#also it’s objectively funny watching her obliterate things

[figofswords]

I can do whatever I set my mind to!!!!

[alwaysahiccupandastrid]

Barbie was so good?!? Fucking loved every minute of it, but special shout-out to some things...

(BARBIE SPOILERS below the cut)

This movie was so funny, I can't get over how fucking funny and camp it was, an actual masterpiece 11/10

"This movie is overly feminist and man-hating" - THIS MOVIE AIN'T FOR YOU, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GO WATCH THE SHITTY FLASH MOVIE THEN IF YOU'RE SO MAD

(haven't actually seen the flash, have seen a few clips on twitter and i'm glad i haven't, i don't want to, don't @ me)

I'll be honest, I had very few Barbie dolls growing up, I had a medium sized doll house that was not for Barbie-height-toys, and so most of my toys were random figurines collected over the years (shout-out to the McDonald's Happy Meal Narnia toys!), but I was still getting pumped at the beginning of this film when the narrator went into detail about how Barbie can have any career, any life she wants etc.

The attention to detail in Barbie-land, like the pools/sea are all flat and not actually wet, there’s no actual liquid in the cups when they drink, no water in the shower etc.

Look, I will fully admit that HOTD has fucked my brain and my taste in men up, and so I'm blaming that for me looking at Ryan Gosling as Ken and going "yes I would like to obliterate that twink" 🙈

There were a lot of kids in my screening who absolutely did NOT get the "beach you off" joke, meanwhile I was sitting there laughing embarrassingly loudly like an idiot

Why was Allan a whole ass mood, I'm sorry but he was so relatable, arguably the best character I fear-

I like that weird-Barbie is basically what a lot of girls go through with their Barbies at a certain age by cutting off their hair, drawing on them with pens, etc. Like that’s a mood, my sister and I used to wash our Barbies’ hair and draw fake tattoos on them with felt tips 💀

“Do you ever think about dying? 😃” took me out oh my fucking god 💀 I already had one existential crisis this weekend watching Oppenheimer, I don’t need another one from Barbie of all things 😭

The way Ken says “because we’re boyfriend girlfriend” has the most random place in my heart and I don’t know why lol

The sheer horror over Barbie having flat feet LMFAO

Weird-Barbie having the dog where you feed it pellets and then use the tail so it shits the pellets back out?!? Me and my sister were like "oh my fucking god" because we literally had that fucking toy lmfao

Weird-Barbie talking about Ken's smooth plastic bulge, I literally CHOKED-

Honestly just... Barbie entering the real world and being confused that men treat her like a sex object, being super uncomfortable, meanwhile Ken's like "they're looking at me appreciatively!"... oof

I nearly choked on my drink when Barbie loudly declared "I don't have a vagina and he doesn't have a penis!" like?!?!?

Barbie and Ken getting arrested not only once but TWICE... oh that's the content I'm living for lmao

I’m so so SO glad that the scene with Barbie and the elderly lady was kept in, I shed a tear because it was so beautiful and simple. When Barbie said that the lady was beautiful?!?! I’m a mess just thinking about it 😭❤️

Pleasantly surprised by the sheer amount of horsey content in this film like yes, that's 100% what the patriarchy should be, it should be about Kens riding horsies :D (I’m aware this is NOT the only thing that happened lmao I’m just saying that the world would be a better place with more horses)

America Ferrera is a fucking QUEEN and I adore her, I know HTTYD is over but she will always be MY Astrid, aka Chieftess Queen and Dragon-Rider

Not gonna lie, I felt Sasha’s little monologue where she rants about the unrealistic standards set by Barbie like I see both sides of what Barbie represents and how she can be viewed and I get it. Like on the one hand, hooray for girls growing up having a doll that can show them they can be Presidents, Nobel Piece winners, doctors etc., hooray for all the feminism to come from Barbie. But also you could argue that there’s unreal expectations in regards to Barbie’s body shape, and that when we girls grow up into women, we realise that the Real World is not as simple as what we dreamt of while playing with Barbies, that our world doesn’t revolve around having women in positions of power, that we still very much live in a society where women are viewed as being there solely for men, as home makers and wives and mothers, that we can have a certain amount of freedom and power but not too much etc.

Did I kind of guess "hey maybe it's not the daughter who has triggered Barbie's crisis, maybe it's the mother"? Yes, I guessed that early on but I still loved it anyway

I have no idea how Greta Gerwig got Mattel to agree to this script but holy shit, she must be magical or something

The spirit of Ruth Handler, aka THE creator of Barbie who named the doll after her daughter?!? Played by Rhea Perlman?!?!

Also I've only just learnt, after looking at Ruth Handler's wikipedia page, that Ken was named after her son?!?! Barbie and Ken are siblings?!?!

JOHN CENA AS MERMAN KEN?!?!

My sister was so delighted by the amount of Sylvester Stallone references in this film omg

DEPRESSION-BARBIE I WAS IN LITERAL FUCKING TEARS I COULDN'T STOP LAUGHING, AND SHE WAS WATCHING BBC'S PRIDE AND PREJUDICE?!? WHILE EATING SWEETS?!? I CANT STOP CACKLING AND CRYING

Depression-Barbie also comes in other variations, including an anxiety one?!?! 🤣

I shit you not, I NEED America Ferrera to be nominated for supporting actress for all the awards because holy fUCK, her monologue?!?! That monologue?!?!

WHAT DO YOU MEAN ROB BRYDON AKA UNCLE BRYNN FROM GAVIN AND STACEY IS SUGAR DADDY KEN?!?!

“We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back and see how far they have come.” - STOP I WAS ALREADY SOBBING

The Helen Mirren fourth wall break where she says that if the filmmakers wanted us to believe that Barbie was no longer pretty, "they shouldn't have cast Margot Robbie in this part", literally ICONIC

KEN’S FLUFFY TIE DYE HOODIE THING THAT SAYS “I AM KENOUGH” ASDFGHJKL I WANT ONE

Ridiculously glad that Ken and Barbie didn’t get together to be honest, yes I get it that Ken is designed as a boyfriend for Barbie but also it would have sucked to have this whole film play out as it did and then have them end up together 💀

The soundtrack of this film was IMMACULATE, 10/10, five stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

There’s a definite message and commentary here but I’m too stupid and tired to write it out, so I’ll reblog it from the people who are smarter and more eloquent than me instead but oh my good this film was such an amazing piece of cinema

This isn't everything about the film obviously, there was a lot going on and I'm still mentally processing it so I might add more to the post later but wow, just… wow.

[evolutionsvoid]

Serpent of Hate, Guardian of the Wrathful River, Styx is one of five aquatic beasts that dwell in the rivers of the Underworld. Her territory is within the most famed river of this realm, both their names found upon many tongues in the mortal world. The two share the same winding body, slithering through the depths of the Underworld. In this twisting home, she spends all of her time patrolling its waters and shores, keeping an eye out for any who may intrude. Of all the rivers in the Underworld, hers is the one that receives the most warnings. It is not just the trapped souls who are told to avoid these waters, it goes to the regular denizens, guards and higher-ups as well. Do not even dip a single toe into this river, as it is a death sentence to any who violate it. As the regulars down below often say, "there is a reason no one else guards these shores." If one takes a dip or tries to cross this river to escape the Underworld, the wrath of this horrific serpent will come crashing down like a tsunami. The waters will surge and churn, as the massive creature barrels through the depths. All victims usually see is a wave of blue and teeth, then darkness. While all the other rivers of this realm are incredibly dangerous, there is a reason this one is most avoided. Of all the other beasts, she is the strongest by far. Her incredible length and muscly bulk makes her entire body a weapon. Charging through the waters at lightening speeds, she can strike an opponent with the force of a typhoon, obliterating ships and mortals, while sending more durable foes flying. Her length allows her to coil around larger foes and crush them with her powerful muscles, while a single whip of her tail can turn humans into a fine mist. Her raw strength alone makes her a terrifying enemy, but that is not the only weapon at her disposal. In fact, she has many, all which are presented in the form of razor sharp teeth. Styx is bristling with hooked fangs and sharpened teeth, sprouting from the various maws that line her body. All of these pale in comparison to the massive jaws upon her face, as they are large enough to swallow a ship. Simply opening this toothy chasm is enough to create a powerful vortex that sucks in water, fish, vessels and victims. If that whirlpool is not enough to capture prey, her throat is lined with a multitude of clawed tendrils, each eager to seize flesh and draw blood. They reach out like blind arms and strike like hungering serpents, dragging prisoners down into her cavernous maw. Waiting for those who fall in is another boney set of jaws, one that is more suited for slicing and chewing. The glowing hooked teeth on her face are mainly used to trap prey in her mouth, while these skeletal fangs are meant to shred them. It is said that this inner jaw is capable of biting through any material, be it mortal metal or heavenly armor. Everything is devoured and sent into the abyss of her gut, regardless if they are friend or foe. Even if one is lucky to avoid this massive mouth, the rest of her body is covered with hungering teeth, each ready to clamp down on any poor soul. Once the teeth sink in, crushing muscles will pull the victim into her body, where they will be dumped into her horrible stomach. It is said that there is no death within this organ, as victims are left to suffer in this excruciating pit of acid. The wretched fumes of this foul liquid awakens buried grudges and contained anger, turning prisoners into savage, crazed beasts. They will turn on the others trapped in her stomach, turning her body in a cruel and endless bloodbath. How long one must suffer in this pit of blood and poison is unknown, but a way out is known. Eventually she will vomit out unwanted things, be it trash, pardoned sinners or beings she wasn't supposed to eat in the first place. These refuse piles are found deep in the Underworld, as she is very specific on where she dumps her gut. These are foul and miserable spots, but some denizens may be seen rooting around in the filth to find interesting objects or bizarre valuables that wound up inside her.  The Styx is known as the River of Hatred, and there is no better beast to guard these waters than her. She is an incredibly angry and violent individual, constantly in a state of seething anger. She views this river as her territory and she refuses to let a single soul intrude upon it. Her insane aggression has her lash out at any beings who dare touch her water or try to cross it, regardless of their power or authority. Her senses appear to be fine tuned to this river, as she immediately knows when someone dipped their foot into it miles away. With her strength and speed, she practically teleports to the site of the offense and immediately goes on a rampage. Any who are in the water will be quickly devoured, while those on shore will be seized in her tendrils and fed to her grinding maw. Boats and dinghies are not safe from her wrath either, as she can also sense when an unwanted craft touches the surface. These vessels barely stand a chance against her, as she reduces them to splinters in moments. It is said that guards near this region of the Underworld turn a blind eye to souls that try to fashion ways of escape, as they get endless amusement from watching these fools be devoured. She doesn't seem to find it so fun, as she throws a tantrum when anyone treads her territory, even thrashing and screaming long after the last offender has been eaten. This hatred she embodies even seems to emanate from her, coming off in that strange blue glow. Those who gaze at any of her numerous lights will begin to grow irritated and frustrated. Their anger will rise with each passing moment, until they are blind with rage and throw themselves into the river to extinguish this infernal glow. Those who succumb to this spell rarely last a second in these waters, as her wrath is far greater than anything they could muster. This insane territorial nature goes with any body of water she inhabits, as she is just as furious with intruders when she winds up in the mortal realm. If she is somehow dumped into one of humanity's oceans, she will be on the warpath. Trading routes and fleets will be demolished, as she views every one of these vessels as a threat and an annoyance. Crowded waterways and popular beaches will turn into a feeding frenzy, as she swoops in to devour dozens with each gulp. While these appearances seem to be caused by random chance or cruel fate, some say Styx is actually tricked into entering the mortal realm by the rulers and denizens of the Underworld, who are desperate to be rid of her.

  Though she is a valuable guardian, it is well known that Styx is not a popular member of the Underworld. Her endless rage and furious nature causes her to turn on practically anyone. It is not an exaggeration when it is said she will attack anyone who disturbs her river. Guards, officials, rulers and even gods are considered enemies in her eyes, and she will throw herself at them if they dare make a single ripple. There are many stories of her causing chaos and destruction at inopportune times, especially since the river is a sacred site for ceremonies and pledges. Many oath swearings have been ruined when an audience member accidentally disturbs the waters and summons Styx and all her fury. There was also the instance when a certain guard dog decided to take a drink from the rushing river. It took hours to pull the two screeching creatures apart, as it was a tangled chain of bloody teeth and locked jaws. There are even rumors that the god of this very realm is not safe from her fury, as she refuses to acknowledge his divinity. It has been noted that he only crosses the Styx upon the ferryman's boat, which officials claim is for ceremonial purposes. Others secretly believe it is because there is no other way he can cross without angering the vile serpent. Even though she flies into a blind rage whenever any breathing creature looks at her funny, there are a scarce few beings that Styx tolerates. It seems that the ferryman is the only sailor that can cross her waters undisturbed, as she will never bring harm to his boat. At first it was believed that his vessel had some kind of protection or spell that warded her away, but further observation has shown that she is passive around this fellow. When he is crossing the river, she will be swimming close by, keeping close to her friend and also waiting to see if any fool falls from the boat. At times he may sit upon the shores of the river, and she may rest her head upon the sand for both company and comfort. Of all the beings in the Underworld, he is the only one who can seemingly rein her in. When she starts attacking a sacred ceremony or is trying to eat some divine guest, folks are quick to find the ferryman and bring him in to stop her. Styx also seems to begrudgingly tolerate the other river keepers, always grumbling and growling but never fighting. She does admit that their respective rivers are their territory, so she does not invade them without permission. She does also observe the great marsh where the five meet as neutral ground, she is just always cranky about it. Regardless, it has been seen or heard that Styx has some hidden fondness for the other river beasts. She has been seen watching Acheron's sadistic hunting techniques and appears to enjoy the show, though if anyone asks, she will say that Acheron is an immature child who is incapable of taking her role seriously. Cocytus is often seen as an grating annoyance, with Styx having no time for her wailing. Her singing and crying is met with shouts and demands for her to shut up. Styx often chastises her for being so emotional and not getting over these stupid worries. However, Styx has been seen being quite miserable after these cruel outbursts, often hiding away somewhere to stew in self-loathing. She knows quite well that Cocytus is not the only one plagued by emotions she cannot control, and she hates herself for inflicting this pain on another victim. While she may grumble about Lethe and her absent mind, Styx is able to find peace and calmness when bathing in her forgetful waters. When hanging close to Lethe, Styx is momentarily freed from her endless anger, giving her a rare chance to relax. When she is free from this influence though, she is quick to return to her rage, suddenly thinking that this was some ruse or trick to get her to drop her guard. As for Phlegethon, Styx says that the fiery beast is a constant source of irritation with her stupid dances and vain attitude. As a vigilant guardian, she believes Phlegethon has gotten the wrong job, as there is no time for extravagant shows and grand performances. The burning slug's ego and self-praise really gets Styx wound up, and every self-compliment that arises is met by biting insults and angered muttering. Though Styx often yells and mocks Phlegethon, the two have been seen together quite often. Styx insists its because the egotistical dancer is obsessed with getting her approval, which she will never give. However, the serpent is quite bad at hiding her enjoyment of these performances or when Phlegethon gives some subtle flattery. Styx would never admit such a thing, as the burning hatred that flows through her body makes such confessions difficult. Thankfully, it seems Phlegethon is aware of this curse, and sticks close with the fuming serpent in hopes of finally breaking through.     --------------------------------------------------------------------- And end it with a sea serpent! Excellent! That is the last of my Beasts of the Infernal River and boy was it a blast! I love these gals and Styx was a really fun one! This project was nice and easy for me, as there were only five this time! Now I must return to the hunt, to find the next big thing to chip away at. Hopefully I can find some other short ones, as it gets quite tough when I got to come up with ten or more unique designs for something!   This is also the end of Kaijune for me! Hope you guys enjoyed what I made! Now that I am done making monsters, I can get back to making monsters!

[giantroboticplatypusbutt218]

Since I’m the kind of weirdo that unironically likes things like the Shadow The Hedgehog video game I decided to watch Loonatics Unleashed because I figured even if it’s bad I’ll probably still like it anyway.

My numerous thoughts on what I’ve watched so far are below the cut. There’s not any major spoilers.

I’m almost through season one and HOO BOY is the pacing in some episodes just like... the absolute worst I’ve ever seen in a cartoon. I never even knew a cartoon’s mere structure could give me whip lash but here we are. It should really say something that that’s the first problem I thought about. Sometimes there are like, no rising actions. They just introduce the baddy of the week and then it’s the climax for 20 minutes until the conclusion hits 20 seconds before credits roll. It’s either “things are fine” or “EVERYTHING’S ON FIRE” and hardly ever anything in between. The last handful of episodes I watched seems to be better, but that could also be because I was dead tired while watching them. 

Also this is literally the first show where I just... don’t care about the main character. I know it’s a team of six but obviously with Ace being the leader you’d kinda expect him to be the most interesting... but he’s not. He just feels like homeopathic dilution Bugs Bunny, and the fact he spouts off most of the “iconic” lines compared to all the characters doesn’t help. This is unrelated but he also seems to have only one super power? And it’s a kinda boring one? I guess he just needed laser eyes so he could get into Harry Potter esque energy beam battles with the bad guys... I mean most of the team doesn’t have very original powers but you’d at least expect the leader to have something cool. Like, why doesn’t trickster god Bugs Bun- I mean Ace have transformation powers or something? That could be cool.

Speaking of the team’s powers... they’re alright. Slam is just beefy Taz which is fine. I still don’t get the tornado thing but maybe it’s based off of dust devils IDK. Lexi has super hearing and like... psychic sonic boom stuff going on, which I guess is neat but doesn’t really seem to match her character or backstory. Duck uh... can teleport and throw magic eggs. Makes for good comedic moments but again... why are those his powers? Rev can fly which barely matters since the entire team has jet packs, but he also has super speed which like... it would be weird if he didn’t. Honestly Tech got the best powers by a mile. Magnetic manipulation perfectly fits and aids his affinity for building contraptions, and regeneration matches Wile E. Coyote’s tendency to get obliterated as a result of his failures but never actually die from them.��

In terms of the actual plots of the episodes... Well, they introduce some neat if a little cliche concepts that could work but hardly ever get developed properly. Again, the pacing is probably the largest factor. Since the majority of the episode is them dealing with the bad guy at full power and control, every time there’s setback it’s almost always resolved immediately and by the end it just feels like they’re throwing themselves at a wall until it cracks. Like, having swapped powers is cool. Having no powers is cool. But then 2 minutes later it’s like, “Wow! Tech literally solved the problem and sapped most of the tension with an invention he built in five minutes off screen! Haha! Now it’s time to fight this stereotyped to hell villain with no setbacks!” ...Cool.

So far I like every team member except for Ace and Lexi. I don’t hate them they’re just... kinda bland so far. I already talked a little about Ace, but Lexi... just feels like the “girl” of the team. Like the writers were required to have a female main character but they’ve never written one in their life, so all Lexi does outside of battle is get jealous of other women and gush about cute things. Hopefully that gets better over time. Her backstory of being a great cheerleader was neat... until the sexist writing kicked in and she lost the tryout because the female judge was jealous and disqualified her. 

Slam is a very simple character. He’s big, he’s strong, he eats a lot, and he’s a bit of a doof. I like him. Duck is literally just Daffy and Daffy’s my objective pick for best Looney Tunes character besides Bugs so I love him. He’s also by far the funniest character in the show. I knew I was going to love Rev before watching and guess what? I love Rev. The Roadrunner is my subjective pick for best Looney Tunes character and this roadrunner who is now a fast talker is voiced by mister United States Canada Mexico Panama himself. He’s a dork, and he’s smart, and he runs a lot, and I couldn’t ask for more. Onto Tech, I love him too. He is also a dork who is smart, but he’s also a little cocky which is fun to watch. I feel bad seeing him routinely obliterated but it is kinda funny sometimes. 

So far the show is about what I was expecting. Not very good, but that’s okay because half of my thoughts are dedicated to giving imaginary head pats to fictional animal characters. Tech deserves the most head pats, btw, because I’m shocked he hasn’t been crushed under the weight of carrying the entire team. Seriously if he wasn’t an established character everything he does could count as a deus ex machina. 

So yeah. The show’s not very good, but I’ve still been having fun watching it. I hope it improves as I keep going.

[ultrahpfan5blog]

Watching Snyderverse Part 3 - Zack Snyder’s Justice League

After BvS, I was honestly not particularly looking forward to Justice League. For me, it was obvious that Snyder’s versions of these characters and his overall doom and gloom approach was not something I was particularly enjoying despite some promising elements in both MoS and BvS. Then we saw exactly how JL production went down. Despite the happy face they tried to paint, the fact that there was going to be a 2 hour mandate, the fact that Whedon basically reshot a bunch of Snyder’s film with the film being a mishmash of two directors who couldn’t be any more different in their sensibilities, and that that the actors, specifically Ben Affleck, looked like they couldn’t wait to be done with this movie and this role, made it obvious that the movie wasn’t going to turn out well. So my expectations were rock bottom for the theatrical cut. As it happens, that was a good thing. The theatrical cut of JL is a thoroughly unremarkable movie. I don’t abhor it but it is so obviously a patchwork job and a studio mandated film that there is no passion or vision in the movie at all. I mean, I didn’t like BvS much at all, but there was a vision there. Theatrical cut of JL seemed like a film that felt like WB just felt they had to put out there and then move on. And then years later, we get Zack Snyder’s full version of Justice League. I watched it in one sitting, which was maybe a mistake because it is heavy viewing for 4 hours. Without a doubt it is a better movie than the theatrical cut. Its a little tough to judge this film because this is no way a movie that would have been released theatrically. But its also impossible to judge on what it may have been if it was edited down to a 3 hour length. So best to just judge it on its own merits.

Firstly, the positives. This is definitely a more coherent and clear movie. The plot is not rushed and every sequence, be it a character moment or an action sequence, is fully realized without any weird edits. The film does have some more humor than the previous two Snyder films. Mainly courtesy of Ezra Miller and Jeremy Irons. And the humor is not awkward like in the theatrical cut. Ezra Miller in particular benefits from that because some of his cringey lines from the theatrical edition are cut. The special effects are largely impressive and definitely an improvement over the theatrical edition. On a character level, definitely Cyborg gets the most benefit out of all the characters. As we get a full and thorough backstory for him. We get insight into his relationship with both his parents. Steppenwolf also gets significantly more screen time and his motivations are definitely more clearly defined in the movie than in the theatrical. Miller and Momoa also get some more scenes to flesh out their individual characters. What does surprise me is that the film contains a lot of scenes which are essentially just alternate versions of scenes from the theatrical cut. The film isn’t radically different from the theatrical version, but the scenes included in this version feel a little more real. Like a scene with the entire League discussing Superman’s return in the theatrical cut made it obvious that the actors weren’t in the same room together, whereas the original scene in this movie has them clearly in the same physical space. The Superman scenes are also infinitely better without the CGI upper lip. Thankfully, Snyder doesn’t do what he did with the previous two movies and gives some breathing room between action sequences. Probably a bit too much time, but that’s better than no time at all. the tunnel action sequence and the climax set piece is definitely pretty cool. Flash actually having an active role in the climax was a big improvement. My favorite action sequence is still the Superman vs the League because it shows just how powerful Superman can be. Also, the color palette is a lot more consistent and better than the weird bright and red color palette that is used in the theatrical cut.

When it comes down to the performances from the cast, nobody really stands out. They are all fine, but unlike in BvS, where Affleck stood out. Everybody here is just motoring along. In the theatrical cut, Affleck looked completely checked out. I was hoping the original cut would beef up his performance. While it is slightly better, he’s still just a bit too restrained in the role and doesn’t leave the type of impression he left in BvS. Everyone is at their most dour self. Gal Gadot’s WW is more serious and therefore does not get to show her more radiant side in Patty Jenkins’ movies, Momoa is also similarly more dour and serious and not quite as fun as he was in Aquaman. Ray Fisher is decent but its a role that requires him to be very robotic for large chunks of the film. So its a little difficult to assess his performance. Cavill is in far too little of the movie to give much of a performance. He’s perfectly fine in the handful of scenes he has. Miller is probably the best of the lot, even though he’s still more Peter Parker than Barry Allen. Some of the supporting cast actually fare a little better. Irons is a delight whenever he’s on screen and Affleck is also at his best when they have scenes together. That dynamic works. Joe Morton is surprisingly affecting as Silas Stone, as is Billy Crudup in his brief scenes as Henry Allen. Its always nice to see more of Willem Dafoe, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, and JK Simmons. Simmons as Gordon was great casting and its a pity we won’t get to see more of him in that role. Amber Heard for some perplexing reason has a British accent in this film as Mera. Given Dafoe and Momoa both speak in their normal voices, that must have been a choice. It did feel a bit funny. Jared Leto and Jesse Eisenberg are back as Joker and Lex and neither of them particularly improve on their performances. I mean, they have a scene each so its no harm done, but the Joker scene particularly drags on for too long. Amy Adams has a small role and she does manage to make to get some emotion out of a handful of scenes.

The film has more than its fair share of issues. Firstly, it is just way, way too long. The pacing is glacially slow at times. And I mean that in the most literal manner. There is so much slow mo in this movie, its crazy. I swear, if you removed the slow motion, you might lose 20 minutes of the run time. Snyder is clearly in desperate need of an editor here. The film has the exact opposite problem of the theatrical cut. Whereas in the theatrical cut, it always felt that every scene was just edited a little too short, in this movie there are scenes that are going on for far too long. There are some very strange edits. Like an entire scene where women in the village are singing hyms when Arthur leaves and smelling his clothes. There is a meet cute between Iris and Barry which is completely unnecessary and is frankly slightly creepy where Barry is caressing her face while she is in the process of being thrown out of her car. Some music choices in these scenes are also a little bizarre. Everything involving the Martian Manhunter is not necessary. I mean, his involvement in a crucial Martha and Lois scene actually takes away from the emotion of that moment. And then he has a very tacked on final scene which is kind of awkward. The Knightmare scene also drags for a bit too long, especially given they are supposed to be in danger while being out in the open. We still have no more clarity as to why Bruce is having these visions. The slow pace does make things boring at times as well. While I am glad that Cyborg’s backstory gets beefed up, there is a bit too much of Cyborg being angry at his father. After a while, it gets monotonous. The film takes too long to get the team together and the first JL action sequence doesn’t happen until over 2 hours into the movie. The film should have spent a bit more time with the team interacting with one another. That’s what made the Avengers movies work and some of the best parts of this movie are also the team together. There are some Snyder tone deaf moments as per usual. While WW’s entry action sequence is very cool, I do find it funny that they have her comforting a girl and the girl wanting to be just like her after she basically obliterates the terrorist into dust. Given her abilities shown in that sequence, there is no reason she wouldn’t have been able to disable him. But instead she just obliterates him. Its all very Snyder. I do also have to wonder about that sequence. I still don’t get exactly how terrorists feel that blowing up a few city blocks will bring down the modern age. I thought this was a weird Whedon thing but it turns out to be a weird Snyder thing. Also, for all the hype about the black suit Superman, its really nothing more than an aesthetic choice for no rhyme or reason. I honestly prefer the Blue and Red if the black suit doesn’t have a point, like the restorative factor from the comics. Also, for all the blame people put on Whedon about the skimpy outfits on Amazons and the weird backside shots of WW, turns out they were all Snyder. There are a few select things that the Whedon cut did slightly better. For example, there is no real major debate or conflict within the team other than minor objections from Arthur over the implications of using the mother box to bring back Superman. Also, a sequence in the theatrical cut where Bruce admits that Clark was more human that he was, is a better version of a similar scene in this movie. Also, while not perfectly executed, the theatrical cut did acknowledge that Bruce was a human fighting amongst superpowered individuals. Also, most importantly, while Steppenwolf is an improvement over the theatrical cut, this is still a movie where the plot involves a villain trying to find three boxes. Steppenwolf is still pretty boring and the main story is not interesting at all. The Darkseid angle of this story is also overhyped since he’s barely in the film. 

In the end, it feels that there is a pretty decent 3 hour movie hidden in an ok but dragged out 4 hour film. I’m glad the Snyder fans got to see it. I have had my issues with Snyder’s vision. While I feel he has grand ambitions and a sense of scale and scope, he hasn’t really got the sense of story and script to really make it work to a degree where the audience at large would appreciate it. I have seen his old storyboards and read his recent interviews about what he was going to do. It sounds very grand and very cool, but with a big potential of being a gigantic mess. Who knows what will happen in the future but at least it right now seems that they are moving on from Snyder’s vision. For this film, I am right now landing at about a 6/10, which is the highest mark out of all the Snyder DC movies. I’ve only watched it once and watching it again is a big endeavor so I won’t do it anytime soon, but maybe revisiting it will make me either like it more or less.

[jaskiersvalley]

just read thru ur whole blog instead of finishing my midterm that i forgot about that was actually due on march 17 and can i just say thank u i don't think i've ever enjoyed hours of procrastination this much 💕💕 (also rip in absolute pieces to the fact i actually have to work on my midterm now)

*Looks at calendar* Well, it only took me a month and a half to get to your ask. I do hope your midterm went okay and you managed to get it finished! While I’m super flattered that your procrastination involved my writing, I’m also feeling a little guilty for distracting you. In honour of the time lost and as thanks for your lovely ask, please have some time related angsty shenanigans.

CW for injury and character death (which is rectified through implication and screwing with time).

Time had a funny way of working. The war was in full swing, Jaskier traipsed after Eskel, writing songs about witchers and their deeds. But Nilfgaard had been gaining ground, there were whispers of a witcher with a child surprise that was taken from him. When winter came again, Jaskier couldn’t go to Oxenfurt, he’d been outed as a spy for the resistance and had a considerable bounty on his head. With nowhere else to go, Eskel offered him sanctuary at Kaer Morhen. He’d been there once or twice before, was familiar with Lambert and Vesemir. They often spoke of another, Geralt of Rivia. Sometimes they were fond, other times they cursed him.

This winter was different. A portal opened up one afternoon and a haggard looking witcher staggered through with a sorceress in tow. They snapped and snarled at each other, obviously tied by destiny against their will.

“Geralt,” Vesemir rose from his seat and looked over the two new arrivals. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Cirilla wants revenge.” Geralt coughed. “She thinks witchers stole her childhood. She wants to obliterate us all.”

There were murmurs from the others and they were all clamouring to get more information. In the end, they settled with some drinks so Geralt and Yennefer could explain. Jaskier listened raptly, sat next to Eskel and looking to him from time to time.

“Cirilla is hellbent on destroying and conquering. Nilfgaard had taken her from us.” Geralt looked utterly world weary. More so than a witcher usually did. Jaskier would know, he’d spent enough time with Eskel to pull him out from a mindset of exhausted self-loathing. It looked like Geralt could do with someone too.

“Yennefer and I were too busy arguing, at odds over where Cirilla would serve best. She wanted Aretuza, I thought Kaer Morhen. Anywhere but Nilfgaard would have been okay. But Cirilla had enough. After one too many arguments, she slipped away one night and went to Nilfgaard, probably to spite us. She now rules with an iron fist and has a thirst for vengeance.”

When Geralt broke off, Yennefer picked up, “There is no winning. She’s collected all manner of allies from rock trolls to dragons. The resistance is dying if not dead already.”

“So you came here to die?” Lambert spat, angry.

“We came here for help,” Geralt corrected sharply. “Yennefer and I weren’t enough. But we found a way that might change the future.”

“What could another witcher do that the White Wolf couldn’t?” Eskel asked.

“Nothing.” It was Yennefer who cut in. “But your bard might be what we need. At every key moment in time that Aretuza had been able to discern before it was obliterated, he was doing something significant. Not enough to change the tide of the war. We think that in a different timeline, where he is the court bard of Cintra, he will be able to influence Cirilla. I can create a time stone, he can pick a moment in time to jump back to and try and change this whole mess. The key objective is to ensure Cirilla likes witchers and sorceresses.”

If anybody had asked Jaskier, he would have called bullshit on the whole thing.

“We’ve seen how he worked wonders with witchers in the public, his songs about the Scarred Wolf and his deeds are sung across the Continent.” Yennefer finished. “I will make the stone and have it ready for tomorrow afternoon. So I will ask that we have a decent meal this evening as it shall be my last.”

Silence filled the room before Vesemir nodded. There was no other choice. Contracts were thin on the ground, people were turning against witchers once again and it seemed that Nilfgaard was coming to Kaer Morhen. That night, they ate and drank as much as they could, knowing that it would be their last.

Yennefer retired to a room. There was no fond farewell between her and Geralt but a slight grudging respect. That night, the witchers stayed up late, staring silently into the dying fire, making peace with their lot.

By morning, Nilfgaard was advancing on the keep, humans and monsters alike bore down the path.

“We’ll need to get Jaskier to the eastern clearing,” Geralt said. “Nothing else matters. Lambert, Eskel, you’ll take flank, Vesemir, you’re rear and I’ll take point. No matter what, we get the bard to the clearing with the stone.”

Everything was left behind in the keep, nothing to weigh them down, not like they were going to have anywhere to go from the clearing anyway. It was a dead end and no escape. In a way, it was brave of them to assume they would make it as far.

When Geralt left to retrieve the stone, he looked grim. It was in a bag, glowing red through the material.

“It’s all of Yennefer’s chaos and time granted to her. Don’t waste it.” Geralt shoved it at Jaskier. “We need to move out. Now.”

There was nothing left to do but go. As agreed, Jaskier was in the middle, hemmed in by four witchers. They started off at a light run, determined to get as much distance covered as possible before Nilfgaard caught up.

It started with small attacks. Forktails and dragons trying to pick them off. At least their swords and signs could fend against the worst, even if Lambert cursed at the burns that ended up covering his arms when caught by surprise from the side.

The creatures were gaining on them, while the witchers could pick up speed, Jaskier was a human and had much more severe limits. He panted and gasped even as Eskel tried to urge him on.

“Keep going we’re almo-” His words were cut off with a grunt as a leshen stepped out from the trees, caught him in his midriff and sent him crashing through the woods. Jaskier turned in time to watch a pack of werewolves jump at him, tearing him apart without mercy.

It was a lot harder to run when tears were blurring his eyes. Almost thirty years by Eskel’s side and this was the unfitting end. Jaskier wanted to stop and cry but Geralt was moving on while Lambert and Vesemir took posts just behind and to the side, completing a triangle.

The clearing wasn’t too far now, it couldn’t be. To Jaskier it had felt like they’d been running for hours. From ahead, there was the whistle of arrows and he ran harder. A thump from behind and Jaskier turned, letting out a strangled gasp.

“Don’t turn around. Keep going.” Lambert snarled as he took rear post, Vesemir lost behind them with arrows riddling his body.

Up ahead, Jaskier could see the clearing and he pushed harder, knowing that some kind of rune circle would help him with the time stone. Someone grabbed him from behind and all but threw him into the clearing. He landed with a pained cry and watched just in time for a dragon to snatch Lambert while another attacked Geralt.

“Jaskier!” Geralt yelled. He was on the ground, blood coating half his face, matting his hair. “The stone. You have to!”

With trembling hands, Jaskier pulled the stone out. He could see Lambert’s broken body not far from Geralt and he sobbed. All he had to do was think of Cintra and then he’d be pulled back in time to the point where he could fix things. Because this wasn’t the end he’d hoped for, neither for himself, nor his witchers. The whole continent was a ghastly, tyrannical place. Soon there wouldn’t be anywhere that was free of Nilfgaardian brutality and oppression.

“Please,” Geralt begged and Jaskier looked him in the eyes, watched as he lay there, not even trying to evade the soldier who raised his sword. Squeezing his eyes shut, Jaskier still heard the sound the blow made. He didn’t want this. Clutching at the time stone, he wished and wished hard.

The world shifted around him, years fell away, aches and pains along with old injuries disappeared. Jaskier opened his eyes mid song, in a tavern. He was eighteen again, a whole life ahead of him. It wasn’t Cintra, that was for sure. Some backwater settlement on the edge of the continent. Looking around while singing, he tried to figure out what he was doing in such a shithole. As he spun, he spotted a figure in the corner, alone and brooding. White hair, armour, nobody going near him. He’d recognise Geralt anywhere. Finishing his song and being pelted by bread, Jaskier took a breath. If this was his mission, he’d accept it. Eskel had been a wonderful travel companion but time obviously thought he was the wrong witcher if they wanted to survive Nilfgaard’s attempts. Jaskier took a deep breath, thinking “well then”, it was time to make things right.

[29-pieces]

Whumptober Day 11 - Good Omens

Day 11: Defiance Fandom/setting: Good Omens, immediately after #9 (Take Me Instead) Read on AO3 Read on FF.net @witchingwhovian ;)  Also, vague hints to my usual head canon that the Bentley is totally sentient (but Crowley doesn't know it). For more fun adventures with sentient Bentley and Bookshop, check out my fic Soul of Vellum, Heart of Chrome!! ^_^

~*~

Part 2/3 [part 1] [part 3]

It took five minutes for Crowley to realize when Aziraphale had been dragged out of the circle, he'd deliberately scuffed his feet through the marks that bound Crowley's demonic power, freeing him to turn into his snake form.

It took another five for him to carefully wind through seemingly endless puddles of holy water and collapse in agony on the ground outside.

It took an hour for Crowley to summon the energy to miracle himself a cab and spell the driver so he wouldn't notice what a mess Crowley was. He headed straight for the bookshop, determined to be there when Aziraphale escaped from the puny humans and got back home, fully intending to spew every bit of fury he had at the angel for putting himself in danger like that.

It took a day for him to realize Aziraphale wasn't coming home.

It took a week longer for Crowley to fully heal from his injuries from the holy water, and in the same amount of time, to learn everything he could about who and where this cult was.

It took less than a moment for him to travel back to his flat to collect the Bentley and turn it directly for the compound out in the country where the cult resided.

Crowley pushed the Bentley as fast as he dared, and he dared quite a lot. The Bentley wouldn't mind. Aziraphale's life was on the line. If in fact he was still alive at all, and that thought was enough to leave Crowley a haunted, trembling mess. They'd survived the apocalypse for crying out loud... the angel couldn't be killed now, not by a group of bloody humans.

"Alright," the demon muttered as he pulled to a stop outside the borders of the compound and turned off the car. "Now listen, Bentley, because this is important."

Speaking the plan out loud helped solidify it in his mind, even if it was just him and the empty car. Crowley kept his palm flat on the dashboard while he spoke, willing some of his own demonic power into the chrome-hearted engine. He had no idea if this was going to work, had never tried cursing inanimate objects into doing his bidding before, but it was a sure bet the people inside would be grossly over-prepared for a demonic presence. This was the only plan he had and Aziraphale might not have time for him to come up with a better one.

Without a backwards glance, Crowley prowled up to the front gate, raised a hand, and clenched his fist. Metal shrieked and squealed as it curled like party streamers. He dropped his hands to his sides, storming in with face growing darker and darker as fire dripped from his fingertips to burn in an aisle of malice that followed him straight to the door. Alarms blared, humans shouted, a cacophony of chaos and panic, music to the demon's ears. A human raced across the yard, shooting a net his way. A flick of Crowley's fingers brushed it aside; another flick snapped the human's spine in two. One less soul to be party to whatever had been done to Aziraphale.

The front door opened and more people poured out into the yard as Crowley started to grin, wider and madder and full of demonic rage. His teeth had already shifted to fangs and now he pulled his sunglasses away and let them fall behind him in the burning grass. Wild snake eyes watched the humans cringe back but he never broke stride.

Two of them tried to rush him; Crowley cracked their skulls like eggs and continued on, but now the people were scrambling to get back inside, away from him. He grabbed one by the nape and dragged her back towards him.

"Who- who are you?" she bleated.

Crowley lifted her off her feet so they were eye level. "You sssummoned a demon," he hissed. "Sssso here I am. Where. Issss. The. Angel."

The cultist blabbered out some explanation of an outbuilding behind the main compound, which was all he needed. Crowley regarded the compound shrewdly, lips pursed, then snapped his fingers again. The human flinched in expectation of violence, but nothing immediately seemed to have happened, so she relaxed slightly in his hold—until he turned his attention back towards her. Crowley snarled and squeezed his hand on her neck tighter until it buckled. Dropping her lifeless body, the demon headed straight around the perimeter of the main building towards the back.

Scarlet lights flashed from the alarms, mixing with the fire he still trailed until the sky and his vision were filled with red. If they had killed Aziraphale... if they had taken his friend away forever... if they had a way to do worse than discorporation... Crowley stormed faster as behind him and inside him everything burned.

The few humans guarding the outbuilding scattered at the sight of him so Crowley quickened his pace and ran inside. The second he crossed the threshold he felt his power snuff out, but this was nothing compared to the sight of Aziraphale.

He was alive, praise someone, but an awful sight. Chains wrapped the angel's arms, legs, torso, and throat, lashing him to an enormous upright pentacle in the center of the room. Worse than that was the thing over his face, more of a muzzle than a gag that covered everything from his nose to his chin, preventing his jaw from opening. Worse than that was the glazed, half dead look in his eyes and the way his head simply drooped. Crowley couldn't tell what exactly had been done to the angel; he was half naked by Aziraphale's standards, shirt hanging open but no obvious marks to explain his condition.

Crowley couldn't move, could barely breathe. He'd come to rescue his friend but now he was in so much shock and rage that it paralyzed him, just long enough for the remaining swarm of cultists to rush in the door. Crowley turned, but with his powers bound by the room, his human shaped corporation was no match for the dozens of hands grabbing him and forcing him to his knees.

He struggled, baring his teeth and growling as the leader who'd taken Aziraphale strolled into the room.

"You," Cult Man said with clear surprise. "How did you get away?"

"Oh I'm just full of sssurprissesss," Crowley hissed.

"Hmm. Well, I must say, had I any idea that angels were real and could hold so much power, I would have been going after them from the start. You found this one... how would I find more? I've tried everything I can think of, but there's nothing in any book I've ever read on how to summon an angel."

Crowley scoffed at the man. "You think I'm going to help you get more angels?" Not that he particularly cared about the others, but if any of this became common knowledge, Aziraphale would always be in danger.

A fist connected with his jaw, snapping his head to the side.

Crowley laughed.

"Tell me how you summoned the angel at the warehouse!" Cult Man demanded.

It was on the tip of Crowley's forked tongue to tell the truth—he'd used a frigging cell phone, that was how—but even that much cooperation rankled, so he defiantly spat blood in the man's face instead.

The cultist's expression darkened as he wiped spit and blood from his cheek, then he gestured to the imprisoned angel. "Did you come here to rescue him?" he asked with clear incredulity. "I'd hate to see your trip wasted. Tell me how to summon an angel, or he dies."

"And then you have no angel at all, idiot," Crowley snickered, fangs extending down past his lip now with every bit of growing fury. "No. I'll not be helping you. Not by a long ssshot. Every ssssingle one of you isss going to die, and that'sss a promissssse."

Cult Man regarded him, hesitant for only a second, before shrugging. "Thomas, Adelaide, fetch the holy water."

"You mean the fancy water gunsss?" Crowley asked, unperturbed. "Good luck with finding thosssse. Odd how no one brought one in with them, issssn't it?"

The cultist bristled. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Funny thing, holy water." Crowley's fanged grin stretched wider. "I can't do much about the water itssself, no power over it. The actual gunsss, though, that's nothing." A snap of the fingers was all it had taken. His eyes darkened further. "I turned them invisssible. Sure they'll work on me... if you can find them. Ssssad there won't be time. My backup'sss going to be here any sssecond."

"You're bluffing."

Somewhere outside the building, the sound of an engine was getting closer. Crowley smiled.

"Not this time."

The building shuddered along with the crash, dust raining down on their heads as a car grille appeared through the avalanche of brick. The Bentley plowed straight through, heedless of the humans scrambling to get out of the way. With the crumbling of the wall, the symbols locking down supernatural power were obliterated and Crowley ripped himself away from the restraining hands with feral rage. Humans scattered, some to evade him and some simply in pieces. He saw the leader shoving others out of the way to get out the door himself, but for the moment, Crowley let him go. He had something more important to worry about.

As soon as the room was clear, Crowley raced for Aziraphale and tore the chains away from his slack body, catching the angel in his waiting arms. Aziraphale didn't even wake, moaning softly in unconsciousness as Crowley prised the muzzle off his face.

"Angel," he whispered, the red haze evaporating from his vision to be replaced by worry. "Satan- God- someone, what did they do to you?"

No reply. He had to get his friend back to safety. Crowley lifted his head, smiling a watery smile at the Bentley's idling engine and gave the car a fond pat. "Well done, you," he murmured. "Can't believe that worked. Alright, Bentley... get us home."

With tenderness as powerful as his rage, Crowley lifted the angel and tucked him into the passenger seat. Then he climbed in himself and backed the car out of the building with another small avalanche of brick. Crowley gazed around the compound and pretended he was Hastur. One wave of his hand, just one; fire rose, crackling havoc, and he let it all burn.

Indifferent to the screams behind him, Crowley pointed the Bentley back out to the road.

...TO BE CONTINUED...

~*~ 

part 3 will be posted on the 13th, they’re not home yet.

[revthepunchbear]

Dark Whispers

The trip had been meant for relaxing. In part, it had been. The first night had been spent vigorously breaking in the den they’d chosen to stay in. The next day, An’Set had made her pancakes. Simple but one of her favorites. Her poor husband was a baby about the cold but he showed little of it, other than bundling himself up in warm clothing.

They wandered in the snow, looking for a certain sort of flower and for a small enough pine tree that they could drag about. A playful snow fight ensued and ended with them nearly being crushed by the tree as An’Set had chopped it down far too vigorously, spurred on by his wife.

It was that night, as the pair readied themselves to head for the springs, that everything began to go south. Spiked hot chocolate, meats, cheeses, grapes, and crackers were all bundled up in a basket along with themselves in heavy fur coats and clothes. Reveria also carried with her the red lantern, an object she was never without any more.  The walk wasn’t so bad, along the resorts heated paths that lead to the hot springs. As they arrived, the druid kicked her boots free and let the fur coat fall free to the ground about her. They were alone here after all. Her nude form slid into the springs, a sigh of contentment loosing from her lips as she felt the bubbling warm water about her. 

It wasn’t long before An’Set joined her and the pair leaned back to stare at the stars above.  "I had always thought the stars were the most important thing to me... As time has gone on... I feel her touch less and less. Which, is not a pity party. More of a matter of fact." Touching the water's surface with a finger, the steam swirled to reveal the form of one of her spectral spiders skittering across the surface. "Focuses shift, beliefs change, not something I ever thought I would see happen to myself."

An’Set looked to her and let out a slow breath. "Elune is always going to be looking down at you, Reveria. In the darkest of times, no matter how far you walk away from her. Trust me, I've been in the dark." He stared up at the stars. "I don't think she's meant to solve our every problem... but she does watch."

Behind them, the red lantern began to glow and a chill ran down Reveria’s spine. Dread gnawed away at her as she turned suddenly and saw the light. Her eyes grew wide, knowing the lantern didn’t glow for just any reason. 

Something was here with them. 

“The lantern!” She pushed herself from the water reaching out to grasp it and lift it, raising it to see what was out there. 

She didn’t need it. 

Pinhole eyes stared at her from the darkness and terror consumed the druid. The shadowy form of the Sleeper gave an eerie tilt of it’s head as it focused on Reveria. “Set... It’s the...” Her words stopped mid sentence even as her right eye began to twitch harshly. 

'You... surrender... every time'

A tear rolled down her cheek as she fought against the terror boiling within her. “I... do not... surrender...” Her words seemed almost hollow, even despite their defiant nature. 

‘You... are weak.’ 

He showed her the worst of the worst-- caged on death row. 

‘You... are nothing.’ 

Her rotting corpse, a lonely and decaying grave on the side of the mountains. 

‘They... will not... miss you.’ 

Flashes of Eilithe, angry and saying foolish things to her. 

‘We... can give you... purpose.’ 

The visions were so much worse than she was ready for and a whimper sounded from her throat as tears began to gush down her cheeks. Even still, she was trying to fight, trembling and shaking as she fought against the Sleeper’s influence. 

The lantern grew brighter, and luckily An'Set couldn't take his eyes off that blinding red light. Slowly, Reveria felt hands all over her, gripping her-- sliding their hands over her eyes. The voices of the Red Web whispered. 

"Do not look." 

"Stay here." 

"You are the spider, not the insect."

As the lantern grew brighter, Reveria shuddered violently, like she was having a seizure, though her eyes were clearly trying to pry themselves over to gaze on the red light. "I w-will... Nev-ver... Ser...Ser... Serve... Y-you..." The defiance in her voice was unmistakable as she seethed at the Sleeper. The hands of the Red Web shielded her gaze, leaving the world around her eerily silent until that voice rang out again. 

‘Every choice... Every stroke up current... is designed. Your choice... will never... be your own. You... are shackled. You... are chained. You will kneel.’ 

The next flash was a truth that might not have been so unlikely. Eilithe, a crown like the golden sun being placed upon her head. Not by any god-- but by the people of Dead Sun themselves. 

‘You... were born... to serve another.’ 

The red light thrummed, the voices chanted in unison rattling through the snow. It was unintelligible whispers and murmurs which seemed to stop the advances.

She shook, she trembled, her fists raised into the air to slam into the snow covered ground. 

"I WILL NOT! I WAS NOT!" 

As she screamed at the Sleeper, her skin hardened and blackened along her cheeks, along her back, along her fore arms and even along her thighs. 

The chanting voices seemed to keep her in place, leaving her breathing hard and powerful. Reveria's exhaled breaths left a chittered whisper on the wind as she pushed air from her lungs. 

A hard pulse of his magic from the Red Lantern collapsed the Sleeper into nothing, and whether he'd gone because of the light or because the time was no longer good, he was gone.

The druid collapsed forward, half in the water as she supported her weight on her palms. She seemed to be crying, tears were certainly falling into the snow beneath her. A quick glance was given to An'Set and at least for a blink of an eye... She had four eyes.    "It cares not for your defiance." 

"Thrashing in a cage." 

"Your rage only feeds it" 

The Red Web warned her.

The light dimmed and the pair were once more alone. 

---------

Back in Dead Sun, just before the training session that always took place on Thursdays, Reveria made her way to the barracks. Wardens of the harbor greeted her with nods and bowed heads, nothing so formal as a salute though. They were no military after all. 

Her feet carried her to the bunker like structure that was her office and once she unlocked it and shut the door behind her, she found her chair behind the desk and sat heavily, leaning back with closed eyes. There was a calm to being in her office after the trauma she’d felt not but two nights before. 

Eventually, her eyes slowly peeled open, one at a time. She glanced around the office before doing a sort of double take on the window. The ‘UwU’ sigil was still scrawled upon it which got a scowl from the druid. 

“What the actual fuck.” 

She scrawled the symbol on a piece of paper before finding a rag and obliterating it from the window. Either someone was being funny or her shit show was far from over. Whatever it might be, she pushed it from her mind for the moment and turned to head back out to barracks. 

A warden soon approached. “The caches have been placed first warden. The training is ready.” 

Reveria gave a nod in return. “Thank you. Good.” 

With that, she headed off to have a hopefully stress free night of training with those that called the harbor their own. 

-------------

(Tagging @theshalthera and @velerodra-valesinger for mentions)  (written in part with the amazingly talented @eilitheduskbringer <3 )  (Art by maskman626)

[razieltwelve]

Comparison (RWBY AU Snippet)

Note this is set in the same AU as Dog Park and Hero.

X     X     X

“So, how was your day?” Jaune asked.

Pyrrha smiled. “It was rather busy actually. I had to stop a demonic invasion earlier this morning, and then I had to round up a few… rebellious gods. Nora was supposed to do it, but they asked me to handle it instead. Apparently, one of those gods took a swipe at Ren, and they were worried Nora might go a little overboard in trying to capture them.”

“Overboard?” Jaune thought back to the few times he’d met the hammer-wielding goddess. “That’s probably an understatement.”

“She can get quite enthusiastic,” Pyrrha murmured as she lifted her mug to her lips and took a sip of hot chocolate. As usual, Death’s taste had proven impeccable. Ruby had always had a sweet tooth, and only a foolish god ignored her recommendations. Pyrrha was not a foolish god. “After I finished capturing them, I had to take a quick peek at a few things, but nothing too extreme. How was your day?”

Jaune scratched the back of his head. “Well, it wasn’t as exciting as yours. I was spent most of the day doing random breath testing. With the holidays coming up, we’re trying to keep the roads as safe as we can. You’d be amazed by how many people think they can drink and drive.”

“It might not have been exciting, but it is important,” Pyrrha said. “Car crashes might not be able to kill gods, but they do kill a lot of mortals each year. If you can save even one life, you’ll have made a huge difference.”

“I know.” Jaune chuckled. “But it’s still kind of funny comparing what we do each day. I suppose the differences could be bigger. I mean… what does Death do every day?”

“Collect souls,” Pyrrha said. “And occasionally wipe out unimaginably vast hordes of eldritch entities that want to obliterate Creation and/or enslave all mortals.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Jaune said. “And awful. How often does she have to wipe out hordes of eldritch entities?” He paused. “And how often do you have to fight off a demonic invasion?”

“Hmm…” Pyrrha chuckled. “I deal with at least one attempted demonic invasion a fortnight. An attack large enough for Death to get involved usually only happens once every few months. Most of the time, she just lets Zwei handle it.”

“Zwei?” Jaune thought of the adorable corgi that seemed to always be lounging about on Weiss’s lap whenever he visited the other Chosen. “You know, it’s kind of hard to remember that he’s actually a Divine Beast that watches over the Abyss when he spends most of his time here as a corgi.”

“In his defence,” Pyrrha replied. “His true form of so huge and so powerful, his mere presence could bring about the apocalypse. Also, he’s realised that he’s much more likely to get belly rubs and treats if he’s adorable."

“That’s a good point.” Jaune got up. He was finishing off some leftovers, and they’d just finished heating up in the microwave. He could have asked Pyrrha to do it, but it seemed kind of, well, wasteful to ask a goddess to heat up some day-old lasagna. “By the way, is Nora seriously the goddess of hammers?”

“As a matter of fact, she is.” Pyrrha laughed. “She wasn’t originally the goddess of hammers, but she filed an application ages ago to have them moved into her portfolio. It was approved, and she was made the chief goddess of hammers shortly after.”

“Is that something you can just do?” Jaune asked.

“Not for all things,” Pyrrha admitted. “Death is Death. No one else can do her job. However, most other gods have some flexibility. I could, if I wanted, apply to become goddess of a different aspect of battle, and I would almost certainly get it. Likewise, Nora could probably ask to be made goddess of natural disasters, and she’d get that too. Of course, there is also the question of overlap to consider as well. Some things have quite a few gods overseeing them while others only have a few.”

“So there must be a hierarchy, right?” Jaune sat back down and cut the lasagna in two, giving one piece to Pyrrha. It felt kind of heretical to feed a goddess lasagna, but Pyrrha had said she liked the way he made it. 

“There is. In most respects, the gods act on some form of consensus with the older and more powerful gods serving as a ruling council of sorts. In practical terms, however, gods like Death are at the top. They rule over fundamental aspects of reality and Creation, and they have powers to match. As strong as Nora is, for instance, Death could crush her without breaking a sweat.”

Jaune shivered. Nora was capable of creating storms that could wipe out civilisation, and he’d seen her use her powers multiple times. However, Death was another matter. Whenever he’d seen her, she’d either been eating cookies or just hanging out with Weiss, usually wheedling the university student in some form or another. “She’s that strong, huh?”

“Jaune,” Pyrrha said quite seriously. “I am one of the strongest gods that preside over battle. My entire existence is devoted to combat of some kind. On my best day, I wouldn’t have a chance of beating Death on her worst day.” She swallowed thickly. “Believe me, I have tried.”

“You fought Death?” Jaune asked. “And you’re still alive?”

Pyrrha winced. “I had… reasons. Death is not cruel, Jaune. Believe me when I say that. However, there was someone whose soul she had come to claim. I objected, and we fought… if it could be called a fight.”

“You must have really loved whoever that was, huh?” Jaune said.

Pyrrha smiled. “I do.” 

“You do?” Jaune asked. “That’s present tense.”

Pyrrha smiled faintly. “It is.”

Jaune laughed good-naturedly. “I hope I don’t have any competition.” However, he trailed off when Pyrrha didn’t laugh. If anything, she looked stricken. “Uh… what did I say?”

“Are you familiar with the concept of reincarnation?”

“Yeah…”

“Don’t tell anyone this,” Pyrrha said. “But it’s real. Oh, I know mortals have speculated, but it is real. The time period varies between each reincarnation and there are all sorts of factors that only Death knows about, but it does happen.”

“Oh.” Jaune’s eyes widened as a thought occurred to him. “Then the person you fought Death for…”

“Yes,” Pyrrha explained. “Was your previous incarnation.”

“…” Jaune suddenly felt both very important and very small. “How… how long ago was that?”

“Two thousand seven hundred and twenty years.” Pyrrha’s lips twitched. “I’ve been a waiting a very long time, Jaune.”

“You waited all that time for me?” he whispered.

“Jaune, we gods are eternal. What’s a few years for the people we love?”

“A few years? Pyrrha, that’s basically ancient history to mortals.”

“Yes, it is. But I am a god, not a mortal.” Pyrrha grinned. “Now, are you going to finish your lasagna, or can I have the rest?”

X     X     X

Author’s Notes

Pyrrha is a patient goddess. She can wait. And for her, Jaune is always worth the wait. As an aside, although Death (Ruby) is the one who collects souls, she does not get to determine when or where those souls get reincarnated. As a result, gods who are looking for their reincarnated Chosen just have to wait and keep an eye on the mortal world.

You can find me on fanfiction.net, AO3, and Amazon. Please check out my newest story on Amazon. It’s called Monster Whisperer. If you enjoy my sense of humour you might also want to check out Attempted Vampirism, or The Unconventional Heroes series.

[slothcritic]

Dragon Ball Z Abridged - Episode 10 Review

A satisfying conclusion with plenty of jabs, jibs and a ghost whatnow?

While The Punchline has been split up into three parts, I will be reviewing and judging all three parts as a single episode within a single review. I will be giving out scores for each part just for posterity however, but only the overall score will be considered this episode’s actual rating.

In the cold open, Vegeta is absolutely thrilled over snapping Nappa out of existence, and Goku asks Krillin and Gohan to retreat while he deals with Vegeta. Krillin is already gone, screaming and crying. Gohan and Goku have a brief conversation about putting dinner on, because he's hungry. There might be some reference I'm not getting here, or if it's really just a face-value scene, but I think it would've been funnier if the title sequence had begun just after Krillin is shown running (flying) away to safety.

[Title Sequence, Part 1]

Goku and Vegeta opt to find a new battlefield, as the one where Nappa decimated the Z Fighters is a little "corpsey." King Kai starts taking bets on which of them is going to win, and even the Narrator tries to get in on that, despite already knowing the outcome.

The delivery on Vegeta's lines early on is not promising. I'm not sure if it's poor audio quality caused by a crappy microphone or if Lanipator was struggling with some kind of throat infection while recording these lines, but it's noticeable as there's a long extended conversation with a voice that sounds like sandpaper to the ears. I actually went back to check on the previous episodes to see if I was taking crazy pills, and no, Vegeta sounded just fine before. I have no idea what the reason or cause of this change might be, whether it was a deliberately different delivery or if they were rushing to put this episode out, but Vegeta sounds consistently more raspy in this episode than the gravelly deadpan to which I've become accustomed. For all I know, yelling as Vegeta might just by taxing on his vocal chords.

Putting the voice issue aside, Goku's oblivious lack of understanding for the word "elite" and the back and forth between the two of them works on the whole as a great scene.

"I'm going to start beating you now. I don't know when I'll stop."

I can't remember whether or not that's a reference, but I love the delivery on it. Vegeta has just finished dealing with Nappa and now has absolutely zero patience for someone just as braindead.

Sure enough, after being taunted about a cave full of gumdrops and ice cream, Vegeta drops the "That's it! EVERYONE DIES!" which might be one of my favorite things said in this episode, but it’s followed closely by:

"Say goodbye to your planet, Kakarot." "Well that's not very nice." "OF COURSE NOT! I'M FUCKING EVIL!"

The dynamic here works astoundingly well. It's very different from Vegeta and Nappa's duo, but works on similar foundations. With Vegeta and Nappa, Nappa was the ridiculous one and Vegeta served as his anchor. With Vegeta and Goku, the roles are flipped and Vegeta is now the ridiculous one, screaming his head off in frustration and writhing around in the death throes of his pride, while Goku's complete obliviousness and innocence keeping him grounded as the anchor. Nappa was purposefully annoying because he was a bratty, childish mook, while Goku is just annoying by happenstance and being very, very hard to put down. It doesn't help that Vegeta actually wants to kill Goku, and unlike Nappa, he's having less than success with this one.

The overall production of the climatic beam struggle is surprisingly well executed, and is perhaps the best moment in this entire episode from a technical perspective. Goku speaking as he charges up the Kamehameha doesn't sound cheesy, canned or forced, and neither does Vegeta's delivery. The sound effects and music are also on point here. This is an important moment in the series and I'm glad they got it just right. I have no objections with anything here.

If anything, at about five and a half minutes in, the viewer has had enough time to adjust to Vegeta's new raspier voice and it no longer seems out of place. If he had been speaking "normally" up until this point, I probably would have criticized the delivery on these lines, but it almost feels like it fits on the whole now that this has been established as the "new normal" for the last five minutes. The main point I'm attempting and probably failing at making is that my original complaint was that the new voice took me out of the episode, but in this moment with the beam struggle, Vegeta's voice flows naturally and I honestly wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't just (as of now) dedicated two whole paragraphs of this review to JUST talking about how Vegeta sounds slightly different now.

Alright, now it's time to back up a tad, which isn't something I like to do a lot. Twice in this episode, Goku has used the Kaio-Ken and then the Kaio-Ken times three. The first time he used it, he seemed to at least match Vegeta. The second time he used it, he jobbed Vegeta straight into a rocky wall. But it's only good for a few seconds, so it has no sustain. It's essentially one really strong punch or a really quick beat down, but leaves Goku winded and struggling at the end of it.

The reason I didn't bring these up as they happened was because frankly the scenes didn't do enough for me to write about it. I write about what I feel is significant to my review to give context or explanation to my thought process, not to give a play by play. Simply put, they were funny, but nothing notable happened because of it. It was a quick skit, okay, move on. But it's now important to draw attention to those two moments, because while they did very little for me the first two times... Well, during this beam struggle, just as Vegeta feels like he’s gaining the upper hand, the dramatic music quiets to nothing but the sounds of the beams clashing, and all we hear is...

"Kaio-Ken..." Vegeta look on in horror.  "...No..." "Times..." "No no no..." "FOUR!"

Vegeta is sent skyward with a loud FFFFUUUUUU- and then twinkles like Team Rocket just blasted off again. Goku is the victor... of this fight at least.

Then there's an odd cutaway back to Roshi's island that's slow to start, but eventually got me to smile. It's all the characters from Dragon Ball reminiscing of times where they used to be relevant to the story. Guest appearance by Baba who almost doesn't appear in Z at all!

It initially felt like a bit of tone whiplash but it warmed up to me. And "Whatever happened to Launch?" actually got a laugh out of me. Seems like Toriyama isn't the only person who forgot about her.

I'm not sure what the point of this scene was, but I agree with the decision that after that climax, a break or calming down period in the tension it had built up was definitely necessary, even if the transition felt a little jarring at first.

"Meanwhile, back at the plot", which is an amazing segue, Vegeta gets off Mr Goku's Wild Ride and the beam continues on without him into the pink sky.

I don't think -UUUUUUCK! counts as an F-Bomb so it doesn't get censored. Booyah!

Vegeta then undergoes a post ass-kicking identity crisis. After devising a plan to turn into the mighty Ozaru, he then undergoes a where's-the-damned-moon crisis.

Good thing Blutz Waves are a thing. He yeets the artificial moon into the sky and boom, King Kong. The other King K attempts to coach Goku through dealing with this beast (that is canonically stronger than Captain Ginyu at this point) and advises Goku to find a safe, secluded location to charge up the Spirit Bomb.

Goku however decides to do it right out in the open. Just as Ape Vegeta's massive fist obliterates Goku, King Kai's crystal ball turns to static and gets the operator disconnected message. I think a dial tone would've been slightly funnier, but this has the same energy so I'll take it with no complaints. An excellent way to end the first part of this episode!

[Part 2]

This part begins with Goku hitting a rock so hard he thinks he's in Dragonball Evolution for a moment. After blinding Vegeta with a solar flare, which I'm still not entirely sure how that works or why people don't use it more often to get cheap surprise shots on blinded targets, Goku finds a quiet spot that he can use to charge the Spirit Bomb. He ends up borrowing so much energy from the planet that he may or may not have drained all the life from an old father deer. Dark, but morbidly hilarious.

Goku tries to fling the Spirit Bomb at Vegeta, but surprise: He's got a mouth laser! Knocks the Spirit Bomb right out of him and sends him tumbling against a rock.

"Hey Kakarot, what's the opposite of Christopher Walken?" "Huh?" "Christopher Reeves!"

CRUNCH! The giant monkey stomps down right on Goku's legs, crushing and immobilizing him.

This is such a bad, good joke. I still think about this one from time to time. And honestly, considering how I started binge-watching these in high school (where I more or less developed into an entirely different person), this joke here might very well be the genesis of my love for black humor. I'm fully willing to admit I'm biased on this, but I think this is one of the funniest dark jokes in DBZA, full stop. If not the whole series, then at least within Season 1. Don't care, evil.

Just as he's about to be crushed for good, Goku shoots a quick energy blast into Vegeta's eye, causing him to stagger backwards. This is where Goku makes his cunning escape, dodging, weaving and doing aerial acrobatics around the massive monkey man, accompanied by victorious fanfare. Or not. Goku's legs are still broken. But it's nice to just imagine how cool that would’ve looked, y’know?

Vegeta then decides he's just going to squeeze the life out of Goku, and his screams can be heard well into the distance, all the way to Krillin and Gohan.

The giant monkey keeps squeezing Goku until he squeaks like a rubber ducky, or a chew toy. He does it again, and another squeak.

"Oh my god, that's hilarious."

In the middle of squeaking Goku relentlessly, Gohan decides to make a stand, having blown back to fight Ape Vegeta. He gives a verbose speech that culminates in "The bigger they are, the harder they fall." and then strikes a fighting pose like his five year old ass is going to do anything against a fifty foot behemoth. Battle gong and everything playing in the background.

Vegeta just stares at Gohan, and then after a pause, squeaks Goku again. This has delightfully petty energy to it, especially coming from Vegeta.

While Gohan has caught Vegeta monologuing, Krillin attempts a sneak attack on Vegeta, but he effortlessly humiliates him and thwarts his efforts by simply hopping over the Kienzan that was coming from behind.

However, he couldn't anticipate two sneak attacks. That or Yajirobe was simply that unlikely of a hero, but here he comes sword and all to save literally everyone's lives as he slices Vegeta's tail clean off his rump.

With no more tail, Vegeta regresses to his original Saiyan form. He's no less dangerous, however, and just as Krillin tries to bring the hype, he gets immediately pinballed into the nearest rocky structure and the owned count strikes 9.

The writing on Vegeta's speech following this is actually quite good. "I thought I'd be angrier" is not a take I expected from someone who's had such major meltdowns and cataclysmic conniptions thus far. It does a good job of illustrating how far down the rabbit hole we've gone, to the point where he has become so angry that he's encountered a stack overflow.

Goku and Gohan have a touching moment, both broken, beaten and bloody, but as they share a heart to heart, and their hands extend towards one another's like a Michelangelo painting, Vegeta comes in like a good fiend and gives Goku a killer knee-shot to the ribs. You have to wait for the right moment!

They immediately cut away to an intermission, which they never do in any other episode, but honestly it fits here. The alternative would be to end the episode here and we've still got another three minutes and some change to go. It's an arbitrary production joke but it's necessary and well done for the scene as a whole so it gets a pass and then some from me.

When we resume, Vegeta and Gohan duke it out, which provides a convenient distraction for Goku to hand off part of the Spirit Bomb to Krillin. It turns out he'd been saving some of the earth juices from when he got the snot knocked out of him earlier, but only a little bit of it. Krillin is confused as to why Goku would trust him of all people with it, and Goku concedes that his back is kind of against the wall on this one.

With a yipee-kay-yay and a booyah motherfucker, Krillin lobs the Spirit Bomb Lite at Vegeta, who simply jumps Krillin’s attack for the second time. Maybe aim a little higher next time, or better yet don’t loudly announce your attacks. Not that anyone in this series would understand that concept anyways.

Now the Spirit Bomb is heading straight for Gohan. But it's okay because Gohan is a main character, so he just Uno Reverse Card’s the Spirit Bomb off his hands and it sproings upwards towards Vegeta once more.

Side note, I don't think it's ever explained, either in the abridged or the original series, how Goku is able to communicate telepathically with Gohan. Yes, Master Roshi says in Dragon Ball that "any highly skilled martial artist can read minds" but does that just mean reading minds or actually communicating between them? And if that's the case, why doesn't Goku use this more often? I could probably find at least one plot point that could've been avoided by this, but the answer is probably extremely simple. Goku is a moron. It's very easy to explain away forgetfulness or inconsistent writing when you can just default to saying that your main character is an idiot who forgot he could do those techniques that you forgot existed as a writer. Don't think about it too much I guess.

"What smells like deer?"

I’ve actually missed this joke every single time I've watched this episode so far, except for just now, when I watched it to write this review. The old father deer from before! That is such a cool and unexpected callback.

Anyways, Vegeta gets punked by the Diet Spirit Bomb and goes sailing into the sky. The Z Fighters - which is now just Goku, Gohan and Krillin - are ecstatic in celebration.

"It's been tough, but now, we'll never have to see that rotten Saiyan ever again."

Cue Vegeta's lifeless body ragdolling to the ground with a meaty thwap. Krillin tempts fate by approaching the body, and that goes as expected. Vegeta opens one eye and screams. Then the others all start screaming.

Very weird production mis-step or weird decision with the source footage here. Vegeta's face at least moves, but because all the others have panning shots, they freeze in weird, awkward positions. The action lines don't move, some characters aren't fully in frame, and it's very obviously a still image instead of  something like a loop. Maybe this is just what they had to work with. Still, very immersion breaking. Though honestly, I'm almost glad that if something like this had to happen in this part, it was at least in the last ten seconds.

Goku is confused because he can't move. I mean, they won right? Why is everyone screaming.

[Part 3]

This part begins immediately with Krillin getting bitch slapped, earning a 10/10 on the owned counter. Vegeta then decides he has had exactly enough of everyone and everything, and goes for the nuclear option.

Fortunately for our heroes, Vegeta has been so worn down, battered, sent through the ringer, and has suffered so much damage to that one eye in particular, that he doesn't have enough energy left to kill everyone all at once. Instead, he opts to get his hands dirty and cut them each of them down one at a time. Speaking of cut, here comes Yajirobe with his sword. It can pierce through Vegeta's armor, which is wonderful news but ultimately pointless. However, it serves as an excellent distraction.

Remember that fake moon? Remember how Vegeta only returned to normal form because his tail was amputated? Remember earlier how Piccolo had to destroy the Earth's actual moon because Gohan was a rampaging Donkey Kong lunatic? Well guess who just woke up staring right at that fake moon in the sky.

Lacking any barrels in the vicinity, Ape Gohan decides to throw around some rocks.

Goku, again, reaches to him telepathically and reminds him not to go on a rampage killing everyone.

"Remember Icarus? He did it."

Now, purely within this episode, this isn’t an issue. It’s a funny haha moment. However, this scene gets a little more irritating or perplexing once you’ve seen some of the DBZA movies. This knowledge did hamper my enjoyment of this scene on rewatch. However, that ultimately isn’t fair to this episode as a stand alone product, and my gut instinct of “My knowledge of episodes that came out well after this one retroactively makes this episode worse!” is also something I try tooth and nail to avoid. So I’m going to talk about this for a bit and get it out of my system so I can approach it fairly.

Simply put, Icarus is a headache. He's Gohan's friend and pet dragon of sorts, for like three random movies, some episodes of Z and then never gets mentioned again. Goku implies that Vegeta is responsible for Icarus' death, despite the fact that Icarus is still alive at some point after Goku defeats Freeza. I would normally take up the stance of “okay, let’s ignore the official canon / non-canon and just stick to DBZA” but he ALSO features in the DBZA movie Cooler’s Revenge, so this is multiple layers of crazy. 

I understand that DBZA exists primarily as a form of parody and thus prioritizes humor and “working with what you’ve got” over some things a harsh anal-retentive person might deflagrate them for (cough cough) and are not afraid to contradict themselves on points of little significance for the sake of humor. I also don’t think they had any long-standing plans to incorporate Icarus into Z at the time this episode was made - They may have simply wanted to make a joke about the DBZ equivalent of Poochie the Dog from Itchy & Scratchy.

Like I said, Icarus is headache. However, simply in this moment and nothing else, I do feel it works. It’s shows a cute dragon geting exploded. Who couldn’t feel bad for this poor random dragon that I totally haven’t ever seen before? It also works within the story itself -  Gohan gets sufficiently angry, and Vegeta starts treading the tightrope of desperation. 

Gohan's Ozaru form isn't long lived however, as Vegeta suddenly learns the Kienzan and slices his tail off with it. Small problem though, Gohan was airborne, and the regression back to a normal Saiyan form is not instantaneous. His massive body looms over him, and with a Big NO, Vegeta go splat.

He's down but not out. He at least has enough energy to call for his Space Uber to come and pick him up. As he's crawling hands and knees into his escape pod, Krillin suddenly decides he wants to be important, and appears with Yajirobe's sword, poised to strike. 

Vegeta is understandably terrified, because after the day Krillin's had, he's gone full ride or die mode and isn't about to wait on an invitation to go full Thanksgiving turkey on this maniac.

However, Goku wants the pacifist ending and gives a very simplified version of the original speech to Krillin. If he's sorry, we have to let him leave. Because that's what being a good boy is all about. It's noteworthy that one of my all-time favorite Vegeta quotes happens right here in the original dub.

"When I come back to this planet, you're all going to suffer. And when you beg me for mercy, I'll stare into your eyes as I crush the life out of you."

However in this version, we're treated to "Yes, I'm very very sorry. Sorry that you're all still alive, suckers!"

And honestly, both versions are fitting for their respective interpretations of Vegeta.

As we pan out, the narrator waxes on the victory of the heroes and how he made bank from his bet with King Kai. Next time, don't make bets with the narrator you stupid idiot. Big dumb idiot god. 

I'm writing this at close to 4am if you couldn't tell. Scheduled uploads!

"Has anyone really not seen this show already? Find out in the next season of Dragon Ball Z Abridged!"

And that's it folks! Well, almost. We have one final scene to go through first.

Vegeta is hurdling through space in his Saiyan pod, lamenting his laundry list of losses and failures, but at least concedes that his situation cannot get worse. But we all know what happens to people who tempt fate.

"Vegeta... VEGEEEEEETA..." "Wh-What?" *DING* "I'm haunting you."

And thus, we've reached the end of Season 1! The Ghost Nappa song plays and the outro credits roll.

Conclusion

First off, definitely a longer review than I'm used to writing. Secondly, this was a great three-parter. I wasn't sure if the format would hold up like it does for single segment episodes, but it does. Now I'm sure there are bad episodes to come in the future, but for now I'm happy that the last three or four episodes have all scored relatively high. TFS is going into Season 2 with some great foundations built upon their older, more crude material, and they still have a lot of room yet to improve. I should consider being more critical with this next season as the expectations will be higher!

There’s one noteworthy gripe I have with each of these three parts, but only one worth writing about. -Vegeta suddenly sounding different, as if I didn't talk about that enough. I swear I'm not taking crazy pills. -Weird freeze frames at the end of Part 2. -Icarus, simply because he messes with me on a personal level. This fucking dragon doesn't make any god damned sense.

Other than that, I liked it. I don't know if I'd say "I loved it" but for the series as a whole, we're getting there at breakneck speed.

The first part had some great back and forth interactions with Goku and Vegeta, both the dialogues and the beam struggle, while the second part had more stand-out moments with just Vegeta, from the squeaking Goku, to the "I thought I'd be angrier" speech, his perfectly timed knee to ribs, and the famous last words "What smells like deer?"

The last part... didn't actually have much of this. I didn't find the talk about Vegeta’s father to be terribly funny and nothing else he said was extremely stand-out like in the previous two parts. This part didn't so much have humor as it was the "let's wrap things up" segment. Most of the noteworthy moments happen close to the tail end. I will admit, even ten years later, I still got a little sentimental hearing that outro from LK, and let's not sleep on Ghost Nappa. They may have done you dirty in Kai 3 but we still love you!

Overall, I'm happy that this was as good as I remembered it. I found jokes I didn't pick up the first few times, flaws that I didn't know existed, and a new appreciation for some subtle details that may have glossed over me while I was busy laughing about Christopher Reeves.

Part 1: 75 Part 2: 78 Part 3: 72

Score: 75

Passing Thoughts

"Kaio-Ken!" "Kaio-What?"

Small error on my part - Piccolo blows up the moon in Episode 4, and in my review of that episode, I mistakenly attribute a scene from this episode to DBZ Kai Abridged.

"I'm going to enjoy this far more than I should." - And like that, Vegeta has suddenly become relatable.

"Thank God, I thought he meant penis!"

"Time to crush you like an Arlian." "A what?" "Exactly."

"I haven't killed a damned thing since I got to this god-forsaken planet! Not for lack of trying mind you."

[pass-the-bechdel]

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Iron Man 2 (2010)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

Yes, three times.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Three (15% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Seventeen.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Film Quality:

A mess of illogical plot contrivances that does nothing good with the themes of the first film, but still entertaining on a basic level.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

‘Natalie’ attends to Pepper; they pass again later. Pepper and Christine trade a line.

Female characters:

Pepper Potts.

Natasha Romanoff.

Christine Everheart.

Male characters:

Ivan Vanko.

Anton Vanko.

Tony Stark.

Howard Stark.

Happy Hogan.

Larry.

Senator Stern.

Justin Hammer.

James Rhodes.

JARVIS.

Elon Musk.

Goldstein.

Major Allen.

Nick Fury.

Phil Coulson.

Jack.

Meade.

OTHER NOTES:

Naturally, Tony’s opening presentation includes a bevy of half-naked dancing girls, because Tony loves women as shiny pretty objects. Yay.

Don Cheadle is a superior Rhodey. Terence Howard was good, don’t get me wrong, but I get so much more organic personality from Don Cheadle. 

Hammer calling Tony ‘Anthony’ at the hearing is such a power move. It’s really the only power move (or at least the only successful one) Hammer makes in the whole movie.

Happy, you asked for that ass-kicking, and you know it.

“I want one.” Cool, Tony. She’s a person. If you had a respectful history with women at this point, I would let this line pass without mention, but...ya don’t. 

Pepper is VERY rude to other women. It’s not endearing.

Second-hand embarrassment over Hammer is so so real.

Ah yes, glass showering everywhere. My kind of party. 

Tony requesting a phat beat is gold. I don’t know if him cracking up laughing as he said it was scripted, ad-libbed, or pure accident on Robert Downey Junior’s part, but it’s what sells the line. It wouldn’t have been half as funny if he’d just said the line straight-faced.

If you missed the post-credits scene at the end of the first Iron Man, then this is Nick Fury’s first appearance: asking Tony to get out of the giant donut. The narrative here really treats Fury like we’re totally familiar with him at this point, and considering the extreme brevity of that post-credits scene, it’s kinda weird.

So, wildly-rich Howard Stark had his partner DEPORTED for daring to want to make money from his work? He didn’t actually do (or attempt) anything nefarious, he just wanted to get paid? And we’re supposed to shrug it off and think deporting him was the right call? Howard kept his partner’s work - including the profits! - for himself, and hung the other guy out to dry like a total jerk, and, what? The whole thing is just kinda mentioned in a throw-away fashion as an explainer, with no implication that Howard was in the wrong at all, and it’s VERY dissonant. What the fuck.

Those strawberries look very plastic.

So, how did Howard magically know to hide those blueprints to a new element in a scale model that would one day save his son from Palladium poisoning that Howard had no way of knowing he would have? This is so many levels of idiotic nonsense I don’t know how they convinced themselves to bother.

Did we NEED Happy oggling Natasha as she gets changed? Was it necessary?

It’s played for laughs, but I appreciate Rhodey making the distinction that even though he’s apologising to Tony for his own behaviour, that doesn’t make all of this any less Tony’s fault. You can be sorry for the way you personally handled something without letting the other person off the hook for their own culpability. Good, important distinction. 

The Big Bad ends up being taken down SUPER fast. Disappointing.

“you guys look like two seals fighting over a grape.”

The good: 

1. Robert Downey Junior’s maddening charisma allows Tony to be great fun despite his many and sundry personality flaws; it is charisma with the strength to carry the entire film, and that’s saying a lot because the film really, really needs the help. 

2. It may have a significant amount to do with the quality of the content being given to the character, but Don Cheadle definitely makes something of Rhodey where the first film barely gave him more life than your average prop. 

3. Tony continues to progress in his relationship with Pepper, with the script allowing space for her to be assertive and express grievances, as well as having Tony respond by actually hearing her this time, considering her perspective, and acknowledging his own shortcomings if not exactly making inroads on overhauling them. It’s not a lot, but there is at least some evidence that we’re making good on Tony’s attempted self-improvement from the first film by working on his basic respect for other people. Damn, it’s REALLY not a lot.

The less good:

1. the introduction of Natasha ‘Black Widow’ Romanoff isn’t terrible, but it’s not strong either, and I ALWAYS forget that she’s even in this movie until I’m watching it and she shows up. The narrative attention paid to how she’s ~super hot~ is frankly overdoing it - her ability to use her appearance as a tool/weapon IS relevant to the kind of character/operative that she is, but the framing hammers the LOOK HOT button so hard it all but obliterates any other presence or function she has in the story. She gets a pretty cool fight scene, but even that is so preoccupied with LOOK HOT (and is also fairly inconsequential to the plot) that it tends not to compute as a demonstration of character, and ultimately Natasha doesn’t leave as much of an impression as she could have with just a little less objectifying camerawork and a little more narrative purpose. Much like with Bruce Banner, I feel like you can ignore Natasha’s introductory film and just pick her up from The Avengers without missing a beat.

2. Also low on purpose: Pepper Potts. Where the first film gave her several plot-instrumental actions to ensure she wasn’t just ‘Tony’s annoying love interest’, this movie doesn’t try very hard to give her a reason for sucking up screen time. Low point: a gratingly unnecessary amount of screaming and not throwing Tony his suit-case (hehe, geddit?) while Happy rams Vanko with his car. The entire set-up is stupid, but the screeching (from Pepper and Happy both, really) sends it all way overboard. Happy also has no real purpose, but the difference is, I don’t care. When Pepper is one of only three female characters around - and one of only two with significant presence - I really, really want the story to give her something more memorable and functionally plot-relevant than screaming in a car.

The bad:

Everything else? This movie has no shortage of problems: it has too many plot threads, and it leaps from one to the next with no sense of cohesion or narrative pacing and then never follows any thread to competent completion. Tony is dying, and that leads to some self-destructive behaviour but ultimately has no relation to any aspect of the plot before it is suddenly and ridiculously rectified in the single most nonsensical contrivance of all the nonsensical contrivances that compose the flimsy backbone of the film. Some daddy issues are sprinkled in there like seasoning, but again, they don’t go anywhere or matter in any way, which is both weird and deeply unfortunate since the idea of Tony dealing with his father’s legacy is both a clear carry-through from the themes of the first film, and extremely relevant to the half-assed Vanko story-line. The plot (’plot’, for lack of a better word, we’ll keep privileging to call it that) doesn’t seem willing to actually get in the dirt with Howard Stark’s transgressions, against his son or against his old business partner, and so we get a handful of telling-not-showing exposition-exchanges with none of the emotional fallout or follow-through that such bombshells deserve. Justin Hammer is in there somewhere (and Sam Rockwell is good fun, but the content doesn’t rise to meet him). There’s also a hearing at the start where Tony defends his right to the Iron Man technology, but the rest of the film completely ignores all of the valid and serious concerns raised by Tony’s arrogance and lack of accountability (topics which will be revisited in future films, with infuriating results), and the obvious conversation - expanding on the first film’s themes again by looking at the Stark weapons-manufacturing legacy - falls completely by the wayside within minutes so that we can focus on the completely unfocused senselessness of the rest of the ‘story’. Oh! And don’t forget the completely awkward inclusion of SHIELD! What better way to set up for The Avengers film than to just drape some pointless extra character presence over an already overstuffed ‘plot’? 

All of it together is an absolute mess of a movie that feels kinda like it was constructed by a game of beer pong, with different plot ideas written on Styrofoam cups and the creative team way too fucking smashed by the end of it to realise that beer pong is the wrong way to build a story. In my review for The Incredible Hulk, I said there were other contenders for worst MCU film to date, and this is one of them. The Incredible Hulk at least had cohesion up until it went to pieces at the end, whereas the different pieces of Iron Man 2 are so disparate and lacking in gravity that the whole film seems to go for about a decade too long and builds absolutely nowhere in the process. The only entertaining advantage Iron Man 2 can boast is that same old saving grace, Robert Downey Junior, making Tony Stark enjoyable even when you’re not so sure he deserves to be enjoyed. It is a good advantage, no mistake. But there’s only so long you can coast on that, and only so far, and this movie abuses the Hell outta that power until we all welcome the end credits with at least a little bit of relief. 

[demonsonthemoon]

Fall Apart Without Me (Body)

Fandom: Pacific Rim Word count: 2225 Summary: After the last battle, the end of the apocalypse, six survivors contemplate their fate and their own scale. Note: I wrote this ages ago and lost it and never posted it, then I found the file again, did a quick round of editing, and here it is. It's not happy. Title and lyrics from the song "Body" by Mother Mother.

Also available on AO3.

Take my eyes, take them aside Take my face, and desecrate My arms and legs They get in the way

Hermann Gottlieb lies in an uncomfortable bed with his eyes open. The particular kind of darkness that characterizes a completely sealed room is too good a screen for the projection of memories for him to be comfortable with it. But a dark room is still better than his closed eyelids.

Hermann wonders if insomnia is his new enemy, and what it would take to collapse the structure of his own mind. Probably not much.

Blinking is enough for a silverish blue filter to fall across his vision, for his consciousness to expand to a body that isn't his, that was never his, that could never be his. A body too big, too powerful, a destroyer of world.

Hermann wants.

So this is what addiction feels like, the yearning and the emptiness, the utter disgust and the ache. His clarity of mind has become a threat to his sanity as he tries to separate his own sense of self from the mess of mismatched identites leftover from the drift, and then tries to separate himself from his bodily reactions and instincts.

This is not the first time Hermann has cursed his body.

This is not even the first time he has cursed his brain.

But never before have the two teamed up against him like this, tearing him apart until all that is left of him is a burning core of need, doomed to consume itself because the object needed has already been destroyed by everything that Hermann is.

Post-apocalypse, Hermann is all destroyed and all destruction, and he lies awake in a bed too small for his body too small for his mind too small for the multitude that is life and death duplicated in the memories of a Hive.

Raleigh And take my hands, they'll understand Take my heart, pull it apart

The medical bay looks exactly like the one in Anchorage, and Raleigh cannot stop his hands from shaking. The tremor hasn't stopped since a chopper brought him and Mako back to the Shatterdome, and Raleigh has to admit that he has started to develop a strange fascination for the trembling limbs. He raises his left hand over his head and watches.

The doctors have warned him that he is suffering from shock, and also from the effects of oxygen deprivation. He feels calm.

The fact that he cannot control his arms' movements feels comforting. He feels detached from his left arm in a manner that feels familiar and right. Eyes fixed on the ceiling, he feels like he is falling.

There is a voice somewhere calling his name, and he wants to run towards it but also away from it, so he keeps falling. He feels like he is missing something, something that the voice has, but does he want it back ? It is painful to be whole. To be whole means you are expected to keep control. All would have been easier if he had just kept falling.

He should have never gotten up, he shouldn't be here, his arm shouldn't be there anymore. He knows the feeling of jaws closing around it and tearing.

Has he gotten up ? Is he really here ? Raleigh stares at this hand and feels his muscles ache.

There is a half of himself lost somewhere between two worlds, and he gives it the shape of a Jaeger, but it used to be something else, something soft and silent and warm.

There is a half of himself waiting somewhere for Raleigh to let her in, but Raleigh cannot understand where she would fit, because there is a void inside himself already threatening to drown two halves of him, and he wouldn't dare add a third.

Newt

And take my brain, or what remains And throw it all away

Newt likes to think that he is clairvoyant about the shortcomings of his brain, even though he is clearly not. One time he licked a spurt of dishwashing soap from his fingers just because it was there, and one time he spelled his own name wrong on a thesis report, and one other time he went alone into the streets of Hong Kong in search of a kaiju brain, so really it is no wonder that Newton Geiszler is taken by surprise by how much he does not want to go to sleep.

Except that, rationally, he does want to go to sleep. His whole body is screaming it, muscles aching, bones settling, even his skin feels like a guitar string about to snap. Newt so desperately wants to sleep.

But if he takes his glasses off, the world around him becomes black and blue, he finds himself standing in a kaiju bunker once more, people shouting around him, trying to leave leave leave but Newt is frozen in place and stares at the alien tongue unfurling before him...

Newton Geiszler doesn't take his glasses off. Newton Geiszler sits in his bed, knees drawn up so he can rest his tablet against them. His blanket is wrapped around him up to his armpit as he types. He wishes he hadn't left his laptop in the lab. The sound of his fngers tapping on the touch-screen isn't nearly as satisfying as that of an actual keyboard.

Newt stares at the three bottle of pills on his nightstand.

He wishes he had a typewriter.

He wonders how long it will take him to drop unconscious from exhaustion.

He wonders whether he will dream.

He asks himself if kaiju dream.

They do. Mako

Take my lungs, take them and run Take my tongue, go have some fun

Mako cannot breathe through her tears. If she cries, she drowns. Drowning is the most common cause of death for a Jaeger pilot. Most of them do not grow old enough to die of anything else.

Mako cannot breathe through her tears, so she pushes her nails into the skin of her palms and clenches her jaw.

There is a shoe on her desk, so Mako stares at her door. She doesn't know whether she is waiting for someone to come in or trying to get out. Her chest feels too tight for her lungs and she still cannot breathe. She thinks that she is not going anywhere, whether she wants it or not.

She could shout, maybe, ask for help. That way someone would come in, and she would get out. She wouldn't need to wait for the answer. But there is no one in the room across from hers and the door is thick.

She has stopped crying and unfurls her hands. Her fingers are tiny. Too thin, too soft, too delicate. Her whole body is like that. She wanted to be a sword. She feels like a needle.

People told her that she saved the world, but she feels distant from this fact. It is like it happened in another life. In that life, she is a hero, she is happy, all her dreams have come true. In this life she is a needle in a time when nobody knows how to sew and she feels empty.

Maybe that is why she cries. Maybe her body is trying to prove that there is still life inside her.

Mako thinks of death by drowning, because she cannot dream what obliteration feels like. She doesn't know what her last thought would be if she went away with a bang instead of a gurgle.

Maybe « I love you too. »

Or maybe « I'm scared. »

Both feel too heavy on her lips to be said out loud.

Maybe obliteration feels like silence.

Tendo

And take the ears, take them and disappear

There is something incredibly funny about the ceiling of Tendo Choi's room. Or at least he thinks so, to the point where he has to keep an arm over his mouth to muffle his laughter. His head aches so much it has become a drum on which his heart beats. He knows he will have to get up at some point and go to the bathroom to puke. With the amount of alcohol he has consumed, nothing else is possible. He can already feel his stomach upset itself as the laughter strains his muscles. There are tears at the corner of his eyes.

When silence falls again, Tendo feels himself shiver. He isn't cold though. He is scared. He has no idea what he is going to do know. What does the world even look like, outside of this room, outside of the Shatterdome ? He has vague memories, but knows he cannot trust them. Everything has changed.

Is it weird to think that the War has given him everything ?

Perhaps. After all, he too has lost people in this absurd conflict, he too has had his past life shattered by alien invaders. But he has gained so much he almost doesn't remember those things, and that is the scariest thing. What if he loses it all ?

He used to be a nobody. He used to be no one, and to have nothing to fight for. Now he has everything, but no fight. Now he has all this experience of being important, someone that matters, but he can feel it slip from his grasp.

There is something funny to this, and so Tendo laughs, and the echo inside of his ribcage makes him feel like he is on a boat and stuck in a storm. He would like to rip his body apart, take out that laugh and cradle it between his hands until it turns to smoke.

Tendo used to be useful. As head of J-tech, he used to feel indispensible. But tonight he realises that it was all delusion of grandeur, he counts the people he has watched died through colored screens, recalls their last words and their last breaths and how useless he was through them all. He doesn't think he can go back to that state of innocence that made him feel like he mattered.

He doesn't want to get up, because if he gets up it means that life goes on, and if life goes on he has to choose a new path to walk on.

He wonders if he can reach the litter bin next to his desk and puke into that instead.

He closes his eyes.

Herc

Take my joints, take them for points Take my teeth, tear through my cheeks And take the nose go and dispose Oh would you go dispose, just go dispose

Max is whining next to him and Herc would reach out to the dog and give him a belly rub, except he knows that it will not be enough today. Nothing will be enough to calm the animal, it seems. In a way, Herc is pleased by this fact and how his own pain is exteriorised in the dog's moans, so that he doesn't have to do it himself. He has never known how to talk. Usually, he lets his actions speak for themselves, but suddenly his body feels old, unreliable. He has a fractured arm, but what he mostly feels are the fading bruises all over his skin, bruises from all the times he's been tossed around inside of Striker Eureka, and Lucky Seven before that, all the bruises that never got the time to heal, because there wasn't any time.

This is the weight he has accumulated over the years, the weight he has taken on his shoulders willingly, and it suddenly feels like it's crushing him.

It probably has something to do with the fact that he is now carrying it alone.

He has lost his family, has lost his best friend, has lost the last people who remembered him as a young dad with small dreams and big hands. All he has left is a dog crying for his own wounds.

That is not true, of course. It is not true, and it is not fair. There is still a whole band of people alive to whom he means something, or has meant something, or will mean something. There is a whole world out there that needs to be re-build, and Herc could be part of that. Should be part of that. He knows this is what everyone would have wanted for him.

But he is so tired. His whole body aches with the pain he has spent years ignoring.

He thinks of giving up the fight, and feels disgusted with himself. This isn't him. He always said he would go down fighting, or not at all. Or at least he told others so.

Herc realises that if there is something he can do, it is to become as good a person as the ones he lost thought he was. This is something he could do for them.

Maybe.

He feels an ocean away from who he once was. Oh, sure, he knows how to swim, but he is scared that his body might have forgotten, and that trying would just mean floating away from this shell of his, leaving it all behind.

Max is still whining at the end of the bed, and Herc finds himself scratching him behind the ears and whispering meaningless words of comfort. There is no one to hear them but himself.

[rxkaldia]

The House Of Truth

This is all copypasted from a booklet I might print or shove into a bigger book, eventually.

INTRODUCTION

On July 1st of 2017, I woke up re-inspired to pursue dream. It was that of a temple, all devoted to whatever it truly meant to be... whatever we are. So, I got on my fancy dancy smart phone and messaged a few friends with like minds on the subject. We all agreed that a temple whose purpose was housing the pursuit of individual Truth was a magnificent idea, and to build it together. Then we never fucking did it.

Instead, we each ended up taking an oath that resembled something like the common goal we thought we had. I don't think any of us falter from our agreements. The house stands in each of us and our actions, and we function as well as any few fucks that agree on some stuff.

THE NAME

At first, I thought it sounded cooler to call it the Temple Of Truth, but I like acronyms and word play. All matches TOT is potatoes.  THOT has a list of correspondences.

-Phonetically, "THOT" is the same as "thought". In the process of creation, the first mode of recognizeable existence something has born out of Nothing is as thought. An idea.

-The acronym THOT has also been popularized as a casual insult, short for "That Hoe Over There". I think that’s funny.

-Connections have been made between a rise in the masses using the term "THOT" and the rise of the egyptian god Thoth, particularly after the acclaimed insurrection placing the egyptian god Kek into American politics by manipulation of the Pepe the frog meme. As 2016 was the year of Kek, so 2017 is the year of Thoth. Or something.

OATH TO THOT

When The House Of Truth was formed, it was agreed by the first members that we each might write our own oath. It was a way for us to be clear with one another about our goals and what each of us wanted to do. I've included those of the first three members here to give a general idea of what foundations the House was built upon. Mine goes as follows:

"I swear by the soul of ha'adam and the holy Eye, that by which All is known, to be my heart's Truth, and to the best of my ability, honest in all I See.

I will assist others in their pursuit of understanding and continue to expand upon my own for long as I am able. The House Of Truth lives on in me. I know no enemies, only that what IS."

That of Ahava:

"On my relation to my heart, by the light of Ain Soph, and with the myriad of consciousnesses of the universe as my witness, I pledge myself to the pursuit of Truth and to the honest execution of the path of my heart, no matter where that may lead me.

To the House of Truth I will be faithful. To all those who honestly seek after the fruits of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, I pledge my brotherhood, that they will be as family to me. That they should be afforded the same care and concern as if they were flesh of my flesh, and blood of my blood, for all Seekers after Truth are one in spirit.

I will not hoard the knowledge and understanding which I may gain in my search, but that a fair pathway is made available to those who would share in these treasures. May my judgements in such matters be always fair and wise.

May my heart and my hands be always guided in wisdom toward Ultimate Truth, unfettered by distortion or misinterpretation. May it be that if I follow this oath in my heart and mind, that always shall my steps be fruitful and my seeking rewarded. If it shall be that I violate this oath, willfully and knowingly, in my heart and in my mind, that my steps be foiled and punished.

From this day until my last, may this promise bind me."

And that of Jason Luxon:

"I (name) do attest to Truthspeaking, to speak Truth unto all ears, regardless of belief or repercussion. I do swear to pass on what I have learned to those that need to hear it, and to take payment in the witnessing of the manifestation of Mine Own Truth.

Amun Amoun Amen Kepher."

MISSION STATEMENT

"May every creature have the chance to explore the unknown without the constraints of bias, and to learn from those who have gone before them."

ON WHAT IS TRUE

"Aletheia" is an old Greek term roughly able to be explained in English with words like "truth" and "unclosedness". As provided by the lovely writers of Wikipedia, the word's literal meaning is "the state of not being hidden; the state of being evident."

Most people will each tell you something different when it comes to explaining "the truth". I might answer in short that everything is True. Which, by way of eliminating the possibility of falsehood, also means that nothing is True.

Our objective here is to allow people to figure it out for themselves. As I understand it, nothing can be known for it's Truth without having been experienced directly. How would I describe to you the color blue if you had never seen it? And once you've seen it, there's no need to describe it.

So there it is - showing trumps telling. 

MAGICKAL SHIT

So there's this goddess I met as a teenager and called my imaginary cat friend. She/it covers a strange cluster of being, from the all-seeing eye who extends forth as the mighty and just wrath of the sun, to a giant cat whose belly is the abyss and keeps guarded Truth at it's center. The truth is also kind of a red ball/sun disk, and the eye is also kind of the I which is also kind of the sun. But what's important are the tools I can give you to see for yourself.

On the cover of this text is an image with a short name below it and a phrase beside it. Each of these came directly from my workings with my giant cat goddess friend, because she's cool and gives me stuff. These might be used to conjure forth the big bad being and negotiate. The phrase, I'm pretty sure, resembles the specific type of deal I made.

When I did my thing, I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I went into a dark room, filled it with the smoke of incense, meditated into a trance and called forth my giant cat friend. When the presence in the room started to shift, I asked it to show itself. The half of the room opposite me grew black and heavy. Corners and shadows that once made up the far wall were swallowed by complete darkness. It carried the sense that it went on forever, and might extend to obliterate the entire room at any moment. I asked my cat friend to swallow me into it's belly, that I may be broken down and dissolved in the darkness until all that was left of me were my most pure components. Then, I could be able to reach the Truth that rested at it's center. In return, I would always be "true".

In response, the darkness on the other side of the room grew. It took the shape of the closet door that was previously part of the normal wall. I watched the door become another visible aspect of the darkness. It opened, revealing behind it a gaping, even-blacker hole that all the  darkness seemed to be coming from. What was previously a small closet was now the infinite expanse of the abyss. It was the cat godess's gaping mouth inviting me to enter.

However, I was completely fucking stupid and thought that this meant it didn't work. I got angry and bickered about her not showing up. The vision started to fade, and I could see the normal closet and wall through the cloud of darkness. I very rudely told her to leave and went to sulk while eating ramen noodles. Three years passed of being a twit and life relentlessly ripping me to pieces before I hit the "Truth" part, then remembered having made a deal with an ancient egyptian goddess in a tool shed when I was nineteen. Guess it worked after all.

IN CONCLUSION

                                               Fuck yeah.

[spartytoon]

In which Sparty finally jots down her thoughts on Avengers: Endgame.  Spoiler free TL:DR: I liked it overall, but have some caveats.  Long read, spoilers below.

ENDGAME THOUGHTS

THE GOOD:

Well used fandom in-jokes. E.G. Cap checking out his own ass (“That IS Americas ass”).

Scott Lang in general.

Tony Stark being adorable with his daughter.

Cap using Mjolnir.

Thor’s reaction to Cap using Mjolnir (“I KNEW IT!”)

Rocket Raccoon in general.

Nebula in general.

Thor having a good talk with his mom.

Frigga immediately recognizing Thor as a time traveler.

When everybody showed up for the final battle.

Banner sharing his tacos with Scott.

2012!Loki being a lil’ shit.

2012!Thor using Mjolnir as a defibrillator.

“Lunch, then back to Asgard.”

2014!Gamora: That’s the guy?

Nebula: Yes. It was either him, or a tree.

I’ve been saying for a year that Guardians 3 and Thor 4 could be the same movie, and that looks like it is very much happening. Awwww yiss.

THE BAD: Oh boy. I’m going to keep this to continuity in-universe rules type stuff because that’s where the objective issues are.

It has been long established that one must be obscenely powerful to so much as TOUCH an infinity stone (except for the reality stone (it touches yooooouuuu), and the soul stone probably has some unique rules), much less USE one, but the Avengers were all barehanding the damn things without any issues.

Power levels are meaningless. I knew they were going to nerf their really powerful characters (Carol, Thor and Wanda), but I did not expect them to do it to this extent.

- Carol shows up for the final battle, destroys Thanos’ ship BY HERSELF, but is unable to blow 2014!Thanos to smithereens. SURE.

- It was established in Infinity War that Wanda could hold off Thanos with five stones in the gauntlet, yet she could not obliterate 2014!Thanos with no gauntlet. SUUUURE.

- Also in Infinity War it was shown that with the aid of Stormbreaker (which enhances his powers) Thor could stand toe to toe with Thanos with ALL the infinity stones, but he couldn’t beat 2014!Thanos. SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURE.

- At the end of the day, the final outcome of Iron Man sacrificing himself to save everyone was very, very contrived. Nerfing their really powerful characters was literally the only way to make that happen. Hell, 2014!Thanos without the gauntlet should have been manageable for Thor, Cap and Iron Man. There was really no reason they couldn’t take him down now that they were actually working as a team.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not unhappy with Iron Man sacrificing himself (very bittersweet), I just wish they’d had a more coherent way to get to that point. Like, maybe instead of Thanos coming down to draw them out personally, he sends his army down so that everyone has to fight their way to him, and Iron Man is the only one who manages to get close enough to do anything. We know the suit is strong/advanced enough to fight Thanos, but maybe not defeat him. And if he gets ahold of the gauntlet, well you know how that ends.

Moving on! They went on a long tirade about the rules of time travel, then proceeded to screw up the space time continuum anyway, and spark off several alternate realities (they did announce a “what ifs” series for Disney+ so that’s probably deliberately sloppy *eye roll*).  The Sorcerer Supreme is probably Disappointed, But Not Surprised.

Speaking of, they created a glaring plot hole. Thanos allegedly destroyed the infinity stones after he was done using them. But when they went back in time to collect the stones from the past, the Sorcerer Supreme explained to Banner that reality itself was based around those stones, removing one could potentially cause all sorts of chaos, not just alternate timelines.

But Thanos DESTROYED the stones. Destroyed them. The Sorcerer Supereme apparently knew this, and didn’t seem phased by the news. Possibly because A, she knows something we don’t, or B, they already forgot why they had the Avengers go back in time in the first place. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. Personally, I don’t think the stones can actually be destroyed. It was likely that when Thanos “destroyed” the stones he actually just scattered them again, he just didn’t know it. So he wasn’t lying, he was just ignorant. If THAT’s the case, the Sorcerer Supreme not being worried about the stones being destroyed would make sense, because she probably knew the stones COULDN’T be destroyed, but finding them again could take eons, so she did ultimately go along with the Avengers time heist.

Endgame ultimately had a lot of the same problems as The Last Jedi: in an effort to be unpredictable, shocking and have things Not Go As Planned, they had to ignore the internal logic of the universe to varying degrees. You can’t spend 20 movies establishing how a universe works only to throw all the rules away as soon as it becomes inconvenient. You can certainly change things up, but there has to be a reason for it. And that reason has to make sense. None of this made sense. That’s sloppy writing at best, and an insult at worst.

THE WTF:

Sacrificing Natasha was sadly par for the course. I had hoped that by sacrificing herself there would be some sort of loophole wherein she wasn’t killed/sucked into the soul stone, buuuuut nope. I’m guessing the “sacrifice something you love” thing is probably a big fat lie, because Natasha and Clint were fighting over who got to be sacrificed, and Clint clearly didn’t WANT to sacrifice Natasha and… it just makes no sense. The Soul stone has a price. That price is a soul. Whoever’s left standing (or dangling near) the top of the cliff gets the stone. No emotional attachment necessary.

As a friend pointed out… ANT MAN DIDN’T HAVE ANY ANTS! He should have done the time heist with ants. It would have gone much smoother. Also he could have summoned hordes of ants to attack 2014!Thanos, which would have been horrifying, but a perfect “Welcome to Earth” moment. And hell, who knows how a titan reacts to ant bites. Might be deathly allergic, for all we know.

Aside from Nebula, Natasha, and arguably Carol, all of the female superhero’s basically just had cameos. I know they had a lot of characters to juggle, but their final battle stuff was another contrived moment.

Where did Brunhilde (Valkyrie) get her Pegasus? Are they summoning creatures? Is there a dimension somewhere where they hang out? How did they have time to go there and get a pegasus that was conveniently battle trained and ready? Are they sentient?

What was Spider-man swinging on? There was barely anything for him to swing on.  Yet, there was swinging.

Why didn’t Thor use his lightning more? We know he can use it. He knows he can use it. He can use it with pinpoint accuracy so it isn’t like it was a huge liability in a crowded battlefield. But he barely used it. Cap used it more than he did, and Cap was just winging it. And it was effective against Thanos so like… why didn’t they double team lightning bros… oh right. That would have worked. NERFED SO HARD. WTF was up with Clint? Was he going after people who were still causing problems after the snap? What was he doing? Why was Nat just okay with him throwing a homicidal temper tantrum? Professor Hulk in the uncanny valley. I’m with Valkyrie, one or the other. Both is weird. THOR:

I know a lot of people felt that what they did to Thor was one big fat joke. I have to respectfully disagree, insomuch that not taking care of yourself when you fall into a deep depression is A Thing. It’s a sad thing. And the humor of the situation was –  for me – part Thor saying or doing something genuinely funny, and partly just plain awkward. Like laughing at Peter B. Parker crying in the shower in Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse. It’s funny because it’s sad.  We laugh because we don’t know what else to do. I’ll circle back around to Peter B. Parker in a minute. I would like to point out that Thor crashing, and crashing hard actually makes a lot of sense. It’s one of the few parts of the movie that DOES make sense. Consider Infinity War.

Thanos’ timing was probably deliberate. Was he thinking emotional devastation when he attacked the Statesman? Maybe. He was certainly thinking tactical advantage. Any emotional fallout was probably just a bonus. Finish off your biggest threat (what’s left of Asgard – I’m of the mind that Thanos was waiting around for Odin to croak), take out the most powerful player among them while he’s at a huge disadvantage (probably not a good idea to use your cool lightning powers on a big ship full of sensitive electronics), and as a bonus, emotionally break said powerful player at the same time. I don’t know if Thanos expected Thor to survive, but he wasn’t terribly surprised to see him at the end of Infinity War. Asgardians are notoriously durable, after all. And Thor especially so.

So, then what happens with Thor? Well he’s rescued, and he does everything he can to stay positive. He cracks jokes, he sympathies with Gamora, he’s a cheerleader for Etiri, and he does it all while he’s dying inside. He uses humor to keep himself together, but it’s clear he’s hurting BAD. He’s been in charge for maybe a couple of days and already ANOTHER huge disaster has befallen his people, and it’s only going to get worse if he doesn’t get his ass out there to put a stop to it. When Thor confronts Thanos in Wakanda, he initially does the right thing. The head is a much harder target to hit from a distance, so aiming for his chest was actually smart. He stopped Thanos in his tracks, brought him to his knees with that blow.

His real mistake was stopping to chat. I remember sitting in the theater watching Infinity War when Thor lands and does NOT immediately proceed to finish Thanos off. I believe my thoughts were “No - Thor… Thor, sweetie, just finish him off don’t stop to – aw shit.”

That mistake, that moment of weakness wherein he let his anger, and pain take over his better judgment is what cost half the universe. And he knows it. He knows it more than anyone else. He knows how powerful he is, he knows what he’s capable of. Everyone in Wakanda gave it their all. Tony, Spidey, Strange and the Guardians came close too, and Quill definitely fucked up there as well, but none of them are 1500 year old gods. They don’t have lightning running through their veins, they can’t fight for days on end without rest, they aren’t one man armies, they weren’t raised to be king and protector of the 9 realms, they didn’t have that burden placed on their shoulders. They aren’t anywhere near Thor’s level. They’re mortal. They make mistakes. They lose. Thor is far from perfect, but with the power he possess, the stakes are higher, there’s much more expected of him. And he fucked it up.

That’s not something someone simply recovers from. Not without help. And this is where there’s a big difference between Peter B. Parker and Thor becomes clear (well, aside from scale). Peter B. Parker is going through a rough patch. He’s gained a bit of weight. It is (gently) played for laughs.  But he has support. All of the other spider-people are there for him. Miles does a great job of getting him to wake up, to realize he’s gotta face his fears, and take that leap of faith. Thor, apparently, didn’t get that. Not until the time heist and he gets to talk to his mom.

As a proud member of #TeamThorNeedsAHug, I must ask… where were the rest of the Avengers? Too busy to check in on Thor? Or did they only contact him if they needed him for something? Did they brush him off, and assume he’d get better on his own? Were they so wrapped up in their own pain they just couldn’t reach out to anyone else? Cap had support group, did he not invite Thor? Or did he expect Thor to host support groups as well?

All they know is that they failed. But they’re not thinking about it from Thor’s context, they’re thinking about it from a human context. The human context is limited, fleeting.

So, Thor falls by the wayside. Any cries for help are brushed off. They get annoyed with him. They certainly got annoyed with him in Endgame. They stop keeping in touch with him.

The Avengers are pretty shitty friends.

This is why I am glad Thor is going off with the Guardians of the Galaxy for a while. The Guardians are weird, and they yell at each other a lot, and they fight, but at the end of the day, they’re a family.  Thor is in far better company. Also it will be HILARIOUS.

That said: THINGS I WANT TO HAPPEN IN GUARDIANS 3 (in no particular order):

Quill spends a little time on Earth and reconnects with his grandpa.

The Guardians work their magic and help Thor work through his depression and guilt.

A meta conversation pondering the power disparity between 5 years ago/current Thanos, and 2014 Thanos, and why Thor, Carol and Wanda (or Thor, Cap and Tony, for that matter) could not smush him like a bug while he was Infinity Gauntlet-less.

They discover that the infinity stones can’t actually be destroyed, Thanos just scattered them when he thought he had destroyed them, and there may be a way to get Gamora out of the soul stone.

They get Gamora out of the soul stone.

Mark Hamill is Space Hobo Supreme*

Thor becomes a Space Hobo and learns the ways of the Space Hobo from Mark Hamill

Thor goes sifting through Quills music collection at some point and asks if he has any Florence + The Machine.

We find out Rocket invited Thor to tag along with the Guardians figuring he needed a stable family environment, and time away from everything to recover.

Rocket is highly protective and supportive of Thor (much to Quills chagrin).

Awkward Drax Hugs (That Thor is totally down for)

Groot and Thor play video games.

Thor zaps himself back to being ripped for the sole purpose of annoying Quill.

Dance off.

Mantis does something really freaking cool.

Air guitar battle (because Guitar Hero exists, Thor plays video games now, and why the fuck not)

Nebula continues to soften up.

They bump into Loki in the least likely of places. A laundromat or something equally mundane.

* Back around the time The Last Jedi came out, Mark Hamill was joking around on Twitter (as he often does), that he was out of work, and needed a new job. James Gunn (possibly jokingly, possibly seriously) mentioned possibly having something for him to do in Guardians 3. This apparently, led into brunch, and a lot of unrelated silliness (Guardians of the 99!). I very much hope that Mark Hamill will be in Guardians 3 as a friendly Space Hobo.

[wherethestoryhasimagination]

More BoTW ‘sequel’ ideas;

(expanding upon this for @ramune-explosion )

additional links provided :3 likely best to gain full context from them;

SS TP MM

when you pick your starting Rune, your guardian programming is able to access secondary features not able to be run on Slate tech; (the other runes might be available later)

Bombs; instead of only creating bombs full of blue energy, you can also perform a variation of the Guardian’s trademark Beam attack; a quick shot that does the minimal damage of the bombs, usually used to get other explosives to go off, or a charged beam like the Guardian Scouts use; (Upgrades may give you the ‘super armor’ that the scouts get while charging)

Cryonis; instead of only freezing water in block formations, you can now create a Ball of Ice that does everything a Ball can do. roll around, run into things, get bigger if rolling through snow, hit switches... (maybe freeze non-water objects to make them brittle?)

Magnesis; not just moving individual metal objects; you can also electrify them temporarily; (a bit like thunder Blight) (maybe an upgrade will make thrown metal weapons home-in slightly on targets)

Stasis; not just stopping Time; can also accelerate certain objects; (maybe an Upgrade could let you reverse aging time on an object (with a hearty cooldown) to get something to return to where it once was; or maybe that should be the default; idk; stasis is kinda funny; a few possibilities here)

Camera; not just pictures; Advanced Tracking can Highlight Targeted objects, and provide much more specific Arrows, rather than just radar blips. perhaps also highlight enemies through walls? a good utility;

Disguise choice; Gerudo, Goron, Hylian, Zora, Birb... (and perhaps some other ‘secret’ disguises not available at the start) (like Shieka Monk) (customization is a Yes)

you start with just one, but might be able to get others later; each with certain base abilities & potential Upgrades. (some ‘plot shrine’ will give you your first, (maybe more?) upgrade part, which will automatically be used to create your disguise+base ability)

Picking Gerudo Male... As the one with the Triforce of Power... well... that might make things a deal harder at the start; to the point where the Player would be strictly warned about the consequences; A real, No-stealth, Glass cannon kind of choice; The Triforce of Power is Pleased by this Disguise, and leaks out a tiny bit more of its energy to you.

Goron; full Flameguard, but weaker stealth. later upgrades may give one-handed 2-handers, roll attacks, ext...

Zora; the ability to actually swim properly without getting waterlogged; faster swim speeds, (up to the rate at which Sidon went during the divine beast combat), waterfall climbing, ext...

Birb; far superior gliding, a weaker version of Ravioli Gale (which can be upgraded further), better stealth, ext...

Traditional Gerudo; (the advised, easier start choice) well, the Yiga Clan hideout isn’t far from Town; you can easily enter, and very likely get official Training in weapon use as a guard(ian). With Gerudo Town as a base of operations with plentiful access to decent items & gear, things ought to be a bit easier on you...

And if Link just so happens to be hunting you, and has seen through your disguise, (the guy has faced enough Yiga to know their disguises)... Well, they might cause a scene if they tried anything in town. You are safe there. maybe you’ll even sit at the same Bar.

Hylian; highly convincing disguise; upgrades include various quality/ease of life options, better Horse control, and, as a high tier upgrade, the famous ‘slow time’ ability Link possesses. (A Goron or Zora out in the Snow is very suspect, but a Hylian, well, they could be anywhere!)

(bonus surprise?) if you make and wear the full Guardian Armor Set, people might mistake you for Link

(extra thought; would better monster disguises be worth a thought? As a Bokoblin, while people would still call attention to you if you did bad things, it wouldn’t be as harsh a response as if you were found out to be ‘That Rouge Machine!’)

upgrades for your Guardian Tech exist as well; Runes, Tools...

The Scientists probably help you even though they know what you are cause they can be a bit kooky like that; just fascinated to see how you develop.

‘meals’ work differently; (unless you got the Hylian gastro-generator Upgrade)

You have a far more discerning Eye for Guardian Parts; while others might just see a dozen of the same type of Screw, you can tell the differences between them; Some that can be ‘cooked’ into ‘stamina’ restoring ‘meals’, electric resist, temporary hearts... basically all the usual cooking effects; Gemstones can be used in cooking to, with unique effects of their own. like maybe temporary elemental damage, changing the color of your default Guardian weapons to match;

yea, that’s another thing; while nearly every other weapon in the game would be better than them, (unless you upgrade them,) you should always have access to weak variants of the Guardian spear, sword, & Ax; (maybe you can unlock a guardian boomerang, or some other weapon types as well)

The great Plateau is, instead of a dizzying drop, a brutal climb. But, many important things can be found there... The Other Runes, for example, & a Certain Monk living under the shrine of Resurrection who will make sure you EARN those Runes. (maybe you can extract something from the 1-hit obliterator?)

maybe Shrine entrances will take you even further bellow the Shrines to the ‘Maintenance Level’. As a Guardian, you get taken to The Works, presumed to be there to fix things by the Shrine workings.

Also, forget needing to pray in very specific locations to upgrade, to the point where you have a dozen not-Spirit orbs waiting to be used; you are a clever Machine; you can upgrade wherever you want; (though maybe have certain high tier upgrades require a certain location in the maintenance level to get)

Plenty of potential here; it could be a Mechanical mess, or maybe things broke down a while ago, and dirt & rocks & such have gotten in, creating a whole new kind of environment. (might be cool if some variant of Mogma(Skyward Sword Moles) were to be found, with a secret disguise available for them with their own thematic upgrades) (also, at this point, a full and proper skill tree would probably be good; it isn’t as simple as ‘Heart or Stamina’ after all... Though different upgrades may include/be Hearts &or Stamina for different races. (high stamina birbs, high Hearts Goron...) )

|3 ... I’m running out of steam at the moment for ideas on Gameplay quirks... there’s probably something obvious that is a part of the base game that I’m missing...

! ah, Koroks? hmm... there could probably be some kind of excuse for Koroks, if they were to be re-used... either on the Shieka advanced Tech side of things, or the ‘right heart to see them’ side of things.

& Great Fairies... maybe they can help you get some of the last stages in a particular upgrade path, or maybe they physically enhance your non-organic Body, like they do to Armor; give you more health, more stamina, more base-Defense... (Maybe they could be the source of some more... unique, non-machine like upgrades; like the gastro-generator which lets you heal via people food)

Ending Ideas;

there could be just about anything down there. including the ‘neutral-?bad?’ ending; ‘fixing’ things down in The Works is the most lucrative source of Upgrade Parts, but if you Fix Everything... Then a whole lot more than just Shrines, Towers, & those massive Spires around The Castle will start popping up; ‘You did what you were designed to do; now bear witness to the World We Designed you to make; the Era of The Shieka will return’ You Survive;

‘Bad?-POWER’ end, you’ve gone around and blown up all kinds of important stuff; attacked towns & destroyed their fortifications & fully operational Guardian Stalkers... When you make it to the birb Divine Beast, you get a total Power Trip; Controlling the Beast Directly, able to rain down destruction. You Survive;

‘neutral end(s)’ you didn’t really blow anything up, but you didn’t really do all that much good either. When you win the contest being held to find the next Pilot of the Divine Beast, you are found out. You are Targeted; Link is ready to finally settle this;

(if you somehow manage to beat Link;) Zelda won’t stand by & watch Link Die; With her greater control over her Divine Power, and Greater understanding of the Ancient Tech, She Purges your Programming; You Die;

(If Link beats you...) You Die; but by beheading/helm splitting; your Program still exists... You Still have the Triforce of Power... maybe you’ll manage to find a new vessel eventually... you kinda survive in that way; Via... Reincarnation...

(good end; helping make things right with The World) :) You win the Divine Beast Pilot Contest, and you get to Fly it all the way to Hyrule Castle... (bad end if you start shooting; Link rips you from the controls, & fights you; same kind of results as neutral ends) But, once there... Link & Zelda finally realize who/what you are; much later than they do the other time; you must be acting much more like a real person...

Link has The Master Sword at the Ready, but... has their doubts about how much of a threat you are...

You drop the disguise...

You drop to your Knees...

You distill information in the way that is traditional for Ancient Shieka Tech...

...

You start to Cry...

In a moment of recognition, Link catches a drop with their Shieka Slate...

Your Memories begin to play back on the screen...

The beauty you’ve seen in this World... How much better it is than The World the ancient Shieka had planned...

The joy in meeting new people...

The help you’ve offered... The help you’ve gotten...

Your acts of kindness... And the kindness you’ve been shown in turn...

Every Smile you have seen along the way...

Your perspective of Link and Zelda... Fearsome Destroyers who hold control over whether you live or die...

...

You tell them that you don’t want to die...

...

And they tell you that everything is going to be ok...