#It's one of the most interesting villains to me

[zeroslashsix]

X-Men Evolution has such an interesting Gambit. On one hand, this is the worst design he’s ever had. On the other hand, this man has maximum brain cells at all times, zero himbo energy whatsoever. In most on-screen appearances, Gambit is either some form of comic relief, love interest, or the old "Can we/can't we trust him" because he's either a reformed villain on his way to redemption, or he's a wildcard with uncertain allegiance who's about to cause problems by stealing something.

X-Men Evolution Gambit is so fun because as a clean-cut villain henchman, he's totally removed from all of those things. He’s 5% fun and 95% business, definitely one of the most competent villains in the show. Maybe even the most competent, if you measure tasks attempted vs. tasks succeeded. He and Rogue have Vibes, for sure, but aside from the Cajun Spice episode, they don't actually exchange more than a few lines in the whole series. And when those lines are exchanged, Gambit retains all his brain cells and doesn't get distracted from the task at hand. When Rogue sweeps Magneto’s base in the season 3 finale, it takes Gambit exactly .5 seconds to figure out 1) she’s being mind controlled, 2) Mystique is behind it, and then he puts up the longest fight of anyone in that episode, including Magneto. This Gambit would never fall for Morph/Mystique’s shenanigans i.e. "I'm Rogue, teehee, just got total control of my powers overnight and you should come kiss me." This Gambit would clock that shit in two seconds and start throwing cards.

Yes "enemies to lovers" something or other, but it's honestly refreshing to see a recurring Gambit onscreen who is wholly separated from Rogue, from the comic relief role, and from the inner torment of trying to be a good person, because it gives us a Hypercompetent Villain Gambit who Gets Shit Done being only 19(!) years old. And he does it all with that bowl cut and like one inch of facial hair.

[save-the-villainous-cat]

Hi! I have a request, i hope it's not too specific or silly! How about an ace character that finds a fellow ace? Could be a villain that keeps flirting and when the hero tells them they don't want anything spicy villain is like 'Oh yeah no I'm ace too, just like teasing you :3'

Regardless of whether you answer or not, i hope you have a wonderful day!!

For better or for worse, the date they were on was rather pleasant.

It had been a trap the villain had prepared which was in retrospect a little bit too obvious. Their nemesis had lured the hero out of their messy apartment with a single note - a warning that quite a few hostages were waiting for them at one of the most expensive restaurants in town.

Without hesitation, the hero had rushed to the address but once the hero had opened the door, it was rather clear that no one was in danger. Instead, the hero got some judging looks from fancy folks when they had thrown open the door, panting.

The villain had looked rather amused when their gazes had met. It was the kind of embarrassment that burnt itself into the hero's brain. A memory that would pop up whenever they tried to fall asleep. It was so bad, in fact, that they considered turning on their heel and leave all together but the villain was too quick.

They raised a glass, their smile crooked.

And the hero felt obligated to walk up to them, now that curious looks were jumping from the hero to the villain.

"You could have told me to wear something nice," the hero hissed as they sat down.

"You look great in everything," the villain purred. Their eyes wandered up and down the hero. "Even in sweatpants."

"You flatter me."

"I'm stating a fact."

The hero took in a deep breath. Their heart was still banging against their rib cage violently. They lowered their voice.

"Why am I here?"

"Because you're gullible?" The villain swayed their wineglass in one hand.

"That's not what I mean."

"Because you're the city's sweet saviour who will always help the poor and innocent?" The hero didn't really know why the villain was toying with them like this. Clearly, there was an ulterior motive behind this. There always was.

Mostly, it was scheme after scheme with them. It was true that the hero was rather fond of them but they'd rather cut their arm off than admit that.

"You know I don't have much time on my hands," the hero said. "So whatever you want from me, make it quick."

For a moment, the villain didn't say anything and exactly that gave the hero enough time to truly look at them. Apparently, they had taken their sweet time to get ready for this date. The hero didn't know how to interpret that. Maybe it was the overall atmosphere of the restaurant or maybe the villain really cared about other's perception of them. The hero couldn't tell.

"I guess there is your answer. I thought it would be nice to spoil you a little," the villain said. "My little workaholic."

Oh, shit.

To say the hero started panicking internally was an understatement. They liked the villain, really liked them. Maybe even more than that.

And the villain seemed to have similar feelings for them.

The hero swallowed.

It had taken them quite a lot of bargaining, denial and a great deal of sadness to realise that they weren't interested in anything sexual. It had taken them a lot of time to come to terms with it. Back then, they had felt guilty for feeling the way they did. Often, they had wondered if there was something wrong with them. If it was just them who felt like this.

It was an almost obsessive fear of exclusion that had infiltrated their mind. It was exhauting to explain their own feelings over and over again and sometimes, they had even forced themselves to go beyond their boundaries.

On some nights, they had lain in bed awake, asking themselves if it was fair to be this way. To never be able to fully give back and love a partner that way. They had lost enough people they had been interested in romantically because of this. It was always the same stupid cycle. Always the same brainless questions that didn't help nor comfort them.

The hero was a different person now. They were much more confident but losing the villain that way wasn't only awkward, it was also a little heartbreak all over again.

"Listen..." the hero said. "I appreciate all of this. You're very sweet."

They dug their nails into their palms. Most people didn't understand. Most people said they were totally fine with it and still, they distanced themselves in the end. It used to make the hero angry but above all, it used to make them very sad.

"But, you know, I'm ace, so. Well, yeah, I...you probably know what that means but if you don't, uhm..."

Suddenly, something lit up behind the villain's eyes.

"Yeah?" The villain smiled. It wasn't a grin. It wasn't a smirk. It was a sweet, lovely smile.

"Huh?"

"You're ace?" they asked. Again, the hero swallowed. They looked down at the still empty dinner plate. It seemed like they had been in here for hours now, even though it had been mere minutes.

"...yeah."

"Me too," the villain said softly and the hero couldn't tell if this was some cruel joke or if this was a genuine gift from the universe. This meant no explaining, no stupid questions. No lost relationship, no arguments over this...For the first time in their life, they felt excited after coming out.

"What? Really? But the flirting and the-"

"I love messing with you, you know that," the villain said, winking. They took a sip of their wine. "And I meant what I said. You need to relax. You need someone to take care of you, even if that someone has to use some questionable methods to get you out of your apartment."

The hero stared at them, almost drunk on happiness.

"Thank you," the hero whispered.

"What a silly thing to say, darling," the villain responded.

Both would return to the restaurant several times after.

Hungry for more.

[shaxxophone]

AFTER WORKING ON THIS FOR ALMOST A WHOLE WEEK, I HAVE FINALLY FINISHED!!!!

I know I have written a lot, so do not feel obligated to read it all, but if you want to glance through just to see what classes + subclasses I have assigned, please feel free!! Here is a taste of what you will see below the cut:

BEYOND THIS POINT, THERE WILL BE HUGE SPOILERS. READING THE MANHUA OR WATCHING THE DONGHUA WILL NOT BE ENOUGH. THIS WILL HAVE MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR MULTIPLE MAJOR VILLAINS AND SECRET TWISTS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

This has been a huge labor of love, and I am really not expecting anybody but me and maybe one or two others to have any interest in this, so if you have read them all or even half, thank you so much!!! My intimate knowledge of every single 5e subclass finally has a use, yay!!!

If you wanna talk D&D or TGCF ever, feel free to message me. If you have differing ideas of what classes these people would be, I'm happy to talk about that!!!

Also most of all, thank you @liese1015 for inspiring me to get off my ass and participate in the fandom I love for once! 💖

[ceoandslutler]

a short analysis on the theme of kindness in kuro, in defence of the morally reprehensible protagonists.

i previously spoke about sebastian pulling a "not like other humans" line on ciel but the things he's actually saying in this chapter are crazy...

chapter no's and pages in alt text!!

media illiterate (most kuro fandom antis') logic is that ^this guy's^ the big bad villain of kuro, there's so much to analyse about the theme of kindness and humanity in kuro but ultimately people are blind to it because sebaciel are not the kind, happy-go-lucky type of protags many people are used to and people struggle to purify them. there are so many people in this story "more innocent" than them and less morally grey which makes them look like worse people but the fact is that they are the "worse" in a world full of the "worst". they're there to show you how despicable humanity can be but they have their moments of 'good' (otherwise they'd be lacking in likability), especially moments like this can be quite odd in this story about corruption and evil because in those pages, these two do not seem like the deplorable, manipulative and conniving characters we often see them as. this moment reminds me of another very dear chapter to me which two volumes comes after this.

this is such an interesting part of the manga (it's why the blue cult arc is my favourite arc of the manga despite all the popstar/idol shenanigans that threw a lot of people off). the way these two behave in this arc is not normal, they do not need to go above and beyond for these people. it is not necessary for sebastian to go this far for ciel AND his tenants (who it is important to note he has no contractual obligation to care for, especially not to the extent of giving them the "time of their lives") and it is certainly not normal the way ciel treats these people with zero contempt even when they 'disrespect' him as a noble. these two are genuinely weird for their time, blue cult arc also gives us an unforgettable seb moment (link).

this chapter also serves as part of the transition between the blue cult arc and the blue memory arc which is also...

one of the most intriguing parts of the manga... what's interesting here is that ciel HAS kept his tenants happy as proven by the halloween chapter (the page below from this same chapter talks of infrastructure needs having to be met and we read that ciel has fixed the roads since becoming earl and even an old donkey can transport milk from across them- that's how good the quality of the roads are). however, what i want to focus on is undertaker previously saying ciel, despite having phantomhive blood is not like his predecessors. in fact, the flashback chapter shows he's not even like his own identical twin brother!

i really wonder what exactly undertaker meant by saying that right as ciel saves joanne in the school arc and also what vincent was thinking about his sons in this flashback sequence. did vincent think o!ciel is different too? and what is it that makes him so odd? or rather, what makes him an exception in the phantomhive family? i look forward to whatever yana has in store for us and hope to see where these wonderful characters with such bizarre morality (or lack there of) end up.

i will talk about this theme more in the future but if anyone has something specific to add, please do. and even if it's not too detailed or you're unsure, feel free to tell me what you think about the use of 'good' and 'evil' for the main characters of kuro overall! some things to consider:

fundamentally why are ciel and sebastian the way they are? and more importantly, do you think yana intended either of them to be read as strictly "evil"? a lot of people make the case of the fandom purifying them but i never see that these days, usually it's only ciel that's sanitised of all sin and sebastian that is demonised (although occasionally both are demonised as solely "bad guys"). i joke about them being narcissistic and not the nicest people (which is something i genuinely believe) but i do not think they are the root of all evil; which is a take you can have without absolving them of any and all misdeed they may have committed. i think what i'm really getting at is that sebastian is not ""evil""? and he's not innocent either. but he's a force for "good" in the story. he works for the phantomhive estate and the people living on that land more devotedly than a demon with a 3-clause contract with the master of the land should and he shouldn't be excluded from the phantomfam and only seen as horrible/evil but nor should he be solely seen as a silly little cat loving parent. and you don't need to ship sebaciel to see him this way, just read the source material with your eyes peeled, really think about what sebastian does and says. he's so interesting and he's so much more than the fandom makes him out to be. but interpret him however you want, i guess.

[justmenoworries]

Transformers EarthSpark Season 2 Spoilers

If I had to describe S2A in one word, it would be: Disappointing.

Others have said this before me, but if you were a fan of S1 this most definitely isn't the show for you anymore.

S2A is so far inferior to S1 in every conceivable way. The animation, the characters, the story, it all just feels so half-assed. Every single interesting concept S1 introduced, S2A either mangled beyond belief or flat-out erased from existence.

The few new interesting things that do come up in S2A don't last long and/or are underdeveloped.

Tensions between humans and Cybertronians? Never mentioned. All the racism died with Mandroid and GHOST, I guess.

The Terrans' connection to Quintus Prime? Pfft, you're still on that? It's all about the Quintessons now, keep up nerd!

Starscream's development and start on the road to recovery from trauma? Gone. He's back to being the villain now for no reason whatsoever. He murders two actual children. What, did you think we were still doing that silly nuance thing from S1? Lol, sucks to be you.

The ongoing theme about the Transformer War not being as black and white as history would have people believe? Ummm, ackshually, the Decepticons are inherently evil and irredeemable. The Autobots are saints and have never done anything wrong or questionable, ever. Ignore the prison complex from last season that performed unethical experiments on prisoners of war. Y'know that same one that the Autobots knew about and supplied with Decepticon prisoners.

Spitfire and Aftermath are interesting in theory, but S2A doesn't really do anything with them besides making them the generic Evil Twin characters to Twitch and Jawbreaker respectively. And then Starscream murders them for his evil masterplan, which feels like a colossal waste.

I've been saying since S1 that it would be interesting to have a Terran actually choose the Decepticons over both the Autobots and the Maltos. It would've been a neat way to explore the family dynamic the 'Cons have compared to the Maltos and maybe show that just because a family is different from yours, maybe not as physically affectionate or as instantly harmonious, doesn't mean it's worse. We had a good start with Aftermath and Breakdown but that never really goes anywhere before Starscream does a Fuck Them Kids.

The Decepticons are just evil again now. Great. I guess we're completely throwing the "history isn't black-and-white" thing out of the window, huh? That whole thing where it was implied the Decepticons were rising up against an unjust system a la Aligned continuity and IDW? We kind of had a very significant confrontation between Megatron and Shockwave about that in that one episode that even explicitly referenced IDW? Or how about the whole "This is not freedom" plot line about how mayyybe throwing every Decepticon in the slammer forever might be, just might be, bad? We had a whole episode about that? Soundwave was in it?

Nah, 'Cons are unambiguously evil. Always. Especially that no-good Starscream. "What Dwells Within" and "The Last Hope, Part 2" might as well have never happened, because Starscream sure as hell doesn't act like they did. He barely even interacts with Hashtag. "Come on, did you expect Starscream to be a good guy now?" No bitch, I expected believable character development. I find it hard to believe that the same Starscream who saved Hashtag from the Cybertronian equivalent of a vampire, at risk to his own life, and then told her to take care of herself as a good-bye would just suddenly go back to the same moustache-twirling evilness we'd be expecting from G1 Starscream. You expect me to buy that this guy is the same Starscream as the one who showed up with the entire cavalry to save the world in the S1 finale?? Why go through the trouble of giving Starscream an entire episode going into his trauma and abuse and learning to be better if this is all it amounts to in the end??? At least show us how it happened? What made Starscream suddenly completely regress like that??? I don't know and the way it's going I don't think EarthSpark is all that interested in explaining it.

The Maltos remain a criminally underdeveloped hive mind. And no, I don't consider adding even more powers to their arsenal character development. Robbie and Mo still don't have any friends outside of their siblings and this season did nothing to change my mind on the cybersleeve connection being borderline creepy and making the characters co-dependent. "The Butterfly Effect" basically showed us all the reasons why having your siblings in your head 24/7 with no way to turn it off would actually suck. Cybersynching is so obviously combining with a new coat of paint and it's not even used or utilized that much in this batch.

We did not need the Quintessons in this season. At all. They added nothing except implying that Quintus Prime is shady af. Which, we been knew? The whole of "Prime Time" is literally Quintus torturing a little girl for being upset her big brother is sick and probably dying. If you wanted to explore Quintus through one of his creations seeing him in a much less benevolent light, well, how do I put this? There were two whole new characters added this season you could've done this with. Aftermath and Spitfire not being in the "We Love Quintus Prime" club together with the rest of the Terrans would make sense, since they're far more rebellious and anti-authoritarian. That would've given them something interesting to do besides being minor nuisances to the Delightful Maltos from Down the Lane.

I've heard that EarthSpark isn't doing well both in ratings and in toy sales and after that first batch I can see why.

The show is not all bad, but legit none of these characters are developed enough or distinct enough that I could see a kid wanting a toy of them. And that goes double for older fans.

The writers messed up big time and I honestly don't know if I'm gonna stay and see if they fix it in S2B.

[ace-of-the-inkwell]

I just started dungeon meshi and thistle has has probably under 5 minutes of screen time but they r already one of the most interesting characters in the show. WHY DID NONE OF YOU TELL ME HOW COOL THEY ARE. Ik I have not seen enough of them to do a proper analysis or meta, but from what I've seen I'm extremely excited. The fact that (if I'm interpreting this correctly) they are doing villainous things in an attempt to bring back the king, who seems to have been like a father to them, because they seem to be stuck in the past in some way(?) Like reliving whatever happened that led to the fall of the kingdom through the paintings in an almost timeloop-like situation? Likely not an actual loop, but it seems like they may not be aware of how much time has passed? It seems to be implied that they are 1.) One of the old elves that could live for thousands of years, and 2.) One of the most powerful dark magic users maybe in history (though the book seems to be a monkey's paw in some way and seems to be their source of power and directly connected to the king's disappearance) i feel like it has been implied that they feel at least partially responsible for the kings disappearance (I can't remember his name for the life of me) I'm also interested in what about Falin's revival made Thistle read her as the dragon. I think it might've had to do with her body possibly being made of parts of the dragon when Marcille did the full metal alchemist ritual to revive her. I'm also curious of Thistle's perspective on Falin's revival, they seem to think the party just changed the red dragon's form and tried to steal it or something similar. Does this miscommunication contribute to how they view the party as hostile? Or do they know the party's intentions but just don't care? Anyways, I'm only on episode 17 but I'm stoked abt Thistle as an antagonist :)

[herefortheships]

"Evil" Yuji Itadori Theory is not as insane as you think

So today I was thinking about this new viral theory in the Jujutsu Kaisen fandom about Yuji turning evil or "crashing out" after he realizes Yuta is using Gojo's body to fight Sukuna, another plan of which he was not made aware of. And while it might seem like a far-fetched, unlikely theory, it does make sense if Yuji's story ends up going in that direction, as insane as it may appear to some fans.

(Let me preface by saying: Obviously this is speculation and theorizing; no need to get heated if you don't agree with this post. Not agreeing is totally okay! If you don't want to read about this theory/speculation/character analysis, you don't have to. Just scroll past this. 💜)

In this post I'm going to expand on a comment I used to explain why some fans think this is going to happen or, like myself, at least like this theory. My comment went like this:

"[Yuji could crash out] because he’s witnessed so many deaths of those he loves, back to back, plus he’s lost his friend to Sukuna, and this friend wouldn’t even let him save him (Yuji wasn’t enough to save Megumi despite their friendship and all their efforts and all that was going on), and now he is seeing Yuta use Gojo’s body, plus the sacrifices he himself has had to make like eating his own brothers. It would be understandable if he crashes out and wants to end it all, Jujutsu sorcerers included.

He’s seen his friends and even himself become a monster, he’s lost people he loved and has no family left (except for Sukuna, but Yuji doesn’t know that, plus, it’s Sukuna). Seeing Gojo’s body being used as a weapon and by one of his friends on top of it, who, if his brain has been swapped like this, is likely to die or lose his original body forever, that might be the last straw for Yuji to finally lose it.

He’s a noble and kind soul, but even the kindest most patient people have a limit, and Yuji might finally have reached it.

In the end, it would even be the most believable plot twist this manga would pull. That said, it’s VERY unlikely Gege would go there, but it isn’t like shounen manga hasn’t seen the main character go through a villain arc. AoT did it really well. I believe it’d be a dark ending but a fitting one if Yuji ends up as the Sukuna of his generation, if he ends up the strongest who sacrificed everything. It’s all just theories though and very unlikely, but still interesting to discuss."

Now, to expand on these points:

Yuji has seen friends with whom he was finally finding a home after the death of his grandfather die brutal deaths one after the other right before his eyes. These were people who took him in and gave him a chance after he found himself alone in life. As far as we know, Yuji didn't have where to go after his grandfather's death, as far as family goes. And he had to move to Tokyo when he ate Sukuna's finger. He had to leave the friends he had and the life he knew completely. Yuji now has lost the mentors who were guiding him and giving him a sense of security in this new Jujutsu world he suddenly found himself in. Mentors like Gojo and Nanami were to Yuji almost like "uncle" or "fatherly" figures in a sense. As a matter of fact, without Gojo, Yuji would have been killed, so Gojo is not just a mentor but also someone to whom Yuji owes his life.

Then there came the loss of the closest friend he made in this new Jujutsu world. He lost Nobara. Listen, Gege Akutami can tell me in this story over and over that Megumi is Yuji's most important friend, but the writing is showing me something different. The story has shown me that Nobara was the one Yuji was closest to. Unless the Gege just wanted to make a distinction between best friend, giving that role to Megumi, and love interest, giving that role to Nobara, but that's up to interpretation. He saw Nobara get killed by the very same monster who killed Nanami right in front of him, in the very same night. If it wasn't for Todo, Yuji would not have made it out of Shibuya alive. As a matter of fact, if he wasn't killed, maybe Sukuna would have taken hold of him permanently right there and then, and then all he had to do was find Megumi and transfer without Yuji being capable of doing anything to stop him. Mahito might have failed at killing him, but that night of October 31st permanently altered Yuji's soul.

But Yuji's will is strong and unshakable, something that has perturbed even Sukuna himself. Yuji has suffered through great losses, over and over, and has even been the tool by which a massacre was committed, and yet, he still tries; he still moves forward and doesn't succumb to the suffering. It's one of the reasons Sukuna absolutely loathes Yuji: he could never break him. I also head-canon that Sukuna hates Yuji because he was forced to experience love through him, while trapped inside Yuji's body, but I guess we still have to see the love theme play out in the story to rule that one out. Who will teach Sukuna about love? Yuji already has, but Sukuna has yet to figure that one out. Yuji is technically his nephew, will that play into this theme before the end? That's entirely another post, though.

Even losing his friend Megumi to Sukuna did not take down Yuji; on the contrary, he unleashed more power than Sukuna expected him to have and faced him by himself.

But then, December 24th arrived, and it was time to face Sukuna in the flesh. The plan was to save Megumi's soul and take out Sukuna. Satoru Gojo was the first contender, and while Gojo was the strongest sorcerer of his time, he was to face the most brutal, most powerful and evil sorcerer of all time. Not to mention they gave him a full month heads-up. Oops... And while there was a hope placed in Gojo to finish this, as he always did, there was also a silent knowledge that this might be too big of a task even for him. Not only was Sukuna the most powerful sorcerer just by himself, he had also absorbed into himself one of the most powerful techniques of all: the Ten Shadows, a power that once took out a member of the Gojo clan with the very same abilities Satoru Gojo was born with. Gojo would be facing a Ten Shadows user fused with the most powerful sorcerer to ever live. Contingency plans were made in the event that he was defeated, some of which, to keep it a secret from Sukuna, had to be kept secret from Yuji.

Did Yuji know some plans would be kept from him? Or is he just finding out they kept things from him, right there in the battlefield?

What Yuji did know was that his role was going to be to separate Megumi's soul from Sukuna; to save Megumi as everyone took Sukuna down. And he managed to touch Megumi's soul and talk to him! But what did Megumi do? Megumi refused to be saved. Yuji's friendship was not enough; Yuji's words were not enough; Yuji's and everyone's efforts were not enough. Megumi wasted it all, despite the fact that his friends, mentors (including Gojo, who was Megumi's benefactor and pretty much his adoptive father!) were falling dead one after the other through Sukuna. In the end, for Megumi, there was only one person that mattered, and that was his sister. With her gone, Megumi lost his will to live, and Yuji had to see his remaining closest friend choose death over being saved.

Next Yuji saw more of his colleagues die or get potentially mortally wounded. Higuruma, Kusakabe, Yuta were all injured too badly to keep fighting, or were killed. Even though Sukuna was already handicapped by this point after fighting Gojo, having lost half of his hands and ability to use reverse curse technique, he still was capable of casting a Domain Expansion, and so, the person Yuji lost next was his blood brother, Choso. Choso gave his life for his younger brother, and died right in front of Yuji. One more horrific death Yuji had to witness right in front of him. Once again, if it wasn't for the arrival of Todo right in the perfect moment, Yuji would have collapsed right there.

Choso was his only family left, and they had just recently found each other and started to bond; Yuji, by all effects, is now alone in this world. At least, he still has a few friends around him to keep him from falling apart.

But.

Lots of people in the fandom have been commenting "Yuji hasn't spoken a word since Choso died". That is incorrect, since Yuji has asked where everyone is after Sukuna used Fuga, and he might have also said something to Todo as well, I don't remember. Maybe what they mean is that Yuji has been different since Choso's death and what we did see him say was this short statement: he declared that he was going to destroy Sukuna's heart, as he was clawing his hand right into Sukuna's chest. His eyes looked wild and ready to do exactly as he intended.

And that's when they were interrupted by Yuta, using Gojo's body just like Kenjaku used the bodies of dead people to further his plans.

Listen, even the kindest, most compassionate person has a limit. With everything I have described in this post that Yuji has experienced, and his current state of mind, is it truly that far off to conclude that Yuji might have reached his limit? And we're talking about a powerful half-human, half-curse (Yuji was pretty much a result of Kenjaku's experiments plus now he possesses Sukuna's cursed energy and the abilities and qualities he gained by holding Sukuna's soul and eating the cursed wombs). Yuji is someone who has latent potential within him similar to Sukuna's. After all he's gone through at this point, is it that far-fetched to consider that he might lose his mind and choose to go the darkest path? After seeing Yuta use Gojo's body as a tool, just like Kenjaku used Yuji's mother's body as a tool to create him, used Geto's body to cause so much chaos.

Yuji would NEVER harm or kill his friends, this wouldn't happen, but what happens when he's lost everyone? What happens when the few that are left are doing something so inhumane and monstrous to take out Sukuna? How different are they from someone like Kenjaku or Sukuna? Who is right and who is wrong? What happens when he realizes he is just like them as well, being a product himself of the Jujutsu world, having done a monstrous thing in eating his own brothers. Everything in the Jujutsu world is messed up! Not just the curses, but the sorcerers as well. What happens when, most harrowingly, Yuji realizes that this entire situation with Sukuna is, in part, a result of his actions (eating Sukuna's finger that night at the school)?

Yuji has lived through enough horrible experiences that him crashing out not only makes sense, but is also expected. As unlikely as it would be for Gege to give Yuji a villain arc however short it might be as the series reaches its end.

Yuji choosing to end not just the curses, but also the Jujutsu Sorcerers; choosing to end it all. If Yuji gets such a dark twist in this story, given all that he's lived through, plus his potential in power and his soul connection to Sukuna himself, it wouldn't be far-fetched or out of character; at this point, it would completely make sense.

It is very unlikely something like Yuji having a villain arc will happen, but we cannot say that this theory has no basis in the canon. In fact, depending on how it's handled by Gege, this could be the most logical plot twist to come out of this story as it reaches its ending.

Yuji would end up as the Sukuna of his generation, especially if the ending with him standing alone in the end is the one Gege chooses to write.

[from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras]

A few random thoughts on the upcoming War of the Rohirrim, as the filmmakers get set to talk more about it over the next few days at the Annecy animation fest:

Yes, obviously.

I know there is some crossover between the production teams, but I hope that it will prove to have and maintain a visual style that is distinct from the PJ LOTR aesthetic. I love that, too, of course, but I think it’s healthy to have variety out there (one of the reasons I love fan art!) in order to keep room for creative expression and not have one interpretation totally dominate the space.

I am glad that it seems the movie will give the women of the story a much more central place than Tolkien did. After all, Helm’s daughter was one of the central linchpins in the drama that created the titular war, and Tolkien didn’t even bother to name her, much less tell us anything about what she thought or felt as events unfolded. 

I am very curious to see how they treat Helm vs. Freca. I think most people read the appendices and come away with the idea that Helm is a hero and Freca the villain, but I think a close reading makes the situation MUCH more ambiguous. To me, Helm is equally to blame, if not more so, for everything that happened, and I think it would be a more interesting story to recognize the complexity of that (not to mention it would give the legend Brian Cox more to sink his teeth into!). 

No, I cannot explain what seems to be an oliphaunt within an army of Dunlendings in one of the few stills released so far.

Like everything Tolkien related, I’ve got my own ideas and preferences of what I’d like to see or avoid, but I want to keep an open mind and go into everything excited to see it. After all, I’m always rooting for people to succeed and things to be good!

[antisociallilbrat]

I really forget how 'mainstream' the It movies actually are. Both of them, the 2017 and 2019 movies are on the top ten list of highest grossing horror movies of all time. The 2019 one is ranked number five while the 2017 one is the highest grossing horror movie ever as of now. It dethroned The Exorcist (1973) for that spot. That's literally insane. This is why we're getting a prequel series. The movies are so popular the Simpsons had a fucking parody episode of It.

And what gets me, the reason I forget the movies are way more popular then I remember is because it's all about the clown for the GA. I forget that a lot of people who watched the movies are there for Pennywise and not the Loser's Club.

[turtleblogatlast]

No but like every time I think about Splinter and what he had to go through just to keep the boys alive, my heart hurts for him so badly. Is he perfect? No not at all, but none of them are and by god does he love his sons.

The fact that all of them are alive, and grew to thrive despite the circumstances surrounding them is a testament of how much Splinter loves his boys. He raised four babies following the most traumatic time of his life, all alone with nothing but the sewers to house them (to hide them.) I feel like he’s not given the credit he deserves for all he’s done.

And I get that it’s easy to hold up his flaws and faults when it comes to parenting, I myself like looking into them because flawed characters are super interesting and said flaws make them more realistic and engaging, but he tries, and again, so many others would have given up on the boys or failed along the way but Splinter didn’t.

He’s their father, for all his faults he did his damndest to make sure they survived.

[lord-squiggletits]

I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.

I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.

The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...

Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.

I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.

And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?

It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.

To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.

In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.

Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.

So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.

What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.

Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Truth and revenge is best served cold.

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[maladaptivedaydreamsx]

not me immediately getting jude from this

who did you guys get? 👀

[themyscirah]

Complaining abt Suicide Squad yet again but the fact that they have Waller exposing the alien community to space racist attacks and talking abt how she got to her position through deceit and being a terrible person and stuff is just. Ahsfiwueh JUST SAY YOU DONT KNOW WALLER.

Anyways literally the 3rd mission of the Squad ever (and the first framed as smth Waller picked and not orders from above) was the Squad discrediting and stopping a rogue vigilante who was only arresting POC and funneling white people into white supremacy groups (of which he was the most prominent member) in SUICIDE SQUAD #4. and it's explicitly framed as this mission being personal for Waller that she's hiding from the government bc its illegal like. Guys. Please why are we having her incite (space bc comics) racist attacks now

Also the whole "Amanda got her position through deceit and being a terrible person" NO. she KEPT her position through being shitty and playing complicated political games!!! She wasn't always that way like there is a difference and it is IMPORTANT ppl PLEASEEEE. In Secret Origins #14 we learn Amanda's backstory and she used to be a normal, caring person! Like even after she entered into working in government and politics she wasn't automatically morally bankrupt like please people. She was originally given control of the Squad by Reagan (*sigh* 80s comics...) to distract and get rid of her because she was so successful at pushing progressive social policy in Congress. Acting like she's this static pillar of evil is such a waste of her character and so fucking uninteresting and disrespectful to her arc it drives me MAD.

Like I am NOT saying Waller is all sunshine and rainbows, she fucking SUCKS (said w love <3) but like there's a human being there. It's a progression, she has a character arc like please, DC, please!!! They've fucked up Waller so bad and made her so opaque and uninteresting she can't even be the protagonist of her own story for fucks sake!

Like I don't know how many times I have to scream it until DC hears me or remembers but WALLER IS THE MAIN CHARACTER OF SUICIDE SQUAD. ITS HER BOOK. yet right now she's a cutout to be used as the villain wherever the writers please. Even in her book we get none of her perspective really displayed, no exploration of her thoughts with any kind of understanding of the role she traditionally has played and was made to play in the story.

[kingofattolia]

"Do you miss it? The Order?" "I miss... the idea of it. But not the truth, the weakness. There was no future there." OKAY, THIS MAN MISSES THE ORDER SOOOOOOOOOOO BAD IT MAKES HIM LOOK STUPID

I'm serious. He's carrying the husk of his long-ossified grief so obviously. It is evident in everything he does and says that he was a young knight absolutely ripped to shreds by Order 66 and its lonely, dark aftermath. He allowed despair to be his comfort, convincing himself there's nothing to mourn because it's easier than dealing with the loss.

[sskk-manifesto]

Proof that bsd would be a lot better if they just let it pass the Bechdel test more often