#did you think for a second that her only plot function was to show that CARMY is incapable of choosing not to self sabotage | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bewaretheidesofmarchyall · 4 months

Note

what the fuck is the Wire Mother book. Sociology has lore now?

oh boy okay

so you remember the Divergent books? the YA boom of the early 2010's? The Wire Mother was one of those series. they turned the Harlow's monkey experiments into dystopia factions.

yeah. i know. bear with me

The first book, The Wire Mother (2010) is pretty standard YA dystopia fare. There's this girl named Leo Groves (the Leo's short for Leonore) who lives in the court of the Cloth Mother, a city where people live in comfort and camaraderie and a general vibe of hold hands around the campfire and sing, except for the people who die at random. This is accepted with unsettling what-can-you-do calm from the main characters. (Eventually, it's revealed that's happening because only a 1/5th of the food served in the city is real, so most of the people are dropping dead of starvation but their bodies are quickly hurried away as to not kill the vibe, so no one worries all that much about it).

Which could have been cool speculative fiction! A handy story about desensitization to violence or complacency or something. Unfortunately, this was 2010 YA, so the concept is quickly kicked under the bed in favor of. yeah. A love triangle. Leo, being a special little narratively significant thing, finds her way to the mysterious other city on the other side of her hometown, the court of the Wire Mother. And when she's there, she meets a boy. Coil 54810.

Coil goddamn 54810.

That brooding son of a bitch. His last name is 54810 because the concept of last names and family doesn't exist in the court of the Wire Mother, only functionality, so 54810 is just the number of Coils there's been in the city. He's not a clone or anything, it's just the amount of people who've had that name. It's like being named Jeremy 54810. Killer of plot pacing. Swoopy of hair. He would have deserved to be named Jeremy.

God, anyway, I'm talking a lot about this. Anyway: The Wire Mother is exactly as good as the average YA dystopia book from the time period. It has some high points (the Cloth and Wire mother are cool ominously looming entities, and the main antagonist Jane-Mary has a level of batshit mad science energy to her that makes her the most fun villain in the series) and some low points (the forced Romeo and Juliet references. the forced romance. It is so clear that Benjamin St. Jobs, the other guy in the love triangle, doesn't stand a chance, but we have to keep who-will-it-be-ing for so long anyway. And Coil's a dick), but it mostly just balances out.

There were three more books in the series. There was supposed to be four, but. Well

Anyway. Book Two, The Wire Mother: Hounds' Toll (2012), actually kind of slapped. It went to more tragic and horror-influenced places than the original book. One thing I'll give Angela Lee (the author) credit for: I don't think this was a sequel for the sake of having a sequel. I think that the series was always supposed to be a pentalogy.

Some of the stuff in this book has still stuck with me to this day- I have to hold myself back from adding ominously ringing church bells in so many of my projects. Also, it really filled out Leo Groves as a protagonist- I could take or leave her in the first book, but I started to genuinely like her by the second. And the stuff they do with Stellarose Ardent, her best friend turned rival... God, I could make a whole post about Stellarose Ardent.

this book series is good, readers thought. surely the third book will be as good if not better

THE THIRD BOOK WAS HELL. The Wire Mother: Ordained Voltage (2013)...I think it did everything wrong. There was a reason that there was a two year break between the first two books, and book three being out only a year after Hounds' Toll really shows.

It's incredibly rushed. Leo barely gets to do anything. Stellarose is killed off in the most unsatisfying way possible. And while it seemed like Book Two had neatly put the love triangle to bed, no! It claws its way out of its grave!! To torment me specifically!

The only good thing we got out of this car wreck is Anesthesia 3, lab rat girl and apocalypse maiden extraordinaire. I adore her. She's got real Fish Inside A Birdcage vibes. Everything else, though? Horrors.

But readers held out hope. At least the characters ended up trapped in an interesting setting at the end of book three. The merciless, multi-layered prison of Tithonus, the central antagonist of the series. It seemed like that was a good set-up for a prison escape storyline. Those have to be entertaining, right?

Somehow, some way, no. Book Four, The Wire Mother: Endless Sentence (2014) is not just bad. I could forgive bad. But it is bad, and it is boring.

so boring that I'm not even going to waste my words on it. It's a school night. I'm not staying up to describe that thing. The only interesting thing about it is how it could manage to be boring while being an homage to the fucking Stanford Prison experiments.

And that was the end of a lot of people's hopes for the Wire Mother series. Only one good book out of four isn't a great track record, you know? A lot of readers were willing to put Hounds' Toll down as a one-off.

Then, in November of 2014, the preview for Book Five, The Wire Mother: Quantum Claws came out. It was three chapters long. And people lost their shit.

First of all, it was good. Maybe as good as Hounds' Toll. Maybe better.

But more than that, it was a break from the relatively grounded, safe, company standard dystopia of the series. Because this bad boy was going to be about time travel. Tithonus, in his evil plans to live forever, had built a time machine and activated it just at the right moment when the plucky heroes were about to kill him once and for all.

Which seems like something that would be a train wreck, right? If this author can't handle the easy-to-please tropes of prison breaks and romance, what business does she have trying to handle a time travel story without completely fucking up the series?

And maybe that would have been true. But the first three chapters were insanely promising. They were refreshing, original- they got time travel. We were able to get characters like Stellarose and Jane-Mary and Turpentine back after the story cast them aside so soon. And it promised to really examine what Leo Groves meant for the book's world. So, hopes rose again.

Unfortunately, we'll never know if it would have been good or bad. The fifth book was never published. We don't know why. It was just promised, for months and months, and then. Poof. The updates stopped. It was gone.

And it haunts me. If you haven't stopped reading by now, you can probably tell that. The fandom was like a fraction of the size of the Divergent fandom, and I don't know anyone IRL who's read these things. I don't even know if I can or should recommend them.

But sometimes something doesn't have to be a literary masterpiece to burrow into your brain and not let go, I guess ASJSJS

#the wire mother #unreality #misinfo #leonore groves

34 notes · View notes

cellarspider · 5 months

Text

Since I’ve been thinking about it all morning: here. A partial introduction to my favorite villain.

In the days of yore, when I was a teenager and video game hype was almost exclusively magazine-based, I saw a kid reading a copy of Game Informer.

“Hey,” said I, “could I see that for a second?”

The kid, not knowing what they were about to unleash, handed me the magazine.

I had seen this on the cover:

I had no idea what this was, but I knew that I wanted whatever it was selling.

I found out that this was an advertisement for City of Villains, an expansion to the previously-released MMO City of Heroes. I’d never played WoW with its Alliance and Horde split, so the idea was new to me. WoW also failed to present me with anything like the vibes of the newly-introduced lead villain, Lord Recluse.

Yes, they liked this art so much they did it twice, and I’m glad they did. More below the fold on why he was so appealing for a young queer kid, for those who are intrigued.

I’ll keep this focused on a single topic for now: The intensely queer vibes that Recluse acquired over the course of the game’s plot. Keep in mind that this game came out in 2004, so the actual amount of openly queer content was very minimal. However, CoH/CoV developed a reputation as an extremely queer-friendly space, with a community Pride event becoming a semi-official yearly celebration, complete with the devs showing up as major NPCs, custom assets, and spawning in unique raids that tanked everybody’s framerate. Equivalents of this have carried over past the game's tragic shutdown in 2012, with community-run servers still staging their own Pride events.

If the art above doesn’t make it clear, Recluse had a much-beloathèd archnemesis, Statesman. If the art above doesn’t make it abundantly clear, this was always an extremely fraught relationship, with a complicated backstory that became more and more tragic the deeper you got into the game lore, eventually bordering on cosmic horror. But one thing was for certain, this was Hark A Vagrant levels of obsession over a nemesis.

The game at first seemed to backstep on that: oh, it turned out, Recluse had once been villainous life partners with a woman who went by the villain name Red Widow. She died decades ago in the collateral damage of one of Recluse’s nigh apocalyptic confrontations with Statesman, and her death left him with nothing but his obsession. So sad.

And then when Statesman died in the course of the game’s plot, Recluse spiraled into depression and nihilism that was only halted when someone managed to dig Red Widow’s soul out of storage and resurrected her.

It was always deniably presented, but the implication was very much that the two were functionally equivalent emotional anchors to his psyche, and losing both of them was something he couldn’t survive.

Also, there was that one time that the game’s Valentine’s Day event was advertised with a heart split down the middle, half Statesman’s iconography and half Recluse’s, topped with a banner that read “AMOR OMNIA VINCIT”, meaning “LOVE CONQUERS ALL”.

And that’s without getting into the first tie-in book. A prequel starting at the end of the 1920s, it was a delightfully and deliberately pulpy book, which… centered around a complicated man slowly dying of lingering health problems after his exposure to mustard gas in WWI, and his very good friend, estranged from his family for unknown reasons, who’d devoted the last ten years to caring for the protagonist, and helping him seek a cure. This has carried on year after year, even though the man’s illness has made him unresponsive to the emotional needs of others, something they both know is going to culminate one day in the two parting ways.

…And then they get superpowers, and their relationship does not get any healthier from there. But what it does gain is a surprising trans metaphor as our now-antagonist slowly metamorphoses into the spidery villain I know and love.

I completely missed this back in the day. I have no idea if it was intentional. But there’s a scene where this man looks in the mirror and sees the first signs of his oncoming physical transformation, and he likes what he sees. He has no idea where he’s going, but he’s excited for it.

…And he’s started killing people who refer to him by his former name, in the most literal case of “dead naming” I’ve ever seen.

Throughout the rest of the series, Recluse is unapologetically who he is, putting him in that category of queercoded villain that doubles as a power fantasy. He’s grown physically monstrous and loves it. He has respect from everyone around him, either legitimately for his capabilities or out of fear of what he can do to those who don’t give him his due. A new demigod who is only matched by the man he’s never stopped obsessing over. He wins just as often as he loses, and often salvages something from his defeats in ways that nobody expected.

He is terrible. And he is wonderful.

#city of villains #lord recluse #I have so many more thoughts #and the canon is so wild and engages on metatextual themes so thoroughly that it really deserves more analysis #just in general #but for now #this will do

37 notes · View notes

beetleviolet · 24 days

Text

What i would have done for

Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure: Seasons 2 (and 3)

(Mostly just how the entire thing could have focused on Varian that would have made it SO FIRE BRO)

So maybe I'm out of my depth here, because I didn't watch season 2. Why? Because there was no Varian! His amazing arc was the only reason I watched the show. And I'm sorry what they did with Cass SUCKED.

Let's talk about why it sucked :D

Cass's character is meant to contrast with Rapunzel. Raps is super peppy and happy and positive, and Cass is sarcastic and more dead panned, leading to a fun dynamic! The thing about Cass is, while she is more serious and sarcastic, she's still nice. She cares A LOT about her friends. This is why her arc made no sense. The core of Cassandra's character is that she loves her friends, but doesn't always show it.

I understand she was being manipulated by a demon but like. Her being mad that Mother Gothel went with Rapunzle? Why was locked in a tower for 18 years of her life?? While Cass got a loving, if overprotective, father?

This twist is interesting, and I wouldn't have minded it being explored, but I really think that they should have had a max of 2 episodes talking about the wedge this drove between them, and then how they overcame it as friends.

I also hate how Rapunzle handled Cassandra vs Varien. She never gave up on Cass, even after she, a grown adult with full autonomy, was actively trying to hurt everyone. I just felt like it went on for too long with Rapunzle still not wanting to fight her. Meanwhile with Varian, a grieving child, was immediately thought to be dangerous or evil. I understand Rapunzle not being able to help in the moment of his fathers death, but he didn't have to be dragged out of the castle! She could have told people he didn't attack her! Hell, even just sending someone to check on him after, or checking on him herself, might have been enough to push him away from a revenge plot.

Sorry I'm getting off track I just- THIS ALWAYS MADE ME SO MAD LIKE WHY-

Anyway.

The second season! Here's what I would have done:

Rapunzle is going on a magical quest to find the mystery about the rocks! Great! Who is the resident rock-genius? You guessed it! I think they should have taken Varian with them.

I get why they didn't do this, since it would take a lot of attention away from the other characters, and they were afraid to stretch out his arch for fear of it getting bland (you know, LIKE THEY DID WITH CASS-) but I really think Varian had enough character stuff to remain interesting!

Think about it, man. It would be cool of they thought they needed him for it, and he agrees on the premise that they have to save his father with the power they find. Throughout the episodes, they go from Varian in chains to them actually becoming a functioning group. They have trust building experiences (cough trauma bonding cough) that slowly bring them closer.

Ok, so cool. But then who would take the moonstone?

VARIAN I SAY!

Wait, but didn't you just say he was good?

THATS WHAT MAKES IT SO GOOD! Despite everything they've been through, everything they've done together, Varian still doesn't trust them to help him.

#rapunzles tangled adventure #varian #rapunzle

14 notes · View notes

that-within · 10 months

Text

That’s not how Jane Austen works…

There’s something deeply amusing to me about how fundamentally wrong Aziraphale is regarding the function of balls in Jane Austen’s novels:

“People would gather and do some formal dancing and then realize they had misunderstood each other and were actually deeply in love.”

No ball in any Austen novel works like this. Not one. You know how they actually work? They build tension (dramatic, romantic, sexual, and/or other). But in all of her six novels, there is not a single ball where everything suddenly clicks between two characters, all misunderstandings are cleared up with just a glance and a touch of a gloved hand, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Since Pride and Prejudice is the novel repeatedly cited in the show, let’s analyze the functions of its two main balls:

The first ball is where our protagonists meet. They lock eyes, they get introduced—and almost immediately he calls her a 5/10 and she runs off to drag him with her gal pals. Rough start. We haven’t even gotten to the plot’s true misunderstandings yet (“I meant you were tolerable in a nice way!”), but this ball is the crucial setup for how those misunderstandings will develop throughout their relationship. Tension established.

So far we’re 0/3 for dancing, clearing up misunderstandings, and deep love realizations. Bummer.

The second ball is The Big One. So how do our protagonists come together to reconcile in the candlelight? Spoiler: they don't. Instead, Darcy musters up all his introverted mettle to grind out a dance proposal and Lizzy only says yes because she can't think of a polite way to say “I’d rather eat glass.”

And not only does the dance itself not clear up their misunderstandings, it actually cements those misunderstandings through a series of progressively passive aggressive barbs. It’s wonderfully charged, but in a HIGH-VOLTAGE FENCE: DO NOT TOUCH kind of way.

(For those keeping score, we’re 1/6 because they did actually manage to dance this time. Woot)

And that’s it. No, literally. There are no more balls in the whole novel (at least attended by our protagonists). So how doth our heroes fall in love without the eldritch horrors making them do it delicate pluck of a fiddle in a crowded room?

Well, first there’s the catastrophic marriage proposal where Darcy basically negs Lizzy for a solid minute before Lizzy spends a solid five minutes telling him where to stick it. Divine.

Crucially though, this is where the “realize they had misunderstood each other” stuff actually begins. It’s only when one of them is pouring their heart out to the other that the giant gaps in information, misinterpreted actions, and fundamental differences in worldviews start to make themselves known (anything here ringing a cathedral-sized bell?).

And of course, this still doesn’t magically make everything better. They both go off to lick their respective wounds for a while, but, slowly, they begin to process this paradigm shift and change their thoughts and actions accordingly.

There are many reasons why Pride and Prejudice has lasted the test of time, and a big one is that it never pulled a “ball” deus ex machina. Lizzy and Darcy both put in actual work to improve themselves and to reconcile their differences. It’s slow, it’s imperfect, it’s messy. And, very importantly, it takes them being brutally honest with themselves and each other.

It's only after all of this that they finally get to the "were actually deeply in love" part.

Aziraphale must know this. He’s read Austen. Hell, he probably read Pride and Prejudice the year it was published. So where is he getting this bizarre idea about balls being a magical cure-all for everything?

Maybe it's as simple as an angel who's spent 6000 years teetering on the edge of something with a demon devising a cunning plan to teeter them just a little bit closer.

Maybe it’s as complicated as an angel who can convince himself that if a human relationship might be “fixed” by a ball, maybe a cosmic relationship might be “fixed” by undoing a fall.

And, to quote Crowley, “now, that’s unbelievable."

#good omens #good omens season two #aziraphale #crowley #ineffible husbands #this is not an aziraphale bash post so get thee behind me with that shit #bleh I hate that the last paragraph rhymes but I’m too lazy to change it

45 notes · View notes

cerealboxlore · 1 year

Note

very small idea but for billy who thinks ebenezer killed mary what if as captain marvel he saw mary for a split second while doing something with the league and wasn’t able to check it out but he knows he saw her

i can’t really put together my thoughts in this properly right now but yeah i think that ought to be fun (not for billy)

Oh!

Oh we are going to haveso much FUN with this, my friend!

(TW: slight mind fuckery and mentions of corpses)

I absolutely go feral at Billy Batson angst, even more so when it involves him being Captain Marvel and letting his mortal emotions slip through is magical adult front. The aching and deep sadness that he tries desperately to hide is impossible to unsee, and it concerns his teammates if/when they see it appear on his face. The JL know Captain Marvel as a super happy, fun, immature and yet mysterious man, they're accustomed to seeing Captain Marvel smiling with a bright grin most of the time. That boy scout attitude of his is a trademark and one they never imagined seeing fade, an impossibility.

They should have known by now that impossibilities were more than possible nowadays. Especially when magic was involved.

What I'm thinking is, and maybe something I'll include in a longer post one day, is a team up between the Scarecrow and Mr. Mind. I did a poll before and y'all said this would mentally scar Billy the most, and I fully believe in the psychological horror potential of them. In the event that they team up, Mr. Mind would want Captain Marvel taken down first, as he's a risk and threat to Mr. Mind's plans the most. He knows who he is. He knows that Captain Marvel is secretly Billy Batson, homeless orphan who is desperately running away from his abusive past that haunts him.

I'm thinking that if Mr. Mind somehow finds a way to infect Billy with a magically enchanted fear toxin that slowly chips away at his sanity through a period of time, he could take advantage of his mind and therefore control the Champion of magic completely without any worry of losing control.

This could factor into your idea about Billy catching a glimpse of Mary while he's out as Captain Marvel with the league. The first time it'd just a passing glimpse. A blink. It's Mary's face in the reflection of a glass mirror he flies past by. He shakes it off, thinking it's just nothing. Then it happens again, but this time Mary's face in the mirror shows signs of rotting. The next time it happens it's not in a mirror, but on the street while he's helping citizens flee the scene of a fight, and he thinks he sees Mary running past him.

Was it actually her this time? Or was it his mind playing tricks on him? Was he going crazy? No, no that's impossible. As Captain Marvel he couldn't go crazy, right? Then...Was something wrong with Billy? If his foundation/vessel had something wrong, then functioning as Captain Marvel was going to get a lot harder for him.

The thoughts about his (supposed) dead sister haunt him more frequently, to the point where he can't go a single day without mistaking someone as the beaten and decaying form of Mary. He feels himself losing his mind, losing control of his fears and self, enough to the point that Mr. Mind can easily swoop in and take control of the Champion of Magic. A really fun plot to have a mind controlled Captain Marvel fight the Justice League, even more so if he's not the only one experiencing this.

Maybe after this fight the JL has a talk with Captain Marvel and in his emotional exhaustion that he's recovering from, he speaks about Mary at last and how he's been hallucinating her all this time, but still unsure if she's actually dead. CM finally opening up about his personal life and the guilt he feels for not helping his sister back then as a little kid. Whether or not they find out Captain Marvel is really just a kid falls onto you, I'm still trying to figure out how the Scarecrow would have a bigger part in this. Maybe Mr. Mind is mind controlling him, too??

#This was such a lovely ask #Tysm #I really loved answering this ask #You always have such creative ideas!#And we do love torturing Billy in this tumblr home 🏡 ❤️#billy batson #dc captain marvel #Shazam #Mr. Mind #Scarecrow #justice leage of america #Writing idea #Fanfic idea #If there's spelling errors #*runs away*

67 notes · View notes

acewizardinspace · 10 months

Text

So Sabine is training as a jedi. Lets just say I have mixed feelings.

On one hand, I actually love the idea of a jedi who is not very force sensitive. In contrast to characters like Anakin who were just naturally talented, a jedi character who has to train much harder has a lot of narrative potential. A jedi that is only a little force sensitive sounds really cool! (A little force sensitive, not not-force sensitive. Two different things, one is a cool idea, the other sucks.) This is a story I would absolutely be down for seeing and I think there is a lot of potential here.

I also think giving Ahsoka a student is a fantastic idea. Giving her a padawan would force her to face her past and make peace with the reality of what Anakin did and who he became. It could allow her to finally embrace her lost culture by following one of their most important customs: teaching. It would functionally let the audience know that even after tragedy their culture survived. This could be an amazing story.

So, in theory at least, I should love this idea, right? But I don't.

If this has been another character, I think a new one would work best, I would love this! But it just doesn't make sense for Sabine.

For one, it is a huge retcon and causes rebels to retroactively not make sense. There was no foreshadowing that I can recall about Sabine being force sensitive. This just comes out of no where. (Don't say using the darksaber is foreshadowing. Its not. Other, none force sensitive people have used a lightsaber before.)

I think the explanation they are going for is that Sabine has so little force sensitivity that no one ever noticed before, but that just doesn't make sense. If she had meet a jedi once or twice, sure maybe they didn't notice, but for how long she was with Kanan? This leaves three possibilities.

Kanan really never noticed, which retroactively kind of make him look bad? Like you were with her for how long?

Kanan noticed and didn't tell her, which makes him seem like a jerk tbh. You have no right to keep info like that from someone.

Kanan did notice, and he did tell her, but it was so unimportant that it happened off screen and was never shown to us. I don't think I need to explain why that one is bad writing.

The second reason it doesn't make sense for Sabine is that she already has an established backstory and culture. There is literally so much you can do with Sabine's character already! You don't need to add jedi stuff, or if you did, it could (and should) be showing what she learned from living with jedi. Things like handling your emotions, letting go and living to help others.

Frankly, a lot of people love the mandolarians. It seems odd to me that they wouldn't want to center the plot on that part of her heritage? She would be the perfect opportunity to show off non violent parts of their culture. (I think this is the consequence of forcing Ahsoka's show and the rebels sequel together.)

This writing decision creates plot holes were there were none, and for what? What was gained with this decision. The only thing I can think of is that they wanted two popular characters to interact and this was the best they could come up with?

When it comes down to it, I just really dislike that they keep wanting to retcon stuff. We liked rebels the way it was, please don't retroactively change it!

But, even taking my initial dislike of the concept into consideration, I am still hype for the show tbh! I don't want to be negative, I want to like the show so so bad. I truly like the idea of Ahsoka getting a padawan and barely force sensitive jedi. So, I'm staying hopeful.

#ahsoka spoilers #my thoughts #my posts #my meta

36 notes · View notes

saturn-sends-hugs · 1 year

Text

OK, finally writing out my thoughts for ep9 (cause MAN AM I EMOTIONALLY DRAINED RN 😭)

Honestly this is gonna be more of a character deep dive of how they’re all functioning post ep8 but HERE WE GO

(spoilers under the cut)

First off, oh. my. god.

I’ve seen some people saying that episode was filler and to that I say WHERE. Did you see all that character development??? Like yes we didn’t get a big Empire plot or anything but like??? Hello???

This episode was SO important for so many reasons:

First off, Echo is gONE AAAAAA 😭😭😭 Was i devastated? yeah, maybe, a little bit, but i was fully expecting this episode to just brush past that and it DIDN’T.

I feel like much of the time Echo seemed almost unnecessary (stick with me here). You have this elite clone squad with all these enhancements and skills, so what are they gonna do with this fifth member? This always felt like a theme for me, especially in fics, that Echo would feel like an extra and struggle to find his place in the squad (Which isn’t true, he’s very necessary, but until now that’s been hard to see).

After Crosshair leaves, it changes a bit. The Batch is used to working with only four members, so although losing Crosshair obviously shook them, they held together (in part because they had to focus on Omega and other things). So here, Echo can step in and fill Crosshairs role somewhat as lookout or copilot or whatever, and he always backs up the others in their roles as well.

Echo is a good friend to Wrecker, able to joke around in ways Hunter (as the leader) and Tech (just not jokey in that way) can’t. He’s there for Hunter as Corporal; second in command and just generally another leading figure (like in season one when Hunter is captured and he leads the Batch through Kamino). Echo backs Tech up in pretty much every way, like just generally knowing what Tech is talking about and how to help (copiloting, ship maintenance, brother handling, etc). And of course, Echo is so so good with Omega. He teaches her to use her bow, he knows how to be a bit more disciplined than Hunter while still being super attentive and sweet, he is simply Mom™️.

And then he leaves.

Not gonna get too deep into that because we all know his reasoning, but while I expected this episode to focus on the Batch working without him, I didn’t expect them to show us how they struggle once he’s gone. Because holy shit they do.

Obviously, Omega is most noticeably affected. She’s struggling with a part of her family, someone she never wanted to think of leaving, being gone now. But the others are struggling too, and that’s only making things worse. Wrecker and Tech are fighting, which although she’s somewhat used to that, this time they’re not stopping. Hunter isn’t doing anything about it either, and none of them are saying anything about Echo being gone. She’s thrown off, no one is acting like themselves (because they’re missing Echo too although she can’t see it yet), and oh right, THEY JUST LOST THE MARAUDER.

But now for the others.

The minute they stepped off the Marauder in this episode, they felt wrong. And none of them really mentioned it or outwardly showed it that much, but they missed Echo too.

Wrecker was off. He’s stuck with just Hunter, Tech and Omega now, and he’s being affected by all their emotions. In the past, Crosshair was who he could joke around with, a role Echo filled afterwards. Now, Hunter and Tech just don’t fill that role, and while Omega might normally, right now she’s definitely not feeling up to it. He’s sensing the tension there, and everyone’s emotions are just setting him on edge, so he’s getting rowdier, more argumentative. He doesn’t mean to be, but he’s upset and he’s struggling.

Next, Hunter is doing what he always does: trying to move on. He’s not ignoring it per se, and I’m not the best at understanding Hunter, but it seems like he’s just trying to keep the team going. And again, it’s more of a challenge without Echo. The fights that used to spark up, Echo would help handle. Or better yet, they wouldn’t be real fights because Wrecker and Tech wouldn’t be so on edge. Hunter is struggling to keep them on track without him, especially with so many other factors at play (Omega being upset, new dangerous mission from Cid, Marauder is gone, how much more can go wrong wait no Mr Filoni please don’t answer that).

And of course, Tech misses Echo. Yeah, he seems really cold and uncaring in this episode at first glance, but OMG that is the furthest from the truth. I honestly think Tech is struggling the most without Echo to fill in that fourth role. Tech always tends to want everything working smoothly, and without the help of a fourth member, Tech is really stretching himself in order to accommodate. And on top of that, he just really misses Echo. When Omega tries to call Echo, Tech immediately knows he won’t respond because his comms are off. And why might he know that?? Well to me it seems like Tech already tried calling him, probably long before Omega did 🥲

Tech in this episode is just at the end of his rope. He’s way less lenient than he might normally be with Echo around, because now he feels like it’s on him to almost be that “second in command”. Normally, Tech can just focus on his work and let the others handle themselves/each other. So when Wrecker drops the case in this episode, normally Tech would trust him to have it handled, and they’d all move on. Instead, Tech takes the case himself. To me this is pretty familiar cause ahem autism, which is a very fitting trait for Mr “I process things differently but I still feel just as much” Tech to have. I struggle to let people get things wrong, and at this point, on edge and pushing himself too hard, Tech is so over it that he decides the only way to get it done is to do it himself.

Edit cause damnit tumblr didn’t save for some reason but basically up until now, we haven’t truly seen how much Echo does for this squad. Yes obviously we’ve seen that they all love and appreciate him, but now that he’s gone we’re truly seeing how important he is, and I just think that’s so so good to see!!! He’s not just the Mom that keeps them from fighting, he’s also just a genuinely necessary and important member with his own role in keeping this squad together.

Basically, ECHO YOU BETTER GET BACK HERE RN I STG—

(no but really, they genuinely do need him 🥲)

So yes, Echo left and the Batch needs Mom back. But it’s not just because Echo was the responsible one with brain cells (although thats also true), it’s also because he is genuinely a necessary part of this group, not just an honorary member to fill in space for Crosshair. We saw in this episode what happens when you take him out of the equation, and it was bad. That right there made just me happy because despite him being gone, it was very clear that nothing would just be “fine” without him, and the batch needs him way more than he probably thinks 🥲🥲🥲

Ok uh I didn’t mean for that to be so long bUT LISTEN, I just think there was so much to that episode and I could talk abt it for HOURS, THEY NEED THEIR BROTHERRRR

#feel free to add on to this!!! i want to hear y’all’s opinionsssss #tbb spoilers #sw tbb spoilers #tbb s2 spoilers #sw tbb #tbb s2 #tbb echo #the bad batch #tbb tech #tbb hunter #tbb wrecker #tbb omega

76 notes · View notes

sorryitisandy · 10 months

Text

I don't like media criticism that is overly concerned with finding plot holes. It's lazy, boring, and unimaginative. However I do think that you need to take care with your audience Immersion, and one of the worst things you can do is make it painfully obvious a character is ONLY there to serve a narrative function and NOTHING else.

Principle Kobayakawa is just that. It always struck me as exceedingly stange that someone like Shido was concerning himself with who was the principle of a high school. And I think the only reason they did this was so when the Phantom Thieves changed Kamoshida's heart, was so one of Shido's people had proximity to the situation. This is supposed to be our explanation for how Shido's people became aware.

I don't feel any of this was particularly needed. Kamoshida was in the news for his crimes but also was an Olympic gold medalist. The Calling cards would likely have been mentioned there. Also I'm not sure anything really NEEDED to happen on this front until after Madarame anyway. If you'll recall, the initial interview with Akechi didn't happen until after the second change of heart.

A counter-argument might be that. "Well, perhaps they needed a total of three targets to draw sufficient attention". This might be true for the public at large but it wouldn't be true for Shido and company. They are already robustly familiar with the metaverse and would recognize things the average person wouldn't. Following from this, Shido had everyone and everything in his pocket. So they would act if he was concerned. I would have had the initial buzz about the Thieves spread as a bit of an urban legend. There are what? A few hundred students at that school? Word would get around.

Acknowledging Kobayakawa has a part to play in Makoto's story. I think her motivation for getting involved with the phantom thieves could have been a genuine desire to help with the extortion and self-worth issues associated with continued friction with her sister. She is sharp so this would lead her to tracking y'all down. Events could play out as normal otherwise. Makoto's self-worth issues existed well before all of this.

I do understand that some characters need to exist primarily as narrative functions. You can't give careful attention to every single minor character. I'm not asking for the Kobayakawa sympathetic backstory here. But you do need to take care to not show your fingers behind the curtain.

#persona #persona 5 #p5 #principle kobayakawa #masayoshi shido #phantom thieves #suguru kamoshida #ichiryusai madarame #goro akechi #makoto nijima #sae nijima #atlus games #jrpg #jrpg games #media critique #media criticism #video games

27 notes · View notes

number5theboy · 2 years

Note

Five being the founder of the commission is a horrible, horrible writing decision. Everything about it is just terrible.

Oh boy, let's get into this.

I’ve been writing on this on and off for the past month, and this is as clear and structured as I feel I can be. This has become a gigantic 5.5k monstrosity, but I wanted to have all my thoughts somewhere together. It starts off as an ‘actually, the idea here was not that bad’ and turns into ‘but the execution in the show sucked, so let me tell you exactly why this did not work’. Dedicating this to @sohoseance, @sharkneto, @kaleidoscopegirl and @nachtare because it really gave me the final push to finish this to hear that you would be interested in reading it.

First of all, I want to say that I don’t think that Five being the founder of the Commission was the point of that scene, or something that the show really wanted to engage in, from the way the rest of the season plays out. Five has no thoughts on the fact that he founded an organisation that existed to bring about the event that ruined his life; in the same vein, Lila says nothing about the reveal that he was, after all, behind the organisation that ruined her life. What it felt like to me, watching the season, was that the reveal and subsequent “Don’t save the world.”-shtick was there to keep Five away from the plot, and more specifically, Allison’s storyline. Without the detour to the Commission, Five would have had a vested interest in fixing the timeline, and Allison would have had someone working on the same goal, which was not what the writers wanted the storyline to be, so Five had to have something happen to him that kept him from intervening in the main plot (you know, like the shrapnel wound or the paradox psychosis in earlier seasons – same plot devices). Point is, the whole reveal doesn’t seem to have been intended as an actual character exploration and functions more like a badly conceived plot device. They needed Five to not do the thing that he has been established to be doing for the past two seasons, and he’s been written in such a way that the only authority he trusts is himself, so they had to crowbar a version of himself that tells him to do the opposite of what he would naturally do.

Second thing to mention is that even if it was intended to be a genuine character moment, I don’t think it was meant to be completely bad, for the simple reason that Steve Blackman, the showrunner and head writer, genuinely doesn’t think that the Commission is a bad or evil organisation (no, really). Which. Has been obvious since the writing of S2, but that doesn’t erase the writing and establishing of the Commission in S1. Someone get the man someone who checks the implications of his writing ideas, the show is in dire need for that. Why I bring this is up is that it a) explains why neither Five nor Lila really seem to react and realise what ‘Five founded the Commission’ implies, what he would be responsible for, and b) I don’t think that Blackman realised that a lot of viewers would look at how the Commission and Five as a character has been established, see that apparently Five founded the Commission and go ‘yeah, this is not compelling and makes very little sense’. Put a pin in that, we’ll get back to it shortly.

The thing is, theoretically, I don’t think this is a horrible writing decision. It could have genuinely been so interesting, a very compelling character exploration. And then it just was the most underwhelming thing. When I watched S3 for the first time and Five said the word ‘founder’, I immediately clocked what they were doing. I knew exactly who the founder was going to be, I didn’t even need the paradox psychosis mannerisms to clue me in, because I love it when time travel is used in stories to confront a protagonist with an older version of themselves who is an antagonist in the story. When well done, that story beat can be so fun and so interesting. Dark (2017-2020) and Looper (2012) are a show and film respectively that I love that tackle this kind of story. As a kid, I was obsessed with Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox, a book which subverts this story beat in a way that blew my little child mind. Five being the founder could and should have worked. It’s a concept deeply ingrained in what makes this character tick.

The hook of Five being the founder should have been the intrigue of how he ended up becoming the exact opposite of what he stood for so far. That’s the crux of this trope, contrasting the same person at different points in their life, having to confront something you loathe that is something you will become. And it would have been interesting and satisfying, in a way, to see everything time-travel-related lead right back to Five, that it really was only him and his powers that shifted the timeline, something about the full realisation of his potential as the most powerful man in the space-time-continuum. And also as someone who despite all that power failed. How great it would have been if the show actually took the time to explore this. I don’t think the idea of ‘Five founded the Commission’ was doomed from the start, it could have been so very compelling.

Instead, we got an incredibly muddled storyline that was more confusing than intriguing, had no clearly defined stakes and resolved (?) in such an unsatisfactory way that I still don’t know how I really feel about it. In my head, there’s two ways this storyline plays out:

Five did the correct thing. He headed the warning of his old self, did not save the world, and everything got reset, staving off the founding of the Commission and him ever going down the path of becoming the founder. It is badly written and really majorly serves so Five has something to do that does not really impact the plot, but at least it is done with and I won’t have to think about it again, should this show get renewed for S4.

Five did not do the correct thing. The world was saved/reset, and there are many, many opportunities to lose that arm and go down the path to found the Commission in his future. This lame storyline continues into a hypothetical S4 as the ultimate proof that the writers have no idea what to do with him.

Under the cut, I’ll first talk about why the whole ‘Five founded the Commission’-shebang doesn’t work the way it was written into the show, and then I’ll talk about why I have an inkling that it could continue into S4 even though I think it’s a terrible idea. Also, major spoilers for the show Dark (2017-2020), if you have not seen that, do yourself a favour, watch it, come back to this later. It feels like the thing they were trying to do with Five in S3 but actually good. Do check the trigger warnings though, it's a show that can be rough in places.

There’s this show. In it, there is a boy whose father committed suicide for an unknown reason. When the boy is still young, an apocalypse happens, wiping out life as he knows it. He learns how to survive in the apocalyptic wasteland, all the while thinking about how to prevent it. He knows time travel is possible. If only he could harness its power to work in his favour. As he is trying to get to the bottom of how time works, there is interference by a shadowy organisation with assassins that want to manipulate the timestream so that the apocalypse does happen, but the boy, who is now a man, keeps getting in the way of that. One day, he meets the man who founded the shadowy organisation. He is old and withered and time travel has left its mark on him. And the penny drops. The old man is the young man is the boy, and he will turn into him, eventually. The old man who once was the boy needs the apocalypse to happen, because it is the only way to figure out a way to prevent it, because pinning down the origin of it all is muddled and complicated and marred in personal, familial connections for the man. He is trapped in an endless loop of repeating and alternating time, at a point branching into several different timelines, the apocalypse always happens, and he is always fated to become what he loathes most until he can find a way to break the cycle.

That’s, in the most simplified way possible, a part of the plot of the show Dark (2017-2020). It does this plot a surprising amount of justice, it really explores themes of family and time paradoxes and consequences of one’s actions through the focus on its main character, Jonas Kahnwald. I also think that the above is kind of, sort of the ballpark they were trying to hit with the whole ‘Five is the founder of the Commission’-storyline. That time was going to wear down Five until he decided to take the timestream into his own hands, founding the Commission to get himself out of the apocalyptic wasteland and give himself a chance to save the world. The thing is that it doesn’t work with the way that the Commission has been set up to work in previous seasons.

The thing with Dark’s story is that it is contained to one single town in Germany, and the families that live therein. The entire plot revolves around the time paradox and the apocalypse and how everyone fits into it. TUA does not work like that. The implications are for the whole world and the whole of human history – those are the things the Commission meddles in. Where the shadowy organisation in Dark only has very few people and very little, sometimes backfiring technology, the Commission in TUA has essentially been established to be all-knowing, all-powerful. They can travel through time precisely with the briefcases, and even have the ability to stop time altogether. They can modify bodies to their liking, repair them beyond everything imaginable, extending their employees lives. They have the Infinite Switchboard, a plot device that allows them to see not only what is happening in the timeline, but also in alternative timelines (it is singularly the worst plot device in this show, I hate it beyond words). They have technology to shield themselves from paradoxes, which Five himself built, with the implication that most of the tech at the Commission’s disposal has its origin with Five and his powers.

In Dark, the origin of the time paradox that causes the apocalypse, the thing that needs resolving, is a very complicated, tangled mess that tracks through interpersonal relationships and complicated feelings on family. It is not as easy as just removing one person from the timeline, or even one person at all, but rather a culmination of decisions that created walking paradoxes, which then snowballed to make other situations more complicated. In contrast, in TUA, solving the apocalypse – the first one - is pretty simple. What lead up to it is complex, but in the end, it is Viktor, egged on by Harold Jenkins due to something that is ultimately Reginald’s fault.

The point being is that since Five was the founder of the Commission, he had access to all that technology and knowledge, and he knew exactly how the apocalypse came to be. To prevent it, all he needed to do was travel to outside the prison and knock Harold out the second he stepped out. Or even better, go back and prevent Reginald from ever suppressing Viktor’s powers in the first place. Five has long been established as a smart man, when he founded the Commission, he had everything at his disposal to turn the world around for good with little problem.

Instead, the show tells us he somehow set up an ineffectual, all-powerful bureaucracy that goes fiddling about in the past so that everything happens to lead up to the 2019 apocalypse. There is no reasoning given as to why Founder Five would want the apocalypse to happen. We know nothing about his motivations. He exists to be cryptic to Five, tell him not to save the world, and then he dies. He’s not an antagonist, he’s a plot device, despite standing for the very opposite of what Five stands for. This is part of a larger problem where the Commission actually has no fixed characteristics or ethos, it is just what the show needs it to be, even though all of that keeps contradicting each other and creating a woefully muddled picture that makes trying to understand what is going on a headache and a half.

Because that is another fundamental difference between Dark and TUA is that Dark had one head writer, Jantje Friese, who was fully involved in the writing of every single episode and had a complete three-season-plan of how this show was going to play out. Meanwhile, Steve Blackman is playing it by ear, does not have a throughline or a plan as to where TUA is going, and is adapting and changing established things (like the Commission) depending on what the story needs in the moment, leading to a bigger picture that makes no sense.

The reveal of Five being the Founder doesn’t work because based on everything that has been established before, the power that Five would have had, Five could have and should have done other things. Even if he needed to found the Commission to find other people to help him develop things like the briefcases or the thrice-damned Infinite Switchboard, once he had those, what was his motivation to keep the apocalypse going? What was his motivation to meddle with the past? Why was any of it necessary? In Dark, the old man was backed into a corner, he had exhausted every other possibility. That show gave him motivations and really delved into why he became what he was; he was a character in his own right, the Big Bad of the show that explored why he became that.

TUA, on the other hand, is not interested enough in Founder Five to give us a compelling reason as to why he exists. Founder Five is not a character, he is a plot device masquerading as a character. Unfortunately, that character is one that the viewers are very familiar with, so of course they would try to connect the Five that is by this point very established and has a reasonably strong characterisation going for him to Founder Five, who is just there, I guess. And people come up empty, because there is not enough to Founder Five to make sense why Five would become him, and the Commission is such a flaming dumpster fire of contradictory writing that it is barely possible to make sense of it, so connecting the two Fives through that is also not really possible.

The thing is, Dark also only gave the viewer the motivations of the old man after he had gotten introduced, the writing fleshed him out afterwards. But what they had done beforehand was built him up as a threat, as a shadowy figure with goals, and he was introduced as a character several episodes before the reveal of who he really was, so the viewers actually already knew him. In contrast, the concept of Founder Five and the character himself get introduced and killed off in the same episode.

And Dark allowed their old man to actually be an antagonist, to be the Big Bad, to really sharpen the difference between him and his young self as an interesting clash of characters. However, due to the inconsistent writing of the Commission (which was the Big Bad in S1 and then got written into a really misguided ‘actually the whole concept of the Commission isn’t bad despite them indiscriminately killing innocent people based on something they think should happen - the end of times – there was just one bad apple, the Handler, the Commission is neat as heck uwu’) and Steve Blackman’s inexplicable idea that the Commission isn’t bad, Founder Five isn’t allowed to be the Big Bad despite that being a much more compelling take. Instead he’s just a guy who’s there to get Five to act a certain way. Cool.

The reason I brough Dark up as a comparison is that it is well-written and well thought-out, and it really takes its time with character exploration so that every version of this one character makes sense to the viewer. Knowing how a similar plot plays out in Dark made my experience watching S3 actively worse, because I had seen how compelling and fun and gut-wrenching this exact take on a character could be. I was genuinely hyped when I realised that Five was the founder, I thought they were going to take the opportunity and meaningfully explore the character, and then Founder Five was not a character, not an antagonist, just a mouthpiece for the writers to get Five to not do the thing he’s been relentlessly doing for two seasons. And TUA’s take on this doesn’t have to be like Dark. It wouldn’t really fit with how the tone of the show has been going (sidenote: it would absolutely have fit S1 though), and just because Dark did it one way doesn’t mean that is the only right way. I’m just saying it was a compelling way, and they did a lot more interesting things with it than TUA did, which could easily have found its own fun and off-the-wall spin on having Five found the Commission, but they didn’t.

Alright. Okay. Founder Five as a character is a dud. So what about him as a plot device? Was the pay-off to the whole ‘don’t save the world’-thing worth the headache of trying to reconcile Five with Founder Five? Not really. I’m still in the dark – pun not intended – about what exactly they were trying to do with Five in the latter part of the season. Intellectually, I know the answer is ‘keep him out of Allison’s storyline so that their motivations don’t align and they don’t team up’ (which is a shame, if Five had kept wanting to save the world, we could have had some really interesting collaboration and fighting with Allison about whether or not to trust Reginald with the reset, but alas it was not to be). Practically? Who knows.

There were three key take-aways from that godforsaken paradox-safe bunker: the words ‘Don’t save the world.’, the tattoo, and the cut-off arm. The first one was an instruction from Founder Five to Five, the other two were markers of Founder Five. Back at Hotel Obsidian, Five puzzles over them, thinking that it might be Founder Five’s attempt to discourage him from becoming him, thinking about how he could try to break the cycle, all of it with – or rather at – Klaus. It’s, I think, the one really good scene coming out of this weird storyline, because we actually get to see Five’s thoughts and that it fucked him up seeing himself die, and the fact that it makes no sense (we all feel you, buddy). And I’ll give praise where it’s due, I think Aidan Gallagher did a great job with the odd material he was given, his acting in the bunker and at the bar with Klaus genuinely is top-notch, I wish they would reward this performance with the writing it deserves.

The talk with Klaus leads him to this season’s most pointless side tangent, the Mothers of Agony. After bringing up the idea of trying to break the cycle and expressing disgust at potentially dying with an old-man-tramp-stamp, any reluctance Five has had is promptly shoved out the window, never to be seen again. He talks to Pogo, gets some plot information because that’s what Five is usually for, and he gets the tattoo that he didn’t want with no discernible reasoning as to why. He talks some about how destiny doesn’t care whether he is sure about getting it or not, which is odd, because Five, as previously established in this show, doesn’t care about destiny (you know how que sera sera is bullshit in any language? That was a key part of his characterisation in S1 and seems to have been forgotten here.). So here he is still following Founder Five’s path for no established reason except that the plot tells him to and it’s supposed to keep us on tenterhooks on whether he will make the right decision. The tattoo, with that, fulfils its plot obligations and is never seen again.

He then helps a tiny bit to save the world real quick, with the whole ‘Christopher imprisons the kugelblitz’-thing that doesn’t stick, so it barely matters except for the fact that it makes him give up. Which I genuinely think is perfectly natural and understandable, he has been at this for a month straight and everything he’s been doing has made things worse, so maybe giving up and giving in doesn’t seem so bad anymore. It’s devastating in his arc, I think, that he finally is at the end of his rope after a lifetime of stubbornly clinging to life, to the belief that he can change things. The show does not particularly indulge that framing though, instead having him be funny drunk for an episode. Woo. Remember when Five’s alcoholism was something genuinely devastating from his time in the apocalypse in S1? Good fucking times. Anyway. He pivots his position from saving the world to not saving it, which is only solidified once Reginald shows up and suddenly he wants to save the world, which Five doesn’t trust him about because he knows he is hiding something from them. He then doubles down on not saving the world with the vote, swinging it so that they don’t go and save the world. Reginald then does some murdering and strong-arms them into a position where they do have to go and save it anyway.

This is where things get really muddled and I don’t understand Five’s thinking anymore. He knows that Reginald is up to no good. He knows that there is information he isn’t privy to that Reginald knows. He knows Reginald is using them, putting their lives on the line, and there was this deal with Allison that Five doesn’t know the terms of. And of course Five figures out where the sigils are. He is observant and aware of his surroundings, this has been well-established.

He gets summarily interrupted by one of the guardians cutting off his arm. So now we have what I think is supposed to be tension but when I watched, I was mostly confused. He has the tattoo, he has lost an arm and gained the knowledge on how to save the world. The pumps are primed for him to go down the path to founding the Commission, it all depends on the choices he makes now.

Inexplicably, he tells Reginald (who, again, he does not trust and does not like) where the sigils are. Is he saving the world here? I genuinely don’t know, but I don’t think it’s meant to be that. Maybe. Again, we are in muddled territory because I am very confused on his decision-making in this last episode.

What I think is supposed to be his pivotal choice is when it comes down between him and Allison to step on the last sigil. There were supposed to only be seven of them, Reginald meant for all of them to be incapacitated when he reset the world, but now there is a choice. And Five, somehow, does what Reginald tells him to and steps on the sigil. He doesn’t know it will incapacitate him, but it does, and so he can’t act anymore. What he can do is talk to Allison, and what he says convinces her to kill Reginald before he can kill her siblings, but only after Reginald has already locked in his new version of the world, his reset, honouring the terms he set with Allison. She pushes the button and resets (saves?) the world, with her conditions intact (she gets back all her siblings, Luther and Klaus included, and Ray and Claire), but because it was a deal with the devil, the siblings are stripped of their powers, and Reginald gets his wife back and more power than he’s ever had. It remains to be seen how this will play out, should this show get a fourth season.

More importantly, and tying this back to Founder Five The Plot Device, is that Five gets his arm back, so does this mean he averted going down the path of becoming the Commission’s founder? I think that’s how the show is set up to be, although I’m not 100% sure, put a pin in it, I’ll get back to it shortly. What I interpret is that Five did make the right choice by taking his spot on the sigil. If he had not and Allison, desperate to save the world and get her family back, had stepped onto the sigil, it would have left Five and Reginald. And Five, who did not have a deal with Reginald and would have seen his beloved siblings in pain, would have had a lot less qualms about putting that axe through Reginald’s brain, but then Reginald would not have had the time to reprogram the world. What I think the implication is is that Five would have ended up with the reconfiguration screen and somehow, I don’t know, used it to, you know, save the world. And he would have fucked it up somehow because that’s what Five tends to do – make things worse – and this would somehow, at some point, led to him founding the Commission to right his mistakes. Maybe. I don’t know. This is the best I can do and I am not certain that’s how I’m supposed to understand the finale in relation to the whole Commission-founding-business.

So, to recap, how did the Founder Five Plot Device work out? It created some kind of tension on whether or not Five was going to turn it around and decide to break the cycle. Kind of. Sort of. It was not particularly well-written and genuinely confused me more than it intrigued me. And I understand that it can’t be clear-cut, it’s supposed to be difficult for both the viewer and Five as a character to see what the right course of action is, I just don’t think it was particularly effective in building tension and I hated the thing the writing did where it would have Five state that he would not do a thing (get the tattoo, work with Reginald) and then he would turn around and do the thing with no real thing happening in-between that convinced him to act otherwise. Like. He volunteered that info on the sigils before he knew that could stop the guardian. And I think a part of the point was that in order to not become Founder Five, Five would have to act against his instincts and do what Reginald says, but it really was not conveyed well and his willingness to help Reginald along after his whole shebang about the deal with Allison was mostly confusing. Was he pressed to extremes? Yes. Was it the last resort the show portrayed it to be? Not really.

I also think this all would have worked better if Allison and Five had had any kind of established relationship beforehand. They barely talked for two seasons and basically only sniped at each other for the third. Maybe there was a point there that despite all the fighting, Five loves her enough to put her over himself, but they barely let them interact despite it having the biggest potential, especially this season, but who knows.

So, to sum up, even disregarding Founder Five as a character, what he brought as a plot device was also mostly muddled and confusing, and even in retrospect I’m still trying to figure out what exactly they were going for. I think it could’ve been made substantially better if there had been more than just the one scene of Five reflecting on what he witnessed in that bunker, but as it is, it just feels unsatisfactory in a way that I can’t really put my finger on. But at least it’s over and done with, Five will not go on to found the Commission, it’s a new day, it’s a new dawn. I think. Maybe. Potentially.

Okay.

The thing is that once I thought about the cliffhanger ending and what world Reginald has created, Five in that position looks to me way, WAY more likely to found the Commission than anything he did before the reset.

For the first time, I think we see a world that he would actively object to. He doesn’t like Reginald, he doesn’t trust Reginald, and with all that has happened, Reginald now seemingly has more power than ever, having shaped the world in the image he deems ideal and having depowered his former children in the process. They are still alive, because no matter how conniving, he upheld his part of the deal with Allison. What I’m saying is, this world is the first world where I could see Five going ‘this should all burn’, the ultimate act of defiance, rather ending the world than let Reginald have it.

But to do that, Five would need his powers, and Five doesn’t have his powers. What he does have is a reasonably good understanding of them, of the math behind them. This seems, to me, like a good set of circumstances for him to reverse-engineer his powers and put them, just as an example, into a briefcase, to use them to stop his father from taking over the world, even if it costs him said world.

He’s gotten his arm back, sure, but he is physically 13 and Founder Five died at a hundred years, there’s a good 87 years for Five to get his arm chopped off again. The only thing that could definitely tell us that Five made the right decision, did not save the world, is the absence of the tattoo, but we haven’t seen that, so the prospect of him actually having saved the world after all and still somehow founding the Commission is not completely discarded.

But by God, do I hope it is. I don’t have much interest in a potential S4 where we see Five pursue that because a) there’s this rule that every season only spans 10 days, and you can’t cram that kind of development into 10 days and b) it’s just. Five is such an interesting character to me. He is so fun and the performance is endlessly entertaining to me, and I don’t want to watch him become a bureaucrat. It’s literally the least interesting thing I can imagine him doing, and comic!Five got into the stock market. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see him reverse-engineer his powers, but not if it leads down to him becoming a non-character.

If you made it this far, 5k in, I congratulate and thank you for keeping with my thoughts for this long. The TL;DR is that Five founding the Commission is not the worst idea ever, theoretically, but this show does not have the writing and continuity necessary to pull it off into an interesting twist. Founder Five was not a character, he mostly felt like a plot device that was barely used to explore Five’s character, and even the plot devised for him was not particularly compelling or well-written and led more to confusion than anything else, exacerbated by the fact that the writing made Five say certain things and then do contradictory things with nothing in-between really indicating why he would have changed his mind. It is not particularly good at creating tension around his decisions and the pay-off, if it can even be called that, is more confusing than satisfactory with the weird decision-making Five has got going on in the season finale. There is the small but hopefully unfounded dread that this ‘Five founded the Commission’-storyline might extend into a potential S4, as the circumstances where the siblings left off at the end of S3 seem to me much more favourable to make Five found the Commission than anything else that came before, but I really, really hope I am wrong, because this show does not have the writing to make this kind of storyline as compelling as it deserves to be. If you want this storyline pulled off in a much better thought-out and satisfactory way, I can warmly recommend Netflix’s Dark (2017-2020).

#Replies #Anonymous #my meta #this is 5.5k of words it's going into the tag #Five Hargreeves #The Umbrella Academy

266 notes · View notes

thegeminisage · 6 months

Text

ok, tng update time. i'm quite behind! monday we did "deja q," tuesday we did "a matter of perspective," and then wednesday was "yesterday's enterprise."

deja q: NOT as bad as i feared but still not great. turning q into a human was a fantastic idea because in general it helps facilitate empathy when you see a character suffer, which worked a little on me, and then also i greatly enjoyed seeing him suffer because he was so annoying before, lol. guinan and worf kicking him when he was down were the best <3

another smart choice was to have data be the only one who had any sympathy for him - precisely because data's "feelings" ""can't"" be hurt and he's less likely to hold grudges. also, because data is wonderful and it's easy to get behind his cause of reforming q into some kind of functional being

AND it was good that the first time q felt shame it was because data almost died for his ungrateful fucking ass...correct response

unfortunately i still have many problems. during that section right before data's sacrifice move, all of the goodwill q generated by being fun to laugh at kind of evaporated because he was being annoying

SECONDLY, i have realized the reason i dislike q is because his main two personality traits have aged horribly. firstly is the "randumb~ XD" humor (the mariachi band at the end of this ep, the random napoleon soldiers from the other ep, his various costumes...). i think the only person who could ever do that kind of humor well was robin williams and they didn't cast him as q and also he's dead now, so knock it off. his second personality trait is that he's smarter and more powerful than anybody else in the room which he (and the people writing him) seems to think is a license to be an asshole to them, as long as it is charming assholery. think t*ony st*rk, house, bbc sh*rlock. this of course is a deeply flawed premise to begin with, but he doesn't even do it WELL. nothing about his assholery is charming. specifically i am thinking of all the "worf is dumb because he's a big brutish klingon" jokes, which are for sure fantasy racism and border on ACTUAL racism, because they're derivative of horrible antiblack stereotypes. not that q is the only source of this kind of stuff aimed at worf, but it's really damning that it's ALWAYS the first thing out of his mouth and played for laughs and made his "but worf i'm a klingon at heart too!" bit extra unfunny

anyway, bringing in a SECOND q to praise him for his "selfless" act is eeehh considering one q is already one too many and the act wasn't even that selfless. it would've been better if he said the only reason he was doing it was for data, specifically, so he could stop feeling shame - that's more genuine than trying to get me to believe he'd give himself up for that ship of people even if really what he was mostly doing was committing suicide.

nonetheless i DID really enjoy getting to see data laugh at the end. GOOD for him <3 also lmao, the moon is falling, so true. JUST like majoras mask

a matter of perspective: the one thing i don't understand here is the bit where picard is a horrible painter and then data insults his art. like yes it was funny but i thought it would have something to do with the main plot. riker sees events this way and that lady sees them this way. not unlike in the art room where everyone interpreted the nude model in a different manner!

ALSO, WHY IS THERE A NUDE MODEL. does that woman not live and work on this starship. does she not have to command respect from her coworkers the rest of the time. they didn't even do this in the holodeck where that sort of thing would have made sense!! the one time you WANT the holodeck around...

anyway, i thought this episode veered dangerously close to dud territory. trial drama is fine, even though it begs the question of why no lie detector in tng. holodeck recreation also fine in this instance, as was the murder mystery

but why ON EARTH did they feel the need to show a fake version of riker attempting to rape this lady and then have deanna go well that's the way she remembers it because i sense no dishonesty from her :) this is just the true way each of you remembers it :)

LIKE THERE IS A CANYON OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RIKER'S VERSION AND THAT LADY'S VERSION. it's not like they can both partially be true. in one instance she flung herself at him despite his clearly being uncomfortable and in the other he forced her despite her asking him to stop!!! like in this case what you do is believe the woman except because riker's our protagonist we know he didn't do it except they never CLARIFY that he didn't do it??? obviously i don't think for a minute that he did, but of all the fucking things to leave open...

anyway i hated it. i actually hated it more than catherine did which may be a first for tng

yesterday's enterprise: TASHA YAR?????????????????????????????

ok, the premise of this was kinda confusing at first, but i don't give a single fuck. TASHA YAR!!!!!!

i was so happy and confused to see her but the more scenes she had...man. like, ok, they did not HAVE to have her make out with this guy. even in death they will not stop doing this to her. but the whole thing where guinan was like your death was meaningless and empty in this timeline so she decides to go back and die in the past instead...GOOD for her

also, i'm a little confused on my canon - i think the battle that other enterprise went back to die in was the one that worf's parents were killed in? which is why he wasn't on the bridge because he fuckin DIED at age 6 or whatever? i guess they must have done enough good to save at least some people??

anyway, ABSOLUTELY adored this one. tasha yar redemption arc. that was the LAST thing i EVER expected to see on tng but here we are. they even made that other captain a woman although lmao in the end they refridged tasha nd this other captain. STILL. if shes gotta die let it be better than the death she got in canon. i'll miss you queen

my one gripe, aside from her boyfriend, is that she and data had a lil scene in the elevator and im mad we could not infer from it whether or not they had fucked in this timeline. rip :(

NEXT TIME: "the offspring" and "sins of the father," which is a normal title that does not at all match the title of a merlin episode i wrote a 130k coda about

#personal #star trek blogging #tng lb

7 notes · View notes

skylarynn-ninjago · 1 year

Text

Plot concepts/canon divergences

Continuation of this post over there.

01 - Masters of Spinjitzu

The pilot season. As mentioned there are not major changes in overall plot, however I am adding in an episode [called “A Brother’s Shadow”] to cover what’s going on with Nya in the Underworld since we literally never see what all went down between when she was captured and when she was chained up in the Fire Temple. Also I will be giving plot to the mini movies, which tacks an additional 5 episodes [“New Masters of Spinjitzu” is getting thrown in the fire] onto the season, making it a nice round 10 episodes.

02 - Rise of the Snakes

Season 1. As mentioned it’s not overly different from the original, though there will be seeding for concepts I introduce later, such as Lloyd’s aunt Koko and the Kagami family of professional dancers.

03 - Legacy of the Green Ninja

Season 2. Lloyd’s aunt Koko is introduced in the same episode Misako is, and she participates in shenanigans from then onwards for the season. Also I will try to come up with some explanation of Dr. Julien leaving Echo on the Lighthouse so he’s not an utterly Terrible Parent™.

04 - Rebooted

Season 3. Hopefully I can try to iron out/rectify most of the pacing issues they had, as the show was going to be 4 episodes, then 13, then 8, and you can kinda tell with the way the plot’s tempo fluctuates. Also there will be reference to Koko having traversed Hiroshi’s Labyrinth because she’s Like That™. Koko might get involved in the season, but if so it will be towards the end. Also also Cryptor won’t be blown[frozen?] to bits exactly, there will be salvageable remnants of him left for reasons To Be Seen.

05 - Tournament of the Elements

Season 4. The Ninja board Chen’s ship to find shock! horror! Koko is here for some reason! She’s then revealed to be the Master of Sand, which is why she’s so helpful on Misako’s digs. We’re also introduced to Viridian Kagami, another oc and the alleged Master of Glass, though strangely no one actually witnesses him using his element... Oh and at the end I add a reference to Skylor having a little brother.

06 - Possession

Season 5. Koko gets involved once word reaches her of Lloyd being possessed and she spends most of the season helping Misako figure shit out because those two are Nerd Siblings™. Also two other original characters are introduced/referenced: Cerulea Kagami, or just Lea, who was kicked out of the Kagami family of professional dancers for breaking a mirror [It Makes Sense In Context™]and was promptly adopted as a sister by Ronin; and Kaiya Mori, Ronin’s biological daughter who’s only really mentioned in passing. She is roughly Nya’s age and, as her name literally means “forgiveness”, has a lot to do with the mistakes Ronin references making.

07 - Skybound

Season 6. Still haven’t rewatched it [which I really should do] but I did some critical thinking about the ending and decided to completely rework it. Functionally the season holds the same narrative space, but I found it kinda counterintuitive that in the season where it’s heavily emphasized wishes do not solve problems, the entire season is fixed with a very poorly-worded wish. So instead Jay does not make a final wish, but the plot is resolved by other means. If y’all are curious I will gladly explain the Shenanigans™ there, but I don’t want to spoil it quite yet.

08 - Escape from Tera Uragiri

The first [of many] of my fan seasons. As previously explained it is inspired by Escape from New York and Escape from L.A. and tells how the Imperial Family of Ninjago got the Mask of Deception before Sons of Garmadon: Ronin. Also introduces Fugi-Dove 5 seasons before his first canon appearance because a friend suggested it as a joke and I cannot say no to the bird man.

09 - Echoes of Memory

The second fan season. Features Ronin accidentally adopting Echo Zane and Echo joining the Ninja’s funky family. Also features Jay and Nya explaining what the hell was Skybound.

10 - Day of the Departed

The holiday special. I’m throwing in Li’l Nelson to help Cole, because evidently the writers originally planned on it based on his presence in the sets. And Yang doesn’t get a redemption because that man’s motives make no sense [why are you afraid of getting forgotten when you know for a fact you’re well known for creating a martial art? You literally possessed the portrait of you hanging in the museum, there’s no way you think no one remembers you] so instead Morro sticks around and helps yeet Cole through the Rift [and maybe accidentally crosses it himself...]. Also, I really didn’t get why Pythor hopped on the murder train so quick when he has no reason to do so, and instead changed it to Pythor trying to warn Lloyd of the Shenanigans™ [much like Morro] purely to spite Chen for culturally appropriating his tribe and wearing their remains as a hat. He still almost gets killed by Lloyd because he’s proven himself Untrustworthy™.

11 - Hands of Time

Season 7. There’s...a lot of pacing issues in this season, and the dialogue kinda suffers throughout, so hopefully I can fix those things. For once, Koko is not likely to be around. Also there will be episodes about Dareth and Ronin post-Dareth breaking Ronin’s leg because Dareth found this anemic emo teen in the street and decided to adopt him. Yes it is Morro, and no he is not happy because he Did Not sign up for mortality again.

12 - Decoded

No idea if this season is canon or not frankly, but it’s a thing, so. I’m just adding Echo to it pretty much. Though now that I think about it this might be when I have Echo give Gizmo/Tai-D [that adorable glorified roomba tea bot Dr. Julien had at the Lighthouse] an upgrade in body and sentience, and he has now become a young child with built-in rollerskates who likes to help fix things. Unlike Zane and Echo [and PIXAL I guess] Gizmo isn’t big on the whole fighting thing and would rather stay at the Monastery, but heaven help you if you try to attack the Monastery because there’s now a devious robotic Kevin McAllister living there.

13 - Obsession

The third fan season where I stole the concept from The Fire That Burns Too Brightly. It’s on AO3, go read it. Gist is Kai gets a stalker who’s trying to destroy the Element of Fire and murder Kai for Personal Trauma Reasons™ and Lloyd contemplates Murder™.

14 - Apex Predator

The shiny new fourth fan season. Stole this concept from an AI actually, a TannerFishies YouTube video where he was generating potential Ninjago seasons. So the pitch is that one of the 16 Realms is just the Old West, from whence originates the villainous Talon, an outlaw of some ilk that the Ninja have to defeat. Talon is based on Great Horned Owls, which makes him rather terrifying to be frank. Also this will be a Nya/Koko focus season because I didn’t realize I didn’t have those yet. Oh and there will be a wonderful episode called “Holstergeist” [stole that from Reddit] where the Ninja tried to get help by bringing back ghosts in the Caves of Despair from the prospecting era [got that idea from tumblr’s very own drawtice].

15 - Sons of Garmadon

Season 8. There’s now a total of 6 Oni Masks, 3 Greater and 3 Lesser. The Greater 3 are those from the show - Deception, Vengeance, and Hatred - while the Lesser 3 are similar concepts - Fear, Cruelty, and Corruption. There are also 6 Dragon Amulets, one to counter each Mask as follows: Deception/Loyalty, Vengeance/Forgiveness, Hatred/Compassion, Fear/Bravery, Cruelty/Kindness, Corruption/Justice. Also there’s a 4th general amongst the Sons of Garmadon called Tempest; no one’s really sure where he came from, but he never takes off his mask. He just casually showed up with the Mask of Cruelty as well [that’s not the mask he wears constantly] and he won’t tell where he got it. Oh and the Falcon mysteriously vanishes.

16 - Hunted

Season 9. Lea and Koko join Lloyd’s resistance, and about halfway through the season Tempest just disappears on the Sons to Harumi’s great befuddlement because they’d been Bonding™. Not really sure what Echo’s role in this will be, so that needs to be ironed out. Also Morro finally reveals his alive-ness to [what remains of] the Ninja, which nearly gets him drowned by Nya. He’s captured by the Sons of Garmadon before the other Ninja return from the First Realm, which is really fun because he just pops up after the jail break and all the OG Ninja have a freak-out before Lloyd and Nya can explain It’s Okay, He’s Chill Now.

17 - March of the Oni

Season 10. Definitely adjusting the pacing because so much happened in so little time. Totally having an entire episode dedicated to the introduction of the Oni and calling it “The Bringers of Doom” because kickass melodrama is the flavor of the day. Also Echo and Morro have been added, and Morro very nearly yeets himself off the Bounty when Cole falls, only not also falling into the cloud because Jay catches him by the collar, because up to this point Cole was the Ninja closest with Morro and he was Not about to lose his Only Friend™. Also also the Falcon reappears, now in a shiny new body as another sentient Nindroid but with wings because bird go brr and calling himself Merlin. He helps evacuate people and integrates into the group after the Oni shenanigans.

18 - Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitzu: The Fire Chapter

Season 11, part 1. Gizmo and PIXAL become best friends building stuff together and Merlin helps them sometimes. Unlike the other Ninja, Morro did not go out of shape and thus is not being harassed by Wu. In fact, he’s definitely helping Wu prank everyone. Kai isn’t super out of shape, as, post-reforging the Golden Weapons, he’s taken up blacksmithing again and has in fact made all the Ninja’s weapons. He has been slacking off in the combat training, however. Lloyd also isn’t completely out of shape I feel, but he is definitely slacking somewhat. Oh and, while Echo and Gizmo stay behind, Merlin is definitely going into the Never-Realm to get his brother back.

19 - Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitzu: The Ice Chapter

Season 11, part 2. Morro actually kinda enjoys the Never-Realm because he Does Not like really hot environments. Sorla gives him some advice about the PTSD this man clearly has, and I might have him go after Cole to find the Traveller’s Tree because Only Friend™. Also this is where we learn he has Iron Deficiency Anemia because he starts fainting and such. Not a fun time. Merlin has Bonding Time™ with all the Ninja and proves to be really useful as a flyer. Also Echo helps PIXAL during the episode with the Preeminent, but he’s incapacitated so she still gets her dramatic I’m The Only Line Of Defense moment.

20 - Prime Empire

Season 12. Somehow Jay’s mother Liberty is being used for Prime Empire, I’m just not sure how. Also the season might start earlier, with Jay getting a letter from his hitherto-unknown sister Ivy Gordon asking for help to find their missing mom. Also not sure how Echo and Merlin will fit into this season, but I’ll figure it out. Merlin is going to be very pissed when the Mechanic abducts Zane. Morro enters Prime Empire and probably dies between Cole/Kai and Lloyd. Also he gets an alt avatar form that just looks like the depressed teenage offspring of Hot Topic.

21 - Master of the Mountain

Season 13. Morro ends up with Zane and Kai among the Geckles, and his anemia comes up again because the glop shit they’re given does not contain enough iron to keep this man conscious. Oh and during the whole Trial by Mino thing, Morro’s just Jedi Flipping™ over the thing to keep from getting gored while Kai and Zane try to dodge. And he’s probably the one who makes the slug fly down the ice slick. Likely to add some episodes about what’s going on at the Monastery like how they did in the Ice Chapter, covering the jailbreak that supposedly happens before the Island.

22 - Malediction

The fifth fan season. Focuses on Morro and features Clouse as the villain, actually revealing his familial origins. Takes place on Chen’s Island and Much Shenaniganry™ occurs. Not all of the Ninja are present for it, as Kai is visiting his parents and Cole is visiting Lou. Also Lea is there looking for Ronin because he’s mysteriously vanished while out trying to catch escaped inmates from Kryptarium and she’s worried about him. And this is when it’s finally revealed that Viridian from all the way back in Tournament is not, in fact, the Master of Glass, but rather Lea is. After the Shenaniganry™, Lloyd offers for her to join the Ninja so she can better master her element and she accepts.

23 - The Island

Either a miniseries or season 14, people count it differently. Lea is now officially one of the team, but they have not yet found her missing adoptive brother [Ronin]. Oh and Koko was on the expedition team with Misako and Wu and Clutch, and she’s Very Much Done with Clutch’s Shit™. When they find the fake Wojira there’s still the bit like this: Lloyd: Who do we know that uses weird vehicles to get his way? Lea: Ronin! Lloyd: Actually I was gonna say the Mechanic, but that works too-- But instead of ending there it deviates slightly Lea: No, I mean--Ronin! And we get the reveal that Ronin had been captured by these hooligans while doing his bounty hunting and in fact the real mastermind was the Mechanic, who is then sent to prison while Ronin’s taken to a hospital.

24 - Throne of Glass

The sixth fan season, and Lea’s focus. The city has finally gotten its act together long enough to elect the Kagami family as the new Imperial Family of Ninjago after Harumi nuked her parents. This upsets Lea, because that is the family that cast her out. Much Shenaniganry™ occurs, though like in Malediction only a few of the Ninja are here: Jay and Nya are visiting with Jay’s family [Ed and Edna but also Liberty and his sister Ivy] Lloyd has been kidnapped by Koko to go off adventuring in some remote jungle somewhere And Zane, Merlin, Echo, and Gizmo have gone off to Do a Thing in honor of their late father Dr. Julien, with PIXAL coming along with. Lea and Cole have a lot of Bonding™ as we learn about their shared history at the Marty Oppenheimer School of Performing Arts, and Lea’s family tries to have her assassinated because Reasons™. Dragon Amulets are found and used. Also there’s a big fancy Imperial Ball that happens so Morro wears a dress to hide more knives on his person and Kai wears a dress because he’s a Fashion Victim™ and not to be outdone.

25 - Seabound

Season 14 or 15 depending on how you count. Morro’s powers start going wacky just like Nya’s, and he goes with them in the HydroBounty but Does Not have a Fun Time because thalassophobia/aquaphobia residual from his Ghosty Days. Merlin, Echo, Gizmo, and Lea all vibe at the Monastery with Kai, Ray, and Cole and have an absolute blast. Also, after Kai calls Maya and she starts annoying Nya, Misako suggests that since Ronin helped her figure her powers out the first time Nya should call Ronin. So she does, and now Maya and Ronin are competitively trying to help her. When Nya goes to merge with the sea, Morro follows her and merges with the sky. While Nya has her nifty water dragon form he has a white tiger form. Also he’s not got the same ‘call of the sea’ thing Nya has going on, so he mostly maintains his identity’s integrity.

26 - Cloudburst Elegy

The seventh fan season covering shenanigans between Seabound and Crystallized. So, much like how Nyad had also previously merged with the sea, there’s an elemental Master of Wind who had merged with the sky before Morro had and was semi-stuck in the white tiger form. He causes shit [and is the reason Jay ends up at the lighthouse]. No one has a good time.

27 - Crystallized, Part I

Season 15-16, part 1. Morro is also un-merged with his element, though in the process a giant white tiger also pops into existence; the other Wind Elemental. Koko names him Benji and he’s a menace once he wakes up but is thoroughly perplexed by Koko, She Who Has No Fear, enough that he actually listens to her commands because whoever has the audacity to tell a tiger “Bad kitty! Sit!” is worthy of respect. Ronin is still in prison in this season, but that’s because he broke into places to find a way to fix Nya. He’s quite relieved to hear that she’s okay now. The whole scene where Lloyd convinces an inmate to be better still happens, but rather than be Ronin, it’s someone else: namely Eugene Chen, or Gene as the Darkly’s kids knew him, Skylor’s younger brother that was fleetingly foreshadowed by me in Tournament. While Sky took over the noodle production, he took over the crime syndicate. Lloyd convinces him to Do Better, and Gene sneaks out of Kryptarium the same time Pythor’s busted out. Speaking of, the Crystal Council actually tries to recruit Nadakhan [the alt timeline had been explained by the Ninja in a press conference so it’s common knowledge by now] but he declined for reasons to do with how I end Skybound, so they opt for their second choice: Pythor. Pythor also declines initially, but he’s strong-armed into it by them taunting him with information on his son, Clancee. Also I’ve made Clancee be Pythor’s son by the way.

28 - Crystallized, Part II

Season 15-16, part 2. So firstly when the Crystal Council comes for the Golden Weapons, I’m changing the assignment slightly. Pythor gets the Shurikens of Ice [and fights Nya in the finale] while the Mechanic gets the Nunchucks of Lightning [and fights Jay in the finale]. Morro’s in the same boat as Nya on the power loss front and is with her, Wu, Skylor, PIXAL, Echo, and Gizmo when the Monastery’s blown up. Lea and Merlin are with Cole, Kai, Zane, and Jay in the subway. Koko was at Domu with Misako because Nerd Siblings™. Garmadon’s subplot with Lloyd is changed. Also there’s a whole subplot about the relationship between Ultra Violet and the Mechanic and it’s kinda sad. Only the OG Ninja get fancy new vehicles, so Lea, Koko, and Morro were all on the Bounty when it went down. Echo, Merlin, and Gizmo were all with PIXAL and Skylor in the Sam X cave for those shenanigans. Lea, Koko, and Morro end up navigating the city together. Merlin, Echo, PIXAL, and Skylor all entered city separately to try and avoid detection. PIXAL found Zane first and then Merlin found her, Zane, and the inmates at Borg Tower later. Echo ended up with Jay and Nya. During the Distress Calls sequence, while Lloyd leaves a message for the Serpentine, Cole tries to broadcast to Shintaro, and Nya sends fish to Merlopia, Morro has the wacky idea to message the Never-Realm and manages to contact Sorla with magic Bansha taught him, while Kai suggest calling Faith for help and Wu does so with some Traveller’s Tea one of the paperkids found. In the ‘allies unite’ sequence, in addition to everyone who shows up, Gene appears with his crew of criminals, Nadakhan appears with his Sky Pirates, Akita and Kataru pop out of a portal from the Never-Realm, and Faith flies in on Firstbourne with some of her Dragon Riders. The OG Ninja are the only ones who can do the Dragon Form since they’re the sub-elements of Creation, and when they release their powers it just gives Lloyd the Golden Power again instead of making a gold dragon for him to ride that just disappears at the end because my god that was so dumb... Harumi is sent to prison for her various atrocities, along with most of the Crystal Council. Vania does come to collect her father and take him back to Shintaran prison. Also we finally find out that Mr. F/Mr. E is actually the rebuilt remains of Cryptor that I hinted at in Rebooted. And also that the Sons of Garmadon general Tempest was secretly Morro all along. The inmates who helped [Ronin, Killow, Ultra Violet, and Fugi-Dove] all get their sentences changed so they can do ‘public service’ instead and they end up working at Skylor’s noodlehouse since Skylor becomes a full-time Ninja. Killow cooks, Fugi-Dove does waitressing, and Ultra Violet handles customer service while Ronin supervises them. The Sons of Garmadon [Harumi, Killow, Ultra Violet, Mr. F, and Morro] have a very messy and complicated reunion, but they all work out their grudges and rebuild their friendships, with everyone agreeing to work for good from now on. Pythor is reunited with Clancee after centuries. Akita and Kataru decide to stay in Ninjago while Faith returns to her realm.

The story doesn’t end there, I’ve just not worked out everything following that.

#ninjago #skylarynn's ninjago #echo zane #ninjago morro #gene chen #ninjago fugidove #ninjago au #ninjago fanfic #ninjago fanfiction #ninjago rewrite

30 notes · View notes