#MAKES NO GODDAMN SENSE. compells me though...

[shrimplicitly]

watched american psycho for the first time the other night. feeling like i want to crack the cinnamon tography open ans bathe in its ribcage.

[im-not-buying-it-ether]

[clears throat] Uh yes hi, I was wondering. Hypothetically. For totally not fic related reasons. If Tim had his own acronym like Shazam, what word do you think it would be? What deities?

Well the word can be anything you want to give significance to if you go the CM Jr. route Freddy was on before reboot hell happened by having him say “Captain Marvel” or any significant word or phrase for the moment in this entirety hypothetical fic of yours.

If I were to give him any specific gods I would focus on giving him ones that allow for useful powers or strengths, since he’s already an expert combatant, detective, and acrobatic to name a few things. I’d do just one Wisdom blessing to allow for the eidetic memory buff to help him out. It doesn’t have to be Wisdom, Stamina, Strength, Power, Courage, and Speed blessings like Cap, Freddy and Adam have. Mary’s agility and even grace blessings make her strong all the same with some additional powers that appear once in while that are affiliated with her goddesses.

I think if there were to be specific deities Tim’s would, appropriately, be mostly or entirely of the mortal kind when it came to patrons. I’d take folk heroes or heroes of the past to be his benefactors the same way Solomon and Achilles benefit Billy, some I could think of are Beowulf for his sheer protagonisty gumption to survive what should have drowned him or being able to fight off giants with his impressive strength or the insight/charm of Orpheus to stay Greek.

If I were to use any specific words for him I’d go the CM Jr. route again and have his word be “Batman” or the very possible Tim route of him having a whole transformation phrase that’s situationally impossible to accidentally say or be guessed by a random person (like how Adams was changed to “Chocolate Egg Cream” after WW3 event)

[vroomian]

The extreamly casualy supernatural parts of skip beat are hilarious too. Sure the beagle can just hold one of Kyoto’s grudge spirits hostage in exchange for valentines chocolates, why not

[ravenkings]

the thing about saltburn is that it's really just a condensed version of the first two gormenghast books but set in the real world 21st century and in which steerpike has a psychosexual obsession with titus groan and also wins in the end

[quietwingsinthesky]

(mental illness voice) i should replay tales from the borderlands

[moe-broey]

Bitchass page that wouldn't photograph well unless if I physically removed it from my sketchbook 🙄 (also didn't like how it cropped when I tried splitting it up 😔)

Anyways this is a prelude to the other post! Also maybe a bit of a test run as I've been working on Moe a lot as like, a character in and of itself.

[bitterseaproduction]

Awesome: I've been brainstorming ways to expand the plot with my side characters, and they have become so much more! They have added so much depth and content to the story!!

Problem: I have been expanding on my side characters and they are adding so much content.

[scattered-winter]

ok. this might be slightly insane but uhh...how do you feel about doing all 4 pevensie kids (or however many of your choosing) for character bingo? i know they're probably not, like, blorbo status but your narnia posting around thanksgiving made me think of them. (if not them, i propose: owen bc your owen rants delight me, and judd bc. judd <333)

AKSJLDFKSHDGISLRIJSKHG UR SOOOO VALID ACTUALLY !!! i'm gonna do them all <333 because i want to <333 i've actually never read the narnia books so these are all the movie kids <3

lucy, edmund, susan, peter <3 you've awakened something in me <33

everything on this is derogatory <3 i have a rich inner world where owen is a genuinely interesting character with a genuinely interesting narrative but i also don't give a fuck about him so i'm probably never gonna talk about it <3

judd <333333333 my beloved <33333333333333 the only wrong thing he's ever done is support owen in any way shape or form and that's just down to the writing constantly propping owen up and so i choose to ignore it all <3

[cicadaland]

seriously though this persons understanding of grammar really shows the failings of the education system of whatever state theyre from 😭😭😭 the constant switching between tenses and misuses of “you’re” and “your” AND the weirdly nonrhythmic changes of perspective is so annoying.... I hope they improve their writing towards the end at least but the fanfic was started in this January and ended JUST yesterday so theres NOTHING I CAN DO AUUUUUGH. and yet I keep reading.

[lurkingshan]

Japanese QL Corner

In which I cling to the last vestiges of two of my favorite shows of the year, write a eulogy for one of the most disappointing, and rejoice over the entry of a new fav. These shows are available for weekly streaming on Gaga unless otherwise noted.

Mr. Mitsuya's Planned Feeding

Farewell to a wonderful show. @isaksbestpillow has posted all seven episodes as of last week, so if you've been waiting for a binge, now is your chance. I already said a lot about why I loved this one, so I'll just use this space to urge you again to watch! This show is a goddamn delight.

Takara's Treasure

The main narrative ended last week, but this week we got a sweet little epilogue and one more visit with Takara and Taishin. I enjoyed the brief glimpse into their near future and getting to see Taishin turn 20 with his very first fuzzy navel, though I was a bit sad we got a repeat of the finale's themes rather than treading new ground for their relationship (I could not have cared less about the fujoshi writing RPF). This was a lovely show and I will miss these characters.

Happy of the End

CWs: Assault, child abandonment, child molestation, childhood sexual slavery, dubcon (including between the main characters), human trafficking, rape, sexual coercion and exploitation, suicidal ideation/possible attempt, unsafe S&M practices, violence

A very rough week for this show in terms of the content--please mind the triggers above because these are explicit depictions and it can be hard to stomach. I am waiting to see where this show is going with its themes before I make a final judgment, but watching the fourth episode in particular, some parts felt like crossing the line into gratuitous trauma porn that provided little additional illumination. We'll see how it shakes out in the end, but please take care with this one. I continue to find the characters and relationship dynamics compelling, and I am invested in Haoren and Chihiro's attempt to have a relationship despite the metric ton of baggage they are shouldering between them. Neither is equipped to even have any idea what a healthy relationship looks like, but they see something in each other and they want to try. That tiny bit of hopeful but likely doomed thinking may be all we have to cling to in this story.

I Hear the Sunspot

Sigh. I am sad about what this show could have been. For me, the finale definitely did not succeed at sticking the landing and making the last six weeks of wheel spinning feel worth it, and this show is going down as one of the big disappointments of the year for me. As you know if you've been keeping up with this weekly post, I loved the first half of this show, and Taichi's original characterization, so much. And I don't understand what happened here. The second half has felt like a completely different, confused, demonstrably worse show. Taichi hasn't felt like himself in weeks, the plots with Maya and the job at Sign were poorly grounded, inconsistently executed, and offered little pay off either thematically or in terms of character development, and the romance writing was a complete failure. It was actually painful to see Kohei run after Taichi and confess to him again, and the directing and editing of that sequence was so muddled that I had no idea what I was supposed to understand about Taichi's emotional journey or why this was the moment he was suddenly able to reciprocate. After all that brooding and his big speech about communication, he did not communicate much of anything to Kohei in the end. And I'm supposed to be content with leaving them here? Deeply unsatisfying on just about every level.

I understand from @twig-tea that while the story followed the beats of the manga's first two volumes at a high level, this production chose to remove many of the contextual details that actually made sense of the characters' behavior. It also seems they didn't understand they were setting up character arcs that did not get resolved until a later volume the show will not cover, thus ensuring the story would end at the wrong place. Just a baffling set of adaptation choices, and so much wasted potential. It's a shame.

Love is Like a Poison

But at least we have a new favorite coming in hot a week sooner than expected! I absolutely loved this first episode, in which we meet Shiba, our cold-hearted lawyer with delusions of grandeur and a sexually charged fixation on his house plants, and Haruto, our flirty scammer who has his number. This show is really well written and packed a ton of story, comedy, and deep characterization into its first episode. It's a promising start! For now it’s only available grey outside of Japan; I am hoping it will get picked up for proper international distribution soon.

Tagging @bengiyo to add this week's anime update.

[goodnightmemes]

KNIVES OUT (2019) SENTENCE STARTERS

❛ Anything you need. You’re part of this family. ❜

❛ Kids today, with the internet. It’s amazing. ❜

❛ I read a tweet about a New Yorker article about you. ❜

❛ I’m here at the behest of a client. ❜

❛ You will find me a respectful, quiet, passive observer of the truth. ❜

❛ Are you baiting me? ❜

❛ You think I am dumb enough to be baited into talking family business. ❜

❛ This is not how I wanted to have this conversation. ❜

❛ He’s always been the black sheep of the family. ❜

❛ Are you, goddamn, insane? ❜

❛ You tell her or I will! ❜

❛ I know it’ll hurt, but it’s all for the best. ❜

❛ I expect it’s going to be about something, if not extraordinary, then at least interesting. ❜

❛ Does having a kind heart make you a good nurse? ❜

❛ Just the thought of lying, yeah, it makes me puke. ❜

❛ Have you seen her insta? She’s an influencer. ❜

❛ Can I wait inside? I feel like I shouldn’t be here. ❜

❛ So, somebody suspects foul play. ❜

❛ It makes no damn sense. Compels me though. ❜

❛ I don’t know why we keep going over this. ❜

❛ Physical evidence can tell a clear story with a forked tongue. ❜

❛ Can you just take your goddamn medicine and go to bed? ❜

❛ You really love drama, huh? ❜

❛ Why can’t I beat you at this game? ❜

❛ Such a bad loser you are. ❜

❛ There’s so much of me in that kid. ❜

❛ Playing life like a game without consequence, until you can’t tell the difference between a stage prop and a real knife. ❜

❛ I don’t fear death. ❜

❛ I don’t fear death. But, oh God, I’d like to fix some of this before I go. ❜

❛ Hey. You had a long day. You wanna do drugs? ❜

❛ I messed up. ❜

❛ You know, this is an interesting and efficient method of murder. I need to write this down. ❜

❛ There is no time, you have to listen! ❜

❛ If what you said is true, I’m gone, there’s no saving me. ❜

❛ But you have to do exactly what I tell you. ❜

❛ Will you do this? This last thing. For me. ❜

❛ What do you want me to do? ❜

❛ It sounds crazy, but it will work. ❜

❛ Don’t lie. Tell fragments of the truth. ❜

❛ I keep waiting for the big reveal, where it all makes sense. Wouldn’t that be nice? ❜

❛ Jesus, I’m gonna disappear until the politics talk is done. ❜

❛ Something is afoot with this whole affair. I know it, and I believe you know it too. ❜

❛ I trust your kind heart. ❜

❛ Be it cruel or comforting, this machine unerringly arrives at the truth. ❜

❛ You do as I say and everything will be just fine. ❜

❛ Best judge of character is a dog. ❜

❛ I don’t feel like talking. I’m distraught. ❜

❛ People grieve in different ways. ❜

❛ I don’t know what any of that means. ❜

❛ Now, you heard something. Spill it. ❜

❛ Maybe this might finally make you grow up. ❜

❛ This might be the best thing that could ever happen to you. ❜

❛ Nothing good is ever easy. ❜

❛ Up your ass. ❜

❛ Matter of fact - eat shit, how’s that? ❜

❛ The game is afoot, eh Watson? ❜

❛ Please accept it with grace and without bitterness. But do accept it. ❜

❛ You little bitch! ❜

❛ Did you know about this? Were you in this from the beginning? ❜

❛ Were you boinking my father? ❜

❛ In the meantime I’d maybe run. ❜

❛ I’m not on Twitter anymore. ❜

❛ You look like you’re gonna pass out. Have you eaten anything today? ❜

❛ I know I shouldn’t say this out loud, but when he told me, I… Jesus, I coulda killed him. ❜

❛ You asshole. ❜

❛ Tell me everything. ❜

❛ There is much that remains unclear. ❜

❛ I suspect foul play. ❜

❛ I have eliminated no suspects. ❜

❛ You’ve come this far. Let me help you go all the way. ❜

❛ What’s going on? This isn’t you. ❜

❛ You should do whatever you think is right. ❜

❛ You have to make things right. ❜

❛ I want you to know I’m gonna take care of you. ❜

❛ You lay low for a couple of days. Wait for this investigation to blow over, and it will. ❜

❛ Are we rich? ❜

❛ Why is grief the providence of youth? ❜

❛ I’d imagine that age deepens all feelings. Including grief. ❜

❛ One thing I assume of age is weariness. Damned if I don’t get more tired every day. ❜

❛ I think you have something you wanna tell me. ❜

❛ I don’t like any of this. ❜

❛ What kind of blackmail scheme is this? ❜

❛ You regret helping me yet? ❜

❛ Oh my God. I’m just pure adrenaline right now, I feel like I swallowed bees. ❜

❛ That was the dumbest car chase of all time. ❜

❛ Strange case from the start. ❜

❛ Listen, I don’t know what you want. Whatever it is, we can work it out. ❜

❛ I don’t want any more surprises. ❜

❛ God, you’re not much of a detective, are you? ❜

❛ You make a pretty lousy murderer. ❜

❛ You’re a pack of vultures at the feast. ❜

❛ Is anybody else confused? ❜

❛ I’m so sorry. I told them everything, I figured it was up. I’m sorry. ❜

❛ You shared a love of twisting the knife into one another. ❜

❛ I’m warning you! ❜

❛ You won’t get away with this. ❜

❛ A twisted web. And we are not finished untangling it. Not yet. ❜

❛ This is stoopid with two o’s. ❜

❛ You don’t have a shred of evidence. You’re just spinning a fairy tale. ❜

❛ In for a penny, in for a pound. ❜

❛ I knew you were a no good son of a bitch! ❜

❛ And then you’ll see just how much hell I can wreak on your life. ❜

❛ You vicious little bitch! ❜

❛ What the shit!? ❜

❛ I want you to remember something that’s very important: you won not by playing the game his way, but yours. ❜

❛ You’re a good person. ❜

❛ I have my own opinion. But I have a feeling you’ll follow your heart. ❜

[textfromthelookout]

if you have the time, I wanna know what makes vegeta so compelling to you, whole ass character arc stuff and what not. I wanna hear you go off on your short king.

Anon do you understand what you’ve unleashed? I don’t think you understand what you’ve unleashed. Or if you do understand, I can almost guarantee you aren’t prepared. This is almost 3000 words of me frothing at the mouth. I hope you know you asked for this. Like the reason I was so late answering was because I wanted to do it justice and could not figure out what I wanted to yell about first.

I guess to understand why Vegeta’s development is so fucking staggering to me, you have to understand who he starts as when you meet him.

Vegeta is around 4 or 5 when Freeza destroys Vegetasei. He’s roughly 30 when he comes to Earth for immortality. In between are two and a half decades of being taken from, which he suffers only because he believes wholeheartedly that he will grow strong enough to kill Freeza and take it all back from him. He lands on Earth with little to his name beyond his pride in who and what he is, and power that, while paltry compared to Freeza and the people in his inner circle, surpassed and still surpasses every member of his race.

Right?

One of the biggest things about Vegeta in Z is that there is A Way Things Are Supposed To Go and when they go any other way, he cannot let it go. Losing to anybody other than the people he has known for years can kill him is unacceptable. Even more so if it’s to another Saiyan. Even more so when this Saiyan is such a disgrace to the blood in his veins. The loss is an impossibility and has to be rectified. Vegeta limps off of Earth with two big driving forces now: kill Freeza for vengeance, kill Kakarot to mend his pride (or at least beat him so far into the ground that his superiority is unquestionable).

Namek is where Vegeta gets really interesting. He’s fresh off a stinging defeat that put a couple cracks into his sense of certainty and self. He knows a way to get what he wants (the Dragon Balls on Namek). He’s in a race against the powers that be for it. He has something of an ace in the hole in that he worked out how to sense ki while he was flying half dead through space, so he’s no longer forced to rely on a scouter—on Freeza’s technology. He intends to make a clean break, and for a while it goes according to plan. Zarbon’s a stumbling block, but he makes it work in his favor, takes all the Dragon Balls Freeza collected and escapes with his life to boot.

And then another repeating theme surrounding Vegeta in Z comes into play. He’ll be a hairsbreadth from getting everything he wants before it all comes crashing down around him, largely due to things entirely outside his control. He couldn’t have used the Dragon Balls even if he had decided to press Gohan on what he was doing in the middle of nowhere with a ‘watch’, because he doesn’t have a password. The Ginyu Force thrashes him, Goku shows up stronger than ever. It’s fine though, because now he knows how to get the Dragon Balls to work, so he’ll never suffer defeat again—it’s a moot point.

…Right?

I think that the point in the story where Vegeta well and truly starts to come unraveled as a person is pretty immediately after Porunga dies and Freeza starts cycling through his transformations. Because like, rudimentary or no, Vegeta’s ki-sensing ability still works. He’s suddenly faced with irrefutable proof, that he can feel in the entire essence of his being, that his power is nothing to Freeza. And he lies to himself, because he can’t accept that he’s outclassed by the magnitude he is. Because this isn’t The Way Things Are Supposed To Go. He’s supposed to avenge his people and embody the legend. He refuses to bend, and so, he breaks.

And it’s sad, y’know? The way he just… stops fighting. For his whole life, he sweats and bleeds and swallows his bruised pride for the sake of survival and hope and what does it get him? I think all the goddamn time about the anime’s interpretation of this, where Vegeta being broken for Piccolo/Gohan/Krillin to witness up close is a deliberate choice on Freeza’s part*. In fact, I may never stop thinking about it. It’s not enough that Vegeta loses his will to fight, he has to know that others know that he gave up, that he can’t do anything against this monster even if he hadn’t. It’s a stunningly cruel blow precisely because he’s so proud and strong.

The man who dies on Namek crying at the feet of both of his bitterest enemies, begging one of them to kill the other for the sake of their race—who in that final moment lets his helpless frustration, his grief, his pride in his people supersede his own personal pride as warrior and prince—is not the same man who fought Goku on Earth. That man is in pieces, and Vegeta will spend every moment for years afterward trying to put him back together with saltwater and desperation. We meme on how death means basically nothing in Dragon Ball, but I go nuts thinking about how, intentionally or not, Toriyama managed to twist that to work with Vegeta’s development.

Because now Vegeta has to reckon with his many abject failures for longer than the few minutes before sweet oblivion, you see. Now it all matters again. As long as he’s alive, he’s still being taken from.

(Bulma’s one of the few—if not the only—person to simply give him something without coercion, or prompting, or obligation. Certainly the first we see. She had every reason to tell him to fuck off, really. She didn’t have to offer him a place to stay.)

Vegeta has a transitive hierarchical logic on strength, which comes up again towards the end of Cell that I’ll touch on when we get there, but for now it will suffice to say that in order to keep moving forward, he has to readjust his purpose in life to focus solely on beating Goku. If he beats Goku, then he beats Freeza, since Goku beat Freeza. Step one, obviously, is attaining Super Saiyan. And he’s so fucking committed to that that he unwittingly locks himself out of it, up until he leaves partway through the three year gap before the androids.

I could write another entire essay on how Super Saiyan can be read as a trauma response and how it differs between all the Saiyans in Cell saga (and especially about Goku on Namek), but this is surely already more than you bargained for when you opened this can of worms, so, Vegeta. When I think of Vegeta’s awakening to Super Saiyan, I tend to default to the original dub’s take (ep129), because it has lived in my head rent free since I saw it and it will not give me peace.

Take this part of my rambling with a grain of salt, I know I’m about to get a little ‘it’s not that deep’ about it, but. Here’s my interpretation of this. Vegeta only attains Super Saiyan once he has done away with distractions—not entirely because now he can focus on nothing but his training, but because he’s inadvertently given himself space to even begin to process all the shit from the last 25 years of his life, even if he fights it every step of the way as weakness. All the self-hatred, yes, but also the aforementioned frustration, the grief, the anger. The helplessness. ‘I didn’t care if I lived. I didn’t care about anything.’

Ultimately the trigger to Super Saiyan is a single moment of all-consuming emotion, so whichever thread of canon you personally subscribe to, the facts are that something happened in Vegeta out there in the middle of nowhere space. And he returns to Earth riding high. I’m not gonna lie, he’s rocking some seriously manic energy when he shows up to waste Android 19, and honestly why wouldn’t he be? He’s latched onto this new power and he doesn’t have to feel anything else. Things are finally going right. He’s invincible. He’s the king again. This is The Way Things Are Supposed To Go.

…

…right?

Super Saiyan is supposed to be a solution for Vegeta, and instead it eventually turns itself into a problem during Cell and the androids. To be fair, he can’t misestimate the strength of an opponent he can’t sense in the first place, but even so, he’s so blinded by the euphoria of succeeding for once in his goddamn life that he can’t imagine that anything can be stronger than him. Androids 17 and 18 are a rude fucking awakening. They are the ultimate pulling-the-rug-out-from-under-you vibe check. All those pieces that he struggled so hard to put back together, kicked apart again without thought or effort. He has a bit of a crisis over it, understandably.

In the interest of brevity, I’m glossing over the intermediary parts between Vegeta coming out of the time chamber (wish we had more info on what transpired in there, personally) and the tail end of the Cell saga, because it’s something of a repeat of what he did with Freeza, except he’s using Goku’s ‘let Freeza power up to 100% to hammer home his superiority’ logic. I made a previous post on my main blog about the post-Cell part of Vegeta’s character arc, which I’ll copy down here with some minor revisions:

The hell of Vegeta swearing to never fight again is that he actually follows through, at least in the beginning.

There are seven years between Cell and Buu. In every version of the media I’ve gone through—English manga, uncut dub, uncut JP, Kai dub—Bulma says that Vegeta has trained the last five years before the tournament. Which can only mean that there was a two year gap right after the Cell Games where he didn’t train at all.

And like. Can you really blame him. His purpose in life has been cut out from under him not once but twice, first by Goku attaining Super Saiyan and avenging their people by killing Freeza, and then by Goku’s decision to stay dead and deny him the opportunity to surpass him. His strength has proven insufficient time and again no matter how hard he works, overshadowed by that of a boy half his age, who doesn’t even like to fight. His pride hinges on both of those things and even before that was mercilessly trampled on. He has no people. No planet. No purpose, power, or pride.

I really do think the only things keeping him going by this point are inertia and spite. Almost without doubt, this is the absolute nadir of Vegeta’s existence: at least, the nadir for the man he thinks he has to be, or can’t reconcile not being. If he has nothing, if the last things tethering him to his supposed innate nature (to borrow a line from this fic, shameless plug,) are torn away from him, what is left for him to do but accept defeat and submit to change?

What he doesn’t know yet is that that’s okay. He doesn’t know yet, but the seven years that Goku is no longer a presence in his life is perhaps the best thing Goku could have possibly given him. Without Goku physically there to be actionable on (for lack of a better phrase), new things can grow in the spaces where his animosity and aggression burned holes in him. Even if Vegeta is still nursing the embers of that blaze and ignoring the encroaching growth as hard as he can, he is still beginning to care about things that the old him wouldn’t. (coming back to Vegeta’s logic on strength: to Vegeta, Gohan’s victory over Cell is also Goku’s victory, and Trunks’ loss is his own loss. Bulma mentions to Gohan that he’s dead set on making Trunks stronger than him, and why would Vegeta care about that goal specifically unless Trunks’ victory over Gohan is also Vegeta’s victory over Goku?)

And then.

And then all of a sudden, Goku is back in the picture. And when he comes back, so does the Vegeta from before, like a relapse.

Because as much growing as does, he still has seven years to gnaw on the same question he has been for ages now. Why is Goku so much stronger than he is, being what he is? Why is he so inadequate? There is now a window, fleeting as it may be, for Vegeta to get some answers he had no reason to assume he’d ever get. There is now the terrible possibility that he can make things go The Way They Are Supposed To Go. And Goku’s willing to let him take that shot and get those answers, right up until the whole business surrounding Buu disrupts everything and then he isn’t anymore.

Because the thing is, they were scheduled to fight each other before anybody else. Vegeta was not supposed to see the gap between himself and Goku until he was experiencing it firsthand. Picture for a minute the timeline in which the tournament plays out normally. Goku and Vegeta fight, Goku wins, and then Vegeta’s only recourse is to demand answers from Goku—who would surely give them, to the best of his ability!—or to come to his own conclusions and act from there. Either he makes peace with affairs, uneasy as it may be, or he blows up immediately, and Goku is there to stop him before he gets too out of hand. Instead, what happens is that he’s given the opportunity to realize that he’s still inferior, he still doesn’t understand why, and most importantly, that there’s a third option open to him. At the cost of his will, there is a way.

Submitting to Babidi to force Goku’s hand and close the gap is the act of a man who knows that he is running out of time. Whatever pride Vegeta still has would not possibly have allowed this unless he was so desperate for closure that he couldn’t see another way. For ten years he’s been trying to rebuild a sandcastle below the high tide line, and it’s not that he’s too stupid to move farther up so he isn’t freshly shattered at every pass—it’s just that trying to power through in the face of futility is literally all that he knows to do. He has been coming apart stitch by stitch ever since he met Goku, his worldview and his preconceptions of destiny and self dissolving in slow motion under his feet. Goku will only be here for a day. This is the last chance he has, and he knows it. He knows he’s not going to see Goku in the afterlife, even before he asks Piccolo.

What the fuck else was he supposed to do?

The music in the background of this scene is ‘Trapped Between Past and Present’ and if that doesn’t sum up the backbone of Vegeta’s arc in Z, then there’s nothing that does.

The beauty of his sacrifice is that he still has the mark of evil on his forehead when he dies, even though he’s bucked Babidi’s mind control by that point. He chooses the present. He chooses to symbolically and very literally raze his old self to the ground for the sake of all that his new self cares for. That is why the impermanence of death in Dragon Ball works for him. That’s why I go insane over the Majin arc specifically. New growth roots in ashes, phoenixes and sapling trees both.

Super (and end of Z) is where you get to luxuriate in that growth and watch it pay off, and oh my god does it ever pay off. Without going deep into spoiler territory (formally begging all of you to read the manga here), the later arcs begin to address Vegeta reckoning with his personal sins against the Namekians, and those of his race, who destroyed countless worlds under Freeza. Vegeta and Beerus have a conversation in chapter 69 of Super where things I’ve described in this here essay are worded explicitly into the canon. I think of it to this day. I think of all of the things Vegeta does in Super and I think it’s incredible just how far he’s come.

Before creation comes destruction.

Alright that’s enough pretentious meta. Here’s Vegeta being very happy about a well-earned victory. Isn’t he so fuckin’ cute.

*ep85, or 41 if you prefer Kai

[kandisheek]

FIC REC WEEK 23 – POST-CA:CW

Over Sea, Under Stars by vorkosigan

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: T Words: 36,651 Tags: Depression, Fix-It, Texting

Summary: Tony gets the phone, but he never uses it and he never intends to. Or, he doesn’t until Steve starts texting him, asking strange questions about medication and mental health, which is when Tony gets worried. (A texting fix-it that grew beyond all proportion. Deals with depression and anxiety quite a lot. There is even some plot in there somewhere.)

Reasons why I love it: This fic makes me so goddamn emotional. They hurt each other so much, and the guilt floating around is so thick it feels like it's choking me. But when things get better, it's so rewarding and satisfying, it almost makes me cry. Also, if you read this, pay attention to all the time-stamp descriptions, because they're hilarious. This fic is wonderful and a brilliant fix-it to the whole mess that is Civil War, so if you haven't read it yet, I hope you give it a whirl.

Forms of Love by bear_bell

Pairing: Bucky/Tony Rating: E Words: 33,596 Tags: Civil War Team Ironman, Separate Personalities (Winter & Bucky), PTSD

Summary: Months after the Avengers' dispute in Germany, the team returns to the US and moves back into the tower. As always, everyone pretends that nothing happened. Tony is just fine with this. He's used to pretending, and he'll be damned if he lets any of them see him flinch. Tony's the bad guy, after all. He's used to it. He's fine with it. He's good at it. Only now, there's something far worse loitering around the tower - The Winter Soldier. No one notices the guy at first, but when they do, Tony figures that he should have the soldier's back. Birds of a feather should flock together, and the bad guys should start a book club.

Reasons why I love it: I gotta be honest, I'm not a big fan of CW discourse when a specific side is taken. So it says a lot that I enjoyed this fic regardless. Even though it clearly leans towards one side of the argument, it's handled in a way that feels respectful and understandable. The writing is amazing, and I ADORE the relationship that Tony has with both Winter and Bucky. Plus, the way Bucky slowly learns to stop fighting Winter and starts getting along with him instead is really beautiful. This fic is wonderful, and I highly encourage you to read it!

The Crying Game by fohatic

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: E Words: 36,416 Tags: Angry Sex, Dubious Consent, Power Play

Summary: Steve Rogers stared at the dimly glowing digital screen of the little burner phone, rereading the text message as if it might somehow give away something he missed the first dozen times he scrutinized it. His frown only deepened, though, brows drawing together with consternation as the 88 characters only left him with an even more ponderous sense of uncertainty. If you meant what you wrote, I'll be at the Swissotel Sarajevo, 4/18. Presidential Suite. 9pm. Come alone. Nearly a year after Steve and Tony's fallout—and only weeks after hearing press rumors that Tony and Pepper's engagement was inexplicably called off—Steve gets a message on the dedicated burner phone. Despite his instinctive reservations, he's compelled to answer the mysterious call.

Reasons why I love it: Oh, this one hurts SO GOOD!! I just want to take them both and shake them, god, the emotional conflict is so raw and awful, and I LOVE it! It's like that feeling of wanting to peel off a scab, and then you do it and it hurts, but the itching goes away so it's worth it. If that makes any sense at all. Point is, I love this fic to bits, and you should give it a read (if you can stomach some unpleasant emotions, that is).

[batcastlesociety]

poorly constructed netflixvania rant under the cut,,, and yes i will be using capital letters for once! don't question it.

small warning because my rant is all over the place and by no means professional. i'm still relatively new to castlevania and may or may not get a few things wrong,,, sorry, if i do! 🙇🏻‍♂️ i plan on adding more to this later to make it seem less like alphabet soup, if you will.

Obviously, I'm aware that I'm a tad late to the whole "netflixvania ranting" thing, but honestly, I really don't care if I'm late or if this gains traction somehow or not. I just want to put this out there and get this OUT.

Now, I'd say that I'm awfully new to the Castlevania community itself. I'm a minor, so it's not like I grew up playing the games when they came out. 💀 Hell, I actually found out about Castlevania through watching its Netflix adaptation. But honestly, when I got Smash Bros Ultimate and found out about Richter and Simon, then doing further research and finding out about the games themselves, I'd say I abandoned the show immediately after that. Like, immediately. The games just interested me MUCH more!

Netflixvania is just... boring. It feels uncanny. Not canon, of course, just.. uncanny. Weird. Honestly, I feel horrible considering the large amount of people that actually LIKE Netflixvania compared to the games and say it's better, or even not have heard of the games in the first place! It's so stupid, when you compare the games and show.

Honestly, comparing the show to the games is... wild. I've seen people say that "oh, yeah netflixvania SUCKS, buuuut the first season is still badass!!!" Like... no, buddy... no... Netflixvania refuses to adapt Castlevania from the very start. The get-go, if you will. The very first season of this wretched show starts off completely off the rails. Not even the first season is above "sub-par".

The games have an immersive, charming, compelling storyline with a bunch of really well-constructed lore, at least in my opinion. I absolutely LOVE the whole plot of a massive feud going on between mortals who have to start a bloodline to fight this immortal Big Bad, and their reactions, their bad reputation with the Transylvanian townspeople despite the fact that the Belmont clan is pretty much the only thing keeping the former alive, and much more.

Anyway, back to this godawful adaptation.

First off, the goddamn showrunner of Netflixvania, Warren Ellis, literally CUT OUT A CHARACTER from the VERY VIDEO GAME THAT HE WAS ADAPTING INTO A SHOW, just because he thought that the character's name "sounded stupid", and that having a "pirate" character apparently wouldn't make sense, because ooh romania is a landlocked country!!! YOU IMBECILE. GRANT DANASTY IS NOT EVEN A PIRATE.💀💀💀 That was a mistranslation, for crying out loud! Isn't Grant a thief??? Not a pirate??? Also, who gives a shit if he even was a pirate?! This is the same adaptation that turned Trevor 'FUCKING' Belmont into a stumbling drunkard and Alucard into a horse-faced sex object. Everyone else is out-of-character enough by themselves! Who CARES if there's one single """pirate""" character??? This is the same show that has mages and Devil Forgemasters and, oh, let's not forget; FUCKING VAMPIRES??? This is a fantasy setting!! Why would you deny a canon character his chance in the spotlight for the sake of historical accuracy in a fictional world like this??

Besides, as aforementioned, Grant wasn't even a pirate in the first place! Ergo, it wouldn't matter if the story took place in a landlocked country or not!

Anyway, next point. Still about the characters, though. Mostly how they talk. Almost very single word these characters say is emphasized with a few "fuck"s and/or "shit"s, "bloody hell"s, etc., ESPECIALLY with Trevor. It's as if they're using curse words to sound more witty or mature, which is literally one of the first (and frankly, most obvious) of Red Flags for Horrendous Adult Media. In my opinion, at least. I just don't understand the reason why. I don't recall any of the Castlevania games having a single curse word in them (correct me if I'm wrong on that bit), but the games were still marketed for more mature audiences, too! You don't need profane language and a few splashes of vomit to make a compelling story for adults. Really, truly.

Back on that bit, it feels as if the writers REALLY wanted to make Trevor really witty. A bit of a whimsical jokester. Which, by the by, also if I recall correctly, isn't what his personality is really like at all. At least, not for the most part. In Curse of Darkness, Trevor was definitely a bit witty and cunning, but he also had a pretty damn big ego. He was confident, blunt and hotheaded. He's an arrogant bastard. CoD Trevor is intimidating as well. However, he's also honorable and likeable. Just a neat little guy.

Netflixvania Trevor, on the other end, is... odd. He's aloof, cynical, still having a bit of arrogance, but I don't know. It didn't feel like Trevor. I don't know how to explain it. Maybe I'll come up with something better someday else.

Well, now that I'm mostly rambling about Trevor now, I think I should talk about his actual outward design as well. Truly, none of the members of the Netflixvania cast have retained any of their ingame designs, at least for the most part. Except for Alucard, of course, but I'll mention that a bit more later. I'll only talk about the main trio (RIP Grant Danasty, you were never nasty and will be here in spirit...) and their designs right now.

Starting off with Treffy himself. His design is... a bit odd. Now, I feel as if it's his eye that irks me the most. Let me just pull up some visual aids for this one:

THIS is Netflixvania Trevor. I apologize in advance for the low-quality PNG I've just slapped here.

Anyway, look at his eye. It has a scar on it. Keep that in mind.

THIS is Trevor's actual, ingame design for the game that was supposed to be adapted correctly, and there's no sign of any eye injury here.

And in Trevor's CoD design, he ALSO has a scar... but this isn't all that similar to his DC design, either.

Personally, I feel as if Netflixvania Trevor looks more like Judgement Trevor, than anything...

You can see the scar on his eye (IGNORING the outfit...), but even then, JuD Trevor still has an eyepatch. Netflixvania Treffy does NOT have an eyepatch. These are just differences in design, mind you, i know absolutely nothing about Judgement itself.

Anyway, Treffy (i'll just be calling him that from now on) looks like a weird mix between JuD Trevor, because of the hair and body structure, and CoD Trevor, due to the visible scar, I guess.

...Which is even worse, because it just goes to show how much the creators of Netflixvania really deviated from the source material. Maybe I'm just fucking blind over here, but really I see no similarities between Treffy and actual DC Trevor. Except, maybe, like, the boots, but really?

Now, on to the rest of the party: (except for my boy Grant, who got fucking excluded...)

Sypha actually looks like this in DC:

She looks pretty different! Luckily, not the most different compared to what happened to my rotten soldier, my good time boy Trevor, but still quite different. Firstly, Sypha's face is covered, and her robes are quite big on her, and this was actually intentional!

For the record, if you haven't played DC, the whole reason why Sypha looks more boyish is because she was hiding her gender for the whole game in order to travel safely. Her true gender is only revealed at the end of the game. (Truly an iconic Samus Metroid moment you conjured up there, Konami.)

Anyway, this is Sypha's Netflix version.

Again, sorry for the weird pixel outline on the image. I didn't even edit these.

Anyway, luckily, this one isn't all that different, except the obvious fact that Sypha isn't hiding her gender in this one. Although, I still do definitely believe she was done dirty. I mean, look at that hair! Christ. I'm not sure why they didn't make Sypha hide her gender until the end like in the original game, but then again, a pretty concerning amount of canon events from DC and Castlevania as a whole I guess didn't make the cut, so I doubt it'd be wise to set the bar any higher than the floor.

Next up, oh no. Alucart. I'll be referring to his horse-faced counterpart as this, because although his design is still game-accurate... It was for the wrong game.

This is his Netflix design:

See, it's okay. It's a biiiit inaccurate to his SoTN version... (for SoTN swag, see here) but! This isn't a SoTN adaptation!!! THIS, chaps, chapesses, and chapsticks is supposed to be for Dracula's Curse! and this is Alucard's DC design:

See? Now, this is just completely different! In this version, Alucard definitely gives off traditional, pop culture vampire vibes, definitely taking after his father in this one. But Alucart... Poor Alucart... he's just an odd mix of SoTN and.. not SoTN. It's literally just his SoTN self, but in a more revealing outfit with random ass belts. It's as if they simply went on a quick Google adventure and looked no further for Alucart's to-be design. But seriously, why exactly are they showing his bare chest here? Why is he muscular? Huh?????

... These redesigns are... something else, that's for sure! Of course, I know that with every adaptation, there's bound to be some changes, but with Netflixvania, there are a LOT of changes, and absolutely none of them are necessary.

For one, characters like Godbrand and Lenore were never in the games! The writers just slapped in some random OCs and scrapped an actual, canon character for petty reasons. They also nerfed Hector because of a behind-the-scenes argument between writers. They let their own pettiness ruin a show. Hell, Warren Ellis himself didn't even know anything about Castlevania. He just took everything from secondhand sources! It's not professional or sane.

I honestly didn't even watch the full show myself. I probably should, so maybe I can edit this rant a bit. Anyway, I only watched S1 and a bit of S2. Honestly, I have no idea why they didn't just stop the show when Dracula got pounded into the ground for the umpteenth time. There wasn't any real need to continue the show for even more seasons. Just... I don't know. It's really weird??? The show just seems... boring. Like, seriously. What's even the point, at that point? Our favorite three stooges Johnny Test'ed Drac into oblivion, just as they needed to do, so why continue? It just seems as if they're milking it.

...Yeah i don't know how to continue this. In summary, play the games instead. Watch let's-plays, if you can. As I mentioned earlier, this rant may not be too professional or well-written, and I apologize if I mixed anything up. I plan on adding more to this later, but right now, my hands are getting numb q(╥﹏╥)p

[a0random0gal]

If you had the chance to change something about the dance of the dragons (TV show or book), what would it be? For example, how a character dies, which team a house is on,or an entire character personally. How would you change it to make the story better, in your opinion?♥️🖤💙💚

Ohh anon i've got a list.

When it comes to the tv show there are a few choices the writers made that just don't sit right with me.

Laenor

I do like the characterization they went for, he's a pretty cool dude who really loves his weird, dysfunctional family. What I really don't like is how they handled his death.

See I truly can't stand it when a character is sugar coated just because they're the protagonist and thus must be righteous and always objectively correct.

So to witness the writers white wash his murder, having him flee to essos instead of being killed by Rhaenyra pisses me off. I get that after showing them being good friends it would be very odd to have her kill him.

But that's the thing, they should have opted for a more ruthless Rhaenyra in the first place!

Laenor's death in the books (at least for me) was the first instance of Rhae Rhae making morally wrong choices in order to pursue her ultimate goal. It was compelling! Here she just takes the easy way out, without having to make a tough choice.

Also his survival really fucks her up when you really think about it. Now all her sons are bastards since her marriage to Daemon isn't valid, and for the upcoming season 2, how are they going to handle Addam and Seasmoke? Laenor is still alive, his dragon won't accept a new rider. This doesn't make any sense and just causes plotholes what the actual fu-

Sidenote: After Laenor's very moving speech on how he was done goofing off and was now willing to really step up for Rhaenyra and their family it's super strange to imagine him ditching them all immediately afterwards Lol.

Rhaenys

My gosh, where do I even begin with this woman?

She too is pretty cool at the start, but then episode 9 rolls around and I roll my eyes.

She's so hypocritical. She tries to shit on Alicent for "toiling in the service of men." When that's all she does in the goddamn story!

She wants Baela to get Driftmark, tells Corlys about it, he shuts off the whole plan cause he wants a kid who he's not even related to on the driftwood throne, and when she complains about it he dismisses her.

So what does feminist Rhaenys do about it?

She... submits to her husband, something she conveniently forgets about when talking to Alicent. My god. Just remove this entire exchange, it hurts to watch.

And the coronation scene, Jesus Christ! It was so cool in the books, why did they have to ruin it? Had they replaced it with something better I wouldn't have complained, but this is just, the worst.

Rhaenys shows how badass she is by.... Brutally crushing hundreds of small folks to death and almost slaughtering the greens.

Cool, cool, absolutely necessary. Thanks Sara.

And you know what's even more infuriating? When she flees to Dragonstone to inform Rhaenyra of all that happened. She says she didn't kill the greens cause she didn't wish to start a war. I'm sorry what?

That would have ended the war at the start! As glad as I am that Rhaenys didn't barbecue them it makes absolutely no sense!

If she had killed them there would have been no dance in the first place!

I hate these dumb show only moments. They needlessly complicated an already complicated story and just mess everything up.

There's probably other stuff I could rant on, like how Aegon was made a rapist sorely to make the audience think:

Oh look! The greens are so baad, they believe a rapist alcoholic douche should be in charge instead of our empowered dragon queen, they sure do suck!

Or how house Velaryon was disrespected and mistreated by D*emyra but still somehow decided to support Nyra's claim.

They didn't really have a motive to be greens though, so I think they should have stayed neutral. Their fervent black support makes no sense.

The writers really should have given them more reasons to back up the blacks or had their beloved queen treat them better so that their loyalty made more sense ( I mean holy hell I wonder how they will handle the two betrayers and Corlys's arrest lmao).

But other greens have already shat on these awful decisions and I won't beat a dead horse.

Book

When it comes to fire and blood I surprisingly have very little complaints, except of course, the Jaehaera situation.

My poor baby deserved better, I've made a post about it in the past

(where I ranted and said stuff I kind of regret now, don't post while very angry guys I don't recommend it)

tackling how the little queen was unnecessarily killed off and how her death genuinely adds nothing so why was it added? God I get upset just thinking about it lol.

Some people say George did it cause he needed Aegon's kids to be born after Viserys's, and apparently he couldn't fathom a married teen not having kids until her 20s, which is veery weird.

The more plausible theory is that he got rid of her cause he wanted more Velaryon queens to showcase how close they used to be to the Targs.

Which is something I had understood already thanks to Alyssa, the sea Snake and all the Velaryons who were masters of ships but whatever.

[mischas]

What do you think were the biggest missed opportunities when it came to the OC?

Lol my favorite topic (this is not at all exhaustive)

Not letting Marissa verbalize and process her trauma 1000% forever and ever amen. The show learns by the end of s1 that they can keep hurting her without much recompense. Oliver holds a gun to her head and bamboozles grown ass adults yet she shoulders all of the blame in the aftermath. Christ. Her father MOVES AWAY TO BE A BETTER PARENT BC HE CANT STOP SLEEPING WITH HIS EX? Please. How anyone came up with that and thought that was good writing I will never know. Marissa's SA'ed and nearly r**** by her boyfriend's brother and never says the words out loud or processes it because the shooting looms larger. Disgusting. Back in s1 Luke is more apologetic of his affair than Marissa's own mother is and HE'S the one who has to leave town? which leads me to

Getting rid of Luke made no sense. Instead of making Luke/Julie happen they should've had Luke/Marissa 2.0 happen. There was so much there to mine. Sometimes the show acts like they were a nothing relationship and other times like 109 we see they have deep-rooted love/fondness. Rushing RM (though they're my loves) after their 101-108 slow burn shot them in the foot since they were so uncreative later on. But then again TPTB were so reliant on the actors' mirrored personal lives that I'm convinced if they'd put RM off to s2 they would've butchered them thanks to the irl breakup. (This is still so insane)

Getting rid of Anna also made no sense. She was liked by the gen pop, she had good chemistry with everyone! What a damn waste

Seth/Marissa friendship!!!! It is so cute to think Seth is the one boy in Marissa's life that isn't falling all over her. They share the same music tastes, they have the same favorite book, they grew up privileged + depressed, they're neighbors, they're dating each other's besties, their families have a storied closeness, they've dated the same person, etc. It is SO insane how little they actually interact.

Not exploring the Jimmy/Kirsten dynamic more. I rewatched the pilot a few months ago and the hints to their history are so compelling. I remember thinking their tension was good enough to last several seasons. Cutting that out to uphold the sanctity of SK in s1 ended up being for nothing since s2 messed with SK even worse! So why!

Never utilizing Alan Dale well enough. Not only do they kill him for no reason, his death literally does nothing but give us an iconic coda and funeral scene. That's literally it. Having Caleb around while Kirsten goes to rehab is so much more compelling than having her go after he's died. And making us watch Caleb/Lindsay/Ryan for what seems like half a season is so unbelievably boring and ridiculous. Why are we supposed to care. This is taking away from Kirsten/Caleb material! which brings me to

Never giving Kelly Rowan much to do. What a goddamn waste. She absolutely kills her late s2 arc but then she leaves rehab two minutes into 301 and the Charlotte storyline mostly revolves around Julie. Jesus. People talk about the favoritism going on on that set with the younger actors (as they 1000% should and we should do it more), but there was some serious shit going on with elevating Melinda constantly and shafting Tate/Peter/Kelly forever. Especially Kelly. At least she was there and not essentially let go like Tate was (and Tate was a ~big name~ regular from the pilot!). But you can tell Kelly's got some feelings about how the show went for her and her screentime/importance.

Not cutting the Johnny storyline two minutes into filming 304. They had to know Mischa/Ryan D had no chemistry. We're supposed to believe Marissa's having some sort of emotional affair but there is absolutely nothing showing that to us. It's everyone telling Marissa she's got feelings for him, and Mischa doing her job well enough to convince us it's sketchy/complicated, but they have one (1) conversation in 306 that's mostly about Johnny's father or uncle that no one cares about. which brings me to

WE DONT CARE ABOUT GUEST STARS. stop spending so much valuable time on them. we just wanna see our s1 babes being cute and supporting one another that's literally it