#also all these live action adaptions suck regardless

[patriotic-kitty]

I don’t know when we decided that casting is only about acting skill and not looks in a VISUAL MEDIUM

Suspension of disbelief matters!

Character accuracy matters!

Back in the day fandoms would go feral when adaptions didn’t match the hair colors. Now people cheer it on, and the other half who don’t are deemed racist.

It used to be a guaranteed sign that adapters didn’t care about source material if they didn’t care to match the looks of a character.

Now it’s a guarantee that we have to live with it and other “fans” will eat up whatever trash is served to them

[speedofsoundsketches]

I noticed that you have made it clear that you are not one for the first Sonic the Hedgehog film. And I must make it clear that I respect your opinion on it; it is not for everyone, even all Sonic fans.

However, I get a feeling that you are antipathetic to the future installment(s)- you mentioned some time ago you have not seen the second film. But even if you were underwhelmed by the first film, do you believe that they cannot improve?

in the wake of the trailers of the Super Mario Bros movie, I have seen things like "I used to like the Sonic movies, but since the *trailers!* of the Mario movie came out, the Sonic movies suck now!". Do you believe that is really a "correct" way of thinking? Like, regardless of what one thinks of the movies, should people just dismiss all the hard work that people like Fowler and Tyson Hesse put into the films just because they aren't animated like the Mario movie? Or that they don't use much of the game music, like the Mario movie? is this truly shaping up to be a "1:1 or nothing" thing, leaving no room for deviation?

I ask this because I feel that rational StH fans are as rare as hens teeth, especially these days; consider yourself a hens tooth

The biggest issue I have with these movies is the foundation it laid for itself.

Cue TL;DR rant mode

Let's be absolutely frank and honest with ourselves. The first movie was only saved purely because the controversy of Sonic's design led to him being revamped entirely and Eggman's portrayal was solid. That's really it. I'm not against human characters showing up at all, on the contrary. But this set up is "Take the most superficially basic concept of Sonic then make a bunch of convoluted revisions to the lore of the original series to justify isekai-ing him into San Francisco so we can save money on animated scenes". Like, it's the same problem most children's media being adapted into "live action" suffers from. It's a cheap, lazy adaptation that broke absolutely zero ground and I've held this opinion of it literally since the day it was first revealed and announced with those leaked posters of Chris Pratt and Sonic's initial design.

And just because it didn't end up being as "bad" as it first looked and they brought on actual, talented fans of the series onto the creative team, doesn't suddenly detract from this most basic, fundamental problem. Sonic's movies suffer from what happens when you let Hollywood just go to town on your IP and barely give it proper boundaries to stay in.

Even if they manage to get SOME things right like, Knuckles actually being cool again and the Giant Robot fight at the end of the second film, the reality is they'll still be tied down by the flimsy foundation they started on, like dragging on a wedding scene or putting waaaay more focus and attention on the human characters than the.....main characters we came to watch???

Now compare that with the Mario movie. From the start, Nintendo I understand had a MUCH bigger involvement on the production. It's not like the lame adaptation I mentioned above. They went full on "Angry Birds" level of staying on brand. The entire world feels like the natural, fleshed out idea of "How do we make this feel as warm, inviting, and fantastical as the games but still make it work as a movie?" It's actually BRILLIANT just from first impressions.

I'm sure it's going to suffer from other typical kids movie problems like "Peach's a STRONG WOMAN NOW because she wears PANTS and DON'T NEED NO RESCUER", dumb movie writing or Mario, Luigi and Peach's flat voice acting. But you cannot look at that movie, how it just unabashedly looks, feels and is completely imprinted in Mario and say that Sonic had anywhere NEAR the same level of enthusiastic production on it. I mean, even the cute commercial of their plumbing business in New York is entirely animated and ALSO feels like it fits. They went to the absolute nines with making this feel like a WAY better adaptation in spirit, story and visuals.

Of course I appreciate the hard work the team put into saving the Sonic films from becoming absolute jokes but WHY did it even have to be so compromised in the first place when Mario shows up looking EXACTLY like how I've dreamed Sonic's movies would've been treated?

I'm not wooed over by the small glimpses of Sonic's world or the tiny references they managed to squeeze in there. I'd appreciate those way more if it were ACTUALLY set in it. And I cannot stand this prevailing narrative that "Sonic's world is separate from Earth" in most of these adaptations because it's not! It IS Earth! He's always lived in the same planet as humans, their animal kind is just reclusive and live on islands. That's the actual lore of the games!

This movie made the mistake of doing what Sonic X did. They think it'd be "too weird" for someone like Sonic to have been from Earth as if the intense popularity of it in the first place isn't enough to show how wrong that is? No kid questioned Sonic showing up in City Escape around humans any more than dinosaurs or other crazy entities existing in Dragonball's version of Earth. It's still Earth, just fantastical.

Mario works with that because him iseaki-ing into Mushroom Kingdom is that original lore of the games too I believe. But in Sonic's case it's not and it's so JARRING because they think Sonic himself can't carry a story as the main character. No, kids need a human or avatar to help them navigate the weird, unexplained parts of the series. I'd rather they'd just do that with Sonic himself without needing to be forcibly tied to a regular human. (I'm so annoyed that he couldn't have just run to San Francisco if he wanted because he "needed directions". What a pitiful excuse. And these movies are FULL of them like that.)

Hollywood is a joke and they cannot for the life of them, understand how to effectively adapt most Japanese properties by themselves. Especially anything even remotely inspired by anime like Sonic.

I know this might make me look like "the most offended Sonic fan in the world" right now but in all honesty, I don't really think about those movies much. They function as effective promotional materials for the games and kids like them so whatever. Like, it's just one big Shrug really.

*sigh*

[secretgamergirl]

Does anyone actually like the whole "this total loser is the chosen one" thing?

You start playing some new game. Immediately, you are introduced to the protagonist. He's a total deadbeat loser idiot who has no greater ambition in life beyond playing games/becoming a cool rock star somehow without learning to play an instrument or form a band/watching some TV show. But through just the absolute sheer dumb luck of being in the right place at the right time, he gets The Thing, that lets him do main character in a video game stuff. Much to the frustration of this cool competent badass woman who's actively invested in saving the world and has a concrete plan to do it. Our accidental hero can't be bothered to care about any of that, and any time she's talking he either tunes out completely or sexually harasses her. Then once she eventually gives up trying to explain him he says something like "now here's the part where I do my thing!" and you jump into the action of doing 3 hit combos to enemies or whatever.

I hate that character. I can't stand him. His presence makes me not even want to touch a game, which is a real shame because I swear the paragraph above describes like... half of them. Also most shonen anime come to think, the bulk of superhero media, and a surprising amount of fantasy stuff.

Now, I understand why we have that guy. The thinking is, he's "relatable." We're making a not particularly challenging piece of escapist media, we're assuming most people who are going to be interested are losers who just sit on their couch all day, and we're also assuming they're at-least-mildly-creepy dudes even when demographic info suggests a given genre/medium appeals primarily to women.

Does anyone actually want that, though? I'm not some pathetic dude on a couch, so I probably wouldn't get the "he's just like me!" factor regardless, but like, I remember being a small child and having media constantly cram some annoying piece of garbage kid into everything for me to "relate to" and I was never able to stand any of them either.

Like if I'm watching Transformers the Movie as a kid, I am just rolling my eyes every time we have the dorky little kid going fishing or trying to use power armor, and for that matter as an adult I'm not too big on the pink girly one playing babysitter and being flirty. I'd be cool just giving all that screen time over to Kupp and Grimlock thanks.

And really, it always seems like a huge insult to whoever you're trying to give a relatable stand-in to. Some deadbeat loser who'd just be sitting on the couch watching TV if he didn't get a magic yo-yo or whatever isn't exactly an aspirational sort of character. Even if that's where you'd picture yourself at the start of the cool action narrative, if it were you, you'd want to get your act together and live up to the heroic role you fell into, right?

Like, recently I've been marathoning through Farscape for like the 5th time because a friend had never seen it, and there's a show where the protagonist is just a big fish out of water nerd in a crazy setting constantly making obscure pop culture references that absolutely nobody else is possibly going to have the context for, and I can sure as hell personally relate to that! But the key difference is, he doesn't suck. He does his best to adapt to situations and show compassion and actually learn how stuff he doesn't get works, so he's, you know, likeable. He's not some complete loser who only gets by because he has the spoon of destiny or whatever.

Actually come to think of it, I'm really combining two separate media trends I can't stand here. Loser protagonists get on my nerves even when they aren't the chosen one, and even when they aren't a total loser, I kinda hate chosen one narratives too.

Like... have you ever played a Bethesda game? They always want to do this whole bit where you come from the humblest of roots and go on to save the world or whatever, but they just cannot for the life of them wait until you've actually started accomplishing cool stuff before everyone starts in with the totally over the top hero worship. Just, "behold! This stranger to our lands has picked up the empty soda can and tossed it in the recycling bin! Truly such a feat of heroics means this is no mere mortal before us, but the great one foretold in legend!"

Like, can we please just have narratives where the protagonist is a decent person, who accomplishes things by virtue of actual competence and/or determination, and any respect or admiration they might receive is actually properly earned? Is that too much to ask? And if that IS too much to ask from a protagonist, can we at least stop treating members of the supporting cast who pick the slack up like total garbage?

And speaking of getting treated like garbage/the concept of supporting, I still don't know how I'm going to get through the winter with a roof over my head.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball: Evolution (USA, 2009)

The Gaijin Live-Action Trilogy comes to a close with “Dragon Ball: Evolution”.  Regardless of which movie is your favorite, I think it’s fair to say that DBE was easily the most disappointing.  “Fight/Win” and “Magic Begins” were unofficial, low-budget movies from the early 1990′s, while “Evolution” was produced by 20th Century Fox.  They spent seven years and 30 million dollars on this turkey. And they had actually gone to the trouble to acquire the legal rights to make the movie.  And yet...

The movie ended up being a critical and commercial flop.  In the fandom, “Dragon Ball: Evolution” has become a byword for failure.  Even Akira Toriyama expressed disappointment with the film, which is pretty rare for him. 

For my part, I was kind of intrigued when the movie came out in 2009, and I had some hopes that it might lead to big things for the franchise.  And I remember it being okay when I saw it, but I was quick to notice that there weren’t many people in the theater that day. 

I didn’t really get mad about the movie until I saw the 2011 Thor movie, which proved that a big studio could have done a better job adapting a superhero fantasy world.  Believe it or not, there was a time when live-action adaptations of comic books were just expected to suck.   The studio would just change a bunch of shit for no good reason or to make the movie cheaper and easier to film, and if you didn’t like it then you just didn’t understand movies or something.  The idea that the movie people needed to understand the comic didn’t really gain traction until the first X-Men film came out in 2000, and even then, it was understood that the movies were under no obligation to get it right, or even try to get it right. 

So I graded DBE on a curve back then, and as the MCU Phase 1 movies started to premiere, I got more and more irritated at Fox for failing to recognize the moment.  And now, 14 years later, I’m watching DBE for the second time ever and wondering why I ever thought it was okay.  It’s a terrible movie, with only occasional flashes of appreciation for the source material.  In hindsight, I realize now that I only enjoyed DBE as much as I did because of wishful thinking.  I just really wanted to like it, and I so managed to convince myself that I didn’t hate it.

But now?   Yeah, I hate it.  This movie sucks ass.  Let’s dive in.

We open with exposition, which is generally a bad sign for movies like these.  For one thing, they go over this information several times throughout the movie, so there’s absolutely no reason to spell it out at the very beginning. 

So, like the Korean and Taiwanese live action films, this one also dares to retell the story of the first Dragon Ball hunt.  Goku meets Bulma and they search for the seven Dragon Balls, but this is 2009, and that trick has been done several times already.  A timeline...

1984-1985: Chapters 1-23 of the Dragon Ball manga.

1986: Episodes 1-13 of the Dragon Ball anime.

1986: Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies

1990: Dragon Ball: Fight, Son Goku! Win, Son Goku!

1991: Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins

1996: Dragon Ball: The Path to Power

2009: Dragon Ball: Evolution

Even if the audience wanted to see this again, it still would have been a bad idea, simply because of how many times it had been done before.  More importantly, this was an American movie, made primarily to attract business from American fans, most of whom were introduced to the franchise through Dragon Ball Z, not the Pilaf Saga.  Fans didn’t want to see Master Roshi and Mai, they wanted Vegeta and Frieza and Super Saiyans.  This is probably why Fox put Piccolo in the role of the lead villain.   Let’s face it, it just makes sense.  Korea and Taiwan stuck to Emperor Pilaf, but they ended up turning Pilaf into some overpowered badass.  You might as well swap him out for Piccolo, a villain who actually fills that role. 

And also, DBE was meant to serve as the first installment of a trilogy.  This was all the rage back in the late 2000′s, as movie studios deluded themselves into thinking they could turn any movie into three movies just by wishing for it really hard.   Terminator 4, 5, and 6 were each supposed to reboot the Terminator franchise, but none of them made enough money to pull it off, so they ended up becoming a trilogy of failed trilogies. 

So rather than having Piccolo and Vegeta fighting Frieza, like everyone probably wanted, this movie tries to take it slow, introducing Piccolo first, in order to set up Vegeta in the next movie.  Only there would be no next movie, so in hindsight they really would have been better off putting their best foot forward instead of holding back. 

Anyway, let’s get on with this.  So in this movie, Piccolo is basically the same as King Piccolo from the manga, except he tried to conquer the Earth 2000 years ago, instead of a few centuries ago.  He was defeated and sealed away by a powerful technique called the Mafuba, and in the events of this movie, he escapes and plots his revenge.  But he wasn’t alone back in the olden days...

And this right here is where the movie fucked up.  Piccolo’s sidekick villain is simply an ape-like creature named “Oozaru”.  So any fans watching this thing will immediately see the twist coming.  I suppose general audiences might not pick up on this, but come on. Oozaru is presented as Piccolo’s “disciple”, but he wasn’t captured like Piccolo was.  Instead he simply... “disappeared”.  This is undoubtedly meant to set up the Saiyans in the sequel, but there would never be a sequel.

So we move on to the present day, where Gohan is teaching is adoptive grandson Goku.  Goku looks like Frodo Baggins accidentally wandered into the wrong movie.  DBE Goku resembles a lot of other movie characters from around this period.  Frodo, Edward Cullen, Tobey McGuire Spider-Man.  I could probably keep going, but the one guy he really doesn’t resemble is Goku. 

Gohan defeats him in a sparring contest, and Goku is too frustrated with his social life to learn anything.  The kids at school bully him, and he can’t fight back because Gohan made him promise not to use his power.  Goku seems to understand this, but he’s also frustrated that he doesn’t know how to do anything else.  This movie tries to force Goku to fit into some sort of classic secret identity trope, where he has great power but he mustn’t reveal it.  In ‘09, I accepted this as a new take on the character.  In 2023, I’ve pretty much abandoned DC and Marvel superhero comics altogether, and I can see now how stupid this was.  It’s like doing a Bugs Bunny movie and making him act like Mickey Mouse.  It’s not going to impress Mickey Mouse fans.  All it does is expose your inability to understand the classic character you have. 

They wanted Goku to be Spider-Man so badly, or maybe Harry Potter.  And I’m like, fuck Spider-Man and Harry Potter.  Give us Goku, you cretins!

Or... yeah, the Twilight connection is really starting to seem more apparent to me.  Everything in this movie is blue or orange and it pisses me off. 

So Goku’s in high school and the teacher is explaining what a solar eclipse is, which reminds me way too much of Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four movie, where a college professor literally explains the cosmic MacGuffin that gives the FF their powers.  And Goku’s too busy crushing on his classmate, Chi-Chi.  He hallucinates her in a field of flowers, eating strawberries, which is kind of like... not exactly horny, but hornier than Goku needs to be, if that makes any sense.  Chi-Chi really doesn’t serve any purpose in this movie, except to be a love interest for Goku, which he doesn’t really need because there’s enough going on here as it is.  So Chi-Chi just sort of exists in the film, liking Goku for no particular reason and being this hot chick.  It’s dumb.

Then the teacher calls on Goku and asks him what their ancestors would say about a solar eclipse, and Goku stammers some crap about how the Earth was nearly conquered by the Namekians during an eclipse thousands of years ago.  Everyone laughs at him, but I don’t understand what the hell this movie is trying to establish here.  On the one hand, there’s all this secret lore about Piccolo and Oozaru nearly conquering the world, but on the other hand wouldn’t everyone kind of know about that?  I mean, there would be historical accounts of this terrible battle, right?  It would have altered the course of history, but these high school scenes make it look like the world is basically the same as our world. 

Later, Goku sees Chi-Chi struggling with the lock on her locker, and her homework assignment is trapped inside.  So Goku uses The Force his ki to open all the lockers.  This impresses Chi-Chi, who already knows about ki.  Meanwhile, I’m confused.  At the beginning of the movie, Gohan told Goku to use his ki, and he couldn’t do anything with it.  So why did he even try it here?  Maybe his boner for Chi-Chi unleashed his hidden potential?

Chi-Chi invites him to a party at her house, and he ditches his grandfather’s humble birthday celebration to attend.  Oh, right, it’s Goku’s 18th birthday, by the way.  The bullies from school try to intimidate Goku, but he stands his ground and defeats them by dodging all their attacks and getting them to defeat themselves.  It’s actually pretty true to Goku’s style in mismatches like this, and I’d give it a little credit, except it’s too similar to gags used in the Spider-Man and Superman films.  One thing that bothers me here: the bullies are using like kicks and flips and shit.  They seem pretty skilled in martial arts themselves.  Not on Goku’s level, obviously, but they’re not just stock football players or whatever.  It’s another example of this world being sort of a half-inch removed from reality.  It can’t decide if it wants to be the real world or a fantasy world like the one in the source material. 

Meanwhile, Piccolo and Mai barge into Gohan’s house and kill him.  They came looking for his Dragon Ball, but don’t realize that Gohan gave it to Goku that morning as a birthday present.  Goku took it with him to the party, so it’s not here. 

Okay, so let’s talk about the bad guys.  Mai is basically Mai from the Pilaf gang, but she works for Piccolo here.  She has a hole in her costume, which... I mean I’m not complaining, but I’m starting to see that this movie really uses eye candy as a crutch.  Like, Rey’s pretty good looking in the Star Wars movies, but there’s so much other cool shit happening in those things that it’s not the main thing.  Here, just about all you have to occupy your attention in DBE is ogling Chi-Chi, Mai, and Bulma. 

Piccolo absolutely sucks.  James Marsters wanted this role because he was such a huge fan of the franchise, and I always felt kind of bad for him because he seemed really excited at the prospect of playing Piccolo in the sequels, only for this movie to turn into such a huge flop.  I guess there’s a non-zero chance he’s reading this, so I don’t want to be too hard on him, but there’s just nothing to this character.  He just glowers menacingly, destroys a place, then collects the Dragon Ball and leaves.  He pops up briefly throughout the movie just to remind us that he’s doing stuff, but most of what we know about him comes from other characters talking about him.  He’s mad about being sealed away for 2000 years, but we never learn how he got unsealed.  For that matter, we never learn why he wants the Dragon Balls.  He seems to want to wish for world conquest, but he was doing pretty well on that front 2000 years ago.

Also, we never learn how he knows where the Dragon Balls are.  It’s like how Baby from GT knew where to send his lackeys.  We see Piccolo destroy a Japanese village and then Mai goes down to fetch the Dragon Ball from some lady, and it’s like she knew exactly where to go.  But here, they show up looking for Gohan’s Ball, and it’s like they knew it used to be here, but they don’t know where it’s gone?

Back at Chi-Chi’s place, Goku’s Spider-Sense is tingling, so he runs back home to check on his grandfather and finds him buried under the house.  He pulls him out the wreckage, where Gohan tells him to find all the Dragon Balls to stop Piccolo, and reminds him to “have faith in who you are.”  That’s like the moral of this movie.  That and “the first rule is that there are no rules”.  Just hackey drivel presented like some profound wisdom.  Also, there’s a poem about the Dragon Balls, like the verses etched in the One Ring from Lord of the Rings.  Then Gohan dies of terminal cliche and Goku buries him in a shallow grave.

The next day, Bulma breaks into the house... Well, I guess that’s a relative term, since the house is already half-destroyed.  She accuses Goku of stealing her “promethium orb”, because she tracked it to this house.  Goku realizes she’s talking about the Dragon Balls, and when he shows her his Four-Star Ball, she understands that it’s not the same as the Five-Star one she lost.

Okay, so a couple of things.  First, if Bulma has a Dragon Radar in this story, why is she just now learning that there’s more than one of these things?  Second, after Goku tells her about the Dragon Balls, she just drops the whole “promethium orb” thing.  That seems kind of weird, since she had this whole thing planned where she was going to use them as an unlimited power source.  I can’t see her abandoning the name she came up with. 

Anyway, Bulma is easily the best character in this movie.  She’s not quite authentic to the original character, but she’s constantly pointing guns at people and growling thinly veiled threats.  It’s sort of a half-Bulma, with all the badass two-fisted scientist stuff, but none of the flirty, bratty stuff.

Also, I have to give her credit for the one (1) streak of blue hair, which is more than the other live-action Bulmas ever got.  Seriously though, this is like a symbol of the entire movie.  They wanted to put Bulma in this thing, but they stopped short of giving her all-blue hair.  Like, which is it? Do you want Bulma or not?  And if the answer is no, then why are you doing a Dragon Ball movie in the first place?

So before Gohan died, he told Goku to seek out Master Roshi at Paozu.  As it turns out, Paozu is a big city, and Roshi’s house is located on a weird little island in the middle of a lake in the middle of the city. 

Roshi is played by Chow Yun-fat, which was probably a big “get” for the studio.  He’s also the worst live-action Roshi I’ve seen, and I wasn’t very impressed by the others.  This is just Chow Yun-fat screwing around in a Dragon Ball movie.  He doesn’t have the turtle shell on his back, which isn’t much of a surprise, but he also lacks the beard, sunglasses, and bald head.  He has a waifu cartoon on his shirt, and Bulma finds a bikini magazine in his stuff, and that’s about as pervy as he ever gets.  Seriously, Goku is a bigger horndog in this movie than Roshi. 

And I’m not that fussed about this, since I’m not a big fan of Roshi’s to begin with, but it’s weird to me how all three live-action adaptations went out of their way to include Roshi, but refused to go all-in on the portrayal.  Like, if you don’t want a problematic sex-pest in your movie, I totally understand, but the solution is not to tone down the character.  Now you still have the character in your movie, but you’ve stripped away the only personality he had.

The solution should have been just to do a different story, one without Master Roshi.  Just have Chow Yun-fat play some other character, like the Supreme Kai or whatever else you want.  But if he’s not gonna ogle girls and wear sunglasses and have a bald head, what’s the point of calling it Roshi?

Anyway, Roshi also has a Dragon Ball, and he fills in the others on the whole deal with Piccolo and the eclipse, and whatever else.  There’s a lot of mysticism thrown around with this plot, where I can’t tell if Piccolo’s return was just a quirk of fate or some fufilment of an ancient prophecy or something.  Also, every time Goku touches a new Dragon Ball, he has visions of the future. 

Roshi’s plan is to train Goku to defeat Piccolo, and to track down the Dragon Balls before Piccolo can get them all.  To do that, he takes Goku to some “secret” training ground, but it turns out to be full of kids beating the shit out of each other as they prepare for a martial arts tournament.  Goku runs into Chi-Chi there, and she reveals to him that she’s a martial artist, but none of the others at home know. I don’t understand what the point is to any of this.

So the good guys move on to a different, more secluded training ground.  On the way, Bulma drives into a hole, and this turns out to be a trap laid by Yamcha.  He offers to help them out, but only in exchange for payment.  This seems like a really dumb trap now that I think about it.  I mean, how long did it take him to dig this hole?  And he just assumes someone will drive into it, and that they’ll be rich enough to make this worth the trouble he went to.  I mean, past a point, it’d be simpler to just get a job, right?  Or at least go rob people in a big city, like a regular criminal.

They sit in the hole well into the night, and Roshi tells the story of Piccolo and Oozaru.  He warns that the coming eclipse will bring forth Oozaru, which is why they have to stop Piccolo before that happens.  Why? Isn’t Piccolo strong enough on his own?  The implication is that Oozaru is like his trump card or something, but I don’t buy that.  He killed Gohan effortlessly, and no one else has displayed any greater ability. 

Yamcha thinks the story is dumb, but he has to sit here and wait for them to pay him before he can move on.  Then Roshi just jumps out of the hole and offers him a deal.   If he could do that the whole time, then why did he wait so long to do it? 

Meanwhile, Mai has been following the good guys, and she reports back to Piccolo that Roshi is training Goku to oppose him.  Piccolo then has blood drawn from his arms, which he uses to bring life to... whatever these things are.   They’re like the Putty Patrol from Power Rangers, only even shittier.

Goku just tosses their bodies in lava, and uses them as a bridge to reach the next Dragon Ball.  Don’t ask how we ended up in a lava floe.  Anyway, when he touches the next Ball, he has visions of Oozaru killing the others, so he resolves to defeat Oozaru, and Roshi starts to lose confidence in their plan.  They won’t have time to track down the remaining Dragon Balls before the eclipse, so he heads for Toisan to consult with someone else for Plan B.

That someone is Sifu Norris, played by Ernie Hudson from the Ghostbusters movies.  A lot of geek journalist sites said that Hudson would be playing Mutai-Itoh, the master who trained Roshi and developed the Mafuba technique that defeated Piccolo in the original manga.  But the character’s name in ths movie is Sifu Norris, and while Roshi bows to him in deference, it’s not clear that Norris was Roshi’s teacher.  And he couldn’t have invented the Mafuba in this world, not unless he’s 2000+ years old. 

Anyway, Roshi never took the poem about the Dragon Balls seriously until now, when the signs are finally starting to come true.  So he apologizes for his doubts, and asks Norris to help him prepare another vessel for the Mafuba.  Roshi plans to seal up Piccolo all over again, at the cost of his own life. 

See, here’s why this doesn’t work properly.  In the original story, Roshi told the other characters all about Piccolo’s original attack on the world, and how his old master sacrificed his own life to seal Piccolo away.  That was important, because you need that established up front.  That way, when Roshi begins planning to use the Mafuba himself later on, the audience knows exactly what it means, and how desperate the situation is.  The audience also understands how Roshi would know the technique, as he was one of the only living witnesses to have seen the technique used.

But in DBE, we don’t get that.  We’re only told that the Mafuba is a technique that sealed Piccolo away.  We don’t find out that it kills the user until this scene, when Roshi and Norris say so.  Roshi says he’s the only one who can do it, but we never find out why.  When would he have learned the Mafuba?  Why would he have learned it?  He was never worried about Piccolo until a few days ago.  He certainly never saw it used the first time around, because it was before his time.  And why can’t Sifu Norris use it instead?  He seems more experienced in this sort of thing. 

Meanwhile, Goku meets with Chi-Chi at the Toisan tournament, while Bulma and Yamcha commiserate over the upcoming end of the world.  There is zero chemistry between these two, and Bulma says she likes bad men, so she’s already preparing to dump him for Vegeta, and they haven’t even introduced him yet.

Roshi shows Goku how to do the Kamehameha, and Goku says that he’s heard of the technique, but Gohan never taught him because he wasn’t ready.  Roshi says that Goku still isn’t ready, but he has to learn it anyway because they’re almost out of time.   Well if he’s not ready, then what good does it do to teach him?  This movie really can’t make up it’s mind about Goku’s ability.  We’ve already seen him use ki powers, even when the movie insists that he has no aptitude for this. 

As he struggles to light torches with his ki, Chi-Chi shows up and basically offers to make out with him if he does a good job.  That’s the other weird thing about this movie, it keeps presenting this notion that romantic intimacy makes you better at fireball karate.  I mean, that sounds awesome, actually, but it’s not Dragon Ball.

Later, Bulma finds Chi-Chi in Goku’s room, and she thinks they’re having sex, except Goku’s not in there, and Chi-Chi’s doing exercises somewhere else.  Turns out Mai disguised herself as Chi-Chi.  At the Toisan tournament, she was in a match with Chi-Chi, and managed to get a drop of her blood, which she somehow used to shapeshift into her?  I mean, that’s fine, I can believe Piccolo has special magic that lets Mai do that sort of thing, but I feel like they should have explained it in greater detail.   Anyway, Goku finds the two Chi-Chi’s fighting, and he beats the wrong one, and Mai shoots him.

Goku has a near death experience where Gohan tells him to believe in himself or some shit, while Roshi uses a Kamehameha to revive him.  Uh, okay?

So the bad guys have all the Dragon Balls, which normally means they’ve already made their wish, but in this movie there’s still time, because you have to take the Balls to the Dragon Temple to summon Shenron.  So Yamcha drives the gang over there, and partway into the trip he just reveals that his truck can fly like the DeLorean in Back to the Future II.  So why didn’t he do that before?

The bad guys are already at the Temple, so I’m not sure what the point was of making this like a chase or anything.  Fortunately for the good guys, it seems to take a long time for Shenron to get summoned. Roshi tries to use the Mafuba, but Piccolo shoots a ki blast at him and destroys the magic pot?  Yeah, let’s go with that.

So all this wild shit is going on and Goku’s just been putting on his costume the whole time.  It looks like ass, but it’s a huge improvement over the street clothes he’s been wearing through 80% of this movie.  He goes to confront Piccolo and threatens to defeat him and Oozaru, but Piccolo calmly explains that Goku is Oozaru.  Or rather, he’ll become Oozaru when the eclipse happens.

This is really the closest Piccolo gets to any meaningful characterization.  He doesn’t develop his personality, and we learn nothing about him or his connection to Oozaru or Goku, but at least he gets to talk to another character besides Mai. 

So the eclipse happens and Goku transforms into... a slightly taller, hairier ape-man.  Why the hell did Piccolo need this to happen?  He explains that Goku was sent to Earth in a meteor to hid among humanity until his 18th birthday, when Piccolo would be ready to use him again.  So how long has Piccolo been planning all of this?  Again, we never learn how he got out of the seal from before, so we don’t know how long he’s been loose, or what arrangements he’s been making.  But apparently he had a space baby sent to Earth in preparation for this day. 

Also, what is the connection between Goku and the Oozaru from 2000 years ago?  The movie seems to imply that they’re the same character, but how does that work? They keep saying Goku’s 18, so is he the second Oozaru?  What happened to the first one?

I mean, you have this mysterious figure baked into the lore of this movie, directly connected with Goku, but separated by a vast gulf of time.  It’s almost like...

No. 

No. 

No, we’re not doing this. 

So anyway... Roshi tries the Mafuba and gets his ass kicked, and then Oozaru goes to choke Roshi out, but Roshi somehow gets through to Goku, who then... wills himself back to normal?  Piccolo can’t believe it, and Goku just repeats the line from the start of the movie, when Gohan told him “there are no rules”.  So I guess there’s no point in asking how Goku’s clothes were restored to normal, then.

So they fight, and it looks like crap, and Goku says some nonsense about how he has to be Goku and Oozaru and believe in himself, and I guess that was what had been holding him back.  All this time, he couldn’t properly focus his ki because he didn’t know his true nature, but now he understands what he is so he can do it?  Anyway he shoots a Kamehameha, and it’s dumb as hell.  The poses are all wrong, and then he leaps forward while he shoots it, like he wants to punch Piccolo as he shoots him. 

I mean, how did they manage to fuck up the Kamehameha?  They made it the climax of this movie, and it’s like no one involved in this production had ever seen the movie before.  Either that, or they studied the anime intensively, only to brainstorm ways to “improve” it. 

So Piccolo’s defeated, and Roshi’s dead.  Bulma says she wishes that it didn’t end this way, and Goku’s like “Oh yeah, that Dragon who grants wishes.” 

So they summon Shenron at the temple and holy shit this is bad.  This was the best dragon they could come up with?

So Roshi’s alive again, and Bulma says they have to re-collect the Dragon Balls, but Goku has one more piece of business to take care of.  He goes back to Toisan to meet Chi-Chi and apologize for beating her up before, and she says she let him hit her, so they decide they need to fight to see who’s really better at fighting, as this is the only way their relationship can move forward.  And that’s kind of cute, I guess, but it reminds me too much of the ending of Rocky III.  Also, “The Magic Begins” had a similar ending, but with Yamcha instead of Chi-Chi. 

And then there’s a mid-credits scene where some lady is nursing someone back to health and the guy rolls over and it’s Piccolo.  This was really stupid because they dragged out this reveal like it was some sort of shock.  Meanwhile, everyone knew Piccolo would survive, since he would have been needed in a sequel.  Also, they show him still in one-piece after Goku defeated him, so it’s not like this is a huge twist or anything.  

But, of course, there would be no sequel, so this was the last we saw of DBE Piccolo. 

This movie was a real garbage heap of a film, but there was one positive development that came from it.  Akira Toriyama really didn’t like how this movie turned out, and this probably had a lot to do with him getting involved with the production of Battle of Gods around 2012.  And that movie turned out to be a big success, in part because of Toriyama’s efforts, and this led to the Dragon Ball rennaissance we’re in today.  Dragon Ball Super has been a mixed bag in my opinion, but the movies have been great, and even the worst of Super is still miles ahead of “Dragon Ball: Evolution.”

And... yeah, that’s all I got.  So ends the Gaijin Live-Action Trilogy.  I’ll leave you with the highlight of the series: Puar smoking a cigarette.

[tomatograter]

Do you think Dirk saying that he doesn't like to label himself as gay means he has internalized homophobia? Or does he really just don't like to put labels on himself? I've seen ppl saying it's homophobia but there's ppl in real life that don't feel comfortable with labels so I'm a bit confused honestly, cus we are talking about Dirk and he's... Dirk after all

Easy answer: Dirk is Gay.

Prolonged answer: I think it's kinda weird how some fandom discussion around "Dirk dodging the label in One pesterlog" has largely spiraled way outside of its original context to be talked about in a vacuum, especially when that context is crucial to understanding what is actually being said, AKA — it belongs to a deeply awkward conversation between Dirk and Roxy. One of Many they are implied to have had about the subject of Roxy's sustained, unwelcome, and oft drunken advances towards Dirk (& his splinters).

I'm going to reproduce it plus another bit of text down below, for the sake of comparison.

(To prevent the trickster text from looking like absolute shit, I have altered the background. Read the original here, if you're nasty: https://www.homestuck.com/story/5754 )

Now that we've been reacquainted with how and where that sentiment is expressed, let's try to break down what Dirk is doing here.

He is not receptive to Roxy's early advances, and spends most of the 'intro' for this conversation (not pictured) ignoring when Roxy flirts with him, until she gets upset at how 'boring' he is being right now.

Dirk is the one compelled to apologize.

He proceeds to shut the scenario down as an unwanted probability, eliciting further guilt-babbling from Roxy over how Dirk never wants to play along with the perfect traditional family fantasy, until she finally blows up and says it's because he's gay.

"I mean, yeah, that's what I thought."

Dirk, rather than saying I Am Not Gay, since he looooooves changing a conversational subject, claims that "Gay" is not entirely historically appropriate for this situation, given the non-negligible passage of time and the wildly dystopic circumstances* they find themselves in.

Dirk reassures Roxy he does still care about her.

Dirk is absolutely terrified of a similarly inclined (and intoxicated) Roxy up close. This is the most exclamations he's ever used.

Now, *These circumstances? The loss of 99% of the human race, including their society, customs, culture, and prejudices. (ALLEGEDLY.) It's important to remember that from Dirk and Roxy's side of the timetable, troll culture has been pushed as "the norm" for actual fucking centuries. HIC tried to recreate the caste system by artificially coloring human blood, leading to the death of billions. Faygo came out of the water tap, not water. Troll slang was incorporated into the English language. Humans ceased to organically reproduce. They were actively Discouraged from reproducing, since that's not something HIC could have total genetic control over; rendering traditional marriage and the concept of the nuclear family pointless.

You could also argue that same-gender relationships are not uncommon in Alternia, making "gay" altogether unnecessary by proxy, and that's true! But my point is this one: any union (or at least our society's holy concept of it) between straightie humans would be by definition undesirable under HIC's rule, too. She is the church, the president and the governing body. The population is only as good as they are assets for her to do whatever she wants with, including mass murder.

But wait! While that tracks… Roxy clearly still holds onto very 'conservative' definitions of romance for most of Homestuck. We see this multiple times. Dirk, as proved in conversations with Jake, uses 'gay' as an ironic pejorative. Suddenly it's not Historically Inaccurate anymore, Jake's interests are just gay.

Does this mean the context above is basically worthless, since they don't seem to have internalized it? No.

What must be kept in mind is this: Dirk and Roxy's only "active" link to de facto humanity is our society as it was in the early 2010's. Those glimpses they get by talking with jane and jake. They have all that dystopic context, yes, but the reality that seems the most "unfucked" to them for a grand majority of their lives are the halcyon years before the Condesce's rise to power: back when weed was illegal, BlogSpot was popular, movies sucked, MTV was still a hip channel, and gay generally meant something real bad. The wave of homophobia as a punchline or fear mongering tactic was at THE HEIGHTS. Marriage equality was a hot debate topic. Those were the dayz.

Dirk is keenly aware of the taboo implication the word "Gay" as a self-denomination carries. He's no dummy. But he's rarely direct with his intentions either. He's slippery as a bar of soap. (He's never "straight about his feelings", if you prefer.) And for a guy that cares so much about his reputation and maintaining a curated sense of utter coolness, he wants to avoid outing himself as any sort of weirdo no matter the cost.

But that's not all. I think the gravity of just how much Dirk believes he *owes* Roxy simply for existing as the last human in the same timeframe as her is a severely underplayed aspect of Dirk's core character, together with how much he tries to avoid her sexual advances only to end up feeling like absolute shit over it, because — if they truly are the last people on god's blighted earth, isn't he being "selfish" and "irrational" about not feeling shit for Roxy, in the grand scale of things? Is Roxy not his only friend in tangible reality, even if he avoids the mere suggestion of visiting her? Even if she gets black-out drunk and tries to push him into indulging her, regardless of how many times he's already said no?

(Spend enough time here and you realize how it directly mirrors the jane/jake experience.)

Dirk cares a lot about each and every one of his friends.

He pointedly adapts his speech based on whichever one of them he's talking to in an effort to express that investment. May it be reassuring Jane, fooling around with Jake, or trying to prevent Roxy from falling into a total catatonic doom-spiral; he avoids telling them anything that would be too crushing to hear. That's not what he's trying to do here. Not to say that he isn't bitchy sometimes, but that’s far from the central thing he does. The Epilogues have retroactively led people to believe that Dirk abhors and despises every single person he's ever been close to before (god forbid) LIKING them, and I think buying too much into that assumption ignores the foundations of his canon text, as well as the central motivation behind 99% of his actions in the story. This is the guy that grew up on Friendship Is Magic, has a picture of rainbow dash shamefully glued to one wall and a rainbow poster of Jake's symbol stapled to another, and everything he does is a little cringe attempt to demonstrate his worth by showing how much he cares about people, even when he's punching his actual feelings down instead of up and saying them.

Which brings us back to the load-bearing part of this question: Admitting to Roxy that there is absolutely no fucking way he will ever agree to having her babbys because he is gay is precisely the opposite of what Dirk wants to say, if his intention isn't pulverizing her. So he doesn't. And his worry on this regard is such that it prevents Dirk from even telling Roxy that he does love her, in the platonic sense, as a friend and hell-earth survivor, because he knows that specificity is what that would disappoint her greatly. (He only ever confesses this to Jane, on the death slabs.)

But also I think this is a really funny visual of Dirk's relationship with the word gay, to put statements into perspective:

[woah-were-halfway-there]

Leafs in 5

A/N: I was inspired after game 4 against Columbus, what can I say

Word Count: 4.1k

Going into the NHL’s alternate version of the postseason playoffs that 2020 decided to sprinkle in on top of everything else going on in the world, you knew it was bound to be interesting. There was a plan set in motion to keep all the players and staff safe and strict rules that needed to be followed for everything to work the way it was supposed to. Both of these resulted in your boyfriend, Auston, having to stay in a bubble at the Royal York while you stayed alone in your shared condo in Toronto that was just a few blocks away, for who knew how long. 

You were lucky that when the NHL season ended back in March, you were able to travel to Scottsdale with Auston and not be separated. At the beginning of the lockdown, your workplace closed down and moved to a work from home setting until further notice. After clarifying that it’d be at least a month until you could go back, you figured it wasn’t the worst idea to go along with your boyfriend back to Arizona after asking if you’d go with him. Little did you know the two of you would be there for almost four months. 

Although it was a relaxing time, it was also weird. All you really did was hang out with Auston, his family and Freddie while waiting to hear literally anything about things going back to normal, but that never happened. Your work decided that going back wouldn’t be an option even as Toronto entered its reopening phases as a safety precaution. Therefore you’d be working from home for the foreseeable future. 

It sucked a lot. You liked your job, your co-workers, and having your own way to be independent in a professional setting, but a global pandemic makes things a bit pretty difficult at times, and sometimes sacrifices need to be made. Lucky for you, though, it could have been a lot worse. And Auston played a massive part in you being able to adapt as well as you have. 

The time the two of you spent in Arizona together was great. Obviously, during it, you worked, spent time with the boys and the Matthews family, but a lot of new things happened too. You and Auston welcomed Felix, a Bernedoodle puppy home to be part of the fam, and dealt with life as living in a pandemic continued. 

Then the NHL announced its return to play action plan, and things got wild all over again. 

Auston began skating and practicing intently again. Plans were being made to get back to Toronto for training before having to go to whatever hub city was chosen for the Eastern Conference teams. With all the talk of possible locations for the playoffs to take place, you weren’t expecting Toronto to be one of the cities in deep consideration, let alone for one of the so-called bubbles actually to be there. But, that was exactly how things played out, so you and Auston prepared accordingly. 

After some deep consideration and conversations with your boyfriend, you decided that when the time came, you would go back to Toronto when Auston needed to go. However, there was a period where Auston was sick, and that changed things up a bit even more, but eventually, the two of you and Felix were all set and ready to head back to the 6ix without any further delays. 

The two of you settled to being back in Ontario without difficulty. You followed the rules of self-isolating for two weeks upon arriving back to the country, and so did Auston. If he wasn’t at the condo with you, he was at the rink practicing alone, since it wasn’t safe for him to be around his teammates, or the public until those 14 days were up. That was fine though, you both just chilled with Felix, watched the entirety of Sons of Anarchy and Schitt’s Creek, and prepared for how things were bound to change again once the playoffs finally started. 

“I feel bad,” Auston said loudly from the bedroom as you walked down the hallway towards it with the basket full of clothes you’d just taken out of the dryer. 

“Why is that?” You asked once you entered the room, tossing the clothes on the chair, and got ready to fold them. It was his last night in the condo before having to relocate down the street at the Fairmont for the entire Maple Leafs playoff run. He was busy packing, and you were busy making sure everything was organized and ready for this transition. Even Felix was taking part by laying on the bed and demanding attention from both you and Auston every once in a while. 

“You know why,” he deadpanned while looking at you pointedly. 

At that, you sighed.

“Aus, we talked about this.”

“I know we did, but now that it’s actually time for me to leave, I’m dreading it even more.”

As much as you tried not to let the situation bug you, it still did. Throughout your entire relationship, there were many times when you and Auston would spend time away from each other, so that part was nothing new. However, you’d never been in the same city without being able to see one another or know when you’d be able to talk face-to-face and not through a screen again would be. And although the whole bubble situation was something you and Auston had talked about a lot over the last month or so, what it entailed still hadn’t quite set in until that moment. 

“Me too,” you responded quietly and stared down at the pile of clean clothes, knowing that if you looked at your boyfriend, the tears you felt pricking your eyes would undoubtedly spillover. “But it has to happen, Auston. There isn’t much else we can do, unfortunately.”

“But-.”

“No buts,” you cut him off and snapped your teary gaze to him. “This is your career. And the playoffs! Those are no small things. Regardless of how crappy this entire process is, I’m still going to be here, cheering you on as much as possible. It just sucks so bad that things aren’t normal. That I can’t go down to SBA and watch you be the amazing hockey player that you are with our friends and family, or hug you as soon as you’re done your postgame interview and tell you how proud I am. I’m just so over everything right now, and I’m sorry to be taking this out on you, this is the last thing you should have to deal with before going into the bubble. I just-.”

The way your voice cracked at the end of your spiel had your boyfriend next to you and pulling you into his embrace in a second. 

You were on an emotional rant, and Auston knew that. He knew that you had been holding in how you really felt about the NHL’s plan to go ahead with the playoffs, and it was time to let it all out. Although you never expressed your frustrations, you did have quite a few, and Auston was determined to get you to talk about them, especially before he had to leave.  

“I’m sorry I’m a mess,” you mumbled while wrapping your arms around his waist and leaned against his chest. 

“You’re allowed to be a mess,” he replied and squeezed you. “This isn’t an ideal way for the playoffs to happen, believe me, I know, and I’m still not sure how it’s all going to play out. But know I’m sorry you’re feeling the way that you are because of something I have to do.”

“That’s the thing though, Aus, there is literally nowhere else I’d rather be than here for you... but I’m worried. What if you, or another player, or staff get sick? What will the league do then? I get that they’re strict on how things in the bubble will work and everything, but we’re still in a freaking pandemic. I just don’t think it’s necessary. But regardless of what I think about the NHL’s decision to resume, it doesn’t matter. I’m the one who agreed to come back with you, and I’m going to be here still even if you and the team end up in Edmonton for the finals, and I won’t see you until October. Wow, it sucks, even more, talking about it.”

“God, I know,” he responded before pulling away slightly to look down at you. “I’ll never be able to explain how much I appreciate you coming back and being here with me for all of this. I hate that I’m going to be so closeby and not be able to come home to you and Felix and that you’re going to be here alone, but thank you for being willing to do this for me.”

“Of course, I want to kiss your stupid face again as soon as I can after this,” you pouted. “Even if I have to fly to Alberta in order to do so.”

“Wouldn’t exactly be opposed to that idea,” he told you before leaning down and catching your lips in a soft, sweet kiss. It didn’t take long for you to deepen the kiss by wrapping your arms around the back of his neck and pulling him closer. He smiled against your lips, letting his hands linger on your waist a bit as he waited for you to make the next move. But then, you unexpectedly broke the kiss and turned away from him. 

“Well, I guess we better get back to packing, yeah?”

You had the goofiest grin on your face as you reached down to grab one of your t-shirts from the laundry pile, but then Auston let out a dramatic groan from where he stood, and you had to cover your mouth so that you wouldn’t burst out laughing.

“Now you’re just being cruel,” he said as he walked up behind you and leaned his head on your shoulder. You bit down hard on your bottom lip to keep yourself from smiling any wider than you already were as he wrapped his arms around your waist, before eventually turning around to look at him again.

“How so?”

“Seriously?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I think I hear Felix getting into something,” you lied as you tried to worm out of his hold, wanting to mess with him a bit more. But he was on to you, which is also why you didn’t put up a fight when he didn’t let go. 

“Babe,” Auston whined. “You’re killing me.”

“Well we can’t have that, you have to go into the bubble tomorrow-.”

Before anything else could be said, Auston pressed his lips against yours again, and you let him. You chuckled slightly before reaching up to tangle your hands into the curls forming due to him not getting a haircut. But you didn’t mind, loved it even, and used it as a way to keep him close. 

“You’re full of jokes tonight, huh?” He mumbled against your lips as he slowly guided you towards the bed, all while tugging at the bottom of the hoodie you wore. 

“Just for you,” you replied before pecking his lips and moving away just enough to pull the sweater off and toss it on the ground before quickly kissing him again. You then came in contact with the mattress and let Auston lay you back on it. It wasn’t long before he was leaning over you and letting his lips roam to that sweet spot along your collarbone that he knew would have you seeing stars. “I thought you needed to pack.”

“I’ll do it in the morning.”

“You’re going to regret that decision once you realize you’ll have to get up early to get ready,” you challenged.

“No, what I’ll regret is not finishing what we’re starting before I have to leave tomorrow,” he quipped and continued brushing his lips against your skin. 

“Alright, fair,” you responded, figuring you’d given him a hard enough time and guided his lips back to yours; the night soon fading around you as melted into each other’s touch. 

The next morning, you woke up alone in bed. The blinds were still drawn, Felix was asleep on the rug, and the AC was cranked for some reason. The cold air made goosebumps rise on your exposed skin, causing you to shiver as you pulled the bedsheet up higher to cover more of your body. Just as you started wondering where Auston had gone off to, you heard the shower turn on from the ensuite and suddenly knew where he was. Part of you wanted to just lay in bed for the whole day, but the other more logical part knew there was still a lot to be done before Auston’s departure and that you should probably get up.

You grabbed your housecoat from its place in the closet and put it on before sneaking into the washroom to brush your teeth. Auston didn’t know you were in there with him, but that changed as soon as you finished rinsing off your toothbrush and decided to join him in the shower.

Once the two of you were done in there, you eventually did get dressed and ready to start the day.

Leading up to his last day at the condo, you made sure any running around for him was done so that there would be no added stress, and that’s precisely what happened. The two of you shared a chill morning consisting of a homemade breakfast, packing, taking Felix for a walk, and simply enjoying the other’s presence before Auston had to leave.

And that time came up way too fast.

“I’m going to miss you,” Auston said in the parking lot of the Ford Performance Centre before pulling you in for a hug. You were dropping him off for his last team practice before going into the bubble, but you both knew it’d be the last time the two of you would see each other for a while.

“I’m going to miss you too, so much,” you replied and squeezed him a little tighter. “Even though you’ll be only a few blocks away.”

“It sure won’t feel like it.”

“I know.”

Gradually, some of Auston’s teammates started walking by, and you knew one of you would have to pull away sooner or later. Reluctantly, you were the first to do it.

“You’re gonna be late, Matts,” Mitchy stated as he walked by juggling his suitcase and bags he planned on taking into the bubble. “Hey, Y/N.”

“Hey, Mitch,” you smiled as you leaned back against your car, Auston’s hands still on your waist. “Is Steph still here?”

“She’s just about to leave, I think. Are you two still hanging out this week?”

“Yeah, I’ll probably take Felix over to your house to hang out with Zeus while we watch the game and drink some wine.”

“Sounds like a typical night for you two,” he chuckled and adjusted one of the straps of his bags. “Anyways, I gotta get in there. Actually, we both do.”

He gave Auston a pointed look, and your boyfriend just rolled his eyes.

“Get off my back. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Yeah, ok,” Mitch responded and started walking again. “See ya, Y/N!”

“Bye, Mitch, good luck!” You called after him before looking back to Auston and smiling at him sadly. “You really do need to get going.”

“I know,” he sighed and began picking up his bags so he could start heading towards the building. “I’ll call you tonight once I’m settled in?”

“Yes, please do,” you replied as he looked to you and nodded. “Just give me a heads up when. I’m supposed to Facetime your sisters tonight to give them a Felix update and catch up.”

“Fair enough,” he smiled, to which you returned before pulling him in for one last kiss. 

“You’re going to do great, Auston. I love you.”

“And I love you,” he pecked your lips again. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Sounds good,” you said as he began walking away. “Good luck, babe.”

At that, he smiled to you over his shoulder before continuing on his way. You stood there for a moment after he disappeared out of sight, clutching onto the little 34 necklace he had gifted you for Christmas two years prior, before sighing and climbing into your car so you could head back home. 

~*~

After Auston entered the bubble, the two of you FaceTimed every day, it wasn’t always planned, sometimes just in the spur of the moment when you were both bored and missing each other, and it really did make the whole transition a lot easier. 

The first night, Auston gave you a virtual tour of the Leafs floor at the Fairmont. Then, he told you all about the practice and how the guys chirped him for bringing so many clothes. You couldn’t help but laugh, seeing as you knew it was true, before asking you about your day. Your day was much less eventful, so the topic of conversation shifted rather quickly. You somehow ended up playing Mario Kart on the switch from your living room against Tyson, Kerf and Freddie, all while still on FaceTime with Auston. After a few rounds of that, you were more than ready to call it a night. 

Once you had said goodbye to Auston, you curled up in bed with Felix and soon passed out. 

That quickly became a routine almost every night the Leafs didn’t have a game. You and Auston would catch up about the day’s events before getting into some friendly competition with the guys over something that would sometimes involve other wives or girlfriends trying to keep their men at bay as well. 

On the nights the Leafs did play, you always watched the game in some way. You watched their exhibition game against Montreal with Steph at her house, FaceTimed Auston’s family while watching the first game against Columbus from the condo, and so on.  

You witnessed Auston’s goal against the Blue Jackets in Game 2 and couldn’t wait to express how proud you were of him once the two of you were able to talk again that night. You also got to see the 3-0 lead the Leafs lost in Game 3 and listened to your boyfriend vent about it, but still made sure to tell him that you were insanely proud, because you were. 

And then Game 4 happened. 

Going into that game, you didn’t know what to expect, think, or feel. Obviously, you wanted the Leafs to win. You didn’t want their (sort of) playoff run to be over so soon, but also, the selfish part of you couldn’t help but think about how there was a chance Auston might be home that night. The conflict you felt made you anxious for the actual game, which is why you opted to watch it at home alone with Felix. 

You sat on the couch, clutching onto a cushion for the entire game. Before the game started, you decided that although you would have loved for Auston to be home, you wanted the Leafs to push a Game 5. You knew they were capable of going much further than just the qualifying round and were rooting hard for them to win. Still, you gradually became a little less hopeful leading into the last four minutes of the game when Columbus was up 3-0. 

But then Willy scored. Less than a minute later so did John, and then Zach managed to tie up the game with just 22 seconds left on the clock. To say you were on the edge of your seat would’ve been an understatement because it was so much more intense than that. You didn’t think what was happening was real, but the flood of texts you received from friends and family about what happened proved you wrong. 

During the commercial break, you called Ema, Auston’s mom, who was absolutely losing her mind. You stayed on the phone with her, talking with Auston’s family as your heart pounded in your chest while for overtime to begin. 

Then Auston scored the game-winning goal, and you literally screamed. You stood up, staring at the TV in complete awe while his teammates engulfed your boyfriend, and all the Columbus players skated off the ice. Felix looked at you oddly, and you wasted no time in picking him up and pointing to the screen, telling him what his dad just did. 

After the reality of what just happened settled in, you said your goodbyes to Auston’s family before texting Steph and some other friends, still losing your mind. You watched the postgame interviews, chuckling at how it was undeniable that even Auston still hadn’t entirely accepted what happened and couldn’t wait until you received the call from him you knew was coming. 

About half an hour later, your phone rang, and sure enough, it was Auston.

“I am so proud of you,” you stated as soon as the FaceTime call connected. Auston was walking down the hallway of their hotel floor, smiling widely, and you could see some of his teammates in the background on the phone with loved ones as well. “All of you. Holy fuck, you guys did that!”

“It still doesn’t seem real,” Auston responded. “Like this is real, right? I didn’t dream it?”

“It’s real, babe, you’re going to Game 5!”

“Holy shit.”

You could tell he was in his room by that point with the way he flopped on a bed and couldn’t stop smiling. 

“How’s the adrenaline?” You asked and patted the space beside you so that Felix would lay beside you and be in the camera frame.

“Hi buddy,” Auston breathed out, before chuckling. “And oh, it’s pumping. I think I’m going to be up for a while after this.”

“Then what are you doing in your room? Go celebrate with the guys.”

“I know, I will. But I wanted to say goodnight to you first.”

You smiled at how soft he was even after such a significant game, and couldn’t help the blush that burned across your cheeks. 

“You’re too sweet,” you said while shaking your head.

“Only for you,” he replied and sat up as someone knocked on his door. 

“I think you’re being summoned,” you laughed as he rolled his eyes.

“It’s Mitchy telling me to get out of my room.”

“I think you better listen before they barge in.”

“True,” he responded. “I guess I will go. I’ll call you tomorrow? We’re off for the day.”

“I’ll be here,” you answered him softly. “Now, go be with your team, and don’t forget to call your mom.”

“Oh, yes, right, I’ll do that right now. I love you. Thank you for always supporting me.”

“And I love you, babe, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Ok, bye,” he replied and blew you a quick kiss just before the call ended. 

You stared at your screen for a minute until it went dark and shook your head. Your heart was bursting with how proud you were and how much you loved your boyfriend, that even you weren’t sure if you’d be able to fall asleep right away. After scrolling through social media for a bit and liking every Maple Leafs post that showed up in your timeline, you eventually called it a night and set your phone down.

Just as you did that, though, your phone buzzed with a goodnight text from Auston.

Auston

Sleep tight. I love you.x 

You laid there, smiling at the device for a moment before texting back.

Y/N 

I love you more. Goodnight Auston.x

Auston 

Not possible

Your heart swelled as you read over his last message multiple times before deciding what to text back.

Y/N

Bet. 

Now go, babe. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. I love you.

Auston

Love you too <3

After shutting your phone off again, you finally let yourself relax even while being overcome by an emotional wave of just how much you loved your boyfriend. You knew that whether or not Auston came home after Game 5, the two of you would be ok. The distance hadn’t affected anything, and you knew it wouldn’t even if the Leafs did make it to the finals, and you and Auston were separated for a long time. It’d all be worth it in the end, and you couldn’t wait to see how the rest of the Leafs playoff run was bound to play out.

Hello friends! Somehow I managed to write this in a day, anyways, I’d love to hear what you think! And Go Leafs!

[sarahjtv]

BNHA Chapter 313 Short Thoughts & Berserk

So, for anyone following me for my My Hero Academia analysis stuff, unfortunately, I don't think I’ll get one out this week.  The chapter was amazing, don’t get me wrong, but I just didn’t have time to really write anything big about it.  Blame the BNHA: The Strongest Hero mobile game that released this week.  Gatcha games really suck me in.  Bakugo was my first random pull amazingly, but I haven’t gotten my fave Shoto yet.  I want my man to come home 😭.  Anyway, I will point out a few things from this chapter:

Thank god All Might is alive!  I didn’t expect him to die, but I’m still afraid of that possibility someday.  That one panel of him declaring himself to those thugs was amazing and I can see why it gave people Stain vibes.  Where is that guy anyway?  Also, I want All Might to sign Izuku’s adoption papers already.  He really is Izuku’s father at this point.  

All Might warned the Top 3 (Endeavor, Best Jeanist, and Hawks) about Lady Nagant, so I expect them to pop up sometime soon.  Especially Hawks.  That’ll be an interesting reunion with his Senpai.

Lady Nagant is still beautiful and badass and I love this Queen 👑

Deku got shot in the stomach (or side?) and he’s fucking pissed!  This kid’s nuts for being so reckless right now, but it looks like he’ll do anything to get info on AFO and Shigaraki.  This arc is really doing things to Deku.  I got a bad feeling that his recklessness will bit him in the ass real soon.

I think En (the 6th Holder) is rising up the ranks of being one of my favorite OFA predecessors.  I like his design, his personality, and how he mentors Deku.  The faces he made this week are amazing!  This man is just done with Deku’s shit he wants to go back to Shoyo Hinata and play volleyball again 😂  Also, he said “Hey, Hey, Hey!” in the fan translations and I can’t unhear Bokuto from Haikyuu!! whenever someone says that DAMN YOU OWL🦉

Lady Nagant’s Quirk can make her a sniper scope out of what looks like muscle or tissue because of course it freaking can.

Finally, I’m still confused on what the 3rd Holder’s Quirk is:  Fa Jin.  I think everyone is.  Apparently research says that it’s a form of Chinese martial arts that unleashes kinetic energy.  That’s why Deku was doing all those squats with his legs before he jumped to grab Lady Nagant.  I’m thinking it’s like how Black Panther’s costume stored kinetic energy and unleashed it whenever he did a punch to the ground.  Or something like that.  Horikoshi really needs to explain this one next week.

So yeah, awesome chapter this week with some action, badass All Might, and big reckless brain energy from Deku.  

And finally (and this will be a long spiel), I really need to address the sudden death of Berserk’s mangaka, Kentaro Miura (age 54), that was announced to the public recently.  He died back in May 6th due to an Acute Aortic Dissection.  I’ll admit to never reading Berserk or watching the anime adaption.  I know about it, but I never got around to actually getting myself into the series.  I heard amazing things about it, but I also heard that is has every content warning under the sun (abuse, sexual assault, rape, torture, murder, etc.).  It’s like if manga had a rating, Berserk would be rated-R full stop.  Still, I would like to get around to reading it one day.  Even so, I have seen some panels from the manga and it is literally God-Tier art.  It’s so rare to see an artist put in so much work into their pieces.  Every little detail is drawn masterfully.  If you looked at his panels far away, you’d swear that it was a photo.  If you looked up closely, you could see every single line Miura drew.  Honestly, his work deserves its own museum.  His story and work were so influential to the pop culture we know.  There would be no Souls series without Berserk.  There wouldn’t be Cloud Strife.  Any buff character with a gigantic-ass sword was inspired by Berserk in some way shape or form.  Other mangaka both loved and were inspired by Berserk like our own Kohei Horikoshi.  Miura-san was a true legend in his own right and he will be deeply missed.

I’m no doctor and I’m honestly not sure what really caused Miura-san’s untimely death, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the stress of mangakas’ absolutely brutal schedule was one of the causes.  In case you don’t know, mangakas pretty much literally put their lives into their works.  Their schedule is roughly like the one seen below.  Sleep and free-time are basically non-existent for them. The same goes for a lot of animators out there with Studio Mappa (despite their amazing animation) being one of the biggest causes of factory-like work in the industry lately.  I wish Miura’s death didn’t bring get this topic trending, but I do hope that both the manga and anime industry finally see what this work does to their artist and gives them a much more breathable schedule.  Shonen Jump+, Jump’s exclusive online manga is actually doing fairly well with their mangaka in terms of schedule.  Series like Spy X Family and Kaiju No. 8 have their mangakas release their chapters every 1-2 weeks.  They even let their mangaka take breaks if they need to with beautiful pieces of artwork as consolation.  God knows I had to wait a full month for a Spy X Family chapter to come out.  Regardless, I truly do hope this is a wake-up-call for the manga and anime industries.  I hope things get better for all the mangaka and animators.  They deserve all the praise, rest, and ease they can get.  Respect and love your mangaka and animators, my friends.  RIP, Kentaro Miura.

[sepublic]

Taking Responsibility

          Another way Luz and Lilith are kind of similar, is that their actions towards Amity and Eda respectively had WAY more of an impact than they would’ve reasonably expected; For Lilith, the curse was meant to only be a day of weakened magic, not the rest of one’s shortened life as an Owl Beast. And for Luz, she had no idea that her antics, done more to help others like Willow and King, would have so much of a negative impact on Amity- There was no way she would’ve expected Amity’s top status as a student to mean THAT much to her, she couldn’t have known about the emotional abuse and expectations that Amity went through, and how much of her self-esteem had been carefully constructed around her academic achievements by Odalia and Alador.

          Obviously Luz didn’t NEARLY harm Amity as much as Lilith did to Eda, and when she realized what went wrong, she actually fessed up and opened up to her mistake… But the general idea is still there, and I feel like Luz and Lilith have that mutual feeling of being a screw-up whose actions make things worse in the end, and maybe all they’re good for is hurting others. But as of the Season Finale, with Eda reassuring Luz that the girl didn’t screw her over, and coming back… And Lilith FINALLY doing the right thing for once, Luz and Lilith can make the road to recovery. They can learn not to be so hard on themselves for honest mistakes that escalated far past what they could’ve been reasonably blamed for, while also acknowledging their actual mistakes here or there, and working to fix the damage regardless.

          Maybe that’s part of the reason why Lilith let herself sometimes enjoy how the curse gave her an advantage over Eda, and rubbed it in her face- Aside from possibly wanting to look as innocent as possible… I think Lilith could’ve recognized that she wasn’t entirely responsible for the curse being as bad it was, so she was able to absolve herself a little of the blame; In addition to probably not wanting to fully confront her guilt, either. Maybe she left a lot of the blame to the seller, but then Lilith put TOO much of the blame into that person, and didn’t leave enough for herself- And then got too much into acting/feeling innocent, and thus profiting off of the curse. But no, Lilith is forced to confront just how much she HAD hurt Eda regardless, even if it was a genuine accident- In addition to her many, MANY other mistakes and issues, like enforcing Belos’ corruption and taking Luz hostage. Those actions are definitely mistakes that Lilith should’ve anticipated the consequences of, but at least now she can work to productively fix what went wrong, instead of just beating herself up over it. And even if she had been 100% innocent... Feeling any satisfaction over the curse is still objectively terrible.

           Really, I have to wonder if Lilith assumed that Eda’s distance with her was out of jealousy- If she thought Eda was envious of her, not only to deflect from what Lilith actually did wrong, but also to contribute to that feeling of finally being better? Because if Eda is jealous, then that’s basically Eda admitting to herself that Lilith IS better, and that she DOES feel a certain way about it, that it actually matters a lot to her… And maybe there was that petty spite, that smug satisfaction that Edalyn finally understood what Lilith went through, being in her sister’s shadow for so long. In the end however, Eda only just wants the best for those around her… And while it hurts that Lilith assumed this malice, at least there’s some consolation and solace that while Lily has been failing Eda’s expectations up until now- She can finally live up to them, and be the kind person that her little sister always wanted to look up to her as.

           On a less-related note, you could also compare Lilith’s underestimation of the curse from childhood, to how King acted in Escape of the Palisman… King, like Lilith, also reasonably expected the curse to be less drastic than it actually would become; Like anyone would have, King didn’t anticipate the curse suddenly getting worse, to the point where an elixir wasn’t just enough- He’d have to appeal to Eda’s inner self and memories to bring her out. Man, that curse is FULL of surprises, all of them unwelcome. And again, like Luz- King was better than Lilith in that he adapted to this unexpected consequence and took responsibility for it… Not completely, he kind of denied doing so to Eda herself; But King acknowledged it to himself at least, and made the personal change to never do anything like that again.

          Sometimes you’re just dealt an unfair, unexpected hand by life, and while you CAN rightfully mope about how it sucks, and understandably feel like it’s not your problem and not YOUR responsibility because it’s not your fault… Sometimes, you just gotta pick up after the mess and clean it up regardless. It’s not ideal, but you really have to work with what you get. It’s a principle for compassion- It’s not your fault, it’s not your problem, it’s not your mess nor obligation… But you should still lend a hand and make things better, regardless. Besides, you might reap what you sow in doing so- What goes around, comes around, particularly kindness. Be the change you want to see in the world, yadda-yadda. It sucks that you have to do it, but then- Who else will? Take initiative, and don’t just wait for things to fix themselves, like Lilith did… Instead own up to what happened, while recognizing the actual amount of blame, and improve the situation as Luz and King (and soon maybe Lilith) do.

[ghazridha]

Effects of child sexual abuse and treatment of childhood rape victims

 1. Child sexual abuse:

Child sexual abuse can be defined as: “Any sexual act, overt or covert, between a child and an adult, or an older child, by seduction or coercion.” There are many forms of child sexual abuse. Sexual abuse may be temptation by a beloved relative of the child, or violent action by a stranger. Sexual abuse is sometimes difficult to define due to the many different forms and degrees it can take. Regardless of how childhood sexual abuse is, it causes a widespread negative psychological impact on its victims. The nature and intensity of the sexual act cause more serious psychological effects, and may start violently, such as direct rape of a child, or with precursors that include harassment and exploitation. Child sexual abuse violates basic human rights. The sexual experience must take place at the appropriate time of development and within the limits of adult control and choice. Childhood sexual abuse can disrupt normal social development and cause many different psychological and social problems. 

2. Impact of rape on children in the short term: 

In the short term, within two years, child victims of sexual abuse may display regressive behaviors; Such as thumb sucking, bedwetting, sleep disturbances, eating problems, behavior problems, poor performance at school, and unwillingness to participate in school or social activities. Children may feel angry at the abusers, at adults - such as parents and teachers - who fail to protect them, and at themselves for not being able to stop the abuse. 

3. Long-term effects of child sexual abuse: 

The long-term effects of child rape are wide-ranging, and include anxiety-related and self-destructive behaviors such as alcoholism or drug abuse, anxiety attacks, and insomnia. Childhood sexual abuse is associated with higher levels of depression, guilt, shame, self-blame, eating disorders, physical fears and anxiety, patterns of separation, oppression, deprivation, sexual problems, and relationship problems. Depression is the most common long-term symptom among survivors of childhood rape and sexual abuse, and symptoms of depression in survivors of childhood sexual abuse: feeling depressed most of the time, suicidal tendencies, sleep disturbances, eating patterns, and feelings of guilt, shame and self-blame. Victims of sexual assault often have difficulty recognizing the abuse and crime of the other, and therefore think negatively of themselves. After years of negative thoughts, victims feel worthless, and they avoid others because they think they have nothing to offer. What is observed is that women who survive childhood abuse often experience stress, which may manifest in the form of medical and health concerns much more than people who were not sexually abused as children, and it has often been associated with pelvic pain, digestive problems, headaches and difficulty swallowing. Violent forms of child sexual abuse such as rape are associated with fear, cause stress long after the harm has stopped, and oftentimes victims suffer from chronic anxiety, panic attacks and phobias. Some victims isolate themselves to protect themselves from sexual abuse, and as they get older they may continue to use this mechanism to cope with their feelings of insecurity or threat. Victims of sexual abuse as children experience feelings of confusion, nightmares, and ruminations that accompanies them throughout their lives. Sometimes sexual abuse causes trauma that can make the victim forget and suppress the experience as a coping mechanism. The harasser deserves all contempt and punishments, and I advise the parents not to remain silent, confront and defend their children in similar situations, but it seems that the parents are still embarrassed about such issues, or perhaps they have also been exposed, so interfering or talking about the issue causes sadness or pain. There is no need to hate your family or men in general. One person did it in such cases and the inability to transcend. You must consult a psychiatrist to deal with its effects so that it does not affect the future, and tell the mother since she did not appoint you. It is your right to see a doctor or psychiatrist to remove the damage as much as possible. 

4. Sexual harms of child sexual abuse: 

Child sexual abuse causes short- and long-term sexual harm to victims, the most important of which are: 

- Avoidance or fear of sex. 

- Treat sex as a commitment and a task. 

- Suffering from negative emotions such as: anger, guilt and disgust with touch. - Difficulty with sexual arousal or feeling a sensation. 

- Emotional emptiness, or the feeling that it is not there during sex. 

- The urgency and pressure of intrusive or disturbing sexual thoughts and images. 

- Engaging in compulsive or inappropriate sexual behaviors. 

- Difficulty establishing or maintaining an intimate relationship. 

- Other effects... 

A study conducted on the prevalence of impotence in the United States revealed that victims of sexual abuse face more sexual problems than the general population, and they found that male victims of sexual abuse in childhood were more likely to have erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, and decreased sexual desire, and that women were more likely to suffer from sexual disorders. Excitement. It should be noted that in all the effects of childhood sexual abuse, the reactions and experiences of each victim are different, and there are no single symptoms among all survivors, so it is important that clinicians focus on the individual needs of the survivor. 

5. Objectives of treatment of raped children and victims of sexual abuse:

Victims of rape and childhood sexual assault need to receive appropriate treatment, which begins with the evaluation of the therapist, and the development of an appropriate treatment plan, and there are many goals for treating the victims.

 - A useful goal is to increase the victims' sense of control and control over their lives.

 - Strengthening the feeling of safety and relieving feelings of guilt.

 - Encouraging relationship building techniques and setting boundaries in dealings. 

- It is important that the therapist or counselor implements the “client empowerment” technique, which is based on building feelings of trust, security and openness with survivors. Because rape and sexual assault come in the form of domination, control and subjugation, it is important for the therapist to let the survivor control the pace and direction of the treatment process. 

- It is critical to help survivors process, detect, and express anger, because anger can be used to help the survivor feel empowered and empowered, set boundaries, and enhance self-efficacy.

 - A counselor helps sexual assault survivors reframe their anger into feelings that can be used to help identify their rights and needs, and use their anger for productive action and behavior. 

 6. The future of the child's emotional and intimate relationships after rape:

 Studies have shown that the better the survivor is in adapting to intimate relationships, the lower the degree of depression he has, whatever the severity of sexual abuse. Intimate positive relationships may increase the victims' sense of safety. On helping survivors of childhood abuse to form good relationships, we mention some important points:

 - Helping sexual assault survivors acquire skills that will help them find and develop supportive relationships, especially with a romantic partner, including helping them to better adapt to and strengthen and develop intimate relationships. 

- It is important that the victim's partner also learns about the long-term effects of pedophilia, and learns ways in which they can actively participate in the healing process. 

- Counselors can help couples communicate, trust, respect, and equal in their intimate relationship. 

- The couple's therapeutic goals include resolving issues related to physical and emotional well-being, dismantling traumatic memories, increasing trust between survivor and partner, and participating in appropriate social contact. 

- Due to the sensitive and vulnerable nature of sexuality, therapists are advised to resolve general psychosocial problems before treating survivors' sexual problems. 

- Survivors are more likely to experience success in sexual and relationship counseling after overcoming feelings of abuse and acquiring skills in areas such as assertiveness and self-awareness. 

In the end Child sexual abuse has many painful effects in the short and long term, in addition to the chronic sexual effects, and needs the appropriate therapist and treatment plan that deals with the psychological, social and sexual effects of the victim

[rant-2-me]

My mental state has just worsened over the days, though I'm not sure why, and I just feel so unmotivated and lacking any energy to practice any self care other than napping, and also feel anxious because I'm not studying enough.. feel like I'm just 1/4th assing my responsibilities.. And when someone asks me how I'm doing, sometimes I blurt out that I'm not fine, and the guilt I feel afterwards for making them worry, so I find myself withdrawing from initiating conversation with them, even though I really want to, and this makes them worry about me more.. I just don't know anything anymore, everything feels too much, yet I can't rant in a clear conscience without feeling guilty for bothering them, and thinking how I don't deserve to complain because they have had so much worse (yes I know pain is relative, but I feel so horrible, like a whiny child, who doesn't know how to be content with her blessings)......

Sorry I know it's a lot.. feel free to delete it if it's triggering or making you uncomfortable in any way... I just needed to get it out..

My lovely nonnie, im so, so glad you sent this ask. and got it all out of your system. yeah this sounds cheesy but like ive been there, with not knowing how to reach out—im proud you had the courage to send this ask. girlboss vibes.

also this ask took a while to answer and im so so sorry about that, but I didnt want to do anything less than the best for you, so let's just jump right in <[:)

Lacking motivation, god I've been there, but doing self care is super super important so here is a how-to, hon.

How to do selfcare when you’re not motivated to:

1. Be a little “gross.”

Gross is in quotes because it’s so subjective, but you undoubtedly have a few behaviors you consider kind of gross regardless. Now’s the time to do them without judgment. For me, that’s meant showering less, eating weird food combos (sometimes in bed), and letting my brows and mustache grow magnificently unruly. For you, it could mean doing something you normally judge yourself for or cutting back on activities you only do for the benefit of others. Now is not the time to allow “socially acceptable” behaviors to rule you.

2. Eat whatever the hell you want.

This should be a rule always, but I’m not going to pretend there aren’t societal, social, and personal pressures that go into why we eat what we eat. Try to shut down the voice that judges or polices what you’re eating right now. We’re in the middle of a goddamn pandemic. If dinner has to be some slices of cheese and deli meat eaten in front of the open fridge, so be it. If you have a lot of cravings and are snacking more than you normally would, cool. If pre-pandemic you decided you were going to stick to a certain meal plan and it’s just not happening anymore? Don’t beat yourself up.

Yes, what we eat is connected to our mental health, and I don’t want to discount that—but if the stress of eating healthfully is making you feel like crap anyway, whether that’s because you can’t fathom cooking or don’t have the means to shop for certain foods during isolation, just eat the sleeve of Oreos and try again another day. It’s okay.

3. And wear whatever you want.

Or, more realistically, wear whatever you can. Even if it means wearing the same ratty sweatpants for a whole week. Or month. Maybe you started all this out aspiring to get dressed every day to work from home productively, or maybe you have a whole collection of comfortable loungewear you feel guilty for not utilizing. Whatever arbitrary rules and expectations you’ve set for yourself, you can throw them out.

On the other hand, maybe you need to quiet the voice that tells you there’s no point in getting dressed or feeling presentable. If it helps, by all means, play with your look, wear awesome or weird outfits, do your hair and makeup or whatever activity might feel a little silly given your current reality. In the middle of a pandemic, nothing is a waste of time if it makes you feel good.

4. Use shortcuts to avoid creating chores.

In my first week or so of working entirely from home, I was baffled by just how messy my apartment got. How on earth were so many messes piling up when I wasn’t even doing anything but working, sleeping, and eating? I hadn’t realized it, but a lot of my small tidying routines had become casualties to the pandemic. And, it turns out, slacking on the little ways I pick up after myself every day (such as doing the dishes right after I use them) added up quickly.

Instead of forcing myself to stick to the same levels of tidiness that I used to maintain, I’ve found shortcuts. For example, I use paper plates and plastic cutlery when I feel too fatigued to wash dishes so they don’t sit in the sink for days on end. Or I stick to the same two “outfits” to avoid clothes piling up when I’m too depressed to put them away every day. If you can find a small way to go easy on yourself, even if it feels a little wasteful or indulgent or gross, it’s okay to tap into those shortcuts right now.

5. Be kind to yourself if your place is messy or dirty.

I won’t lie: I’m someone whose space impacts my mental health a lot. Typically, keeping my apartment clean helps keep my mental health in check and letting my apartment get gross makes me feel worse. That’s still true in a lot of ways, but to adapt I’ve been trying to be mindful and accepting of where I’m at. And it’s…helped?

It turns out that taking the pressure off does a lot to mitigate the guilt and some of the other negative mental health effects I usually experience. In practice, it involves a lot of talking to myself. Instead of seeing my apartment turning into a depression cave and immediately thinking, “Oh, God, I need to clean up, this is so disgusting, I’m a monster for living like this, of course I feel depressed,” I go for kindness. I think (or even say out loud because, well, desperate times), “Of course my apartment is a mess right now. I’ll get to it when I get to it. I can handle the mess for now.”

6. Accept your new sleep schedule.

idk anyone whose sleep hasn’t been screwed in some way by all of this. Anxiety, depression, fatigue, pent-up energy from sheltering in place, tech use, new work responsibilities, screwy schedules…pretty much every aspect of our new reality can impact our sleep. Some people are sleeping a lot more, some are sleeping a lot less, and some are cycling through both extremes. Oh, and the temptation of naps! It’s all there.

Trying to maintain a healthy sleep schedule during all of this is a worthy endeavor—and more power to you if you’ve figured out how—but there’s a good chance that it feels impossible.

By “accepting” your new sleep schedule, I don’t mean pretending it doesn’t suck; I mean doing what you can to be gentle on yourself about it. For me, acceptance has looked like watching some comfort tv and reading my favourite books at 2 a.m. instead of staying in bed and anxiety-spiraling about how I can’t sleep. Is it ideal? No way. But I’m not going to waste energy stressing about something I currently can’t control.

7. Give yourself plenty of room to do absolutely nothing.

I’ve given myself permission to do a whole lot of nothing. That includes getting rid of the pressure to be productive and practice self-care, yes, but in a broader sense, it also means not forcing myself to actively “adjust” every day.

Some days, I just need to do nothing but feel my feelings. Or avoid feeling my feelings. Or stare at the ceiling. Give yourself space to do (or not do) whatever you need to.

also, nonnie? my love?

Never feel guilty about telling someone who cares about you when you don’t feel okay.

People who genuinely care about you—and I’m sure they are many—will care if you aren’t feeling good, there are always going to be people who care about you, who want you to be okay, that’s why they ask, why people make rant, why “how are you?” is such a common question.

But if you do need to talk, but you feel like you’ll “burden” people who you do talk to, here’s a guide to ranting.

Guide to ranting:

1. Pick the right person. Someone who’s in the right headspace to listen to you, you could also pick someone who cares about you—if you’re anxiety tells you nobody cares about you, pick someone who “should” care about you in your relationship, e.g: a friend you’ve had for a long time, a friend who’s told a few of their problems, or friend you might not feel close with, but seems very kindhearted and a good listener.

2. Pick the right time to talk to them, so you can have their undivided attention. If they are busy—as most people will be with something—they’ll have a hard time giving you good advice and listening to you. Ask them when they are free, and then ask them:

3. “hey, can we talk? I’m not mad or you or anything, it’s just that I have been not feeling great, and I just want to rant to someone about it.” and “No pressure to say yes, you might have your own stuff to do deal with.” to make sure they are the right person to talk to.

4. It’s ok to test the waters. Start slowly, you don’t have to share everything at once if you don’t want to.

5. You never know how your friend will react to what you say.While you can’t know how they’ll react, just remember that sometimes people’s initial reactions may come from a place of shock, surprise or not knowing what to say. Their initial reaction isn’t always their longerterm reaction, it may just take them a little time to process.

6. Look for ways to take action. Don’t get me wrong, ranting can be amazing for you, but on its own may not solve your problem.

But maybe venting to people isn’t for you. No matter! There are other ways to get out emotions:

Ways to rant without talking to anyone

1. Cry it out— simple and rewarding. When the baggage is just too heavy to carry cry it out. It can help you ease the pressure and ease your mind to think straight after days of holding that frustration in.

2. Work out — easy and fun. tire yourself out and release all the frustration in working out! This is going to be so satisfying for you as you try and punch, kick, balance, lift, and breathe those frustrations away.

3. Clean & rearrange — practical and can be fun. we get frustrated by so many things and one thing that can truly help clear our minds is to have a clean place where we can stay and live for the moment to breathe. Clean your room, rearrange your things and you’ll be surprised by the satisfaction this brings — a signal of a new beginning.

4. Scribble — simple and fun. Make scribbles, doodles, drawings, take a pen or a pencil, and let go. It does not have to be “good” art or professional at all. Just draw whatever comes to heart, sunflowers or clouds or rainbows—anything.

5. Write it down — fun and simple. Let those words out of your head and just live in the moment.

How to fight the lack of motivation.

1. Don't fight the lack of motivation.

If you feel down or unable to muster tons of energy, let it be ok. Be easy on yourself and acknowledge that it's ok to have a dip, especially at this time of the year.

2. Once you have accepted your slump, get to the bottom of it.

Ask yourself, "What is the root cause of this sluggish feeling?" Go deeper than the obvious reasons. Is it related to work? Your personal life? Relationships? It might also just be the weather. Get clear on what areas of your life you're feeling the most resistance.

3. Dig into that area. What is not ideal about this aspect of your life? What would make it better?

Make a list of how you'd like your current situation to improve--and be specific. If you truly can't find a reason to be less than enthusiastic, then accept your feelings and let them pass with time.

4. Take your list of what is missing and go through it.

What is holding you back from being able to create the things that are missing in your life?

5. Get support for creating the life you want.

Do some research and find an expert to help you. Even though they love you, friends and family aren't objective enough, and they tend to give advice that is a reflection of their own life and insecurities.

6. Think of current habits that are contributing to a less-than-ideal life.

Maybe it's fear, laziness, or not having enough confidence. Pick one to focus on.

7. Address this habit over the next 2 months.

They say it takes 28 days to create a new habit, but this varies from person to person. If you focus on it for two months, you are sure to build the neural pathways needed to call it a new way of being.

8. Buy a book, read articles or do some research on this particular behavior or feeling.

Read about the common causes of this habit as well as the proven ways to bust through and work around it.

9. Create a plan around shifting your current habit.

Make sure that changing this habit ultimately helps you move forward in the area of your life that is not ideal. The energy from clarity, awareness and then action will immediately get you feeling more motivated, no matter what.

10. When all else fails: make a list of activities that excite you, and do one of them right now.

Talk to a fun friend, dance around at home, workout, watch a funny YouTube video, tackle something on your to-do list. Accomplishing something will give you a hit of dopamine in your brain. If you're too overwhelmed by your day, sit for five minutes and meditate. Put on some soothing music and breathe.

okay, that's all nonnie, I hope you feel the lust for life in your lungs, please have all my love, i hope this helped, this ask took a while, but it was worth if it helps

and if you need to dont worry to send another ask, if you like spam the inbox!! queen!!!

take care, much love my sweet honey, bye <3

—*putting daisies in your hair as they leave* mod peppermint <[:)

[augiepets]

Common mistakes we make while handling pets and how to avoid them

Making your pets feel at home

Adopting a pet is exciting, especially if you don’t have that much experience in handling pets. It opens a whole new world of love and care for an animal like no other.

Getting your first pet, and handling them for the first time, gives you a significant lifestyle change and comes with many challenges of its own.

They may make your life challenging if you don’t offer them with regular direction, consistent training, and enough exercise.

While having a furry buddy in your life is a delight, handling pet, also comes with a level of responsibility. Because animals cannot care for themselves, you are solely responsible for their health, happiness, and well-being.

It’s not always simple when it comes to handling pets to live their best life as a pet owner. Regardless of whether you have a dog or a cat, they may as well be considered one of your children, and you must undoubtedly spoil and care for them.

However, because your pet is so important to you, it must be in good health

Why pets need our care

Having a pet can be great for our health. Animals are always happy and lighthearted, and they always make us laugh.

Additionally, they teach us how to be kind and empathetic, to love unconditionally, and to enjoy life to the fullest. A dog in the right home is like an extension of the owner: they take care of their owner and care for each other.

If you have a dog, he becomes your partner, and you're not just a slave to your cellphone anymore. However, we also need to remember that we have to give our pets a chance to live their best lives. they require a lot of love and care.

If you don't provide them with constant guidance, consistent training, and sufficient exercise, with proper animal handling techniques they can make your life quite difficult and make it bad to describe your experience handling pets.

10 proper ways of handling pets

1. Trips to the vet/ Skipping regular checkups

Cats and dogs have adapted to disguise pain and sickness by putting on a brave front. Unfortunately, that implies that they're in agony when you discover something is wrong and can't disguise it any longer.

Your veterinarian is qualified to recognize the subtle signs of a disease or sickness. Minor symptoms, such as changes in breathing, heart rate, eyes, and even tiny swellings, can be detected during regular wellness checkups by your veterinarian. Veterinarian are pros in handling pet.

Veterinary checkups regularly can help your pet enjoy a long, healthy, and happy life. Annual or biannual checkups catch growing health concerns early and help you extend your pet's life with you.

Early identification and action allow your veterinarian to treat a disease in its early stages, then control it with medication or simple lifestyle modifications.

Your veterinarian can also provide you advice on how to assist you in handling pet in living the healthiest life possible and avoiding medical problems.

How to avoid: Schedule your calendar accordingly, to plan for vet visits. Make sure you're your pet's checkups are regular.

2. Not prioritizing training/ lack of physical exercise

Consult your veterinarian before beginning an exercise regimen for efficient handling pet.

Schedule an appointment with your veterinarian to determine how much and what sort of exercise your pet need.

Pets require exercise for a variety of reasons, in addition to the health benefits. It encourages them to expend energy, making it simpler for them (and you!) to get a good night's sleep.

Exercising a pet's brain can also be beneficial. That is why many animals like sports such as chasing a ball. Games allow them to exercise both their muscles and their minds.

Even indoor games provide pets with the daily dose of mental and physical simulation needed to keep themselves healthy.

How to avoid: Set some time aside every day to give your pets some exercise. Providing your pet with all your attention during this time will also increase your bonding and gets you closer to your beloved pet.

3. Avoiding socialization

One of the common mistakes dog owners make is not socialize their dogs enough. Dogs are very social animals. They know it when they receive love, and they are masters of reciprocating it back.

A dog who hasn't been exposed to good new experiences is more likely to be terrified of anything unfamiliar.

That garbage bag blowing in the air or the garden statuary at the edge of a neighbor's yard may be enough to make the dog flee.

Fear frequently masks aggression, so even if a reactive dog appears to be attacking in an aggressive manner, it's conceivable that the display is based on fear.

A dog who was never introduced to handling activities as a puppy is likely to be fearful of grooming since it never learned that a comb isn't a torture weapon.

That makes basic husbandry, like nail clipping and tooth brushing, challenging, if not impossible.

How to avoid: Dogs can only stay sociable if they are constantly introduced to new people.

Continued positive interactions with strangers reinforce the concept that strangers are good news in your dog's head.

Dogs can only stay sociable if they are constantly introduced to new people. Continued positive interactions with strangers reinforce the concept that strangers are good news in your dog's head.

Make an effort to avoid walking the same path every day. Allow your dog to explore a range of surroundings, including sidewalks and gravel roads.

This will give much-needed cerebral stimulation for your developing canine.

4. Not getting pet insurance

Life is unpredictable enough already, but when you have a pet, it just takes it to another level. Not having a pet insurance might make a huge hole in your wallet in the time emergency.

To properly engage yourself in handling pet. That is why it's always advised to be prepared. In fact, according to recent research1 from insurance market specialists Consumer Intelligence, more than half of pet owners think that not having insurance is too dangerous given the possible expenses of treatment.

Despite worries about the many plans offered and the terms and circumstances, 53 percent of those polled believe not ensuring their pet is too much of a worry.

Around two-fifths of pet insurance clients (41%) perceive plans to be perplexing.

How to avoid: Get a pet insurance with a trusted company as soon as possible. This gives you a plus when it comes to handling pet and your pet the advantage and courage to face any problems that may arise.

5. Overfeeding

When you overfeed your pet, there are both short- and long-term risks.

According to Banfield's Applied Research, one in every three cats and one in every four dogs is fat.

Heart disease, arthritis, and diabetes are all connected to these illnesses if their weight is not adequately managed.

As a dog owner, it is your obligation to keep track of your pet's health and responsibility in handling pet because it lacks the ability to reason. You want your pet's quality of life to be as good as possible, and you are free to seek professional pet health guidance.

They are unable to engage in physical activity, such as playing or exercising. As a result, you must do all possible to prevent them from being ill.

How to avoid: When it comes to food, a dog's size, age, exercise level, and medical problems should all be considered.

It's difficult to keep a dog's diet under control if they get a lot of goodies or eat your leftovers every day.

Dogs are opportunistic feeders, meaning they will eat more than they require if given the chance, viewing food as a valuable resource.

6. Overlooking TICKS

When it comes to handle how to handle a dog, one of the most important things we need to know about is ticks! Ticks usually lead to ear canal infestations can cause significant discomfort in both dogs and humans.

These ticks' toxins have the potential to paralyze you. There have been reports of secondary infections caused by larval screwworms.

Q fever, tularemia, Colorado tick fever, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever are all transmitted by Otobius megnini ticks.

Ticks may be found all over the world. Some tick species feed on specific animals, whereas others prey on a wide range of animals, including people.

Depending on the species, blood-sucking behavior differs. Ticks may go for months or even years without eating if the conditions are right.

How to avoid: Handling pets with ticks can be tricky, the most efficient approach to prevent tick exposure is to keep animals away from tick-infested regions.

Ticks prefer certain microhabitats, such as long grass or the transition between forested and lawned regions. Tick numbers are reduced when these microhabitats are destroyed.

Trimming plants and removing tall grass and weeds can help safeguard your animal. Ticks can be reduced partially by treating plants with insecticides.

7. Not spaying/neutering

When you get a pet, there is a procedure called Spaying/Neutering that is usually done to make your pets infertile. It helps to reduce the population of dogs and help you in properly handling pet.

India alone is said to have a stray dog population of 30- 40 million, and many of these dogs are not given proper treatment.

Male dogs' testicles (or gonads) are removed during neutering, a de-sexing surgery.

Castration refers to the removal of a male dog's testicles, whereas spaying refers to the sterilization of a female dog.

The ovaries and uterus of a female dog are removed in this procedure, which is known as an ovariohysterectomy.

Advantages:

· Spaying your female dog will prevent periods of her being in heat.

· Spaying your dog prevents your female canine from getting pregnant.

· Whether intentionally or accidentally, Breeding can become a significant financial and time-consuming burden for dog owners, which also comes with health risks and responsibilities.

· Paying your dog will eliminate the risk of your female dog developing cancer of her uterus, cancer of ovaries, or reproductive tract.

When these organs are removed, you will have fewer things to worry about regarding your dog's health.

8. Misinterpreting body language

Actions like tail wagging are usually interpreted as happiness. Unfortunately, it may not always be the case.

Sometimes dogs stiffen their tail and move it back and forth to show aggression. Similarly, dogs bare their teeth and growl when they're feeling aggressive, scared, or defensive, but it's also totally normal body language for them to express a play growl, too.

Eye contact might signify different things depending on the human and the dog, like in the prior case.

Humans should avoid making eye contact with puppies they have recently met as a general rule. This nonverbal communication might be regarded as a threat.

Dogs, on the other hand, are known to make eye contact with their owners when they wish to communicate.

They'll even look into the eyes of someone they trust with affection. Yawns aren't just for when dogs are sleepy.

Surprisingly, the reverse is true. When our dogs are worried, confused, or agitated, they frequently yawn.

They can also expand their jaws wide in anticipation of an exciting event, such as a stroll or a vehicle ride. When meeting new people, dogs yawn as a non-threatening soothing gesture.

How to avoid: Educate yourself! The very first step to buying/adopting a pet is educating yourself about behavioral patterns and basic dog handling techniques. The more you know, the better you get at handling pet. Its also very important to familiarize yourself with safety tools when handling animals.

9. Feeding your cats milk/only vegetarian food

Surprisingly enough, some cats, like people, have trouble digesting lactose, a milk sugar present in dairy.

This is because the only period in a cat's life when its body contains enough of the enzyme lactase to digest lactose effectively is when it is born and in its early years. This allows the cat to drink its mother's milk. Following that, lactase production decreases, potentially leading to increased digestive complications.

Cats, unlike humans, cannot thrive on a vegetarian diet. Humans are omnivores, meaning we can eat both meat and vegetables, but cats are obligate carnivores, meaning they must consume meat to survive (or at least thrive).

As a result, unlike humans, cats do not acquire much nourishment from veggies.

How to Avoid: Make sure your pet gets a balanced diet it is the most important step in handling pet. Canines need meat to survive. A good quality cat food will contain all the essential nutrients to feed your cat and keep it healthy.

10. Physically punishing pets

When you use punishment, it's simply to halt the conduct while you're around.

In fact, the pet may rapidly learn that when you are not around, the conduct does not result in punishment, and may fast learn to stop while you are present and resume when you are not.

Mild reprimand (pushing away, eye contact, talking to the dog) is interpreted by some pets as a kind of attention, reinforcing the undesired behavior.

Another major worry is that using physical punishment (striking, jabbing, pinning, rolling over, or seizing the pet's collar) may inflict unnecessary suffering and increase the pet's anxiety level when approached in the future in a similar fashion. It is one of the most common mistakes at pet.

How to avoid: Instead of penalizing what is undesired, training should focus on teaching the pet the desired reaction to get better at handling pet.

Distraction (such as a loud noise, hand clapping, or a "no") and redirection to a more acceptable activity is the greatest response if you observe your pet indulging in undesired behavior. Describe your experience handling pet.

Some concluding pointers

· Taking your pet regularly to the vet is necessary!

· A proper diet gives a healthy pet

· Learn more about the behavioral pattern before getting a pet

· Don't feed your adult cat milk

· Spaying/neutering your dog will give you and your dog a peaceful life.

How can Augie help you?

We have an ideal mix of Products and Services that can aid you in your efforts to take care of your pets. We work with different pets viz. Dogs / Cats / Other pets

You can reach out to us and we can aid you. Looking forward to working with you

Have a great Day Ahead!!

[channeleven]

ReAnimated review

The biggest problem with CN Real was a lack of foresight... okay and the shows sucked too, as someone who hates going with the majority a lot of the time, I will never defend CN Real. A bulk of the programs they showed were either forgettable or destined to become cringe when you revisit them as an adult. Even Nickcoms had more soul than these shows, even if Dan Schneider embodied them all (what am I saying? I hate all of them)

There's a big reason I'm bringing up CN Real. It was a can of worms that landed on CN's desk some time after the release of one certain TV movie. Plus, it turns out that one of CN Real's shows happened to be a television adaptation of this movie.

Background

You probably figured out what I was gonna say before I said it, but for the sake of context, er, bite your lips.

ReAnimated is a live-action/animated hybrid movie that came out on Cartoon Network in 2006. It was around this time Cartoon Network was starting to scramble when it came to their shows. While they kept up with new entries and still-running old shows, well, who in their right mind still likes Camp Lazlo?

Cartoon Network wanted to keep things interesting, so from then they worked on acquiring broadcasting rights to various Canadian and French cartoons (Which is how we got Totally Spies, Code Lyoko, Robotboy, George of the Jungle, etc,), continuing with inherited properties from Kids WB (starting with Static Shock way back when, Teen Titans and Johnny Test), continuing to air Christmas specials regardless of quality (that's where I first saw Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer) and even direct-to-video movies were screened on the network.

Then came Nickelodeon, who along with their cartoons also aired sitcoms. Them doing so would guarantee they would get more than just kids to watch their network. While I can't confirm things when it comes to ratings, it seems Nickelodeon would've got more views regardless of quality due to them being able to air just about anything, while Cartoon Network stuck to their guns.

So, in 2006, perhaps to open the gate for potential new program opportunities, ReAnimated made its debut. I'll get into the reactions soon, but first, trivia.

The film featured a roster of otherwise negligible actors, three of which being kid actors who were burned off a few years after this movie came out. Laughably, this and Out of Jimmy's Head were the high-points to one actor's career (Matt Knudsen who played Sonny.) Perhaps unsurprisingly, he had no notable acting roles after this movie came out. Only notable actor on here is Fred Willard, may he rest in peace.

Along with live action actors, we also have voice actors (appropriately), namely Paul Reubens, Ellen Greene, Tom Kenny and Brian Poeshn. I was close to assuming Jennifer Tilly appeared in this due to how similar one of the characters sounded to her, but this just means Tilly has strong priorities.

But, what do you get when you combine a live-action film that feels like a bootleg Thomas W. Lynch show (The Troop, 100 Deeds for Eddie McDowd, Catlin's Way, Romeo!, etc.), with an animation studio that're starving for money? Don't answer that. Most of you may know, but for those coming in, I hate Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi. So it should be no surprise I have no glowing opinion for the studio that helped work on the film, Renegade Animation. I'll go into how badly their work meshes with all else in a bit, but for a preface, this was their second big project (well for Cartoon Network excluding an unrealized pilot from way back when.)

Appleday Studios is just a pseudonym for Turner Studios for the sake of going with the film.

So, reception.

Divisive can't possibly describe how this film went over, though people were more on about how Cartoon Network aired live action on their network. 10-11 year old me was easily suckered when it came to show promos, and when I saw it, well I didn't think much of it, such is the way with things I actually caught when they were new.

My one revisit as an adult came from MrEnter's review of it from way back when, and as an adult, I'd break my own mouse and/or space key because I'd have to pause the movie so many times just to catch my breath. I watched a lot of Nickelodeon sitcoms back in the day, so I have the stomach for surface level cringe, hell I wasn't harsh to Romeo! a show that started out as tween cringe before pulling a major 180 by the second season and even saw a handful of episodes only a few weeks ago.

When you make a man of low standards cringe, you deserve every bit of scorn and ire.

For perspective, I'd put this film on the same level as School Gyrls, in terms of how obnoxious and painful it is. How so? 90% of everything Enter said about it can be considered the truth about it, and this was during his lesser era. I may make the same points, and if they're verbatim, it's only because I couldn't find a better way to describe them.

So the movie

In my Hi Hi Puffy Ani Yumi review I criticized the show for using an art style that contrasted with is Japan-centric framework, it being only a small sum up of what anime is like (I mean come on, it's based on a Japanese band and has Japanese culture, you gotta commit much further than Jay Ward-centric hijinks)

Okay to the point, much like how that show went by a basic depiction of anime, this show went by a basic depiction of tween-sitcom life, workaholic mom, eccentric dad, down to Earth sister (punchline soon to be intended) and the awkward as hell younger boy who's woefully unpopular. The dad's his principal, but that's honestly meaningless, he feels like a dad who's in a mid-life crisis but is desperate to cling to his childhood. I mean I can forgive watching cartoons, I'd be a hypocrite for mocking him for that since cartoons are timeless, but he's the kind of idiot that lacks any nuance to it.

For now, the movie feels like a mix between Ned's Declassified School Survival guide and As Told by Ginger. The former shows through the film trying to be like a live-action cartoon, but while that managed to be funny more often than not, okay you get the point. But to be specific, it just amounts to characters being over the top, and some random things like animals popping up every now and again.

But on As Told by Ginger, and you may have already caught it if you've seen this and Enter's review, Jimmy (the boy blunder) is friends with Craig, and their friendship is similar to Ginger and Dodie's, where I question the faith of the latter two for each pair. Craig is desperate to be popular, like Dodie. Craig treats Jimmy as a springboard to get approval, like Dodie. Craig annoys the hell out of me, and did I mention Dodie sucks?

To drive the point home, I don't agree with the stigma of calling some characters assholes, so you have to really screw up to make me break that doctrine. And guess what? He's like Sam from Danny Phantom in that he fucks up the life of a so called friend, leading to the major plot.

Jimmy attends a field trip to Golly World (I mean I think that's what it's called), where they learn of a rumor that the brain of its founder, Milt Appleday, had been buried below one of the park's rides (and yes, this is meant to coincide with one certain Disney urban legend. The potential for that had worn thin since 9 times out of 10, it proves to be true in episodes that incorporate that plot.)

So, Jimmy is sent to retrieve the brain, at the behest of Craig who'd gladly send him to an organ harvesting cult, probably, and comes across our antagonist, Sonny Appleday. Once caught, Jimmy tries to get away and gets run over by a train. At least that'd be the most sensible thing to happen. Up until now the cartoon-esque scenes amounted to just over-the-top characters and things that occasionally happen. This is already pretty known, but for the sake of discussion, the slow movement of the train and the collision causes Jimmy to go flying, literally.

Nothing could've made it look good.

After that, the impact causes Jimmy to get hospitalized, and in need of a new brain. You'd think with that kind of accident the brain would be the least of anyone's worries? If it was head first he would've snapped his neck, hell, the impact would've paralyzed him. I'm looking too deep into this, but I just want to know the correlation between a new brain and falling hard onto concrete.

This could be going back into cartoon logic to go with the human cartoon business, but this could also be down to crappy writing, and a desperate attempt to get to the selling point of the film. The only brain the staff has access to is that of Milt's. It had been in one of the doctor's possessions for years, for some reason. So, with Milt's brain he is able to see things through Milt's perspective, namely the cartoons he had created.

For perspective, this is part of Milt's mind, but Jimmy still has his old memories. I don't know the ins and outs of how brains work, but I imagine they took more liberties than necessary.

Okay, let's take a break from this and discuss the quality of the animated bits.

You already know what I think of Renegade's style, but let me tell you, they make things worse. First off, the cartoons themselves, they try to replicate the theater shorts of old, but it just looks like a modern day cartoon made by someone well behind the curve. The cheap flash animation clashes heavily with the live-action bits, cheap green-screening galore. This really just exemplifies how cheap Renegade is, even with Unikitty, they never evolved.

So Sonny paid at least one thoughtful visit my heart goes out to him. He was offered rent, seeing Jimmy he perspired oh, what am I alluding to? That was meant to be a Morrissey reference.

Non cringe sum-up, Sonny finds Jimmy's house and manages to get in by renting a room. There we meet the rest of the family proper, along with My Dad the Dimstar, we meet Jimmy's mom, an astronaut and his sister, a thot who enjoys Shrek cosplaying. Actually no that would make more sense, she is an alien, like an all green, long antenna sporting alien. Some say she was the most tolerable character in the film, but she's just the typical middle-ground type character. I.e., bland and uninteresting.

So, after Craig makes it clear how lowly he views Jimmy, of the toons (which I fucked up and didn't name right away). Mickey and Minnie references Golly and Dolly, Goofy reference Crocco the Aligator, pun-spouting comedian number 5009 Tux (think Luan Loud but more cringe), and Tom and Jerry references Pickle and Prickle.

Call it a minor nitpick, but it seemed like the business with Golly and Milt was meant to be entirely based on Disney. Why else would you go the route of a Disneyland-type themepark, characters meant to be like Mickey and Minnie in terms of structure? The inclusion of Tom and Jerry type characters only gives me a worse perception on the movie's writing. Renegade had no clue on how anime works, the writers had no clue on consistency when it comes to a brand known the world over. Just saying.

Anyhow, seeing how pathetic Jimmy is, Golly opts to help Jimmy straighten himself out and stand up for himself, and it works. My mind blanks after this point, so let's discuss Jimmy's love interest... girl. Or Robin for the sake of following along.

Robin is... all but forgotten to me. Most I can say is that she's on good terms with Jimmy and his topper and has a dark secret... that she like Golly and cartoons in general. If you have to hide your interests for your own sake you are shallow by default. If you wear your interest on the sleeve that means you have nothing to hide. I'd rather be with someone that likes Adam Sandler than Citizen Kane because they'd have more character to them by default.

So anyway, blah blah bruh, we learn that Golly's popularity had been severed by Sonny years ago, yet apparently the theme park is still attracting visitors and past cartoons are shown, I dunno, cheap tickets and syndication?

Jimmy is assigned the new head of Appleday Studios (or Golly World, I dunno), due to him having the mind of Milt, which could keep them on the right direction. He invites his friends to play along in the studio, but becomes distant from them as he has to, shock and horror, honor his role. Hey, he made the right choice blowing Craig off, hurts donit?

This movie features ideas that'd be too complicated for the writers on board, they think tweens are idiots by default, I know it's funny coming from someone like me, but I get it, I just hate rubbing elbows with people like that. They could've done something like explore Milt potentially having a deteriorating mind and it leading Jimmy to doing something potentially fatal (they did have Milt eat flavored paint.) They could've explored Sonny's relationship with Milt and why Sonny became so crazy. You get to a point where you could piece together ideas that'd make the film at least somewhat more interesting. This didn't need to be a tween-com.

It culminates in Sonny tying Robin to the train tracks, just as a new attraction is unveiled which would kill her and cause Jimmy to lose his head so he could get the brain. But Jimmy isn't around as he decides to honor his stockholm syndrome and go to a party helmed by Craig. The choice is clear. To lose Craig is to gain what's important in life.

Jimmy winds up going to save Robin, and remember how I lumped this with School Gyrls? In that film they put in animated bits which suggest they had to cut corners to get the film out on time and cheaply? One scene in this movie gives me that vibe. The world suddenly turns animated and Jimmy charges for Robin, adorned in armor and aboard a steed.

Did they run out of time? Did they blow all their budget on that kick ass train accident scene? Only good thing about it is the animation here doesn't look as ugly as School Gyrls' animated bits, but both are still cheap as hell.

Anyway, Sonny goes through the same fate as his actor's career, Jimmy gets to the party and several years from now will go bankrupt due to him having to handle Craig's finances because he is that weak. Yeah, about that, Jimmy's more assertive nature was treated as a bad thing, so he is devolved back to his old self, well for the most part, he got with Robin (I believe.)

Final thoughts

ReAnimated was a failure on all fronts. It's not that they aired live action on a channel dedicated to cartoons, but that it was a crappy movie that'd make the average Schneider-com blush. All I got from it was more reasons to hate Renegade Animation. Needless to say, few of the actors went on to do much else. The lead actor, beyond a role in Wild Hogs had never done anything else, people seemed to really hate Craig to the point he didn't have another acting role until 2014 (though then again he's more into doing stunts and had landed spots in more prolific films with that.)

It's history, but this managed to get a TV spin-off on CN Real (though that was owed to them wanting to keep costs low as they focused on original content and didn't want to die on some ill-advised venture.) Apparently the staff hated Renegade's work, so they have no involvement in the show. Though they did get help from the guys behind That's So Raven and Even Stevens. Craig didn't appear in this, well the character did but not the actor. Don't ask me to review the show.

Honestly, the only way this movie could've worked is if it were some mid-late 90s horror film (intentional or non-intentional), where Jimmy gets the worst aspects of Milt and we get an idea on why he went belly up, Sonny had been mentally scarred by an abusive father (Milt), and Craig dies at the end.

Tell me that's no better.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Z 280

World is fuck, so I’m gonna write about DBZ for a while until the Benadryl kicks in.

Last time, Goku fought Majin Buu, but he wasn’t doing so great, so he upped the ante by going Super Saiyan 3.   

This is where I regret falling behind on the manga way back in the Red Ribbon Army Saga, because the Buu arc is where the anime and the manga really start to get off-track from each other.   I mean, the same plot points are followed, but in the manga, Goku fights Buu as a Super Saiyan 3 the whole time, while in the anime, he starts at SSJ2 and ramps up to SSJ3... twice.    So it’s kind of hard to match up exactly which parts of the anime version are direct adaptations of the manga.   They’re probably all there, but I’d really need to do a side-by-side comparison.    A project for another time.

This has gotta be one of the best damn episodes of the whole shebang.   Goku and Kid Buu are just whalin’ on each other, and this isn’t even the climax of this arc.  

Starting out, Goku deals some pretty heavy damage to Buu, and he has some difficulty reassembling himself.  But that’s about all Goku ever does to the kid.   I mean, if Perfect Cell took a hit like that, he’d just be dead, or so badly wounded that it would take barely any follow-through to finish the job.  But with Majin Buu these kinds of enormous blasts are just chip damage at best. 

Something else I want to do one of these days is go back and try to figure out when they screwed up Dende’s Buu-Saga character model.   I think most of Dragon Ball Super depicts him as a child, as if he never aged after the Cell Games, but I think that only happened because they were screwing him up as far back as 1995.  

Here’s the thing, though: Why was Dende so short in the Cell Games?  He had aged four years from however old he was in the Namek Saga.    Piccolo Junior was fully grown by age three.   Maybe this is the Namekian life cycle.    You grow into an adult when you’re three, then you turn into a kid again, then you grow into an adolescent about 11 years after that, and then you just sort of switch back and forth for a while.   It’s a good thing Piccolo’s off-screen for most of his life.

Yamcha and Krillin are watching this from the Grand Kai Planet, courtesy of King Kai’s telepathic vision.   Why isn’t anyone else grabbing a Kai by the back?  

And they’re even screening this fight in Hell, which seems kind of strange to me.   Abandon all hope, ye who enter here, but we’ve got pay-per-view in the commons.

Hey look it’s Cell!   And Dr. Gero.  You think they talk much at all?   Think about how much it must suck for them.   Gero was maybe the only other person Cell ever respected, because he trusted Gero’s grand design for him as the perfect being.    And Gero must have viewed Cell as his ultimate hope for avenging the Red Ribbon Army.  And then they bump into each other in hell, which proves that they’re both failures.  All Cell really accomplished was to kill Goku, and now he’s not even dead anymore.  I have to figure Cell/Gero interactions in Hell are pretty uncomfortable.  At the same time, who else are they going to hang out with?

Why are all these guys still in their bodies?   Everything that happened to Vegeta in this arc implies that letting Vegeta have his body after death is a big deviation from the norm.   Episode 195 introduced the idea of DBZ’s hell being like this big Arkham Asylum for all the bad guys.   I guess technically all those episodes with the dead Ginyus in the Frieza Saga did the same thing, but you could argue that they hadn’t been dead long enough to lose their bodies.   Here, now, we’re looking at characters that have been dead for over seven years.   I think the premise in Resurrection F was that the damned get to keep their bodies while they suffer, until they finally learn to let go of their past lives and move on.  And I can see why Frieza’s such a bitter fuck that he’d still be holding on for over a decade, but what’s Recoome holding out for?   Just get reincarnated as a cockroach or something and get it over with.

Also, why is Gero a cyborg in this scene?  

And why isn’t Frieza a cyborg?   I mean, he wasn’t a cyborg in Episode 195 either, but that seemed to suggest Gero would be fully human in hell, and he isn’t.    And if Gero does get to keep being a cyborg, then why couldn’t he keep his hat?  

Anyway, Goz and Mez recognize Goku as the guy who messed with them way back in the Saiyans Saga.    Hey, why aren’t Raditz and Nappa in this scene?  I watched an AMV where they edited Bardock into this, which seems like a good idea.   Did they just not go to hell?    I find that a little hard to believe.

Anyway, all the bad guys are salty as fuck to see Goku alive and fighting, and Frieza’s actively rooting against him.  He’s just jealous because Buu’s doing better against Goku that he ever could.

Meanwhile, over on the classy side of the villain crowd, Cell wonders who Goku’s opponent is, since he’s clearly impressed to see anyone give Goku a tougher battle than himself. 

Then Babidi shows up and announces to everyone he used to be tight with Majin Buu.  Actually, he claims Buu was his servant, and that he taught him how to fight, which... yeah.   I guess he did help Buu practice punching people’s faces off.  

This whole moment feels a bit contrived.    Babidi’s been down here for a couple of days already.    I don’t know how long they’ve been watching this fight.  I would imagine the oni switched it on somewhere when Vegito was on deck, so it kind of feels like Babidi was sort of hiding around back, waiting for someone to ask about Buu, so he could jump out and go “Oh, funny you should ask about that!   I was Majin Buu’s master for like six hours, nbd.”    I almost wonder if he paid Cell five bucks just to set this up.   Cell demanded payment in singles, because he wanted to spend it on the vending machine.   He’s a sucker, though, because hell may have a big screen TV, but the bill changer on their vending machine hasn’t worked in 10 million years.

Anyway, everyone’s impressed, probably just because Babidi has the inside track on Buu more than anything.    You gotta figure most of these guys have heard it all before, and at least Babidi has a newer story to tell.   Everyone’s probably sick of hearing how Frieza ate that crab while he killed Vegeta.

But then Babidi wanders off, and in private he cusses out Buu for, you know, killing him, and he roots for Goku to win.   Wait, is Bibidi in hell too?   You’d think they could catch up on old times.

Meanwhile... well, this shot had pink and yellow energy trails moving across the planet, and it looks pretty cool, but this screenshot doesn’t quite do it justice.   

Kibitoshin is worried about their planet, but the Elder Kai insists that it’ll take more than this to wreck it.   I want a woman who believes in me the way the Elder Kai believes in the sturdiness of the Supreme Kai Planet.    That sounds kind of masochistic when I put it that way.    Moving on.

Writing about all those other villains, it starts to come into focus how little I have to say about Majin Buu.    I dig the guy, though.   Critics complain that he doesn’t have much on personality or motivation, and they’re not wrong, but I think that’s part of the point with him.    Godzilla doesn’t give touching speeches in his movies, but he remains a popular character because of the sheer spectacle of him.   He’s a force of nature, a symbol of immense power that the human characters can barely comprehend. 

In Buu’s case, he’s just this stubborn, impossible obstacle to peace in the universe.   So much has gone wrong, and we could wish it all back the way it was, if only someone could beat this pink little turd.  He’s got some personality, but his main purpose in this story is to just be there for the other characters to interact as they deal with the problem.

For example, while all this action is going on, Mr. Satan is basically helpless, but he reassures Bee that he’ll protect him, even though Satan thinks this whole adventure is a dream.   This says a lot about Mr. Satan.    Yeah, Bee had a big part in reforming the Fat Majin Buu, but he means a lot to Mr. Satan as well.   It’s easy to write off Satan as a coward and a fraud, but even when he’s retreating into denial, he still wants to be a hero, even when the rest of the world is dead, even when his only audience is a little puppy.   And you could have a moment like this with Mr. Satan regardless of the villain, but I think it stands out better when the bad guy is Kid Buu, who doesn’t get in the way with any big speeches or characterization moments of his own.

Back to the fight, Buu gets the drop on Goku, so he decides that this is no time to hold back...

So he drops a Super Saiyan 3 Kamehameha on the little creep.  Yeah!

It blows Buu to pieces, but then the pieces just turn into mini-Buus and they all shoot back.

Goku tries to power up for another round, but suddenly he runs out of gas and collapses.

So Vegeta rushes to his side and offers to switch in.   Yeah, this whole part is filler.   In the manga, Vegeta only gets one turn, and this ain’t it.   

However, I think some of Vegeta’s lines during this scene are lifted from the part of the manga where he fights Kid Buu later.    So it’s a little weird here.  I’m curious how Dragon Ball Kai handled these episodes, because when they started that project it seemed like their goal was to edit out most of the filler from the original DBZ anime, but in some cases that just isn’t practical.   Like Pizza and her entourage in the Cell Games.   They weren’t in the manga, but they appear in almost every Mr. Satan scene that was in the manga, so Kai had to leave them in, because the alternative was to painstakingly edit them out of every shot.  Here, you may not even have that option.    You could edit Goku vs. Kid Buu down to just one uninterrupted string of action where he’s fighting at Super Saiyan 3.   Cut out this intermission with Vegeta, cut out the opening bit where Goku fights at SSJ2, but I don’t know if the fight choreography would still make sense.    

Everyone watching is horrified that Vegeta can’t even land a blow, and Buu starts openly mocking his lackluster performance.   What I don’t understand is why Vegeta would even try to fight Majin Buu in his base form.   I mean, the real reason is probably because this fight is filler, and Toei didn’t want it to detract from when he actually fights Buu in the next episode.    But it makes Vegeta look kind of stupid.   He knows better, and we know that he knows better.

So Buu quickly overwhelms him, and he’s all set to fire a ki blast to finish off.   Why doesn’t Vegeta just transform to escape it?  

But then Goku jumps in and ruins Buu’s shot.  He’s still in base form too, but I sort of buy this, because he snuck up on Buu.   Even so, this sort of fast-and-loose attitude with power levels is exactly the sort of nonsense Toei did all through Dragon Ball GT, and one of several reasons why GT sucks.     It’s not as bad in filler scenes like this one, interspersed among stories based on the manga, but once there was no manga to work from, they just decided there were no rules, and Base Form Goku was almost interchangeable with Super Saiyan 4 Goku.   They just used whichever character design they preferred that day.

Vegeta’s astonished, because he thought Goku was down for the count, but he’s already back up and demanding to tag back in.    

But Goku ain’t done yet.  This is probably the other reason Toei had Vegeta fight in base form here, so it would make it look cooler when Goku defiantly powers up to continue his effort.   And yeah, it works.    I really do love this scene, but it’s a pretty egregious example of filler scenes messing with the flow of the story.

Goku ramps up to Super Saiyan 2, then back to 3, and we pick up where we left off.   And that’s awesome, but the main idea of this fight is that Goku’s having a hard time fighting at this level.   To have him drop out of SSJ3 early, then immediately get back up and resume SSJ3 like it’s no big deal... well, that undermines that premise.    I guess you can make an argument that it supports the premise, because having Goku power down twice in this fight only emphasizes how volatile SSJ3 really is, but... I dunno.  

Anyway, Goku goes back to fighting Buu, and you know, that may be the real reason Toei did that whole bit with Vegeta tagging in.    The alternative is to just have SSJ3 Goku fight Buu for two and a half episodes straight, and that would get dull, no matter how well they animated it.   You can have spectators observe the battle, and that’s a great way to break up the action, but a moment where Goku rescues Vegeta adds some drama.    The manga didn’t do this, but it didn’t need to, because this fight was much shorter in print.   

I guess that’s the main defense of filler.  Sometimes, it’s not about padding the anime, or working the studio’s “agenda” into the story, or anything sinister like that.  Sometimes it’s just a matter of pacing.  

Anyway, in either version, Vegeta watches Goku fighting, and quickly recognizes that Goku is the only one who can fight Majin Buu now.   At Vegeta’s level, he’d only get himself killed. 

Then he has this whole flashback of his relationship with Goku up to this point, and unlike most flashbacks in this series, this one features all new art, which is pretty awesome.  Honestly, they could have used old footage from the Saiyans Saga, but they had already done that recently during the Babidi Saga, so maybe Toei figured they couldn’t do that trick again so soon.   Or maybe they knew DBZ wes winding down, so they wanted to do something special while they still could.

Not surprisingly, Vegeta’s main recollection of his first fight with Goku are the parts where Goku beat the shit out of him while using Kaio-ken times three.  That fight had a lot more to it than that, and it’s easy to forget that Vegeta dominated most of the battle, mainly because Vegeta himself doesn’t see it that way.   

Then we get this part where Vegeta has kittens over Goku beating Recoome, and he begins to suspect that Goku is the Legendary Super Saiyan.    Would have been awesome to see another shot of Luffa the Golden Ape from episode 66, but I guess that wouldn’t make a ton of sense in this context, especially now that we know what Super Saiyans actually look like.

For instance...

Vegeta considers that Goku’s secret might be that he’s motivated by a need to protect his loved ones, but even if that’s true, Vegeta has his own loved ones now, so they’d be even if that were all it was.    I love how surly he looks here.   “Dammit, I can’t believe I care about these stupid people!   Now I gotta blow myself up if things get out of hand.”

Also, Vegeta’s observation ties in well with that filler scene from a moment ago.    Goku was exhausted, but as soon as he saw Vegeta in danger, he pulled himself together and found the strength to defend him.    Goku cares as much about Vegeta as the others.

But the real difference, Vegeta observes, is that he always fought for the fun of it, and for the satisfaction of killing his enemies.  Goku, on the other hand, fights primarily to improve himself.  That’s why he keeps pushing himself harder, and why he keeps seeing results.  It’s not about winning, it’s about not losing.    This seems to be a trend with Goku, where he usually says things like “I won’t lose” or “I ain’t lost yet,” instead of “I’m going to win.”    Vegeta’s classic mistake is to assume that he’s already going to win, and then he crumbles when things start to go wrong.

And critically, this is why Goku doesn’t kill people if he can avoid it.   Well, he killed a lot of Red Ribbon guys, but most of them were cowards and no real match for him.   King Piccolo pushed him too far.   After that, Goku’s been pretty light on killing enemies, and that’s probably because he reached a point where he became so strong that it got harder to find worthy adversaries.   Vegeta would kill his enemies just to watch them die, but in doing so, he denied himself the opportunity to face them in rematches.   This was something I read in a Superman comic once, where Superman overpowers an evil-universe version of himself, and he makes the point that his doppleganger kills all his enemies, so he only ever has to fight them once, where Superman has to stay sharp, because he has to mess with those guys over and over again.  Same deal.

And you’d think Goku might have killed Vegeta after he surpassed him, like when he became a Super Saiyan, or when Vegeta went Majin, and no one would have blamed him for putting the bastard down.  But Goku never did.   Not because Vegeta was no longer a threat, but because he knew Vegeta could still catch up to him some day and challenge him again.   Goku believes in Vegeta, even when Vegeta doesn’t believe in himself.

It’s like Goku knew Vegeta woud start to turn into a good guy.   See, this is where I take issue with criticism of the dub, way back in Episode 36, when Goku asked Krillin to spare Vegeta’s life.  The subs focus on Goku’s desire to beat Vegeta on his own, while the dub spends more time on Goku’s hope that Vegeta might see the light if they show him a little mercy.   And you can argue that the dub is cramming their own take into the script, except their take doesn’t exist in a vacuum.   Funimation’s take in Episode 36 is Vegeta’s take in Episode 280.   Call it foreshadowing, or call it putting the cart before the horse, but the line itself isn’t out of bounds, because Goku did hope that Vegeta would learn the value of mercy, and and Vegeta knows it. 

Again, let me pause to note that this big epiphany by Vegeta is much more effective when the bad guy is as flat as Kid Buu.   We’re not missing anything during this fight because they’ve just been hitting each other, and Buu bites Goku for like half a second while Vegeta reflects.

The main point of Vegeta’s monologue here is that he’s always struggled with the idea of Goku as the antithesis of what he thinks Saiyans ought to be.   And yet nothing succeeds like success.    Goku’s stronger right now than any Saiyan in the last thousand years.  Hell, right now, Goku’s the only Saiyan alive.    Vegeta’s dead, and so are all the others.  If his kindness is such a noose around his neck, why is he still breathing?    Why is he the only Saiyan who figured out how to turn Super Saiyan 3?   Why is he the only one who could bite Majin Buu on the head and get away with it?   Because Goku’s metal as fuck, that’s why.  Because kindness isn’t a weakness at all.   It never was.  If anything, it’s the lack of kindness that got all the other Saiyans killed.  

And maybe Vegeta has to think about that a while longer, but he knows this much, Goku’s better than he is.    He’s the best.

But he’s still not beating Buu anytime soon.  

There’s a cool spot here where Goku hits him and his upper body stretchs out from the impact, and he waves hello to Mr. Satan before snapping back.

And by “waving hello” , I mean “fires more of this pink crap out of his hands.”

And this right here is the last shot of Cell, I think?  There’s some more Frieza coming up, but I’m not sure if we see all the villains again or not.   

Babidi’s watching from way back there, because he’s shy.  I think Cell would hang out with Babidi.   He’s pretty sociable, right?

Anyway, this fight rules, not just because of all the great action and fluid animation, but because of all the cool stuff going on around it.    Everyone’s learning an important lesson about friendship today, thanks to Goku punching the crap out of this pink thing.  That... sounds vaguely dirty.    Let’s move on.

Oh, well, the episode’s over.    That’s kind of awkward.   Uh.   Goodbye!

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

“Are the MCU Spidey films good Spider-Man movies?”

If you mean are they good adaptations, as in good stories respecting the spirit of the character, the kind of stories that you could easily imagine happening in the comics themselves and are in line with the core values and concepts from those comics...then no absolutely not.

 “Spider-Man was established as a secondary character in someone else’s story before we followed him on any adventures of his own”

And that’s fine if not for the fact that he remained subservient to that other character’s story. He was deliberately constructed in Homecoming and Far From Home to revolve around his relationship with Tony both to provide further development for Tony and fuel for his later arc in IW and Endgame but also to provide and epilogue and lasting legacy for him.

 Even if Peter was the lead in his solo films he still existed within the shadow of Tony, he was still effectively to Tony what Robin was to Batman. Batman fundamentally contextualizes Robin to such a degree that everything Robin does, even subtextually, either stems from or comments upon Batman.

 Even his transition into Nightwing, into being his own man and leader of the Titans did this because that was understood as him BREAKING AWAY from Batman’s shadow. But on a metatextual level he never truly can. A similar thing happened with Peter in FFH. Even if Tony was dead his legacy hung over FFH and Peter, his legacy conextualized part of the intended arc for his character in that film (as poorly handled as it was regardless).

 And this...is what is unacceptable about MCU Spider-Man in terms of being an adaptation. It’s not simply that existing in Iron Man’s shadow or being contextualized by him wasn’t a factor for his character (thought that’d be justification enough to call out). It’s that Spider-Man was so particularly DESIGEND by Lee and Ditko to NOT be like that at all to NOT live in the shadow of another hero but be independent and more importantly for the driving force behind everything he does as a hero to be the death of his father which he was indirectly responsible for.

 “The spider bite and death of Uncle Ben is stuff that’s in the past and has happened”

 Has it though?

 There is no evidence of that in the film, not even circumstantial.

 I’m all for not showing it for a third time but neither Peter nor May act like they’ve recently lost a loved one or are grieving at all. We’ve seen Peter more affected by the death of Iron man than of Uncle Ben.

 The only reason anyone can even float the idea that Spider-Man’s origin happened at all is that we all simply know that origin. But you still need to acknowledge in some way it happened which the MCu has absolutely never done. As far as the MCU is concerned the closest thing we have to even acknowledging Uncle Ben existed in the first place is a suitcase with presumably his initials on it.

 But for all we know Peter fished that out of a dumpster. For all we know Uncle Ben might never have existed, May might be his biological aunt and Ben her deadbeat husband who ran off with someone else.

 Simply saying referring to all May has been through recently isn’t enough because it implies she’s been through  something serious recently, but that could be anything not necessarily a bereavement. More poignantly it doesn’t imply PETER has been through anything when that’s way more important because being sad about Ben’s death is the book of Genesis for Spider-Man. You NEED to have that pain, that grief in there somewhere.

 Him saying giving the great responsibility speech isn’t enough because the film never clearly conveys that he learned this lesson from someone close to him dying. It’s just something he takes very seriously (in Civil War but apparently not much in Far From Home!) and for all we know always has.

 Peter’s dialogue in Civil War DOES NOT imply Peter learnt this lesson from something that WAS his fault. It COULD mean that, but in context it COULD just be something he learned third hand.

 More importantly even if we were to say the dialogue DOES spell out his origin that’s not really the point. Because Ben’s presence in the film still needs to be acknowledged. A picture, his name being uttered, a gravestone, a long look at an empty chair at the breakfast table something. But there is absolutely NOTHING besides a suitcase. And more egregiously what he represents has been wholly supplanted by Tony.

 “Peter likes tech. Tony likes tech. Tony would naturally be a huge inspiration going forward”

Not really. Just because you love basketball doesn’t mean Michael Jordan is definitely going to be your inspiration. In the comics Reed Richards wasn’t Spider-Man’s idol or anything. And his desire to impress him in the comics at best didn’t manifest itself the way he wanted to suck up to Tony in the MCU.

 And again, this misses the point. There are LOTS of things that would technically be organic in the MCU but it’s about finding a balance between something organic that is also respectful of the core concept and spirit of the characters. Case in point. Having T’Challa’s origin tied into Civil War is very organic and different from the comics but it doesn’t disrespect the spirit of his character because his Dad still dies and passes on the mantle of King and Black Panther to him and still provides fuel for him to live up to his father’s memory.

 It’d totally organic Black Widow to be a former HYDRA operative based upon the established world building of the MCU, have the Black Widow program be something set up by the Red Skull even. It’d even make sense given the colour coding involved. But it’d be disrespectful to the spirit of Black Widow’s character as a RUSSIAN convert.

 “If he wants to live up to Ben he’d want to be the best superhero he could possibly be”

Sure...but that doesn’t mean becoming an Avenger. Again, comic book Spider-Man never regarded being a big name hero as neccesarry for being a good hero or the best he could be. That’s an elitist way of looking at it.

 In particular it omits the good he does for the little guy which is his driving motivation. He doesn’t do this to save the world he does this to save individual people. His ‘original sin’ as it were stemmed from an incredibly small scale individual crime.

 So accepting Tony’s help when he wants to make him the next Avenger wouldn’t be in line with the SPIRIT of the character.

 We could argue that logically this could happen and therefore it MUST happen but at the end of the day it was just that the writers WANTED Peter to be a fanboy and nothing more than that. They didn’t HAVE to write him that way. They could’ve had him have doubts about Tony, have his idealized visage of Tony crack as he grew to learn about the real man.

 And if we’re going to use the argument that this HAS to happen and we have no choice to write it that way because logic dictates it then...why haven’t the MCu heroes resolved any number of things logically they absolutely could. Tony can’t fix global warming? Wakanda can’t? Or to switch over to DC Superman can’t end how many disasters or problems in the world?

 At the end of the day logic exists within superhero stories but it is always tempered by the genre conventions and spirit of the characters.

 I know this channel loves Doctor Who, who is arguably a kind of superhero anyway, so I will draw upon an example from Dr. Who. I forget who it was, possibly Russel T. Davies, but in a commentary track for an episode of Doctor Who in 2008-2009 someone said something very smart regarding a fundamental of the lore. They said that really the Doctor could fix the chameleon circuit of his TARDIS so it need not always look like a police box...but that it was ‘right’ that he didn’t. In other words logically the Doctor COULD do something and indeed it would be very beneficial but it’d go against the spirit of his character, the show and the internal mechanics of the series for them to do that.

 The same applies here. If you have a Spider-Man who’s got a rich high tech superhero sugar daddy you have broken Spider-Man, he doesn’t work properly creatively speaking.

 “A large part of Peter’s story in Homecomign is being told when to stay out of it”

 Again this goes against the spirit of the character because hello...his whole origin is about that one time he did stay out of it and it broke his family.

 For a Spider-Man story to basically repeatedly enforce the message that Spider-Man NOT acting and Spider-Man being passive is the right thing to do is to do a story which misunderstands the character fundamentally.

 It gets worse when you consider his actions actively make things worse 90% of the time in that film and the message is muddled anyway as Iron Man was only in a position to stop Vulture because Spider-Man wasn’t passive.

 “There are some things Peter isn’t qualified to take on”

Low rent thugs with high tech weapons is something he isn’t qualified for?

 How many versions of early days Spider-Man dealt with that and worse entirely competently?

 “Throughout all of this like a father figure Tony Stark is looking out for Peter”

First of all no he’s really not, he’s absent a lot of the time.

Second of all the mere FACT that Tony Stark is Peter’s father figure at all is part and parcel of WHY these are bad Spider-Man movies.

Tony Stark being Spider-Man’s father figure is as broken as a Dick Grayson origin movie where Batman ISN’T his father figure or indeed wholly absent. You are severely MISSING THE POINT if you do that.

“If Uncle Ben were important then when Tony took away his suit he’d leave it to other people instead of getting involved himself”

That logic doesn’t follow.

To begin with the entire movie repeatedly made it clear Peter was willing to disobey Tony and get involved so him continuing to do so is consistent, it doesn’t have anything to do with Uncle Ben’s importance or lack thereof.

Secondly as stated above this is all built upon the PRESUMPTION Ben existed and Spider-Man’s origin played out in a similar way it always does but there is 0% in-movie evidence for this happening. We simply know Peter lives by a philosophy the same as the philosophy he had in other movies but we don’t know in this universe how he came to believe in that philosophy.

He certainly doesn’t seem like it was through the loss of a loved one because he doesn’t mention, reference or think about Ben in the slightest and doesn’t act as anyone who’s lost someone they loved a lot very recently, certainly not other versions of Spider-Man who went through that.

“The red and blue home made suit represents a spider-Man who does what he does not because Tony Stark got involved”

But again there is no evidence in the movies that he does what he does because of Uncle Ben because Uncle Ben isn’t even implied in-story.

More importantly this isn’t the main critique of the MCU Spider-Man. the main critique is that Tony is incredibly important and defining to this version of Peter even if he was active before Tony showed up. The entire arc of Homecoming rests upon the motivation of Peter wanting to be an Avenger.

That’s not even my interpretation either, Tom Holland SAID that himself. The villain is an evil Tony Stark who became villain because of Tony Stark and who’s goal is Tony’s stuff. Peter’s self-actualization as a character happened when he was spurred on by Tony Stark.

Tony is BAKED IN to the foundations of this version of Spider-Man in a way that’s vitally more important than Uncle Ben because everything revolves around Tony. And again it SHOULDN’T, it shouldn’t anymore than Robin should NOT revolve around his relationship with Batman.

“That isn’t Peter saying he wants to be the next Iron Man”

Not in Homecoming perhaps but that’s clearly the direction the film Pushes Peter in in FFH.

“Just because Uncle Ben existed doesn’t mean Tony will fall on deaf ears”

Again not the point, the point is Tony is more present and impactful than Ben.

Put it like this. Aunt May clearly EXISTS in the MCU...but based upon the character arc and defining features of MCU Peter is she really as if not more important than Tony?

No she’s not, you could tweak the movies to exorcise her and they wouldn’t be that different.

“It’s a representation of this kid fighting for his uncle...it represents even before he met Tony he would’ve battled a villain who is concerned with Tony Stark“

Again...the uncle that the movies do not confirm even existed.

Again...the mere FACT that Tony is so integral to the fabric of so much stuff in this version of Spider-Man like Mysterio is against the concept and spirit of Spider-Man.

And even if we ignore all of that...Spider-man only beats Mysterio when he uses Tony’s tech to build a costume like Tony did set to Tony’s soundtrack so like...is the film actually affirming Tony’s presence is irrelvent to his heroic journey?

“Do you really think the hooded suit was put in for the sake of fanservice?”

I mean...it’s far from impossible we got like 5 different number plates that acted as fanservice. Chris Evans appeared in Thor: the Dark World for fanservice. The fact we got a giant Mysterio hand was nothing but fanservice.

“That hooded Spider-man IS Uncle Ben”

...then why....isn’t...he...mentioned!

It’s for a similar reason Aunt May is nothing more than Iron Man’s friend’s new girlfriend.

“You don’t keep everything associated with someone when they die”

This is a case of writing the movie for Marvel at this point.

Yes hypothetically it’s possible that there are other possessions associated with Uncle Ben which mean more to Peter than his suitcase.

But what are they?

Do they even exist?

We don’t know because again the suitcase is the closest thing we have to proof that Uncle Ben even EXISTED in these movies.

“The Stark suit was in the suitcase that got destroyed”

How does this disprove that Tony was more important than Ben?

Because Peter was at least sad about Tony’s death and there is no confirmation Peter was sad about Ben’s death nor even that Ben existed.

“This doesn’t show a good understanding of grief”

This whole movie didn’t show a good understanding of grief!

Peter is more concerned about hooking up with MJ than grieving Tony. It’s not denial or running away it’s inconsistent writing and characterization.

“Peter wanting a holiday is believable”

Sure...but like was Tony even that close to Peter?

They shared exactly six scenes together in person.

“People expect Spider-Man to act in the movies the way he does in that meme”

Half the critics of FFH aren’t saying that and the other half...are kinda right. In character Spider-Man is wracked with pain over remembering Ben. Not because his Dad simply died or even died when he was young but that he died violently and it was HIS FAULT!

“The subject of grief is present in the MCu version of Spider-Man”

Yes...but not over Uncle Ben, over Tony.

“Both with Tony and Ben”

What scene ever clearly shows us Peter grieving Ben’s death. Because the bedroom scene in Civil War doesn’t do that, we the audience project onto that scene that he is probably talking about Ben and he’s probably sad about it but there is no evidence in the movie even implying that to be the case.

The PS4 game at least had a picture.

“It’s handled in a very, very, very subtle way”

No it’s handled in a way that omits and covers him up in order to build up Tony and avoid repetition from the older movies.

It’s not subtle because the MCU by and large is not subtle and that includes Civil War. Tony and Pepper’s break up isn’t even all that subtle in the movie.

This isn’t written to be subtle it’s written to be plausible deniability.

“Just because Ben started Spider-Man and is the essence of him doesn’t mean other people aren’t going to have some kind of influence on him”

Sure...but it should never have been Tony stark.

Because Peter Parker shouldn’t be fanboying over anyone, it goes against his core concept.

“It’s unfair to project one interpretation of grief on every Spider-Man”

Sure. Peter and Miles and Mayday and Gwen and Cindy and Anya won’t all react to grief in the same way.

But if you are doing a version of PETER PARKER and you are having him react to grief in a way that is not broadly consistent with PETER PARKER then you are not doing your job.

He’s supposed to be in spirit a version of Peter Parker and a version of Peter Parker would not react to grief by never even mentioning or thinking about Uncle Ben.

“This was never an origin story for Spider-Man”

Nor was Spider-Man 2 and yet you know...Uncle Ben and the grief over his death was till present in that.

“You can cite the Raimi movies and bring it over to the new lore”

...that...that isn’t how any of this works. The Raimi films aren’t canon to the MCU unless the MCU acknowledges them as such.

“It may be a different Peter Parker but the story is still the same”

If the story is still the same then where are Harry, Mary Jane and Norman Osborn?

Why is Spider-Man not living in the suburbs?

Why is Peer 15 instead of 18?

Even if you take that statement to mean the GIST of the story is the same it creates problems because why would Peter ever say “I’m nothing without this suit Tony” in HC when he knows he definitely isn’t because he knows he can make a difference with or without the suit because of Ben’s death proving that point.

It’s not canon to the MCU unless there is EVIDENCE proving that to be the case.

As of right now Ben might not even exist in the MCU.

More importantly the FACT THAT HE’S NOT MENTIONED is you doing Spider-Man wrong full stop.

[robot-unicorn-attack]

☽ NYX, 24

“ I’m the bad guy....duh. ” — Billie Eilish

Real Name: SOLANA PHYRE (”SOL”) 

Agency: ʟᴀᴢᴇʀ (Lava World)

FC: Duckie Thot

Unicorn Name: U-800 [+]

Place of Birth:  Ambrym, Vanuatu -  largest city and capitol of LW's largest planet; Vanuatu An over-populated city crawling with illicit dealings and even more dubious people and intentions. Police and other enforcers prowling the streets that are overrun with more civilians than there are of cops. But nevertheless, they don't take shit laying down. Sol grew up just down the causeway from her family's mechanic shoppe ahem chop shoppe She was thrown into the family business since she was able to light a welding torch - which happens to be verrrrrry early on and she took to it right away. She knows the ins and outs of the city she called home; having to know 'em in order to outrun the cops as well as conducting illegal underground above ground races

Appearance: Within the first few months of Sol signing onto ʟᴀᴢᴇʀ; she underwent surgery - after much begging and pushing from the agency. Ocular implants aren't as widely consumed as one would assume. However, they aren't rare either. Hell, 𝕿𝖜𝖎𝖑𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙's own Ice Queen, Snow, had diamonds implanted into her irises. ʟᴀᴢᴇʀ felt it was a great idea to really sell the villain route of Nyx.

(What better than to make them tremble in fear just from your gaze alone? And to be able to see it from the track? Brilliant!)

They might have well had the conversations with themselves with the amount of input Sol gave. But, she gave in; secretly thrilled at the idea, though she'd never give ʟᴀᴢᴇʀ the satisfaction.

Piercing, molten gold eyes now stand out against her skin. The molten of her gaze almost glows in anticipation and when she's in the throes of passion and excitement. They dull, almost as if gold could tarnish, when she's expressing darker more sinister thoughts. It's in those times you should watch your back. However, she rarely lets it slip that she's concocting any sort of illicit activities and therefore - you should always be wary. 

"Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer," as the old proverb states.

Swarthy skin as smooth as supple leather, but tough from living in LW as well as with the amount of time spent hunched over a blow torch and welding machines. Skin which takes on an almost ethereal sight when the light hits her just so and she is obsidian in the flesh. Typically her raven locks are worn long. However, when she was younger and growing up she could be seen sporting a buzzed style or her natural fro-curls. Due to ʟᴀᴢᴇʀ's villainous projection of Nyx, she continues to keep it long and straight for the most part - and then varying forms of the aforementioned. 

Wardrobe: Black glitz & glam spiked heel to your face. Blacks, blacks and more black. With gold, silver and red splashed throughout. Sol is typically the poster child of all that Lava World fashion has to offer. While she's out and about, mainly strongly influenced by ʟᴀᴢᴇʀ and their contract with the woman, she is seen donning either high fashion pretty clothes as she refers to them, or the counterpart of high fashioned battle / racing gear [ you know, leather or fabric pants, jackets, tops - and of course some stunning kickass boots? that's the one ]

Places most likely to be found: Most likely can be found in the stables with Uuie; or getting her mechanic on - legally or illegally especially if there's an upcoming race. Otherwise, she likes to live it up as much as she can with her "free time". She can be spotted at any bar or nightclub with her siblings living it up or if it's mandatory - a promo event that her agency sets up.

People mostly likely to be with: Her siblings; Hugo, Ember and Pele. As well as her fellow teammates; Flame and Widow. She does still keep in contact with some of her old racing buds from the underground scene.

Strongest character trait: Ruthless

Public Image: cut-throat. ruthless. brutal. aloof. cold and calculating. the bad guy. the one you hate to love and love to hate. a true villain. what is she gonna do next? and will it be legal? very much a tabloid trashcat lol

Racing Strengths:  tenacious. knows the limits of Uuie like the back of her hand - oh that's new - so she knows how to run him and the courses to the best of his abilities. she likes to think that she can easily adapt to a multitude of situations - whether it's due to a new steed, new course, even new teammates cough cough yrah right

Racing Weaknesses: pushes herself and Uuie to the limit. focused on winning, no matter the cost - except for in the case of Uuie as of late - she's grown soft with him

Personality: arrogant. headstrong. over ambitious. stubborn. sharp witted. silver tongue. quick reaction. an absolute instigator. somewhat of a bully. edgy and irritable. determined. observant. intuitive. confident. cunning. questionable motives for sure. untrustworthy - duh. sneaky. incredible liar. knows she's talented and takes it a bit too far. highly intelligent. nasty bitch. party loving animal. ruthless. aggressive. charming. cut-throat. brutal. aloof. cold and calculating. the bad guy. the one you hate to love and love to hate. a true villain. very much a tabloid trashcat lol hardworking. super handy. think female villainous tony stark she is also quite the lil cocky genius. she adores being center of attention - all the more challenging to get away with things - not to mention, being petty and subtle not so subtle in her tone and actions with others is so lovely~ will absolutely get inside your and her own head. ruthless. cunning. talented. hardworking. handy. can assemble and disassemble any and all unicorns and horses that cross her path after spending a few hours with it. can say the same for literally any other mechanical device / equipment. worries about stupid shit - specifically shit that she makes up in her head - ruthless. motives and means are questionable at best. shifty, shady lady. crass - sometimes doesn't realize it - it's just in her nature. insomnia is a real thing.

Biography: Sol grew up in a racing household. Well, kinda. Coming from quite a large, working family, Sol has never been one to shy away from hard work and working towards her goals. No matter the consequences. Her father used to race - unofficially, of course - but before then he was a mechanic. Constantly working on the horses. His father had owned and ran a shop specifically for the racers of Lava. Along with some shady chop shop goings on at the same time, and outta the same shop. Since her father and grandfather were so close, she was there everyday - learning the ins and outs of the . . . family business. Which only furthered her passion with the sport.

So, as soon as she could ride, her pops helped her get a rig of her own totally not stolen and they got to work building it up from the base it was literally a chassis. The majority of the work fell onto Sol's shoulders because not long into starting, her grandfather passed and her pop was thrown in jail not for long, but still .

Sol, being the eldest of her siblings, she hauled ass to complete her stallion, that she aptly named Frankenstein - yeah she was well aware that wasn't his name, but she liked it waaaay better than adam bleghh. The next day after his completion, she took him to an underground track where there was talks about races took place and positions won cash. Competing in her first race went . . . smoother than she anticipated. However, that isn't saying much seeing as how she not only lost but Frank was nearly destroyed when the ground shifted beneath him and they toppled to the ground, his large frame landing on top of her - effectively breaking her right arm.

After that point, she was constantly rebuilding Frank - eventually having to scrap him when there was no longer anything to rebuild and continue the same process over and over again. To say that Sol got in the experience of racing is an understatement. The amount of race time she put in rivaled that of the older crowd who'd been attending these events for years even before Sol was born.

Winning the races came after. The money going back into the family's food and shelter. But a few times, more often than not, the first place went to Sol for reasons outside of the stats of her current beast. No one could really prove it. And it wasn't like others participating weren't conducting similar measures of their own - it was just a blow to the pride when they believed that this . . . kid was the cause of the sabotage.

Fast forward a few years and Sol's name was known on the beat as the mechanic with wicked stats and even more wicked intentions. Winning unknown underground races was no longer thrilling for her anymore. Especially since no one posed any serious threat to her. Either because they all sucked or because they were too chicken shit to attempt, she couldn't be sure. But either way, she didn't like it. The only one to give her a run for her money was the now infamous Widowmaker. But since signing on with ʟᴀᴢᴇʀ, the scene has been . . . lacking.

Sol was excited for her long time friend and rival. Though she never could brush off that pang of jealousy she felt for being left behind. Regardless of her age.

It wasn't until she was 17 that things were beginning to look up for the eldest Phyre child. She'd just won a race - one that took place under and around the ʟᴀᴢᴇʀ agencies recruitment station and stalls where they house the unicorns and horses, ya know to add a lil spice to game. Well, their antics and noise drew the attention of the cities police enforcement as well as agency members. Sol was skilled enough to bolt, not lucky enough to get away. Turns out, ʟᴀᴢᴇʀ had been keeping tabs on the girl for awhile now - not to mention Widowmaker spoke highly of her - that they asked for her to join them. Unofficially as of the time, of course legality purposes and all bleghh.

Having known who exactly who she was and the family she stems from, they knew the exact role she was going to play within their agency. And since Sol had no issue conducting . . . less than legal means, they continued and played up that strength of hers ***though they would never admit out loud or publicly that what the rumors posted are true in any form of the word / i mean what ?***

Since her signing with the agency, Nyx has been the ever fan favorite villain. Her ruthlessness on and off the track knows no bounds. ʟᴀᴢᴇʀ has never been one to shy away from the drama or the dirty and the nasty and having Nyx's villainous tendencies, that she will do anything she has to in order to get what she wants, slip out into the public, well, oops, oh well

Nyx’s image and her skill with her Uuie have brought her moderate success. As of late, however, she's been quite worried about whether or not the agency is going to drop her - that she's not a fan favorite anymore. Which to be honest . . . she's still a favorite - the kind you wanna hate and love it. She’s good, no doubt, but she’s no Snow or Supernova. Which honestly, she never expected to be - they have waaaaay more experience than she ever will, but still~ However, with the currently rising Flame, with wins and popularity, she is in her right to worry some. Though, it's nowhere near where her imagination takes her. So, she has decided to go off script for the time being - continuing her tasks passed down through the agency - but also making sure to keep up her own appearance. Anything to get what she wants. Nyx doesn’t take no for an answer, so she’s going to do whatever it takes to get to the top. Even if it means exacerbating all the rumors of foul play that already surround her.

She's painted as the villain, right?

Might as well give them what they want . . .

Relationships:

Snow -

Sky -

Ice -

Supernova -

Sunbeam -  

Flower -

Flame -

Nyx -

Widowmaker -

Playlist:

lucky you | eminem ft. joyner lucas

rap god | eminem

killshot | eminem

'till i collapse | eminem ft. nate dogg

lady in red | jolin tsai

el chapo | the game

don't be nice | watsky

punchin' bag | cage the elephant

mess around | cage the elephant

ride | zz ward

raise hell | dorothy

wicked ones | dorothy

monsters | ruelle

copycat | billie eilish

bad guy | billie eilish

all the good girls go to hell | billie eilish

dangerous | royal deluxe

unstoppable | the score

natural | imagine dragons

control | halsey

beekeeper | keaton henson

paint it, black | ciara

Headcanons:

As Nyx; she's expected to be a villain - always; that includes when out in public and at events. She has to play the part and well, be villainous. She doesn't mind, but also doesn't want to lose fans cause she's playing at being a bitch to them. Apparently, the die hards don't care, cause she's constantly in contact with them.

knows quite a few die hard fans by name and can spot them outta the crowds. she's a lil weary of a few of the more stan-y of them.

has kicked some of the creepy fans ass; which only helped solidify her Nyx role . . .

hasn't dated anyone since signing onto ʟᴀᴢᴇʀ | has had quite a few fuck buddies though - even having a buddy for each day of the week at one point. has toned it down however to just 2 - gotta satisfy that appetite

does have quite the lil crush on Flower; mainly because of how similar she sees them. Not to mention, she's such a cutie. Anytime they're together or near, she likes to tease the girl~

she likes to tease and make others uncomfortable regardless - it's just sooooo much fun

even though she can adapt to any horse / unicorn thrown at her, she has her fav; Uuie - she's sentimental that way

so she resorts to just makin' adjustments and any mods she can get away with

doesn't really like it when the agency throws a new horse at her while Uuie is undergoing repairs - but deals; begrudgingly

listens to music loudly while she's working / training etc. to the point where it makes it extremely difficult for her to hear anything else going on around her

insomniac

really, realllllly skilled in mechanations of all sorts

constantly in contact with her siblings - actually pretty close with them

they run the family business without her while she's off "being a super villain"

her father is still in prison and refuses to give up any information on his "alleged" illegal activities

he's kinda the big dog on site; has quite the following and is extremely proud of his oldest daughter and what she's become

looks up to her teammates; Widowmaker and Flame - though will NOT admit to the latter of the two; because she feels like it makes her look and sound weak and she canNOT have that

taken a play from flower's app has merch of her own team, specifically her own shiit; cause she's vain and LOVES how she's portrayed. what's wrong with having a small room dedicated to ʟᴀᴢᴇʀ cough cough herself

actually loves playing the villain; it isn't too far off the mark from who she really is

she's a lil more . . . lively than her villainous counterpart think harley quinn type lively

when she's Nyx; she hardly speaks - not really needing too - but when she does, expect, cool, acid tones to drip from her lips; sultry and cabaret sounding - while her normal tone is actually more city slang and more bubbly

sleeps in the nude OR an oversized shirt that typically hangs off one shoulder there is no in between

Family/Other Characters:

Baskara Phyre [ grandfather ]

Kiran Phyre [ father ]

Aithne Phyre [ mother ]

Hugo Phyre [ brother ]

Pele Phyre [ sister ]

Ember Phyre [ sister ]

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/kzombi3/rua/

[chibiarmygeneral]

The Case of Lotor

I’m trying to do a fix-it fic and have been thinking about a lot of different plot points, keeping a lot of what happened in canon but differing certain situations. When it comes to Lotor, I toss back and forth with him. I liked Lotor and it would be easy for me to just erase the second colony storyline all together and move on. A lot of people enjoyed Lotor because he was abused and still tried for the better. People felt represented and it was understandable they were upset when he was killed as he was deemed ‘just like his father’, his abuser. But I also know people wanted him as a villain and could just write it off as me trying to ignore his wrongdoings by erasing them. Therefore, I’m trying to come up with a middle ground.

The big ‘issue’ is the second colony, where we learn Lotor had siphoned off the remaining Alteans of their quintessence. Now here is the question: why? Why would Lotor do this? To be honest, we are never given an explanation at all about it. In the entire show, quintessence is this mysterious thing that’s supposed to be the soul of all living things, but it’s turned into a power source. In Season 2, Haggar makes the Komar that absorbs a planet’s quintessence, killing the planet of any life. When Lotor is held captive with Voltron and questioned by Allura and Kuron in season 5, he says he didn’t want to destroy planets. If he isn’t getting this energy from planets, where else is he going to get it from? This is where the colony comes in.

Here is my reasoning: destroying planets means the destruction of entire ecosystems and viable living space for people. We are shown a lot of habitable planets but I’m doubting all planets are livable or if it is, it’s to a specific set of aliens that are adapted to it. Where are they supposed to go now? People will eventually get overcrowded in the remaining planets and who knows if they’ll adapt to their new environment. Now when it comes to people, by taking a small set of people and spreading it out over generations, you allow the population to reproduce and grow constantly. You can still get the energy you need by removing a small portion and keep a continuous flow rather than a one and done deal where there is lost of lots of valuable resources and the reformation of planets can take hundreds of thousands of years, plus however many more to make it a suitable place to live.

Now before saying “Cool motive, still murder” and leaving, let me finish. I’ve watched Madoka Magica and small spoilers from that anime because this is where I got the idea from.

Entropy is described in Madoka Magica as the loss of energy. That we consume more than we create and because of this the entire universe is slowly dying out. To combat this, Kyubey, an alien comes to earth to grant wishes of young girls who are candidates and by turning their souls into their powers, it releases a great amount of energy that defies entropy, creating more energy than what is used.

I always viewed Lotor’s second colony as Kyubey taking the energy from the magical girls for the survival of the universe. However, where Lotor differs is where Kyubey is from an alien race that can’t comprehend emotions and view it as a mental disorder of sorts, Lotor we know is a very emotional person. His emotions are part of his drives to make change, he was ostracized for being a half-galra so he employed half-galra, his father tried to hide his Altean heritage, he gathers all that he can about the Alteans. Since it happens so quickly, we never get to see how Lotor felt about the colony and that’s where I think his potential for redemption still lies. If he felt nothing and saw this as purely a way to gain power then that’s that. But I think it stands to reason that he did feel guilty about it. We are given a flashback of when Zarkon destroyed the planet that Lotor, instead of conquering it like he was ordered to, chose to work along side the people. He showed absolute devastation to it and he subsequently got punished further by being banished. How could this person who put himself on the same footing as the inhabitants of this planet that he had no connection to be able to sacrifice his own people? People that he has shown to have a lot of respect and admiration for, considering how he always praised Allura and felt envious of her about being Altean. Why would the staff show us that Lotor felt this way if there wasn’t some sympathy to be gained from it and show that Lotor does feel for the lives that were lost.

Now some may argue that this was them pandering to the fans, but this story was brought up when Allura and Lotor were going to Oriande, seasons prior. Not to mention that there was a short break between seasons and that animation is done months in advance by the time it released to the public, I doubt the crew changed much regarding the fans, if they changed anything. If there is someone on staff saying “we changed x,y, and z for the fans” then feel free to add that but I’d say for the most part that what we were given is what they wanted and decided to show us.

Let’s look at what else Lotor does. He fights Throk who wanted to overthrow him and beats him claiming that they should allow others to join the empire and those that don’t “will be crushed” and the Galra cheer for him. Immediately after, he says to his generals how “the masses are easily swayed” this can come off as him being dishonest to the people but he’s right as he knows what the people want, what they have been doing for thousands of years, if he wants them on his side, he needs to say the things they want to hear. What matters is his actions and the only reference point we have is on Puig. When the generals come in, Lotor specifically ordered that they were contained and not killed, that’s what they do. They talk to the leader of Puig and he says how he doesn’t want his people to be enslaved again and Lotor claims they won’t but be part of the empire.

Now what does that mean? What does being part of the empire entail? Does it mean you support their cause and send in resources when they need it? Do you set up a system of trade between their different aligned factions? If that’s the case, isn’t that the same as being part of the Voltron Alliance/Coalition? We have talks of people joining them and we know from the battle of Naxzela that we had these same people fighting for them. So, what exactly is different other than the name? We are never given any indication from Team Voltron when they work with Lotor that they disagree with his politics. Granted, we aren’t given anything about that in general but if they wanted to show that Lotor was different from them then why not show conflict here? We never see them argue about how Lotor should run the empire, so it stands to reason that his ideas aren’t “bad” or at least our heroes approve of his methods.

We don’t see the Puigs again, so I have no clue if they are with the empire or Voltron or whatever happened to them. We might have seen them in the background in some scenes, but it’s never covered on what they chose, empire or not, and how Lotor reacted to it.

Lotor kills Narti but we know that Haggar was using her to spy on them and Lotor managed to figure out that Narti was a spy. I’ll be honest, I’m still a little miffed how he managed to put 2 and 2 together as he didn’t see Narti look towards Haggar (and I’m not sure how Haggar got control in the first place. Like could she always do that from a distance just by looking at someone? Why not do this on everyone? Can we get an explanation please!). Regardless, he realizes she’s the leak and as far as he knows, she can no longer be trusted and in order to protect himself and his other generals, he had to kill her. We once again aren’t given the time to see his reaction and he clearly doesn’t explain anything as that’s the whole premise on the generals betraying him but I’d like to think that while in the moment there was no hesitation because of fight or flight, he likely did feel remorse for killing what he thought was a comrade or at the very least felt hurt by her betrayal. (No clue if Narti was aware of it happening but given Kuron had no clue, I think it’s safe to say she didn’t and it’s unfortunate it had to happen to her.)

He was willing to allow Voltron to be sucked into that vortex that had the Altean ship stuck in it and that caused them to go to a different reality. We know that people had died trying to pass through, as Zethrid talks about them exploding like fireworks, but Lotor is positive that Voltron, being made from the transreality comet will make it. For him, it’s a win-win. If Voltron gets the comet, he can take it, if they get stuck in the other reality then no more opposition from them. Now, why would Lotor want them gone if they want essentially the same thing? Why hadn’t Lotor simply contact them and say how he wanted to make peace throughout the universe? Well, as far as Lotor knows, Voltron wants to get rid of the Galra empire, regardless of who is in control. He could have tried to extend the olive branch, but he has no clue if they are going to accept or not. To him, they are still an obstacle because who knows if they will listen to his reasoning or not, they could be no better than Zarkon for all he knows. We aren’t given any indication he knows what they do to liberated planets and the only one we see him go to is Puig and he says how Voltron couldn’t save them (they are just one group versus the entirety of an empire that can stretch out it’s resources unlike Voltron).

When Lotor fights Voltron in Season 6, he snaps and claims he’d destroy all the Galra, which causes his generals to bounce again. But as I stated before, he is driven by his emotions to do things and it’s likely that after he was called no better than his father that he was driven to that point because he’s spent his life being degraded by the Galra and in no way has any (shown) close ties to his Galra heritage other than Dayak. But here’s the thing, if he truly was just like Zarkon wanted to destroy everything then what was the entire point of the conflict they had? If he really was just meant to be Zarkon 2.0 then they would have had no reason to fight each other. Sure, Lotor might be ‘pretending’ to be better but if that’s the case, why didn’t he enslave the planet he was meant to conquer after he gained their trust? Why still try and reason with team Voltron if the ‘gig is up’? Lotor’s actions don’t add up to him just being a ruthless killer. I don’t think he was ever meant to be this way. I think it was just the staff trying to up his ‘evil’ factor.

He builds the sincline ships in the hopes of going between realities where there is unlimited quintessence. Why is this needed? Because quintessence is used to power their tech and if it’s like Madoka Magica, it powers the very universe. If he succeeds in doing this, he won’t have to drain anymore Alteans because it won’t be necessary anymore. So his ultimate goal is good in the long run because we are given unlimited energy without any consequences of taking planets or lives away.

His main goal was to obtain the energy needed to power the universe, but I have a question. What were they using before? If they always used quintessence then how did the obtain it? What happened to other resources if they had them and why couldn’t they keep using it? Why use quintessence? We know it’s a pure source of energy as in the flashback in Season 3 with Honerva researching the rift. They had an experiment that this little bit of energy was able to power a device for over a year without any degrade in quality. So we know it’s powerful and Honerva wanted to continue searching for more of this energy while Alfor wanted to look elsewhere.

So was the universe decaying due to the lack of energy or not? Was the search for quintessence necessary or not? I always viewed the universe slowly dying due to entropy as stated in Madoka Magica and that’s why they needed the quintessence (aside from Zarkon and Haggar supposedly using it to stay alive, that’s never really explained on how that works either). If the universe needed more energy, then how did Voltron solve this problem after the fact? They never explain in the final episode when all realities are restored about how they dealt with this lack of energy source because that seems to be the sole reason for Lotor doing what he did with the second colony and getting the sincline ships to be able to move through realities. Was it a problem or not? Because if there was never an issue then there is no reason for Lotor to have set up the second colony because energy was never in need. The sole thing that made him ‘evil’ is called into question because of this inconsistency. The Galra empire used quintessence so what were they using after the war ended? Did their tech just stop working after a while? What did they do to combat this? What exactly happened to the empire anyways? Who knows!

Anyways, I just wanted to get this out there and try to organize my thoughts. I tried my best to explain my reasoning for his actions and while I don’t approve of the second colony (He should have came clean about his intentions but he would have severely depleted his resource if he had done that so he likely felt there was no other choice but to lie about it) I can see why it happened and sort of the idea that was probably intended for it but it just doesn’t make overall sense due to it coming out of nowhere at the end, even though the staff intended him to be a villain all along, they didn’t bother adding in potential conflicts with him amongst team Voltron all for the surprise turn around at the end. Then the entire point for needing the energy, what should be the entire point of the second colony, is never brought up and now uncertain if it was important or not. This destroys the entire ‘reason’ they had him being ‘evil’ for. All I can see he was basically a ‘good guy’ with a heel-face turn all for a ‘gotcha’ moment.