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thecarnivorousmuffinmeta · 3 years

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What would a cw adaptation of Harry Potter look like?

Having not watched too many cw shows myself (I just hear about their nonsense), I phoned @therealvinelle who made the poor life choices of having watched much more of The Vampire Diaries than I have and watching any Supernatural.

The following is her beautiful response:

So for starters, we merge Snape and Tom's characters. This is because Snape isn't hot, and because Tom needs to be near the kids. Tom still looks like Tom Riddle, and he's a teacher who seduces Hermione. At no point are any thoughts about the fact that he's a teacher sleeping with a student had

Harry is a blond now, and he's also dating Hermione. A love triangle ensues, one where Tom will hover sexily but dangerously in empty classrooms and make vague threats that Hermione find very sexually arousing.

The love triangle is the focal point of this show.

Voldemort is Tom's evil alter ego, who killed Harry's parents over that prophecy. He wants to kill Harry as well, but it's not the season finale yet so he's not actually doing anything about it. Too busy seducing Hermione.

Instead he just does vaguely sinister things, like release a basilisk that Harry heroically saves Hermione from.

He every so often has charged conversations with McGonagall (Who has been aged down and is in her thirties. She's still considered ancient), implying they had an affair once.

Harry and Hermione piece together that Tom and Voldemort aRe ThE sAmE pErSoN.

(Piece together meaning that Dumbledore, who only appeared in the second half of the first season and the show never bothers to clarify what his job actually is, gets a focal episode where he tells them the story of Tom Riddle through flashbacks. Terrible flashback wigs and costumes galore.)

Tom will later, in season 3 where he goes full woobie and we learn that none of his evil deeds were ever his fault, reveal that there's more to the story. That orphanage he grew up in? It was a special school for muggle-borns where they trained a future wizarding militia. Tom was the only one who broke free of their oppressive regime. The other children... GREW UP TO BECOME THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX.

But I'm skipping how season 1 ended. The answer is that Hermione disavowed Tom in the season 1 finale since he was evil, he was too sexy bad boy to care except subtle wigglings of his eyebrow told the captive Tomione-shipping audience that he did in fact care. Harmione shippers think they're all delusional. She then jumped into Harry's arms.

Which was poor decision making on her end, because in season 2 Harry joins the dark side. This lasts for half a season, mostly because the arc featured so much filler. Tom, who was imprisoned in season 1, becomes Hermione's supportive pen pal through this ordeal and she starts to wonder if maybe there's good in him after all.

Sirius Black is introduced, he's a lawyer living in the Muggle world and he was in love with Lily. We get a flashback showing us how sad Sirius was when she married James, and there is buildup for an arc where Harry's paternity will be questioned. This arc is scrapped, and Sirius is written out of the show altogether, never to be mentioned again.

Ginny gets pregnant by Neville. Neville dies tragically shortly afterwards, killed by Harry because Harry is a dark wizard now. This is actually the spinoff door episode to the new show the CW is trying to launch, "The Weasleys".

Neville's death has no real consequences, Harry returns to the light and is forgiven in time to become the child's godfather.

Oh, and can't believe I forgot: they've all been aged up to 17.

End of season 2, Tom escapes prison.

Season 3, we get the whole "DUMBLEDORE is the real villain!" arc. Tom killing Harry's parents in season 1 is forgotten, the show doesn't outright retcon it but it doesn't want the viewers to remember it either.

Hermione is once again in a love triangle, only this time Tom and Harry have both done bad things (but we'll only bring up the 2 bad things Harry did (killed Neville and said a mean thing to Hermione) and none of the 282985204592 bad things Tom did) so Hermione has a hard time.

Hermione also discovers that she's a uniquely powerful witch. She has the power to make windows shatter, candles flicker, and wind blow all about. Everyone is frightfully impressed with this.

Mid-season 3 finale, Dumbledore destroys Tom's body. It's terribly dramatic, but then turns out to only be a mild inconvenience as he is resurrected four episodes later. He's resurrected by Hermione's window shattering powering, she closed her eyes very intensely and bam, he's back.

We learn about the horcruxes, which by themselves are shockingly similar to the horcruxes of the original books. The big change, however, is that this Tom didn't know he had horcruxes, those evil bastards at the orphanage split his soul in the night through ominous rituals (another flashback here). He has no idea where this other half of his soul is.

Season finale, we learn that Hermione is in fact his horcrux. This is why they had so much in common (they don't have anything in common) and why she got through his bad boy persona (he hasn't been a bad boy since season 1!). They were soulmates this whole time!

Harry despairs in the face of this, and he and Hermione have a teary conversation where she confirms that yes, the Tomione shippers won.

He also has a pleasant conversation with Tom, as a bromance has bloomed between the two.

Alas. The episode ends on a cliffhanger, as the door flings open dramatically. Dumbledore walks in, bearing proof that Tom made an Unbreakable Vow to always serve the Order, a Vow that was obliviated from him. He drags Tom kicking and screaming away from a crying Hermione, the season ends with her resolve to find a way to save him.

(Sorry, I'm on a roll here)

Season 4, a year later. Harry and Hermione have been searching ever since Tom disappeared. They've become closer than ever, but apart from three or four moments of extreme sexual tension per episode, Hermione is Faithful™

News of Tom's terrorist actions as an Order member reach them with regular intervals. Hermione remains convinced that he's being forced to do all this and doesn't actually want to hurt anybody, Harry's not so sure.

They catch up to him in Minneapolis (did I mention this entire show takes place in the states? All the actors are American.) and he tells them to stop trying to save him. Hermione, devastated, takes this to mean he never loved her, he was only ever a psychopath playing with her feelings. She tells him as much, and Tom confirms, yeah, he's a cold-hearted son of a bitch (Harry's favorite insult for him).

They break up, and Hermione gets back with Harry. They return to their home city in North Dakota.

At the very end of that same episode, Tom is able to visit Harry for 15 seconds in the form of a specter and very dramatically tell him how he does love Hermione but he's not good for her, better to make a clean break, yada yada. DON'T LOOK FOR ME.

Harry agrees, sure no problem, he can do that. Just one noble bro to another.

Tom nods, thanks for having sex with my girl while I rot in hell, bro.

It is in this same season premier episode that the show introduces the Blacks. Remember Sirius Black? Yeah, this is sexy family.

They become instant fan favorites, and one of them is shipped with Tom (the fans now hate both Harry and Hermione).

Pandering as always, the show lets said character run into Tom. And it's not Bellatrix, oh no. It's Athena, a CW original Black. She's indistinguishable from the original Bellatrix and it's unclear why she's not just Bellatrix.

Tom is ordered to kill her, but they have a moment of truly intense eye contact so he only injures her (the killing curse doesn't exist in this show. Don't ask how Harry got his scar. No really, don't ask, the show never explained it). Shippers go wild.

Tom is eventually able to break free of the Unbreakable Vow through the power of true love (book fans are sobbing, this show gets nothing right), and he returns to Hermione, begs her to take him back. She rebuffs him, and he goes to get drunk at a bar. This is where Narcissa (aged down to 25) finds him. They have sex.

He has a brief fling with her, only to get into a more serious relationship with Athena. This leads to Hermione getting jealous.

We're now dealing with a love pentagon, of sorts. Harry and Tom love Hermione, Tom also loves Athena, Narcissa wants Harry but she has undeniable sexual chemistry with Tom.

The show descends into back-and-forth-ing, and does not get renewed.

The end.

POST SCRIPT:

The oddly popular side character that the CW never wanted to be popular at all and keeps having to make mysteriously vanish for half a season so that the plot(?) can avoid being derailed is Draco.

He's super competent but the show will never admit that.

Later, Athena plays this same role.

- @therealvinelle

#harry potter #harry potter meta #harry potter headcanon #cw #cw meta #meta #headcanon #opinion #vinelle #therealvinelle

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ceriseisland · 2 years

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i like rs but whats the deal with celebi at the end? i feel like it wasnt really necessary and just weakened the ending

It doesn't bug me much. My beef with how the aftermath of RS was handled is in the arcs that follow it: The fact that the emerald arc doesn't even touch on the trauma these characters experienced during a literal apocalypse is annoying, but I think Celebi works well for several reasons.

First, Ruby having Celebi is foreshadowed from the very beginning, when he uses it to defeat Seviper in Sapph's secret base. Second, Kyogre and Groudon destroyed basically all of Hoenn. There's a narrative reason for this, since it took everything being destroyed for Ruby to get his act together, and only once everyone is either dead or injured and he's the last trainer standing does he give his beauty speech. Ruby always runs from his problems so there had to be nothing left for him to finally face himself, and after he finally comletes his character arc he's rewarded with a second chance from a mythical time pokemon and things are reset. So in terms of the narrative, I think it works pretty well.

Lastly, Celebi being one of Ruby's pokemon makes sense, especially if you consider my bad timeline theory, which I've talked about before. (I should mention that the bad timeline gets ruined by the Zinnia's Salamence reveal, though a lot of RS gets ruined by that retcon. Ruby caused Rayquaza to escape, that's the whole point and I dislike ORAS specifically because of this, but I'll die mad about it I guess.)

Basically, the idea of the Bad Timeline theory is that Rayquaza was never "supposed" to escape and thus the events of RS weren't never meant to happen. Ruby saving Sapphire was what set them onto the bad timeline, because Rayquaza escaped. Without Rayquaza, they never made the Jade Orb and thus couldn't stop Kyogre and Groudon until long after they awoke. Ruby's personality change, Norman leaving and becoming abusive, etc are all things that weren't meant to happen.

After that, everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong: Ruby ran away from home and Norman had to find a different child to summon Rayquaza with; Sapphire barely missed Steven in Dewford to give him the letter; the blind kid couldnt decipher the tablet; President Stone went into a coma, etc etc. The people of Hoenn knew the disaster was coming for years and had so many failsafes in place to stop/mitigate it, and we watch as every single one of them fails. It's impossible to name them all: Liza and Tate were guarding the orbs, but Blaize tricked them; the gym leaders called a meeting to discuss things, but couldn't agree on anything; Steven was going to seal off the seafloor cavern but the submarine got stolen, and even their plan to keep the deep sea component separate from the submarine to prevent it from being used against them failed. RS has this underlying feeling of fate and predetermination, like watching a set of dominos fall, and things weren't supposed to happen this way.

Even Ruby and Sapphire copying each other and lacking vulnerability because of their Salamence trauma wasn't supposed to happen in the "good" timeline. Canonically, Ruby was going to be introduced to Sapphire as the girl he knew at his birthday dinner if only he had waited a few more hours that day, but he ran away because of--you guessed it--trauma he gained by Rayquaza's escape. Everything in RS is a set of dominos leading to the worst possible outcome. It makes RS into sort of a tragedy and I love that.

And Celebi, being a guardian with time powers, saw where the timeline was heading once Rayquaza escaped, and decided to go with Ruby, who caused the timeline change and is now wrapped up in it, to fix it, which he does after completing his character arc.

I adore the Bad Timeline interpretation, but even without it I don't mind the celebi reveal. There are ways to deal with the aftermath of RS without keeping the absolute destruction and three deaths, but the problem is that Kusaka doesn't do that either. The experience that the gym leaders and dexholders went through is never explored and is treated as no big deal, not something that would definitely change these characters and all of Hoenn forever. Ruby is handled well after RS, but all of the other aftermath isn't. My beef is more with the emerald arc, not the Celebi reveal tbh

#rs #analysis tag

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lolaecheve · 3 years

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Seeing comments on the Webtoon now that we're at the beginning of the end along the lines of "I'm remembering all the reasons I hate Mike" and "Mike's asshole arc begins"

And man, I'm gonna have to be the weirdo to defend Mike. But, like, only the beginning of his arc.

Thing is, I was sympathetic to Mike when this whole arc began. I understood what his problem with Lucy was. Lucy treated him badly - a lot. Sure, she also had moments to show she cared about him. But she also, again, treated him badly a lot.

And as a kid, when I first started reading the comic, I took it as face value standard tsundere stuff. Oh, Lucy is mean and rude to Mike, these two are competitive and rivals with each other, they argue a lot, but they have sweet and genuine moments together, so obviously by the laws of anime, they are totally super best friends who will fall in love.

Interestingly, reading the earlier chapters again via the Webtoon after all these years, those sweet and genuine moments... Don't feel as pronounced anymore. It could be cause I know how this goes. It could be cause of retcon tweaks for the redone version. Maybe it's because I'm an adult and know what toxic behavior is now. But, reading these chapters again, sure we have moments like Confrontation and Hot Pursuit, which are pivotal moments for Lucy and Mike... But there's just so many petty little exchanges between the two, most often instigated by Lucy, that it feels like those moments don't make up for it on the second go around. I don't have a feeling of "Oh man, it's so sad to see them so happy together only to know how badly it ends," I only have a feeling of, "Oh, so things were shitty from the start, man I totally forgot."

But anyway, moving on from the comic then vs now, we get to Mike finally getting fed up with Lucy's behavior. And I understood that back then. I was a Mike to a Lucy. I had a friend who was possessive and clingy over me, and treated me badly, and basically used be as a security blanket to feel better when no one else wanted to put up with her bad attitude. I eventually spent most of my time walking on eggshells around her and closing myself off from her.

So, when Mike started to distance himself from Lucy and became, just... done with her by the time December happened, I got it. Lucy did make her efforts to make things better or at least back to the way things used to be while working on their essay. Was she doing well at that? Would that have meant anything? People have a tendency to fall back into their old habits and not actually change when they say they will, so we can't be sure. But hey, in that moment, she understood things weren't okay, so maybe that could have been a start.

But it was too late for Mike. The relationship was beyond repair for him. You can argue that he took misguided advice from Sandy. She only knew some girl was hurting her boyfriend, and Mike idolized her to the point of letting that warp his view of Lucy. But, like... She literally gave him a bloody nose. She gave him injuries. That's not acceptable behavior, and if Mike wanted to break things off, he was 100% allowed for his own mental health. You're not obligated to be anyone's caretaker. Especially when you're a kid.

I mentioned being the Mike to a Lucy. Actually, two of them, one was less of an outright asshole but was still toxic in his own way. (No points for guessing they came from the same social circle.) When I broke things off with each of them, I kept things quick, matter of fact, and straightforward without going any attempt to make any hurtful actions. I explained to each of them why I didn't want to be friends with them anymore, why their actions had hurt me, and then I cut contact and left it at that. Blunt maybe, but I didn't do anything intentionally meant to be hurtful.

So, when Mike began to explain to Lucy all the ways she hurt him, I completely understood. But, uh...

You know. Then that part happened. And suddenly I wasn't so sympathetic to Mike anymore. Mike knew. Mike KNEW Lucy's insecurities and actively used them to HURT HER. Does that make him just as bad as Lucy or worse? Lucy genuinely seemed oblivious that what she was doing was harmful, Mike had no reason to say this except to dig a knife into her insecurities. Both are bad, I'm not excusing Lucy's behavior, but this just feels so much more planned and malicious, like Mike's pent up hatred drove him down to Lucy's level and below.

And then pretty much everything after that is Mike's own fault. He's exceedingly unsympathetic in how he's had SO MANY chances to learn from his mistakes and from the reactions of people around him to his actions, and he just hasn't. Even when he know it's a problem, and he just keeps giving in to that cycle. Sure, it's not an easy cycle for him to break out of, but it IS his responsibility to fix, and he has only taken steps backward so far.

So, in summary: Mike is still an asshole, but I felt the need to point out that him being an asshole at the very start was really just him finally getting tired of toxic behavior. The problem was him becoming toxic in turn and thus far failing to do anything about it.

#bittersweet candy bowl #bcb #just rambling #long post is long

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mrs-evadne-cake · 2 years

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S4: The Good, The Mediocre and The Weird

Yep, after the mess that was S3 I’m apparently easier to win back than your Intrepid Girl Reporter High School Ex, so there isn’t even a bad category, I truly enjoyed most aspects of the season. Hell, I have so much good will toward it even Murray was tolerable (might just be dead inside, who knows).

The Good:

The Characters: They’re back! They care about each other! They don’t act like they absolutely can’t stand each other for no reason and treat each other like trash! I was expecting pointless multi-episode bickering about if Lucas Had Really Betrayed Them or no one believing each other about supernatural shit absolutely arbitrability, but nope. I kept being pleasantly surprised as characters showed love and concern and logical priorities. Even minor characters like the Parents or Callahan and Powell, or Chrissy (RIP, I really liked you Chrissy) got some excellent, compassionate beats.

There were also so MANY great little moments that actually show development (Nancy nearly breaking down in tears the SECOND she sees The Gang back together because she knows it’s happening again absolutely sent me) and so many great big ones (everything Max and Lucas do all season). Which brings me to-

Max: Season 4 belongs to Sadie Sink. It’s an understatement to say I was dreading Max’s plot line and thought she was going to end up reduced to a mouth-piece to retcon Billy into A Super Good Guy but I will HAPPILY eat crow. Fucking phenomenal, heartbreaking examination of survivor's guilt and trauma.

And she saves herself with THE POWER OF KATE BUSH AND FRIENDSHIP. The POWER OF FRIENDSHIP IS BACK GUYS.

Eddie: I’ll just keep the ball rolling on things I was wrong about. I honestly thought this character was going to be extraneous at best and eat up time that the show could really use for the main cast. Nope. Absolutely fantastic addition and fantastic character that I missed when he was off screen. Joe Quinn is incredible.

Vecna: I like a spooky tentacle monster that talks to you in your head, drags your mind into another dimension, and breaks you down using visions of your fears and insecurities. Who would have guessed?

The Horror: Between the Crunch of Vecna and Hopper Gerald’s Gaming his foot (twice) there was some great, truly gnarly shit this season. Nice shout outs to Silence of the Lambs and Hellraiser and of course, Nightmare On Elm Street 3 Dream Warriors. Robert Englund is the GOAT as always.

D&D and The Satanic Panic: S3 felt like it was LARPING the 80′s, S4 goes back to actually feeling like it’s set in them. The introduction of the paranoia and general psychosis of Satanic Panic is really welcome and Mini-Patrick Batemen is finally the Unambiguously Sociopathic 80s Yuppie Jock that we deserve (if he gets fangirls I am going to throw myself off of a bridge). For anyone who lived the 80′s/90′s as a weird goth a PTA mob is nearly as scary as Vecna and genuinely uncomfortable to watch.

Speaking of D&D Eddie actually knows how to DM which is a nice change from...whatever it is the kids were doing before.

MK Ultra : Evil U.S. Government Agents are back where they belong on the top of the Villain Pile.

Steve and Robin, Juggling that Brain Cell: God, I love these two. I love that Steve continues to be cautious and genre savvy (”Everyone in this room has almost died like, 100 times so-”) and still rocking his nearly-supernaturally good instincts about when things are Going Wrong until the SECOND he gets the place at the grown-up table and IMMEDIATELY grandstands and nearly gets eaten by the flying motherfuckers from The Mist. A+ Steve-ing.

I’ve heard some complaints about Robin this season, but I thought she was great. Definitely getting some neuroatypical vibes and she just generally seems like the Same Robin but much more comfortable being herself around the people she’s with than S3. Like every character last season I always thought there were times that she was a little TOO acerbic for no reason so definitely not missing that. Let my girl be excited by Nancy’s ridiculously cliche bedroom.

Stancy: I'm pretty agnostic when it comes to shipping but I do like portrayals of the fact that people aren’t static and just because someone wasn’t right for you at one point, doesn’t mean they never will be ( or vise versa; sometimes people just grow apart and that’s okay). So I actually like it fine in concept especially since last season made it pretty clear the writers really don’t know where to go with Nancy and Jonathan and aren’t interested in trying to work it out. Which brings me to-

The Mediocre

Stancy (Again): Can we PLEASE have Nancy actually break up properly with her current boyfriend instead of falling in love with whoever has been fighting evil next to her for more than an hour? This is a straight up habit at this point and it’s a really...questionable character trait. I blame Murray and his shared trauma BS for this.

The Upside Down: Between how relatively easy travel was, and how fast they got out this place is undergoing some serious Eldritch location decay. Also I know they’ve all been read into the secret (and Steve’s been in the tunnels, if not the Upside Down proper) but a few seconds of Existential Angst from everyone but Nancy about the scale of the Hellish Dead World they’re trapped in would have been welcome. But no one’s got time for that ‘cause we gotta get to to-

Russia: Look, it’s better. IT’S WAY better. If S3 was Rocky and Bullwinkle this is fucking Chernobyl in comparison so I don’t hate it- and Dmitri is ANOTHER fantastic new character and David Harbor is bringing it so hard it almost makes be forget what a giant tit Hop was S3 but it still feels like a plot tumor when I just want to get back to plucky teens fighting evil. And speaking of plot tumors-

Joyce and Murray Go To Russia To Fight Russians: *sigh*

That Half-Hug: Mike Wheeler I will rip your face off with my teeth, you little fucker. I could have gone without another Season of the Mike-Will-El Dynamic being the exact same Will Pining, Mike Being Inexplicably Mean to Will, El and Mike Fight. I don’t care who ends up with who but can we like...move this shit along?

The Flash Backs: The director thinks we have retrograde amnesia again. STOP BREAKING UP INCREDIBLE PERFORMANCES WITH POINTLESS FLASHBACKS.

The Weird

Stancy (Again, Again): Okay, writers, what the fuck. Why are we stopping scenes to have characters that barely know them as a couple try to put this relationship over? The first time this happened it was weird, by the third I thought I was having a stroke. Eddie. Baby. You are IN A HELL DIMENSION IS THIS REALLY THE TIME? No it is NOT. STOP MURRAY-ING. They were doing fine with the two of them quietly starting to rekindle the affection they had for each other- stop turning random characters into yentas every time you want Nancy to get some.

California Road Trip Crew : I don’t...even know how to feel about this group. When it first started I thought I had wished for Stoner Jonathan on a monkey’s paw and was ready to go full ‘Look how they massacred my boy’ but everything about it has grown on me and by the time they were burying a federal agent in the desert I just gave up and decided to enjoy... whatever the hell this is. Which is good because boy howdy-

Susie’s House : Does anyone else smell burning toast? Sure, lets do a random 15 minutes of 80′s/90′s Unsupervised Child Comedy. Fuck it. I’m in.

#st s4 spoilers #stranger things s4 spoilers #stranger things s4 #spoilers #s4 spoilers #stranger things spoilers

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whentheynameyoujoy · 4 years

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Yup, Sure Was a Finale

I had an epiphany. The reason why I never re-watched the final two parts of Sozin’s Comet even though I’ve popped in episodes at random many times over the years isn’t that I can’t bear the sadness of seeing one of the best, most engaging narratives out there come to an end.

It’s simply that the finale isn’t all that good.

Some honorable mentions of what was enjoyable.

(+) This

Just this.

(+) The Church of Zutara has another convert

“Are you sure they don’t get together?” Hubster, 2020

(+) The tragedy of Azula

And the fact that it’s acknowledged as such. I hope Zuko will do his best to get her help and have a relationship with her…

(+) Sokka being a big bro

And the whole airship sequence in general. It’s wonderfully paced and plotted, with moments of humor, real stakes, Toph being both badass and a scared crying kid, Sokka strategizing and protecting, Suki saving the day, and non-benders being instrumental in thwarting the bad guy firebender’s plans. Would be shame if Bryke never portrayed them this capable ever again…

And now for the main course.

(-) Blink and its over

The wrap-up feels too quick (hashtag Needs More ROtK-style False Endings). A part of this is due to how fast the story goes from the thick of the action to hastily tying up a bunch of loose ends, but the larger issue is how Book 3’s uneven pacing comes home to roost. After spending half a season on filler episodes that at best subtly flesh out established characters while dancing around a huge lionturtle-shaped hole, and at worst contradict the theme of “no one is born bad” with “you’re a hot mess because your great-grandfathers didn’t get along too well”, the frantic “go go go” rush of the second half screeches to a halt with “they won and everyone was happy because now the right people have power and it will be all good from now on yup nothing more to deal with baiiiii”.

Yes, I know, it’s a kids’ show. But goddamn, this particular kids’ show has proven so many times it can do better than the expected tropiness. Showing the characters in their roles as builders of a new world was the least that could have been done.

Oh well!

(-) Ursa

We’ll never know. There will never be a story that delves into this. Yup. Shall forever remain but an intriguing mystery. Is good, though. Mystery is better than a story where Ursa shares her son’s penchant for forgetfulness. Imagine how embarrassing that would be. Speaking of which…

(-) What does Mai see in this jerkbender?

Look, I like to harp a lot on the mess of inconsistent writing that’s Mai but let’s unpack this scene from her perspective, shall we?

Zuko forgot about her! It totally slipped his mind that the one person who prioritized the safety of his dumb ass was rotting in the worst prison in the Fire Nation—because of him! And she was rotting there long enough after the final Agni Kai for the news of Zuko’s upcoming coronation to spread and her uncle to feel sufficiently secure to release her. But then the coronation scene is attended by every single member of Gaang & Friends that was imprisoned?

So what this tells me is that either a) the invasion force had the ability to break themselves out the whole time and for some reason decided not to exercise it until after the war was over, b) Zuko forgot about them as well and no one thought to remind him there were prisons full of POWs until Mai arrived, or, and that’s even better, c) Zuko took care to free every single resistance fighter while making sure Mai would be the one to stay behind bars.

Never thought I’d say this but Mai? Honey? You deserve so much better.

(-) “What does Katara want?”

Asked no one in the writers’ room ever, apparently.

This is not so much anti Cataang as anti romance stories that pay attention to the needs, opinions, and wants of only one partner in general. Over the previous 60 episodes, Katara actively expressed romantic interest in Aang exactly, wait for it,

Once.

And it got retconned out of relevance by the following two interactions where the possibility of a romantic relationship came up, making the Headband dance pretty easy to reclassify as just one of those examples where Aang “teaches” Katara to have fun (as if one of the main obstacles to her having fun wasn’t him constantly fooling around and offloading his duties). And because the writers not only didn’t succeed in portraying Katara’s internal state of mind, but also failed to root her reluctance to pursue a relationship in outside circumstances that could change, her sudden state of unconfused once Aang steps into the spotlight has a single canonical explanation that as much as approaches coherency.

The fact is, though, that trying to interpret canon Cataang from a Watsonian perspective is an exercise in foolishness. Because there is no Watsonian justification for the ship and never has been. Bryke simply conceived of Katara as nothing but a tropey prize for Aang, never saw her as anything beyond that, and were perfectly happy to go on and immortalize her as a passive broodmare for the rest of her life.

And I fully intend to die mad about it.

(-) Iroh dips

OK, it’s been long apparent that the show doesn’t intend to do anything about Iroh’s complicity in AzulOzai’s regime in any meaningful way, and that his sole motivation for doing anything whatsoever is Zuko whom he views as a replacement son which is supposed to be good for some reason. But the finale has him abandon even that, and instead turns him full-on YOLO, idgaf anymore. It really throws Iroh’s supposed love for Zuko into doubt when his last act in the entire show is to take a half-educated 16-year old with no political savvy or an heir to secure a dynastic continuity and plomp him on the throne of a war-mongering imperialist regime where the entirety of the militarist and ruling class is guaranteed to fight him tooth and nail for power.

(I sure hope Mai’s ready to start popping out babies by tea-time otherwise the whole country is fukd in about a week)

Christ, how hard would it be to have Iroh keep the throne warm for a few years while Zuko is getting ready to succeed him? Not only would it make the whole FN reformation bit quite likelier to occur, it would require Iroh’s hedonistic ass to actually sacrifice something for once. And not having Zuko ascend to power, instead spending some time bettering and educating himself first, would be a wonderful message that no matter what you endured and overcame, you never stop growing. A kids’ show, remember?

(-) The conquering of Ba Sing Se

Gee, I feel so blessed to have my attention diverted from battlefields which actually matter to an old dude vanity project I would have been perfectly happy to assume resolved itself off-screen.

The White Lotus in general just bugs me. I was fine with the individual characters and their overall passivity when they were portrayed as lone dissenters living under circumstances where it wasn’t really possible for any single person to mount a meaningful resistance. But as members of a far-reaching shadowy organization that’s left the real fight to a bunch of kids for 59 episodes straight and didn’t turn up until a perfect opportunity presented itself to take control of the largest city in the world and bask in the spotlight?

Yeah, no.

Similarly to the lionturtle-ex-machina, the White Lotus represents a huge missed opportunity for a season-long storytelling. Here’s just a brief list of what they could have been doing throughout Book 3:

orchestrating a Fire Nation uprising;

gathering those directly persecuted by AzulOzai’s regime to help Zuko keep his hold on power once he’s crowned;

establishing themselves as a viable alternative to Ozai;

sabotaging Fire Nation’s war efforts from the inside;

countering Fire Nation propaganda (Asha Greyjoy’s pinecones, anyone?);

running a supply network to alleviate the suffering of Earth Kingdom citizens.

Instead, they sit on their asses until the time comes to claim personal glory.

You know what, good on Bryke for making me conclude that in comparison, the Freedom Fighters were perfectly unproblematic, actually.

(-) Fire Lord Dead-by-Dawn

Yes, a kids’ show, I know! But ffs, this is the same kids’ show that came up with Long Feng and portrayed courtly intrigue, kingly puppets, secret police, spy networks, and information wars. Was it really too much of me to expect something other than “enlightened despot solves everything”? Especially if said enlightened despot has persisting anger issues, no personal support system, no base of followers, and no political experience whatsoever?

If Zuko’s actually serious about regaining the Fire Nation’s honor (i.e. by dismantling the country’s military machine, decolonizing the Earth Kingdom, paying reparations to everyone and their lemur, and funding any and all cultural restoration projects Aang and the SWT come up with), then there is no way, no way in the universe that he doesn’t face a civil war, deposing, and execution within a month.

One reason why his future as a Fire Lord seems rather bleak is that little’s been shown about the actual subjects of AzulOzai’s regime. While we get a vague reassurance that “no Toph, they’re not born bad” (le shockings), they largely remain a voiceless uniform mass of brainwashed clapping seals. What is their view on the Fire Nation’s crimes? Do they associate their condition with their country’s war-mongering? How will they react when Zuko starts dismantling the country piece by piece to rebuild it, bringing it to economic ruin? What will they do when noble Ozai loyalists come out of the woodwork and begin rounding them up under the banner of “Make the Fire Nation Great Again?”

I have no idea, and Zuko doesn’t either because he’s unironically more qualified to rule the Earth Kingdom than his own people.

You know what would have been better? Fire Lord Iroh, White Lotus pulling the strings to maintain the regime, and Crown Prince/People’s Champion Zuko travelling the Fire Nation with Aang and an army of tutors to promote the new boss, only to realize that absolute monarchy is kinda crap for the people he’s one day supposed to rule and gaining their support by ceding some power to them.

I’d laser holes into my TV due to how much I’d enjoy watching that.

(-) All hail Avatar Rock

Literally and metaphorically. Aang doesn’t sacrifice anything, gets everything, and the clever solution of going about getting said everything is handed to him on a silver platter, requiring no active participation on his part whatsoever.

He doesn’t work to unblock his chakras, spiritually or physically.

He only speaks to his past lives to get a pat on the back and a bow-tied solution he could mindlessly follow.

Energy-bending doesn’t require any sacrifice from him, leaves no lasting marks, and only serves for the narrative to praise him as the rare individual that’s unbendable and thus so very very special.

The most infuriating thing is, however, that Aang is clearly shown as being able to beat Ozai without either the Avatar state, or energy-bending.

And he chooses not to. From this moment on, Aang no longer fights to save the world. He fights to preserve his beliefs, going directly against the instructions of his past lives and effectively reneging on his duties as the Avatar.

Again.

It’s not like you can’t portray Aang’s faithfulness to his spiritual beliefs as the key to beating Ozai and saving the world. But that’s not what the show did. There is no link between Aang sparing Ozai and securing a better future, quite to the contrary—Ozai’s survival ends up being a massive problem for the continuation of Zuko’s rule, and consequently a threat to the world at large. His survival benefits Aang and no one else.

Aang’s spiritual purity and his status as a savior of the world are allowed to coexist only due to a deliberate stroke of a writer’s pen.

And I hate it.

Welp, nothing to do about it now except to bury myself up to my tits in fix-it fics I guess.

#atla #atla rewatch #meta #zutara #anti bryke #anti-kataang #anti-aang #anti-maiko

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portsidewonderland · 3 years

Text

Okay, I’ve been wanting to write this for the last three weeks, but I’m finally - finally - sitting down to do just that.

First, I’m a Rogan shipper. I’ve been a Rogan shipper for the last 20 years, but in that time, I’ve grown, I’ve experienced my own sense of love, and I’m a writer so I’d like to think I’m familiar with structure, characterization, and the like.

Second, I’m focused on the film franchise, strictly speaking. Just wanted to make sure that is clear.

Having said that, when I discuss how utterly wrong the X-Men franchise is, I’m talking about from a story standpoint. When I speak of Logan and Rogue, if that ship isn’t your jam, fine, but the points I make still stand.

Finally, spoiler alert for all of the movies.

Okay, I think we’re ready to jump in.

1. After the first movie, everyone forgot the heart of what made the first movie so special: Wolverine & Rogue

I don’t necessarily mean together. I mean, the movie focused primarily on Logan’s story and Rogue’s story. It was told through THEIR POV. This is important because, essentially, we’re asked to connect with these two characters AND WE DO.

The dialogue, the acting, and their stories (which reflect each other’s as well as stand on their own) draw us in and we are hooked.

Even the critics thought some of the best scenes are the ones Logan and Marie share together. Multiple critics discuss chemistry, how they add to the scene, etc.

Regardless of whether you ship them or not, there’s a compelling story between the two. This vulnerable, slip of a girl is the most powerful X-men out there (or one of) and this growly, fierce angry, broken man who’s been alone for so long that out of everyone he’s met and seen, THIS girl brings him to his knees.

And it’s because she isn’t scared of him.

Even after watching him beat the shit out of his opponent, even after seeing the claws threaten humans and slice through a barrel of a gun, she still thinks, I can trust him.

And when he catches her in his trailer, she STILL isn’t afraid of him. She gives him lip. She calls him out on his shit.

That’s how she manages to slide through the cracks.

And that is BEAUTIFUL.

I’m not here to talk about the performances, but Jesus Christ, I love this scene so damn much. The chemistry RADIATES. The glances, the confusion, the curiosity, and the attraction. (Sorry not sorry, it’s there on both parts, I’ll die on this hill.)

Anyway, the first movie is about how this girl brings the savage, feral Wolverine to his knees. How she gets him to STAY. How she gets him to open up.

Yes, Logan wants info on his past, but he’s staying for Marie. We all know it.

When he threatens Jean after first waking up, Jean is scared. And for good reason, obviously.

But Logan STABS Marie with his claws, and guess what? She’s still not scared of him. She’s worried about him.

This is THEIR story.

Do you really think Wolverine is going to go running around in leather for anyone but Marie? Yeah, I don’t think so. I mean, he literally STABS HIMSELF IN THE CHEST to free himself and get to her.

He PROMISES her that he’d take care of her. Do you think Wolverine bullshits? Hell no, he doesn’t.

And that’s why....

2. The whole Jean thing was just not great.

Okay, can I tell you something?

I don’t see Jean as a sympathetic character. She’s engaged to Scott and suddenly, Wolverine comes strolling in and she can’t get her shit together?

I mean, okay, I get it, let’s be real.

But Scott isn’t a bad guy. He nay be a dick, but he treats Jean well. Because we’re not in Cyclops’ or Jean’s head, we as the audience don’t see any marital/romantic issues between them. Hence, when Jean gets flustered by Wolverine to the point where she lets him goad her into reading his mind, she knows what she’s doing. She likes it. She likes Logan’s attention.

Not because she likes Logan.

(I read this fic where basically Jean tells Logan he could have been anybody, and I thought that was so perfect)

But because he’s giving her attention. He makes her feel desired.

And she leads him on.

Right there, I don’t like her, and I think that’s why a lot of Rogan shippers don’t like her is that she has no problem toying not only with Logan’s feelings, but with Scott’s.

But that’s not even the worst part of this.

At the end, when Logan asks for Marie and Jean makes her comment, she adds, “I think she’s taken with you.”

Like - why would Jean say that? Why mention it?

That’s petty ass shit right there.

To me, what she’s trying to do is align herself with Logan as adults and belittle Marie for having a little crush on him. Like it’s so juvenile.

And the worst line of this whole movie is when he says, “Tell her my heart belongs to another.”

Want to know why?

Because the writers/director haven’t SHOWN this. This line is forced here to TELL the audience that we should be shipping Jean and Wolverine. It’s sloppy writing. It tells me they think the audience are idiots.

Really, Logan?

Jean has your heart even though you completely go against Tall Dark and Feral to pick up a girl, then stay at the school with her, leave a fucking mansion to bring her back, make a promise to her, go after her after she’s kidnapped, stab yourself in the chest, fling yourself on the Statue of Liberty AND RISK YOUR FUCKING LIFE TO SAVE ROGUE’S JUST BY TOUCHING HER and you want me to believe your heart belongs to Jean????

Please, tell me, why the FUCK should I buy that?

Oh, because they’re the same age?

LOL no.

Anyway, I didn’t like Jean’s characterization because of that. Because she’s leading people on, because she needs to put down Marie’s feelings after her ordeal because of her insecurity, because of it all.

Which is why I’ll never ship them together.

Logan is at his worst when he’s around Jean.

Anyway.

And Jean is just the worst.

3. They took something meaningful and they fucked it

Logan promises to take care of Rogue. Do you know important that is for both of them as individuals and their relationship?

Rogue only goes back because of Logan. Not for anyone else. Not even Bobby. She comes back, she stays, for Logan.

Where do we see that after the second movie?

He’s so goddamned focused on Jean, on everything about her, that he barely notices that Rogue is ready to get the cure.

I’m GLAD they got a scene together. Because of their looks.

I am.

But shit.

It’s like Logan has completely forgotten all about Rogue, and I’m sorry, but after that first movie, I just can’t buy that.

I can buy that he leaves to check out his past. The dog tag scene is one of my absolute favorites. That’s perfect. Makes sense.

(Also, side note: Fic is so beautiful about this but he isn’t afraid to touch her. Like, he doesn’t HAVE to play with her hair but he does. It’s playful and flirty. It IS. He could have just said he liked her hair BUT HE HAD TO TOUCH IT. And this is HUGE for Rogue because honestly SHE’S afraid to touch and of herself but if Logan isn’t afraid, she stops being afraid - if that makes sense.)

But seriously? He’s not calling the mansion, not writing to Rogue?

I don’t believe that for one second.

This is why I will never watch The Wolverine after that first time (I refuse especially after the director said he was contemplating adding Rogue at the end and didn’t and FUCK EVERYTHING.) because he just leaves because he’s upset about fucking JEAN

I’m sorry but the Wolverine isn’t ABOUT Jean.

If that was the case, we should have had point of views between Logan and Jean in the first movie, not Rogue.

We should have SEEN their development, but we didn’t.

We’re TOLD it.

I’m sorry, but how do you want me to believe that the big bad Wolverine runs off to Japan because he’s sad about Jean? Like, so he’s just going to leave Rogue alone with all of those threats? Are you fucking kidding me?

Show them keeping in touch or SOMETHING. You can’t expect me to see such a huge transformation arc in Logan in the first movie that just gets shit on in every other movie (besides the second). Because that makes Wolverine look like a big, gigantic ASSHOLE and I get that he’s supposed to be that way, but NOT with Rogue.

Which is why Days of Future Past pisses me off as much of the rest them (I’m only discussing the Rogue Cut because I refuse to acknowledge that Bryan Singer - who gave us the first movies - regulated Rogue to such a fucking small cameo.) because Rogue was treated as garbage.

Now, I’m going to assume Logan doesn’t know about what really happened to Rogue because no one told him. But honestly? If he cares about Rogue the way I know he does, he should be asking about her every single time he and Xavier talk.

I love that Logan can sense Rogue when she steps in to help. I love that Rogue refuses to let go of Logan’s mind even in the heart of danger (@bigfrogbestfrogs has an awesome breakdown of these scenes). But I’m appalled at how Kitty is chosen before Rogue? Like, even when coming up with the idea for this movie, why not involve Rogue more?

I refuse to discuss Bobby and her together at the end.

Fuck that.

4. The timelines

Look, I’m not even going to go into the shit that is the timelines.

But honestly?

Fuck everything about that.

I get Singer wanted to retcon X3, but I don’t care.

Based on Apocalypse, the future still sucks so everything failed and then the movie LOGAN takes that shit and amplifies it.

5. LOGAN (the movie)

I’m sorry, but this movie is amazing in some ways and sucks in others.

Want to know why?

Because it takes everything about what made the first movie great and emphasized it.

Laura is too young to be a love interest, so clearly, it’s paternal, and I’m here for it.

But there are so many parallels between logan and Laura and Logan and Rogue that for Logan not to say anything or feel anything in a way tgat tells the audience he’s feeling something just boggles my mind.

Even if he carried HER picture or played with the dog tags and thought of her, something that shows the audience he remembers her, dammit, and she MEANT something to him.

But FUCK how could he NOT?

And that’s why the scene where he’s reading that comic book and he sees himself saving Rogue is so poignant.

Because his gaze lingers.

I mean, obviously I’m assuming she’s dead (which is bullshit but whatever). But still.

And then when he’s dying and Laura is holding his hands and you get that prophecy of him dying with his heart in his hand and I loved how they paired it with the Logan and Rogue song. I loved that callback.

And if the films in between them weren’t such shit, it would be enough.

But it’s not enough for me.

There was so much potential and everything got shit on and it angers me soooo much.

Anyway.

That’s me venting.

Luckily we have so many talented Rogan fic writers and that our ship has survived 20 years.

But still.

What could have been...

Shit.

#logan x marie #wolverine x rogue #Logan x rogue #Wolverine x Marie #Anna Marie #wolverine

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nibeul · 3 years

Note

Please I want to know more about your clones 🤔🤔

I am so late to responding to this but GLADLY!! I love gushing about them though I have so many (like 50 I think) so I will try to stick to my main group ahh :)

Cross (he/him): Cross was my first clone OC ever, so he holds a very special place in my heart even if I do not draw him often enough. He’s a commander (CC-0044) and was present on Geonosis, though later returned to Kamino to help Alpha with the CC training program.

He got his scar in 21BBY and it’s actually not from the battlefield (none of his scars are actually from the battlefield). The scar comes from being whipped by a lightsaber hilt, which sounds funny out of context, but it wasn’t an accident.

He’s batchmates with @katanrocksketches ‘s OC Asch! The two were pretty close when they were in training, and Cross got his name before leaving Kamino. It was given to him because of his kind of uhhh, “cross nature” or disposition pfft. He softens up a bit between 22BBY-20BBY though the walls go up again after that :’)

Coming off Kamino, he was a stickler for rules and was not a big fan of clones tattooing themselves/dying their hair and whatnot (he didn’t even like having a name at first though his batchmates used it enough that it begrudgingly stuck). After meeting Sunny though, he lets him do one tattoo and ends up getting his number underneath his left eye. It is like, staying to how he believes they should be while also accepting that it’s ok to be individual.

Cross’s favorite color is red because for him, red represents Ando (my Padawan OC) and they are very close (NOT IN A ROMANTIC WAY. He sees Ando as his little brother or kih’vod to protect).

Cross actually does not know a lot of Mando’a because of his belief that they should not try to be seen as individuals. He distanced himself from anything that he considered “individualization”, and Mando’a was included in that. Sunny teaches him a little bit later down the line, and Ando also teaches him and Ten (another clone OC of mine) some Togruti, too

Part of Cross’s strict disposition comes from being subject to Priest’s death circles on more than one occasion (I might retcon that to Adral—a mando OC of mine—because I hate KT Ugh).

By the end of the war, he carries a lot of guilt. He loses a lot of the people he’s closest to because of his actions/orders, and he uh. Doesn’t live past O66 :’) he does get a very quick.. redemption.. arc.. kinda..

Sunny (he/him): Sunny was my second clone OC made around the same time as Cross, and he also holds a very special place in my heart :) I really love clone medics, there is just something about them that makes my brain go brrrr. I also think the irony of his name is great

Sunny’s name was originally Sers, but after writing him for a few weeks, I changed it because I thought Sunny fit better. His name was given to him by his batchmate, Aran, and while he vehemently protested against it, the name ended up sticking. He won’t admit that he actually likes it (though the tattoo and painting of his armor say otherwise anyway)

Sunny is the CMO of the 409th Corps (my OC military group basically). He’s a Lieutenant (or at a rank around there, definitely a CO at the least) and he does not back down. Ever. Even the people who outrank him will fall into line if he tells them to, Jedi included. He is not afraid to pull rank as a Medic, and his resting bitch face can be very scary

On the same line of thought as the rbf, he is basically perpetually scowling. He does not look approachable at all

Sunny loses the entirety of his batch on Geonosis, including Aran who he holds onto while he is dying. The Jedi leading Sunny’s company was.. not accustomed to war and failed to adapt when it was needed. Because of this, Sunny doesn’t necessarily harbor a dislike of Jedi, though he does not really trust many of them in leading positions. He also does not like that there are kids being put in the role of commander, he does see many Padawan deaths (he later comforts a dying Padawan that he was close to, I think I wrote part of that scene for myself and it was kinda upsetting oof) —> he gets his tattoo/paints his armor in order to honor his dead batchmates

Throughout the war, Sunny gets seriously injured only once after going down in an LAAT (where he nearly ends up dying too). Boost finds him, though he’s kinda accepted that he’s not gonna make it (I mean he does but it doesn’t look like he will for a bit). After Flip (younger clone OC) dies, he doesn’t really care if he kicks the bucket either :’)

Sunny is the only one out of my main gang to make it past O66. His chip doesn’t work at all, though he has to fight through his brothers (aha, the only ones who are still alive that he is close with) in order to save a Jedi youngling that was in the medbay at the time. After that, he goes on the run with the kid (clone dad clone dad) and offers his services as a doctor in the outer rim in order to keep them afloat

Boost (he/him) (she/her) [either or, there is no real preference]: Boost has gone through a lot of changes design wise. He started out as Dax, but then Dax became another OC, then she was Boost, though she had kinda short hair that was pushed back by a headband, then his hair was buzzed, and now we are finally at long hair Boost. Idk how to describe, but she is very shaped I think

Boost for his nickname from bear hugging his batchmates and lifting them off the ground when doing so. Also from fucking around in training where he threw another one of his batchmates in order to get from one ledge to another. All around just a name with silly origins that she liked and decided to keep

Boost and Sol are batchmates!

Boost is very tactically intelligent. She’s good at thinking on her feet, sees the bigger picture before focusing on details, good problem solver, etc. He is an ARC after all, there is good reason for his status and rank as a Lieutenant. That being said, he can also be very very stupid in the sense that off the battlefield, he’s oblivious. He does enjoy being the jokester of the group, and he sometimes plays up his dumbassery for jest, though yeah, a lot of people assume that he is not smart because of his demeanor which is very wrong

Boost is terrible. Terrible at braiding her hair. Sol is the best at braiding it, though she would never admit that even if everyone knows it. He started growing his hair out once they were off Kamino and hasn’t stopped since despite the fact that is technically not within regulations. Cross turns a blind eye and Ko (Jedi General) could not care less for inconsequential regulations like that

Boost is really good with kids, but good in the way a uhh.. chaotic uncle/auntie is. He’s a lot of fun to be around with, and being around kids makes him even more rambunctious than usual. He can be what is considered “childish”, pulling pranks and everything but like, he is very emotionally mature and knows when to be serious. Again, a lot of people kinda just boil her down to “dumb” which is really wrong, though it doesn’t bug him a lot.

Boost has a big sweet tooth!! He loves getting sweets when they’re on Coruscant, which they actually tend to visit frequently enough because of Ko’s status as a Sentinel (and also because Ko benefits what the Republic sees as the “propaganda machine” as a prominent General with a good track record).

Boost is romantically involved with @buttsalsa ‘s civilian OC Esta. I reblogged some art of them the other day, they are very cute :D

Boost doesn’t make it to Order 66 :’) I actually wrote out his death and cried after going back to read it LMAO It was rough

Sol (he/him): Sol was made as a package deal with Boost, and I feel bad because I think he gets overshadowed a lot but he is kinda like the rock for the group. When he dies, things really start to crumble but uh!! That is a sad thought for another time. Anyways, like I said, he is basically the rock and also a voice of reason for Boost’s shenanigans

Sol got his nickname after reading through some flimsi that their trainer had given him. He didn’t know if it had any meaning, but he liked the way it sounded and immediately began using it. Boost quickly picked up on it and the rest of their batch was very supportive

Sol loves reading. He specifically likes reading history, and Ando slips him what he can (fun fact, when Sol dies, Boost returns to their bunk to find a couple of holobooks that Ando had left and breaks down aha.. pain). Whenever he doesn’t feel like keeping Boost from causing trouble, he just sits in a quiet corner and reads his books while everything erupts in chaos around him

Sol’s favorite beverage is tea which Ko introduced him to. He has a few boxes he keeps with him when he can, and he shares them with Boost sometimes though he has to add a lot of sugar/honey in order to do that. If he could drink tea all the time, he could. On the flipside, he absolutely loathes coffee and doesn’t understand how Sunny can drink multiple cups on a day

Sol is kinda like the person that everyone is friends with even if they don’t realize it. He’s like.. the perfect emotional pillar, kinda the therapist friend in a group that desperately needs therapy. He’s more of a listener than a talker which is why it’s easy to overlook him, but he insists that he doesn’t mind much. That being said, it’s only once he’s gone that people start to realize just how much he did (aside from Boost who already thought the world of him)

Sol is also an ARC trooper, having gone through the training program together with Boost. He doesn’t have the same tactical knowledge that Boost does, but he’s good at mediating, long range combat, and also working through plans (he’s pretty meticulous). He and Boost balance each other out well, since he is like the “slow and steady” one out of them.

Sol is the first to go out of the main four (second out of my bigger group of six). He and his entire platoon are wiped out in a massacre as a result of false intel.. man :’)

Anyways, thank you for enabling to ramble about my ocs ToT I honestly just needed to infodump shdjf

#clone ocs #infodump #tcw ocs #tumblr ask

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flowerflamestars · 4 years

Note

Hey hey hey 😀 not sure if you've been getting my asks(could really be my WiFi too) or Tumblr has been up to no good again, but hey how was ACOSF? I gather from your updates and posts you're just disappointed by it. A lot of us are. Hope you've been doing well after reading Acosf 😅

Hey babe! I know I have at least one from you that I need to answer- entirely my bad, I’ve been going through my inbox in little chunks. Yall have been too lovely and the influx is great :)

Disappointment is very much the right word.

The big thing- ignoring that Nesta as a character was meaningful, or that the baby plot line was big swing in every wrong way possible, the plotting is a MESS- is that I think the story resoundingly fails on both it’s goals.

It’s a recovery story, a healing story. And a romance.

BIG SPOILERS AHEAD

Nesta is stripped of her autonomy. And I want to be extremely clear on that- this is framed as an intervention and it is not an intervention. It is not, at any point, really about Nesta becoming healthy. It’s about control. Rhys says it, Feyre says it, Cassian says it: Nesta is a problem. Nesta affects their reputation. Nesta needs to be punished.

Morrigan, a fellow abuse/assault survivor, tells Cassian with absolute seriousness that they should just throw Nesta into the Court of Nightmares and leave her there. Because she’s just as bad.

WHAT

The entire structure is that Nesta needs to change- but it isn’t about her being safer, her finding her way- it’s about the fact that her being suicidally depressed makes her sister sad.

So yeah, Nesta gets stronger. Because one of her two-pronged punishments is army training with the man she once loved and has been trying to distance herself from for YEARS. Who proceeds to control what she wears, when she sleeps, WHAT SHE EATS. Who laughs, when she gets hurt.

By the end of the story, the issue Nesta has confronted, from her laundry list of trauma is...that she’s bitchy to her sisters in instances of extreme distress/hardship.

That she...blames herself for the death of her abusive, absent father, who in no way contributed to her life from the time of her mothers death into her adulthood until he showed up for...ten seconds in acowar, named a ship after her, and immediately died. Watching a parent die? traumatic as hell. Retconning an ENTIRE parent-child relationship to make a character have something more palatable to struggle with? Bad writing.

Rape hangs over Nesta like a cloud this whole novel, but she never talks about it. It never in any way comes up while her and Cassian are having rough sex on every available surface.

She never heals, and she never becomes comfortable as a faery. She gives up her power.

Literally AND figuratively- Nesta is the same person at the end of the novel, but now she can punch really hard? has no magic, gave up a destiny the book STRONGLY IMPLIES was actually, really, always about Rhysand. All that changed is now she’s finally bent enough to play by the rules of the same people who condemned her for responding to the terrible things that happened it her...in ways exactly like they have and continue to do.

It makes me so sad, you know?

Which brings us to Cassian.

Who is supposed to be the emotionally intuitive one. The one who has survived so much, who understands trauma. Who more than that, understands Nesta, better than anyone else.

That is not the man in this book.

He’ll make this earnest declarations that sound...almost right? and then ten seconds later he’s guilt-tripping her. Saying just, absolute bullshit to her. Sexualizing her in her lowest moments.

It’s not enemies to lovers- Cassian is ashamed of Nesta when the book begins. Takes active glee in physically punishing her when she’s having a breakdown 600 pages later, on what it supposed to be the great tipping point of their relationship.

At no point does this man seem to even LIKE Nesta. He wants to have sex with her. He want her to do what he wants and obey 1) him and 2) their High Lord and Lady.

Nesta, who even toward the end of the book, as I said STILL IS NOT HEALING AT ALL, tells Cassian: “I don’t deserve you, and I never, ever will.”

Cassian’s response it to...kiss her?

Tell her: “You’re not going to marry Eris.” “There will be no one for else. For either of us.”

And then Nesta says yes, cries more, and they have sex again.

oh yeah, and then in the morning he runs off? To have a snowball fight? And then doesn’t speak to her or see her for three days.

I just. This dynamic never gets better. Proud, strong, intelligent, ferocious Nesta is always kind of like: will you look at me? you’re good and i am not.

She’s not safe in this love. Not comfortable, not ever on even ground. The entire dynamic of this relationship has brought her low and keeps her there.

So like, in the end. They have this fight where Cassian fully starts yelling at her...in public...because she isn’t saying yes! we’re mates! I’m going to quote it here:

“I am your mate, for fucks sake!” Cassian shouted, loud enough for people across the river to hear. “You are my mate! Why are you still fighting it?”

She let the truth, voiced at last, wash over her.

“You promised me forever on Solstice,” he said, voice breaking, “Why is one word somehow throwing you off that?”

“Because with that one word, the last scrap of my humanity goes away!” She didn’t care who say them, who heard. “With that one stupid word, I am no longer human in any way. I’m one of you!”

He blinked. “I thought you wanted to be one of us.”

“I don’t know what I want. I didn’t have a choice.”

“Well, I didn’t have a choice in being shackled to you, either.”

GUYS. I hate this fight to unfathomable levels.

so yes, he immediately tries to recant it...but like, let’s follow the thread for a minute. They’re together, really together, ever since the stupid moment Nesta said she was trash and didn’t deserve Cassian and Cassian said...you and me! forever! let’s fuck about it!

I get that the matebond is a precious thing- but god, it could not be clearer Cassian just...doesn’t respect Nesta even a little bit? She won’t use the word, so he’s yelling at her.

a page before: “That word means nothing to me, Cassian,” she said, voice thick as she tried to keep people who strode past from overhearing. “It means something to all of you, but for most of my life husband and wife was as good as it got. Mate is just a word.”

BECAUSE SHE WAS HUMAN. Because, very validly... Nesta has been fae for, two years? Her baseline is human, that’s how she feels. And she’s not wrong??

Faeries get married too. It’s not mates or nothing.

In my imaginary book, Cassian goes: why Archeron, is that a proposal? Because I’d love nothing more than to be your husband.

In THIS BOOK, he snaps: “That’s bullshit.”

Annnd cue fight.

Not only is Cassian so, so disrespectful of Nesta’s feelings...HE THOUGHT SHE WANTED TO BE A FAERY?

Are you kidding me, canon? Nesta was drowned against her will in the Cauldron! Cassian was there, unconscious in a pool of his own blood, still trying to reach her and save her. The ENTIRE pivot of her character that slides her into the dark place this book is meant to heal her from is her complete loss of autonomy at Hyberns hands.

and then the shackle line. I just...obviously, people say things in arguments they don’t mean, But Cassian never once stops going for what hurts the most where Nesta is concerned, and is yet baffled by her responses. He understands how to hurt her, but not how to comfort her when they’re fully clothed.

And then the end is...they’re mates. They’re going to have babies. They’re going to have a big faery mating ceremony. Nesta’s feelings aren’t not addressed, they magically cease to exist.

I’m sorry this turned into a FULL RANT- but yes, I’m disappointed.

Its always the same story: the difficult woman has to soften. Learn to be nice. Power? she can’t have that. She’s going to have a mate and babies, that’s her journey, because that’s every woman's journey.

There is one bright spot, which I do have to mention. I love Nesta’s friends.

They’re her real chance at recovery, that the IC have nothing to do with. And you know what? she makes them right off the bat. It’s crazy how if you treat someone like a person, they can function like one.

I just want them to have their own story far, far away from everyone else.

#apparently I was holding in a rant with my whole chest #acosf spoilers #knowing it wasn't going to be great did help #as did live blogging it with all of yall #but go fuck that ending forever #bad in every way #in a book that both had too many details and no plot #in a love story that was better when they were strangers than when they were sleeping together

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infinite-xerath · 3 years

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Runeterra Retcons 9: Shaco

The time has come to discuss League’s resident killer clown… Or killer jester, I suppose. There is a difference, not that it really matters because even the lore doesn’t ACTUALLY know what Shaco is. To be frank, Shaco is a weird character because he’s NEVER had a proper place in the story, even from his conception.

Shaco’s original lore paints him as a complete and utter mystery. Nobody knows who or what he is, where he came from, or what he really wants. All anyone has ever known is that Shaco loves killing people because he thinks it’s funny. He could be a demon, a rogue weapon, or just a homicidal madman who’s really good at what he loves. That’s where his character begins and ends, so there’s really not much to actually analyze here. Shaco’s second lore attempts to give us a little more detail but all it really does is say the exact same thing with more words added in.

Of course, Shaco’s first two lores were written at a time with the Institute of War and Summoners were still canon, so after the retcon back in 2015 Riot opted to give him a new backstory to make him fit in with the new world of Runeterra. That backstory, as we can see, is ultimately little more than a placeholder. I mean, his extended bio doesn’t even match the blurb on his Champion page!

In summation: Shaco is a haunted doll who belonged to an unknown prince of an unknown kingdom and was transformed by unknown magics for unknown reasons. This backstory now feels especially redundant with the introduction of Gwen into the game, a living doll with a similar backstory albeit far less evil. To be frank: there’d be room to have some interest thematic parallels between Gwen and Shaco if Riot had written these two in such a way that they were creations of the same person or belonged to the same kid but wound up becoming wholly opposite of one-another.

For example: perhaps in an alternate version of the lore, Gwen comes to embody the childlike innocence and hope of her maker/owner and seeks to spread joy and cheer while Shaco is a corrupt and perverted manifestation of those desires who seeks only to amuse himself in the suffering of others. This, I think, would have been a fantastic way to go about it, but given that Gwen is already so heavily tied to the Shadow Isles plotline and Viego is set up to be her primary enemy, I feel like it would be kind of difficult to work Shaco into that dynamic at this point.

Besides, it’s clear that Riot DOES have plans for Shaco: namely, that they aim to retcon him into being a demon. This is somewhat evident by his champion title, the Demon Jester, as well as his relationships are listed as being Nocturne and Fiddlesticks, the demons of nightmares and fear, respectively. There’s also that branch on the demon family tree labeled “Delirium” which would fit a murderous jokester pretty well.

To be honest, I was initially hesitant to even bother doing an episode for Shaco given that Riot clearly has at least some vague idea of what to do with him, but since reworks are coming out a lot slower now and Shaco’s not even on Riot’s priority list as far as we’re aware, it’ll probably be a WHILE before we actually see them do anything with this particular concept.

So, given what we know about Riot’s current plans, the general direction of this rewrite is simple: make Shaco a demon. Admittedly, though, that’s a little easier said than done. Demons in League are creatures who feed on mortal pain and suffering, but each of them has a different way of going about it. Fiddlesticks mainly uses paranoia and trauma to drive his victims mad while Nocturne takes a more Freddy Krueger approach of just invading dreams and turning them into nightmares. Tahm Kench likes to make Faustian Bargains by giving you everything you want and then tearing it all away from you, while Evelynn lures you in with seduction and then proceeds to tear you apart piece by piece.

Every demon takes a different form and has different ways of going about things, but all of them share a core concept: they feed on suffering and misery, be it physical or emotional. That said, there’s a bit more to demons in Runeterra than just that. See, back when Fiddlesticks was released, Riot went and released what the community has dubbed the “Demon Family Tree,” which appears to be a chart displaying the hierarchy of demons and different emotions that different kinds of demons can prey on.

Now, admittedly, there’s a LOT about this chart that we don’t currently understand, and frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if Riot doesn’t either. There’s a key that resembles the one around Zoe’s neck in the top-left, a bunch of circles in the top right we don’t know the meaning of, and a whole bunch of text written in what I think is supposed to be Old Noxian that we can’t currently decipher. There have been theories and discussions about this already, so I’m not going to get too deep into it, but the main takeaway, I think, would be the words on the chart that we CAN read: Fear, Delirium, Nightmares, Secrets, Bliss, Frenzy, and Obsession. There’s also the term “Azakana” at the bottom, though we know thanks to Yone that this basically just refers to a demon that hasn’t fully matured yet.

Tying the chart back to the demonic Champions in the game, it’s easy to piece together the connections that they each have: Fiddlesticks is fear, Nocturne is Nightmares, Raum (the demon bound to Swain) is Secrets, Evelynn is commonly believed to be Bliss, and Tahm Kench is most likely Obsession. That leaves Delirium and Frenzy untouched, which leaves us with two spots to fit Shaco into.

Now comes the hard part: the decision. Delirium refers to a state of mind in which one’s awareness of their actions or environment is significantly reduced, whereas frenzy is a sudden burst of frantic, uncontrolled emotion, typically rage or aggression. Either one of these could work well for a killer jester, but I personally think that delirium would suit Shaco better in terms of how his personality is portrayed in game. So, with that said, let’s dive deep into the realm of demonic and see what can be done to turn this cursed puppet into a proper Demon of Delirium.

It is often said that misery and comedy are but two sides of the same coin. Laughter often comes at the expense of others, and one person’s despair may be another’s delight. Most entertainers would tell you that walking the line between humor and malice is key, but to Shaco, such distinctions are a joke for which he himself is the final punchline.

The demon known as Shaco has stalked Runeterra for ages, spreading his twisted influence far and wide. There’s nothing Shaco loves more than to bring joy to those who need it most, often appearing to mortals who have experienced great loss or tragedy. Those coping with grief or misfortune may find themselves unexpectedly visited by a grinning jester, who assures that his only desire is to take away their pain with the power of laughter.

At first, Shaco’s antics are innocent enough. Some cheesy jokes to lighten the mood, some harmless pranks to lift the spirits of the downtrodden, all with an unyielding smile that one cannot help but start to imitate. Soon, those enthralled with Shaco’s antics are invited to play games with the jester to help distract from their worldly worries. Those who accept are whisked away to partake in a day of fun and merriment, playing all manner of pranks on friends, family, and even innocent bystanders.

When the games end, Shaco leaves his playmates cackling insanely in the aftermath, often surrounded by bodies and covered in blood. None laugh louder than Shaco, however, who delights in watching his playmates slowly regain their sanity and come to realize all the atrocities committed at his side. Some cry out in despair, while others break down laughing or crying harder than before. Some go mad, others are executed for their crimes, and some even opt to take their own lives. All outcomes are equally hilarious to Shaco, who soon sets out in pursuit of his next playmate.

Stories of the Mad Trickster exist all across Runeterra, often told as children’s tales to teach valuable lessons: don’t trust strangers, never give in to sadness or despair, and always be mindful to never take a joke too far. Few truly believe in Shaco’s existence, but those who fail to heed such warnings may find themselves to be his next playmate, as well as the butt of his joke…

So, this one was a bit shorter than normal, but I think it serves to get the point across. As the embodiment of delirium, I wanted to give Shaco a set-up sort of similar to Tahm Kench: he appears to offer help to those in need, only to end up ruining their lives in the long run. The difference, of course, is that Shaco lures people in to help them forget their troubles with fun and games, only to escalate to full-blown murder and mayhem.

In essence, Shaco drives others to delirium, making them believe the carnage is all just fun and games until his spell is broken and reality sets in. I’d like to think he particularly likes preying on the downtrodden because those who are suffering mental anguish already are easier for him to cast his spell on.

This is just my take on Shaco, though. Who can really say what Riot will do with him in the future? Who knows, his rework might end up even better than what I have here, but of course, anything is bound to be better than his current, non-existent lore.

#Runeterra Retcons #Shaco #League of Legends

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Star Vs The Forces of Evil: Is Another Mystery (Prince of Wishful Thinking) or Wasted Potetial

Happy Valentine’s Day Lucifans! And while I originally intended to cover this along with the much worse Booth Buddies I had too much to say about both to try and clown car both together so here we are. And just in times for V-Day we have a StarTom episode.. that isn’t as focused on thier relationship as I thought because I hadn’t seen this in a while because every time I think of things in this series I think of all the wasted potetial and it gives me a migrane. I’d also like to thank @jess-the-vampire for talking this one over with me as usual, and helping me think through some stuff. And as with last time we’re picking up about where we left off, so no real exposition to get through. Join me under the cut as we solve a mystery and marvel at HOW much potential from this episode the show squandered.

We open with Marco chasing Glossaryck.. and it’s only now I realize I have not talked about this subplot at all. Or Glossaryck really. As you probably know Glossaryck is the tiny man who lives in the big book of spells, created the magical high comission and is a colossasl assshat whose likeablity plumted this season. For starters his voice actor Jeffery Tambour was outed as a massive creep, making him harder to stomach even if the show had reduced him to stock footage of one line. Speaking of which he came back from the dead... and despite it being revealed he was fully sapient the whole time and just saying Eclipsa’s husbands name without context a twist coming up int he finale that i’ll give out about here as while clever when you first hear it. makes NO sense in hindsight, as Eclipsa might of mentioned it before now especially since Glossaryck was around her quite a few times, had no reason not to, and you’d THINK Star, Marco or Moon, especially the latter two, would be curious why he can only say that and has seemingly been reduced to an infant. It’s an annoying subplot tha’ts just casually part of the series and no one seems to care about despite Glossaryck being a big deal and the spellbook revealing there IS a way to make copies, one that would be used next season.

But what really just made me HATE him.. is how he contributed to how bad things on Mewni are, by doing nothing. Being omnicent and powerful does not mean you do nothing.. it just means you have to be VERY careful. Power is a responsivity not an excuse to say “Wheelp my kids were a mistake going to just let them overthrow the government, become far more entriched in mewni politics, and boss me around without EVER questioning them or trying to replace them”. His apathy is never really called out by anyone but Marco, and he’s treated with all this undue importance despite not doing anything but train the queens, which even then i’ts questionable how good he was at that. Just an asshole, not the worst character in the series, he’s coming up in a few episodes, but just wholly unlikeable. And I get he’s supposed to be comically douchey but after what we learn about eclipsa it just passes into unforgivable and it’s never brought up or talked about. Which is a trend for this series and I don’t know why i’m even bothering being annoyed at this point when I could easily COUNT the number of potential plot threads the series half finished, dropped or wasted and it’d probably hit 50+.

So Marco is chasing after Glossarcyk and ends up in Buff Frog’s office. Buff Frog was Ludo’s former second in command, who reformed, and became close with Star and Marco, and who Star gave a position as Royal Monster Expert in order to have an ACTUAL MONSTER doing their job since the previous person was a crazy lady who thought of htem as less than sapient and tried to drown them all for reasons I don’t quite remember. This.. has not come up since and this is the first time we’ve seen his office since and it’s empty.

Marco finds a note for star but accidently reads it before he can get it to her, and we do get a glimpse of the old Marco as he’s disgraught over “reading someone’s mail without their permission!” I missed this.. I think I blocked out the GOOD times with marco in my brain behind a butter-like wall of all the stupid shit he did this season and the next and the whole resolution to the starco thing that left a taste in my mouth not unlike sardine juice mixed with vinegar, aka what causes Mitch Mconnel’s face to look like delfated and to sound like the ghost of Michgian J Frogs Condederate Uncle.

Meanwhile Star is with Tom and is distruaght after finding our her life is a lie and feels there’s no one she feels she can talk to about this, and Tom’s face when she says this just...

You can tell the poor guy is just hurt. HIs girlfirend is hurting.. and she dosen’t even CONSIDER talking to him about this or think she can trust him despite him being RIGHT THERE. This expression is only on screen for half a second but it says so much. And another thing it says is that he dosen’t know HOW to help her, as evidenced by the fact his offering to is very awkward and sitlted, that he’s clearly HURT she dosen’t think she can confide in him, but is so awkward in general and out of his depth her ehe dosen’t know how to help he just wants to. But while Star eventually seems receptive.. Marco busts in and we get a seen of EVERYONE involved being a canoe filed with dicks and old vhs copies of biodome. After of course Marco tells Star, Buff Frog is gone. To wit

Star: Immediately plans to take off with Marco and only Marco despite tom being right there, that he could help even if he has no stake in it, and the fact that cloudy can both grow, and Tom can you know.. FLY. That’s a thing we’ve seen him do a lot. So space isn’t an issue, sh’es just forgetting tom exists. Which WOULD work if it was an intentional issue but is sadly the beggining of Star being a pretty terrible girlfriend to tom. This example is lighter since you know , one of her closest friends and his small children are missing, and this is the day after her entire world got flip turned upside down, so I can forgive her a bit since she’s probably not thinking clearly.. but it’s the start of a LONG pattern fo her forgetting tom exists when it’s not coinvent and not thinking about his feelings.

Marco: When Tom asks to take Marco’s place, Marco says, not that he’s buff frog’s friend or he’s worried again about the fact he has kids that could be in danger but “I’m her squire it’s my job”... BEFORE you know the fact his friend WITH YOUNG CHLIDRNE WHO COULD BE DEAD VIA HATE CRIME, is missing.

Seriously it says something about how far Marco has fallen by this ponit that even in an episode wher eh’es largely his old self.. he STILL make this about him and star to her boyfriend’s face. HiS FRIEND’S FACE. There will be worse from Marco soon enough, and far worse we won’t be covering, but it does say something that they did him so wrong this season that THIS is minor in comparison to some of the other shit he pulls.

Tom: The only INTEITONAL one of these, as Star’s neglect feels like it was an accident, as he insists on coming along as her boyfriend despite this being a fairly serious situation and him clearly just wanting alone time.

OH and if you thought the writers you know ACTUALLY cared about STar’s anguish over finding out her whole life was a lie, her newly found grandma who actually relates to her and treats her with respect unlike her mother isn’t biologically related (Not that blood relation matters but I can see why finding out the one family member besides your dad who was anything like you in recent memory.. isn’t related to you would hurt)..

This highlights the show’s biggest flaw, and yes folks it’s bigger than the ending with the accidental genocide and the horrible implications. That was bad.. but what really tripped the show up long before that.. is the lack of payoff. Now sure some plots get payoffs, especially the Metora one, it’s one of the series best arcs.. but TONS of other threads are just outright ignored, casually dropped or never really pulled. Look I know that every show has things we wished they’d done more with, and most of the greats of this generation have stuff they dropped the ball on by dropping it or never really getting into it: She Ra never really had any closure with Catra and Scorpia, despite Catra hurting her the most out of anyone and that could’ve been a good thing for her character developent and Scorpia’s own character development. Ducktales had NO intention of going into Della’s reaction to Scrooge and Donald’s feud and quitely ignored or retconned the fact Scrooge clearly erased Della’s long history from the web and wherever else he could, as why else would the kids have never known. Did they just not use google? Steven Universe, if partially by design as it turns out, skipped over a LOT of things and ignored a lot of intresting characters human and gem. It’s the nature of writing seralized teleivsion: Sometimes you just forget to take care of something or simply don’t have the space to. That is fine. The problem is star does this.. for major plot points that really CAN’T be ignored. Starting with this season they flat out ignore Star telling Marco how she felt for pretty much the entire season. They only deal with it in booth buddies.... THREE EPISODES before the season finale two parter. Despite it having massive impliciations, doing so IN FRONT OF JACKIE, who was her friend, and Jann who is both Jackie and Star’s friend and is not subtle. We never get any fallout from this and the show weirdly acts like Marco can’t easily visit home. I mean yes he’s star’s squire but she’s not a heartless monster> The DIazes were her parents for a while too. And that’s not even getting into Marco Junior... “Shudders”. But that part of the cliffhanger was just the start after that the pile just kept getting larger. Before it was basically JUST the monster arm and it possibly being involved with the blood moon. So to prove my point i’m making a list of EVERY dropped plot point or storyline from the series, most of which are from season 3 onward. And naturally I asked jess for help with this after the first 25.. and the list DOUBLED. One or two of these are nitpicky.. but the fact the vast majority AREN’T .. yeah.

1. Jackie’s reactoin to Star’s feelings for Marco 2. Janna’s Reaction to Star’s feelings for Marco 3. Buff Frog being head monster expert 4. Buff Frog and Co fleeing this dimension and where they WENT exactly 5. Tom being a Monster 6. Star not being a Butterfly by blood 7. Moon’s reaction to not being a butterfly by blood 8. Rhombulus feeling guilty 9. Marco’s reaction to hekapoo being a terrible person 10. Marco and Kelly’s Relationship (Technically resovled but done poorly) 11. Tad not being over Kelly 12. Hornanne never getting a horn (I know minor but it bothers me a lot) 13. Eclipsa having to win over the other kingdoms 14. Related, the Johnasons being the hardest one of those to overcome 15. Related to 13 again: Why Tom’s Parent’s didn’t suppport eclipsa 16. What the Jaggy Mountains are or are like at all 17. WHy Glossaryck was worried about Globgor 18. Why Glossaryck faked being feral for a season 19. How Star had a piece of the spell book 20. What Mr. Candle’s Deal is 21. The Pie Folk knowing the true lineage of the queen 22. Was the commission conspiracy ever made public. 23. Meteora possibly having memories from her previous self 24. Lobster Claws 25. River’s reaction to moon’s betrayal 26. Toffee’s Past and Motivations 27. Marco’s Cheekmarks 28. Any reaction by Star and Janna to said cheekmarks 29. The kingdom’s reaction to the book being stolen is never brought up again 30. The Past Queens (Never brought up in show itself, but Jess feels there was supposed to be more there and I agree) 31. The Septarian Painting in ST.O’s (While i’ts a hint at who meteora is WHY it’s there and why ST. O would even allow it and why it’s of septarians is never explained) 32. Monster Arm 33. Relicor’s Wife 34. Why the dance memory was different 35. How do people in other dimensions get dimensional scissors? 36. How Did Toffee Know of the Whipsering Spell? 37. Where did Toffe, Ludo and Rasticore’s dimensonal scissors/chainsaw come from? 38. Toffee’s Damage to Mewni (Never gets brought up aagain after silver bell) 39. Why Globgor eating Shastacan was “Complicated” 40. Upwards Waterfall Unicorn 41. Star spying on Marco and Jackie 42. Any Explination for Green Magic 43. The photo’s of star and marco’s kiss (To quote jess, into the void they go) 44. How Metora Learned Soulsucking and why she can do that 45. Metora taking Rasticores arm with her. 46. The Neverzone’s weird time dialation 47. Star’s Neglect of Tom 48. The Spiderbites reaction to globgor being freed 49. The “Big Surge of Dark Magic” 50. Eclipsa “gets into your head 51. Star learning wandless magic with no effort 52. Where did Brian Go? 53. Star and Marco Never apologize for the kiss on screen 54. “I know how this all ends 55. Why Lekmet was never Replaced and why reynadlo didsn’t replace him

55 in the span of an hour.. and that’s not even getting into the fact Jess was thinking these up off the top of her head and probbaly coudl’ve kept going, but I didn’t want to overtax her since I was asking a favor of her, and fifty goddamn three is more than enough to say ya done fucked up. Just.. holy shit. MARVEL has less dropped plotlines than this, and that at least has the caveat of changing writers and some writers being dipshits who don’t CARE about resolving what happened before. The Star team has an excuse for maybe 10 or 20 of these.. but 55! Fifty Goddamn five! And that’s stopping as we could probably have found more and just tying this paragraph we did, hence 55. How much do you have to NOT care about your audience, your plots and your characters to miss this much? The three I mentioned before all have understandable explinations behind them: She-Ra had a set episode count and only so much space and it made more sense story wise to have scorpia be taken over by the horde. Ducktales is on a kids network and Disney isn’t at all supportive of adult plots to the point a courtroom episode was deemd too confusing for kids... which first off , no, and secondly you see what they were dealing with. and Steven Universe again did this slightly intentionally, with things happening offscreen because that’s how life works, sometimes it worked sometimes it didn’t.

This is just incompetence on a MASSIVE scale that boggles the goddamn mind. I have seen shows do worse, but i’ve never seen a show flush most of i’t spoteital drama nad character development down a goddamn hole again, and again and again in such a consitent manner. There’s no wonder I didn’t see this at the time. This is a level of messed up you have to see from helicopter view! The show just stopped carring about finishing most of it’s storylines and just brought shit up when it was convient and threw it out on a scale that just... just..

It sucks. It sucks to see a show that had so much potetial squander it, it sucks the show ended up like this, as only a handful of those are from pre season 3, and it sucks that the clock is ticking on how much good I have to say about the show without having to add the button “And then this was never properly resolved.” Good. Fucking. Grief. And Jess wanted to find MORE, and probably could, but I didn’t want her to dedicate her life to this. It’s monuentally frustrating, and saddening to see waht a waste of potetial this series was by the end. All of this is one big list of what if and most of it shoudl’ve been resolved in some way. “Sigh”.... let’s move on.. for my sanity’s sake. I made myself very sad.

So with Marco out of the way Tom and Star start investigating and Tom is a bit of a dick about it, suggesting they abandon the search for her friend and his CHLDREN to go get a corn shake and that the monsters just went out grocery shopping.. the former is just horribly out of character, as even if he would WANT to leave he woudln’t be so cavialer about it when sh’es this upset just a few episodes AFTER monster bash, where he learned you know.. not to do that. The other is just ehhh... like you think he’d react to an entire town being missing and Star’s JUSTIFIED fear mina did it , after she easily swatted both of them aside, with more than “eh maybe their doing pesant stuff I don’t know” Thankfully the “Tom is a huge dick and also star is grossed out by him liking monster food revealing she might still be a touch racist without realizing it, which itself is nver touched on, let’s call that number 54″, portion of the episode ends when dark gets a little something on him

Star gets one in her arm, and the two pass out and wake up with sacks over them. We do get the best part of the episdoe where both try to run around blind, and Tom realizes he’s claustrophbic and starts panicking, which results in him falling around and kicking in a circle, while Star takes a guy out and while she can’t see assumes she did something cool. Eventually we find out their kidnappers are related to the buff frog thing and tell her to stop looking and just to be serious are going to break tom’s horns... before Buff Frog arrives wondering what the fuck their thinking and stopping them, and he and his kids are fine. Turns out he’s leaving Mewni and Katrina, his oldest daughter who has giant legs now, wanted to make sure they got to say goodbye, so she left the note in his name knowing Star would come and find them. Before we get into all of that, just a quick aside.. okay so baiscally these monsters who threatened are either fleeing mewni or running some sort of underground railroad to cover up the monster exodus. Which begs the question... why did they tihnk breaking the horns of a crowned prince of one of their allied states and kidnapping and threatning the princess of mewni, who is PUBLICLY pro monster and thus only makes them look worse, was at all a good idea. I get wanting to hdie this but breaking Tom’s horns is only going to lead to a fight at best and two kingdoms coming down at them with their full might, putting innocent people in the crossfire at worst and most likely

But yes the Monsters are leaving.. and this is part of where the episode misteps as the scale is kind of hard to figure in hindsight. On one hand the montser villiage is abandoned , meaning that the episode implies ALL the monsters are leaving.. but not only are some left, once Eclipsa takes over plenty of monsters come back or may of never left, making nit very vauge just how many actually left, especially since the party leaving that we see is just about 10 monsters not including buff frog’s babies.. where did they come from by the way? Ludo just kinda stole them but from where? Jess brought that up but i’m not sure I got it on the list so 55. The show is entirely too vauge on if this is a mass exodus of eveyr monster at long last or just a large migration of them wanting a better life. Instead of explaining any of this when it’s a very intresting and engrossing idea, the monsters leaving the predjuicde outright, the possible hateful reactoins of the commission given how paranoid they are, how star would combat this, a possible divide in monsterkind with one half going back and the other staying put, WHERE they went exactly.. there’s a lot of great questions and stories here.. but as the list the size of my gut should make clear, none of them get answere dbecause this series just didn’t care about it.. and if so then WHY bring it up. That’s why I brought up the list in the first place.. because this is one of MANY times they bring something up and just.. do nothing with it. Then why did you bring it up in the first fucking place?! As I said I can abide by dropping a plot point for time or beacause Disney is kinda dumb or you just want to get to other good stuff and you had to make a cut. And while a portion of the list is that. i’ts mostly things like this: really fascenating stuff.. that’s ignored because htey just stopped caring.

So before they all can leave despite Star’s best efforts, TOM steps up and calls them cowards.. and admit’s he’s a monster too. And while one.. WEIRD looking guy points out he’s rich, so should he count, Tom counters with the fact that sure he’s rich.. but when he gets in an elevator he’s a monster. He may be part of a diffrent “catageory”.. but to a stranger he’s just the same as them. While it dosen’t feel quite earned by the episode, it is a moral that needs to be taught: prilvage dosen’t insulate you completely from prejudice. You can still be discrminated against no matter how much money you have or how far you get because the system sucks. And once again this is a waste of potetial: tom technically being a monster and being the son of a human and a demon is never brought up again.. despite you know also being a massively powerful monster child of a monster and a mewman.. like a certain someone who’se the big bad for this half of the season. It just never comes up... and I get it’s a categorical bullshit thing, that the comission werne’t worried about a lucitor doing any of this because “Well demons are okay and we have a treaty and stuff”, but the show had no trouble pointing out categorical bullshit before.. why not now?

The ending however is good as Buff Frog.. isn’t convinced. HE admit’s tom’s speech is good.. but he’s been dealing with this stuff for too long. It also works because him leaving the job they never focused on.. isn’t framed as him being ungreatful or anything. He’s genuinely appricative of what Star is trying to do and gets her heart is in the right place.. but she doesn’t have the power to fix this. She’s just a kid, and while she has some power her mother has no real intention of making things better for them. And he has to think of a better life for his kids.. so we get some tearful goodbyes as Buff Frog promises to return when she’s in charge.. even though he does because she’s in charge in the season finale and we never see him , 56, and he has to be talked into coming back in the last season... so they leave but Tom promises her it can work out because their a monster and a mewman and they hug and I sigh a little knowing how this relationship ends and the accidental message it sends.

Final Thoughts: This episode is DECENT on it’s own but in hindsight.. it’s just depressing, bringing up some good ideas.. that end up going nowhere and the ending REALLY isn’t great in hindsight when he leaves star so she can be with another human-type person. Also tom’s charcterization is a bit lopsided starting off worse than ever and being fine in the end, and while that COULD just be that he felt he coudln’t admit he was a monster... it honestly just feels liked they wanted the moral without having to work for it as him being a monster has nothing to do with how he acted earlier. Till the next rainbow... UUGGGGHHHh.

#star vs the forces of evil #star butterfly #tom lucitor #buff frog #marco diaz #disney #disney plus

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amazildoessomethingstupid · 3 years

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Chapter 68: December

Hey guys, welcome back. As you can tell by the title, we have a very special rant in store. As you guys may know, this rant series is meant to be about me catching up with BCB and where it’s been going recently, and give my thoughts about it. But today we are going to be doing something a little different, instead we are going to go back. And I mean WAY back. To one of if not the most notorious, the most infamous chapter in all of Bittersweet Candy Bowl. That’s right boys and girls…

WARNING: Very long Tumblr breaking rant below the break.

If you’re wondering why I’m doing this, it’s mostly because I wanted to do another Let’s Rant video but most of the boys don’t know about BCB. So when I made comparisons to December, they didn’t really understand what I was talking about. And I know that some of you new viewers may not understand why people hate December as much as we do. To really understand, you must put yourself in the shoes of a dedicated reader. Back to the year of 2011, a simpler time. A dark time. And we start off with one of my personal favorite pages in Bittersweet Candy Bowl.

SNOW. FUCKING SNOW!

FUCK. YEEEAAAAAAAH! LET’S HEAR IT FOR FUCKING SNNNNNNOOOOOWWWWWWWW!

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Alright that may seem like an over reaction, but let me set the stage for you alright, because at the time that this chapter came out I was a dedicated reader. And I mean full blown fan, waiting for the hour to change to read the pages as they came out. And at this time, Taeshi was going through a real rough time and it was quite apparent to everyone who was in the community. The plot seemed to stagnate, and there wasn’t much happening. Taeshi’s behavior had grown very strained and it was the common consensus that she needed to take a break.

So she did, and in order to take a break the upload schedule turned to two pages a week… The problem was that up to this point, Bittersweet Candy Bowl was uploading on an every other day upload schedule. Now the problem that comes when you slow down your schedule like that, is that it’s meant to be temporary, or that you compensate that with content in the pages and chapter that makes the wait more bearable or at least less tedious…

Now with all that in mind. Imagine if you will, that you had to wait 4 days for a new page to start a new chapter, and you were greeted by…

FUCKING SNOW! And a dread filled your heart as you realized you’d have to stare at snow for another full 2 days before you could look at something else, and hope that it’s more interesting than fucking. Snow.

The next page does not disappoint though, because now we actually have characters! And dialogue!

And look a joke, haha! Except

Look at all the characters in this page. You got Daisy, you got Paulo, you got abbey, you got David, you got sir Noodles, and you got a reinforcing action to remind us about how Abbey and Paulo’s relationship is.

Guess how how many or which of these characters actually matter in this chapter or have an effect on it. Can you guess?

Yup, yeah that’s right none of em. Not a single fucking one of these characters matter. Not a single fucking thing in this page fucking matters at all, it barely even constitutes as a set up for the rest of the chapter. Congratulations, we just wasted a week of your time. Actually I was wrong, you know what the one and only thing that this page does that means anything?

There! That one fucking line. You waited a whole fucking week to digest two pages and all it really tells you that you didn’t know is what FUCKING TIME IT IS! EXCEPT EVEN THAT IS TOLD TO YOU

BY THE TITLE OF THE FUCKING CHAPTER! I am losing my shit this early because I want to make it abundantly clear just how infuriating this chapter was to read. This was when I realized we were in for a LONG ride. To better understand this, the chapters that preceded this one were centered around Lucy’s slow decline into depression, after her friendship with Mike had become fractured leading to her isolating (or at least distancing herself) from Mike (and the rest of the gang by proxy). This chapter was billed to be the culmination of all that fallout, which makes this pacing SO GRATING.

Thankfully page 3 actually does have characters that matter, and it actually is a set up for what the chapter is going to be centered around which is the kids working on a World War 2 Essay.

And we finally get a bit of substance to sink our teeth into! But before we go any further I should tell you a bit about my. Man. Mike. So Mike is a moody bitch. I talked a bit about what happened to Lucy, but Mike despite literally NOTHING happening to him directly since then aside from the rest of the gang not understanding why he wanted to separate from Lucy is still being moody and bitchy. And here we see him reach PEAK MOODY MIKE!

Haha that’s an actually good joke. I appreciated that when it came out.

And so, because Mike is being a moody bitch he ends up sealing his fate and is paired with Lucy. And for a second here, I had hope. Since Taeshi is pretty much declaring how frustrating and stupid Mike’s moodiness has been for the past number of chapters. Also while we’re here, I’d like to point out how everyone in this page apparently got their arm lopped off. I mean look!

At least Lucy was able to find her right arm at the end there. But also, look at Abbey!

Oh look at him, you can see how he cares about Mike’s position on distancing from Lucy! Awww such a good friend. Oh he’s definitely not going to make a heel turn and accuse others of not caring about Mike!

I am so glad I saved that image.

Anyway the next page is Mike and Lucy deciding to go to the library to work on the essay.

And then the page after that is Lucy trying to make an effort to ease the awkwardness, while Mike gives her the cold shoulder. Congratulations. We have spent a week, walking to the fucking library.

The monotony is broken up though, as we get to see that Augustus is at this library.

It doesn’t stop the back and forth that we just got in the last two pages from continuing though, and as a reminder this is all that we’ve been given to sustain ourselves for three whole weeks!

At least Augustus is able to break up this feet-dragging by giving us SOMETHING different to talk about.

Ooh look, something actually interesting! We get some insight into Lucy and Augustus’ relationship. For context, Augustus has been a very interesting side-character; one of the best. And his relationship with Lucy is a pretty nice one with its own complexities and great chemistry. As I’ve mentioned before, Lucy had spent the last few chapters isolating herself from Mike to try to let things cool off and respect his wishes. In that time, she ended up finding company in Augustus, the resident bad boy. He was suspected of attempted rape on Daisy, but we’re not talking about that.

Well maybe a little.

Lucy expresses what she’s dealing with and like before, she’s trying to find understanding from Augustus.

And he is having NONE OF IT! As someone who actually has serious problems, he calls Lucy out for being a privileged blue-eyed white cat whose only problem in life is being rejected by someone she loves.

But Augustus does give Lucy some advice, in how he sees and deals with his situation. Showing that while he does think Lucy is stupid for even thinking about killing herself over Mike, he does want to help her. It’s just…

He’s wrong. He’s so fucking wrong.

We now know through the power of hindsight, that Abbey and Daisy’s relationship was a total sham! It wasn’t a healthy loving relationship at all! It was all a lie!

GOTTA LOVE THEM RETCONS AMIRITE?!

Nah we haven’t even STARTED to begin.

Anyway, Augustus leaves and we’re back to this bullshit. Now Mike’s not just being moody, he’s being judgy!

Oh no, fuck you Lucy! I don’t want anything to do with you, I want you to be out of my life!

Hey, what are you doing, talking and having a conversation with someone I don’t care about? Stop being such a leech! Just because I don’t want you to be in my life, doesn’t mean you can just go and move on to find company in other people! Why don’t you just die alone and unloved like I tell you to?!

But don’t worry right after, Lucy breaks the ice and gets a smile out of the boy!

It’s a breath of fresh air, and we see the dynamic with the two is still there and-

No, I didn’t buy that when this page came out either. It’s meant to portray that Lucy can make Mike feel better and break him out of his funk, but…yeah at this point I knew better. By the way, it has now been one whole month of December.

And we’re only a third of the way through.

And thankfully we’re out of the library. And even more fortunately…

Taeshi learned that you don’t have to spend two whole updates on moving your characters from one location to the other! She’s learned you can smash two pages together and NOT WASTE YOUR AUDIENCE’S FUCKING TIME!

As for the actual content of this page, Lucy and Mike go to Mike’s house and we get a bit of Lucy interacting with Mike’s family, and how they get along well. Mike’s still moody as ever though, and we get our first glimpse that things aren’t perfect for him. Also

RIP the boy, Chris. he ain’t dead but I do miss him.

Anyway, the two go to Mike’s room to study, and it’s still awkward until Lucy breaks the silence!

Old joke is old, but I love it nonetheless.

Okay, enough foolin’ around. Actually Lucy decides that she’s tired of pussyfooting around, and decides to say, “fuck it” and let off some steam by playing some video games like old times!

Mike is of course denying it and content in stewing in his anger. But lucy is adamant about doing something to break this stupid cycle of drama. I like it. Even though I didn’t buy the bit of Lucy making Mike laugh by showing a funny face, this one I do like. And while some (especially at the time) would point to this as an example of Lucy emotionally manipulating Mike to get what she wants in making him not angry at her, I would say-

SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LET ME HAVE THIS ONE, JUST THIS ONCE! I HAVE BEEN SO GOD DAMN CONTENT STARVED, THIS FUCKING DRAMA HAS BEEN GOING AROUND IN CIRCLES FOR ALMOST TWO YEARS! MIKE AND LUCY HAVEN’T TALKED OR ADVANCED THEIR POSITIONS IN MONTHS! LET ME EMBRACE THIS ONE LIGHT IN DARKNESS BEFORE IT IS SNUFFED OUT! LET. ME. HAVE. HOPE.

THANK YOU!

And so after a bit of a timelapse we get to see Mike and Lucy playing together, and how the turns tabled!

It’s great, and we even get a glimpse at how Lucy has been progressing herself. Perhaps the improvement in gaming being a metaphor of her own self-improvement.

We even get a bit of Mike reflecting and thinking how it is nice. And remembering that Lucy isn’t really that bad.

The scene continues, and we get a peek into Mike’s circumstance. As Mike kind of reveals that he himself has felt quite alone without Lucy there. And it’s really touching, it’s good character development.

And Lucy continues to take initiative to stop the awkwardness, by giving Mike a distraction. Not looking to fill the hole in his heart, not looking to force him to accept her. But allowing him to enjoy himself in the moment. It’s nice. It’s…

Really…nice…

Y’know…

It really was nice.

Ladies and gentlemen.

This is December.

[redacted due to Tumblr purposes. insert the entire Mike yelling scene from January here]

One month. That’s how long this scene lasted in real-time. Everyone who was a fan in 2011, everyone who had been so deeply invested in these characters watching them grow, interact, struggle, and suffer for years. All of them could only watch for one entire month as Taeshi ripped their hearts out. People defended this scene when it came out. There’s still people who defend this scene to this day, saying that Mike was right. I wasn’t one of those people. When this scene came out, I was shocked. I couldn’t understand what was going on, but I knew it was wrong. It was the first time I ever got into a discussion about BCB, because I just had to understand what the fuck was happening and why. Why is this happening? Why would Mike do this? How is this possible? And the only response I got, was that I just couldn’t understand. And y’know…

They were right. I didn’t understand. I was never really abused as a child. I never had bad friends, or was really bullied (except one time). There was no way I could grasp what the fuck just happened. Which felt so bizarre, because when this chapter came out…I was 15. I was the same age as these characters and I couldn’t fathom doing what Mike just did. I couldn’t imagine any of my friends saying what Mike just said. And yet everyone else seemed to understand, to the point I thought that I was the weird one. Did I just fucking win the social lottery or something and just not have any shitty friends?

Maybe so…But y’know after all these years, stewing and thinking about December which has haunted me as I’m sure it has, many other readers. And after all this time, running it around my head, and arguing about it, I think I finally understand. I get it…I finally get what Mike’s saying here.

That being said, no this scene is still bullshit.

Now let me tell you why.

First of all, look at this face.

Just look at this dopey doe-eyed cute cat right here, BECAUSE YOU WILL NEVER SEE THAT AGAIN.

But just to recap, let’s start with the actual preamble to the bullshit. Mike gets a text from Sandy which makes him revert back to his moody Mike self. And I will say at least here, Mike is in character. He’s been a bitch this whole chapter, and he’s just snapping back to it because he is reminded “Oh yeah, Sandy exists!” so he tells Lucy to beat it.

Lucy is understandably frustrated because we were seeming to finally get to a better place between these two characters. And instead of Mike being upfront about what his problem is, he chooses to shutdown the conversation and act like there’s nothing. Or to put it in another way…

So what exactly is causing Mike to revert to his moody mode?

Right, right, of course. It’s because Sandy’s coming! And just to catch up those of us blessed enough to not remember…

This is Sandy. Mike’s long time long-distance girlfriend and central conflict for BCB for the last…well for pretty much most of BCB at this point. Mike loves her, bordering on the point of obsession. To where most of his actions in BCB can be linked directly to Sandy. We’ll get to that later, but this is all you really need to know right now. Just briefly keep it in mind,

Lucy is surprisingly taking it in stride, or at least trying to be supportive of Mike and Sandy’s relationship. Obviously it does hurt her, but she is trying to make the best of it. Taking what Augustus had said to heart, in accepting Mike and Sandy’s relationship but still trying to be there for Mike. Using that to grow and maybe be a stronger person.

But sadly…this is December.

And nothing is allowed to grow in December.

Well…yes. Partly because we were literally told NINE PAGES AGO!

I believe this is what the kids call…gaslighting. But I prefer to call it

BULLSHIT!

But now we’re getting into it…

Let’s dig into the real hard bullshit of December.

You ready?

I’m ready.

Yes, right. Lucy is a bitch who has absolutely nothing for Mike, and never acted like a friend, or god forbid did something selfless for Mike like oh I don’t know…

Risking her life to try to save you from drowning, when she herself couldn’t swim and knew it could very well lead to her death.

Or what about when she was almost raped, and put literally put herself between you and danger!

TWICE! Wait, what the hell? They changed Confrontation! She’s supposed to say…

Because before mike got pinned he was saying…

That was like an actually cool and bad ass line. One of the best moments in BCB, why would you change it? Why would you change it to something as soft as that? And I’m the guy who wrote a comic where the moral of the story is that you can solve everything through the power of friendship!

But I digress. Was Lucy mean to Mike? Yeah. Did she pick on him a lot in the early chapters? Sure! But here’s the thing that people seem to forget about those early volumes…

Mike was kind of a little shit back then!

Lucy often picked on Mike because he was doing something wrong like trying to treat her like Sandy.

And lest you forget, Mike was more than capable of doing the exact same things!

Yes Lucy picked on Mike, but Mike also gave shit to Lucy. They both were active participants in giving shit to one another, but no it’s not bullying. It’s giving someone shit for doing something stupid, to keep them grounded, it’s a form of support that helps to build someone up not just through violent means, but because you care enough to want them to stop being stupid. And as the saying goes, “A good friend will hold you and support you to tell you everything will be okay no matter what. Your best friend, will kick you in the side and tell you to stop being a pussy and get over it.”

BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT FRIENDS FUCKING DO! THEY DON’T LIFT YOU UP! THEY MAKE YOU PICK YOURSELF UP! AND Y’KNOW WHY MIKE IS THINKING THIS WAY? YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT THE FUCKING CHERRY ON TOP OF THIS BULLSHIT CAKE IS?!

Sandy…

Mother…Fucking…Sandy. Up to this point Sandy herself had little to no presence as a person in this story. I mean she had an effect on a lot of things, but as an actual character we never got to see much of her personality outside of one standalone chapter: To the Top which only served to give us a shallow and basic understanding of her character. But even then, as far as actual personality, writing, hobbies, and chemistry we really didn’t get much at all as far as understanding who she is. The only things we knew for certain was that she’s in a long-term long-distance relationship with Mike. She’s a model. She goes to school. And she’s beautiful. That’s it. But that in and of itself doesn’t make Sandy a bad character. I mean for cryin’ out loud, two my favorite characters that I shoe-horn into all my projects are McCain and Carter. And they’re the most one-note characters in this comic! No, the problem with Sandy isn’t that we don’t know anything about her. It’s that despite us knowing nothing about her, Sandy has her fingerprints on almost every fucking conflict in Bittersweet Candy Bowl. And worse, the only purpose she seems to have on the comic is INFLUENCING MIKE! Let me pull some examples…

Mike and Lucy go on an adventure into the city which fleshes out the inner problems in their relationship.

Because Sandy might be there.

Mike and Lucy are starting to act awkward with each other, and it’s making everyone take notice. Why?

Because Mike is delusional about Sandy.

In the chapter directly after that, Mike is now suddenly obnoxiously happy and giddy, why?

Because he finally got to talk with Sandy!

It’s Christmas time, and Tess is having a party and Mike’s coming, why?

BECAUSE OF FUCKING SANDY!

Mike rebuffs Daisy’s advances during the carnival date…why?

Because of Sandy!

Although, to be fair of course there WAS a lot of other things going on in that scene, primarily Daisy being REALLY pushy, and needy. So it’s not JUST because of Sandy. It was because we just weren’t ready for Slut Daisy. The Free Daisy.

Tess is organizing a group vacation trip to Acapulco!

And what’s this? Mike doesn’t want to go? Is it because he thinks Lucy is gonna go and he wants to separate himself from her? Is it because he’s finally woken up and decided to stand up for himself?!

NO YOU FUCKING IDIOT! IT’S BECAUSE OF MOTHER FUCKING SANDY! AND THE WORST PART OF IT ALL, IS THAT NONE OF THESE SCENES ARE EVER DIRECTLY BECAUSE OF SANDY’S ACTIONS AS A PERSON! IT’S LITERALLY JUST BECAUSE SHE EXISTS! YOU COULD MAKE UP ANYTHING ABOUT SANDY, AND SHE WOULD STILL HAVE THE SAME FUCKING IMPACT ON THE STORY THAT SHE HAS HAD UP TO THIS POINT! All that Sandy’s character has been used for is just a means of influencing Mike!

And that’s not a character…that’s a plot device.

And nothing makes that point more clear…than this scene.

We get a scene where Mike is talking with Sandy, and he shows how over and over, Lucy’s jabs and abuses which were played for laughs in Volume 1 apparently were a super serious problem and we should’ve seen them as such. Now as a reader, I didn’t buy that for a fucking second, for reasons I’ve already explained. However, Sandy being on the other side of that long-distance relationship doesn’t fully understand the situation. But still she’s very worried and concerned for Mike, which leads to this.

Sandy making Mike hate Lucy. Some have pointed out that this is actually a good scene. Because here we get to see that Sandy at least cares about Mike. Except that, if you strip away those tears, and all the bullshit. What little characterization we get here, which is shit we already know in Sandy caring about Mike and Lucy’s relationship. Is something we should already know. She’s in a long-term long-distance relationship with Mike SHE FUCKING BETTER CARE ABOUT LUCY! The problem though, is like I said… Sandy isn’t treated like a fucking character. She’s treated like a fucking plot device! If she were an actual character, we should’ve seen her actually have a back and forth with Mike. The whole conversation about Lucy should’ve come up a LONG time ago. Because if she were treated like an actual character with agency…

She would’ve already known this.

You telling me that after how many phone calls, in the time that elapsed between these phone scenes Mike never actually told her about Lucy; the other biggest part of his life?! Did Mike never tell her about the amount of times that Lucy almost died to save his life? Or the amount of times he did the same for her? No! Because that would bring character growth. And we don’t want character growth.

We want to push this narrative! We want to implant these thoughts into Mike. We want him to have a victim complex so that he can do shit like THIS!

We want to push this plot point. And Sandy is the vessel to drive it off the cliff. This is why I fucking hate December. Because worst of all THIS…

Is no longer Mike speaking. This is Sandy’s influence speaking. Now LITERALLY ALL THE FUCKING SHIT THAT MIKE PEDALLED ABOUT NOT WANTING TO BE LUCY’S BABY SITTER AND BULLSHIT, CAN NOW BE ATTRIBUTED TO SANDY INFLUENCING HOW MIKE SEES HIS OWN FRIENDSHIP! And since we don’t have a clear timeframe of where these calls were made, and when exactly Sandy got through to Mike, that means you could pick any time where Mike was being cold or distancing from Lucy and blame it on Sandy! Including…

This scene…

Lest you think characters were the only casualty of December’s nuclear blast, it took with it one of the most emotionally tense and moving chapters of Bittersweet Candy Bowl: A Distance Apart.

I’ve already talked about this chapter in my rant on Golden Hour (aka December 2: homosexual boogaloo) so I’m not gonna get too into how the perspective of this chapter was changed because of December, but I will say that lines like the above now are specifically what’s tainted because of December. No longer is this Mike realizing that Lucy isn’t who he thinks she is, or him realizing that their relationship is not a healthy one on his own. It’s because as he said himself!

It’s Sandy’s fault. Because all she heard about Lucy was the negative, and now all Mike can see is the negative. And this chapter is saying it’s all Sandy’s fault that Mike now has a victim complex and it’s totally fair for him to say what he’s about to say.

WAIT! DID YOU JUST SAY…

JANUARY?!

Hah, nah I’m just fuckin’ with ya. We’re trying to stay focused here, so I’m holding off on the January references. Don’t worry kids, you’re safe for now.

For now…

Let’s unpack this first, because believe it or not we still have a LOT of ground to cover. Specifically, let’s talk about Mike’s glorious plan to leave the table!

God it is taking a lot to not just paste panels from Daisy’s rant in January. You people have no idea… But to summarize, this is fucking stupid at best and manipulative at worst. What Mike is talking about, is selfishly pide-pipering their whole friend group (minus Tess because Tess doesn’t exist anymore) away from Lucy, and he’s betting all of that on the fact that he knows Daisy is still head over heels for him. And what’s absolutely stupid about this fucking idea (which by the way seems to be premeditated so this can’t even be blamed on Sandy) is that if this was Mike’s plan all along. And December didn’t happen, and he did this table move guess what? Sure. Daisy follows Mike, Abbey and Paulo follow Daisy, and David follows Paulo…and then they invite Lucy, because in case you forgot SHE’S THEIR FRIEND TOO! (also I just noticed Mike completely forgot about Susan. That’s kinda fucked up, dude.)

But not as fucked up as this! Seriously, that’s a fucking low blow. And so fucking judgy. I guess we now know where Abbey learned to stoop so low while grand standing on his high horse! And yes I have heard the “muh hormones” and “they’re just KiDs!” excuses. But none of that really explains…

WHY THE FUCK DOES MIKE CARE?! DO YOU SERIOUSLY CARE IF LUCY (as you would put it) LEACHES OFF OF PAULO? HE’S LIKE ONE OF THE TOP OFFENDERS FOR PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY ABUSED YOU! THE MOTHERFUCKER SICCED A GAGGLE OF GIRLS TO BEAT UP ON YOU FOR BEING A “CHEATER”! Or are you worried because if Lucy clings to Paulo, then it ruins your fool-proof plan of going to another table since she’ll follow Paulo? OH NO, WE’VE FOUND A HOLE IN YOUR INGENIOUS PLAN! But speaking of worst offenders…

THIS. LINE. THIS FUCKING LINE! I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what the fuck you think. YOU DO NOT COME BACK FROM SAYING THIS. YOU CAN NOT FUCKING SAY THIS SHIT, AND THEN BE THE GOOD GUY! This is the point where I and many others realized Mike, was too far gone. And yet SOME PEOPLE WILL STILL ARGUE ABOUT THIS SHIT!

Oh you don’t understand, Amazil! He is just a stupid 16 year old ball of emotions and hormones! This has been building up THIS ENTIRE TIME! You even pointed out how Mike’s frustrations have been hinted at since the Vacation Arc! Obviously this has been hinted at for years! You’re just too ignorant to understand what Mike’s doing here! Of course he’s being overly cruel here, he feels backed into a corner, and is facing off against his abuser!

Now listen here, you may be right. I can’t, I hope, and I am grateful that; I don’t fully understand how it feels to be abused for all my life. But what I do know, is that NO ONE. Child, Teenager, or adult. Would fucking stoop that fucking low, and think they have any business. Any chance. Of coming back from that terribly burnt bridge. No one is that fucking ignorant! WHEN YOU BURN A BRIDGE LIKE THAT, WHEN YOU GO THAT FAR, YOU BETTER FUCKING BE READY TO LIVE WITH THE CONSEQUENCES! AND MIKE AT THIS POINT, SHOULD KNOW VERY WELL WHAT THE CONSEQUENCES MAY INCLUDE! AS THE PERSON WHO KNOWS LUCY MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE ABOUT LUCY, HE SHOULD BE FULLY FUCKING AWARE WHAT SHE IS GOING TO FUCKING DO WHEN TOLD THAT SHE IS A PARASITE AND THAT NO ONE FUCKING LOVES HER, WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU EXPECT SHE WAS GOING TO FUCKING DO, MIKE?!

JESUS CHRIST, HE’S LITERALLY USING HER DEEPEST SECRETS AND HIDDEN INSECURITIES THAT ONLY HE KNOWS ABOUT AGAINST HER! HOW THE FUCK DO YOU SUPPORT THIS SHIT? AND FURTHERMORE, “Like I’m the only one who cares about you.” TO QUOTE YOU LITERALLY A PAGE AGO!

YOU FUCKING TOLD HER THAT NOBODY LOVES HER. AND THAT SHE’S A FUCKING PARASITE! HOW ARE YOU THIS FUCKING STUPID! HOW CAN YOU STILL THINK THAT YOU’RE IN THE RIGHT? HOW DO OTHER PEOPLE THINK YOU’RE IN THE RIGHT? HOW CAN YOU STOOP SO FUCKING LOW, WHILE GRAND STANDING ON YOUR HIGH HORSE?!

Now, imagine if you will, after 2 whole months of reading December. You sit there and you wonder what is going to happen now. What is left to say? What more is Mike going to do? I mean there’s no way this chapter can get any worse! There’s NO WAY that Mike can be any more of an asshole. It’s not possible! And as if to get one last knife twist out of you. To kill the last shred of hope you had, that maybe. Just maybe this could be salvaged, and Mike can’t be worse… Taeshi does this.

….

Y’know, I once heard a story that someone actually killed themselves over BCB.

And I completely believe that. Two whole months we spent, having to watch week after week as this character we cared about. Rips apart the other character we’ve spent so much time learning about, growing with, understanding, and learning to love. And how do you end this chapter?

Grindingly slow. With Lucy throwing up, then eyeing Mike’s phone.

Followed by a nothing page where Mike’s happy.

Another nothing page where Mike goes to his room.

Dialogue that means nothing.

A whole fucking page of Lucy leaving.

MORE FUCKING SNOW

And one last lie.

And that, kids. Is the chapter of December. The most infamous chapter in all of Bittersweet Candy Bowl. And I hope you’re starting to understand why that is the case. Although, I’m sure a lot of you may have some contentions especially given the newer chapters that have come out. I mean, I often compare bad or infuriating scenes to December. And many may wonder or feel like those chapters are worse than December. I mean sure Mike ripping into Lucy is bad…

But what about the one-sided and almost carbon copy of December in Golden Hour?

Or what about Guest of Honor with it’s Abbey Smash?

And what about the second coming of the Carnival Chapter, with its DISGUSTING implications?

Or lest we all forget the wonderous return of Lucy herself, in Love Again! All of these chapters are fucking terrible in their own right. And it’s debatable how they ruin some characters worse than December. But there’s one very important factor that is lost to us now, that makes December in my eyes worse than any other chapter that Taeshi has put out. One singular thing makes December worse than anything Taeshi has come out with so far… And what is that factor?

Why, it’s TIME my dear reader. Time is what sets December apart from every other chapter. Readers at the time had to spend three whole months waiting for this chapter to end. We stared at each singular page for days, waiting hours on end, hoping that the next page would somehow be better, or give us an out. Instead it got worse and worse and worse. But what also sets it apart from all those other chapters I’ve mentioned is that, unlike Guest of Honor, Golden Hour, or Return to Carnival chapter; December was a very important moment in Bittersweet Candy Bowl. Not only because of how it changed the character, but because it is one of the only times in this fucking comic where the plot actually starts to develop. And we finally get a clear conflict to grasp onto and focus on.

In the chapters that came before December, the conflict of Mike and Lucy was just slowly getting worse and worse. And for the most part it just seemed to stagnate, with Lucy trying to keep her distance from Mike, and Mike constantly giving Lucy the cold shoulder. And everyone else having to deal with that. December was meant to be (and it did succeed in becoming) a bombshell chapter. A big revelation moment where things finally kick into high gear. Like, “Oh man that was brutal!” “What’s gonna happen now? Sandy is coming!” “Lucy just got fucking REKT!” “What is she gonna do?” “Taeshi just dropped the biggest bomb on top of us, where is she gonna take us? How are we going to follow up this momentum?!”

BY RELEASING ONE OF THE LONGEST. MOST NEEDLESS CHAPTERS EVER!

FOURTY EIGHT FUCKING PAGES. ALMOST FOUR MONTHS DEDICATED TO A PLOT POINT THAT HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE GIANT NUCLEAR BOMBSHELL THAT WAS JUST DROPPED ON US! And it’s especially needless because the entire point of this chapter is to tell us that Abbey’s mom died. Except that WE ALREADY THOUGHT SHE WAS DEAD! Oh you mean this character who all we know about was that she in a terribly abusive marriage, who we have not heard from since Abbey was introduced into the comic, who was in such a terrible state that she left her son and daughter orphaned. You mean the person so fucked up, that the last time we saw them was on a fucking stretcher is…DEAD?! SAY IT AIN’T SO! Y’know, it would’ve actually been more of a twist, and a lot more interesting if we found out ABBEY’S MOM WAS ACTUALLY ALIVE!

INSTEAD OF BUILDING OFF THE FUCKING MOMENTUM THAT YOU JUST SET UP, WE GET STRUNG ALONG FOR FOURTY EIGHT FUCKING PAGES! INSTEAD OF FOCUSING ON LUCY, AND USING DECEMBER AS A LAUNCHING POINT TO DRIVE THE FUCKING PLOT, ALL OF THE MOMENTUM IS GROUND TO A FUCKING HALT IN SERVICE OF A PLOT POINT THAT ULTIMATELY DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER! And if you made it through that and was hoping, “okay NOW we can start to get into the actual plot! NOW we can focus on Lucy, and what the aftermath of December is! Well…

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Paulo tries to give a cake to Lucy, and he mostly fails, giving us

NOTHING!

Just beautiful! The one chapter where it would be okay to not give all the attention to Mike and Lucy’s relationship. The one chapter where we could maybe get to see Sandy be a character! Mike X Lucy is fucked, but maybe we can find comfort in Mike X Sandy! Maybe we can have some sweet moments, and strengthen this central love triangle that we’ve been dancing around for all these years! Maybe, just maybe, Sandy can be more than just a fucking plot device!

BUT NOPE! SHE’S JUST THERE TO BE USED SO THAT MIKE CAN REALIZE THAT HE WAS WRONG AND FEEL BAD, SO HE CAN TRY TO MAKE IT UP TO LUCY! TOO BAD IT’S TOO LATE, SO IF YOU WERE LOOKING TO HAVE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT EITHER FROM LUCY OR SANDY, I’M SORRY BUT YOU GET

TWO BIG HEAPING SERVINGS OF NOTHING!

AND IF YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE STARVING FOR CONTENT BEFORE, BRACE YOURSELF FOR A ONE-PAGE CHAPTER THAT GIVES YOU

NOTHING!

AND I HOPE YOU FUCKING LIKE THAT ONE-PAGE BECAUSE YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO LOOK AT IT FOR

FOUR

WHOLE

MONTHS!

Although… to be fair, I think during that hiatus period Taeshi had guest comics and exclusive content to keep us occupied, but you get the point. As for the rest of the chapters…

Paulo breaks up with Jasmine in the most hackneyed fucking way possible, and we get a fake-out of Lucy’s suicide attempt.

We finally get the play chapter, and it teases us with the idea that Lucy and Mike are getting better except that no one falls for it because IT’S IN THE PLAY. AND WE ALL KNOW THAT IT’S JUST AN ACT AND IT’S FUCKING…

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And then Lucy finally attempts suicide and it’s all OFF-SCREEN! THEY KILLED OFF THE MAIN CHARACTER! THE ONE FUCKING BIT THAT WE WERE ALL LOOKING FORWARD TO, AND IT’S OFF-SCREEN!

Do you see what I mean now? December isn’t just a fucking chapter. It’s an arc. The most teeth grindingly slow, and agonizing arc Taeshi ever made! This is why December is and always will be the absolute fucking worst! It’s like Taeshi knew what we wanted and refused to deliver! Instead being content with teasing the readers over and over for almost two years, with the prospect of seeing Lucy go through a depression arc. Instead, we’re focused on literally everyone else and all of Lucy’s inner turmoil, heartbreak, thoughts, and progressions are just hinted at and we’re just left in the dark. We never got to see Lucy in her final moments. What was she doing? What was she thinking? Where was she? How is she doing? We wouldn’t get that information for

Nearly four years! And even then, IT WAS ALSO BULLSHIT! December is like a nuclear warhead of a bombshell that was dropped on us, except instead of going off and blowing us away, sending us to the greater plains. It just leaked radiation everywhere and killed us from the inside slowly. Its carbon footprint can be felt to this very day, we can’t get over December. Because THE COMIC ITSELF CAN NOT GET OVER DECEMBER! People who wanted to see Lucy become a better person, to see her try to get better, get help, or do SOMETHING! Would never get that relief. When I thought about December and how it treated its characters. I felt sorry for all the people who had to read this, who felt for Lucy. Who wanted to see her get better… I felt bad because I knew deep down that we were never going to get that story…

So I did it myself…

Don’t act surprised. You knew I was gonna go there. I literally warned you! There is no way in hell I’m gonna talk about December without bringing up the comic I literally made BECAUSE of December in: January. And this time we’re looking at January as a whole. Because now that you know WHY and WHAT I hate about December, you can start to see why January was made the way it was. I feel the need to explain this, because January still gets a bad rap by people saying that it’s “hate-filled” which it’s not. January is not a death threat , nor is it meant to say “I’m better than you”, it’s not a love note to BCB, it’s a Get Well Soon card. Not necessarily saying that I can do it better, but rather this is what you could’ve done. Whether or not it’s better is up to you to decide. And with that context, you can see why January was written the way it was. And it all starts with one simple change.

Instead of just outright removing December, the only thing I changed was that Mike didn’t get paired with Lucy and throw a fit. It doesn’t spitefully act like December never happened, in fact…

December plays out the exact same way as it did in the canon, just with Susan supplementing for Lucy. So Sandy’s still coming home, Mike’s still pissed at Lucy, and he’s planning on moving to a new table to get away from her. But because Lucy’s not there…

She’s able to fucking do something.

We get to see her try.

We get to see her fail.

We see how Mike’s plan comes to fruition.

We see how things fall apart, even with Lucy’s best efforts.

We see how December still takes its toll.

We get to see her snap out of it, briefly.

We see her at her lowest point.

We see what she’s thinking and why she’s doing what she’s doing.

We see her try to figure out what to do.

We see her picking up the pieces.

We see her take action to improve herself.

We see her getting help.

We see her taking action.

We see her getting better.

We see everyone come together to support her.

We see her at the end of her journey, come to terms with what she’s done. And wanting to improve not only herself, but her friendship with Mike. She shows maturity, empathy, and most importantly GROWTH as a character.

And in the end, the reader never gets to see how Mike and Lucy end up talking things out, but they can rest easy knowing that everything is going to be okay. And if THAT’S hate-filled, I don’t know what the fuck you’d call the canon’s handling of Lucy in the December arc.

The fact that we never got to see Lucy try.

The fact that the comic kept dicking us around, and baiting us with the inevitable.

The fact it KEPT FUCKING BAITING US WITH FALSE HOPE.

The fact we don’t get to even see her at the end of the line. The fact we had to wait three years for her to come back and let us know that she’s even ALIVE!

The fact that when she does comes back, SHE’S A HORRIBLE CUNTY SHELL OF THE PERSON SHE ONCE WAS…

That… is why December is the most infamous chapter in all of Bittersweet Candy Bowl. Not just because of what it did. But because of what it didn’t do. Because it promised the end to Mike and Lucy’s drama one way or another. It promised us that we were going to tackle these issues that Mike brought up in Lucy, but yet… Here we are.

Back to square fucking one. You know what they say…Those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it. So you better brush up on your December knowledge, or at least I hope this rant serves as a good refresher. Cause from the looks of it, we’ve been repeating these plot points for almost 10 years…

Y’know I thought I was actually going crazy there for a second. Obsessing and never getting over December for all these years. But now I see. This comic…never moved on from it. We’ve never recovered. We’ve been stuck in December for almost 10 years…

0/10 never forget…

#Bittersweet Candy Bowl #rant #holy shit this pushed the limits of Tumblr

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chaoticspacefam · 4 years

Note

🖊🖊 for Ni'kasi and an oc of your choice 👀

Thanks for the ask, Pinky! apparently my brain has decided “gush” means “throw lots of random fun facts at everyone” today so here we go! Here’s your favourite tomato gal! :3

-She and Saarai were always twins and I’d always intended for them to be close, and the bare-bones basic premise of how I wanted their relationship to work was “Saarai is the brawn and Kas is the brains”. While this is still true, it did evolve ever so slightly in that Saarai is now also the (more reliable) moral compass. Kas isn’t particularly Dark-sided, but she’s not Light-sided either, she’s inherited a lot more of mom’s “I will do what I have to to get a job done even if that means I have to kill a bitch” attitude XD

-When I first came up with the idea for the twins, Kas’s name was originally going to be “Jen” which is the High Sith word for “hidden, or in shadow” (”Saarai” is the High Sith word for “Truth”, for reference ;) ) ; so their names joined together would have meant “Hidden Truth”. I don’t remember where Ni’kasi came from because it isn’t an “actual” Sith word nor does it have particular meaning (though I might try to make one up, we’ll see :P), but the very first time I went to write down solid bios for them I ended up writing “Ni’kasi” instead of “Jen” for her and it’s stuck ever since then.

-Initially, Kas’s colour pallette was a lot lighter, which you can see in all of her screenshots up till now (cause I forgot to change her when I changed the design earlier this year oops :’D) and also in this art piece I ordered of her last year, here:

(art is by @/cerculor on deviantART)

and the twins were very darn near close to being identical, but I decided that I actually rather liked their dad’s more purple-ish skintone earlier this year and that it was a shame neither of the twins looked a bit more like him, so I changed Kas up a bit and gave her dad’s skintone, jaw spurs and eye colour. She’s got mom’s red-tinted hair and (mostly) mom’s ridge/browstalk structure though :D

-Great with her own kids and direct blood relatives (e.g. nieces, nephews, grandchildren), but kinda iffy with other, random children. She won’t hurt them but she’s very much D’leah’s child in that respect, she’s very “Sith-y”, and liable to be abrasive, unsympathetic and so on. Generally not the sort of presence you’d want around your kids... there will definitely be tears hahahaha

-The scar on her eye was originally going to be caused by D’leah in the same fight that she gets Saarai’s nose, when Ni’kasi got between them to try and break up the scuffle, but I retconned that instead when I re-thought some stuff about that so now she gets it from the Inquisitors after they figure out who killed Ty’s dad and come after them.

-This is also how Kas ends up in the slave pens, after they kill D’leah they throw Ni’kasi into slavery (which is a bit of plot armour/oversight on the Inquisitors part, I admit but shhh XD) and figure y’know “she’s never gonna get out of there again”. A lot can happen, and be forgotten, in 60 odd years tho so eventually they do throw her back into the Academy much to Kas’s surprise.

-She has a lot more scars other than the one on her eye, just that most of them are on her back, or the back of her neck, so you generally can’t see them (I haven’t drawn a scar ref for her yet, it is also on the to-do list lol)

And we random-rolled Aria for this one, so more Tiny Sith nonsense!

(art is by @/ocellifera on deviantART)

-Aria’s hairstyle and general appearance actually came about because it was based on my second-favourite “portrait” choice for the PC in KOTOR II. She wasn’t how I saw my version of the Exile looking, but I really liked the design (including the little blonde fringe streak) so I decided I wanted to do something with it! <3

-We don’t get to see it much because usually when I draw her she’s back with the Sith and fully into the “Dark side” portion of her story and therefore her eyes are amber, but here you go, a nice glimpse of Aria’s natural eye colour! As mentioned on Myla’s ask, she has heterochromia as well, though her grey is “lighter” than Myla’s as she inherited the grey from dad and the brown from mom (yes I know technically it doesn’t work like that but basically I couldn’t decide which one I liked better so instead of agonising over the choice I went “one of each, problem solved” XD)

-Aria was actually the very first SWTOR-era OC I made, very closely followed by her dad, Roan, and then Vano, then her mom when I worked on her backstory, and followed by everyone else haha. I created her for an RP on an RP site that got a couple of posts in and then died/my partner ghosted me for whatever reason (I’ve never found out nor does it matter really), I was disappointed because I really liked Aria and didn’t get to “do much” with her, so I recycled her when another RP popped up, used that to build her backstory and prompt me to start the Subterfugeverse and then threw her into the Zephyrverse AU RP with my buddy k-christine once she got back in touch and we started RPing again :D -Aria gave me the most trouble (other than maybeee Saarai) in terms of finally nailing down what her sexuality was. I had no idea what she’d be at all when I first made her, other than I knew this binch wasn’t straight hahaha. So first, I defaulted her to bi, but then that didn’t seem to fit her much (I didn’t know pansexuality was a thing at the time), then during my self-projection phase I considered leaving her as just a lesbian but she wasn’t happy with that either and eventually I figured out pan is a thing and she started jumping up and down and screaming HELLO YEAH THAT ONE!! at me. The only thing that was for sure obvious to me was that she’s demiromantic, because while she can get around and doesn’t care who with (insert “will fuck anything (humanoid) with a pulse” joke here), the romantic feelings often attached to that for other people take a long time to develop for Aria.

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murasaki-murasame · 4 years

Text

Thoughts on Higurashi Gou Ep12

First things first, I’ve finally gotten around to getting a subscription to AnimeLab so I’m not just pirating everything I watch each season, so that’s cool, lol. I can’t really justify getting multiple streaming service subscriptions, though, so I’ll still probably pirate anything that this site isn’t streaming. But thankfully they’re streaming this series, so I can watch it guilt-free.

Anyway, thoughts under the cut.

I honestly wasn’t expecting them to continue following Minagoroshi in an almost 1:1 manner since we’re getting so close to the end of this arc, but the fact that there’s only one episode left before the next arc starts makes it pretty obvious that we’re going to get some real curveballs and a sudden ending in the next episode..

I think that in the original anime’s version of Minagoroshi, there were like three episodes left in the arc after what this one covered, so there’s no real way for them to actually cover all of that. But obviously this isn’t trying to faithfully adapt Minagoroshi from start to finish, so it’s just been a matter of time until things change.

Honestly, I feel like this episode is another example of how Gou has been functionally more of a remake than a lot of people probably want it to be. I’ve been seeing lots of people complaining about how the show’s been really boring because like 90% of it has been going over stuff from the VN, and that just really goes to show that they weren’t kidding about this being accessible for newcomers, and probably aimed at them first, and old fans second.

I also think it’s totally fine that they’ve really toned down the horror aspect of the series. I never really liked that the blood and gore became the big defining part of it’s cultural legacy and how people remember it, so I’m glad that Gou is more faithful to the focus on mystery and drama in the VN. There isn’t the same sort of slow-burn dread and paranoia, but that’s just something that a 24-episode anime split into 5-ish arcs fundamentally can’t do properly, so they’re going for a different sort of pacing and atmosphere that works more naturally here.

Anyway, since this episode was almost 1:1 with this part of Minagoroshi, there isn’t a whole lot to say there, but I still spent the whole episode being worried that everyone in the main crew was two seconds away from murdering everyone in the village council, lol. It didn’t help that my memory of Minagoroshi is really fuzzy, so I couldn’t remember if everyone was acting this way originally, but I think it was all pretty faithful to the VN.

There are still a few notable differences from the VN, though, like Ooishi just randomly showing up at the meeting to creepily observe Keiichi, which I think is original to Gou. Considering that he also had that ominous final scene in the last episode, I’m really suspicious of what the hell’s going on with him in this arc. I thought maybe he’d show up here to stop Keiichi’s plans to save Satoko, or to reveal something about what’s going on with her and Teppei, but he didn’t really do anything. He also seemed like he was maybe supportive of Keiichi’s whole plan to rally the village, so I just have no idea what he’s thinking at this point, lol.

I also think the first scene with the damaged shrine might be original, and I don’t really know what to make of it. It might have just been there so we could see some random villagers talk about how everyone secretly thinks that Satoko and Teppei will be the victims of the curse this year, but I feel like there must be more to it. For one thing, I’m skeptical that it was actually Teppei who did it in the first place, but I also think the symbolism of a desecrated shrine is pretty heavy for a story like this.

Part of me’s still convinced that Teppei might already be dead, but honestly I’m less certain about that after how this episode went. We also didn’t even see Satoko at all, which is kinda worrying. Maybe she’ll wind up dead, but I’m not sure.

I guess the bottom line is that there’s only one episode left to this arc, so there’s only so much they could do at this point, and it’ll have to happen pretty quickly. So I at least think that part of the big divergence in this arc will involve the outcome of the village rallying together for Satoko. I thought at first that maybe this time around they’d fail in getting Oryo’s support, and the whole plan would fall apart, but things played out the same as the VN with her, so if something’s going to screw up the plan, it’s probably something else. And since Ooishi seemed kinda supportive of Keiichi here, maybe he’ll sit back and let them continue their protesting like in the VN, instead of breaking it up this time.

But other than that the obvious guess for how this will all fall apart at the last minute would be if we find out that Satoko and/or Teppei are already dead, which would immediately invalidate the entire protest.

Though I’m still also thinking that maybe they actually WILL succeed in saving Satoko, and it’ll lead to a deceptively happy ending where everything just falls apart afterwards due to some other reason, like in Minagoroshi. I doubt it’d be the exact same thing, though.

I guess a more or less happy ending could still happen with the Satoko situation if Teppei alone winds up dead, and Satoko just gets to go back to living with Rika afterward. Which would probably at least take less time to deal with than having the whole process of getting Satoko to speak out against Teppei and provide evidence of abuse to the CWS.

I still like my theory that all the main characters will survive this arc, and that this will lead to the future where teenage Rika gets murdered, but I’m not entirely confident about that at this point.

One thing that’s still bugging me, and is making it hard to predict exactly what’s going on, is that I can’t tell exactly what’s going through Rika’s head, and what she actually thinks is going on. She’s continuing to apparently remember and quote stuff Keiichi said in Minagoroshi, but even in the VN they established that she can’t remember that arc at all. There’s also the scene early in the episode that seems to imply that she’s suspicious of Takano, but the idea of her knowing about Takano being evil still feels really strange to me.

For one thing, it feels like in every arc thus far she’s done absolutely nothing to try and stop Takano’s plans, but it also feels like Rika is doing the exact same thing she did in Minagoroshi originally, where she assumes that in this type of arc the only thing they need to do to achieve a happy ending is save Satoko. But in Minagoroshi the whole point was that she *didn’t* know about Takano, so she didn’t realize until it was too late that saving Satoko wasn’t enough. But this time around it seems like even though she’s maybe aware that Takano’s evil, she’s still going with the idea that saving Satoko is all they need to do to achieve a happy ending. And she isn’t even saying anything to her friends to make them aware of what’s going on with Takano so they could at least prepare for it in advance instead of being caught off-guard by her.

Maybe this is just bad writing, but I still prefer to think that she doesn’t actually remember or know anything about Takano, and the show’s just been misleading old fans into assuming that she does. Which is why I came up with my theory that Gou’s whole story is an in-universe fictional story written by someone like Featherine that involves a fictional version of Rika who basically branches off from the level of knowledge and development she had around Tsumihoroboshi, before she learned about Takano. And that the happy future she told Hanyuu about isn’t actually Matsuribayashi, but an arc in Gou where we get a seemingly happy ending but Rika dies as a teenager anyway.

Either way, I’m still at least going with the theory that Takano isn’t the big obstacle this time around. If only just from a meta perspective of how it’d be the biggest way to change things up compared to the VN’s story, and how there’s just not really enough time to actually cover all the stuff that happened with her in the VN. There’s still the question of why she still seems to be the exact same person as in the VN, including having the name that she got after being adopted by her grandfather, but I still think a lot of this could be explained by having Gou be a fictionalized version of the Higurashi gameboard where the surface level of Takano’s character is the same, but her backstory has basically been retconned, either intentionally or because the person writing this doesn’t know about what’s going on with her.

And on the note of Takano, I still think this arc should end up providing more clues about what’s going on with her and Tomitake in each arc. They haven’t really done anything in this arc yet, but it’d be weird if we don’t get some more clues about them before the question arcs end and we start getting answers.

But we haven’t even gotten to the festival yet, and there’s only one episode left, so who even knows if we’ll get far enough in the timeline for anything to happen with them in the first place.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking more about all the different theories of what’s going on this time around, and where this is all going to go in the long run, and even though it’s too early for me to really be confident in anything, one idea I’ve been messing with is that, at least in the first two arcs, Keiichi was a lot more involved in the different murders than we’ve been lead to believe. Basically I just thought about the fact that he almost definitely hallucinated most of his fight with Rena, and I tried to see if I could really go wild with that sort of storytelling logic and apply it to anything else that’s happened.

This is mostly just me trying to see how far I can stretch this whole theory, so this is kind of a reach, but to begin with, it’s possible that Keiichi is the one who murdered Rika in the first two arcs. Maybe in Onidamashi he killed Rena and then remembered how Rika convinced him to trust her, and in his L5 state he decided that she must have been trying to get him killed, so he took the kitchen knife and went over and killed Rika [with Satoko being caught in the cross-fire].

My theory for him being potentially responsible for her death in Watadamashi ties into my similar idea that maybe in that arc, if not also in Onidamashi, he killed Takano and Tomitake. And then later in Watadamashi, Rika went full Bernkastel at him and revealed that she knew about Takano and Tomitake being dead, and he ended up snapping and killing her. One thing that’s been nagging at me about that whole sequence is that that episode ended with Satoko inviting him to play dodgeball with her and the other kids, but then at the start of the next episode she’s being suspicious of him and asking about if he was with Rika when she disappeared. Which might have just been Satoko lying, but there were other kids involved who could have vouched for Keiichi if he was with Satoko the whole time, so I think that they just lead us into assuming that he took up her dodgeball invitation, when in actuality he didn’t, and he went off and killed Rika in secret, which is why Satoko acted like she didn’t know what he was up to.

But going back earlier in Watadamashi, I think that after everyone left the Saiguden, what actually happened might have been that Keiichi succumbed to paranoia and attacked Takano and Tomitake off-screen, and then later on Mion called him on the phone pretending to be Shion, and got him to agree to a fake alibi that she made up to cover up what he did.

This might also shine more light on what happened behind the scenes with Mion and Shion after the festival, if what actually happened was that the village elders all more or less figured out that Keiichi killed Takano and Tomitake, and Mion snapped and murdered everyone after they started to suggest that he should get punished for it.

It always seemed a bit weird to me that multiple characters pressed Keiichi for info about if he was with not just Shion but also Takano and Tomitake at the festival, and that Mion/Shion was getting him to confirm that he met everyone on the shrine steps at the festival even though they all should have remembered that. So it might explain a lot of stuff if Keiichi was actually involved in their disappearances, and people started getting suspicious of him, while Mion worked to make up an alibi for him. The whole story of them fleeing the village might have also been made up by Mion as part of the alibi to explain why they disappeared.

I still think Rena killed them in Onidamashi because she thought Keiichi found out about her murders and that he’d ratted her out to them, but part of me’s still kinda suspicious of how Keiichi walks up to them at the festival but then just stops and walks away before actually talking to them, while Rena stares at him in the background. It makes me wonder if the way the scene was depicted wasn’t actually true.

In general I wonder how much Gou might be willing to intentionally depict false information to the audience about Keiichi’s POV. There’s a few scenes where he obviously hallucinates stuff, but maybe it extends more than that.

Looking at it from an Umineko perspective, Keiichi might be the viewpoint character in Gou, but that doesn’t necessarily make him the detective, so it’s possible that his perspective is sometimes just straight up misleading.

If we’re willing to doubt Keiichi’s perspective on things, I also think this raises a lot of questions about the Yamainu’s potential involvement in things. If he was the one who killed Rika and Satoko in Onidamashi, then maybe in that entire arc they didn’t actually do anything at all. And maybe in Watadamashi Rika didn’t even talk to a construction worker at all, and that was just Mion covering for Keiichi. He might have also hallucinated seeing them on the security camera footage due to being suspicious of them by that point, but it’s also possible that what he saw was just some random construction workers doing work near the Sonozaki property, and in his paranoid state he interpreted them as being evil and coming to murder them all. I don’t think he was directly involved in Mion and Satoko’s deaths, but I wonder if maybe the Yamainu weren’t involved either, and it really was more of a murder-suicide. The gun looked like it had been swapped out, but maybe someone other than the Yamainu did it, like Ooishi.

A lot of this is a big stretch, but this ties into a lot of little things that have been bugging me, including the fact that Keiichi has felt almost strangely ‘innocent’ in each arc thus far, compared to how he was in the VN. And looking at this from the perspective of Gou being an accessible mystery to new fans, it makes me think that maybe a lot of these mysterious incidents aren’t being caused by effectively unknown third parties, but by Keiichi himself.

It might be a bit cheap, but I think the first two arcs at least provided very understandable motives for why he’d kill Rika, which even new fans could catch onto. In Onidamashi she basically tried to gaslight him into trusting Rena which lead to him nearly getting murdered, and in Watadamashi she straight up started talking about Takano and Tomitake’s deaths while acting like she has a creepy amount of knowledge about everything going on. On a similar note, it’s starting to kinda worry me that there’s been several instances in Tataridamashi of him noticing that Rika keeps talking about stuff that he apparently said to her, that he has no memory of. It just feels like in every arc she keeps doing and saying stuff to him that from his perspective would be extremely suspicious.

I think Watadamashi also provided enough evidence for how he might have snapped and killed Takano and Tomitake off-screen, since he was acting weirdly hostile toward Takano during the entire Saiguden scene, and then freaked out at Shion/Mion when she talked about what Keiichi was up to at the festival and provided the cover story of him just hanging out with everyone on the steps. Even when Ooishi questioned him about what he was up to, he got defensive about it and complained about how everyone keeps asking him about his involvement with them.

It’d at least be a pretty simple way to have Takano and Tomitake be red herrings this time around, if we find out that they just keep getting killed by people who get suspicious about them.

Along these same lines, I have to wonder if maybe Teppei’s going to wind up dead because Keiichi killed him off-screen in some kind of paranoid fugue state that he might not even remember. But we’ll see how it goes.

One thing that I like about this theory, at least, is that it would play into how Gou seems to be designed specifically to mess with Rika’s preconceptions, and having Keiichi be responsible for a lot of what’s going on would really fuck with her, especially with how she’s acting in this arc. Honestly, I started thinking about the “Keiichi culprit theory” after how it started seeming like blatant dramatic irony that Rika was talking over and over again about trusting Keiichi. In basically each arc thus far she acts under the assumption that things will play out a certain way, and then they don’t, and in this arc the main thing she’s done has been trust Keiichi and assume that he’s going to resolve everything with Teppei peacefully and lead everyone to a happy ending.

Anyway this got a lot longer than I wanted it to, so I’ll stop there, lol.

#murasaki rambles #higurashi #higurashi gou #I know I made the 'we poppin the BIGGEST bottles next week :)' joke last week but I feel like it still applies here lol

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