have a little hope that Byler could be somehow a thing? Maybe I did.

But I'm not mad because of that, I'm mad because both of them were completely irrelevant once more. They clearly don't know what to do with their characters and they just keep making it worse. I already disliked Mike in season 3 when he had been one of my favorites in seasons 1 and 2. I liked Mike because he was a good and caring friend who always was attentive and supportive. Now his only character trait seems to be that he's El's boyfriend. He's not a friend of his friends anymore. You mean to tell me that Will is sitting right next to him in a closed space and he doesn't even realize? You are telling me he's just that oblivious of his surroundings? The same dude that back in seasons 1 and 2 was Will's greatest support? The one that realized that something was wrong with him and stayed beside him for an entire season? Who slept beside him during his stay at the hospital? The one that said that befriending Will back in kindergarten was the best decision he's ever made? No, that's not the same character. They're messing up Mike completely, and honestly at this point I don't see any possibility for redemption in that sense. He will keep being El's boyfriend and only focusing on her. They could've made him suspicious of Will's speech in the van when he said that El commissioned the painting, because on her previous letter she had said that she had no idea what Will was paiting. They could've done something. They could've explained in some way why Mike was being so cold and honestly such a jerk to Will for no reason. They had the opportunity to do so many cool things with their supposed protagonist, but they didn't. Mike is so oblivious and dumb recently it's actually really sad.

And don't get me started on Will because I will cry again. He's my favorite, and even if he wasn't allowed to be together with Mike, they could have at least gave him some relevancy. He could be back on his main character era. He could've had main plot importance. But no. He was sidelined. Again.

I only hope that he's important in season 5, but honestly at this point I really doubt it. I'm so angry it's unreal. I feel so stupid.

So don't let them fool you. Mike isn't the heart. Will is. Will is the heart.

#I know my blog is about conan but I needed to get this off my chest #Any stranger things mutuals that want to talk about it?#Please talk to me lmao #stranger things #Spoilers #season 4 volume 2 #will byers #mike wheeler #byler

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everafterfrisk · 1 year

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Rwby isn't Pandering to the Audience's Desires

Whether it's youtube,reddit or Twitter,it's always the same thing

So let's go through each of them one by one

Bumbleby discourse

Claims I've seen thrown around are

"Blake and Yang only became Canon because of its toxic Fanbase" and queerbaiting

This conclusion has no real leg to stand on. While there have been toxic fans of the ship, not everyone who supports it acts this way.Also these people just completely ignores the clear slowburn love trope is prevalent with these two after the multiple hurdles the girls went through before coming back together.

•Like Nora compares her relationship with ren to Blake and Yang

•Adam claims "what does she even see in you" to yang

▪︎ Weiss's About time in Vol 9 Chapter 2

▪︎ In Vol 8 C10, Yang and Blake are shown with a soft blush before putting their heads together

If yall think that's queerbaiting

Then I guess the Earth is flat I suppose

The show only cares about Shipping

This is simply untrue

Especially when we go through so many different plot threads outside of that

Just to name a few

▪︎ Nora finding her self worth

▪︎ Qrow's Crippiling Depression

▪︎ Blake's self depreciation and discrimination

▪︎ Penny's themes of Choice and choosing it for herself

Jaune's the Show's Self insert

I've seen this being claimed alot within the reddit community.

What's my thoughts?

This has like zero merit

Just because one of the showrunners voices him doesn't automatically mean he's a self insert.

If anything Fanfiction make him as such as Battling Gods with ease or hell even being connected to them.

What would the show look like if the Series did what the fans want

White Rose becoming a thing in Vol 4 and onwards(No shade to people who ship it, just that the Narrative paints them more as friends compared to say bumbleby or Renora)

Ironwood would be excused for letting mantle's citizens live and perish in dangerous conditions

Adam would get redeemed in the way I've seen most people write it

[Blake talk no Jutsu Adam into giving up via because he had a hard live then redemption is viable which just doesn't sit right with me]

Ruby would kill Cinder or something and go on this whole "The world sucks and I was wrong to think there is any good" type mentality

Roman becoming a Good guy and Become Oz's Host as well [and yes I checked out the rewrite, the execution is lacking]

Pyrrha comes back from the Dead and everyone just acts like nothing happen

Ozpin wouldn't be held accountable by the Rwby gang and will suffer zero repercussions

Cinder would get killed off for being "a idiotic villain"

The Everafter Plot would not exist

Yang would rush through her recovery Arc and "act like her old self as she's now grumpy and an asshole"

Ilia,Maria and Oscar gets erased from the Narrative entirely

Jaune gets the most overpowered Semblance in the show and sidelines the main girls

Weiss would have made up with whitley immediately without build up cuz "Weiss should know that he suffered too"

#rwby #rwby discourse

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kammartinez · 1 year

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I work in a blue-chip gallery, and it’s not unusual that I’m asked if I grew up in Newport when I say that I’m from Rhode Island. It often feels like a loaded question, more social barometer than casual inquiry, and it’s clear that my response will either indicate our mutual class affiliation or amplify the differences that I already know exist between us. Sometimes I can see the flare of pleasure that people feel when they say “Newport,” the word conjuring, as it must, visions of sailboats and private beaches, country clubs and rocky cliffs thrashed by the waves of a restless Atlantic. I always sense that there’s a secret on the other side of the inquiry, but I guess I will never know exactly what it is; I grew up half an hour west of Bellevue Avenue in a modest split-level ranch that my father built. I’ve seen only small slices of those gated houses, the quick flashes of stone and shingle that are revealed through a break in the trees.

In high school I had a friend named Vanessa whose mother was a nurse at Newport Hospital. We would sometimes catch a ride with her and walk up and down Thames Street, where we shoplifted scented lotions from Crabtree & Evelyn and searched diners and parking lots for the town’s seemingly nonexistent boys. I don’t remember that we ever once considered spending an afternoon following Cliff Walk, the coastal path that wends its way past Newport’s eccentric archipelago of Gilded Age mansions. We liked looking at things we couldn’t afford, but only if we could fit them into our pockets, only if we could take them home with us to scrutinize within the privacy of our own bedrooms.

I briefly moved back to Rhode Island following the collapse of my first marriage. It was the summer before I turned twenty-seven, and I spent three months hiding away in my childhood bedroom, grief-damaged and humiliated by the task of trying to figure out who and how I was supposed to be. My husband and I had managed to stay married for only four years, the last of which I spent watching from the sidelines as he enjoyed an unexpectedly rapid and very public rise as an artist. His newly minted success introduced a host of newly minted problems, and I drifted through most of that winter and spring weeping in the utility closet at the boutique where I worked and asking him where I fit into his life so many times that I eventually didn’t fit into it at all. By that July, we were completely estranged. I was living with my parents when his art dealer sent me a copy of The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton’s 1920 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel that lays bare the punitive cruelties of a leisure class as expert at collecting things as it was at discarding people. Partially set in the Gilded Age Newport where Wharton herself had summered from the late 1870s through the turn of the century, the book lifts a curtain’s edge on what once happened inside those hedgerow-protected compounds. I never asked the art dealer if he was suggesting that I was a May Welland or an Ellen Olenska, but maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe he was telling me that all bad marriages are exactly the same, that it makes no difference where you live or what you have, because even glamour cannot temper the pain of being left.

I fell in love with Wharton during those lonesome months; I found fragments of myself in The Custom of the Country’s Undine Spragg, in The House of Mirth’s Lily Bart, in Summer’s Charity Royall, each one of them unable to foresee that folly follows when we expect too much. It wasn’t until many years later that I learned that the author who wrote with such precision about what transpires inside the unhappiest of homes had herself lived in a succession of them. Raised by a rigid society mother who was by turns remote and overbearing, Edith Newbold Jones was twenty-three when she married Teddy Wharton. The union helped her escape the control of a family that found her literary aspirations inconveniently vulgar, but so ill-matched were Teddy and Edith that Henry James once said that the marriage was, in retrospect, “an almost—or rather an utterly—inconceivable thing.” The young Mrs. Wharton soon realized that her new husband was a professional vacationer plagued by alcoholism and manic depression, a man who found his equilibrium indulging in the communal “watering hole amusements” that she went on to pillory with brutal accuracy in her novels and short stories. It was at Land’s End, the couple’s cliffside Rhode Island home, that Edith understood that she’d consigned herself to a new kind of domestic subjugation: a sexually and intellectually dissatisfying quasi-union that withered incrementally under the pall of Newport’s convivial excesses. “There are certain things one must possess in order not to be awed by them,” she wrote in 1900’s “The Line of Least Resistance,” a story, set in Newport, about a dissatisfied wife and her rich but gormless husband. One is left to wonder whether the line refers to objects or to women.

***

Wharton’s writing frequently draws parallels between the claustrophobia of an overstuffed parlor and that of marital suffering, and it is often through a rejection of architectural convention that her heroines express their hunger for freedom. (Think of would-be divorcée Ellen Olenska setting up house in her bohemian West Twenty-Third Street apartment.) In the late 1890s, Wharton, fatigued by the disorganized ostentation that she felt was transforming Newport into a “Thermopylae of bad taste,” began examining the relationship between architecture and psychology, ultimately developing a philosophy that called for the union of symmetry, classical proportions, and elegant utility. She outlined this trifecta of principles in her 1897 book, The Decoration of Houses, and later realized them in the construction of the Mount, the Lenox, Massachusetts, compound she codesigned following the sale of Land’s End in 1901.

Lenox, which lies in the shadow of the Berkshire Mountains, had already established itself as a summer enclave for wealthy New Yorkers by the time the Whartons purchased their 113 acres of lakeside farmland, but for Wharton the area retained a vestige of “hideous, howling wilderness,” as one unnamed traveler had described it two centuries prior. The outskirts of the land were still populated, albeit sparsely, by insular pockets of the “Swamp Yankees”—local vernacular for New England mountain people—that haunt the pages of Summer and Ethan Frome.

Wharton found in the countryside a respite from New York’s surveillance, relief from Newport’s extravagance, the freedom to choose her own company, and material. It was on Hawthorne Street that Wharton’s friend Ethel Cram was fatally injured by a horse kick to the skull, an event that served as the impetus for her 1907 novel, The Fruit of the Tree. One can drive past the train station where Wharton received out-of-town visitors like Henry James and English novelist Howard Sturgis. The steep decline from the town square was the site of the deadly 1904 sledding accident that inspired Ethan Frome. Kate Spencer, an assistant librarian at the Lenox’s public library, was injured in the accident; visiting the library this past fall, I found myself imagining the hours Wharton must have spent quietly studying her young friend’s scarred face and limping gait, searching her for evidence of the distance between public and private pain.

“It was only at The Mount,” Wharton recalled in her 1934 memoir, A Backward Glance, “that I was really happy.” The two primary—and parallel—themes that run through its pages are the histories of her writing and of her homes, mutually informative and enmeshed passions that surface even in her earliest recollections. The Mount is presented as the site that allowed Wharton to consolidate her power as a novelist, a house on a hill from which she could regard, from a slight distance, the life she was born into yet was savagely critical of.

In 1980, nearly a half century after the memoir’s publication, a cache of three hundred letters written by Wharton to a protégé of Henry James’s named Morton Fullerton was brought to market by a Dutch bookseller. Dated between 1907 and 1915, the letters—long thought to have been destroyed—offer proof of an extramarital affair with Fullerton that began at the Mount when Wharton was forty-five. Though the painful longing and ecstatic satisfaction that ricochet through these private missives is predictably missing from the memoir, the experience clearly inflected her recollections of the house and shaped the novels she wrote there. “You told me once,” she wrote to Morton in 1908, “I should write better for this experience of loving.”

Regardless of the revelations borne out by the affair, it was only after discovering that Teddy had embezzled nearly fifty thousand dollars from her trust to fund a Boston apartment for his mistress and the pleasure of several chorus girls that Wharton brokered a deal for her escape. She let go of the Mount to let go of the marriage, leaving in 1911, after handing the deed to Teddy in exchange for her freedom. By the time her boat arrived in France, the house had been sold.

***

The Mount, a gleaming white H-shaped jewel dressed in candy-striped awnings and marble balustrades, is located two miles from Lenox, and accessed via a winding, wooded driveway. Incorporating elements of French, Italian, and English styles and built into the side of a large hill, the building is a master class in visual harmony. I visited this past fall with my second husband, my first time there since the eighties, and joined a late-afternoon tour group that convened under the golden light of a slowly dipping sun. Outside the house, our tour guide, a fifty-something woman with a no-nonsense bob, sensible shoes, and a large yellow service dog, pointed out Wharton’s devotion to symmetry, evident not only in the labyrinth of formal gardens that bloom in the summertime with phlox, lilies, hydrangea, and dahlias, but also on the building’s facade, which features a set of dummy windows that compensate for an architectural imbalance. I thought it an unusual gesture, though I soon realized it wasn’t so for Wharton; inside the house are false doors, decorative panels that feign access to nonexistent rooms, and strategically placed mirrors that offer the illusion of depth. I was reminded of Lily Bart’s fatal reliance on artifice and of my own desire, all those years ago, on reading the novel for the first time, to believe until the very end that she might actually survive in spite of it.

Our group of eight included two teenage boys, a woman nestling a small curly-headed poodle to her breast in a baby sling, an elderly couple, and a man who did not once remove a pair of wraparound sunglasses. We entered the house through a grotto-style front hall finished with stucco walls and a terra-cotta-tiled floor, and then went up a staircase to a vaulted-ceilinged gallery on the main floor, outfitted with a series of arched doors. From there the rooms unfold enfilade, redirecting traffic flow away from Edith’s private rooms, the places Henry James referred to as the Mount’s “penetralia.” In her lifetime, Wharton was frequently accused by both friends and critics of an impulse to reveal much about the lives of others while giving away very little about her own, and the latter is evident in the way she policed her personal spaces. “It shall be born in mind,” she once wrote, “that, while the main purpose of a door is to admit, its secondary purpose is to exclude.”

In Edith’s bedroom, the two young men in our tour group, who had at some point produced what looked like a photographer’s light meter, began running the device over the room’s bed, a vase of flowers, a mirror, an empty bureau, a disconnected telephone, and a small stack of books. I watched the lights on the device flicker anemically, emitting yellow and green flashes in short bursts that seemed to indicate nothing at all. “Is anyone here?” one of them asked. “Are you here?” They were not looking for Edith Wharton—just her ghost. “They shouldn’t do that!” I said to my husband, loud enough for everyone in the group to hear. “The House of Mirth was written in this room!” By this point my spoilers had begun to fatigue our guide, a nice woman whom I had unfortunately made an enemy of with my repeated interruptions and various usurpations, with my impulse to anticipate future turns in the tour’s script without concern for how it made either of us look. She didn’t seem to mind when my husband and I opted to linger in Wharton’s room so I could look out through the window at the forest and the lake, and no one said a word when we decided to break off from our group and head out on our own.

Walking the property’s grounds, I thought about what it means to be allowed entry into a stranger’s Eden, how impossible it is for the dead to protect themselves from the violence of our curiosity once we are allowed access to their private spaces. I thought of the hours I’d spent scouring passages from The Life Apart, the secret erotic diary the author kept for the duration of her affair with Morton Fullerton and the only place where the author was ever able to address her own carnal appetite. From the sentimental little hill of the family pet cemetery, I looked out to the mountains at the view that inspired Wharton to revisit a short story she’d written in French many years before. It was 1910, and the writer’s turbulent relationship with Fullerton had reached its inevitable conclusion. Provided with the distance to compare an unhappy marriage with the thrill of illicit erotic distraction, Wharton began to write Ethan Frome, coding herself as the title character, her husband as his infirm wife, and Fullerton as Mattie Silver, the servant with whom Ethan is in love. Wharton so often wrote about herself that we don’t need to pry to find all the things she never meant for us to see. There is a short passage in Ethan Frome that I return to, sometimes, when I feel my curiosity becoming caustic, when my fascination turns invasive, when I begin to run my ghost meter over someone’s life just because I can. “I had the feeling,” the narrator states, “that the deeper meaning of the story was in the gaps.”

#edith wharton #books #reading

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theerurishipper · 2 years

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This is the first time I've ever been prompted to actually post something, but what was that battle.

I looked forward to this for a while, and it fell short of my standards by a long shot. It wasn't bad, I enjoyed it well enough, but these are supposed to be the strongest trainers in the world. Why are they getting one shotted, or two shotted? Steven was built up as this awesome trainer who was kicking Alain's ass in TSME and this is how easily he goes out? I know that Ash is strong enough to beat him but it wasn't shown well, at all. The Masters Tournament and JN in general has a huge problem with the battles being stiff and lacking in creativity. Every now and then we have some gems, but other than that? The same formula of Ash being cornered and overcoming it, with one shots galore. This is no different. Lance vs Diantha and Iris vs Cynthia were so much better. And the battles were good in the beginning of the series too, but as it went on it became so formulaic and uninspired. And what happened to the animation? It's so stiff sometimes. I'm not impressed.

(Are the battles so bad because they're trying to be like the games? Because Goh is Pokemon Go, and so... is Ash gonna emulate game style battling now? I don't know).

More on JN in general under the cut because I'm a coward.

I won't say that JN is a bad series. But it has a lot of issues with its pacing. Why are we getting two Chloe episodes in the middle of the M8? Why didn't Chloe get any focus before this other than a few, admittedly well written, episodes? Why didn't we see Ash's rise through the other classes? There are only 3 characters to focus on ffs, it shouldn't be that hard to divide episodes between them. Sun and Moon had so many and yet even characters like Mallow who were a bit neglected had a strong character and focus. At least she appeared as a main character. Chloe doesn't appear in half the episodes though, so...what? And dont get me started on Project Mew. Good concept, bad execution. How many episodes did we even get on that? We spent no valuable time on it, and the episodes were so boring. Horace and Gary as rivals is a good concept but the episodes feel so far apart that I forgot what it was. It's good development for Goh, I guess, but is it? My feelings on Project Mew are conflicted and my most positive response is that it just bores me. And Team Rocket are a shadow of their former selves. They don't catch pokemon, instead they use that stupid machine. The one redeeming quality of Team Rocket is that they really love each other and that they really love their pokemon. And it's been taken away from them, so why are they here? It's nice to see them supporting Ash, but they've lost their essence.

Not to say that JN is bad as a whole. Every series has its strengths and weaknesses. XY had a Gary-stu Ash and he was boring, Serena didn't have much going for her either. It lacked great characterisation. Sun and Moon didn't know how to handle so many characters and its comedic timing needed work (this issue was resolved though, I can't criticize Sun and Moon too much, I'm sorry). And JN, to its credit, has very strong character writing when the character is given a chance to be written. As a whole, Chloe's arc sucks but the individual episodes are very good. Goh is honestly a well written character and has many good episodes that help him develop in a natural way. Admittedly his development is rushed but it is still solid. You can see how much he's grown and learned from Ash. But I'm not a fan of sidelining Cinderace and Inteleon after their evolution.

If you took any one episode of JN without context and watched it, you'd probably like it, other than a select few. The episode with the girl and her Cleffa was on par with Sun and Moon's episodes tackling the same subject. The episode with Goh and Drizzle was really good. The Alola episodes were amazing, as expected. JN does well with the worldbuilding and this is the first series that made me feel like there was a whole world of pokemon. The world feels alive and the characters feel real, and they have certain moments that actually made me think, that is, I feel like they actually have some complex thought processes which I didnt really get from other series (except of course Sun and Moon). The companion returns feel natural and their character and dynamics with the new cast feel natural too. Where they are now shows their growth and the way they are used as mentors for the new cast shows how far they've come. I think JN has a lot of good and natural interactions between characters too. I'm not a huge fan of how Gary has been doing in the series, but that conversation with Goh in 113 about why he's in Project Mew if taken by itself is pretty good.

But we shouldn't have to take it alone. And I can't say that all the returns got good treatment either. Iris got outstanding treatment. Her character was handled well, she mellowed out more which showed her growth, she was allowed to be part of the M8 as Unova Champion and go toe to toe with her idol Cynthia. Dawn too got a good return with her appearing in many episodes and being able to show off how far she's come with her dynamic with Chloe and being like a mentor to her. Lillie and Gladion got a beautiful end to their journey that began in Sun and Moon, and Sophocles got a good episode too. Gary is fine too, his character is well incorporated. I wish he interacted with Ash though. Paul was done well, with him clearly having changed a lot and grown. Greninja as a mentor to Lucario was well done and they nailed his character and his power. The cameos are great, I love the distinct battle styles they gave each Champion, but... Alain.

Fuck that, they massacred him. I'm not even Alain's biggest fan. I like him, and I was looking forward to seeing him, but not a huge fan. And even I think they ruined him. I don't mind that he didn't battle Ash. But I wanted him to be shown the respect he deserves, and he was given a mere half episode to shine and then demolished to show off Leon. I get why, but they could have treated him better. Alain is no pushover either. But this highlights the main problem with JN, great ideas, poor execution. JN has ambition but falls woefully short most of the time. I respect the writers for being bold enough to try this new formula but they didn't pull it off. JN is really not a bad series and it keeps me excited but not for the quality of the episodes. In no way are they bad but I'm more excited for the spectacle of nostalgia than for anything the series itself has done. I'm fond of this season because it gave me fanservice. I got companion returns which were done reasonably well, some nice episodes, the game champions duking it out in a tournament, Alola rights, and basically everything I love about JN is because of other seasons.

Again I will say that JN isn't bad. But it's not good either, and watching it after something like Sun and Moon feels like a downgrade. Sun and Moon had its own flaws as did every season, but JN has some that even I can't really overlook anymore. It's no Black and White, but it's no Sun and Moon or XY either. It's... there, it's reasonably enjoyable, it had some great ideas that excited Twitter, but it fell short of its own hype.

I really want to love JN. And for a while in the beginning, I did. I still like it, but it's not the same. Maybe after a while I can look back at the good and enjoy it for what it is. I've done it before with other series once I've accepted whatever happens. But the fact that I have to is sad. I'm not mad, just... disappointed, I guess.

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danwhobrowses · 2 years

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Cobra Kai Season 5 - Review

So it's time to strike first again

The little Karate spin-off that could keeps canning and we are now in Season 5 of Cobra Kai.

Kreese is in jail, Silver has taken over, Miguel has left, Johnny and Daniel have to close their dojos, and Chozen is back. The show promises escalation, but does it pay off?

Spoilers for the show, watch it if you don't want things given away

Ho boy, skee whoa, hoo dee lally

That was one hell of a season, it may've actually been the best one so far. Granted, it's not perfect, but god did it have some great stuff in there.

So let's just start with the nitpicky negatives.

What I didn't like

Just Remember Whose Show it is Okay so, first gripe. Cobra Kai is not the Daniel LaRusso show. Daniel's arc was great and we'll get to that, but the fact that Macchio got top billing in credits really rubbed me the wrong way, because this is supposed to be Johnny's story, facilitated by ghosts of Daniel's (and Cobra Kai's) past. Now we may return on course because Silver was more Daniel's tormentor, but it was annoying that Daniel kinda stepped into the main character role.

Mexico falls a little flat Miguel's cliffhanger last season had him set off to discover his self-identity, by learning who his father is...and it ended in 2 episodes. Now there is room for Miguel's father Hector Salazar (very on the nose name don't you think?) to realise that Miguel was his son and to come back next season, but frankly this felt like a quick wrap up. Miguel found his father, realised he was not that good a man, then left. I dunno it did feel like the story just wanted to get it out of the way.

Pool episode: THEY ARE MINORS It's always uncomfortable when shows do this, I get kids are gonna feel attracted to the characters in swimsuits, but the lingering is a bit excessive when their characters are deemed minors.

Sometimes production is a bit off I think the thing that disassociated me the most was the obvious green screen when Robby and Johnny were chatting in the car, there were also the cracks in the wall during Daniel and Silver's fight in Stingray's apartment. The young Johnny CGI I'm still not sure on too, some angles I think it's great but other angles it feels like the lighting is wrong.

Some Side Characters lacked Screentime While the Eagle Fang/Miyagi Do kids took a backseat for much of the story, it was a minor shame that we don't get enough of the Moon, Yasmine and other side characters. Yasmine and Moon especially actually, the latter because she is a vibrant character but Yasmine if anything but to make Johnny eat his words with his scoffing of Demitri's having a girlfriend. I don't think Hawk got much to do this season either, after a big win last season he took some tough Ls, Demetri got a bit more being the tech guy and getting some catharsis against Kyler at least.

Some lack of resolution? It may be me, but I think the bigger gripe I had was the conclusion lacked some comeuppance. Kenny and Anthony's beef hasn't quite been resolved and Kenny just kinda stops? He loses faith in Silver but does that mean he's still not a hyper aggressive kid pushing a leader complex now? Sensei Kim is also still out there, it looked like Tory and Devon were gonna team up to defeat her but then Silver came in and nothing happened, she was just there standing in the sidelines. Mitch's treachery in exchange for luxury gets no payoff nor really much build. I do feel a little slighted as well that Sam didn't get a W back against Tory but then again I guess Tory is 2-1 down anyway. Anthony could've been showing learning a little more Karate, but it is appreciated that his outside the box approach is used to help the heroes out. There's room for these to develop next season but for now it did feel like we dropped the ball on it a little.

Okay but that's it, let's gush!

What was Great (besides all of it)

'Man, Chozen is hardcore' I don't know how many times I said that in the show but it is valid. Chozen almost completely stole the show with being as defined 'the most intense version of both sides'. Aggressive and imposing, but charming and funny, Chozen was a stellar addition to Season 5 which carried more edge to Miyagi Do in Johnny's absence, but also flourished alongside Johnny as they kicked ass together. His revealed feelings for Kumiko made me panic about his - very undeserved - defeat to Silver via being slashed in the back, worrying that he may've died, but thankfully he lives to entertain another day.

Terry Silver = Peak Villain I mean I knew he had it in him but oh my fucking goodness, while Chozen was amazing it was Terry Silver who was the most spectacular in this season. Cunning and violent, charismatic and opportunistic, he is everything you'd want a villain to be. In Season 4 I feared that Silver as the main villain may not flourish without Kreese since we identified him as the 'Big Bad', but Silver went above and beyond this season growing in villainy, his moments of weakness suppressed by maniacal and Machiavellian bastardry, which made his defeat so cathartic as well.

'All I had to do was wind you up and move out of the way' Daniel LaRusso should not be the star of the show, but by god did his story of finally overcoming Silver's torment give us a hell of a story. From the early stages of Daniel's trauma pushing him to obsession and playing right into Silver's hands, it worked in the villain's favour to simply be in his vicinity just to have the mental edge over him. From the amazing and emotional turning point after Silver beat Daniel down however, Daniel regains his balance to prevail over the unraveled Silver. Daniel's temper isn't all gone though, as shown with how he reacts to Kreese, but he went on an excellent character journey.

Johnny matures for the better And speaking of excellent character journeys. It surprised me that they went the route of Carmen being pregnant, but that moment triggered a great 'growing up' moment for Johnny, who resolved to stick around and be there for his family, old and new. While it's not ultimately Karate-oriented, it shows that Johnny is growing far more than he has done in the past four seasons and for the better. He's still got ways to go, but he still remains his comedic and charming disaster self either way. It's also hilarious that this time Carmen had the 80s movie sex dream of Johnny, this time more Top Gun-oriented.

The Kids are Alright While some of the side kids didn't get much attention, all the 'main kids' got some solid development. Miguel and Robby finally buried the hatchet, and by extension so did Robby and Eli. We still have a bit to go with Sam and Tory, but now that Sam got more insight of Tory's troubles there's room to grow. Tory and Sam had great individual arcs though, with Sam struggling with self-worth and an identity crisis - which also allowed Xolo to for the second time of this season rip our hearts out by acting like Miguel's heart had been physically ripped out - in a very realistic manner, and taking time to regain her passion and put her life in balance was done a lot better than previous arcs of Sam's aggressive streak and trauma towards Tory despite winning the fights. Tory meanwhile got to work a more mentally tortured role as being Kreese's pawn and mole within Cobra Kai, only to be betrayed by him and left suffering in solitude, tormented by Sensei Kim, and desperately trying to keep her own Protege - Devon - from falling into the same intoxication that Kenny did. Kenny also did well to be built as Silver's champion, using brutal tactics to overcome Hawk, Devon's character growth was nice as well, it could've used a bit more but it is cool that the show is putting more work into her.

Tang Soo-Do Explored Very clever of the show to pick up one throwaway line in Karate Kid III and expand upon it. In Season 3 we did learn that Cobra Kai's style was a variation of a Korean style but that was as far as we got, this season we employed it further to enhance Silver and Kreese's backstory, as well as introducing fatale femme Kim Da-Eun, descendant of their main sensei. Sensei Kim didn't get a lot of screentime outside of tormenting Devon and Tori, but she captured every scene she was in with a vicious intensity and cruel intelligence, a fitting General for Silver's Bond Villain role who I hope we see more of next season.

Blast From the Part III Past! Let's face it we all knew Mike Barnes Badboy of Karate was showing up sooner or later, and frankly despite the alternative route they took, he was delightful as a guest. Having matured and mellowed down himself, Barnes finds himself a victim of Silver's web, which leads to the inebriated showdown at Silver Mansion. What I didn't expect to see is Jessica Andrews, also from Part III, make an appearance as Amanda LaRusso's cousin, and the added lore that she helped introduce her and Daniel. Jessica was always a bright part of Part III by being less of a love interest and more of a platonic friend to Daniel, and while her role only lasted one episode she was great in helping Amanda understand the mental toil that Daniel went through. With all the Part I-III villains covered, I suppose what's left is to give Hilary Swank a call and bring in Julie Pierce, Ironside may be a bit old to reprise Dugan and Ned learned his lesson, but a part I loved about Cobra Kai was how enthusiastic all the past Karate Kid cast were about returning...well, except Dutch but whatever, it's still a great shame Pat isn't alive to reprise Miyagi.

Stingray gets some redemption Although he only appears three times, Stingray did a perfect job of being a tragic anecdote of the wider plot. Confronted by Daniel, he becomes a wakeup call for Daniel losing balance - which also tragically leads to his attempt to make amends lead to Silver beating him down, in his second appearance he is confronted by the kids where he uses D&D to point out his struggles with courage and his genuine (also in hindsight very valid) fear of Silver's wrath if he came clean. In the third appearance though he finds his valor to save Daniel and lead him to Cobra Kai for his final showdown with Silver, proving it's never too late to do the right thing.

Big Bad Kreese is Back On the opposite end of the right thing is Kreese. Not as spectacular a gaslighting mastermind as Silver but the one and true Sith Lord still has his tricks. All his prison stuff was great, especially his therapy sessions, but you always had it in the back of your mind that, unlike Season 4 where I even criticized him for 'wilting', Kreese was just waiting for his moment to strike. And strike he did with a final stinger of breaking out of prison, to be fair I knew it was jello from the start - you ain't killing off Kreese like that Netflix - but it doesn't mean it still wasn't written really well. Kreese may be on the run but I would not put it past him to end up still being Cobra Kai's final boss.

A Final Stage is Set Rather than opting for a third All Valley Tournament finale, Cobra Kai looks to put its sixth and final season at a bigger stage. Silver's master plan revealed that he intended to go global with Cobra Kai by winning the biggest Karate Tournament in the world (whose name I won't attempt to butcher). It was effectively a nice sprinkle of what the sixth and final season will determine, and what validates the lack of enemies on the kids side of the cast, since they will likely be confronting several international opponents. The reviewing system did well to put both dojos against one another before the final conflict, but with Silver out it does put a wrinkle in Cobra Kai's entry into the tournament itself, but it did well to establish both dojos as equals despite their different approaches (something past seasons sorely lacked by treating Miyagi Do as the one true and righteous style).

Just the right amount of Pop Culture and Nostalgia One thing Cobra Kai never fails to do, despite existing in a bizarro 80s movie logic universe, is never overstay its welcome. The callbacks to past movies were all great, down to a defeated Daniel wearing shades to hide his black eye, Chozen evoking the same sentiment Miyagi and Yukie about taking her with him in his drunk voicemail to Kumiko, and the 'Quicksilver method' being used to defeat Silver. The Crane Kick may've been a little cheesy but it earned its cheese. The pop culture was also done with taste and naturally, with Cobra Kai continuing with the Rocky references this time through Rocky IV and narrative points like Stingray jamming to Judas (AEW/Cobra Kai bond still there, wonder if Britt Baker's gonna cameo in next season?), mentioning Hot Wings to lead into Robby's chili pepper challenge, and Johnny's neverending confusion with modern technology. Also the recurring broken TV gag was done to perfection this season.

Supreme Storytelling Cobra Kai's fifth season perhaps has the most tight-knit and effective storytelling of the five seasons. The rewatchability is huge for this season so you could see all the small bits of foreshadowing that is slowly fed to you leading to its conclusion. One easy foreshadow is Chozen's carrying of the two Sai, which becomes his weapon of choice against Silver. There are several absolutely amazing episodes in this season that carry emotional weight, light comedy and gripping action that truly elevate the season among the other plot-light seasons. There were moments that really felt like we were entering the territory of actual kung fu movies as well which I greatly appreciated.

Conclusion

Overall this is a 10/10 season without doubt, I encourage everyone to go watch it.

From what I'm hearing the sixth season is going to be the final one and frankly, I think that is for the best - better to end on a high than drag it out. We can have the main kids graduating and the adults overcoming their past, our prime conflict being Kreese and hopefully Kim regaining Cobra Kai for the world tournament and setting up enemies for the kids there, meanwhile we could bring back all the past names: Kumiko to tend to Chozen and blossom that, Alli and Jessica can cameo while Julie completes perhaps a trio to go against Kreese, Kim and one other (maybe Silver again, knocked down a peg). Personally I'd have Johnny take point now on the adults side, get that W over Kreese he needs, meanwhile we can resolve matters with Sam/Tory and Kenny/Anthony (the latter moreso, since they will still have high school still going), maybe bring Hector back as a rival dojo since he did have a hand in the MMA scene, he could be a solid third villain and show why a now-pregnant Carmen was more threatened by him, and then perhaps the most perfect ending would be after the tournament is over (I'd give Robby his W here, Devon maybe if they split the genders again, we still need a combined dojo name too, 'Karate Kid' and 'Miyagi Fang' do seem a little too on the nose too) the Rocky III freezeframe with Johnny and Daniel, I think I'd be happy with that as the end.

Regardless going forward Cobra Kai is red hot and comes off of an amazing Fifth Season, now begins the painful wait for the next.

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kamreadsandrecs · 11 months

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***

#edith wharton #books #reading

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shoot-the-oneshot · 3 years

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Would love number 19 on your list with Rip Wheeler from yellowstone for my birthday on Oct 19th 💙

T-SHIRT

Hi I’m so sorry I just saw this request and had to throw this out when I saw it I hope you had a great birthday!

Rip Wheeler x reader

you hated being injured, being benched, on the sidelines, there were thousands of terms you could use. but what you didnt hate was Rip playing nurse, and you knew the second you got dragged to the docters office thats exactly what would happen, it always did. But it was to amusing to watch him have a mini heart attack everytime you did something he deemed dangerous, which could be as little as climbing on the counter to get the sugary treat you had hidden to going toe to toe with a man twice your size to defend the ranch, either way as you said, hilarious. "its only for a few weeks Y/n, you'll be back to torturing the bunk house in no time." John rasped out, of course Ryan had to call him the second you fell off the roof, but if he hadn't you wouldve wen't on like nothing was wrong. so fair enough.

the car ride back to the ranch was silent as it normally was with John. he only spoke once you both passed the main entrance at Yellowstone, "You know Rip, isnt going to be happy." with a sigh the truck rolled to a stop, giving the man a glance out the side of your eye you replied, "Is he ever?" it was true, you had seen the bear of a man not angry, calm, but you don't know if hes ever been truly happy. Pushing the truck door open the gravel crunched under your boots as you walked to the bunk house, you didn't even have to go inside, you could hear the commotion from here.

"Who's idea was it to let them on the roof in the first place?" Rip growled, clearing the table with a swipe of his arm the empty beer cans falling to the floor, Colby and Jimmy were looking at the ground looking like they wanted it to swallow them whole, Teeter and Walker were pretending not to notice the steam coming from Rip, Loyd was leaned against the wall watching. Ryan shuffled forward when Rip motions to the room again, clearly lossing patcence. "It was an easy job, just making a pully so we wouldn't have to carry wood up the ladder, no one was supposed to get hurt." you knew he wouldnt like that phrase so you jumped in before he ripped into him. the door hinges creaked loud enough the alert them of you presence, youd have to oil those later. Rip took a step away from Ryan, not without a nasty glare keeping him in place as he walked over to where you're standing.

"Pack your shit you're not staying with these idiots." He ordered, pushing open the door you just came through, the room still silent, "Well, have fun with that." Walker drawled as you passed by to pack earning him an eyeroll. when you stuffed some random clothes in a duffel you slung the strap over your good shoulder. placing a hand on Ryans shouder. "It wasn't your fault don't beat yourself up" he nods not meeting your eyes, youll have to have a talk with Rip about not killing everyones spirt. making your way out ignoring Rip leaning agaist the outer wall of the barn and marched to his truck not waiting for him to take your bag you throw it in the back yourself ignoring the pain that licked up your arm. slamming the door shut behind you waiting for Rip to get in and drive. which he does, kinda. he sat in the drivers seat white knucking the stearing wheel as if it will break.

"So now im the bad guy, i didn't let you fall off a roof!" Rip barked, why didn't you take those pain pills when the docter told you to. "You didn't have to yell at them."

"You fell off a roof!"

"Exactly, i fell so i should be mad not you!" Rip stays quiet the rest of the ride to his cabin, and for the rest of the day until he strolled back in and started cooking dinner, you didn't even notice he came back until the smell hit you, to busy putting your clothes away in the empty drawers Rip had, you guess the black shirts he wears religiously don't take up much room. Rip dished out the food silently taking the chair to your right. "You know those guys don't need you to protect them from me right?"

"But who will they go to when daddy yells at them?" you teased, he wasn't impressed with your joke. the rest of the night went by much like the drive over Rip drinking on the porch before going to the couch for the night, and that's when you got to work. tiptoing past him, timing your steps with the snores he relesed, shutting the door behind you jumping off the porch to see Teeter waiting for you on the side by side, "not surprised you were the only one not afriad to poke the bear." you laughed, you were shocked anyone came to pick you up for the monthy bonfire the bunk house has after Rips show earlyer. "I ain't afraid of no stinkin' bear."

the fire was roaring by the time you both got there and it seemed everyone chiled out a bit after today which you were to happy to see. it was always nice to see your friends, family relaxed, that didn't come often on the ranch. "alright i know im new here so whats going on with Rip and Y/N?"

Jimmy asked innocently enough that it didn't irritate you. plus everyone asked so it wasn't a new question. but it still started an uproar.

“Oh young grasshopper that is an amazing question!” Ryan hollered between loud laughs while you snuggled into the blanket wrapped tightly around your shoulders with an eye roll.

“There’s nothing between Rip and I.” Your rebuttal going unheard as Colby started telling stories of the times he caught you and Rip ‘tangled in a loving gaze’ his words not yours, you’ve never been in a so called loving gaze with anyone. Sure you both flirted and cared about each other but that’s it. Your inner monologue being rudely interrupted by bright headlights momentarily blinding everyone. “What the hell are you thinking!”

“Uh oh Dads here.” Walker whispered over the fire and chugged his beer as if it would actually get taken if he didn’t. “Well?” You looked up to meet Rips dark eyes and he shook over you hands on his hips.

“It’s called relaxing you should try it.”

You explained holding up a still cold beer and scooting over to make room hoping he dropped the argument if beer was offered. With a sigh he accepted the olive branch, he could see how calm you were and didn’t want to be the cause of that changing. So when he begrudgingly sat down and everyone resumed their conversation no longer fearing repercussions. “You were downstairs how’d you know I was gone?” You asked, noting it’s been long enough since you left that you didn’t wake him up leaving. For a moment you thought you could see a blush across his cheeks but surly not Rip right? But the fire did a good job at camouflaging it. “I went up to check on you.” Was the only explanation he gave and you tried to ignore the way your heart skipped a beat.

After a while you realize you miscalculated how many layers you’d need with the fire and Rips body heat washing over you every time his arm brushed yours. Shucking your blanket off leaving you in a t-shirt. Unbeknownst to you Rip watched the motion closely, to be fair he always watched you closely not that he’d admit it ot that you knew. You also didn’t notice the others clocking this ‘loving gaze’ he was sending your way until his brows furrowed. “Is that my shirt?” Following his eye line down to the black fabric drowning your body. “You mean our shirt?” If he thought foe one second he was getting it back he was mistaken. And while you were preparing for a battle over custody of said shirt Rips mind when the other direction. He didn’t hate when you referred to something from his being yours or ‘ours’ as was playing on repeat in his head. He wondered what else he could get you to share with him. No, he didn’t hate it at all.

#yellowstone imagine #rip wheeler imagine #rip wheeler x reader #rip imagine #Yellowstone x reader

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the-other-art-blog · 3 years

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Hawkeye episode 1 & 2

My sister in all of her cruelty picked this specific day (Nov 24) to finish her applications. She made me wait a entire day to watch Hawkeye!!!!!!!!

Generally, I loved it.

Is Clint a bit sidelined IN HIS OWN SHOW?! Yes, but they’re trying to introduce a whole new character. So, as long as the next episodes are more Clint-centric, or at least have the same screen time, I’ll be ok with that. They’re gonna work together from now on, so it should get better.

I feel like the intro was more like a short way to tell Kate’s backstory using the art from the comics, not as an actual intro to the whole show. It’s not there in episode 2.

It does feel slow, but that’s kind of how I felt about FATWS. So again, I’ll wait for more episodes.

Regardless, I think the bits we got about Clint were really good:

Watching his iconic scene from Avengers 2012 from Kate’s perspective was awesome!

Turning his hearing aid off during the musical 🙌

The way he freezes when he sees Natasha on the musical 😭 😭 😭 😭

It’s been two years and he’s still mourning her

The explanation to his hearing loss was great, simple, logical, realistic. You don’t really need more than that. Everyone else had some kind of protection, minus him.

He’s not a human disaster!!! I’m so happy about that. Like he is grumpy and tired, but he’s so competent and responsible. Thank you!

I love how Kate is struggling with the TSM and he just comes and beats them.

He’s a badass!

And I love how he entered the building dressed as a firefighter.

“This is like talking to furniture” 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂

I love his humor so much! (That’s Renner. His characters always have that)

“Catch and release” what a great call back to Nat’s first scene in Avengers!

At first I though the Renaissance fair was stupid, but it ended up being great!

Clint is such a good guy, he’s just not interested in the spotlight. He’s not Stark. But he’s not a jerk either, he just wants to go home.

I love when he asks Kate if everyone says “I love you” just because. He’s the kind of person who only says “I love you” when he truly, wholeheartedly means it.

He’s just doing his job. Unlike other Avengers, he does have a life outside being a superhero.

And very importantly, HE’S A DOG PERSON!!!!!

The Barton family!!!! 🥰 🥰 🥰 🥰 🥰 🥰 🥰 🥰 🥰 🥰 🥰 🥰

Clint being a dad to his actual kids AND to Kate

He’s such a sweet dad, seriously I love him so much

“Don’t lose Nate” “Where’s Nate?” 😂

“I’m not 18, I’m 22″ “yeah, same thing” 😂

Nate is learning sign language! I guess everyone else is learning too 🥺

I love they kept his special relationship with Lila 🥰 🥰 🥰

I would love to see more of the kids, especially Lila and Cooper annoying each other.

That whole conversation with Laura!!! 🥰 🥰 🥰 🥰 🥰 🥰 🥰 🥰 🥰

That is a healthy marriage

She knows everything, she even knows about the TSM and Nat’s moves

It just shows why this marriage works, with him spending so many time away. This is why they are still together. A lot of people want her to leave him, but it’s not gonna happen.

Now please can we have a scene when the two are in the same room?!?!?

Kate’s side

I like her. I like how she is still not there. And I like that. I’d be ridiculous if she was awesome already.

Learning karate is great, but it’s not enough to actually fight people. Hopefully Clint will give her a few lessons.

Her mom does seem shady

Jacques is supposed to be Clint’s mentor in the comics, but here I’m not sure what they’re gonna do with him. He’s Swordsman, so...

There was a clip where Clint, Kate, Eleanor and Jacques are all talking. Maybe Clint does recognize him and is just trying to be calm. Who knows?

Overall, I love Kate. But Clint is still my main focus.

But I love their interactions.

#hawkeye #hawkeye spoilers #clint barton #Kate Bishop #claura #clint x laura #jeremy renner #Hailee Steinfeld #Linda Cardellini #Laura Barton

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sniper-childe · 3 years

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Hello! I’d like to share some of my notes if I were to Beta-read the most recent Archon Quest. I will be going through what worked, what could be taken out, and what could’ve been better. Note that I’m looking at this through an editor’s lens so I’m going to try NOT to change the plot we were given no matter what my opinions are about it BUT some of the said opinions may slip out.

Also, a bit of a disclaimer: I know that Genshin isn’t an actual literary work but miHoYo is known for its writers’ great storytelling and I’ve always loved their work so it really came as a surprise as to what happened to the mess that is Inazuma Act 3. So yeah.

Contains:

1. What was foreshadowed about the characters and why the payoff of their portrayals felt cheap.

a. About Kokomi and the rebellion.

b. About the Fatui, the James Bond villain wannabe.

c. About Ei and the Raiden Shogun.

2. How Chapter 2, Act 3 could have been the turning point that would have us, as the Traveler, cement our perceptions of the Archons and Gods of Celestia OR what I think the death of Signora was supposed to be but was undermined by this one tidbit.

BONUS: I wrote this before Kokomi’s story quest was released but decided to wait for it before posting. And guess what? I think Kokomi’s Story Quest works better as an Archon Quest. At least, some parts of it.

miHoYo teased us this intelligent leader of the resistance that is well-versed in the Art of War. The end of Ch2: Act 2 showed us a powerful Kokomi. So why was she sidelined all throughout the act?

I actually like the idea of the resistance asking the Fatui for aid. But miHoYo chickened out and made it so that they did it unknowingly. To which I say: how? If Kokomi was so smart she should’ve known better. I figured it was the Fatui within a single sentence, so why didn’t Kokomi?

They should’ve stuck with the concept of the underdogs – or in Kokomi’s words, the little fish – of war in an act of desperation. They could’ve shown a calculated Kokomi “making a deal with the devil” and will do anything to win the fight against the Shogunate.

In her Character Teaser, she was willing to burn the enemies’ supplies – to starve the enemy. She can be ruthless, that’s why Kokomi actively giving Delusions to her foot soldiers would have made much more sense to cause the Fatui to be involved rather than the whole “the Fatui orchestrated everything” schtick.

Which brings me to my next point: when did the Fatui turn into a James Bond villain? I hate that trope so much. It’s like the Deus Ex Machina of villainy. It’s lazy. And it doesn’t even fit the Fatui’s modus operandi.

In the prologue, the Abyss Order corrupted Dvalin and the Fatui was just there waiting to steal Barbatos’ gnosis while the Knights are distracted. Morax decided to retire one day so the Fatui swept right in and offered a test of Liyue in exchange for his gnosis.

The last two locations had their own story to tell while the Fatui was just in the background like the opportunistic antagonist that they are.

It also would have been a stronger plotline to have the already set lore – like the tenuous relationship between Watatsumi and Narukami – be the driving force of the Inazuman Civil War.

The prologue and chapter 1 also delivered what we are told we’re going to get in the Story Preview. That’s why they are satisfying. However, with chapter 2, the way it ended turned out to be more about the Fatui rather than “what do mortals see of the eternity chased after by their god.”

Sure, we got the consequences of the war in the World Quests and some of it in the second act. But making the Fatui the Big Bad in the end takes value away from the actions of the characters that are supposed to be the main feature of this chapter.

How much of the Eternity the Raiden Shogun is pursuing is directly from Ei? How much of it is its own understanding of eternity, coupled with Ei’s memories, and its own response? How much of it is the Fatui’s influence?

I have to say though, I’m fine with the puppet actually. Believe it or not. I have had kinda figured that out with the weird shifting of emotions in and out of the puppet. And the dead glowing eyes. So kudos to the design and animation team for that foreshadowing.

It was also said that the current Electro Archon lost someone dear to her and, while I didn’t think it was a twin, I did figure that the current Electro Archon wasn’t the real Electro Archon. So the whole Baal and Beelzebul backstory didn’t really surprise me. So I guess that was foreshadowed too? But my friends didn’t feel the same way so I don’t know. I’m not touching that.

But I do agree that all of the new lore got info-dumped to us by Yae rather than have us find out about them. To be honest, I would have wanted the backstory of Ei to be in her story quest rather than it be in the Archon Quest. A World Quest could work too.

I just feel like the 2.1 Archon Quest ended up cramming so many themes and subplots when it should’ve been focusing on what was promised: the darkness that is brought by their god.

They already had set up the Visions are people’s motivations/ambitions and that taking them away also takes away their agency.

Then they could’ve played with the idea of the people of Watatsumi looking up to Kokomi as their pseudo-god in-place of Orobashi and so with her actively giving Delusions could fit well in the said theme.

They could’ve made Ei and Kokomi character foils of each other and have the final showdown be about them.

And then it’ll all, of course, end up with the people of Inazuma learning how to work without their “gods” or something like that, which is the overarching theme of the whole series if you think about it.

But as I said, my opinions about the plot shouldn’t matter and I’m only here to make what was already written better.

So let’s talk about something that the puppet has done which didn’t make any sense on the surface level but could’ve been clever if it was done right. Killing La Signora.

Okay. So there is a pivotal moment at the end of the first arc of a three-act story where the main character experiences something that will leave them no choice but to move forward. This usually is a physical thing like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. But it can also be a mental or emotional situation.

Over at Honkai, the first arc ended with the death of a beloved mentor and a shattered world (both external and internal). The characters had no choice but to step up and “to stay alive, bravely” (yes, I won’t stop using this line ever). It was so very well done and even after so many years it still hurt no matter how many times you reread/rewatch the scene.

This reread value is what shows how much a twist is well written.

And that is what miHoYo is known for. So I had high expectations with the plot twist (technically this pivotal moment is called a plot twist because it twists the feel and/or pace of the story). Chapter 2 is the perfect spot to end the first act of a seven-chaptered story. So I’m really preparing myself for the inevitable twist.

But then we ended up with Signora’s death.

Okay. So. They could have used that to show us, as the traveler, how Archons and Celestial beings are unfeeling and not to be trusted. We were told this repeatedly by Dainsleiff and by the Abyss Twin. But it is only textbook writing 101 to show NOT tell.

And Signora’s death could have been this portrayal. Although, to be honest, it would have been more impactful if the one who died is a friend of the Traveler.

Them seeing someone die at the hands of an Archon could have their idea of gods shift. Because there is no turning back once you see the proof right in front of your eyes.

But instead, the puppet did it. So what was the point of Signora’s death if not just a power demonstration? We already knew that the Raiden Shogun is powerful. So why did Signora have to die?

Sure, one can argue that the puppet was enacting the Ei’s will so maybe there was a point. But! In Ei’s story quest, we were told that the puppet would have no hesitation when it comes to killing whereas Ei can show mercy.

Which begs, again, the question: how much of the Raiden Shogun’s actions is a reflection of Ei’s will, and how much of it is a logic response of an artificial intelligence from Ei’s memories?

Honestly? I don’t like that they killed off Signora. It doesn’t feel right. I would’ve taken Beidou’s death over Signora’s no matter how much I love Beidou. There was just no build-up to it and it feels weak. I… didn’t feel anything besides confusion. The anger only came later because of the wasted potential.

But overall, I do think they could’ve made it work if it were actually Ei doing the killing.

So I just did Kokomi’s Story Quest and man. The soldiers wanting to continue the war is what they really should have made the motivations of the actual war rather than have it as a post-war response and then have Kokomi fix their mess.

Seriously. While it was really interesting to see the usual trauma response of soldiers who had only known war their whole life, they wasted this idea, man.

Before doing the Archon Quest I had thought that the Watatsumi had a hand on the Vision Hunt Decree. Because if I were a tactician, I would have made something to anger the people of my enemies and have them have their internal issues. And while the Shogunate is weak, that’s when I will strike and claim Inazuma for my people and my god.

Then Orobashi will rise once more.

Yep.

Obviously, I really wanted Kokomi to be a more active character in the Archon Quest.

Anyways. If you reached the end, thank you for reading this ~1.5k words of musings. Tell me what you think. Or don’t. You do you.

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wenellyb · 3 years

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Can I ask your opinion on the what if... series? I'm really hating the Captain Carter trailers. I feel like it's disrespectful to Sam's character who has only just taken up the mantle of Captain America and the shield. I get that this is an alternate timeline series but from the sounds of things they plan on launching these alternates into the main MCU via the multiverse. If rumours are true and Peggy appears in Doctor Strange 2, then that means Captain Carter will appear on the big screen as a supersoldier shield-weilding Cap before Sam appears. And that doesn't sit right with me. Not to mention the merchandise that's already everywhere. Feels like Sam's getting sidelined again before he's even had the chance to shine on his own. Anyway, I'd be interested to know your thoughts on it, if you've seen it. (Also, less related, the uniform being the British flag just reeks of WW2 British imperialism which is also just ugh. And I'm an Australian, our flag literally includes the British one! I just do not like any of this.)

Hi Anon!!! Thanks for the ask it's a very interesting question.

I haven't thought about it a lot because I have seen the trailers and I liked it, it looks like a very cool show and I llike Peggy Carter's character.

They have announced the What If... series since a long time ago and one of the scenario announced was indeed what if Peggy was "Captain America", so this isn't exactly a surprise.

I have seem some posts about the fact that there is much promotion and much more merchandise is done for Captain Cartet than for Captain America. And that are disappointed that Sam's character is sidelined and maybe it's too spon and I will changer my mind, but I personally don't feel that way for now.

I guess I would have more of a problem if:

-it weren't an animated series and there was a real show with Captain Carter. I didn't know about Peggy appearing in Doctor Strange 2, but I guess we'll have to wait and see what is the screntime, if she appears as Captain Carter or not. But for now, I personally don't see Captain Carter as a problem or as Sam's character being sidelined.

- if they brought back Chris Evans' Captain America on a different project, like those rumors said some ago. It would annoy me to no end if they used the excuse of the multiverse to bring back another version of Steve Rogers as Captain America, or as

Honestly, for me, there is a problem with Sam's character and how him being Captain America is handled, but it has nothing to do with the What if series. I think it's important to put the blame where it should be.

The problem isn't that there is more promotion or more merch available for the What If series or Captain Carter, because the show is about to air, so it's normal that it would get promoted, that's how it works.

To me, the problem is that we had a TV show with Sam as Captain America, and then... nothing???

The problem is that we had an announcement for a Cap 4 movie but with no realease date nothing? Not even a TBA date in 2024 or whatever? With all these MCU moves already lined up there should be at least an official announcement, even a vague date.

And I'm thinking maybe we'll get to Sam Wilson in other movies, before the Cap 4 movie, but it's not a certainty, and also what about the official dates for his own movie? Not even something like "confirmed" or "announced" with the Captain America logo.

That's what doesn't sit right with me, because for now it looks to me that Disney has no plan to follow up on Captain Sam Wilson... Just from the looks of it, I don't know what they will or will not do.

Am I the only one who remembers that we were supposed to have a Cyrborg solo movie in the DCEU? It was announced and it never happened? So that's what's really making worried regarding Captain America.

From where I'm standing, Disney wants the diversity points without putting in more work than necessary.

Another issue is that historically the fandom never stands up for the Black Superheroes and the Balck actors.

It happened woth Ray Fisher, it happened with John Boyega, and I think John's case it's even more disgustimg because the behavior of the fandom eventually led to his role beong reduced in the Saga...wtf. They preferred to run an incoherent story and make a mediocre movie rather than pay Fonn his due!

Just an example of what I mean when I say that the fandom doesn't support Black Actors: You see all what is happening with Scarlett Johansson right? The lawsuit etcetera.... I have seen dozens and dozens of posts supporting her and her lawsuit.... And this isn't coming from her fans... It's even coming from people who dislike her but understand the importance of what she's doing. I understand the importance of what she's doing... But I can't help and compare it to he support Ray Fisher had in the fandom, when he was calling out the abuse he received from Joss Whedon and from some Executives. Since the story with Scarlett started every 10th post on my dash is about it. And yes, it's still fresh, so it's normal people are talking about it. But when the whole story started with Ray Fisher, the reaction was just not the same.... People were amkong posts that wouldn't get more that a 100 notes, and for me it was easier supporting from Twitter because at least I could retweet Ray's tweets.... but let me tell you that he was bassically fight alone. ALONE.

I have seen so many posts saying.... "I hate Scarjo but..." "I can't stand Scarjo but..." So from where I'm sitting a problematic White actress will get more support than an unproblematic Black actor denouncing abuse. And just to be clear... I do think that the fandom should support Scarjo's lawsuit because Disney is never held accountable for the sh*t they do, I'm just making a comparison and saying they both deserved support but only one of them got it.

That's why I have absolutely no fate that the MCU fandom will stand up for Anthony Mackie or Sam Wilson if it's ever necessary seeing how they turned their back on Anthony Mackie the moment they thought he was against "Sambucky". They will turn their back on him and his character the minute a minor inconvience happen. And Disney/Marvel will love that because they will have a justification as to why they will not follow through with Sam Cap (His characyer is unpopular.... or whatever excuse they will find).

And about the interview thing, I guess I could understand if and only if they had a problem with some of the things he had said... But the fandom made it clear that they only cared about what they thought he said about Sambucky, not the rest, proving once again that the fandom is untrustworthy. Because they were ready to condemn hom for something as trivial as a fictional ship.

If push comes to shove, and for instance they brought back another Steve Rogers from another universe, I'm sure they would be quick to support THAT character instead of Sam.

To me the problem is Disney & Marvel Execs and also the fandom of course... Because the Execs go where the money is... If the fandom is hyping up anybody BUT Sam Wilson... the execs will do the same... because they will promote characters who are the most popular.

It's important to reward reprensation, and hype up movies and shows with reprensentation, but to me it is as important (if not more important) not to reward lack of representation.

That's why I have absolutely no intention to pay for a MCU movie other than Shang Chi, and Black Panther and also Cap 4 whenever it comes out! But other than that... I'm staying away from the movies with always the same group being represented.

TL:DR; in my opinion, there is indeed a problem but the problem isn't the What if series, far from it.

#what if #sam wilson #captain america #peggy carter #ray fisher #john boyega #anthony mackie #And the Marvels too #Forgot to add that!#Sorry for the typos

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