#also prevents having to show a BIG FAT SPOILER you know how it is

[en-chi-la-da]

Uhh if you're still taking requests... A2 Makoyuma please please please pleaseeeeee

I love your art style a lot :>

i think it's funnier if he leaves his mask on for this lol

[tarhalindur]

Rebellion’s Biggest Outstanding Question

(Big fat PMMM+Rebellion spoilers under the cut, natch:)

Homura, at the end of Rebellion, believes that she is rebelling against Madoka’s will.  But is she actually doing so?  Or is she acting in accordance with it?

Let me explain.

I’ll start with the point I’m sold on either way (and have commented on at least twice before, including my explanation of Madoka’s other big mistake): Rebellion is directly downstream of Madoka making a single mistake immediately after her ascension in episode 12, a moment when she could not afford to make any mistake at all.  Much like Madoka’s other big mistake in episode 10, this one is not obvious on the surface and only becomes clear when looking at the events through a symbolic lens.

Specifically, a Buddhist symbolic lens.

I’ll leave the full explanation there to this post, which lays out the Buddhist influence on base PMMM’s themes and imagery and on Madokami’s ascension better than I could.  (Although its author is missing a few points.  First, the shot of Madoka expanding to galaxy size is DIRECTLY out of ego death symbolism.  Which makes sense, because there’s enough accounts to suggest that regardless of whether or not it has any deeper meaning beyond brain chemistry the people who’ve had it are describing a single class of subjective experience, and “one’s consciousness expanding to the size of the galaxy” seems to be a common feature of it - I’ve read at least one account of that kind of experience from, of all people, a random Protestant minister who claims to have had such an experience on a vision trip to the Amazon and only later realized that there was precedent for that kind of experience in Buddhist traditions, and he mentions that exact expansion as part of what he went through.  Second, the flower on Madoka’s bow is a rose, not a willow... which makes sense, because “Guanyin/Kannon and the Virgin Mary are two aspects of the same goddess” has been a theory in certain parts for at least a century, and the rose has a traditional association with the latter goddess - there’s a reason they call it the rosary, after all.  (I’ve seen speculation out of a few polytheist/less orthodox Christian circles I keep tabs on that Pistis Sophia is yet another aspect of the same goddess, too...)  Third, note all the mandala symbolism floating around - most obviously Walpurgisnacht’s appearance and Kyubey’s exposition in episode 11.)

And that influence is important here, because part of the process of the escape from samsara is the breaking of all karmic ties to the world.

Except... Madoka does not do this.  She leaves one karmic tie behind.

This one, to be precise:

Now, in theory it’s possible that the tainted miracle of Homura remembering Madoka has another root.  But I have my doubts, and the biggest piece of evidence there is the OST: the track that plays when Homura meets Junko in the finale and offers to give up the ribbons is named Taenia Memoriae, aka “the ribbon of memories”.  HMM,

(That Junko scene is in this regards the single most enigmatic scene of the main series finale to me.  My instinct is that it’s drawing off of Christian mythos again, either canonical or Gnostic, but I can’t quite place what piece; I kind of want to compare it specifically to the Denial of Peter.)

Now, there’s two other pieces here that are worth noting.

1) While Homulilly is described as the Nutcracker Witch in Rebellion, Homulilly’s name and Witch card are first revealed in the PSP game, and there she goes by a rather different epithet: Witch of the Mortal World, nature is karma.  Which is rather on the nose (the Mortal World [shigan] being another term for samsara), but then that’s probably by design - main series PMMM is not subtle at all when it wants to make a point.  And it is this epithet, not the Nutcracker Witch, that the Doppel versions of Homulilly in MagiReco draw off of, which suggests the staff considered it important.  (There’s a second distinction in the latter, because Moemura’s version of the Doppel implies that Homulilly’s nature was originally slightly different again - Witch of the Mortal World, nature is closed circuits - but I think for our purposes here this is a difference without true distinction, much like the Witch of the Near Shore pun for swimsuit!Moemura’s version of Homulilly.)  And there’s echoes of this even in Rebellion: the Clara Dolls are of course referred to as the Children of the Mortal World, plus of course the obvious “Homulilly’s Rebellion barrier as the Mortal World” take.  (Which, hmm.  Hello second-order symbolism - Homura failing to “break out of the egg” as failure to escape the cycle of samsara.)

2) The red ribbons of course suggest a very specific form of karmic tie - the Red String of Fate.  And you can be very, very sure that the staff intended that, too.  To drag a certain piece of key animation back out from storage:

While it’s hard to tell at this size, it sure looks to my eyes like the two ends are specifically tied around the girls’ pinkies.  You know, exactly where the proverbial Red String is said to be tied.

Or, to put it another way: AI YO.

Everything in Rebellion is downstream of this.

But all this is prologue.  Now that we have established the mistake, we can address the actual outstanding question: Did Madoka intend to make that mistake?  People have noted the applicability of Junko’s comments about intentionally making a big mistake when backed into a corner to Homura’s actions in Rebellion; do they also apply to the action Madoka took that led to that?

I am not sure.  Both cases are consistent, and I’d put about even odds either way.  But it’s the affirmative case I want to lay out here, to show that it does in fact exist:

- Let’s start with the one point someone else might bring up that I don’t really weight: Madoka’s final conversation with Homura in the flower bed.  This one, I think, can mostly be discarded.  We have word from both Kyubey and Sayaka that Madoka does not have her memories here; I can’t see both of them lying here.  (Also remember that Kyubey seems to have restriction that is sometimes said to apply to demons, at least under certain circumstances: he cannot directly tell a lie.  This is of course a very different thing from having to tell the truth, as episode 9 alone is enough to attest, but in this specific case it’s a boost to his credibility.)  If there’s an actual argument here, it’s a second-order one; it is possible, especially given her divine abilities, that Madokami was running a Xanatos Gambit and counting on her amnesiac projection to unwittingly relay her true feelings.  (In which case I would have to grab a certain infamous line from another well-known anime: “Just as planned”.)

- That one shot of Madokami’s gloved, scarred arm reaching down through the window to touch Homura.  Operative word scarred.  (And honestly, looking at one of the subs for that scene again Madoka’s comments there look potentially consistent with her actually supporting of or at least accepting Homura becoming a demon...)

- Mata Ashita, specifically the lyrics thereof.  With the perspective of the full series, Madoka’s character song is fairly clearly from the perspective of Madokami, and it’s suggestive that she is not entirely happy with the results of her wish and ascension.

- The fact that Rebellion happened at all.  There’s a complaint that I’ve seen regarding the mechanics of the Incubators’ plot in Rebellion: logically, by the wording of Madoka’s final wish the Incubators’ plan to use the Isolation Field to block the Law of Cycles should not work, since part of Madoka’s wish was to rewrite any rule or law that would prevent her from destroying Witches with her own hands, including the one the Incubators set up with their Isolation Field - doubly so if you take Madokami’s statement can see every world that ever existed or could ever exist and apply it to the Sealed Reality the experiment generates.  Except... there is one way that argument fails, regardless of anything else: namely, if Madoka saw what the Incubators were doing and intentionally allowed their experiment to proceed.  And at this point there is precedent for her doing something very similar; AIUI in her Magical Girl Story in MagiReco Madokami does something very similar wrt the MagiReco timeline, deliberately declining to destroy it despite its continued existence conflicting with the Law of Cycles.

(- Magia.  This point of argument I’m not convinced of either, but let’s lay it out.  (Honestly, even if I’m right I’m not sure how much of this was consciously intended, but creations can have a life of their own - especially creations where fucking natural disasters delay them so that they’re released on the most appropriate day possible!)  There’s two pieces to this, one I’m more sure of than the other:

1) The visuals.  Here’s the spot where I feel most solid about interpreting Magia: the ED visuals are clearly a reference to Madokami’s ascension.  (The show loves hiding that sort of foreshadowing in plain sight, why would you be surprised?)  Note the second half particularly, both Madoka’s hair lengthening and the starfield she’s running past.  (I think the order of the four other girls in the first half is probably how long they held out without Witching out.)  That leaves two issues, one more obvious to Western audiences and one less so.  First, that enigmatic and ominous shot of Madoka in fetal position (appropriate - her request in 10 and then her wish in 12 can be rephrased as “don’t let me grow up”) in the eye of Mephisto.  Second, there’s a point I’ve seen raised in analyses of Connect: in Japanese cinematography, motion from right to left indicates a correct course (unlike its Western equivalent, where the opposite applies)... and for the entirety of Magia Madoka is moving left-to-right.

2) The lyrics.  This is the part I’m less sold on, but once again let’s lay out the affirmative.  My line here derives from a hunch: Connect is famously from Homura’s perspective despite appearing to be from Madoka’s, perhaps the inverse is also true?  I’m still not sure there, but especially if you’re considering the TV version it can work... provided the lyrics are specifically from Madokami’s perspective again.  Grabbing the wiki version of the translation: “The light of love lit within your eyes will transcend time” sure fits better if we’re talking about Homura rather than about Madoka, likewise “with this power that can break even darkness” sure sounds like a better fit for Madokami to me.  And in that case the most interesting stanza is the second: “Swallow down your hesitation.  What is it that you wish for?  With the direction of this greedy admiration, will there be a short-lived tomorrow?”  The former two lines  are quite consistent with Homura’s decision in Rebellion (and I note the visual of Homura biting down on her Soul Gem to break it!), and “tomorrow” is consistently a reference to the possibility of Homura and Madoka meeting again in other PMMM songs (Mata Ashita again, Colorful, Connect full version) - which is realized courtesy of a greedy admiration, no less.  So.  Magia’s full version might count, too - there’s lines there that are harder to square from a Madokami perspective (”if I can move forward without hesitation then it’s fine if my heart gets broken” especially), but “Someday, for the sake of someone else, you too will wish for great power; on the night love captures your heart, unknown words will be born” fits Homura’s fall better than Madoka’s wish, I think.)

- If Madoka’s mistake in 12 is intentional then it more closely mirrors her (unintentional) mistake in 10: she’s implicitly asking Homura to once again do something she can’t and stop her from/alleviate the effects of her making a mistake.

- At a Doylist level, if they go for a proper happy end (either in Walpurgis no Kaiten or in a hypothetical sequel to the same) I’m not sure there’s any way they can get there without using this interpretation.  (In general, the two outcomes that make the most sense to me are “Akuhomu becomes the core of Walpurgisnacht, cue ending scene with Moemura making her wish” (the Logic Error ending, consistent with the Eternal Return of the Self; cue MagiReco as the way out) or an ending based on the answer to this question being yes - the easy version being a movie of everyone except Homura fighting to let Madoka rejoin the Law of Cycles only for her to surprise everyone with some sort of ending based on “actually, I was counting on her to do this from the start”.)

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 271: My Hero Tokodemia

Previously on BnHA: Mic was all “goodbye X-Less don’t do anything I wouldn’t do” and just LEFT him with Tomura, like. ???! X-Less was all “I’m gonna sit here and do nothing and wait to die.” Ujiko was all “this has nothing to do with ANYTHING but I just want you to know that I conspired to murder your husband 15 years ago and ended up killing his best friend instead!” Tomura was all “what up bitches I’m in this chapter too” and had trippy dreams about hands and buildings and his family was there and also All for One (the dude)! Because guess what, Tomura has All For One (the quirk) now! Because AFO gave it to him! So yeah! And now he’s waking up, and Deku can apparently feel it happening because he’s a horcrux probably, and so basically everything is FINALLY GOING TO SHIT AND IT’S ABOUT TIME BUT ALSO AHHHHH.

Today on BnHA: SHIGARAKI WHO TOMURA WHAT. Back to Gunga Mountain! So Dabi is all “you do know your beloved mentor just killed a guy right?” and Toko is all “!!” and Dabi is all “SO THAT MAKES HIM THE WORST CRIMINAL OF ALL!” and, WITHOUT THE SLIGHTEST HINT OF IRONY, IMMEDIATELY follows up this bold statement by TRYING TO BURN A CHILD ALIVE. Anyway so this is why Dabi wasn’t the keynote speaker at the “murder is bad” convention though. So most of the chapter is like this, with Dabi (albeit somewhat halfheartedly) trying to set Toko on fire while Toko desperately tries to keep between him and Hawks. Eventually though, Dabi is confusingly thwarted by Otter Pops, making his triumphant return and spraying a bunch of ice just every which way because things weren’t chaotic enough I guess! And then the chapter ends with everyone’s favorite Guy They Hoped Wouldn’t Be Waking Up In This Arc, Gigantomachia, waking up!! :’) :’) :’) etc you get it.

okay so I am please to clarify that the spoilers I received were not actually all that big of a deal, and that pretty much all I know is that we’re cutting back to Dabi and Tokoyami probably, and there’s a good chance we might not even see Tomura at all this chapter in spite of last week’s cliffhanger. so even if I’d have preferred not to know that up front, it’s all good! though I will say Horikoshi has a real knack for cutting away from things right when you’re at your most invested though. reminds me of what it was like reading Lord of the Rings for the first time. “nooo I don’t want to cut back to Frodo -- WAIT WHAT’S GOING ON -- NO I DON’T WANT TO CUT BACK TO MERRY AND PIPPIN DAMMIT -- WAIT WHAT”

anyways! lol guys guess what

so then! those spoilers did indeed have the ring of truth! well this should be interesting

lmao he’s forcibly clawing his way out of Fat’s belly via aggressive use of Dark Shadow oh damn

oh man you guys. time to catalog some feels

Fatgum you do realize you were in the running for #2 hero but have now bled serious points by letting a child run back into danger and doing absolutely nothing to stop him! although to be fair you do have other children to protect, and this one child also should not have been able to do what he just did! and also Child Endangerment is U.A.’s unofficial motto and you didn’t even go to U.A. but you would fit right in though let me tell you. but anyway so the point is this isn’t really anything new, but still

HIS BODY JUST MOVED BEFORE HE COULD THINK ahhhh Toko. THIS IS YOUR MOMENT!! THE MY HERO TOKODEMIA ARC BEGINS NOW

I hope we get a followup panel of Kaminari freaking out and trying to go after his pal (but not actually succeeding though, because I swear to god Fatgum, if you fuck this up again all of my remaining goodwill is just gonna fly right out the window. and it’s a lot of goodwill too! but we don’t screw around when it comes to children’s safety!!). just would be a nice touch! ah well if they don’t show it I’ll just headcanon it

last but not least, it’s also worth noting that while I love how brave and selfless and concerned for his mentor’s wellbeing Tokoyami is here, this was still an incredibly stupid move on his part! least of all because he actually had no idea that Hawks truly was in danger. is it weird to say he lucked out? “you’re so fortunate your teacher actually was being burned alive you reckless little goose!” but like, you know what I mean though right

anyway

-- oh they are showing it!!

YAY HE IS A GOOD BOY. THAT IS ALL. CARRY ON

Toko’s shouting over his shoulder that Hawks is “probably” in trouble. for fuck’s

I mean yeah, it’s probably just some gut instinct which funnily enough happens to be absolutely right. but I’m sorry you guys, there’s just this small part of me that just can’t get over the fact that he briefly saw Hawks flying for all of .2 seconds, and saw some flames, and just IMMEDIATELY leapt to the worst-case-scenario conclusion. you know what this is? it’s the decision-making process of a kid who is actually WAY more powerful than we’ve been giving him credit for. enough so that his self-preservation instincts don’t even kick in at all because it doesn’t even occur to him how dangerous of a move this is. goddammit Tokoyami. you kids think you’re all grown up now and ffff just please be safe

and okay, I’ll give Fatgum some benefit of the doubt for just letting that happen because apparently this is literally the first and only time

seems he didn’t even think it was possible up until now. so that’s fair

OKAY YOU KNOW WHAT FATGUM YOU ARE REDEEMED

THAT’S RIGHT!! YOU DON’T JUST UP AND LEAVE THE FATAXI WHENEVER YOU FUCKING FEEL LIKE IT. FARE DODGERS WILL BE PROSECUTED TO THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW!!

so he’s immediately following after him, but is smart enough not to put the other kids in danger! good split-second decision-making there. certain other people in this chapter could take notes! and of course my one fear now though is that the other three children will not listen to him at all, but you know what, let’s deal with one thing at a time

hmmm

dammit Horikoshi, what...?? you really like to toe the lines of what is and isn’t problematic huh? literally if you wanted to go for a cool barbarian look all you had to do was stick with the same kind of costume scheme you had going in the second and fourth popularity polls. but no, you had to go and give him a fucking war bonnet. was that one guy back in the Hero Killer arc not enough. at least this is only a cover page, sigh

also I see that Tokoyami was asked to name his own feature chapter. I’m just happy that he’s happy

would you fucking look at this

first of all, why is Dabi suddenly twenty feet away from them. and second, would you just look at how ridiculously intact Hawks fucking is. Dabi really was microwaving him on the defrost setting only huh

so now everyone’s just looking at each other. sizin’ each other up and stuff

yeah no shit it’s bad. you rushed in thinking you could somehow handle a situation which had even the second strongest guy on the ropes. and handle it alone, no less. lord help me why are the bravest ones also always the most stupid

EEP

HIS WINGS??? also his fucking BACK jesus christ. meaning he’s completely immobile for now at best, and probably soon to be in critical condition and going into shock if he isn’t already. okay so maybe it wasn’t just the defrost setting, fuck. Hawkssss 8|

oh???????

holy shit. an opportunity to actually find out how much of a bastard Dabi actually is?? we of course know he had no problem whatsoever with kidnapping a kid back in the day. but would he go so far as to seriously fight and/or try to kill one? a kid who’s no older than your little brother?? oh gosh oh golly oh intrigue

I literally have not made up my mind on Dabi redemption one way or the other, just to be clear (he’s just been too mysterious up till now and I feel like I don’t know enough), so I am super curious to see how this plays out so I can finally form an opinion!

OH SNAP

SCORE ONE FOR “HE MAY BE AN A-HOLE, BUT HE’S NOT, AND I QUOTE, 100% A DICK”? MAYBE?? but on the other hand he’s definitely not just gonna let Hawks go either so ahhhh???

(ETA: so it seems we’ve arrived at a solid “mildly bastardish!” idk. it definitely seems to me like he’s trying not to murder this teenager for no good reason. ironically he’s in much the same position here that Hawks was less than a dozen chapters ago; facing against someone who’s just trying to protect his friend, and trying to talk him down at first, but then attacking once it’s clear that he’s not going to back off. ah well. still as morally gray as ever.)

ah I see, we’re gonna start by shattering his naive illusions!

(ETA: fucking christ, the scan is so dark I didn’t even notice Twice’s charred corpse just LYING THERE IN THE BACKGROUND the first time I read this. and now that I have noticed it, I would just like to say, sincerely, what the fuck.)

welp, there it is. finally the kids are getting properly involved in this arc, and AS EXPECTED, they are promptly being traumatized. oh Toko ;_;

Dabi this speech you’re making would feel more original if literal scores of tumblrs hadn’t spent the last two months exhaustively analyzing every single last possible angle of this debate lol. everyone has already made up their minds on the “is Hawks worth saving” controversy one way or the other but okay sure, go ahead and throw your hat into the ring too

lmao whaaaaaaat. “as a last resort, after his attempts to take him peacefully were thwarted, Hawks killed a man so as to prevent that man from killing countless others during our coup to take over the country because our boss wants to destroy everything. clearly, Hawks is the worst out of everyone else involved in this equation!” now that! is a take! lol

OH NO OH GOD

“PEW PEW PEW ENJOY THOSE FEELS” HORIKOSHI WHOOPS WHILE SHOOTING LASER GUN FINGERS AT ME, AND HEY, NOW

HEY, I SAID!!!

WHAT THE FUCK -- WHAT EVEN IS THE FUCKING SCREENPLAY FOR THIS THING?? “A BARELY-CONSCIOUS HAWKS MURMURS HIS STUDENT’S NAME WITH AN ACHINGLY WEARY LOOK OF SHAME AND REGRET! AS DABI LOOKS ON, TOKOYAMI GENTLY LIFTS HIS FALLEN MASTER AND WRAPS HIS CAPE AROUND HIS BACK, LOOKING OVERWHELMED, BUT DETERMINED. TOKOYAMI: I’M JUST... CONCERNED FOR MY TEACHER.” who the fuck wrote this shit and how much pleasure were they taking in ripping my heart out and violently slamming it against the wall

sob, and unfortunately Dabi doesn’t look particularly moved himself by any of this

DAMMIT DABI PLEASE RESPECT THEIR PRIVACY DURING THIS DIFFICULT TIME. GO AWAY AND HAVE YOUR REVENGE SOME OTHER DAY GODDAMMIT

DABI!!

Dabi I swear to god!! if you seriously try and burn my gothbird son I will...

DABI WHAT DID I JUST FUCKING SAY. LEAVE THE KID ALONE

Tokoyami... sweetie...

IF ONLY YOU COULD JUST. fly back out?? the exact same way you came??? if only that was a thing you could do??? or can he not fly while he’s carrying another person, maybe? dammit I forget

?!

wait what?? is he implying that Dabi isn’t seriously trying to kill them yet? is that what this is? I should just read on since this is clearly only the first part of something longer that he’s saying and I have to stop this bad habit of trying to analyze half a sentence before I go on and read the rest of the sentence

well whatever it is, he’s absolutely right; Dabi as it turns out is still standing there 25 feet away like a social distance champ, monologuing from afar

this panel gets more hilarious to me the longer I stare at it you guys. someone please make a comic where Hawks is all “he’s still talking...” and Toko looks to see Dabi RAMBLING ON and slowly inches further and further away while Dabi completely fails to take any notice lmao

so Tokoyami is just staring back, and then suddenly he’s all “orders from Hawks!” which I think is just him asking Hawks what to do now??

and fucking look at this lol

“just slowly inch away while he’s monologuing. I just found out he’s secretly a Todoroki so now I know his weakness: he will literally drop dead before he ever stops being dramatic”

OH MY GOD

ARE YOU TELLING ME THIS ISN’T A JOKE AND THAT’S HIS ACTUAL WEAKNESS LMAO. HAVE WE CROSSED PLANES INTO SOME KIND OF SATIRICAL REALITY. WHAT IS HAPPENING

LMAO OKAY NO HAWKS IS SAYING THAT DABI IS JUST BULLSHITTING THEM BECAUSE HE’S USED UP ALL HIS FLAMES OR SOME SHIT. LOL OKAY THEN. ALL I HEARD WAS “HE WASN’T ABLE TO FUCKING KILL ME BECAUSE HE NEVER SHUTS THE FUCK UP.” WHERE IS THE LIE

OH SNAP THERE HE GOES

he is running away in the background, right?? Dark Shadow is just a distraction? you better not be seriously trying to fight him oh god please be smart about this

okay yes good!!

bringing back some unpleasant memories of the last guy who took a tumble off this balcony, but whatever! I’m sure he’s got some kind of plan in mind here

yep okay so he’s using Dark Shadow as a bungee cord

Hawks is so fucking short he somehow looks the same size as this little bird hobbit who’s carrying him. this is just a battle of tiny, tiny people

OH MY GOD FUCKING OUCH OH GEEZ

I FELT THAT OH MY GOD

AND OF FUCKING COURSE THAT KO’D HAWKS FOR GOOD, BECAUSE HE NO LONGER HAS A FUCKING BACK, AND HE JUST TARZANED OFF A BALCONY AND TOKOYAMI LANDED RIGHT ON TOP OF HIM JESUS CHRIST. R.I.P.

TOKO IS ALL “HE MUST HAVE BLACKED OUT FROM THE IMPACT JUST NOW” AND YEAH, YOU THINK?? WOULDN’T YOU?? FUCK

OH MY GOD HE’S PICKING HIM UP AND HE’S SO FUCKING TINY OH GOD OH JESUS

STOP BEING DRAMATIC AND JUST CARRY HIM OUT OF THERE ALREADY CAN WE GET A MOVE ON PLEASE? YOU’RE DOING SO GOOD BUDDY AND I’M SO PROUD, BUT ALSO THE REST OF THE LEAGUE IS STILL OUT THERE AND NOTHING IS SAFE AND AHHHH

-- AND ALSO THIS GUY STILL!!

no doubt. no doubt whatsoever the blood that runs through those veins. the theatrics are more of a dna marker than the flame quirk could ever be

also!! ARE WE SURE HAWKS IS ACTUALLY TWENTY-THREE?? COULDN’T THE HPSC HAVE FORGED HIS BIRTH CERTIFICATE?? THIS IS A BABY PROVE ME WRONG??

anyway so since Dabi is now saying “joke’s on you, I can still use my flames whenever the fuck I want,” I’m going to take this as confirmation that he really was keeping his distance just so he could utilize forced perspective. I’m going to make a post about this as soon as I’m done reading lol

HORIKOSHI WILL YOU PLEASE STOP WITH THE ENDLESS CLOSE-UPS OF A FRIGHTENED TOKOYAMI CLINGING TO HIS UNCONSCIOUS MENTOR SCARED BUT READY TO PROTECT HIM WITH HIS LIFE I REALLY CAN’T???

DABI’S REALLY OUT HERE TRYING TO BURN THESE LITTLE BABY CHICKS ALIVE. WHERE THE FUCK IS YOUR FUCKING CHILL MY DUDE

OH MY GOD

SOME KIND OF CAVALRY HAS ARRIVED AHHHH WHO

AHHH MT. LADY?!

(ETA: ngl, I’m still not sure how I feel about this sequence of panels but I did laugh good and hard though.)

-- holy shit that was ice??! oh lord don’t tell me

yeppp, looks like it’s our old buddy Dairy Queen back at it again

look... Geten?? is it?? nothing against you personally. but I have a deep-seeded and enduring dislike of everyone from the Meta Liberation Army still and that includes you pal

that being said, did you inadvertently save Tokoyami’s life, though? I originally thought those were just ~anime shockwaves~ from some off-screen attack, but if that was all actually ice, it looks like you might have cut Dabi off. which I approve of! but also that’s some serious friendly fire you tomfool

so he’s yelling that he’s disrupted the heroes’ siege, which it looks like he has! very sloppily, but still

and also, way to have both of your fire users currently 80km away, hero team! you knew Geten was here, no?? who even planned this

now this Bleach-looking dude is sneaking up on Gang Orca with what looks to be a hole-punching quirk which is freaking me out a bit ngl

Gang please take him out with your famous yeet as soon as possible, I don’t know if I can handle a prolonged fight against this particular quirk

YES TOKO GET THE FUCK OUT!!!

there is no fucking way this kid is anywhere near his twenties incidentally I might add. none at all. we’ve been had

NO STOP FEELS

HE’S CRYING JESUS CHRIST HE THOUGHT HE WAS GOING TO DIE AND HIS TEACHER IS HURT AND DYING MAYBE AND THE VILLAIN SAID HE KILLED SOMEONE AND HE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW BUT IT DOESN’T MATTER, HE STILL WANTS TO PROTECT HIM AND HE’S JUST A BABY TOO?! IT’S TOO MUCH??

AND I DON’T KNOW WHY I’M SURPRISED OR SHOCKED BY ANY OF THIS AT ALL?? LISTEN UP EVERYONE, YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE WHAT I FOUND INSIDE OF THIS BAG IN THE FRIDGE WHICH WAS LABELED “CHILD SOLDIERS LIFE-OR-DEATH BATTLE ARC.” THE CONTENTS OF THIS BAG... MAY SHOCK YOU

lmao yeah but GUESS WHAT! I’M STILL GONNA GET ALL WORKED UP OVER IT AND I’M EVEN GONNA LIKE IT! but also. my babiesss

oh for fuck’s sake this guy still??

okay so I’ve already scrolled down enough to see the very top of the last page after this, and I’m pretty sure that’s Gigantomachia’s hair lol. please don’t tell me the radio is still on and he heard Tomura’s voice oh fiddlefucks

YEP

:’)

welp. strap yourselves in, chums. 19 chapters in, and this arc is only just beginning

[dusksmote]

Is there any background info you can give on characters in WTSAU?

Like any cool hc you give the characters?

okay i have SO MANY 😩 but i can’t say all the best ones until later cuz they involve SPOILERS

so i’ll try to say all the ones i can with the information given:

Style:

- Kyle’s had feelings for Stan since he realized he was gay, which was in middle school. When Stan came out as bi he told Kyle first, before Wendy, even though they were dating at the time. Kyle’s insecurities prevented from acting on his feelings even after they broke up.

- Wendy has pegged Stan in the past, but Kyle is the first guy Stan’s ever been with. Wendy has come around to support their relationship since the events of ETL chapter 4.

- Stan is always the first one to say ‘I love you’.

- Kyle was the last one in their big friend group to lose his virginity, but he has one of the highest sex drives of the guys. He and Stan switch off being top almost equally, but Kyle prefers to top and Stan prefers to bottom. they fuck daily.

- When they want to have a hard, passionate fuck Kyle tops. when they want to have slow, emotional sex Stan tops. Kyle has slight sadist tendencies (inflicts pain) and Stan has masochist tendencies (receives pain). Stan is especially into breathplay (choking, face sitting, crushing, etc.) and assplay. he’s the best ass eater (so call him a bottom feeder 😂) and Kyle’s superior in the blowjob department.

- Stan has hyperhidrosis, meaning he sweats more than the average person. this is why their rooms/the truck/anywhere they fuck smells so strong. there’s a few hints for this in ETL/WTSAU, he keeps antiperspirant in his locker and in the truck, he gets really sweaty whenever they have sex. Stan also has asthma and acne, which Kyle’s been helping him treat. Kyle loves popping his zits for him.

- Conversely, Kyle is super hygienic and always tries to keep himself clean and dry. when Sharon comes into Stan’s room in chapter 1 and describes the smell, the gym locker scent is Stan, the Old Spice is Kyle, and the ‘inside of a rubber balloon’ is their latex lubricant. 

- Everyone at school considers them the obnoxious, overly romantic couple. they hold hands, cuddle, kiss, and dirty talk in front of everyone. they think they can get away with it without people noticing but they’re chronically conspicuous and not stealthy. the working title for the fanfic was actually ‘Ain’t Slick’ for a while before it changed to What They Say About Us!

- they’re fucking devoted to each other and are exclusively monogamous. Stan is especially protective of Kyle and Kyle is fiercely possessive of Stan. 

- Kyle applied as a math major in his college applications, and will eventually get a PhD for logic and set theory. Stan’s a bio major and wants to go into physical therapy.

- Stan doesn’t smoke weed out of principle (because of his dad) so Kyle also doesn’t smoke in solidarity. 

- Kyle is a type 2 diabetic, and doesn’t need to always take insulin. his weight gain began with the World of Warcraft episode and was maintained instead of lost like in the show. his weight is a cyclical feedback loop of: genetics (mom’s side of the family), too much insulin (when using insulin therapy), and diet. this led to him developing lordosis (excessive weight warps his spine) so he didn’t grow as tall as he would have, and makes his weight appear more exaggerated. short stature, weight, and body image issues led to quitting basketball which in turn contributes more to his weight. this impacts his self-worth which leads to stress eating. his biggest fear is that he’ll never stop gaining weight and will end up as big or bigger than Cartman.

- Stan has gained a few pounds since he started dating Kyle, while Kyle has lost a few.

Cutters/Bunnyman/Kenrietta:

- Kenny is straight, but has voluntarily sucked dick before. he and henrietta have hooked up a few times in the past after running into each other at poetry slam events which Kenny takes Karen to. 

- Butters and Cartman are exclusively gay, and think girls are fucking gross. they’ve only every slept with each other.

- Kenny, Cartman, and Butters are all best friends and do pretty much everything together. even though Butters and Cartman are dating, Kenny never feels like a third wheel because they rarely act romantic in front of anyone (including him). however, when Style start dating and Cutters come out about their relationship, Kenny begins feeling like a fifth wheel.

- Butters lives almost entirely at Cartman’s house. His parents actually don’t mind because they enjoy not having him around. Liane is 100% the cool mom from mean girls who asks them if they want snacks or a condom. Sometimes all three of them crash at Kenny’s house for variety (or when he has to watch Karen because his mom is drinking/out of the house).

- Kenny wants to study psychology in college and become a family therapist or social worker. he’s taking a gap year to save money then going to community college. Cartman and Butters applied to the same schools and plan to stick together long-term.

- Butters and Cartman’s relationship started as experimenting with each other as their sexualities developed, and began after Cartman confided that he had sexual feelings for Kyle. Cartman and Butters have also developed genuine feelings for each other, and overtime their relationship transformed into what it is now. because of how their relationship started, they’re very open about any sexual feelings they have for other people and have a ‘hall pass’ for friends they’re allowed to fuck if given the chance, without it considered cheating.

- Butters is a huge gossip. he will promise to keep secrets and then immediately turn around and tell Cartman--which totally happened after Kyle said he thinks Stan has a crush on him in ETL chapter 2. Butters and Cartman keep nothing from each other, and the only secrets they won’t tell are the ones about each other. 

- Kenny is the easiest of the larger friend group to confide in, and keeps every secret he’s given. he’s known Cartman and Butters have been together since the beginning, about Cartman’s crush on Kyle, and Kyle’s crush on Stan. People naturally come to him for advice and to vent. The least likely person to confide in him is Kyle, who’s more likely to curl in on himself instead of expressing his feelings.

-SO much shit about Cartman and Butters’ relationship I can’t say yet because it comes up in the fic 😩 please ask me about these two again later when i can say more!!!

Creek:

- Tweek is a dom top and Craig’s his catamite. they try to get away with sex anywhere they can and have gotten very stealthy because of it. Tweek also has one of the highest sex drives of their friend group, and Craig will let him do whatever he wants anywhere, anytime. 

- Tweek is constantly high on stimulants (cocaine, meth, adderall, etc.) and Craig experiments with him in certain settings. this is what gives Tweek his boosted self-confidence and flippant attitude. 

- Pete Thelman (hair flip goth) is their coke dealer. Tweek trades him his ADHD meds for it, which Pete resells to posers. If Tweek doesn’t have enough to cover the cost he and Craig make up the rest by giving Pete sexual favors. sometimes they have threesomes for fun too.

- Tweek and Craig both think Kyle is hot and would fuck him given the chance. being open about this with each other makes them feel closer and strengthens their relationship. they have roleplayed as Stan and Kyle in bed before while high out of their minds.

- they're deeply in love and would do anything for each other. Craig could get Tweek to stop taking drugs if he wanted to but right now they enjoy experimenting with them together. in the words of everyone who know them, ‘Tweek and Craig are perfectly fucked up for each other’. 

Kyle’s family:

- Sheila’s biggest regret as a parent is letting Kyle get fat, because she was also overweight as a kid and dealt with the same issues he does now. It’s the same reason she feels obligated to help Kyle’s cousin overcome his weight dilemma (by trying to get him and Stan to hang out).

- Ike is an eboy who loves lil peep. He, Karen, Tricia, and Firkle all make tiktoks together and complain about their gay older brothers/friends.

- random fun fact: If Ike and Karen get married that would mean Kyle and Kenny are brothers-in-law, which would mean the main five all end up as extended family to one another.

Stan’s family:

- Sharon has plans to divorce Randy but is waiting until Stan leaves for college to not uproot him from school and his friends.

- Grandpa Marsh is still kickin’ in the old folks home and Shelly’s off in college.

- Randy’s a narcissist who lives vicariously through Stan’s accomplishments in sports. the easiest way to explain it is: Randy’s not as proud of Stan for being a successful athlete and attractive jock as he is proud of himself for producing one. Stan’s ability to get laid with (he presumes) hot girls makes Randy feel like he has game too. one of the reasons he’s disgusted by Stan’s relationship with Kyle is if Stan’s fucking some big fat guy it doesn’t align with his narrative. 

-

this is just the stuff i could think of off the top of my head, i’ll probably come back and add more to this as i remember it. ask me again in a few chapters!!! i have so much i want to say about bunnyman, cutters, the future for style, and their families that i can’t say yet!

[ks-caster]

Beth Liveblogs Black Widow

Bought that premium access on Disney+ so I can have the privilege of pausing for snacks and using subtitles as needed - so let’s go! 

Beth’s Spoiler-Free Review: Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the movie - the plot was compelling, the characters were likable, and the stunts were really excellent. I felt like hair and makeup dropped the ball on realism multiple times which I was sad about, because how she looks seems to be pretty important to Nat so I expected it to be done well in her movie. 

I did not like the way they framed the tail end (denouement - obviously because this movie is mid-series we know how it ends to an extent) - I felt like the connect-up to Infinity War was lackluster, especially compared to how enjoyable and dynamic the rest of the film was.

Spoilery live-reactions are under the cut. Click at own risk! Feel free to rebagel with your own impressions, thoughts, jokes and rebuttals!

The movie begins with a young Nat with blue dyed hair and visible roots, showing her natural red. Do you know how hard it is to get natural red out of hair, enough to make it blue and not green? And I’m supposed to believe that a middle-school age girl in 1995 Ohio had access to these chemicals? I’ll give her the white hair in IW/Endgame because she’s an adult with a lot of experience as a spy altering her appearance. But as a child? In the 90s? While her family is apparently in hiding? Sus.

The scene with Alexei laying on the on the wing while Nat learns to fly? AMAZING stunts. Amazing. AND someone in an action movie is finally smart enough to shoot the tires.

Nice skills on young Nat, getting the gun. Since we know from Endgame that Nat’s father is named Ivan, we know that Alexei isn’t really her dad. She also refers to presumably the red room as going “back.” Was she lent out to these agents to legitimize their family?

-0-

Nice knife moves, Yelena - I love the hand switch.

Ooooh so she was being mind controlled and the red stuff freed her? Interesting.

-0-

Nat is in Norway - visit Thor! He’d love to have you. (I’m mixing up my timeline, aren’t I?)

Supplies Dude whose name I didn’t catch refers to the Avengers breakup as a divorce - I kinda love it. It’s accurate!

BUDAPEST omg are we finally going to get the story?? Are we??

Box dye? I’m supposed to believe she got all that red out of her hair with flippin’ Loreal? Really? And that toner isn’t even the color she ultimately went - it’s too yellow. Sus.

-0-

Oop, looks like Nat got caught up in Yelena’s desertion.

Do not give Nat your metal frisbee, robocop - she’s been around Steve long enough that she knows how to use it.

I laughed out loud when she did the string him up thing with the cables - literal spider move, I love it!

Mystery box is empty - classic bait and switch.

-0-

BUDAPEST - WE ARE IN BUDAPEST - IT’S HAPPENING PEOPLE

Nat closing the door behind her is a small thing but I appreciate it - no sneaking up behind her.

When Yelena throws Nat in the kitchen and her feet hit the door and she spins before she hits the ground? That was a helluva stunt.

Oooooh honey. No body left to check is ALWAYS movie code for they lived.

Dreykov’s daughter? Another hint from Avengers 2012? C’mon, movie.

Riding the chimney down? Another incredible stunt. 

Dreykov can scan his soldiers’ bodies and terminate them if they’re too damaged to keep fighting? Big yikes. With Nat where she is character development wise, the stakes are now much higher because if she injures an opponent they may be killed remotely.

“Do you want me to chase him down and un-steal it?”

The car door under the bike was an excellent stunt - as was the car going into the subway. Though I’ve never seen a subway entrance big enough to admit a car.

Who hasn’t wanted to slide down the middle to avoid the crowded escalators lol.

Yelena making fun of Nat’s sexy poses I am LIVING omg.

Running water for wounds. RUNNING WATER. NOT ALCOHOL. The vodka goes on the INSIDE for the pain - the running water cleans the OUTSIDE. If there’s a convenience store then there’s a bathroom, with running water. Cleansing with something like alcohol is a LAST RESORT and you do not look like you’re at that point resource-wise. I thought these ladies were supposed to be highly trained in all of the things?

“Could be fun though.” “I saw where he put the keys” “Top drawer green cabinet.” I love their chaos.

Yelena’s vest and its pockets and the resulting conversation are positively majestic.

“You are sensitive.” “You’re a very annoying person.”

-0-

Do! Not! Move! Around! Like! That! While! Getting! A! Tattoo!!!! That poor artist was trying his best and Alexei just...

Ooooh was Red Guardian like Captain Russia? Interesting.

“Just don’t make a scene.” “You made a scene didn’t you.”

David Harbor running up that wall and then wiping out after the guard shocks him... I really loved that stunt, especially since they don’t show him being all super cut - he’s a big guy! He’s allowed to have fat over his muscles and still be a strong dude! I love it.

“Such a poser.” Girl, you need to meet Loki - he does a lot of hair flips too lol.

The sibling energy between the girls during the rescue!!!

“Whooooooa... this would be a cool way to die.” Yelena, I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you but get your head in the game girl.

Poor Alexei - he never gets to do the dramatic escape from *inside* of the aircraft.

Hang on, no ovaries? So all of these women are now in immediate, surgically-induced menopause? The uterus part makes sense if the intent was to prevent them from getting pregnant if they have sex during a mission, but, what, they gotta be on estrogen supplements for the rest of their lives? That’s just really poor planning. Like it was hilarious the way Yelena went into the biology of it to make Alexei uncomfortable, but that really doesn’t make sense to do to your superhero kids. It’s just bad science.

Love that Yelena keeps her vest even after she changes into her matching white flight suit. That vest better make it to the end of the movie.

-0-

“Honey, we’re home.” I 100% expected her to shoot him on sight tbh. it would have been funny.

Alexei squeezing into the uniform is such a post-pandemic feel. Also all of the fancy braids at that table; I see where Natasha got her propensity for them.

Animal cruelty warning, ugh. Poor piggy Alexei.

Oooh the photo album and Natasha remembered staging the pictures; they’re emotional for her but in a different way.

I wonder if robocop’s shield is actually Alexei’s.

The singing between Alexei and Yelena was a really beautiful moment because it was neither auto-tuned-good nor hilariously bad - it felt really real, especially the way Yelena’s so choked up she can barely make sounds come out.

Uh-oh, mama has one of those monitor your vitals and kill your ass suits. The suits I understand - the eyeliner though... when and why did she do her makeup?? That’s not really the thing that comes to mind for me when I’m getting ready to do something athletic, like say kidnapping my supersoldier fake family.

“This is a much less cool way to die.” Also WTF why would they do that. Wouldn’t it be easier to get the information out of her while her brain is still attached to, y’know, her mouth??

CLEVER CLEVER CLEVER they switched outfits and faces ooooooh like mother like daughter.

The door opening as Alexei is leaning against it dramatically bahahahaha

I love the plan. I’m thoroughly weirded out that Melina has a red wig just lying around that perfectly immitates Natasha though. 

“Yelena, it’s mama. You have a two-inch blade in your belt.”

Oh. My. God.

Antonia.

A pheromone lock preventing them from hurting them if they’re close enough to smell him - I like it. It’s clever and new.

Bahahaha poser! You posed I saw you! Still love the vest.

Natasha is really good at manipulating people’s emotions to get what she wants - I mean, scary good. So if she’s provoking Dreykov into beating her up, there’s a reason. 

“Using the only resource the world has too much of - girls.” Kill him. 

-0-

When I say I whooped out loud... SEVERING THE NERVE. Thank you for your cooperation. YAAAAAAS QUEEN.

-0-

“Slight change of plans - we are going into a controlled crash.” The way she said that was just so mom-like omg!

-0-

The grenade as a delivery system was super smart - but yikes what if she’d mistimed it and blew Natasha up? Also, after the beating she took and how hard she had to wack her own face into the desk to sever her olfactory nerve and the amout of blood we saw her leave behind from doing that, her face should be a LOT more messed up, come on makeup department.

“Get as far away from here as possible.” And then keep going because General I-Collect-Supersoldiers-Like-Stamps Ross is about to turn up at your location looking for trouble and he’d snap you ladies up like there’s a fire sale and you’re going out of stock.

This crash doesn’t look all that controlled, Melina. I’m starting to suspect that most of the widows won’t live long enough to make their own decisions...

All of the aerial stunts were amaaaaaazing - the way Nat slowed herself by sliding down the panels so Antonia could catch up with her and she could deploy her parachute... 

The vest survived the movie!!!

Fuuuuuck Ross is showing up and he sucks and I hate him and I’m super worried that he’s gonna take the vest from Nat if he takes her into custody. Please don’t let her lose the vest. 

Okay, there is now zero reason for Nat to stay behind. They have an aircraft. She had plenty of time to just board it and leave?

-0-

Okay okay okay Ross did not get her and did not take the vest. But am I supposed to believe she bleached her hair, toned it blonde, and then re-bleached and re-toned it to silver? Who does that? That would be terrible for her hair. Her scalp would be burned all to hell from the amount of chemicals needed to not only get all that red out but THEN get the blonde toner out. Y’know what color silver toner is? Blue/purple. Y’know what happens when you mix that with yellow? Green. And not a nice green either (I speak from experience). No. Her hair at the end of the movie? Cancelled. 

-0-

SHE GOT THE DOG!!!

Oh, ouch. Big ouch. I hurt like a lot now. This is so not an okay way to end the -

...

Countess I-Forgot-Your-Name-Already?

Oh no. Oh no. That’s worse. That’s a lot worse. We are now setting up the Hawkeye series and I while I’m horrified that this was how they ended the film, I gotta say that’s going to make for some wonderful angst in that series on both Clint and Yelena’s parts and I am here for it!

OVERALL IMPRESSION

I really, really enjoyed this movie, I thought the story was compelling, the stunts were really excellent, and I liked the character dynamics and the twist

I did not like the ending - it just sort of fell off quickly and didn’t feel satisfying after an otherwise really fun movie. I also take issue with the hair and makeup as shown among the characters, as seen in my several rants to that effect.

I would have liked to have seen a few more childhood/training flashbacks, and absolutely would have loved a cameo from Jeremy Renner (not just his voice) and to see him and Nat meeting and him giving her the whole dad speech that he does so well - bonus points if she could have then quoted him to Yelena or Antonia, showing the way that multiple people had a formative effect on her (an answer to the “The Avengers aren’t really your family either” comment).

[transformers-fan-continuities]

Spotlight: Rise of the Radiotrons

Here it is folks, the first fan canon spotlight, showcasing Rise of the Radiotrons created by sleeveev! You can find this over at @riseoftheradiotrons and also on AO3! This is a long post, fair warning.

Q) Give us a run down of your cont! What's it about, what's it called, what's it like?

the cont, despite being called Rise of the Radiotrons, revolves around five main groups of characters, and the mystery that accidentally intertwines all of them. a lot of false identities, undiscovered pasts, mystery that you need to read all the way through to really uncover. it also takes place during the attrition phase of the Autobot-Decepticon war, and Megatron and Optimus are... dead. but... weren't they made immortal by the Eternal Surge? where are they?

Q) What characters take the lead here? Any personal favorites?

characters that take the lead? hoo, boy, there's a lot. and be warned, this is OC-heavy. Wavecrash, Blackarachnia, Sparkplug, Pascal, and Ness make up the Earth detective team, the first to investigate the Radiotrons: Nanotube, Quicksilver, Greenscreen, and [REDACTED] (that is not their name, you will learn it later!).

Starscream, Moonkiller, and Pharma investigate a series of rust-related murders, later with the help of Eclipse and Terraform. the two they investigate? two hulking beings that carry a rust of sheer destruction of anything metal, Turbulence and someone known only as The Crimson Doctor. the third part is mostly with just a few characters. Dial-Up and Absolute Zero are in a cat-and-mouse chase, Dial-Up attempting to capture Absolute Zero and return him to the prison he escaped from. other 'bots come into this story, including Pylon, Airachnid, Suture, and Cyclonus, but they are not the main focus.

Turbulence.  this motherfucker. this moldy bitch.

my personal favorites? i love Sparkplug, i love my little gaming PC gal. The Crimson Doctor has also grown on me quite a bit. i'm gonna make fat robots and you can't stop me.

Sparkplug above, Crimson Doctor (Crim) below

Q) I love how he isn’t crimson at all.

oh you'll learn why he's crimson

Q) Ominous! Is there a bigger point to this, like a theme or some catharsis? Or is it just fluffy fun?

a bigger point to this? well, i have quite my fair share of trauma for being in a military family - being on the home front of a war i never even learned about until i was like 12. i wanted to show the horrors of attrition above all, because attrition is the part of war that everyone seems to forget, but is possibly the most dangerous part of it. everyone's killing each other over resources, dying of preventable diseases, resources are spread thin among soldiers and thinner among civilians. it also lets new, perhaps worse groups arise from the dust.

war was never about who was right. it was about who could live longer. and RotR, with its rampant killings that people can't even begin to investigate until their leaders are toppled from their thrones and complete anarchy reigns among military sites, is a testament to that.

war was the cause for part of the namesake of the Radiotrons themselves - the Great Radiation Crisis. war was where everything went wrong

Q) How long have you been working on it?

now, for the slightly less dark - it varies from character to character! while the official plot of RotR was established on August 25 this year, some 'bots go much further back - Pascal's earliest concepts were made on May 8, Nanotube's were made on April 25, and The Crimson Doctor's roots go as far back as a character called The Crimson-Eyed Doctor, a character created on Dec 11, 2019 (happy belated birthday, Crim!).

Q) You’re very meticulous with your dates!

i lose track of all time otherwise

Q) Give us a behind-the-scenes look! Show us a secret ;))

behind the scenes.

this is a mystery cont.

THERE'S A LOT BEHIND THE SCENES.

i will start with some no-context spoilers, here.

and, now for something a bit more genuinely secret.

whether this is a crimson doctor or a red herring, you decide.

Q) Where did you draw inspiration from? What canons, what other fiction, what parts of real life?

this varies from subtle to shameless.

my cont would fit best in an comic format, so it makes sense that i was inspired by IDW - and that it was my entry into the TF fandom! there is also some TFA bits in there, but the majority of it is personal robot worldbuilding, with a couple sprinkles of headcanons and OCs taken from Afterburn, a cont made by a longtime friend of mine.

other fiction i took inspiration from is mostly in the character designs. Blackarachnia was loosely inspired by Tawna from Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time (you went through such a good revamp sweetie. neon lesbian.). if you can't tell that Turbulence took inspiration from Cioccolata from JJBA: Golden Wind, i don't know what to tell you. Crim took less inspiration from a character and more from a trope - the "ever-obedient villain subordinate". i just sucked all of the homoeroticism out of it, and also decided to give him more of a self than just someone who serves the villain.

here's Tawna (specifically Crash Bandicoot 4), one of the big inspirations for Blackarachnia's design! we don't talk about your past sweetie.

and Blackarachnia headshot to compare, because her fullbody is still in progress.

i am sharing this specific image of cio, one of turb's inspos, because i BASED A TURB PIECE OFF OF IT.

real life? RADIATION, RADIATION. i have radiation and radioactive things and the PERIODIC TABLE as a special interest and it SHOWS. it's all radiation. even the names. Quicksilver comes from mercury, Starborn comes from all elements being created from stars in space, Nanotube comes from carbon nanotubes, and [REDACTED] comes from... well, you don't know yet. there's also the whole attrition war thing, for real life inspiration, too.

Q) Show off something you're really proud of, a particular favorite part of your cont.

this piece of Eclipse and Turbulence('s hand), for one

(the image is at the end of the post under a readmore, as it contains eye trauma, eye touching, and roboblood)

and another thing i am particularly proud of are all my worldbuilding posts! they look like textbook entries kinda but i really really love em. here's one of them, though there are many more on the blog!

lastly, my favorite character introduction post. if you know Afterburn, you may be pleasantly surprised seeing this.

Q) Ah, that guy.

fun fact about RotR Absolute Zero! his color palette is taken from a diagram of a human heart. here is the motherfucker in question,

Q) What other fan canons do you love and why? Would you like to see them interviewed?

Afterburn. my best friend made this i can't just NOT advertise it. go look at it there's murderers and there's an OC that's actually very inspired by not one but two of my creations (the original OC he was a fanformer of, and his altmode - I'd had thoughts of various greenhouse 'bots like that). @transformersafterburn​. please don't simp for Abzero. or maybe do. he's a better option than Turbulence.

Mirror Mirror. found at @transformers-mirror-mirror​, it's got so many epic character designs and realistically sized altmodes despite not having realistically sized altmodes this makes me go happy flappy and is also inspiring a future project of mine, also Shattered Glass!

NEW PRIMES OF CYBERTRON. RITO I LOVE YOUR CONT SO MUCH. i summed it up in "transformers ungunned" but THERE IS MUCH MORE GO CHECK IT OUT AFTER YOU FINISH READING THIS INTERVIEW @thenamesblurrito​

Q) [insert flattered keysmashing from me, creator of New Primes of Cybertron, otherwise known as TF:SNAP]

Thank you very much veev! Everyone go check out Rise of the Radiotrons! Stay tuned for next week, when we’ll get to see some Shattered Glass...

(aforementioned image under the cut, warning for eye trauma, eye touching, and roboblood)

[calzonekestis]

My Endgame thoughts in 3,160 words and 17,025 characters. Under a cut. Spoilers, obviously.

Really. Truly. The whole thing.

Well. I texted a friend as soon as I got out, and I told him “that was a very good movie peppered with lots of shit that I didn’t care for at all.”

I don’t know what I think about it. If it was good or bad. If I like it or not.

If you read spoilers but didn’t see it, and we’re mad, I get that. I was mad too. I wrote most of this last night, and I’ve had to go back and amend it.

Also, please check your Tony vs Steve bs at the door. I like them both to varying degrees. That said I take issue with Steve’s choices and characterization at the end. We’ll get to that.

The Tony fans at least can say their boy saved the universe. They’re going to be mad still, but at least he went out in the best way possible if he had to die. Which he didn’t, but... we’ll get to that too.

The people who will be mad the most? Cap fans. Sharon Carter fans. Black Widow fans. Thor fans. Iron Man fans, probably, won’t be mad so much as sad. Actually, no, mad, because they probably wanted a happy ending for him.

So yeah. Is it “bad” if it makes so many people mad? Or are they just choices they didn’t like? For me, there was a lot of that. There was also a bit of characterization I didn’t like.

I’ll say this though, because the Steve thing that has everyone mad? I’m mad too, but per their time travel rules?

Steve didn’t erase Peggy’s family. They still exist in our timeline. Steve created a new timeline for himself to go live in. We don’t know if he stopped HYDRA and saved Bucky in that one, but I mean, we can assume.

So everyone complaining that he let all that shit happen? No he didn’t. This is an alternate reality he’s living in now.

If we go by what they established about changing the past not affecting the present.

But then we have Joe Biden Steve at the end, so... unless that’s a Joe Biden Steve who went from his timeline back to ours once he grew old. Not a Steve that existed and lived in the past of our current timeline. Then it actually works without contradicting their own time travel rules.

IMO... they ignored/ruined his character arc... but due to their aforementioned time travel rules, Steve going to the past wouldn’t affect that the present that he’s leaving.

So he COULD stop HYDRA, find Bucky, prevent Howard’s death, warn Hank and Janet about the missile.

That would all be an alternate timeline though, and our Bucky would still be the Winter Soldier.

So yeah, they contradict themselves... and completely fuck over Sharon Carter in the process. You know Steve didn’t tell Sam who his wife was, because he didn’t want him to tell Sharon that after kissing her he went back to marry her Aunt thus creating an alternate timeline to live in.

That’s the present being affected by him going back in time. Your time travel rules suck, Marvel.

So the children and family Peggy had? They still exist in our timeline, but not the timeline Steve created. The reality Steve created.

Okay so they don’t explain it, so this is just me trying to make sense of it myself. They say changing the past doesn’t change the present you left from, so unless Bruce was wrong and they’re contradicting their own rules Old Steve can’t have been actually out there all this time.

So I guess even though he didn’t show up in the gear and with the time machine when we see him, he did earlier, and just went to wait by the lake with the shield to be all dramatic? He probably waited to return until his Peggy died, and then he returned at some random point maybe like a day before they planned to send him back. He knew they would be there, so he just waited in his old man clothes.

That’s all I can think of.

So retroactively?

They had Steve kiss his wife’s alternate reality niece. I like Sharon Carter in the comics, I like what little they did with her on film.

They did her so dirty in the MCU, in the comics Peggy is almost a footnote and just part of his backstory. Sharon is Steve’s true love. Whether you ship them or not, they made Peggy out to be a bigger deal than she is in the source material.

I’m not here for pitting women against each other, but... God, the only woman the MCU has done dirtier is Betty Ross. Who should have been there with her dad at the funeral. Acknowledge her existence, Marvel. Yes they’re estranged, but maybe say having her die made Ross stop being such a dickhead and realize what really mattered.

Calling Peggy the love of his life is bullshit. Yeah, he had a date. Had. He never made it, due to being frozen. I don’t agree that they loved each other, tbh. I saw someone say they each had an idealistic, at times unhealthy attachment... but not love. Frankly? That’s not wrong. They liked each other. It never developed into love. Not in the timeline/reality we followed for the past ten years.

If this was their plan all along, then why did they introduce Sharon as a potential love interest?

Peggy is his past, Sharon is his future. The Lana Lang and the Lois Lane, respectively.

They didn’t plan this. It’s clear by how sloppy it is. It’s just so haphazard and insulting to all the characters involved, and yet Evans seems to be on board with it which disappoints but doesn’t surprise me.

Sharon didn’t have much screentime in the MCU, but every moment she had was important to the plot. She was one of the only agents that questioned Pierce’s orders. She held Rumlow at gunpoint even though the odds were against her. She let Steve know where Bucky was. She gave he and Sam back their gear. A lot of her scenes in Civil War got cut, and she got screwed by making it an Avengers movie instead of a proper Cap film.

She also got screwed by fandom. People acted like known like fucking toddlers, all because she was getting in the way of popular ships. Emily Van Camp was terribly harassed online, people calling her Steve’s beard or that it was icky and gross. Evans even said it was icky, which wasn’t that supportive of him... and then...

I liked Peggy in The First Avenger, but Hayley Atwell’s lowkey/high key narcissism is known within fandom circles, how she turned on Emily Van Camp and Sharon as a whole and threw shade at cons and on twitter and such. That left a bad taste in my mouth where I no longer care for the character at this point.

And they complete ignore/regress Cap’s arc of moving on. The fact he’s not the same man who went into the ice which is something even Whedon realized and addressed when he had him snap himself out of his Scarlet Witch!Vision.

The line from TWS they sampled for the trailer about the world changing and none of them can go back?

That was a lie. What’s ridiculous is that is the same exact directors, same exact screenwriters?

“Some people move on, but not us?” Well in that regard he had, so fuck that.

Speaking of regression, Thor’s?

I’m of two minds. He had depression and PTSD, but in my opinion, that’s end result wasn’t what Thor’s end result would be. He probably felt like he failed his people, but Jesus Christ, turning him into the Big Lebowski... fat jokes...

He becomes king, half his people are slaughtered and then and then he just... abandons the rest? To drink and watch his friends play video games? That’s sad. I think Thor would have felt like he failed and be hurting, but still try to do his best for the people who were left and still needed him? Instead of letting Valkyrie do it and the at the end to officially giving her the burden of ruling and fucking off into space?

And then at the end, he *officially* throws the burden of ruling in Valkyrie’s hands. Not that she isn’t capable, but it isn’t and shouldn’t be her responsibility.

“He’s being who he is, not who he’s supposed to be.”

That would be nice if it didn’t invalidate his arc. He didn’t want to be king at the end of Thor: The Dark World either, but at the end of Ragnarok he accepted it and was at peace with it.

Also, he didn’t need the hammer. Ragnarok made that clear. I’m glad Steve took it back with the stones, and I know it was more Thor needing to know if he was still worthy after becoming Big Lebowski... but it wasn’t needed. They just wanted Cap to wield it, and for them to have something else blunt to hit Thanos with.

This is the easiest money Natalie Portman made in her life. I feel bad for my friend who is a big Jane fan, as it’s literally maybe 15 seconds.

Nice to see Pierce, Sitwell, and Rumlow/Crossbones back, even if it’s only for a flashback and they’re all still dead in our reality. Or it would be, if it didn’t make the latter two out to be dumb. I mean, Rumlow isn’t a genius but he’s not just a dumb meathead. He wouldn’t just hand over the tesseract, he’d bring Cap to his superiors to ask “yeah hey what the fuck?”

Also, having Cap say Hail HYDRA is just... gross.

...Alternate timeline/reality Loki has the tesseract. I guess he’s the one the Disney+ series is going to follow. He’s wiped of all his development, though.

Vision is still dead. I guess maybe Shuri will rebuild him? Or it will take place between Civil War and Infinity War

So Guardians 3 is going to be about finding the alternate timeline Gamora who is now stuck in this one, huh? And I guess Thor is now a Guardian, or he’ll leave them between movies?

The alternate Nebula, I’m torn on. I think they could have gotten through to her, and she would be willing to team up with him. and would be willing to team up with them to kill Thanos. She never told him where the Soul Stone was. I mean, that’s why she aligned herself with Ronan. To kill Thanos. She hates Thanos.

Her wanting to make him proud and earn his favor despite what he did to her is heartbreaking on one hand, but the loyalty, when it’s been shown she’ll be disloyal and desert him if someone promises to kill him... idk. Btw.

Nebula should have gotten to kill Thanos. I don’t care that Iron Man started and is their poster boy. I’m sorry Tony fans. She deserved it more than he did.

Something else I’m curious about... was Peter Parker’s entire class killed? Not just Ned, the whole class. MJ, Flash, etc.? Because his entire supporting cast doesn’t seem to have aged at all in the Far From Home previews.

Also you’re telling me that in those five years, May never confronted Tony? Or if she did, we never saw it? Boo.

Oh, another dumb thing. Banner. Hulk. Professor Hulk. We don’t see how Banner made peace with the Hulk and became Professor Hulk, that all happens offscreen which is so cheap. He’s also just annoying throughout the whole film, and treated as comic relief? Also, the uncanny valley was deep this time around.

I’d honestly rather Cap had died as well, rather than the ending he got. Rather, if old man Steve didn’t show up, and there was just a cliffhanger of him being lost in time? Which has precedent in the comics? That would have been great. Instead of the bad characterization.

I’m indifferent to Tony’s death, honestly. He could have retired and raised his daughter. He could have died. I guess it’s cheaper to just kill him off and not worry about paying Downey for cameos they wouldn’t be able to resist.

Okay, the other death. Nat’s. I don’t care for it, but it worked. When I say it worked, I mean her motivations and the fact she at least had some autonomy. It was still fridging. It’s gross. It sucks.. but at least it wasn’t exactly like Gamora’s where she was a victim. I mean, she is a victim. A victim of gross writing, but... I like the character, you’re killing the only female OG Avenger for angst and drama... I would have preferred it was Renner, but her reasons worked even if I didn’t like it. I do think it would have been even just as heartbreaking/tragic though, it Clint had to give up his life for the hope of getting his family back. A devil’s bargain, they’ll be alive, but you won’t be and won’t see them again.

I question the hell is the point of a Black Widow movie now. Why should we care? Don’t get me wrong I like Nat. I have nothing against self contained, one-off adventures... but... it will be a prequel that doesn’t develop the character at all or see her grow and it’ll be inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. It may be enjoyable, but do we need to see it? It’s the Solo situation.

Do we need to see how the character became the character? What purpose does telling her backstory now serve, aside from just making people sad? Do we see how she started so we can appreciate how far she came, though? I can already appreciate that. You don’t need to twist the knife by making her origin her swan song. They can’t bring back our Nat, but who knows. Maybe the next villain will be Kang, and we aren’t done with time travel. Maybe we can have an alternate timeline Nat come into our universe like we did with Gamora.

A timeline where Clint was the one to die. I can deal with that, if they give ScarJo the money. I guess.

SCOTT LANG SAVED THE UNIVERSE. Well, actually. Also, a rat. A rat is responsible for saving the universe. I mean I laughed, but we couldn’t see Scott get himself out? He’s still my boy.

He’s probably my favorite character in the film. Seeing him and Hope reunite in the end battle was nice and made me happy, the way they didn’t miss a beat and got to working together. Him trying to keep it together when he talked about losing her. The end scene with them and Cassie. The fact she called Cap “Cap” and they shared a glance. Sucks for Scott to have missed five years of his daughter’s life, through.

Also, it kinda sucks that along with the people brought back, they couldn’t bring them the likes of Frigga and Quicksilver. Yes, they died, but you can still revive them in the present. You don’t have to make it so they never died. Maybe Quicksilver will Maybe in the WandaVision show, especially now that they won’t have to worry about a competing Fox version. Introduce her ability to warp reality. He was rumored to have been on set, and so I was expecting to see him in a flashback at least. Alas.

SPEAKING OF REVIVING DEAD CHARACTERS THOUGH. Why couldn’t like, Carol, use the gauntlet to revive Tony before they sent the stones back? She could take it. He didn’t need to stay dead, except for the fact... you know... Downey is expensive.

Something I find hilarious?

The kid from Iron Man 3 is at the funeral.

That kid knew nothing about the film whatsoever, except for the biggest spoiler? Cause if they invite HIM back to be at a funeral scene... whose funeral would it be, that he would attend, aside from Tony’s?

Oh, and SamCap. People, calm down.

I like Sam, Sam is worthy of the shield, Bucky’s not quite in a place where he’s ready for it anyway. In the comics Bucky becomes Cap, and then Sam becomes Cap after him. They can reverse the order. Bucky can still become Cap after him. Sebastian still has four movies left in his nine movie deal.

I’m curious about the Disney+ show now though. If it will be retitled, if they announced a fake title ala Serpent Society for Civil War. Although. I have a fear.

I don’t trust Marvel and I can see them killing Sam by the end of the Falcon & Winter Soldier series.

And then Bucky will take up the shield. Mackie’s 40. Idk how much longer he’ll want to be doing this, and he’s said in interviews he had no interest in bringing Cap and would like to see Sebastian take a crack at it, that he likes Falcon being Falcon.

Maybe age isn’t a factor. Bettany’s in his 40’s. Cheadle’s in his fifties. Paul Rudd is an ageless immortal who claims to be fifty. None of those are physically demanding roles though, not to the scale of Cap. The closest would be Chadwick Boseman, who is a year older at 41.

Age aside, I can see them doing it. That’s kinda the shit Marvel would do.

“Yay! We’re so progressive! We’re making Sam Captain America to placate his fans before we kill him! We won’t do that *just* yet in Endgame, we’ll wait to kill the black guy until he’s done helping out this other white guy figure out his place in the world!”

Now I’m gonna be anxious about that for the next year or two.

But so I think the shows are for characters on the shelf movie wise. Idk if when the show is over, we’ll see Mackie as Captain America in Avengers 5. It would be cool, but idk.

I don’t know if they’re even thinking of Avengers 5 at this point, or plotting out things like Guardians and Black Panther and Captain Marvel. And Eternals. And all their new Fox characters.

I guess the new Avengers line up will be Captain Marvel, Black Panther, Ant-Man, Wasp, SamCap, and Spider-Man? Maybe Doctor Strange?

Wanda retires to TV. As does Clint maybe, to train Kate Bishop and/or his daughter. Rhodey and Banner are just around.

Also. Banner and Thunderbolt Ross, at the end. Ross and the Hulk. Both in the same scene. Neither acknowledging each other or having any interaction whatsoever. Odd.

I keep hearing rumors about a Thunderbolts movie tho, from someone who was accurate with all of their Endgame leaks. I wonder if they want Ross to be the Fury of that which is why they’ve kept him around.

Bucky recently led the Thunderbolts but also Zemo is so ingrained in their history and I don’t see them working together at all.

I guess you could bring in Bernthal’s Punisher by that point if you want. Elektra. They won’t do it but they could.

Ghost would be a good fit, tho I don’t wanna see her be forced to kill people again. I can see them forcing her to work of a sentence. If she’s still alive, cause God if she was snapped and went 5 years without the Quantum energy... but yeah.

Bring back The Leader as a villain finally. Crap, I’m plotting a fanfiction.

https://twitter.com/rogerwardell/status/1070465411387404289?s=21

Idk. I just. Am disappointed but not surprised tbh.

Everyone knows I don’t like MCU Clint, but the callback interaction between he and T’Challa with the latter remembering his name was nice I guess. The final battle as a whole was nice I guess.

OH. And the exchange between Dr. Strange and Wong about if he brought everyone, and if he anted more? Probably not the intent, but to me it just seemed like a big “shut up” to everyone wanting the Netflix and Agents of SHIELD characters to cross over.

Also, a final critique?

The whole fake scripts, not giving actors a script thing. I hate it. I know like Mark Ruffalo and Tom Holland are notorious for letting spoilers slip, but I legit believe that a reason why A LOT of the actors got fake scripts was not to prevent spoilers but to prevent any of them going full Ed Norton and throwing a fit about the quality of said script.

Not letting the actors know the context of the scene they are performing is not only disrespectful but it’s broken and what can you expect but performances where they’re legitimately incapable of giving it their all?

That’s all I got for now. I guess.

I know it’s a joke, “I loved everything except for the stuff I didn’t” but seriously? I enjoyed everything except for the stuff I hated. Does that stuff ruin the movie? Do I not like it because I’m petty, or because it’s bad? You can not like something, it doesn’t mean it’s bad... but I think certain choices... were bad. Were very bad.

Was it shit sandwiched with awesome, or awesome sandwiched with shit? Do they balance each other out? Your mileage may vary. I haven’t decided yet.

EDITED: I replied to this in another post, a point by @chujo-hime, but I’ll copy/paste it on here since more people are likely to see this than our conversation.

“There’s no point in doing BuckyCap now that they’ve fridged Natasha”

I can’t fault you for feeling that way, and I don’t entirely disagree. have a theory on how Natasha could return despite them saying it couldn’t be undone.

Do what they did with Gamora. Take a version from an alternate universe/timeline. Maybe one where everything is the same, except that Clint died instead of her.

Whether or not they do this? Doubtful. Unless with the money they’re saving by letting another actor go (ahem) they give it to ScarJo to lure her back.

I mean, they have Kang back now. Next to Ultron, he’s one of The Avengers’ biggest villains. He’s also a time traveler, so there are ways… idk.

I’ve still not fully processed it. Whether Marvel is smart enough or cares to take advantage of their out, they have it. If nothing else, fans can exploit it in Fix-It fics.

ANOTHER EDIT:

Oh, what was the point of Ronin? I don’t mean sad Clint, I mean Ronin, aside from selling more action figures? He wasn’t even Ronin, they made him into The Punisher Lite. Ronin wasn’t Ronin, but I mean Clint hasn’t been Clint imo so...

[shotfromguns]

Overall, I think Avengers: Endgame was... about as good as we were going to get, given who was involved in making the film and what had already been established (or had failed to be established) in previous films. It was for sure massively better than Age of Ultron and a noticeable improvement over Infinity War. But there were still plenty of flaws (including things they easily could have fixed) and a few things that outright frustrated the hell out of me. 

My thoughts on Endgame follow under the cut. There will obviously be spoilers. This is for @pantsvaporation, but anybody else is welcome to read/comment/etc. as well.

I was pleasantly surprised that there was a minimum of obvious “actors swinging at CG enemies that hadn’t even slightly been described to them.” And while there were definitely places the film could have been tightened up, I had been expecting the three hours to feel noticeably slack, whereas the plot never seemed to me to drag at all. In retrospect, maybe I should have been less surprised by that, given that it was directed by Russos, who were also responsible for CA:TWS, which remains the most perfectly paced action movie I’ve ever seen.

Given the length of the film, however, I am fucking furious that the only (and MCU first-ever) LGBT “representation” we got was one of the Russos as a nameless extra in Steve’s support group who was framed as a mlm through the pronouns of who he was on a date with. 181 fucking minutes, and you couldn’t find room for less than 60 seconds to show us Valkyrie with a girlfriend? Carole Danvers got that amazing (as my girlfriend often describes my current look) ‘90s dyke aesthetic after the time skip, but she couldn’t have a wife? And, of course, anybody and everybody else was given a Big Case of the Not Gays, including and especially the male characters people have enthusiastically been shipping with each other due to the historical nigh-complete dearth of women in the MCU films (Tony, Steve, Sam, Bucky... and I will have more to say about Steve).

I did cry a few times, especially towards the end, which I honestly hadn’t expected to. But it all felt very... emotionally manipulative? For example, I didn’t cry at Tony dying, per se. I did cry at Pepper reacting to his death, his daughter, Happy, etc. It felt like they sort of realized that by this point Tony had become extremely unsympathetic and that they’d probably overly telegraphed that he was going to die, so they needed to make us sad about it by ensuring we were thinking about how other characters would feel about his death, versus how we ourselves felt about it.

And we sure did get a whoooooooooole lotta time to show the audience how sad everyone felt about Tony to ensure we did, too. But there was (a) very little for Natasha, who died in this film saving the universe even more tragically than Tony did, given that she didn’t even know her sacrifice would work to get the Soul Stone, let alone whether the rest of the plan would work even if she did; and (b) almost none for the characters who died in Infinity War and didn’t get a Comic Book Death resurrection through Bruce snapping or past!Nebula breaking literally the entire premise of the film (more on that in a bit). The Vision got a two-second reference, not even by name. Loki got just a flash of a cameo, with Thor not bringing him up once that I can recall, being completely focused on their mother even in a time when they were both still alive. Heimdall didn’t even get that much, nor was he even referenced; nor were any of the Wakandans who died so that Scarlet Witch didn’t have to lose her creepy robo-boyfriend (which, whoops, she did anyway). Regardless of how obnoxious some of these character and/or their fans may have been, they still very much should have mattered to the other characters, who should have been mourning them just as much as they were mourning Tony. And yeah, sure, anybody who didn’t get Thanos’d had had five years to mourn the ones who died in Infinity War, but (a) to anybody who’d just been brought back, they were still freshly dead, and (b) even the people who were around for those five years are probably dealing with that grief all over again, not least of which because they had the others who died then returned to them, and because not everybody (especially not Thor) had even properly gone through the whole grief process in the first place.

On the topic of Thor, boyyyyyyy howdy was it frustrating how thoroughly Endgame finished off the way that Infinity War had started cutting the entire legs of his Ragnarok character development out from under him. If it weren’t for the momentary appearance of a handful of characters from Ragnarok, the movie literally might as well not have happened: Thor no longer cares about being a leader for his people, he’s back to leaning on weapons instead of relying on himself, and he seems to have completely forgotten Loki after having finally reconciled with him. And making Thor fat as a joke was not only fatphobic and unfunny but really undercut the narrative’s ability to make the viewer take his trauma seriously, because of a continuously competing tension between “you’re supposed to laugh at how he looks” and “how he looks is supposed to make you sad” that was never really resolved. There was no “you’re laughing at this, but then you realize what it actually means, and you feel like an ass for having laughed.” It was clearly set up to be, “you’re laughing at this, but then you realize what it means, and you feel a little sad, but don’t worry, there will be plenty of more times when ‘Thor is fat now’ is a punchline.”

As for the film’s humor as a whole, while there were some genuinely funny moments that were well positioned in the narrative, the movie overall felt like it frequently ran into the same problem as Star Wars: The Last Jedi, where the writers were so desperate to have characters constantly quipping that they constantly undercut their own poignant moments.

Probably the biggest actual plot hole is, unsurprisingly, the time travel. They initially did an... okay job of justifying why the characters couldn’t just change the past (though it wasn’t until Bruce got to have his chat with Mx. Yellowface that it actually got in any way coherently explained). But after they did all that work of establishing that they couldn’t just change the past, for capital-R Reasons...

They did uhhhhhhh a whole fucking lot of changing the past. A few of these things could be at least fanwanked away. Maybe past!Steve forgets future!Steve telling him Bucky’s alive because he got knocked unconscious immediately afterwards. Maybe Tony’s chat with his dad had always happened. Maybe Steve had always spent decades with Peggy. But there is no way Sitwell et al. wouldn’t remember Steve pretending to be a member of Hydra, which would significantly alter the events of The Winter Soldier if they weren’t smart enough or lucky enough to verify that Steve wasn’t also a mole and therefore realize he was an “imposter” before one of those Hydra sleeper said something to past!Steve to make him suspicious. And Loki grabbing the loose Tesseract and poofing is a massive change in the timeline.

Their enemies did a whooooooole lot of changing the past when past!Nebula brought past!Thanos and The Gang through to the future, including effectively permanently restoring Gamora, i.e., someone who’d been “irreversibly” sacrificed to obtain the Soul Stone.

Once these things happened, there was literally nothing to explain why (a) the future!Avengers couldn’t at least bring back Heimdall, Loki, all those Wakandans, the Vision, Natasha, and Tony by pulling them from earlier points in the timestream, and (b) why the future!Avengers couldn’t just take their set of Infinity Stones to a point before all of this shit happened and prevent it from ever having happened. Which isn’t to say the writers couldn’t have cooked up some sort of internally consistent explanation, e.g., “this Gamora is basically stolen from the other timeline, which still exists on its own independent axis, and the Avengers wouldn’t kidnap their friends out of another timeline and leave that version of themselves without the person they want to restore just to have that person here.” But they didn’t bother, which presumably means no one involved in making the film even noticed the utter inconsistency.

Speaking of utter inconsistency... Steve. Steven fucking Rogers. Hooooooooboy. That ending was the biggest, stupidest, cheapest piece of schlock I’ve seen in a movie for a long fucking time. Let’s leave aside the fact that he chose to leave behind two perfectly good boyfriends and the fact that he barely said boo to Bucky, despite the film having reminded us how important Bucky was to him by having his name literally be the thing that so shocked past!Steve that future!Steve was able to beat him. You’re seriously telling me that Steve was still pining soooooooo badly for Peggy that he would literally risk the entire timeline so they could have their Hetero Happily Ever After? (Bucky, Sam, Tony, Angie: I’m so sorry, bbys.)

Yeah, sure, Peggy and Steve being parted was sad when it happened. But they’d been colleagues for a handful of years, then maybe sorta friends, and then kissed once, in a speeding car, just after they finally admitted they’d both been crushing on each other pretty hard the whole time because they were on the way to possibly both die. That is not “the love of your life” who you spend the rest of time sighing over. That’s, like, the guy I casually dated for a bit over a month in 2011 because, while we hit it off amazingly well, I didn’t want to get serious when he’d be moving in about a year once his postdoc was done, who sure enough moved to the east coast a year later and then abruptly died of a heart attack a few years after that. Is it tragic that he’s dead? Absolutely. Have I sometimes thought, “Gosh, I wonder what could have been”? Sure. Did I decide that I would never ever again date or even look at anyone else, because he was the only person for me in all of space and time? Lmaoooooo no. I am, in fact, deliriously happy with my current girlfriend, who I also happen to think is way better for me than he ever could have been.

It was already established that Peggy got married in the original timeline (in CA:TWS, Steve watches some footage in which she mentions that during the war he’d saved the man she eventually married). This means that either (a) Steve supplanted her original husband, which is pretty gross, especially if he didn’t tell Peggy “oh hey btw you originally married this other guy, wanna go check him out first,” or (b) Steve was Peggy’s husband all along, and she just obfuscated that. Either way, in the timeline we end up with, somehow for 50+ years this incredibly well-known woman and sometime Director of SHIELD was married to a man she kept absolutely secret and hidden, which somehow no one ever discovered the secret of or even ever commented on, apparently. It also means that, when Steve showed up on her doorstep, both of them agreed that (a) it was more important for them to play house than for Steve to ever openly use his abilities again and (b) Steve would sit on his ass and twiddle his thumbs through every major crisis he knows is coming over the next half-century. If the MCU serum slowed Steve’s aging the way the comic serum did, this might be slightly understandable, because they could justify it as, “Well, Steve will go back to adventuring after he closes the loop with his original timeline, and this will basically be an extended vacation.” But Steve did age (and they presumably had no expectation that he would not), meaning that he wasted decades of active time at most acting secretly and anonymously from the shadows. You really think that these two incredibly dedicated and driven heroes would both agree to that? Sure, I could absolutely believe they’d take the opportunity to finally get that dance. But there’s no way that Peggy wouldn’t have booted Steve’s ass out of bed and back to the 21st century, and it’s highly unlikely Steve himself would have so much as seriously considered staying for more than a more leisurely farewell and proper closure.

Steve’s Hetero Happily Ever After also further complicates the issue of that time travel plot hole I mentioned. If the stones were plucked from one or more divergent timelines (or changes made while grabbing the stones then caused the creation of divergent timelines at those points)... how did aging!Steve end up staying in the same timeline as the rest of the future!Avengers? It seems like it should be impossible for all these things to be simultaneously true, which means either I’m missing something huge or at least one of them is a huge fuck-up in terms of the plot’s internal consistency. EITHER the changes to the past happened in (or spawned) one or more divergent timelines, which is why, e.g., Gamora could be brought forward from her past and now be alive in the future without altering the past that led to her being brought forward in the first place, in which case aging!Steve would have spent his life in an alternate timeline and old!Steve wouldn’t have been able to come visit all his buds on the day young!future!Steve left to return the stones; OR everything took place in a single, unified, undivergent timeline, which would mean Steve could drop into the past and take the long way back to the exact point in spacetime he left, but the changes to the past would have altered the past events, meaning that because Thanos and The Gang skipped forward and Loki is at large with the Tesseract, the events of Thor: The Dark World, Thor: Ragnarok, Infinity War, etc. never happened, and we’re also back to having no reason why other dead people couldn’t be pulled forward from their past timeline, why Thanos couldn’t be stopped by time-traveling the stones to before he retrieved them and using them to stop him, etc.

Various other issues:

The “monstrous” single woman who can’t get pregnant sacrificing herself so that the virile man will have his wife and children restored to him is... not a good look. Also, it’s weird how “we don’t trade lives” when it’s about a robot coded as a white man sacrificing himself to save half the universe (though apparently even at the time a whole bunch of Wakandans was fine, whoops, remember all the Black people who died trying to stop Thanos from getting to the Vision, weird how those lives were okay to trade), but when it’s about Natasha or Clint throwing themself off a cliff, immediately they’re both all, “Yeah, it’s gotta be done for the greater good.”

Thor getting to be the one to axe Thanos’s head off instead of, you know, like, oh, I don’t know, Nebula? The woman he abused and tortured pretty much her entire life? Bad. Inappropriate. Disappointing.

Everybody kept talking about how the characters who got Thanos’d in Infinity War were their “family.” For Rocket, I believe it; one thing the GotG films actually did well was to establish that level of relationship for those characters. But the Avengers? Lmaoooooo. The MCU Avengers were not a fucking family. The MCU Avengers spent every single movie at each other’s throats. If you wanted us to believe they were even friends, you should have given us at least one film of them seriously working as a team instead of against each other.

Holy shit, do I not care about Clint Barton’s Manpain(tm). Also, if you want us to see how far he’s “fallen,” maybe do something other than giving him the worst mohawk I’ve ever seen (including one done backstage after a show and one a friend gave me in my bathroom in college) and a boring tattoo and having him badly pick up an ugly katana-esque sword to kill objectively bad guys.

Bringing Scott back was easy enough that a rat walking across a panel after five years of that shit sitting in a storage facility could do it, and yet no one else tried even once? Somebody saw all that shit set up, and went, “Welp, guess they’re all just dead,” instead of, “Hey maybe this running equipment indicates an experiment in progress that we should maybe investigate”?

The “let’s line up all the named women” shot in the final battle was the most patronizing display of pandering I’ve seen in the entire franchise. Not only did it make no sense for them all to be in the same place at the same time with no men even in the shot, but... they were utterly ineffectual? It was like, “Gosh, how will Carole ever make it through that??? Oh, she’s got US, GIRL-FRIENDS, DID WE MENTION WE’RE ALL LADIES, BUT NOT QUEER OR ANYTHING.” And then... Carole immediately blew straight past them, because her power level is so off the charts compared to almost every other named woman in the MCU, many of whom are simply very, very skilled peak human heroes versus being superhuman.

Speaking of superhuman abilities: Why wasn’t every time-travel suit an Iron Man-style suit like Rhodey’s? Obviously he needed an exoskeleton bit to walk, but since Tony took the time to build him a beefed-up full suit, why didn’t he do the same for everyone else?

Along that same line of stupid decisions made around the Vitally Important, We Only Get One Shot At Fixing This time-travel mission, why didn’t they wait until everyone was in better shape? Thor was clearly still an emotional wreck, and if Rocket hadn’t been on the ball, it would have cost them one of the stones. As soon as you’re traveling back in time to fix something, unless there’s a hard limit on how far you can go back (which there wasn’t), you literally have the rest of your lives to get ready for it, so can and should take as much time as you need to prep (and even over-prep) for that mission. A little more lead time also would have given someone the opportunity to go, “Hey, wait, why don’t we first make a quick stop to just grab more Pym Particles, so we have more flexibility with destinations and do-overs?” Or even, “Why don’t we make these suits modular? That way, they can join into a single unit for each team on the way there, thereby saving a bunch of charges, but also split off into individual suits with everyone having enough juice to get home individually just in case someone gets split off. That will leave us with a bunch of extra Pym Particles in case something goes wrong.”

Other than meta reasons like “we want there to be a big epic fight,” why was it such a struggle to fight Thanos? The Avengers very nearly beat him in Infinity War, when he had five of the six Infinity Stones. Here, he had none, and they still barely squeaked out the victory by the skin of their teeth.

Thanos’s rapid switch from “I’m gonna kill half of all living creatures to uhhh save the universe somehow” to “I guess I’ll just wipe out everything and make an entirely new universe” once again highlighted how deeply stupid his original plan was. If he has the capacity to re-create the entire universe, why doesn’t he just... make more resources, if that’s such a fucking problem? I mean, also, spoiler alert for the real world: It’s not. It’s always been an issue of distribution, not amount. People aren’t starving to death because there’s no food; people are starving to death because of capitalism. So unless you target your population elimination at capitalists exclusively, killing off a bunch of people is going to maintain exactly the same problems of unequal resource exploitation and distribution.

Speaking of which: Why is post-Thanos Earth presented as a mellow semi-paradise (except for everybody being sad about all the dead people)? The loss of half the world’s population would have been catastrophic, cascading into many more deaths. Nor would it have solved inequality... or even resource “over”-utilization. Earth hit a population of 3.85 billion (i.e., half the current ~7.7 billion) around 1972, which many people currently alive have personal memories of not actually being particularly idyllic. This also highlights once again how deeply stupid and nonsensical Thanos’s original plan was, given that his “solution” could easily become obsolete in another 50 years... or even sooner, given that Thanos also cut all non-human creature populations in half, which would have not only reduced related resources available for human consumption but devastated ecosystems worldwide.

There has been a huge official campaign to persuade audiences to not spoil the movie for others. As a general principle, I’m a fan of encouraging anti-spoiler culture, but I think it says a lot about this movie in specific that the studio has put in so much effort to try to stamp out spoilers: i.e., they’re worried that the only real draw it has is people finding out assorted plot points. If your film can be easily replaced by a bulleted list of who’s alive or dead at the end of it, it’s... not actually a good film.

ADDENDUM MAY 5, 2019:

Okay, so, per the Russos, the reason Steve's Hetero Happily Ever After DOESN'T break the entire rest of the film is that it happened in an alternate timeline, and he just jumped back to the MCU prime timeline later... somehow. I still think that's shitty, lazy filmmaking, because in three hours they absolutely should have, you know, made that more clear (or... at all indicated that's how it played out). But at least it keeps their time travel mechanics from completely breaking their own plot.

But that means that in THAT timeline there were two Steves. Which means the BEST-CASE SCENARIO is prime!Steve hooked up with that timeline's Peggy after being 100% honest about who he was, alt!Peggy... chose a different version of Steve over her own Steve, for... reasons?, and then together they found and revived alt!Steve, at which point prime!Steve was like, "lol sorry bro, she's my wife 'cause I missed my chance with prime!Peggy, but at least now you're not frozen for any longer than you already have been."

Other options include:

Prime!Steve pretended to be alt!Steve while leaving him in the ice, counting on him not getting rescued until alt!Peggy would be nearly dead.

Prime!Steve helped rescue alt!Steve, then left alt!Peggy and alt!Steve to have their personal Hetero Happily Ever After while he... married some other random person?

Prime!Steve straight-up murdered alt!Steve to take his place.

Prime!Steve and alt!Peggy rescued alt!Steve, and she married both of them. (Somehow I don't see Disney going for that option.)

ADDENDUM MAY 12, 2019

I just read another interview, this one with the writers. Buckle up, because there’s even more embarrassing shit.

McFeely: I mean, we did all of this before Ragnarok.

Markus: Yeah, initially we were writing drafts prior to Taika coming onboard. And it was once they got underway and they were off in Australia making the movie and it was clear that they were discovering new facets to Thor, Chris Hemsworth wanted to make sure that this new loosened-up Thor didn't vanish immediately upon returning to the Avengers world. And so he and Taika flew to Atlanta and we had long meetings with them and watched some footage and got a sense of the new Thor tone, and it worked perfectly with where we wanted to go.

... ... ... ... Literally WHAT FUCKING PART of Infinity War and Endgame matches AT ALL with Thor's character development from Ragnarok? I was all ready to go, "Oh, okay, that makes sense" at the reveal that this was written before Ragnarok. But then, nope, they admit that they just have no fucking idea what they're doing and think they actually integrated its changes WELL. JFC.

McFeely: So where we hit upon it was in order to become their best selves, Steve had to find a life, and Tony had to lose his.

Boring idea and poorly executed to boot. (Not to mention the extreme cringiness of “finding a life” necessarily requires “marrying a woman and having babies in the suburbs.”) How are they getting paid money for writing this trite?

Fandango: So people are asking... Does this mean an old Captain America was hanging out this whole time while another Captain America was saving the day?

Markus: That is our theory. We are not experts on time travel, but the Ancient One specifically states that when you take an Infinity Stone out of a timeline it creates a new timeline. So Steve going back and just being there would not create a new timeline. So I reject the "Steve is in an alternate reality" theory. I do believe that there is simply a period in world history from about '48 to now where there are two Steve Rogers. And anyway, for a large chunk of that one of them is frozen in ice. So it's not like they'd be running into each other.

HAHAHAHA HOLY FUCKING SHIT okay so NOT ONLY do the director and writers have COMPLETELY DIFFERENT IDEAS about what the fuck happened at the end (did they... not discuss this with each other? at all?), but the WRITERS' version is the one that is THE MOST OUT OF CHARACTER. HOLY SHIT.

McFeely: So we've always thought that the most perfect conclusion to [Natasha's] arc would be to die for her new family, or to sacrifice greatly for her new family.

GAG GAG GAG GAG GAG GAG GAG

McFeely: We toyed with not doing that, and we had another version, and several women on the crew said, "Don't you dare take that choice away from her. The heroic thing is for Natasha to do it, not for Hawkeye to do it."

these are definitely real women who actually exist

Fandango: Do you think there's a world where we see the adventures of Captain and Peggy either on the big or small screen?

Christopher Markus: Possibly. I think maybe all I did was Steve was a stay-at-home dad and Peggy went to work at S.H.I.E.L.D. I don't know that there were any adventures.

lmaoooooooooo

Imagine being this bad at knowing your own characters. Imagine thinking either Peggy OR Steve would just give up their life to play house when there's important work they could be doing.

[aq2003]

FULL ENDGAME REVIEW

6.5/10 was ok but could’ve been a lot better in my opinion and by a lot better i mean

tony should’ve lived

-the russos are war criminals for what they did to tony alone. he had a family to go back to, JUST like clint. but i guess self sacrifice is cool, right?

-ever since iron man 3, tony’s story has essentially a dark twist to the “great power great responsibility” trope: the hero internalizes the motivating phrase (“don’t waste your life”), and let it interfere with their ability to take care of themself/open up to others. it started strong in iron man 3, got undermined in aou, got slightly more prevalent in the context of civil war, FINALLY got foreshadowed in infinity war. his arc was ultimately about letting other people HELP him with the responsibility he feels like he needs to carry 

-until endgame threw it under the bus again. in an objectively cool way, yeah, but it still got thrown under the bus and i’m mad

-so now tony stark’s story is ultimately a tragedy. and i fucking hate it, man. he had happiness (but not really, because peter’s not there) for 5 years and that got snatched away from him too! he underwent so much trauma since his goddamn origin story and he had a few moments of peace, sure, but he died before he could fully reunite with his loved ones. and it SUCKS. 

-god this is . this is like. if obi-wan kenobi went through All That but got really close to luke before he died and also never got any closure with anakin as a force ghost

-the russos have said, like outright, that thanos was a symbol of what tony’s been fearing of since 2012, the being that symbolized the root of his anxiety and ptsd. so what does tony do to defeat it? uhhh idk he dies i guess. but it’s okay! he can finally rest now!

-really great message there for the kids, right? 

-also there was a whole sequence about him talking to his dad about not abandoning his kid and being there for her. but now he CAN’T be there for morgan because tony stark is fucking gone and dead and i can’t fucking handle this he deserves so much better

-also also not to be a DudeBroGeek™ but he totally got nerfed during his fight scenes

thor shouldn’t have been played off as a joke

-my whole theater laughed at him being . fat. and i was SUPER SUPER SUPER uncomfy the entire time

-he has a PANIC ATTACK and people LAUGHED i mean way to treat more of your mentally ill characters like shit, russos! sure! just devaluate thor’s suffering by saying “oh he’s fat so it’s funny now! hehe!” FUCK you

-i mean, yikes, i can’t believe we went from iron man 3 (where mental illness is one of the major problems the protagonist clearly struggles with, where tony’s panic attacks are disturbingly real and in no way funny) to THIS SHIT

-don’t even get me STARTED on his arc. like from thor 1 to dark world it’s about putting aside his arrogance for the good of his people. for ragnarok it’s finally stepping up and finding his powers while taking up the responsibility as king. in infinity war i was able to turn a blind eye to it, but it’s so prevalent in endgame how little the russos care about thor’s journey in his movies

-in the end he passes off the responsibility he took up in ragnarok to val and just straight up fucked off to space. like what the hell, man?

-ALSO . loki said the sun would shine on them again but the sun DIDN’T fucking shine on them and i feel robbed. i feel like the russos broke into my home and stole something important.

-the brodinsons deserve better.

-how can taika even be there, like physically. i mean. the thor from his movie got entirely retconned

-also not to be a DudeBroGeek™ again but. but like tony he was so 100% nerfed especially during the fight against thanos HOW did thanos even touch stormbreaker aka the weapon made to kill him like what

-i hate to put this all on james gunn but he’s GOTTA fix the crimes committed in endgame against the guardians and thor

steve’s entire character arc shouldn’t have been undermined

-one of his defining character traits is that he won’t stand by and let bad things happen when he can prevent it

-if you could describe steve rogers THAT’S what you would say about him. 

-it’s like tony being smart. or thor being powerful. steve is just Like That

-so why did he go back in time when two full movies were dedicated to him adapting to the future

-idk it doesn’t really make sense to me

-i don’t actually have much to say about steve, i’m not as attached to his character as tony and thor but it still rubs me the wrong way. maybe it makes more sense to steve stans but from what i’ve seen they’re PISSED even though out of the trio he got the most time to shine in battle lmao

also

-the time travel fuckery was. hmmm

-nat wasn’t there for the admittedly cheesy but still sort of nice girl-power shot

-wong did nothing until the final battle. like him surviving the snap did nothing to impact the story

-why was okoye even on the poster? she should’ve gotten a bigger role imo

-WHAT was dr strange even doing holding back the water

-my brother (who watched the movie with me) thought that the lgbt rep in the movie was “america’s ass” rather than the gay russo in steve’s support group, which just goes to show that the lgbt rep is SO small and the media should really stop hyping it up. not really salt towards the movie itself but it’s still salt

-fortnite

general saltiness out of the way, i’m going to list what i did like about the movie

-those posts going around about how knowing the spoilers take away from the movie are actually really, really wrong. i went in knowing more than half the plot including who lives and dies and i still found it entertaining, to say the least. the movie had a lot of effort put into making it and it really shows. if you ignore the parts you don’t like, you can actually kick back and have a relatively good time

-also the action was really, really good. throughout the entire movie. it’s an avengers film, so the action has to be good, but the fights were still super awesome and a lot were actually a cut above the rest of the mcu (especially the melee fights)

-the final battle was amazing. up until the end, i was on the edge of my seat, because even though it’s another “big final battle against an army of cgi monsters” i actually really really liked it. pretty much everything was perfect about it, and it was so fun to watch the theater go ham whenever a hero did something badass.

-the score. god, the score. alan silvestri did so good with calling back motifs from other solo mcu movies (something marvel should’ve been doing the entire time). ant man’s theme after scott pops out of the quantum realm, captain america’s march when tony hands the shield back to steve, the reprise of “even for you” from infinity war during clint and nat’s mission to vormir, captain marvel’s theme when she blows up thanos’ ship? beautiful

-the actors did a superb job with everything they were given (which probably wasn’t that much). since the russos were paranoid about spoilers apparently no one knew who they were talking to which sucked? because the marvel cast is pretty good at improv lines. but the actors still did a REALLY good job despite this (and really do carry the movie). i felt in my BONES tony’s frustration and anger at steve during the wheelchair scene, thor’s pain and self-loathing when he reunited with frigga, and peter’s DESPAIR when he watched tony die (i will never be okay ever)

-the callbacks to previous mcu movies were fanservice, yeah, but it was the GOOD kind of fanservice in that it was really really cool and served the fans. it’s a great way for the last movie in the infinity saga to end, by revisiting some of the iconic places it touched on before

-tony and nebula! they were only together for the first scene of the movie but the scene with paper football was really soft and nice 

-the civil war conflict was glossed over save for that one scene of tony going the fuck off on steve and i couldn’t be more grateful

-MORGAN STARK. god if i had the capacity to cry i’d be sobbing through writing this entire post. morgan and her soft dad made my heart MELT into pieces i love them 3000

-they still deserved better though

-scott. like in general. he was one of the highlights of the movie. his reunion with cassie was :’)

-carol’s haircut

-by the way a lot of people complained about her makeup in her first scene with the avengers shown in the trailers but it literally wasn’t a problem for any other carol scene in the movie (because that was the only scene in the entire runtime where she was wearing noticeable lipstick/eyeshadow or whatever)

-professor hulk. i actually didn’t expect to like him, but he made a lot of actually funny jokes and i liked his personality contrast with 2012 hulk. also he made scott tacos! he’s really wholesome and i’m willing to ignore the part where he dabbed

-the mark 85 is one of my favorite iron man suits now, even though it didn’t get a lot of screentime

-speaking of which it’s REALLY great how most of the time when tony saves the day it’s because of his smarts. it brings back the main theme of the character: tony stark, the human, plays ball with gods, aliens, and monsters just by being quick witted.

-the entire sequence of tony, steve, and scott getting the scepter and the tesseract was PURE gold. (it’s my favorite part of the movie honestly)

-tony: ok scott to create a distraction i need you to put my past self into cardiac arrest. \ scott: uhh. uhh ok dude?? \ tony: my self loathing is this strong

-rhodey and nebula! they were an awesome teamup and i really really liked their friendship/dynamic

-PEPPER IN RESCUE ARMOR. WE DIDN’T GET ENOUGH OF THAT BUT IT WAS SO GOOD I LOVED IT HER ARMOR DESIGN WAS REAL GREAT

-tony reuniting with peter. i teared up. legit. i teared up.

-thanos: *headbutts carol* \ carol: *doesn’t even move an inch*

-wanda was so badass in her 10 second scene. i just thought it was really cool

-peter using instant kill mode

-tony using the gauntlet was badass. i hated it but it was SO amazing at the same time i wanted to cry and cheer at the same time so i ended up in a semi catatonic state for the rest of the day

-the little wreath with the first arc reactor, morgan craving cheeseburgers, tony’s last message.....;-;

-i love you 3000.....:((((((

-SAM GETTING TO BE CAP. (this was one of the best parts of the all-new all-different avengers comic) even though i still don’t like steve’s ending, i love that sam is going to take up the mantle (and i’m super excited to see the falcon winter soldier show now)

-the movie ended with the soundtrack of tony building the mark 1 solidifying that none of this would’ve happened without iron man. good thing endgame credits said that maybe tony stan lives do matter

-a rat is responsible for saving half the universe and i find that REALLY funny. my favorite theory is that the rat was loki the whole time and that doubles the hilarity

tldr: the movie had an ending that didn’t really fit the characters, but the rest of it was fun to watch: the action scenes were great, the interactions between the characters were mostly good, and it’s overall pretty entertaining as a film by itself. as a closing to the infinity saga it feels unsatisfying, but as a movie it’s enjoyable

[umbureraakademi]

Introductory Note About the AU & Other Chapters & Face Claims

-a/n start-

[Potential spoilers for anyone who hasn’t seen or finished TUA Netflix series but seriously how could you stop yourself from watching such a captivating show.]

Word Count: 1874

Some good old best friend/family time <3

-a/n end-

Chapter 18

Monica was a mess as she sat on the steps to the police precinct, checking her phone every five minutes to see if Jessica had received her three miscalls. She was heartbroken, but of course she had to go back to drain the coffee out of the cup Diego used and wash it, restore Chuck’s desk in the best order she could (though she wasn’t confident with how she put the files back together), pick up her bag, turn the lights off and lock up the office. It appears Klaus had already left by the time she went back inside.

Her encounter with Diego and Klaus was enough emotional wreckage for the night, she didn’t need a scolding the following morning - if she even decided to show her face again knowing Diego would be there. 

She sighed in frustration as she tried to dial Jessica again for the fourth time, finally feeling a wave of relief when she answered this time.

“Jessie? Where are you? I fucked up…”  

The Movie Theater

What was supposed to be a simple movie date turned into a steaming makeout session in the dark recesses of the movie theater. Ben and Jessica were completely ignoring the fact that they had paid for tickets to watch the movie, not do something they could do (and even go a lot further) at the privacy of their room.

As their tongues tangled together and their hands roamed around each other’s bodies Jessica’s phone vibrated for the fourth time in her pocket. It was Ben who had to break from the kiss, annoyed by the constant ringing.

“That one is pretty persistent.” Ben whispered.

“Ugh, I swear if this is Alice asking how to use the thermostat again I’m going to kill her.” Jessica whispered, just as annoyed as she pulled her phone out of her pocket. A look of surprise and concern crossed her face, which Ben noticed due to the light on the phone illuminating her face.

“Something wrong, love?” he asked.

“It’s Maica.” Jessica answered, looking at Ben before she answered, keeping her voice low as they were still in the movie theater. “Maica? I’m at the movies with Ben… what? What do you mean you fucked up?” 

Ben was unable to make the conversation clear as her voice was too low and the movie sound effects got louder, so he thought he would actually watch the movie for the meantime. It wasn’t until Jessica ended her call and grabbed Ben’s hand that he looked at his girlfriend again.

“We need to go. Now.” Jessica demanded.

“What? But the movie’s still on.” Ben pointed out.

“Benjamin Jones.” 

Yikes. He thought, when Jessica said his name like that she didn’t have to say it twice. “Okay, let’s go.” 

Back at the Precinct

The rejection was eating her alive and she didn’t know how much longer she could last before she would breakdown. Whenever she felt this bad she always thought back to the times where she felt that blissful, familiar numbness after popping some pills into her mouth.

Sometimes the numbness is the only thing that protects you from the pain.

Monica let out a soft sob remembering her own words back when the pain of losing her mother only consumed her more and more as time went by until she could no longer bear feeling anything. That was when she started searching for dealers, buying pills, taking them when Jessica wasn’t around so all she could do when she was around was deal with her already high best friend. 

When she met with her drug dealer one time he regretted to inform her that he was convinced to sell the drugs meant for her to another guy who seemed desperate. Enraged and feeling scammed, Monica was, in turn, able to convince her dealer to tell her about the guy and where she could find him. Soon she found herself slamming against the door of a dingy apartment. 

That's when she met Klaus. 

It was her mother's death anniversary. 

"Maica."

Monica was stirred from her daze as she looked up to see Jessica standing in front of her, not too far Ben was also getting out of the car he parked right in front of the precinct. Jessica bent down so their eyes were leveled, her heart aching staring into her best friend’s tearstained, bloodshot eyes.

“Jessie…” Monica said softly in response, fresh tears welling up and starting to sting her already sore eyes.

“Let’s get you home.” 

Monica and Jessica’s Apartment

Ben was standing at the corner of Monica’s room as Jessica stood in front of a despondent Monica after the latter told her of what transpired this evening. When Alice saw them coming in all it took was for Jessica to shoot her a ‘this is no time for your weird shit’ look for her to keep quiet and behave on the couch while they got into Monica’s room for an urgent family meeting.

“This is exactly what I was afraid of.” Jessica said, trying to give some tough love while being the gentle, young mother figure she is.

“I know, I never thought Klaus would just pop up like that.” Monica responded, falling backwards on her bed in a defeated manner. 

“You really never told Diego? About everything?”

“No…”

“Why?”

“I… I really liked him…”

“And?”

“I didn’t want him to see me differently… just because of that…” 

“And look where it’s gotten you.”

Monica didn’t say anything after that as she turned to her side, grabbed one of her pillows and curled up against it, burying her face into its softness.

“C’mon, love. You’re too hard on her.” Ben said as he approached the two women and sat on the bed next to Monica’s curled up figure. 

“Ben…” Jessica said warily and Ben held up his finger as if to say ‘I’ve got this’.

“Maica, darling…” he said softly, placing a hand on one of her shoulders. “C’mon, now. Get up and talk to us. We’re only saying these things because we care about you.” he said, caressing her shoulder as if to encourage her to sit up and talk to them again. This seemed to work as Monica loosened her grip on the pillow and slowly sat up, turning her attention to Ben as Jessica sat on the other side.

“This is so messed up. I don’t… I don’t know what to do. He won’t listen to me. I don’t want to lose him. I…” Monica explained but stopped herself suddenly, a familiar lump forming in her throat that prevented her to say what she really felt as it only made her feel worse.

“Love him?” Ben finished for her, the silence that followed and the looks she gave him and Jessica were confirmation enough. Jessica sighed and placed a hand on her best friend’s lap as a sign of comfort as she looked at Ben then to Monica.

“Seriously your taste in men is questionable.” she said, and enjoyed a small victory in seeing a smile crack in Monica’s face.

“Admit it you liked Diego even just a little bit.” Monica responded. 

“Wouldn’t say I liked him. Just maybe preferred him over Klaus.” 

“The abs?”

“Yes, the abs.”

“Whoa, all right then. That’s about enough.” Ben interrupted, feigning an offended tone as the two women giggled. 

“Well, too bad he’s not speaking to me ever again.” Monica said with a sigh.

“Now come on, if he’s into you as well he’ll come around. If not then…” Ben paused as the two women looked at him, expecting him to finish. “Didn’t they say they had another brother?” at his inappropriate joke Monica punched him in the arm, but was laughing a bit which they guessed was all right.

“Fuck you.” she said in mock spite. Suddenly there was a knock at the door which grabbed all their attention. It was Ben who got up to open it, where they saw Alice holding up a tray with three glasses of what appeared to be a milky substance with ice and small black orbs at the bottom, each glass accompanied with a big straw.

“I made milk tea. It makes you fat. But it helps with sadness.” she said.

“Where did you get the ingredients to make those?” Jessica questioned.

“It’s a secret only Asians know. Please partake in it.” as she said this she carefully made her way into Monica’s room and stood in front of the trio, waiting for them to take a glass. The three exchanged tentative glances for a moment before they each took a glass. Alice then quickly went back to the kitchen to set the tray down before going back into Monica’s room with her own glass of milk tea.

She proceeded to sit on the floor right across from Monica, staring up at her with a piercing expression as if she was waiting for her to take a sip while she hovered her own lips on her straw. Creeped out but appreciative of Alice’s efforts, she took a sip from the milk tea and was pleasantly surprised by the sweet mixture and the chewy black orbs. 

“Not bad.” she complemented, prompting Jessica and Ben to exchange glances before taking a sip from their own glasses and nodding their heads in agreement. Alice’s face lit up as she took a sip too.

“We have a pact then.” she said.

“What?” the three said in unison.

“Nothing. I shall continue consuming my milk tea and retire to my nest.” and with that Alice had gotten up and exited Monica’s room as quickly as she had gotten inside. 

“I’m starting to think your cousin is half-alien not half-Japanese.” Monica commented.

“I always thought the same thing ever since I saw her mixing and matching the body parts of her dolls when we were little.” Jessica said. 

“Body parts?”

“Yes. Body parts.”

“This is probably bad for me but I don’t want to be rude.” Ben muttered to himself, assessing whether or not he should continue taking the drink in his hand. “Anyway, going back to you, darling.” he said as he turned to Monica. “Seriously this time, if he feels the same way about you, he’ll come around. He just needs some space to think.” he said, resulting in Monica to sigh heavily as she stirred the straw in her glass of milk tea.

“I wouldn’t know what to do tomorrow when I see him…” she said softly.

“Take a sick day tomorrow, Maica. You might need some time to yourself as well to think about what you want to say to him.” 

“Ben’s right. Maybe one sick day can help cool both your heads off. It’s just going to be painful for the both of you to see each other at the height of all this.” Jessica agreed.

Monica smiled appreciatively at her two friends, thankful that although her heart was in pieces she had these two - and even the strange Alice - to try and keep the pieces in place. Ben reached out with his free hand to pull Monica into a hug, letting go so Jessica could do the same.

“You guys make the best parental best friends. Thank you so much.”

[clueless-fan-critic]

Avengers Endgame: One of the Best Movies of the MCU!!! (WARNING: Major Spoilers)

This movie was incredible with an amazing send off to all the characters of the MCU (minus Daredevil, the Runaways, Phil Coulson, and other TV MCU shows, but they have their own thing).

The movie had incredible moments including #$$@$ing Steve Rogers aka Captain America lifting Mjolnir, Thor using Mjolnir as a baseball and Stormbreaker as a bat, Carol and the other female heroes joining forces, and the return of the people who were “dusted” to join the final battle against Thanos.

It was a truly great and iconic superhero movie!!!

...but there are some flaws I would want to talk about.

The Plot

So, we start with the end of Infinity War as all of the remaining Avengers recover from their defeat with Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel joining after receiving Fury’s page. Also Tony Stark aka Iron Man is dying in space and Carol saves him. They then prepare to retrieve the Infinity Gauntlet from Thanos, only to find out that he destroyed them and Thor killing him by “aiming for the head”.

Flash forward 5 years later, Scott Lang aka Ant-Man is freed from the Quantum Realm by accident and goes to the Avengers Compound to meet up with Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow. Other stuff includes Bruce becomes Professor Hulk, Tony has a daughter, Morgan, with Pepper, and Thor turns into a drunk Big Lebowski. Tony then figures out time travel, yeah, i guess, and goes to help the other Avengers. They plan to create their own Infinity Gauntlet by going back in time to take the stones from different points in time and reverse the effects of Thanos’s snap.

I thought the whole “time travel adventures” was pretty obvious even if you didn’t know anything about Infinity War as it seems to be the solution to most apocalypses. I was a bit confused with the way they talked about time travel that won’t create time paradoxes. But I guess it was a way to prevent any more complicated timelines and stuff. This also gives us an opportunity to revisit some characters in the past like the Ancient One, the Hydra agents, and Gamora before meeting Peter Quill.

The way they presented all of the people who were dusted as they joined the fight against Thanos was epic and the best superhero fight in the MCU.

The Characters

Okay, I was a bit disappointed that Captain Marvel was barely in this movie and was basically a MacGuffin. Which makes my theories totally pointless. But her taking down the Sanctuary II like nothing and the fight with Thanos kind of made up for it. Still, I wish that Brie Larson would have some stronger expressions and emotion to the role, but overall great for what was needed.

The main attraction of this movie was bringing together the original Avengers for one final mission to save the universe. Each of them were changed by their experiences for better or worst such as Bruce finally able to control his Hulk form, Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye, becomes a ruthless assassin known as Ronin, and Thor turning into a fat alcoholic from his failures.

I honestly thought Thor in this movie was only played for laughs with him turning into a drunker version of the Big Lebowski. But I can see how the impact of failing to save his people and stop Thanos would cause him to spiral into a depressed state.

Despite numerous characters getting only a few minutes in the entire 3 hour movie, they each made the best with what they had. With Spider-Man and Iron Man sharing a hug, past Gamora and present Nebula bonding, Scarlet Witch just destroying Thanos, and Captain Marvel and the other female superheroes banding together, it was worth watching for the entirety of the movie at the end.

It was a great sendoff to both Iron Man and Captain America.

Tony Stark did change after his experiences with the Avengers and the Decimation as he lives in a cabin with Pepper and their daughter Morgan. Those experiences also made it so he. He reluctantly returned to help the other Avengers in order to create the Quantum Tunnel. Tony patched things up with Steve when he gives Steve’s shield back. The moment that really stood out was when he used the Infinity Stones to destroy Thanos and his army before saying “I am Iron Man”, but dies as a result of the immense energy of the stones. This is one of the most impactful of the entire movie, thus giving Robert Downey Jr. an excellent final performance as the character who started the MCU.

Steve Rogers has his moments in the movie with him seeing Peggy Carter during his trip to the 1970s, one of those quiet moments that makes you feel Steve’s longing for her. He also tricked the Hydra agents in 2012 into giving him Loki’s scepter by making them believe he was Hydra (an allusion to the comics). During the final battle with Thanos, Steve finally became worthy of wielding Mjolnir and went to town on him like nothing (also another allusion). After Tony’s funeral, Steve travelled through the Quantum Tunnel to return the Infinity Stones and Mjolnir to their intended points in time. But it was revealed that Steve remained in the 1940s with Peggy after finishing his mission and is now Old Man Steve. He then gives his shield to Sam Wilson as the next Captain America. The last scene is Steve and Peggy finally sharing that dance she talked about at the end of Captain America: the First Avenger.

The Conclusion

The movie has numerous great moments that greatly defines the franchise itself and sets the bar higher. Even though the flaws can be distracting like how Old Man Steve seemingly creates a sort of paradox in the main timeline as well as having two versions of him present in one timeline; they don’t distract from how amazing this movie is and what these characters represent to the dedicated audience of this decade old franchise. 

Go and watch this movie.

[earlywrites]

there’s no place like 127.0.0.1 commentary part I: ‘looking back’

Hey gang! Here’s part one of my commentary on my Angela & Robot fic there's no place like 127.0.0.1, a.k.a. A Weekend At Angela’s, a.k.a. Mr. Robot’s Day(s) Off. This will contain spoilers through Season 3 of Mr. Robot.

To start off, the title of the fic itself I got from a fun piece of set dressing in 3x05:

...which (and I'm probably stating the obvious here, but either way) is a play on 'there's no place like home' from the Wizard of Oz, as 127.0.0.1 is the 'localhost' of any given machine.

“Dolores… Haze?” she says, frowning [...]

I believe this is the codename Elliot would have Darlene stored under on his phone, since it’s a handle she’s used in other areas -- recently, as the name of the network she and Elliot used in the arcade during 3x09:

Somehow, he both feels like he’s been hit over the head with a truck, yet at the same time had the best sleep he’s ever experienced in the scattering of days where he’s been the one in charge. The sleeping pills on the side table aren’t a name he recognizes, and the instructional lettering is all in Chinese, but holy balls did they knock him the fuck out. Seems Angela wasn’t kidding when she said she was committed to keeping Elliot out at all costs.

I did a bunch of reading on DID and several people on the forums suggested sleeping pills as a method to prevent alters from switching over in one's sleep. Ambien and melatonin etc all seemed to also promote sleepwalking as a side effect, especially when combined with alcohol (and this is more relevant in part II), so I took artistic licence and made a fake drug that essentially knocks you out with zero (known) side effects, lol.

Residual self-image. Everyone has a face that only they can see, projected outwards into the mirror. A false idol of confidence, of ego, or a shell of dysmorphia and despair – either way, a lie repeated for so long it manifests into your own monster. Or maybe it’s something as little as a smaller nose or a slimmer waistline, look, ultimately, people like to reject reality and see what they want to see – for better or worse, ‘til death do us part, until every feature is stripped back and washed away, and that face in the mirror is just a skull the world has finally fucked. Technically, his own projection is long dead, but reanimated for a greater purpose – a divine one, even, according to Tyrell and his whole wackjob microreligion thing he’s got going on.

Residual self-image is indeed a term from The Matrix, which Morpheus describes as the 'mental projection of your digital self'. Here, it's a literal way that Robot describes how he and other people see themselves, even if in reality it can be very different. The major theme of this fic was perception versus reality, in that both Robot and Angela are focussed so narrowly on their specific ideal outcomes of Stage 2 that they omit or ignore any signs that the plan will not go exactly their way. This is the first area where I start to address that, and basically continue to hold up a sign in big black lettering that goes HEY ISN'T THIS IRONIC THAT THEY'RE SAYING THIS GIVEN WHAT WE KNOW NOW for the rest of the fic.

Still, he only gets wrapped up in this metaphysical bullshit when he’s in the driver’s seat for an extended period of time, because situations tend to arise that take him on a stroll through Uncanny Valley. For example: he showers and then shaves, but no stubble leaves his jawline. He changes into fresh clothes that Angela has left him, but the label on his jacket still proudly proclaims Mr. Robot: Computer Repair with a Smile! (still not his name, no matter how much Elliot tries to pin it to him). Sometimes he can squint through the mirror, rearrange his focus a little bit, and see this analogue of Elliot staring back at him – eyes half-lidded, the pinched anxiety on his face smoothed out. This is what they all see, which really is a poor substitute for the damn good-looking guy he’s facing off with in the bathroom vanity this morning.

Like, I've always wondered about this. Elliot is always clean-shaven after Robot's been in control for longer stretches of time, so Robot must shave, but we know he always has stubble -- how does any of this work, really? Is the fact that we see Robot's face in the mirror just a product of Elliot's overarching control over what is depicted in the show, and Robot actually sees 'Elliot's face? Who the heck knows, Sam sure as hell probably isn't going to explain it, so I'm sticking to this interpretation for now. And, also, no, Robot's never actually referred to himself as Mr. Robot in the show, going so far as to laugh at the idea of Elliot calling him that name when Krista brings it up in 3x02, which is why I have him rejecting it in here.

He tries watching TV, for a bit, but nothing particularly engaging is on basic cable on a Saturday morning – crappy cartoons (they really don’t make them like they used to), some more bullshit presidential candidate Donald Trump (seriously. This, if anything, is why Stage Two is an absolute fucking necessity to get the world back on track) has regurgitated about taxes or something is being picked apart by no less than twelve ‘experts’ on CNN, and the hysteria continues on four other channels. Only one news channel is actually covering the upcoming UN vote, which is quintessential Americocentrism - like, holy shit, the UN is going to sell a fucking country to China, and all people give a shit about is some failed reality star who can't, apparently, do math beyond a grade-school level. The next channel he tries is airing a repeat episode of Teen Mom, which is about the point where he gives up and switches it off, tossing the remote somewhere down the couch.

I don't know what was on US basic cable on that September weekend in 2015, and neither do you, probably. I do know that, around this time, Trump unveiled his tax policy at a press conference. It wasn't on a Friday/Saturday, but then again, September 29th wasn't actually a Monday, so whatever, I'll take some wiggle room on that.

[...] Darlene doesn’t know about the arrangement between Angela and himself, all he needs is plausible deniability for the knock – sleeping pills on the side table, that’s it, that’s the play, if he bunks down on the couch she’ll believe he was so far under he didn’t hear any of it. Wake up, fidget a bit, Elliot-style – keep it vague, let her fill in the blanks—

I would've loved to have seen the Robot v Darlene route, where Robot plays as Elliot and finds out about Elliot's plan to have him followed, and how things might have played out differently from there, but, that would then diverge from the canon series of events I was trying to keep within. I guess we'll never know!

“I know, that’s why I set up a contingency, give me some fucking credit here,” he argues. “It’s a little self-destructive sequence, a ransomware mimic – forget to key the password into the dialog box that pops up every five minutes and you’ll get locked out, and all the files on this laptop will self-encrypt. Only I have the keys, so even if – if – he manages to resurface, he wouldn’t get far.”

I'm sure this is wildly inaccurate, since I know pretty much nothing about programming, lol. We can't all be Elliot, okay!!!

“Is it possible for you to not be an asshole for like, five minutes?” Angela mutters. “Fine. I’ll—wait, hold on.” She brings up the Netflix home page, typing ollie.p.parker@gmail.com into the email field. “Let’s see if he – nope, hasn’t changed it. Why am I not surprised.”

“This is your ex-boyfriend’s account,” he clarifies. Angela hums the affirmative as she scrolls through his recommended titles – fucking hell, there’s at least three different Adam Sandler flicks alone. “Well, good to know he’s still a fucking moron. You sure dodged a bullet there. Or,” he pivots, reconsidering the context, “I suppose, given how that all played out, got that bullet lodged in you removed before it was too late.”

Fuck Ollie, this is the least of what you deserve, you dickwagon. I had a further scene that I ended up cutting because it dragged down the pacing, where Robot convinced Angela to let him 'hijack' Ollie's Netflix account by changing the email address and password and then getting into his email account to verify the change and delete the notification emails. Anyway, he's probably suffering in the post-5/9 economy, so, suck it dude.

He wrinkles his nose. “Oh, that guy’s in this?”

“Who, Christian Slater?” Angela says, looking up over her phone as the monologue continues. She finishes her text and slides it back onto the coffee table. “Not a fan?”

“Of his works? No, I like them well enough, Heathers is great,” he says, tossing a piece of popcorn in the air. “There’s just something about his face that makes me hate him. You know, when you look at a guy, and he has a face that’s just asking for a fist? This guy. He always looks so smug.” He points an accusatory finger at the TV. “What have you got to be so smug about, huh? Besides the fact that you’re probably jerking off to that fat royalty check in the mail every month. I mean, we all know that’s what all the Hollywood schmucks are doing, tugging it to their stacks of cash, but you don’t have to wear it right there on your face so I’m reminded of the fact every time I see it. And it doesn’t help that he spends half the movie miming the act, it just makes it so stupidly meta, Christ, I need to build a fourth wall in my brain and kick over a bucket of bleach – also, by the way, what the fuck, I can’t believe you actually watched this as a child, you—”

This was probably the most self-indulgent thing I got to write. I love that Christian Slater exists in Robotverse, so that I can exercise the 'character played by actor, who also played a character in another thing, thinks this character sucks/is ugly' trope. If you missed it, here's Pump Up The Volume on VHS in Angela's childhood home in 3x06:

She’s silent, for a moment, and the movie plays on. “It helped, in a way. With my mom. There’s a line, that’s always stuck with me – ‘the terrible secret is that being young is sometimes less fun than being dead.’ See, they don’t approach death in a way that’s nice, and polite, and full of platitudes – it’s angry, and messy, and it’s okay to want to just—” She suddenly leans over to the laptop, clicking forwards a few times.

“I’m sick of being ashamed. I don't mind being dejected and rejected, but I'm not going to be ashamed about it.” She mouths along with him. “I mean, you look around, and you see nothing is real, but at least the pain is real. You know, even this show isn’t real? It’s just me, I’m using a voice disguiser, I’m a phony fuck just like my dad, just like anybody—”

If you haven't seen the movie, basically Slater's character is reacting to the news of a teen committing suicide, after they had stated the intention to do so on his show - you can watch this scene here. This is, of course, not a movie a young child should watch, but Angela has always talked about her anger regarding her mother's death, and I thought (aside from the self-indulgent aspect of Robot v Slater, lol) it would be interesting to explore how she might act out, a little, like kids sometimes do to cope with grief and pain, secretly watch a Movie Definitely Not For Kids, and within it find a helpful way to release the anger she bottled up. (Also -- she would've loved the lizard. What a cute little friend.)

Somehow, they keep this train chugging along until well into the night. His pick is next – he chooses Snakes On A Plane, just to fuck with her a bit, but it turns out she just loves snakes, because of course she does, so that backfired somewhat, aside from the fact that Snakes On A Plane is actually pretty fun if you really embrace the hammy acting and ridiculous plot. Angela parries, picking a recent release called Jupiter Ascending, a large proportion of which he spends loudly trying to work out at what point in time since The Matrix Trilogy were the Wachowskis secretly killed and replaced by doppelgänger hacks, as Angela sips her appletini and coos over werewolf-angel(?)-in-rollerskates Channing Tatum. He then counters with Sharknado 3, which is definitely a mistake, and then they have to both suffer through all excruciating ninety-five minutes of it because neither of them are willing to budge on their unspoken cinematic war. A victory for him, maybe, but a Pyrrhic one nonetheless.

Angela does canonically love snakes, so this wasn't intended to be a jab at her manipulation of Elliot this season, but, of course, interpret at as you will. This great piece of characterisation is from the Red Wheelbarrow tie-in book for Season 2 (which is an awesome read, definitely recommend):

Second, the 'cinematic war' is totally one-sided. In my mind, Angela actually enjoyed all the films they watched, while Robot basically fucked himself, lol. Look, Jupiter Ascending is a wonderful, whimsical film, that should be taken at face value for the work of art that it is. Space paperwork! Bee princesses! Eddie Redmayne whisper-screaming as he tries to marry his mother! It's an absolute cinematic treasure. I can't say the same for Sharknado 3, but, well, all in good fun.

“First off, the entire concept of monogamy is bullshit,” he replies, and yes, he is going to actually give her a serious answer. “It’s an archaic evolutionary tactic to boost survival rates among Neanderthals that has no place being the gold standard in 2015, in the same way that we don’t kill a mammoth and spend the rest of the year eating hairy elephant ass for every meal — newsflash, supermarkets exist now, there are like fifty different varieties of beans, literally just beans, so it makes zero sense to pledge your undying commitment to a can of Spam, I mean, shit, even if it’s something you actually enjoy, you’d get absolutely sick and tired of eating it and nothing else until you keel over and die. So, on that note, it’s pretty obvious why most of our parents spend the rest of their lives fucking hating each other if they’re not a part of the fifty percent who cut ties before it’s too late, because, yes, alongside the great lie of the picture perfect nuclear family, the modern factory-line industry of marriage is just a capitalist cash cow where everybody thinks they’re getting milk, but in reality? That sure ain’t a teat they’re sucking on.”

This also comes back to the Red Wheelbarrow tie-in book, and specifically, to this scene in it, where Robot rants to Leon about monogamy in the context of Mad About You:

This is probably my favourite scene from the book -- I love the idea of Leon and Robot having long-winded debates on media, and it's a pity we'll never get to see that acted out, lol.

[...] “Fuck Gosling, fuck Stone, kill Groban. Done.”

“Wow,” Angela replies, leaning back, one hand against her heart. “Wow. You’re such a dick. How can you kill Josh Groban?”

“Breaking news! What a scoop. Angela Moss, come and claim your Pulitzer,” he says. “And, to answer your question: very easily. Groban is clearly the least attractive of the three, and so by the metric of this game it condemns him to death.”

“The correct answer,” she says firmly, barreling over him as if he’d never spoken, “Is fuck Ryan, marry Josh, and, well, if I have to kill someone, I guess I have to kill Emma, but I’m sure she’s lovely. Actually, no, okay, if you get two fucks then I do to. Fuck Ryan, fuck Emma, marry Josh.”

I love Angela's love for Josh Groban nearly as much as getting to see Elliot in that 'Property of Josh Groban' sweater in 3x01. It's never been explicitly stated on the show, but my interpretation of Angela and Robot's sexualities is that they're both bi as fuck, so there you go.

“And, you know what? I don’t want to live in a world where everyone’s as cynical and jaded as you, old man. Because,” she hiccups, ending it in a giggle, “That’s what you sound like, you grumpy fuck, like you’re pushing eighty, not long until you start yelling at kids—” and at this, she cups her hands over her mouth, imitating a megaphone, “Get off my lawn, you capitalist piglets!”

“Okay,” he says, shaking his head, grinning in spite of himself as she yells out “you bourgeoisie microscum!” in a shitty imitation of an elderly man [...]

This is my favourite piece of dialogue in this entire thing. 'Bourgeoisie microscum' fucking kills me every time I read it. Originally I also had 'pushing fifty' as a sly wink at Christian Slater's real age, but no middle aged man has quite the curmudgeonly attitude to pull off 'bourgeoisie microscum'.

That's it for part one, folks! Thanks for reading, if indeed you still are. Click here for part II :D

[etherealellaelf]

So I just saw Cats 2019 and here are my thoughts:

(I’mma talk about the good and bad things) So I went into this movie both worried about the cursed design and also as a longtime fan of Cats: the Musical. I first watched the 1998 filmed stage production on PBS when I was a little girl, and then I revisited it when I was older and became a fan of all the colorful characters, the haunting music, and the great dance performances. It’s based on the Poetry book by T.S. Elliot “Old Possum’s book of Practical Cats”. Since it’s a poetry book, there is a problem: each poem about the cats doesn’t flow very well into a cohesive plot. So the new movie fixed that. Here are some other good things about the 2019 Cats movie: *spoilers*

(And before I start I was sitting beside an old woman who told me that she saw the very first stage production of Cats in London many years ago and she said to me in a very concerned voice after the movie was over, “It wasn’t THAT bad, was it?” I looked her in the eye and shook my head and I told her it wasn’t that bad. I didn’t lie. It was just a little bad. But my heart went out to her nostalgia.)

-Victoria is the main character now, so the audience is seeing the cats through her eyes. She’s our vehicle. That makes the songs that the cats sing introduction songs; they’re introducing themselves to us and Victoria.

-Like I said before, the plot is a lot more cohesive. The new script explains what jellicle cats are, the purpose of the jellicle ball, and who macavity is. They also added a ton of stuff, like Macavity kidnapping the other contenders to become the “Jellicle choice”, the cat that the leader will choose to be reborn(like, cats have 9 lives? It’s a bit weird, just go with it), because he wants to be chosen. Macavity didn’t really do this in the old one, this cements him as the villain. Also other cats like mungojerry and rumpleteazer and bombalurina are helping macavity. 

-I have mixed feelings that Grizabella is being shunned because she used to work for Macavity. It does give the other cats a better reason to hate her, but they don’t hate mungojerry and stuff. I’ll talk about that later.

-These new additions to the story made it a lot more palatable, but at the same time I like the old version as well. They’re both good. This one is just a lot more cohesive.

-All of the ballerinas, dancers, and singers were really good, and the acting was pretty good too, for people pretending to be cats. I thought taylor swift’s rendition of “macavity” was really good, and they brought a new facet to her character and the odious nature of the song, as it’s now a villain song and she is a villain.

-Tom Hooper as director. I really liked his style in Les Mis, and I guess it kind of worked here.  (Also I love you so much Tom Hooper I feel bad that this movie did so badly because I want you to succeed, you have a great style and vision and it really worked for Les Mis.)

-They left out that awkward *scene*. You know the one. The o-r-g-y scene. Good on them. Thank you. I read somewhere that it was there, but when I watched the movie, it was not there. I’m confused by some reviews saying it was there. It wasn’t there?!?!?!

Now let’s talk about what I didn’t like.

-The “cursed” design. Clearly everyone agrees with me about this. I forgot about it within the first ten minutes of watching. I really liked the look of Old Deuterotomy, who was a very fluffy, long-haired cat. That’s what made the old designs from the musical so memorable: the wigs were really big and poofy and the leg and arm warmers looked like fuzzy cat legs. The floofiness gave them character. Making all the cats shorthaired just made them look pretty naked, and I know they did this to accentuate the line of dance(it’s why dancers wear tight clothes), but they should have had fluffier cheeks, fluffier heads, and fluffier limbs. That would’ve prevented all the naked-looking cats. I understand the animators wanted to try something new, but they should’ve taken a page out of Sonic the Hedgehog movie’s book and redesigned.

-They totally changed Mungojerry and rumpleteazer’s song! It used to be a vaudeville production and it was so mischievous and fun. Now it just doesn’t have much tune. 

-They cut the Pekes and the Pollicles, the song where the cats are making fun of how clumsy dogs are. But I suppose it’s probably for the best. Lots of people like dogs nowadays. 

-Grizabella getting shunned because she used to work for Macavity??? The integral part of her character is just that she’s old. They should have made the Jennifer Hudson cat look a lot older, with greying fur and hair and stuff. The other cats shun Grizabella because she’s a reminder that they will die one day and she used to be beautiful and wonderful like them, once. It’s a big part of their character and despite them trying to explain and gloss over why everyone hates her, my friend who’s never seen cats was still confused. I wish they hadn’t said she worked for Macavity, but at this point it’s canon so who am I to question it.

-They totally cut Munkustrap and Macavity’s fight. 

-Although they cut out the weird scene, there was a really strange scene where all the cat’s tails quivered in the moonlight and they started just acting so strange. Then suddenly everyone started dancing! I could’ve done without the tail quivering.

-The cockroaches and at times, the mice, with their human faces, were a bit weird. Especially when Rebel Wilson ate some of the cockroaches. Also a bit weird was when she unzipped her skin, but it’s fine, she did that in the stage version, too.

-The Rum Tum Tugger did not need to catch Victoria’s foot the way he did, as it was really close to his mouth and it was just a really weird decision. 

-I’m sorry, but when the Cats rubbed their heads against each other’s heads, it was a bit weird. In the stage production, head rubbing is done very fast. It’s over with. It’s done. In this one they lingered and stared a lot. I guess real cats do that. But anyway. It’s whatever.

-Some cats wore clothes and took them off at points as well while other cats did not wear clothes. I think it actually was good that the train cat wore suspenders and the fat cat, Bustopher Jones, wore a top hat and evening jacket. It was charming for them. I don’t think Idris Elba’s fedora and trench coat needed to come off of his body at all. He should’ve kept them on. Just make his ears poke out of his hat or something. He totally looked naked.

-”Jellicle” is a weird word. There is a jiggly sound associated with it.

-The opening orchestral music is, at times, hit or miss. I personally like it because it sounds eerie and strange, sinuous and slithery, like how a cat do. It can come across as creepy though, especially during the song “The Naming of Cats”. In the stage production I can’t really watch because those cats all, as one, look at the audience, staring into my soul, and chant the song in one voice, and then they advance on the audience and it’s creepy but I guess it’s interesting. Idk how to convey in words. I am glad they cut that particular element about that song from the movie. 

Okay, now I’m going to address people who won’t give it a shot:

-Give it a shot. You forget about how they look like ten minutes into the movie. If you think about it as an arthouse film about dancers pretending to be cats, then it is enjoyable. 

-There was a lot of time, money, talent, and effort put into this production. All the ballerinas and other dancers are very passionate about their performance and it shows. 

-The animators for this movie were only given 7 months to model and do special effects for every single character on this movie, and there are hundreds of cats. Toy Story worked on its movie for 4 years. So I guess it’s easy to accuse the animators, but they were just doing their jobs; they weren’t given a lot of time to make the designs look fantastic, and they couldn’t deviate from what their art directors told them to do. I’m sure that some of them wanted to do the stage makeup and hair and whatnot, but you have to remember; the actors and director had no idea what the finished product would look like. Don’t blame them.

-Let’s just face it: Cats is a really weird concept to begin with. Andrew Lloyd Weber had some good ideas, like Phantom of the Opera, and he had kind of strange ideas, like Cats. It was really popular in the 70′s because the play has music that is very 50′s themed(note the malt shoppe that is a milk bar in the movie and Rum Tum Tugger is supposed to be like an Elvis character) and 20′s themed(the vaudeville Mungojerry, Rumpleteazer, and Macavity themes), so in its time, this show was a lot like Stranger Things for us. It was a nostalgia trip. And even amongst theater fans, there is a tiny niche who love Cats. This is not a huge fanbase. I liked it by accident, stumbling upon it by coincidence. I don’t understand why they put so much money into it knowing this. They should’ve cast much smaller celebrities and advertised much smaller, but we all know that Andrew Lloyd Weber is Mr. Moneybags and Mr. Outlandish, so of course he wanted to attract a younger fanbase to keep the spirit going for years to come. I, as a dance and musical fan, liked the stage production. I think if you’re willing to overlook the cringe, how a lot of the cats wear clothes and others don’t, and Idris Elba’s neon green contacts, you could like it. I don’t know. I’m not you. I just think this movie was made for certain people who like the old version of Cats, and they should’ve marketed it to them, and the reason why they tanked so hard is because they didn’t. They should’ve put them in stage costume and makeup and only CGI’ed some things.

-Maybe it would’ve worked better as an animated movie, where the designs for the cats was simply a cat who does ballet. It worked for the stage production because we used our imagination and we thought they were cats with emotions, personalities, attitudes. I think if you squint you can imagine this on this movie as well. But the thing is there was just too much backlash and nobody wanted to see it. Fame is dictated by social media these days, and if they meme you, you’re done. There’s really nothing you can do.

-The moral of the story is maybe see it, but if you don’t want to, don’t. But keep in mind Cats isn’t for everyone. It’s only for people who liked the Cats musical. So if you did, great, if you don’t, then you don’t have to see it.

[arthur-recaps]

I apologize for skipping recaps for the last two weeks but I am starting a new job and have been working late to reach out in my network to find my replacement and finish up my projects to make things smoother for my replacement. My new job starts next week and I will hopefully enter my groove again. Just to be safe, I am queuing up another recap to run next Tuesday as well.

Arthur surmises that the world can be divided into things that adults like and things that kids like. He thinks about the time Jane and David took him to see the foreign film Il Straneri, which was apparently about two people who never meet but throw coins in the same fountain. Arthur is confused as to why his parents think it’s such a great movie and I got to tell you Arthur, some day you will be an adult and still not get why other people like things. I think House of Cards is overrated but there’s a bunch of people who want to give that show a bunch of awards.

Similarly, modern art can be hard for kids to understand. All they see is the same scribbles and shit they did back in kindergarten and here’s some 30-year old person getting paid thousands of bucks to do it on a bigger sheet of paper. Arthur is skeptical of the praise Muffy gives to a painting and she admits that she doesn’t like it but her dad does so she wants to give it a try.

Ed announces that he has bought the painting and it will be installed in Muffy’s room. It’s not the ugliest thing in the world but if Ed really liked the style, he could have just gone down to the local Hobby Lobby, picked up some paints and canvas, and let a four year old go to town.

Am I wrong?

It’s morning at Chez Crosswire and Muffy is presented with concert tickets on her plate. She thinks it’s for the Tween Dream concert but Ed explains that the opera is playing his favorite, George Bizet’s Carmen, and he wants Muffy to accompany him. Side note: it’s been very much implied that the Crosswires are “new money”, especially with Ed’s job as a used car salesman but I like that he has “sophisticated” interests like the opera. I totally did not see that coming from a guy who uses car euphemisms when coaching the kids’ soccer team.

Muffy is a little bummed that the tickets aren’t for something that she’d like, but she hints to Ed that she’s going to need an outfit and he promptly hands over fifty bucks. I need Muffy to teach a class on how to become a sugar baby and swindle rich men out of money.

Muffy takes Francine and Prunella to go shopping with her and give opinions on outfits. Prunella declares that opera is nothing more than “people in silly costumes in a language you don’t understand” and Muffy brushes it off, saying that maybe Prunella isn’t sophisticated enough to appreciate it. Prunella snottily replies that she’s actually been to an opera and it was boring as hell, thank you very much. She also bets that Muffy will fall asleep before the overture.

To add insult to injury, Francine tells Muffy that the dress she’s trying on makes her look like a rice pudding.

Well, if your girls won’t tell you the truth, who will?

Muffy decides that perhaps it would not be a bad idea to listen to some opera before she actually goes to get an idea of what it would be like. She asks Bailey if he knows anything about opera and he responds by singing a selection from Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

Show-off,

Muffy is not impressed by her chauffeur’s Italian singing (Which she should be! How many people can sing like that?!) and does not like the idea of sitting through four hours of that. Then Bailey adds that opera lengths vary; Ring Cycle lasts for sixteen hours.

Muffy’s reaction:

Ed tucks Muffy in for bed and tells her that he can’t wait to go to the opera. Muffy dreams that they are at the opera, watching what the Arthur Wiki tells me is a mishmash of  Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and Wagner’s Die Walküre, which is pretty impressive since Muffy doesn’t know jack about opera. In her dream, Muffy falls asleep during the show and her snoring is so loud that the whole theater, including the singers, stop to look at her. She wakes up and tries to applaud the show, calling, “Bravo!” Then she realizes the show still isn’t over and sits down, embarrassed.

At school, Francine suggests that Muffy just tell her dad that she doesn’t want to go so Muffy can stop worrying about whether she’ll like it or fall asleep. Muffy insists that she can’t because Ed is really looking forward to seeing the show with her. Francine asks what the opera is about and to their surprise, Binky interjects, describing Carmen as “professional wrestling” set to great music. He invites Muffy to come to his house after school to listen to the CD and gives her the basic plot: Don Jose is a soldier who falls in love with gypsy Carmen. He quits the army and leaves his fiance and becomes a bandit to be with her, but then Carmen falls in love with a bullfighter and leaves Don Jose.

As she listens to the music, Muffy pictures herself and her friends as the characters. Now, I know most of these voice actors are kids, but they don’t really have a strong set of pipes. Nevertheless, I like how the writers have reworked most of the plot details of Carmen to be more family-friendly. For example, Prunella and Francine work in a gum factory instead of a cigarette one and the soldiers sing for Muffy to let them take her to the opera, instead of asking her to choose a lover. Muffy sings back that she prefers boy bands and thinks the opera is “for tired old fools” and “soldiers who make minimum wage.”

Ouch.

Still, Binky, in the Don Jose role, literally drags Muffy to the opera against her protests. Then Rodney Gilfrey comes down on a flying bull and encourages Muffy to give opera a chance. Muffy immediately becomes more enthusiastic and runs after Rodney, much to Binky’s anger. He sprinkles sleeping powder on her so she’ll sleep through the show but he overdoes the dosage and she presumably dies.

Side note: I was very surprised to see that Rodney Gilfry is a blonde white dude because his animated version made me think he was black or at least, very tan. Observe:

Anyway, Muffy comes out of her daydream and tells Binky it was amazing. He is surprised because she slept through the whole show and snored.

Muffy worries that she is hopeless.

Muffy is even willing to return the gorgeous dress she bought so she doesn’t have to go the opera. She admits to her mom that she doesn’t like opera but Mary Alice convinces her to give it a chance. She tells Muffy that she didn’t like opera either and now it’s one of her favorite things. Muffy counters that it probably helps that Mary Alice is a grown up so Mary Alice gives her a pair of opera glasses, saying that the opera is more enjoyable when she can see the actors’ expressions.

Muffy is still apprehensive about enjoying the opera when she finally goes but just like Mary Alice predicted, she really likes the show! She even tears up at the end when Carmen dies. I’m not tagging this as spoiler because a 200-year old opera and there was even a version with Beyonce so we should all know what happens by now.

At the end of the episode, she is seen telling Francine over the phone that she is going to see an opera is Crown City and supervising Bailey hang up a framed autographed poster of Rodney Glifry.

It’s lights, camera, and opera for that other shitty painting.

Grade: A (This was very well written and well paced and I liked that the writers took the time to insert so many little details about opera in Muffy’s fantasies. I also like that the lesson here is for kids to take a chance on things they think are too adult and “boring”, but other than that, there really wasn’t anything that set me on fire her. It was a good, strong episode but it wasn’t amazing enough to be an A+. I can tell you that I’m a little divided on the dig Rodney Gilfry sang about Tween Dream being “teeny bopper trash.” I mean, Tween Dream probably is going to go down in the Music Hall of Fame but I don’t really like that whatever girls like, especially very girly girls like Muffy, must be trashy and unsophisticated. I mean, the Spice Girls and *NSYNC and The Backstreet Boys really had a big influence on kids even if they aren’t as artistically complex as The Beatles, who by the way, had a huge teen girl fanbase in their early years. That’s the only problem I had but I swear it’s not what prevented this from being an A+. I think if they wanted to get a +, they could have tried a little harder with the songs in Muffy’s fantasy. The rhymes and singing were really basic and even Rodney Gilfry could only elevate it so much.)

Rating: 79% intense. The opera is intense.

  Will Muffy like the opera? It's not over until the fat lady sings! #ArthurRecap I apologize for skipping recaps for the last two weeks but I am starting a new job and have been working late to reach out in my network to find my replacement and finish up my projects to make things smoother for my replacement.

[fashiontrendin-blog]

Is this unlikely natural ingredient the skincare key to preventing wrinkles?

http://fashion-trendin.com/is-this-unlikely-natural-ingredient-the-skincare-key-to-preventing-wrinkles/

Is this unlikely natural ingredient the skincare key to preventing wrinkles?

Move over, retinol — the latest skincare ingredient for fine lines might be sitting right in front of you at brunch. (Spoiler alert: It’s maple leaf extract, but more on that later.)

As surely as the years tick on, they’ll leave their mark on your skin, which is why addressing the signs of aging (i.e. wrinkles, dark spots, and sagginess) is such a big focus in the skin-care world. While aging certainly isn’t something you need to “fight” in our humble opinion, there’s no shortage of high-tech compounds and chemical formulations you can use, if you so choose. However, unlike new classes of retinoids and “Botox in a bottle” formulas the next superstar skin-care ingredient used to reduce the appearance of wrinkles might be plant-based.

This week, researchers at the University of Rhode Island presented the findings of a study, which found red maple leaf extract may contain fountain of youth-like effects by acting as a protector of elastin — the compound that keeps skin looking bouncy and full — in the skin.

Here’s how elastin works: “Wrinkles are caused by loss of elasticity, collagen, and fat in the lower layers of the skin,” Shari Marchbein, a dermatologist unassociated with the study, tells Allure.

“If we can protect the elastin, aka elastic fibers, in the skin, we can maintain a strong healthy skin foundation to prevent the development of wrinkles, or even improve their appearance once they have formed,” adds Joshua Zeichner, the director of cosmetic and clinical research in dermatology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, who was also not involved with the study.

Enter, the red maple leaf extract, which essentially acts as a guardian for your skin’s precious elastin as you age, Hang Ma, one of the researchers behind the study, tells Allure. In a lab setting (aka in a test tube), the researchers found that maple leaf extract “could inhibit the activity of elastase, which is the enzyme responsible for breaking down elastin,” Ma says.

Everything you ever wanted to know about collagen and how to up your levels for glowing skin

The key is a compound found in the maple called “glucitol-core-containing gallotannins,” which, as Marchbein explains, seems to inhibit the activity of elastin-destroying elastase, thereby preventing saggy skin. “There also seems to be some evidence based on the research presented that these compounds are anti-inflammatory and can lighten dark spots,” she says.

But before you start working maple syrup into your skin-care routine, Marchbein cautions that the research is too preliminary to draw any major conclusions. The next step for the researchers is to take things beyond the test tube and conduct a clinical trial in humans, which is something the team is currently working on, though it could take a year or two to get underway, Ma notes.

The researchers behind the study meanwhile, envision a future where maple leaf-based products become an alternative to Botox. This isn’t exactly likely, however, according to both Zeichner and Marchbein: “We treat wrinkles in two ways,” Zeichner explains. “First, we try to keep the skin as strong and supple as possible so it can resist wrinkling and second, to treat wrinkles caused by repeated muscle movement, we can relax the underlying muscles using neurotoxins like Botox and Dysport.”

A topical solution like maple leaf extract might help skin maintain its elasticity, but it won’t address the wrinkles carved into the skin by those repeated expressions. “If it proves to be effective on the skin when formulated into a topical preparation, it will certainly be a welcome addition to the tools we have to treat aging skin,” says Zeichner.

The bottom line? The research on maple leaf extract is exciting for the world of plant-based beauty, but don’t expect it to totally change the way you approach aging. “The two best things you can do for your skin are to use sun cream and retinoids every day,” says Marchbein. “Sun is the ultimate ager and leads to significant loss of collagen and elastin, as well as forming sun spots and hyperpigmentation.”

Some tried-and-true advice: load up on SPF to protect your skin, and adopt a retinol regimen to help build collagen and improve skin texture.

This photo showing a woman’s skin before and after using retinol truly proves the skincare ingredient’s power