#character-driven action

[captaingimpy]

Review: Den of Thieves (2018) Rough around the edges, but heavy where it counts

The first Den of Thieves walks into the heist genre wearing its influences loud—Heat, The Town, even End of Watch—but it does more than just cosplay. What you get is a stripped-down, bullet-stained chess match between crooked cops and professional criminals, both moving with the kind of swagger that comes from living one inch from total collapse. Gerard Butler’s “Big Nick” O’Brien is a walking…

[maranull]

anyway, Elden Ring is about love and hope

Marika burns everything she has build out of sorrow

Ranni banishes the Outer Gods and also fucks off the Lands, giving agency back to the normal beings of the Lands

Fortissax endlessly fights Death for his friend/lover

Melina burns herself and Erdtree in hopes of a better world in the hands of the Tarnished

Blaidd fights against the very reason he was created out of love for his sister

Ranni and Rykard always keep an eye on their mother, protecting her

Radahn evokes so much love from his troops that they organise a whole festival to give him a honorable death even in his madness

Radahn learns an entire new school of magic in order to still ride his favourite horse

Boc's love for his mother, his mother's love for him

How all but two endings are build on the hope that this new era (whatever it might be) will be good

Miquella attempting to create an whole new world-tree to host the forsaken and the damned

Miquella turning on the faith he was raised and even believed in to an extent, when it was unable to cure his sister's curse

The Cleanrot's loyalty to Malenia and their endurance of the Rot, only to stay in her service

Malenia marching through the entire continent in search of her brother

Finlay traveling all the way back on her own, carrying the incapacitated demigod on her back

Tanith's love for Rya

Dialos' entire questline

Edgar being driven mad after his daughter dies

Vyke embracing, to a point, the Frenzied Flame in order to save his finger maiden

or you know, that's just how I see it

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

love how Solar Opposites started out as a sitcom about two aliens who can't stand each other, stuck with their teenage clones (whom they also can't stand) & a toddler antichrist (whom they view as a sort of self-sufficient free-roaming hamster?) on a stupid planet they can't stand

and 4 seasons later it's a sitcom about a family of genderqueer aliens, headed by a gay couple in a happy & horny open marriage (with a graphic off-screen sex life, despite their canonical lack of genitalia?) teaching themselves to be okay parents to their 3 kids (whose Sci-Fi Antics now slightly-less-frequently revolve around wreaking havoc on human bystanders, and slightly-more-frequently revolve around alien-clone-sibling-bonding*), to the point that the central plot point becomes "We need to provide our toddler antichrist with a stable home environment."

(also the grumpy alien husband is too busy ingratiating his family with their suburban neighbors to even remember whom or what he dislikes. what is this show)

[swan2swan]

One of the things Skeleton Crew nailed more than most other Star Wars projects is the efficiency of the character design on the kids.

Neel is obviously an alien. He's got blue skin. And a trunk. Those big black eyes. He wobbles. This infuses the show with a diversity we haven't had since Resistance, something unique to the toybox we're playing in.

Then there's KB. She's got a cool Space Visor...which is not Essential, a la Geordi in Star Trek, but does give her an immediately recognizable face in a way we haven't seen since Sabine in Rebels (which may also not count because she's just got a Mandalorian helmet, which was already associated with Boba Fett...in fact, I'd call this Completely New). She's also got the white hair that falls across her face, and while if you put a gun to my head and told me to draw her clothes, I'd die, that's not necessary for her design: she can swap clothes whenever and she'll be identifiable.

Fern looks pretty basic, but she's got a Cool Jacket. That ties her in with Kay, Han, and Cassian (I'm gonna be honest, I think they were trying for something similar with Poe's jacket and Finn in the sequels, but they never really pulled it off for myriad reasons). The dark color of the jacket contrasts well with her pale skin, dark hair, and bright shirt (orange below, white for the main story). The blue patch also makes it have Instantly Identifiable Potential.

And then there's...um...um...*sweats*...Protagonist Kid.

He's probably got the most easily-forgettable design, but that's okay, he's the protagonist, he's meant to have some Audience Imprinting. A little subtlety can go a long way there, it's been a staple of Star Wars. But his hair has a VERY distinctive silhouette, and that's enough. Worked for Luke Skywalker back in the day, after all...and Anakin later. From bowl cut to that stupid Padawan cut to the moppy mullet foreshadowing that of his son. Sometimes all you need is "It's the guy with the Long Hair" and you're golden. As long as he doesn't pull an Ezra and lop that off to ruin his look entirely (yeah, I'm still not over that, I get it, but I really think Ezra's design suffered in the later seasons), he's Good Forever.

[minor-dot-inconvenience]

pov me when someone calls Eurylochus a hypocrite for getting mad at Odysseus sacrificing 6 men so now i lowkey have to kill them

(i yap in the hashtags)

[bleaksqueak]

Honestly, I'm really grateful that my brain isn't wired to jump from hyperfixation to hyperfixation. It has its own unique drawbacks, sure, but I've always found it really comforting that I know what to expect from myself.

[andresylupin]

maybe i've subconsciously pushed back against "The Teeth of the Tiger" because it's the one novel where you have to reconcile with the fact that, well:

[clowndensation]

there’s a question to be asked i think about to what extent “getting out” can be conflated with “being saved” in this show, and what freedom actually means to any of these characters.

like you can argue that shiv saved ken by voting against him on gojo, but what if your intent behind saving someone is to inflict a worse punishment than if you’d just left them trapped? can a child weaned on poison survive on milk, or are you just sentencing them to a death by inches, starved of the only thing they know? and if you save someone specifically because you know that being saved is the worst thing that can happen to them, is that kindness or cruelty? at what point does a good thing become a malicious act?

and you can say that roman is finally free, but what exactly is he free from? the company? his father? does unlocking a cage mean saving a dog, or are you allowing him out on the street knowing there’s a kill shelter nearby? if the driving anxiety behind roman is that he’s an idiot and a failure—that he’ll never amount to anything, and trying will only lead to pain—and he’s finally cut loose once all of those anxieties have crystallized into cold hard fact in his mind, what has he actually escaped from? if the cage is in your mind, is it even possible for somebody else to unlock it?

the fundamental truth of a tragedy is that even being saved can be a death sentence, if the characters are incapable of escaping the thing doing them the most harm (themselves and their childhoods)

[alicentsgf]

you ever read smut and go 'oh this author fucks. literally'

[dykesynthezoid]

If you haven’t seen much cable tv in a few years you might not know this but the editing on most of those shows is so absolutely crazy now. God it sucks so bad. And like some of those shows do appear to be genuinely well written and made by people passionate about what they’re doing!! But the pacing and storytelling and character beats all seem so strange.

And it’s clearly bc they’re supposed to be made for an audience who’s expected not to be paying full attention/have zero attention span. So everything comes at you way too fast and both vulnerable/revealing character moments and larger plot developments seem to come out of nowhere w very little buildup. Honestly it makes me wonder how many of these shows are having genuine effort put into them but are then totally chopped up in the edit anyway.

Like as an example I really enjoyed Brilliant Minds, but if you compare the editing in that show to what they were doing over on say, House MD? It’s night and day, and it feels even more apparent bc they’re in the same genre of medical investigation drama, albeit w different central themes. Like I loved the writing and it felt like a lot of sincerity and passion went in to making it; but the editing is so break-neck and disjointed it can be hard to enjoy those positives.

(And the flipside of this is prestige television shows being pumped out that don’t have the same time constraints and so can take their time meandering and don’t have that super fast edit, but a lot of the plot and character development are still just like. Playacting at storytelling. Just vague gestures in the guise of plot or character moments. And still so many tropes.)

[jelloia]

all of hell train arc to the fight w white will always be peak tog art for me.... like yes the art is still beautiful but that era!! was so iconic!!

some of my fav panels below (but only up to a certain point i need to continue rereading once i have time ajsdk):

(^^ i miss funny panels like thse afkdl)

(^^ it's such a small panel w simple coloring but tell me it's not effective!!! detail is not everything)

(^^ again it's just a random panel but idk it has a chokehold on me... like they did him so dirty on the right sob) ALSO ENDORSI MY LOVE FADSJLSDKFWOIE

(^^ literally so fucking iconic) (and the one below!! i am a ran stan!!)

(^^ it would be a crime not to include this panel)

oki that's the end for now... literally have so many thoughts about the current pacing of the story and art, but i'll always think of these older episodes as siu at his best

anyways you've made it this far! here's a throwback to one of my fav lil comics siu has made :)

[cuteniaarts]

Mirror, mirror, on the wall...

Who's the fairest of them all?

[doctorweebmd]

back soon to our regularly scheduled programming but i need y'all to know

that i stayed up to nearly 2 am crying my eyes out playing barrett's backstory in ffvii rebirth holy SHIT did they write his arc well how did he go from my least favorite to most favorite character so quickly

[saentz]

My first Fic

Name - Oath of the Crimson Lotus

Fandom - Naruto 🍥

Genre - General, Romance, Action

Summary:

This story is set in the world of the Naruto series. One day, Naruto happens to save a red-haired stranger from a monster, what happens next? Only fate can tell what awaits the blonde and red haired ninjas. Trying to write out the whole series with my own arcs and chapters. NarutoxKarin. No harem.

An idea that lingered far too long in my mind, so I decided to finally get at it. Idk how it will turn out, reviews are appreciated!

[thescreaminghat]

just finished watching pluto (and just finished crying my fucking eyes out at every scene featuring epsilon and his kids) and while i understand that the focus is the philosophical and emotional narratives being explored and the weight that is given to each character, human or not, and how they grapple with their pain, it would have been kinda funny if the show had ended like this

[eebie]

people who act like liking.or dare i say sympathizing with spot as a character is a moral failing