#They invented the Mind Trap when they literally already had a villain who could control minds | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cblgblog · 3 years

Note

Hi there! I’m the one who went in the ask about Bucky’s arm and I just wanted to say thank you so much for your response! You genuinely give such thought out and honest answers, it’s kind of amazing I desperately wish I could write like that.

I think probably everyone had a slight laugh at at least one of the memes that people dropped, it unfortunately though evolved into such a negative space so quickly.

I’m also so sorry that you had to go through that.

I hope you have an amazing day!

Hey!

Listen, I appreciate you sharing, seriously. I had not looked at it from that angle before, and it’s an interesting take. Particularly because yeah, it’s Bucky of all people, not just a “regular” guy with a prosthetic, but a guy who’s already had so much of his autonomy hijacked.

As far as why there would be a ‘failsafe’ built into the arm—the ability to remove it, here’s my thoughts. Given now because I believe you mentioned it in your first ask and I forgot to address it ‘cause oops, lol.

If they were worried, why not give him a regular prosthetic, I believe you asked. I think there might have been a few things happening there, honestly. It’s very possible that they did make him a less…Terminator-esque one to start with, when they were still working on the brainwashing in the early days. Very possible he himself requested that, given his constant concern about hurting others if he loses control again. As he got further along in his recovery, Shuri could have moved him on to a more advanced prosthetic.

So, why do that if there was concern he’d hurt them with it? The short answer is that he for sure would’ve benefited from a better mouse trap, so to speak, during the Wakanda battle in Infinity War. I’m honestly sure he would’ve kicked ass even if they’d given him something made of wood, but a better model certainly helps. The longer answer is, I think, where things get interesting.

I honestly do not think Shuri is capable of not upgrading something. Like, she’s got Stark levels of ‘I can make this better,’ so even if he started out with a more typical prosthetic, how long could Shuri resist improving that? At the same time...she’s a teenager, and her dad is dead. Very publicly murdered, despite Wakanda’s infinitely better tech, despite the Dora, who can kill people with their fingernails, despite everything. They don’t talk about that at all in Black Panther, T’Chakka’s death and it’s impact on her. Which I get, because it’s ‘Challa’s story and all that, and that’s fine, but at the same time, it’s still a thing. We got a deep dive on T’Challa’s mourning, but not Shuri’s.

She’s 16 years old when her dad, the all powerful Wakandan king dies. She’s in charge of making the tech that protects Wakanda and it’s people. Now, that had nothing to do with the death. It’s not like they lost ‘Chakka because of a failure of one of her inventions. But still.

So they’ve lost one king before his time. T’Challa then dies in front of her, as far as she knows, in the Kilmonger fight. Erik takes over and Wakanda’s resources are briefly used for ill purposes. We’ve also got the history with Klaw here, and the fact that, however briefly, everyone thought this Bucky guy they’re now in charge of curing killed T’Chakka.

What I’m taking an extremely long time to say is, it would actually be weirder to me if there wasn’t a failsafe to remove the arm. I say this with hindsight, because I, like most people, I assume, had not even remotely thought of such a thing until the scene in the show. All this assuming it was Shuri’s idea her design, and not ‘Challa’s. Which is it’s own assumption, because the man is a genius in his own right, in the comics. Movies don’t really touch on it, but he does call that first Panther suit “my design,” the one Shuri calls old and then upgrades. Keep in mind too that T’Challa fought this dude. He knows how strong the man is, even if he no longer blames him for ‘T’Chakka’s death. You have a guy who the Black friggin Panther would have trouble beating, being brought into the inner sanctum of a notoriously isolationist country. You have this guy potentially being around T’Challa’s mom, his baby sister, other loved ones, people he’s not only known since birth, but who are now his literal responsibility. It is his actual job to protect the people of Wakanda from all threats.

What I keep taking a long time to say is that in hindsight, knowing the failsafe was there, it’d be weird to me if it wasn’t there, no matter how you look at it, who’s idea it was, etc.

Mind you, Bucky is Bucky and I also think that removing the arm would’ve done relatively little to reduce his ability to kick ass, had he wanted to, but that’s neither here nor there, just an observation.

Annyyyway, this is why everyone always regrets asking me things, on account of these Illiad-length answers, but I wanted to add that yeah, I can’t blame you for stepping back from the fandom. It’s an incredibly toxic place if you turn the wrong corner, don’t manage your contacts within it, etc. I watched the show without engaging too deeply in the discourse because so much of it was racist bs spewed at Sam, villainizing Sam for breathing wrong, villainizing Sam and Bucky both because they weren’t villainizing Steve, those dumb fucks, he betrayed them and they don’t even care...

Most of my engagement with any sort o MCU fandom has to be very carefully managed, because the place absolutely can be a hellscape. So again, can’t say I blame you or anyone else for stepping back.

That said, people like you, who show up to engage in discussion politely rather than screaming? You be the gold standard. Again, I appreciate you taking the time to share your viewpoint because I hadn’t caught it before.

You’re a star, you gave me an excuse to both think and rant too much, hope you have a fantastic day, thank you again.

#bucky barnes #black panther #t'challa #shuri #falcon and the winter soldier #fatws #mcu

6 notes · View notes

jiang-xinfei · 3 years

Text

Ok new fanfic Idea because of tumbler and honestly my mind is filled with nothing but plot but I cant write them😀cause I have no fcking motivation which sucks but anyways

So it nie huaisang cause why not? Ok first of all no one knew this but nie huaisang was studying demonic cultivation under Wei wuixian after and during the war while his dage wasn't there cause he kinda? Accidentally found it while he was being a sneaky little bitch and went to go and look for there sect scripts in his brothers room and found the secret about there sects saber. He knew smt was wrong with there sabers ever since he was a kid and saw them qi devitate and there strong but he didn't expect it to be this bad!!! Really! So when he found it he was determined to find a way to make it safe cause his pretty sure his dage wouldn't want to even change or bend down there Cultivation so he tries to learn and find a way using his knowledge in cloud recess he might not look like it but really his a genius his mind works the same as Meng Yao when it comes to absorbing knowledge but more he'll just glance at it once and he'll remember it not to mention once he learns/read smt he can master it in a few mins but he lies and puts up a facade as an idle young master who loves arts I mean cmon! Ik his throwing away his talent and all and he doesn't deserve it but who would want to put effort on smt he clearly doesn't need to?? No Offense on those who puts effort tho but really? If he can work smart and not hard he'd gladly take it and be idle and if push comes to serve then he'll be competent and use it only in the shadows tho like his mom did i mean cmon if he can't use his information net work that covers there whole continent to his wants then that's just stupid after all his mother only gave him 1/3 of what has to come in there info net works now but yea anyways so he looks for a way but couldn't find one unless he learns demonic cultivation he was scared at first ofc but after hearing through his information net work about wei-xiong he does it I mean what worse couldve happen? And besides his almost the same like Wei wuixian anyways just more practical and logical and also not a sacrificing idiot so he learns until he got caught by Wei wuixian really the only one who can see through his facade is Wei wuixian but his ok with it since he trusts him there like brothers so he knows so he tells Wei wuixian about it and why his learning demonic cultivation with some scolding on him and the next Wei wuixian said that he'll help and teach him to be safe and that's a command cause of he doesn't he'll tell his dage which is really scary especially when it comes through Wei xiongs mouth and say he will do it he will actually do it and if his learning under the famous yilling patriarch then it's a win win situation and a credit for his dear teacher saying he can't use the saber ever but at the same time is needed smt to protect himself his wonderful beloved teacher went and made a battle fan just for him and he adored it and there a lot of battle fans including the full and detailed blue print of each just incase they can't see each other anymore cause knowing the cultivation world being hypocrites it's only a matter of time so Wei wuixian made other battle fans but his favorite are the 7 element ones really he fcking loved those one was a powerful resentment battle fan that has literally everything about evil and bad it also converts resentment and use it as he pleases without getting hurt and that's his main weapon on using demonic arts

Next was a spiritual or light battle fan that can reshape it self and mask itself so no one knows it's there just incase to protect himself and converts spiritual energy into pure light/spiritual energy and he can release and use it to his will

Next were the wind/green water/blue fire/red and earth/brown fans that he can use to simply fcking control the elements like wtf?? That epic!!!!

And lastly his most favorite his spatial fan or that's what he calls it can use all elements spiritual and resentment energy to bend to his will honestly it's a mix of all his favorite six fans into one and he loved it not to mention it's also like a giquin pouch with endless storage so its better😙 and his core got rapidly fast and since he was already surrounded by resentment of dead animals he was pretty much adapt to it and it was fast but since he didn't want anyone to know masked his golden core to feel and look like the same golden core he had before with the help of Wei Xiong ofc until he mastered it,

and yea fast forward he learns demonic cultivation until Wei wuixian was deemed as a villain and he couldn't see him so instead he goes to him secretly and helps the only problem is that when everything turns upside down and Wei xiongs dead and they scavaged his cave really it broked his heart Into shatters especially when he couldn't stop his brother who lied to him and he only knew that the deed was done after and when he went there? It was everything after they took everything... That's what they thought tho he saw lan wangji had gone down with the kid and he was actually relieved that the kid ayuan who calls him. San-ge was alive and was taken care of the person who loved Wei Xiong so concluding that a yuan was fine and was gone he went to the cave that looked empty really tho it wasn't he went through there secret door where if only u use demonic cultivation and has been recognized as one of the owners of it can go in and open it so he went in took all the notes battle fans talismans arrays manuals everything that Wei Xiong created for him and other lessons that he couldn't take under him because of Circumancetances and put it into the fan cause his pretty sure ever since his brother came back he wasn't his brother anymore and his sure sooner or later he'd be trap inside of there sect so got everything and broke the door to never be open again

Fast forward about him learning about lan wangjis punishment he really lost all hope of the cultivation world at that and then his brother died by the hands of his sworn brother he lost all of it after knowing about it took all the yin iron shard they ever had every last piece of it including the one Jin guangyao was making(because of Wei Xiongs lessons his the only other one besides wwx that can control this damned thing)killed Jin guangyao burst into lan wangjis seclusion in secret told him about everything and that they can have a chance of going back to where everything started because he finished the time travelling array that Wei Xiong created and said " lan wangji Xiong I'll give u time to think about this until tmr at 10pm if u don't come then I'll go alone ik this hard on u but really if u don't want to then I won't force u and if ur asking whether Wei Xiong will be there? I'm not quite sure but I'm pretty sure I could bring back his memories but I'd rather not especially after everything he suffered I'm not gonna bring the person who was like a brother to me if it prevents him from ever to know of his suffering unless smt happened to force it..."

He left and waited for lan wangji and lan wangji came and they went to burial Mounds placed all the Stygian iron and draw the array they were allowed to bring one thing each so lan wangji brought his guqin the one they found on lan yis cave while masking it as wangji cause really it was also wangji at the same time cause fortunately huaisang to his surprised finished the invention Wei Ying made on merging spiritual weapons so he merge it before they got here nie huaisang bought his spatial fan who has almost everything inside it really and then one by one the Stygian iron broke and the array lighted up they went inside and everything went black... Then they woke up on there rooms

Nie huaisang in his room in Qing he and lan wangji in jingshi in there teenage bodies...

End!

Welp u guys can take this idea cause I'm pretty sure I ain't finishing this up so u guys can continue this if u want😝😘😘

#nie huaisang

2 notes · View notes

duhragonball · 3 years

Text

Cult Classic

I had a really exhausting week, so I’m going to try to chill out by writing this thing about cults that’s been bouncing around in my head since... oh, like January 6th? For some reason? But it’s also about my insanely long OC fanfic slash vanity project slash concept album. Join me, won’t you?

Okay, so back in... geez 2018? Has it been that long? Around October 2018 I started working out the details for the big climax of the “1000 years ago” section of my fanfic. From the start I had this idea that the Legendary Super Saiyan would be locked into a death struggle with pretty much the entire Saiyan population, led by a Saiyan King who just can’t handle being upstaged. But I had to figure out a lot of details to make that actually work. What I finally ended up with was the Jindan Cult.

Why a cult? Because I wanted my King character to be the main villain, but also be physically weaker, but also he needed to be powerful enough to challenge the heroine. I came up with all these different ways to beef up his power level without making him a Super Saiyan himself, but ultimately I wanted him to have an army of Siayans at his back. That led me to consider some sort of magic elixir that would make them all stronger, but especially the king, since he’s ultimately in this for himself. At first, I considered having him mind-control all of his goons, but I spent the mind control nickel in earlier arcs, and I’ll have to use it again later, because Towa and Demigra use it. Then I thought of drug addiction, which is sort of like mind control but not literal brainwashing or anything like that. And that led me to the cult concept.

One major inspiration for me was the real-life cult called “NXIVM”, which made the news back in 2018 when their leaders started getting arrested, including “Smallville” star Allison Mack. Every time I read about it, it felt like something from a movie, but it was real. I guess the celebrity angle made it more bizarre to me, because it’s sort of like “Hey, this isn’t just some group of randos; someone you’ve heard of is in this thing.” Not that I ever paid much attention to “Smallville”, but you get the idea. She didn’t just join NXIVM, she eventually became one of the top recruiters. Some of the character arcs in my fic were my own attempt to understand how a person goes from Point A to Point B.

The big plot hole, though, in my mind, was that I came up with this whole master plan for the bad guys, but it involved sending wave after wave of Saiyan cultists to die in pointless, unwinnable battles against Luffa. I couldn’t have them win much, because if they beat her, they’d just kill her, and the story would be over. It struck me as fishy that these Saiyans would sign up for a war where the casualty rate is 100%, but I tried to lampshade it as best I could. “Yeah, all those other chumps couldn’t beat Luffa, but I’ll pull it off because I’m special!” It still seemed a bit unlikely.

But then 2020 happened, and I guess the main thing I learned from that year was that people will accept almost anything in order to believe a comfortable lie. The joke I’ve seen on the internet is that we need to retire the expression “avoid it like the plague”, because it turns out a lot of people don’t actually avoid plagues very well at all. The horrifying thing about COVID-19 is how easily people will accept the climbing death tolls. “Oh, well this person was already in bad health, so they would have died eventually anyway.” I don’t want to get too political here, but I’m pretty sure a lot of the anti-mask, coronavirus-is-a-hoax crowd are the same people who made up tall tales about “death panels” in Obamacare. “They’re gonna euthanize your grandma!” they would say, but now they say your grandma is acceptable losses if it means reopening bars and restaurants.

Actually, I do mean to get political, because holy fuck, Qanon stormed the Capitol Building. Look, if you don’t believe Joe Biden won the election, I don’t know what to tell you, except please get far away from me, right now. If you’re not familiar with Qanon, a few years ago some guy on an image board posted a bunch of cryptic messages and claimed to be an important government figure who would know about important things. People started “deciphering” his “clues” and when he stopped posting new ones they started inventing their own “clues” and interpreting them any way that suited them. This led to an overarching narrative that Donald Trump was actually part of this massive sting operation to arrest hundreds, maybe thousands of left-wing politicians, celebrities, and whoever else. Any day now, he was supposed to have Hilary Clinton arrested, and also JFK Junior would somehow show up and help him, even though he’s been dead for 22 years. Every day, these Qanon guys would add on more bizarre lore to their “theories”, and every day none of their predictions would come true. Then Trump lost the election, which put them in a bind, because their whole mythology is based on the idea of him saving the world as POTUS, and now he wasn’t even going to be POTUS for much longer.

I’m pretty sure this had a lot to do with the lies about election fraud. Trump himself refused to accept defeat, and his supporters didn’t want to accept it either, so they all told each other that it wasn’t real, and they believed each other so much that they dug in their heels. But then they’d take this stuff to court and the judge would be like “Uh, what evidence do you have of mass voter fraud?” and they would just be like “lol nvm!” I mean, if there was proof for any of this, why would they not want a judge to see it? But for Qanon, it was more than just being sore losers. They needed all their whackamaroo predictions to come true, and Trump losing re-election would upset the applecart.

So then they started telling themselves that they could win this thing through the boring certification process. I think it was like, December 14 when all the states had to certify their results. So they held out hope that nothing was over until then. Then they pinned their hopes on the Electoral College, and that there would be enough faithless electors to hand Trump the victory, in spite of the voters. I found this one amusing, since I used to see tumblr suggesting the same thing back in 2016, when they were still trying to come up with ways for Bernie Sanders to win.

Then they decided Mike Pence could fix everything, because on Jan 6, Congress would officially count the Electoral Votes and formally declare the winner, and Mike Pence would step in and overrule the whole thing, because the Vice-President oversees that process. Except he just oversees it, he can’t legally change the outcome, especially on a whim. And then the riot at the Capitol happened, and I’m pretty sure all these Qanon types thought it would mark the beginning of a nationwide uprising, with all seventy-odd million Trump voters going apeshit, but it... didn’t work out that way.

Then they convinced themselves that everything was building to January 20, because the innauguration was actually a clever trap, and once Joe Biden took the oath of office, he could then be arrested for treason, so you see, they had to make it look like Trump lost the election, because it was the only way to fool Joe Biden into incriminating himself... or... something. But Jan 20 came and went, so the latest fallback position I heard was that there’s a double-secret REAL inauguration day, and it’s in March, and the January 20 one isn’t legitimate, even though Trump was inaugurated on January 20, 2016, but whatever. That, or the guy we see in the White House now is actually Trump disguised as Joe Biden, or a Joe Biden android or something.

I think I sort of understood that Qanon is a cult, but I didn’t really put the pieces together until the events of January unfolded. Pre-November, it just seemed like a conspiracy theory, without any real timetables or prophecies, like Flat Earth. But once the end of the Trump Administration was in sight, it really started to look like all the doomsday cults I’ve heard about over the years. The predicted events wind up failing to come true, and they invent new predictions to explain away the old ones. It’s not about the veracity of the claims as much as the claims themselves. People want to believe there’s this whole elaborate explanation for everything. They wanted to believe that Trump was this hypercompetent superheroic messiah, because the alternative is to face the uncertain reality: that he had no idea what he was doing, and real people were going to suffer for it.

I think I sort of worked that idea into my fictional cult, but I backed into it. NXIVM was a sex cult, not a doomsday cult, or an elaborate conspiracy theory, so I was mostly fixated on all the depraved things the cult could do to its members. But they all share the same lure: a belief system that promises to make everything fit. I’m not sure what the hook was for NXIVM, but Allison Mack didn’t go in thinking about how much fun sex trafficking would be. That came later, after she was convinced that NXIVM had all the answers, and one of those answers involved sex crimes, apparently. In the same vein, Qanon attempted to explain mass arrests and executions by claiming that Hilary Clinton eats babies or something. “Well, I don’t want babies to get eaten, so I guess breaking into the Capitol building seems like a reasonable course of action.”

Weighed against real life, a bunch of Saiyans accepting a 100% casualty rate doesn’t seem so outrageous. It also helps that sometimes the leaders of these groups can buy into their own hype, and think they’re infallible when they’re really not. This week, I started reading the Darth Plagueis novel again, and I’ve seen the Sith from Star Wars referred to as a cult, but I never gave it a lot of thought until I noticed that Plagueis buys into the whole Dark Side of the Force thing a little too hard. At times, he’ll wax philosophical about how the Jedi are the real bad guys when you think about it, and he’s not just saying that to be manipulative. He honestly believes that the Sith can save the galaxy from decline, which is stupid and hypocritical, because they’re the ones causing all the decline. I always got the impression that Darth Sidious understood that it was all about accumulating power as an end unto itself, and any high-minded talk of necessary evil was just to keep the rubes in line. Rise of Skywalker plays into that idea nicely. He somehow survived Episode VI, but he let the Empire collapse, because if he can’t rule it, he doesn’t want it to exist at all. But he’s still playing himself, because he thinks he can win by following the same failed ideology that got all the previous Sith Lords killed.

That’s pretty much all I have to say about it right now. I need to move on to other topics, because Towa’s not doing a cult thing, so my fic is moving in a different direction. But I feel better for getting this out of my head.

7 notes · View notes

artemis20 · 4 years

Text

Artemis Fowl’s hideous movie: A firey review

Today I’ve decided to see the nefandous movie known as “Artemis Fowl”, just because my aim is to completely destroy that movie as that movie destroyed the book series. Caution for there will be spoiler from both books and movie. You can read my first impressions from the trailer here, and I can say that they did not change.

First thing: Disney decided to “unite” the first two books from the Artemis Fowl’s series in one movie, which is not a good idea at the core, but they failed completely, not only because of the alteration of the plot that such a cut requires, but also because the movie fails as a stand-alone, since it ends without the defeat of the villain, thus opening for a sequel, BUT IF YOU NEED A SEQUEL YOU COULD HAVE DONE ONE MOVIE FOR THE FIRST BOOK AND ONE FOR THE SECOND AS IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN.

So now I’ll list the pro and the cons of the movie.

Pro (very few):

The Ireland is as always wonderful, I longed to see the green shores, visually it didn’t disappoint at that point. Fowl’s Manor was also ok, I liked the setting, less the colours of the building.

The graphic was actually great, I loved the representation of the LEP technology and the City of Haven. In general, all the movie was a pleasure for the eyes and a knife in the heart and brain for the story.

I actually didn’t mind the cast, since the beginning. I had no problem with a black Butler, or Juliet, and to me Holly didn’t seem too young, actually she was as I imagined her. Female Root didn’t bother me, because the change of sex didn’t affect the character, so kudos to that. The actors also I think they did a good job; the problem is the writing for some of them as I’ll show later.

I was so happy to see Foaly, I was really scared that they would have cut him. We’ve seen him very little, but he didn’t seem OOC.

The Haven part was okayish? I mean the plot of the LEP instability was from the second book and it was mixed with the Mulch-Holly encounter which was from the first book. The whole scene in the end kinda works, and it is one of the two watchable scenes of the movie.

The launch from E7 with the lava vamp was very impressive, I really liked it.

The kidnapping scene until the beginning of the Fowl Manor scene when Holly wakes up was actually good, can we pretend it’s the only scene from the movie?

The battle with the troll at the Manor was also okay, a little bit different from the book but not too much except for one thing: Artemis that shoots and jumps, and he doesn’t fail doing that. That character is not Artemis Fowl II, not in a million years. In the later books Artemis is forced to move a little to save his life, but he remains unable to perform notable physical task, he’s at best as able as us couch potatoes.

End of pros of the movie, total watchable time: ten minutes at most.

Cons (very long list)

The movie has problems since the beginning, the first scene is the abduction of Artemis Fowl I, so it seems okay, but then we see THE HUMANS ARRESTING MULCH DIGGUMS. That is NOT possible, the existence of the People is concealed and it remains concealed, if Mulch is arrested, half of the premise of the series, the reason why the LEP acts in the first, the third and the fifth book (which is stopping mud people from learning that fairies exist) is cancelled. I understand that they wanted to preserve the narration technique from the books, which is that the author is Artemis’s biographer, but it doesn’t work this way. Mulch can work as a narrator, but you can’t have him narrating it to humans. In later books, there’s a character who would’ve worked very good as the role of the listener, and is Dr. Argon, who works in a clinic in Haven, and he actually has this role in the last book.

Since the beginning the entire movie revolves around the search of this “Aculos”, which is the source of People’s magic. This thing doesn’t exist in the books, but the real problem is how it is used in the movie. It works as a deus-ex-machina at the end to resolve the father’s abduction, because they finished the time screen, but they still had to save him. So no mission on the Artic, no learning to become a team, just magical teletransport (which doesn’t exist but ok).

Artemis in the first scene is surfing. Book description of Artemis Fowl II: “Riding was the only form of exercise that Artemis had taken to. This was mainly because the horse did most of the work.” He’s also described as having “two left feet”, he is not the perfect specimen of humanity, he is the greatest genius that isn’t able to jump a rope.

The scene with the psychiatric seemed great (ignoring the reference listed in the following point), but it was completely ruined at the end: Artemis would’ve never stormed off that way, he is not a normal teenager, he is practically an adult in a teen body. He’s controlled, he doesn’t externalize emotion to people, he controls them perfectly and is capable of acting and disguise his true character if necessary, and he’s able to play the emotions of the people he has in front.

Angeline Fowl is dead in the movie. That completely cancels the reason that triggers Artemis’s redemption. At the end of the first book he gives back half of the gold obtained by the people for his mother’s health, and in this book his family is pretty much the only thing he cares about besides his goal. Until the fourth book almost all his good actions are triggered by guilty conscience, caused by thinking of what his mother would’ve wished he would be. Angeline is the first positive force in Artemis’s life, and her worsened health is one of the reasons that we see such an evil Artemis in the first book.

The worst part of the movie is the fact that Artemis Fowl Senior knows about the People and works to protect them. Oh boy, I cannot even begin to list how much every word of that sentence is wrong. First: the Fowls were never protector, only criminals (yeah in the movie we are told they are, but they are justified by their motives, in the books they are criminals who care only for themselves). Second: Artemis Fowl discovers the Fairy People all by himself, it is the first time that the readers understands how clever he is, Artemis begins from zero (or only with the tales and legends) and he discovers the existence of the People, he manages to have a Book and have it copied, he decodes it and learns the language and the rules and exploits them for his plans. The Artemis in the movie doesn’t do that, he has everything already prepared by his father (to the point that I actually was led to believe that Book! Artemis was the father, but not such luck unfortunately). He is not a genius, he’s a normal teenager. I repeat: THAT. CHARACTER. IS. NOT. ARTEMIS. I will call him Orion from now on, since calling him Artemis is an insult.

Mulch mentions Butler’s name. OH. MY. GOD. His name is SECRET! Only his family and his dojo master know it, and he reveals it to Artemis in the third book because he’s in a death-or-live situation. There is no way that Mulch knows his name.

Artemis Fowl Senior was not abducted by Fairies, it was the Russian Mafia. People don’t usually mess with humans, it’s Artemis II that goes and start the interaction by kidnapping Holly.

Opal Koboi (who doesn’t even appear in the first book) is revealed to be the villain almost at the end of the second book, in a twist similar to the Bellweather’s one in Zootopia. Revealing it at the beginning takes away the twist.

After the call, Orion doesn’t deduce anything about the kidnapper and makes no plan, which Book! Artemis would’ve never done, but we are in front of his dumber twin soo…

Why put the plot that Mulch is a giant dwarf? He is not so much taller than other dwarfs in the books, I don’t see the point of this plotline.

Another invented plotline: Holly’s father. Holly has a parent who died heroically but it’s her mother, and she died because of mud people. This, in the books, is another reason why Holly doesn’t trust Artemis the early books, but in the movie is the reason why Holly trusts him, because their fathers worked together, exactly the opposite. At the end of the book, Holly relates to Artemis’s pain of having an ill parent, but it is pity, not trust.

Again, Orion does nothing but follow instructions, ok, let’s move on.

Juliet is too young; also, why did they make her Butler’s niece instead of his sister I don’t know.

This point deserves a standalone post, however I will start mentioning it here: I’m Italian, I’m fed up with the stereotypical representation of my country. It’s racist Disney, stop it.

Because of the Book’s rules Fairies cannot enter in a human building without permission. If they do, they feel ill, vomit and on the long run they might lose their magic. In the movie Orion invites Holly in the Manor but she was not affected by the rule at all. Also, this is the reason why the LEP recruited Mulch, he entered in so many human houses to steal things that he lost his magic, so that rule doesn’t apply to him anymore.

I only noticed when it happened that Orion changed in a suit after half of the movie. Artemis had to be forced to wear jeans from his mother.

The scene where Butler defends the Manor is also in the books but here Orion fights, I mean he’s not Artemis, who would have observed from a window

Why Opal claim to act for the People? Opal doesn’t care at all about the others, she just wants the powers for herself.

Why are Orion and Holly bonding? It’s too soon, they literally have no reason to trust each other at this point. Also of course Orion is so stupid that Holly manages to make him take off his sunglasses, he’s lucky that she was not book! Holly, because she would’ve knocked him down.

Mulch enters the Manor and tries to open a safe, and Orion declares that’s “exactly what he wanted”. Since I still hoped that that character was Artemis, I thought that either the safe was a test to prove Mulch’s ability before recruiting him or a trap. No, instead it was the fact that Orion isn’t able to open a safe inside his own house. How am I supposed to believe that this person is a criminal mastermind? He’s just a normal heroish-movie teenager.

Holly isn’t able to heal Butler just to create drama, also the almost death scene is supposed to be in the third book.

Artemis’s mastermind plan to overcome the People technology: not present

At the end they are all friends, even if they actually needed four books for that.

As I said before the magical resolution that they use to save the father does not work. There is no tension, no scene, no action for something that it was constructed at the beginning of the movie. The reason of everything is resolved in a magical PUFF.

Now that I see him more Artemis Fowl Senior is too kind and invested in his son since the beginning. He is supposed to be rigid in his education until he’s saved (one of the reasons why Artemis is also so stern).

They changed everything but they cut some of the best scenes: the beginning in Ho Chi Minh, Mulch that knocks out Butler, Holly’s escapade…

Artic mission (and therefore the evolution of characters that happens there which is a lot): not present

Goblin’s riot (and the plan to put out Opal Koboi): not present

This movie has the characters named after the ones in the books, it has the setting and the technology, but it has nothing to do with Artemis Fowl II’s history. They did the absolute worst they could have done plot wise, firstly because Orion says that he’s a criminal mastermind but he’s not even clever and the only criminal act that he does is the kidnapping (but we know from the beginning that it’s for the good of his father and the world, where in the books we discover later that he wants to save his father). As I already said the beauty of this series is that it shows Artemis redemption, from villain to hero, it’s a long road and it’s done gradually.

Second: if you want to make a stand-alone movie of Artemis Fowl, you could just adapt the first book. Opal is of course the most important and interesting villain of the series, but each book works also as a standalone itself. Even without a sequel, ending the movie with the victory of Artemis against the People works well.

If you did want to adapt the first two book in one movie, there was only one way to do it well, and it’s Zootopia. Really that movie is a more faithful adaption of the first two books.

In the end they only managed to make a movie without not only a good plot, but also an ending. As I said at the beginning, the movie ends with Opal still on the loose, so congratulations: you achieved nothing at all.

#artemis fowl #af #anti disney #artemis fowl movie #long post #misadventures in the fandoms

37 notes · View notes

stereksecretsanta · 4 years

Text

Merry Christmas, @thealphasspark!

*****

The World Can Burn

Stiles tried to figure out if knowing that he had been drugged from the way his tongue felt was a good or bad thing. On one hand he could figure out exactly what happened, and how he was transported from the library of his college to being chained up in a dark, slightly damp, torture dungeon. On the other hand, he was all too familiar with the feeling of being drugged and waking up chained up in a dark, slightly damp, torture dungeon. He desperately hoped that one day the villain of the week might be a bit more inventive. Waking up on a couch in a sunlight room would definitely unsettle him significantly more than the rusty shackles and dripping wall that marked the corner of every single one of these rooms. He was also mildly concerned about the number of torture dungeons that apparently existed in Northern California, because really, he was kind of expecting to have run out of these by now.

How do they find them even, is there a villains’ Craiglist, allowing the latest henchman to pick abandoned warehouses and rent what appeared to be a full set of serrated knives laid out the table. Stiles hoped so, those knives were expensive. He also already had three sets from his last few kidnappings, really was more trouble than it was worth keeping them in his apartment. He really hoped that his roommate took his warnings seriously and didn’t enter his room, even if he had been missing for a bit.

Despite Stiles’ complete disdain for his captors design choices, here he was, seemingly trapped for the newest villain to come in and monologue. Stiles hoped they could get everything done quickly, he had really been planning to work on his mythology paper at least a bit before the weekend. But alas, instead he was going to be kept sitting here, on a musty cot, while whatever evil-wannabe left him to kick his heels before asking him a series of questions he really couldn’t answer. He wasn’t exactly sure where people were getting their information from. Stiles felt poor research skills were obviously pervasive in the hunter community. He was almost disappointed. He hadn’t stepped foot in Beacon Hills in three years, his phone derelict, void of any text messages and he never had visitors. He had been abandoned when his father lay in the hospital, and when the machines flat-lined Stiles kissed Melissa on the cheek and walked away. He hadn’t really looked back.

Hunters, however, seemed to be more inclined to believe he was lying to protect the pack. They figured if they held him long enough he would either break or the pack would come. In the face of completely incorrect stubbornness, Stiles maintained his right to defend himself. The list of deceased he sent to Chris grew every few weeks, but otherwise he lived his life like any other college kid. Though, he did clean up a few messes for the local selkie pack, and the vampire clan up north, and earned his own lodging for a few spell book translations for a witch. So, like any college kid with remarkably weird hobbies and the type of edge that only near-death experiences can provide.

But, Stiles was thinking more and more of opening up a little bookshop/ consulting gig when he graduated in two months. He didn’t think it would be easy, but he also felt that he had an expertise that others could benefit from. Perhaps he could prevent others from following down his path, or at least training them so they didn’t have to face their first Wendigo armed with a quick google search and a prayer. Stiles, particularly, had his eye on a cute little shop he had seen in Portland on his last visit up. He also felt Portland was just weird enough that his strange visitors would be able to fly under the radar, both literally and figuratively. His fascination with Portland had nothing to do with the rumors of a black wolf with blue eyes nor whispers of a bearded recluse. None at all.

But Stiles should know better than to think of good things, even briefly. When the door opened a bloodied mess was thrown in before the metal clanged shut, a bolt scrapping across to hold it shut. Stiles really hoped that the person was alive, because the fact that he, a measly human had been chained up, and the bloodied mess had not, really boded poorly.

The lump groaned and rolled over.

Time stopped.

Rage overtook everything.

All attempts at civility ceased.

How dare they.

They thought they could touch him.

Hurt him.

He had been free.

He had been off living in the woods of Portland.

He had been safe from this world, safe from the hunters, safe from villains of the week, safe from a pack who demanded too much. And safe from Stiles. Kept away to ensure he would stay safe and happy and whole.

Stiles magic had always been linked to emotion. At first it was the sharpness of fear, before the mellowing of sadness. Recently, he would say his magic had brightened with a hard-earned contentment. Now, though, he was an inferno.

He barely noticed the cuffs melting off as he stood. Nothing could pull his gaze from the man in the center of the room. He burned the wolfsbane from the wounds, bringing Derek back from whatever the hunters had done. Stiles didn’t notice the whirlwind in the room, he couldn’t hear the shouts coming from outside. He saw only fading bruises and shredded clothes.

Finally, he collapsed next to his old friend, caressing a healing face with a tenderness he couldn’t muster for anyone else. Electric blue eyes snapped open and Derek brought his hands up. He gasped Stiles’ name like a prayer and Stiles’ last shred of control snapped. They were kissing like their lives depended on it, like everything was suddenly falling into place.

And then Derek’s eyes drooped. The moment was gone. Fading like Derek’s heartbeat under Stiles’ hand.

There was no sound, no rushing wind, no warning at all. Just a burnt shell of a house with two men at the epicenter.

Derek’s eyes opened again as Stiles felt the last of his magic slip away. Drained. He didn’t care. That heartbeat was steady again, and the men responsible were gone. Skeletons in a house that smoldered.

Stiles dragged Derek up, off the ground and into his arms. They limped away from the scene of the crime towards the road, uncertain of an exact direction. Stiles would eventually have to figure out why they had been captured. Figure out how they found Derek, and ensure no one else could ever touch him again. He would have to collect names for Chris and make new threats.

But for now, he would get them home.

He would pray his roommate wasn’t home to see him drag Derek across the threshold. He would find out what happened. He would kiss Derek senseless again and again and again. He would keep working towards that little shop in Portland, with this man at his side. He couldn’t save everyone, the pack and his dad has proven that, but he could keep this one man safe.

He would protect Derek, because when he was really honest with himself, when he listened to the whispers in the back of his mind, Stiles knew that if he kept this one perfect thing safe, the rest of the world could burn.

#thealphasspark #stereksanta19 #*fics19 #*gifts19

18 notes · View notes

skull001 · 5 years

Text

Friday... It was like 7:30 PM and thought I could take a quick 10 minute nap but was so exhausted from work that next thing I knew was waking up at 3:00 AM. And since there is not much to do to pass time, I decided to do something about it: write.

One of the things I always liked about the Sonic franchise is it's characters. It's not only that they have very appealing designs that combine cute traits with a touch of coolness, but also their well defined personalities. Saddly, I often see people get the wrong idea about them... and it's not just the fans (particularly the fandumb who misinterpretate them into something they are not out of spite) but even the people who are supposed to be professionals who for some reason struggle to get the hang of characters that at first glance seem to have simple personalities.

Today I'm just going to focus on the main cast besides Sonic: Eggman, Tails, Amy and Knuckles.

Dr. Eggman IMO is a character that was always meant to be a cartoony villain who is as goody as he is dangerous. While in Japanese manuals he calls himself a scientific genious of evil, the truth is that Eggman is for the most part, just a very selfish and immature fellow who happens to also be the most brilliant mind in the entire world.

The reason why Eggman is so dangerous is that he pursues his selfish desires such as building an entire amusement park just for himself (and to absolutely share it with no one else) without ever thinking of how he puts everyone, himself included, in great danger by handling forces that he can't expect to control. He is like a very spoiled manchild who is playing with fire in a tinderbox.

While he considers evil, it's also important to note that Eggman is not exactly what I would call sadistic (except in the Archie/IDW comic) since he never is shown to enjoy the suffering of innocents that are caught on his schemes... Eggman simply just doesn't care, but I believe that if he were to be conscious of how his actions affect others, he might at the very least hesitate on going further with his plans because despite being a trouble maker, Eggman is not a monster and in some occassions has shown to still have redeeming aspects that do surface from time to time.

Another interesting aspect about Eggman is that despite him boasting about how great it is to be him and acting all smug, he might actually be a character that feels lonely. In Sonic Unleashed, this point was brought by Chip and think there is validity to it because in the next game, we're introduced to his two assistants Orbot and Cubot, who ever since have kept company to the doc, though as expected, he treats them awfully (but never in a cruel way) just like a bully would to their henchmen. Perhaps Eggman does want to have friends, but because of his selfish and self-centered personality, he drives away anyone who might want to try to come close to him. Heck, the only reason he and Amy remained Fuzzy Puppy buddies in Sonic Boom was that for once, Eggman stopped acting like a spoiled brat and returned the stolen figure after Amy threatened to stop being his friend.

Tails (aka Miles Prower). Tails is a character that has suffered a lot in recent games because of what I mentioned at the start of this wall of text: simple characters who are misunderstood.

This is a character that is meant to be the kid of the group, and as such, he would be the one who experiences doubts and self-confidence issues because while you have strong and experienced characters like Sonic and Knuckles, or the self-made heroine that Amy Rose eventually grew to become, Tails is just the youngest member of the group who for the longest time relied on being by Sonic's side to have the confidence to do things.

Tails has a talent when it comes to tinkering with machines which seems to bring him great joy (I imagine it's the kind like when I build sci-fi model kits), and is always seeking to gain the acknowledgement from his friends by showing to them his latest inventions. At heart, Tails is a gentle child who is the exact opposite of Dr. Eggman because while the doc uses all his talents and resources for self-serving purposes, Tails wants for his inventions to help make life easier for others. However, often his inventions have flaws/bugs that the boy oversees because of his child-like enthusiasm, and this can sometimes cause troubles (like in Sonic Boom's "UT" episode) that causes for Tails to sink into his own doubts.

One thing that I feel is very important to take into consideration is that Tails should never be the kind of character that guilt-trips the audience into feeling sorry for him. When one feels empathy for a character, it's often because they struggle and show very humane and relatable emotions. Tails being confused about what went wrong is IMO a very sincere form of showing his doubts and him trying to correct them is his form of struggle. A trap writers could fall for is to make the other characters act mean to him which is something I feel should be avoided because it cheapens the whole thing.

Amy Rose. With Amy, the thing I liked and always believed is that out of all the characters, she is the one with the most potential... And what annoys me is the way Sonic Team fails to deliver on it by all of the wrong reasons.

I always loved Amy because she is one of the characters that to mee feels the most "real". Amy is a very energetic and bubbly girl with an endless supply of optimism that always makes her see the best out of any situation. She also has quite some flaws too, like being impulsive, quick to jump into conclussions, can be a bit feisty, etc... IMO, this makes Amy feel closer to the normal people and believe that in the Sonic franchise, she serves as a bridge between Sonic's bigger than life adventures and the normal, everyday life. But if there is one thing that this character has that won me over, is her compassion and empathy for others. Sure, every character can show that too because it's a basic humane quality. However, none of them takes it to the length that Amy does because what makes Amy unique is that her compassion and empathy also extends towards the bad guys. You see, Amy is the kind of character that believes that everyone deserves to be happy in life, and because her insight makes her realize the sadness experienced by those who lost their way and deviated into a dark path, she will try to make them realize the inner good that they forgot existed or did not know was there. Where Sonic saves the world, Amy saves bad guys from themselves.

Funny enough, Amy herself is a character that I am very sympathetic for because unlike Tails and Knuckles, who from the very start of their careers had the full support of Sonic Team and always received a preferential treatment, Amy is a character that had to start literally from zero to get where she is now... and even then, sometimes it feels like she is often left behind by the developers who overlook the many things that she as a character can contribute to the main cast, what she herself can accomplish as a hero, what she can add as a playable character... And it's this one-sided form of exclussion that feels so unfair, based on dumbass ideas like "she wasn't part of the Genesis trilogy" that has resulted in so many missed opportunities... From SA2 not continuing her character development by giving the spotlight instead to Knuckles (who didn't even contributed to the plot in any meaningful way and was just there for the sake of pandering to his popularity), to being robbed in Forces from being the leader the IDW comic showed (and which previous games hinted she would one day become) to Mania not having her in the game despite already haven proved to be a great addition in Sonic Advence, giving her spot instead to a couple of literal nobodies. Even the animated mini-series would had also forgotten all about her had it not been for Tyson Hesse, who likes the character and always wanted to feature her and insisted until he got the green light to go ahead with what I feel is the most special episode of the Mania Adventures mini series (and the oerfect Christmas gift for me).If only Christian Whitehead and Takashi Iizuka had been more like Hesse... Cowards. No, I'm not even fucking sorry for calling them that.

Sometimes, as an Amy fan, it's so very hard to have any love for things like the immensely popular "classic trio" (the concept, not the characters involved) because how this has resulted in Amy always getting the short end of the stick. This is a character that IMO should had been right up there along Tails in terms of importance, not being sidelined or excluded over crap "reasons".

And finally, Knuckles.

Oh Knuckles, where do I begin. Despite how sometimes I may sound harsh towards the character, I have to say that I do like Knuckles because as a character, I believe he can be one of the most entertaining and relatable of the franchise, but because Sonic Team are a mixed bag themselves (they create wonderful character designs and give them unique personalities for the most part, but God if they can be clumsy when it comes to handling them) I feel that Knuckles is the opposite of Amy in that he is a character that fell victim of his popularity, where Amy on the other hand is a victim just because she wasn't introduced in a certain trilogy of games.

As a character, Knuckles feels like a mix between Donald Ducks short-tempered personality, and Daffy Duck's jealousy towards the main character. Indeed, Knux can be quite explosive with his temper, especially if it involves unwanted visitors laying their filthy casual paws all over the master emerald, or when facing unexpected obstacles (I know how this feels... I too hate when my work is affected by factors outside my own power. XD) which in animation, were hilariously captured by Tyson.

Knuckles relationship with Sonic on paper is that of a friendly rivalry... Not because Knuckles is this supposedly good, close friend of Sonic, which I still believe he is not (Tails has a reason to be a close friend, Amy has a reason AND had to struggle and insist until she finally got there... Knuckles though, he was never given one, although it's never too late to start working on it), but rather, because Knuckles was never a bad guy... He simply was some echidna with a very honest and naive sense of what is right which Dr. Eggman took advantage of to pit him against Sonic and Tails. Even if Knuckles was thankful to Sonic for helping clear the mess and recover the master emerald, I believe that deep down, Knuckles still resents having not only been tricked by Eggman, but also being beaten by Sonic... and not just in the literal sense of having been KO'd in Kombat, but also in the sense that Sonic did what he was supposed to do: retrieve the master emerald. This IMO is a wound in Knuckles' pride that never truly healed.

And this brings me to what makes Knuckles so sympathetic. Knuckles is the least brilliant mind of the group. He us also stubborn... A literal knucklehead. And yet, Knuckles is aware of this and in more than one occassion has expressed his frustration and regret for how easy he can be taken advantage of... How could someone not love Knuckles and just want to give him a good hug? This is why I was so very moved when the Archie comic had a heartwarming moment where he and Amy have a talk during a journey to retrieve the shards of the master emerald. Ian Flynn did a great job IMO at humanizing Knux by having him open up to Amy and talk about the things that trouble him, from Sonic being a teased, to his doubt to whether he is worthy of being the master emerald's guardian... And how Amy not only reminded how despite his mistakes, he never ever gave up. And when their adventure was over and succeded in their mission, Amy gave Knuckles that hug he deserved and needed so badly to make him feel appreciated.

They are all wonderful characters when they are done right, and why it so frustrates me so very much when they mess up with them because people, like the unintelligent mass of meat that they are, will always jump to the laziest and easiest conclussion, which is why they all have been given negative stigmas that have been so hard to shake off.

I really wish that these characters were made not only justice, but also to be handled by competent people that can understand what makes them themselves, who understand how they are suppose to act like and provide something that actually rewards their fans instead of punishing them (I'm looking at you Sonic Forces!). Funny how it's cartoons like Sonic Boom, the very last Archie comics and the IDW comic that has been delivering the things I always wanted while the games struggle and fail to deliver. This is why the idea of the next game worries me because I really don't have much faith in Sonic Team doing anything that has not been done in the last games: Sonic only, Tails's character being further butchered while Amy and Knuckles are glorified extras. How can I even have the least faith in them when their track record speaks so loud and clear? Only way the next game will give this characters the care they deserve is if the story is writen by either Ian Flynn or Tyson Hesse. They're the only ones that deliver what Pontac, that other guy and Sonic Team themselves failed to do.

#Sonic the Hedgehog #Miles Tails Prower #Amy Rose #Knuckles the Echidna #Dr. Eggman

21 notes · View notes