#does his backstory make him sympathetic in the sense that it is tragic and makes him a good villain?

[irenespring]

Rewatching both House and ER and I have been thinking about why I find House to be a far more sympathetic character than Robert Romano.

To be clear: I know House's behavior is horrible. He should have been fired. There is no moral justification for his actions. However, as my favorite history professor constantly says: "context is not justification."

Words vs. deeds: House says a lot of terrible things, but his actions paint a different picture. He says antisemitic nonsense, but it never alters his attitudes towards Taub, Wilson, and Cuddy. He says he will sexually harass Cameron and Chase, and definitely does sexually harass Cuddy--but he never touches them without permission, and doesn't want to date an employee even when Cameron really wants to date him. Romano, on the hand, engages in verbal sexual harassment, and then does act on it. He tries to get Elizabeth deported because she won't sleep with him. He tries to get any out lesbian fired.

Backstory: House is the main character of the show titled House. As such, though we don't learn a lot about him, we are provided insights into his past. A big part of helping viewers empathize with a character is helping them understand why he is like this. You get a sense of House's tragic backstory, and how that backstory forged him into the kind of person he is. Romano, on the hand, is never fully expanded on. All we really know about him is that he has a good relationship with his mother. There isn't enough data to understand, and thus connect, with his overall character. He was intended to be a villain, rather than an anti-hero.

Self-reflection: House is a terrible person, and he knows it. He hates it. When he talks about the world with patients (I've noticed this particularly in season 1) he sounds really fucking sad. He wants the world to be better, he wants to be better, but this is how the world works and therefore he can only present himself one way and stay safe. This self-knowledge makes him a more conflicted character, and shows he has empathy. He wants to change, but doesn't think he can. On the other hand, Romano is deeply arrogant, not superficially arrogant. He thinks he's the shit. He truly believes he is the world's greatest man and entitled to act however he wants to the "little people" as he calls them. This removes a certain depth from his character.

Show tone: House is a show about terrible people. Everyone is crazy in their own unique ways. The show is about looking at the good in those terrible people. In order to enjoy the show, you have to stop yourself from analyzing the morality of the characters' actions. ER, on the other hand, is at least supposed to be about good people (don't get me started about how the protagonists treat Kerry, and whether that actually makes them good people). People are supposed to be heroic. The characters face deep ethical dilemmas the audience is supposed to consider. This makes Romano's heinous actions stand out and force the viewer to analyze them.

Pain: House is in pain. He is in pain all the fucking time. When people are in pain, they are less patient, more likely to snap. There's a standard view that when people are in a huge amount of pain, they say things they don't mean. They try to hit people where it hurts because of how much they hurt. This doesn't excuse his actions, but does create further separation between House's words and his innate character.

Anyway both ER and House are good shows, but suffer from being from the early 2000s (or mid-late 1990s in ER's case). You should watch them! But yeah, Romano bothers me way more than House, who I think would be an interesting foil for Kerry.

[lizzyscribbles]

Today’s MHA thought is brought to you as I watch the livestream of the Wisdom Saga from Epic the Musical. Go take a listen, I’m sure it’s gonna be great.

Honestly I have no transition into today’s thought so we’re just gonna move along here we go.

Lizzy’s MHA thought of the night: Yoichi and All for One’s relationship and why I think it’s brilliant.

Let it be said, All for One is a fantastic villain. I think he’s well written in the sense that I absolutely, positively, HATE him. He is an absolute asshole and he has very little reason to be. Does he have a tragic past? Ehhh, kind of? But I would argue that he started screwing people over in the womb, so I have a hard time feeling bad for him when it kinda seems like a lot of his issues were his own doing. But that’s why I like him, because he doesn’t have that super sympathetic backstory and he doesn’t have much of a reason to be an asshole other than “I want to win and see people suffer :D”. Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE a sympathetic villain (see my posts on Touya and Toga) but I also love to see a villain that is just evil for the sake of being evil.

However, I don’t doubt that he probably has some kind of personality disorder, plus he did have to entirely raise himself, and if we pile the theory that quirks influence personality on top of it, you don’t get a pretty picture. It’s an interesting look at the nature vs. nurture debate in a world like this. It was a perfect storm of genetics and circumstances that made All for One, a terrible turn of events to be sure.

And yet, despite being twins, Yoichi doesn’t turn into a psychopathic maniac. It’s honestly wild, and a kind of psychological circumstance that fascinates me. And, let's be honest, it's not out of the realm of possibility that AFO is partially to thank for that. After all, he took care of Yoichi like, straight out of the womb. However, what gets me more is their relationship.

It’s messy, it’s toxic, and it’s a little weird, but it’s so unique because we rarely see it done like this. It’s codependency at its worst, more so on All for One’s side, though he’d never admit that.

It really begs the question, why? Why was All for One SO obsessed with his brother? By all accounts, his brother only ever stood in his way and screwed with his plans. He was a hindrance, even when they were kids, so why keep him around?

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. I think a part of it is Psychological Reactance (which I talk a bit about in my post on Toga), basically, it’s a common reaction in humans when you tell them they can’t do or have something. It’s often rooted in control, we don’t like to loose control of anything, and so we automatically act out to make sure our control is preserved. It’s emotional and behavioral, and we know All for One LOVES his control just as much as he loves his quirks.

And you know what else he loved? He loved Yoichi, and in a way he could never love anyone else. And maybe Yoichi loved him too, I think he did, but he loved him enough to tell him he was utterly wrong even when his brother wouldn’t listen. So, here’s this one thing he genuinely doesn’t want to loose because it’s the one thing he can never replace and it wants to leave?? Excuse???

Here’s what I think, I think Yoichi was the only thing he ever really lost control of.

Yes, I think his twisted sense of love had a part in him chasing his brother across generations, but I also think All for One could not handle the idea that he lost control of something he actually cared about.

We see in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that our most basic needs above physical are relational. Family, friends, safety, belonging, those aren’t things that are plentiful when you’re a dictator. Yoichi was there with him from the beginning, he fulfilled that need in some capacity.

We’re all afraid of losing things, especially those we love the most, it’s human nature. No matter how powerful you are, you can’t substantiate real human connection.

The day All for One lost Yoichi was the day he lost the only genuine relationship he had, it’s not surprising he spent the next few centuries trying to get it back.

…

I had fun with that one! Imma do one one Yoichi one of these days, because I love him and he deserves it, but for now I’m gonna go enjoy the Wisdom Saga and plan out a little Yoichi one shot I’ve had bouncing around in my head for a while.

[aquaburst3]

I've seen TikToks where people dunk on Rollo and Honest Fellow, and others, mainly in the Spanish and JP fandoms, being confused about this reaction. To play devil's advocate, the main reason is how the game handled them and that they're poorly written characters. I can pinpoint a few reasons why that is...

Honest Fellow: His motivations to make him sympathetic and his actions are at odds with one another.

In that arc, Honest Fellow gleefully turns people into puppets to sell off to the highest bidder, even hinting at some people using them for sexual pleasure in the JP version. Why is he doing this? Because the school system is hard and he wants to get back at rich people. Yes, really. That's one of the dumbest villain motivations I ever heard! How does that justify what he did or put his actions into perspective? He's a human trafficker! By making the reason why he's doing this something so disconnected from the story makes him seem like a sociopathic monster on par with the Coachman. It's like if someone murdered your pet and said they did that because had a hard time in school. That's horrible, but that has nothing to do with that action nor does that make you like that more any more.

(Personally, if I was writing this arc, I would've made his boss the TWST Coachman, who is threatening to turn Giddel into a puppet if he doesn't do what he says. That makes far more sense, and makes his actions more understandable. I think a lot of us had shitty bosses that forced us to do things we disagreed with or would do a horrible act to protect a loved one. It makes him more like his movie counterpart due to Honest John and Gideon being threatened by the Coachman to convince Pinocchio to come to Pleasure Island, despite Honest John thinking it was fucked up. Idk, that's just me.)

Rollo: While he's better written than Honest Fellow due to his motivations at least making sense, he's still not the best written character either. Shitty and lazy character name aside, being a woobie and not adapting the character in a...questionable manner.

A woobie, for those of you who don't know, is an older fandom term used to describe bland pretty characters with a tragic backstory that the author expects you to feel sorry for them and get away with everything. Oh, boy. Does he fit that definition in spades. He's pretty bland. His only real standout personality traits are that he hates magic and the fae, prideful, traditional and possibly athletic. That's it. He has a sad backstory where his brother died in a fire after his magic got out of control. Fine, that's cliche, but it works. Hell, it's kinda clever in a sense where it's inspired by the Hunchback of Notre Dame off-broadway musical. Characters like Idia point out the hypocrisy in Rollo's ideology and that he is really doing this thanks to his own guilt for his brother's death, which is a good thing. The problem is, outside of him being boring as a character, that despite wanting to suck out all of the magic in the world, he got away with it scott free, and his only form of "punishment" was living with the guilt of knowing everyone thinking that he was some sort of hero…despite Malleus wanting revenge on him five minutes earlier. (I don't get it either.) I think a lot of this problem plays into a reoccurring one the game has a whole—the character stagnation and Yana's utter unwillingness to let them face any consequences for their actions. Rollo is also prejudice against the fae if him covering his nose whenever he's around one is to be concerned, which is also never addressed.

I think the way he was handled was in poor taste. Frollo is one of the most realistic villains in the Disney canon and is triggering to a lot of westerners due to his ties with the Catholic church. Unlike the other Great Seven, there's no way to possibly turn his story to make him seem like a hero nor are their any admirable traits. The fact of the matter is that by making Noble Bell honoured after Frollo, who is such a realistic character and is tied up in a lot of religious baggage for westerners, the game is glorifying his actions to an extent. While I know Christianity is a minor religion in Japan, so adding Christian elements to "spice things up" is common in anime, the developers know that the game is being distributed internationally and should've known better. The game should've made Rollo like the staff where he has no dorm or school honoured after his counterpart. That would've lessened the impact a lot.

Both of them: Like I said with Rollo, they completely get away with their crimes, despite everything they did. That is asinine. All actions have punishments, and that goes for them. Plus, the NRC boys are based on villains! Wouldn't they want to exact their revenge on them, especially in Honest Fellow's case who wanted to turn them into living household items and sex dolls! You are based on villains, act like it!

(This is also a huge problem with the game as a whole, but I wrote other posts about that before, so I don't wanna get into it here.)

So, yeah. There reasons why many English speaking fans dislike or despise these characters. Hell, if anything the reason why they are so beloved in JP and Spanish fandom circles is more bizarre to me. I get it. Honest Fellow is hot. But outside of that...Really? So I guess it goes both ways and we can be baffled at each other's choices. xD

[opinated-user]

I think part of why Lily dislikes Across The Spider-Verse is because Miguel O'Hara is everything Aliana could have been in the hands of a decent writer. Hypercompetent, stronger than everyone else, smarter than everyone else, haughty, respected, admired, accomplished, aggressive, hurt by things in his past, different from the other heroes, an extremist, and still sympathetic because the sheer scale of what he lost is so awful that you understand why he's snapped and become as messed up as he is. It doesn't excuse it but you can't deny that the trauma was bad enough to leave him with these control-freak tendencies and paranoia as coping mechanisms. We only have one movie with him but you feel for this man because he's clearly human and hurting despite how powerful and successful he is.

The difference is that Across The Spider-Verse is willing to write a conflict where both sides have a point. While we are later shown Miguel's theories about how the multiverse are incorrect, most of the evidence initially points to his theories being right, in which case he is a man trying to prevent massive loss of life. That he's willing to let someone the hero loves die to achieve that is horrifying, but it makes sense. Aliana's various murders always made me roll my eyes because they meant nothing and were often motivated by very little. This movie makes one possible murder feel incredibly high stakes by having even Miguel, who is resigned to letting it happen, not be enthused about it. "It has to be done, but I don't enjoy this" is a lot more compelling than "eh, why not?" as an attitude towards murder. We root for Miles but we also know that Miguel is motivated by the greater good, which is terrifying because a properly motivated Spider-Man is more or less undefeatable in most canons.

Aliana only sometimes escapes fair criticism by virtue of being a queer POC. Miguel O'Hara gets fair criticism but also a very substantial number of fans because he's well-written. Being Latino is a nice bonus, but unlike Aliana, he has more to him than just murder, power and looking cool. He's got attachments, he grieves, he reacts to trauma, he makes mistakes, and Aliana... well, she kills people, fucks Rey and kills some more until all the problems are gone.

Miguel is what a morally grey character should be: complicated, human, someone whose flaws make sense when you consider their backstory, powerful but not invincible, clearly motivated and in possession of virtues as well as flaws.

Aliana kills, tortures, assaults, is inserted into scenes more than Steven is into Steven Universe episodes, has no flaws or virtues, and has a backstory that does not impact her most of the time.

It must really suck to see someone write the same basic concept - overpowered morally grey POC with a tragic backstory who has risen to a position of power - and see them do it so well that people can't stop talking about him. Meanwhile, no one I know even finished Lily's fic because it's just so boring that it wasn't able to hold their attention and it was impossible to get attached to the characters.

i think it's also the fact that Miguel O'Hara actually lives the consequences of his own actions. that's the last thing LO ever wants for alina, because alina is meant to be her wish fulfillment fantasy and she doesn't want to suffer consequences. she just want a subservient obedient wife who will never disagree with her and let her win at pokemon.

[justatalkingface]

Can I vent one thing? I kind hate the hipocrisy of some (a big number here) fans on regards Izu and Endeavour.

Like it goes more or less like this:

Fans:😒look at Izu defending Endeavour even through Dabi told how abusive he is.

Me: what you want Izu to do punch Endeavour and praise Dabi? A fucking villain who killed and has no remorse?

The hipocrisy here is how they blame Izu for "siding with an abuser" but Shot befriend BK is cute.

Following that logic, they should hate Shoto too as he is Bk's friends...somehow. BK for all his many flaws, I say this, he is honest in his hate for Izu. Never tried to mask.

As for the other ask I sent and yoy answer. Look, Hori just hates Izu and at this point is just easier to say he is a bad writer (feels lazy but I swear this is the easiest and real explanation here) we dont know why Izu wants to be a hero or anything about his family. His complex of martyr makes no sense (does AM have the same thing? It also makes no sense ....bc we know 0 about AM)

There is so much cognitive dissonance baked into Bakugou and how much people love him, there really is; he hits Izuku and there are Bakugou fans that basiclly say Izuku should thank him for the privilege.

Relatedly, a lot of people apparently find him attractive which... I don't get. But hot people do get away with a lot more than unattractive people, so I could see some unconscious biases on the fact that they think he looks hot, and is therefore more tolerable than if he looked like Mineta but acted like he does in canon.

To be fair, a lot of it is ultimately on Hori himself and the writing; no matter how bad I find his character arc at times, Endeavour's abuse and behaviour was never treated like a joke. Brushed over, sure, but it was never funny. Meanwhile, we passed a point in the story, long before Endeavour's redemption kicked in, and suddenly every abusive thing that Bakugou had been doing, bad things which were Serious Problems he was supposed to deal with, was nothing but a joke, even while Endeavour was still on and off being given shit for being an abuser; it's annoying, but I don't find it surprising people don't take Bakugou's behavior seriously if the story itself doesn't.

Meanwhile, while people's interest in Izuku has died to some extent because of how bad his writing got, I've seen people saying (and I'm not completely disagreeing with them) that Dabi has been carrying a lot of Post War, with all the focus on him and his tragic backstory being something that's actually interesting, and how much character he's allowed to have compared to everyone else, which, ironically enough, is probably enough to make him a more sympathetic victim to a lot of people over Izuku, who isn't even allowed to think about his past abuse with how much his traumatic backstory is being suppressed by the writing.

Granted, it feels like a lot of that was altered to make Endeavour (and Dabi) more tolerable to the readers, and while Dabi is supposed to be a villain with sympathetic origins, some people forget he's very much an unsympathetic person at this point, by his own design, and that would probably be insulted by some of the nicer takes on him.

Ultimately, what Endeavour did was worse than Bakugou, yeah, and I see people say that for why Bakugou is more defensible, but it's not a matter of degree; Endeavour doing shitty things doesn't excuse Bakugou doing shitty things, though there's also the fact that abusive fathers are more universally loathed than bullies, especially with all the extra stuff going on with Bakugou to try and mitigate him.

On the other thing....

Izuku is easy. Izuku wants to be a hero because: societal brainwashing about the heroic system as a whole making the system popular to the people, wanting to help people, and wanting acceptance from others. Being a hero, for him, is wrapped up with all three of those causes.

On All Might... Well. It's been awhile, but back when All Might was allowed to be a character, it was pointed out multiple times that Izuku is, in fact, exactly like All Might (seriously, if we look at what we know about Young!All Might, and it sounds like he's basically taller, more muscular, and to some degree more confident Izuku from the start of the story. He's basiclly Izuku if Izuku never had Bakugou in his life, constantly knocking him down, and maybe had an extra foot or two in height), and while Izuku liked being like his idol, everyone else in the know was worried because All Might went exactly down this road Izuku's going down.

That is to say, All Might is now a lonely old man, scarred and broken, without a life of his own, and the fact he's still alive means this is the good ending for him, compared to him getting himself killed.

(looks at the newer manga chapters meaningfully)

The Izuku and All Might self-destruction parallels is something that came up within the first couple of chapters; it was a very deliberate choice, and it seemed clear, at some point, that All Might was supposed to help Izuku be better than him, temper his natural martyr tendencies, and not get himself killed or horribly maimed, a process that would help the both of them grow past these tendencies.

And yes, we know little about All Might, but after a certain point his development stopped and... in all honesty, as much as Hori seems to hate Izuku, he seems to hate All Might just as much, if not more (or at least All Might isn't mandated to be strong and victorious, anyways, in ways that give Izuku some protections). All Might took this scrawny little boy to the beach and over the course of a summer bulked him up to the point where he could host OFA; he's not this horribly incompetent person that the later parts of the story seem to want us to see him as.

And yet, the more he's developed the more Hori just adds flaw upon flaw to the poor man, starting with being completely incapable of helping Izuku in pretty much any way all of a sudden ('clench your butt' my ass) and turning more and more pathetic over time as his powers waned, and he never got to grow as a character to filled the void in his characterization.

Presumably, mixed with the part where he was meant to teach Izuku... literally anything, All Might's backstory (beyond being basiclly tall Izuku, anyways) was probably going to be organically expanded on over time as their mentor and mentee based relationship developed, but that never happened, and so we have a character whose defining traits are largely having super powers, who no longer has those super powers.

[lemonsweet]

Do you think the reason people like The Spot so much is because he’s kind of a sympathetic villain? Like yeah as the movie progresses he gets more evil and wants to ruin the life of this teen boy and he causes some destruction and seeks more power to do so, but I keep thinking back to the beginning of the movie where he’s just trying to steal money from an ATM because he was broke and homeless and couldn’t get a job. Like why does Miles feel the need to stop him so bad, considering he wasn’t hurting anyone at that time? What’s The Spot supposed to do to survive? Apply for government disability? And like sure he got into that life changing accident because he worked for an evil corporation or whatever, but under capitalism most people work for an evil corporations at some point. Do you think The Spot is so likable to some because of his tragic backstory? Or do you think it’s just his holes?

from what I've seen of how ppl act abt him on my posts a lot of ppl are calling him meow meows or whatever so I think ppl are going crazy just abt at the conceptual idea of a nerd guy that eats shit trying to rob an ATM and is funny and a "villain." So yeah I think kind of metaphorically a lot of ppl do just like him for his holes. Not to say everyone is being like that ofc ( I like him too) and yeah since all the concept stuff there is like this hes definitely meant to be likeable and sympathetic. (He also was probably like that for almost a year before even doing anything or crossing paths with miles)

(ALSO abt the ATM thing. I don't know if this is me crazy pattern searching but I noticed a lot of parallels with atsv and spiderman 2 which makes sense bc olivia octavius was the original villain for atsv before they changed it so miles had his own thing. i think the ATM part is supposed to mirror the part where dock ock is evilly robbing a bank and throwing people so he can buy more parts for his evil machine which I also think the spot was also doing because all he seems to be doing in his apartment is building dimension colliders, I don't think he actually has to eat or anything. Still doesn't excuse that miles was stopping a dude from stealing non aggressively but o well he's 15 and it's a spiderman movie and he's spiderman. Long parenthetical sorry)

I think the whole part where he gets more power/holes is also symbolic of him also not becoming human/himself anymore like most spiderman villains lose themselves to their own powers but also becoming the "plot." He was a background character (even according to that concept writing he was a background character in his own life treated unfairly by his peers) pulled to the foreground by miles for miles and I think the vision of spot hovering over a bunch of spiderman corpses means that only miles is supposed to fight him too. He's living proof that miles is supposed to be spiderman and that Miguel is wrong.

So yeah I think he's a cool character 👍

[gale-gentlepenguin]

Gale Reviews: One Piece Film: Red

(Thanks @knightsweeties for the picture)

As this is long overdo let me break it down to how I will be breaking it down

Plot

Characters

Animation

Music (Because yes, the music is going to be a huge part in this)

Final Thoughts.

The Plot

HIT SINGING SENSATION UTA is having a concert, her first in person show and the whole world is tuning in. And just like all One Piece Movies, the Straw Hats are going there because it sounds like fun.

Uta sings her opening number and we find out that Uta is actually one of Luffy's childhood friends AND she is Shanks daughter! As in the Red Haired Pirates Shanks.

Things build up when the reveal that Uta has a devil fruit that teleports everyone into a dream world where she controls everything. Uta's plan was to bring the whole world into an era of freedom in this dreamworld by having her fans transported in.

Luffy is the first one to get bored of the idea when Uta tells him to quit being a pirate and enjoy the eternal show. Thats when we see the catastrophic event from Uta's world wide concert. The Navy, The Marines and even the red haired pirates are pulled into a race against the clock to stop Uta before she dooms the world by leaving everyone in her dream world.

But if thats not the worst part, the Tot Musica, a Demon king summoned by the Sing Sing fruit when the lyrics are sung has created a link between the physical and Dream world.

The strawhats must work with allies and enemies alike in order to stop this Demon king of song, and hopefully save Uta.

Now a LOT of this sounds like non-sense if one isnt a One Piece fan.

But the plot does do its best to let the audience follow along the best it can, but this film is meant for the fans, the ones that know one piece.

if you are a newbie with no clue who luffy is its a 5/10

If you are a one piece fan, than I would say 9/10. Because it is confusing timeline wise as well as some of the plot points kind of blending weirdly in the end.

The ending was emotional and it hits right in the heart.

__________________________________________________________

Characters

I think I will divide this section up into 4 categories.

Uta: She is the main Antagonist of this film, and while she is the one causing trouble, she did it with noble intentions. She is a Sympathetic and Tragic character. The film does a PHENOMINAL job making us see her backstory and why she is such an important character. They also integrate her near flawlessly into Shanks and Luffy's backstories. Though I think that they did a cop out when they said the Wake Shrooms were what was making her more crazy. I think they just wanted an out so they can say she wasnt seriously going to kill Luffy. Though if I heard my best friend saying he wanted to be king of Traitors and murderous monsters no matter how much I warned him, I think I would probably gone a bit nutty to. Also I wouldnt have had Uta see the clip of the destruction, there was no point to it, have her have flashes of what happen and realize the truth, would have been better. But that ending DESTROYED MY HEART.9/10

Luffy: Luffy is in top form in this film. You really sympathize with him and how far he is willing to go to save Uta. He doesnt want to hurt his friends, and whats fascinating is the entire time Luffy never threw a single punch at her. Luffy is all for smacking sense into his friends, but he also knows what she needed. I also love how Uta and Luffy both love freedom and we see their ideologies crash, Luffy being interestingly astute in pointing out that Uta isnt freeing anyone. 10/10

Shanks: I think Shanks still maintains his aura of mystery, but the movie does confirm that he and his crew are good guys, always prioritizing the lives of others and their crew. He even was willing to take blame for something that was a tragedy just to avoid having Uta feel guilty about it. Plus we got to see some cool moves from him and his crew. (I love his crew humbling kizaru.) 8/10

Everyone else: Everyone was in top form. Bartolameo was in peak simp mode, the strawhats all mastered their vibe and were in top form, each one getting a moment to shine, especially Ussop who got to coordinate observation Haki with his dad. It was a touching moment, I hope we get something like that in the manga.

The gorosei were creepy, St Charlos got treated like Garbage as he deserves (I wish he died). The Big mom Pirates from Brulee to Katakuri were great. Law and Bepo were fantastic (Bepo making me laugh the loudest) Solid 9/10

If one is a fan of the characters its and easy 9/10. But even if one isnt, their personalities are easy to read and follow along with. 8/10

______________________________________________________________

Animation

I am going to be honest, that was the most gorgeous film I have seen this year. The blend of 2d and CGI was done MASTERFULLY. The way the animation moved with Uta's songs. The animators went HAM on this. It is just unbelievably gorgeous. I wish I could describe it more than just absolutely breathtaking.

When New World and Backlight were being sung, Oh man was it incredible. And the final bout with the Tot Musica? STUNNING

easiest 10/10

___________________________________________________________

Music

I downloaded most of the songs after watching this.

Back light is my personal favorite but they are all FUCKING BOPS!

I was practically dancing in my seat, the song has HUGE CONCERT ENERGY.

10/10

___________________________________________________________

Final thoughts

This movie is an emotional roller coaster and stimulation experience that needs to be seen to be believed. I wouldnt call this a movie as more of a Love letter to the fans, one filled with imagery and love that could fill ones soul.

The emotional highs and lows connect. You FEEL what the audience feels, you understand Uta's pain, but you also understand everyone's motives for doing what they do in this film. It is an experience that left my eyes Red.

As a one piece fan, this is the best movie to date 10/10

As a critic 6/10 with 9/10 music videos. Because without knowing the series there is a lot that is confusing.

[violetlunette]

Okay, so if you've been following me for a while and have seen my posts on the league of victim mentality—I mean villains, you may have gotten the idea that I hate “tragic” villains. This is not the case, believe it or not. I actually find villains with tragic pasts interesting. What I hate is when the “tragic” backstory is used to justify or overlook their crimes.

Warnings:

*LONG post

*Images

*Anti-Himiko Toga

*Anti-Dabi

*Anti-League of Villains

Spoiler Warnings for:

*Demon Slayer

*Bojack Horseman

*My Hero Academia

*Once Upon a Time (line or two)

*Wanda Vision (one line)

*HP (one line)

TRIGGER WARNINGS:

*Mentions murder, rape, and terrorism

Before reading, keep in mind this is an opinion piece and therefore may be a mistake or two. In other words, take it with a grain of salt.

So, to start this—basically what I said above. While my past posts suggest, otherwise I like villains with sympathetic backgrounds. The villains in Demon Slayer are among my favorites. They’re interesting as characters well as sympathetic. See, when written properly a sympathetic villain could be very entertaining. When written poorly, however, it comes off as them saying, “Look I know they’re responsible for killing a bunch of people, but you have to understand; they were sad once.”

Look, I am a person with a strong sense of justice and morals, and this tends to carry into the fiction I read. (Unless the tone prepares me, but that’s another post.) So when someone does something wrong, I expect the narrative to treat it as such. Now, of course, I’m not rigid, and I’ll have some flexibility on most things, even killing depending on the circumstances. However, I still want characters to be held to some accountability. I guess what I want is for writers to take the Bojack Horseman approach.

Whether or not Bojack is a villain is debatable, but what isn’t is that Bojack did many bad things and hurt a LOT of people. Now he has a sad backstory with abusive parents who abused him in every way but sexually. And the show never glosses over it. It states quite clearly that Bojack was hurt and uses his past to explain how he came to be the way he was so we can understand Bojack. It also makes it very clear that Bojack didn’t deserve the abuse he went through.

HOWEVER!

The creators of the show went out of their way to show and state multiple times that just because Bojack had a shitty attitude doesn’t mean it was okay for him to hurt the people he did. And more importantly, it shows that the people he hurt were people.

Princess Carolyn is a person whose feelings he took advantage of. Todd is a person who he used to make himself feel better and whose friendship he didn’t appreciate till later. Diane is a person who he hurt multiple times. Herb was a person who he betrayed and abandoned. Penny is a person he took advantage of and mentally damaged. Gina is a person he hurt and mentally scarred to the point she suffers from PTSD. Sarah Lynn was a person whose life was lost because of him.

These weren’t perfect people and, in their own way, they contributed to the situations that hurt them.Even so, in nearly all these cases they were victims of Bojack’s actions, and the show never denies or softens the blow. With Bojack, we see who he hurts, why he hurt them, and the results of his actions, most of which came from a choice HE made. Often in stories, these people would just be background filler for the villain to make them look evil, but here they’re people. Bojack Horseman also provides CONSEQUENCES for the title character. Again, Bojack hurt people and he’s held accountable. The League of Villains won’t be. Just watch. Hori has shown us in his other stories that he’ll let a villain walk after a beat down, and all will be forgiven. “But wait, Looney! Bojack Horseman is a TV Show for adults. It’s targeted at a completely different demographic! Plus, it’s a different medium altogether. It’s absolutely not fair to compare the two.” Quite right. There is quite a difference. So, let’s look at something closer to the medium, shall we? Let’s look at another anime of the same genre targeted at the same demographic; Demon Slayer.

In Demon slayer, Demons are humans transformed by a demon named Muten. Once they become demons, they often lose control of themselves and their humanity and turn into beasts that eat demons.

I’m going to use the Spider Demon arc as an example, particularly the Spider Mother.

Now, here's why Demon Slayer works for me and BNHA doesn't;

First, we see the people that the spider demon hurts and how she hurts them;

They’re not just waved off or mentioned in a line or two. We see these people frightened and hurt, begging for help before they are killed. Deaths we also get to see;

True, they weren’t main characters or even people Tanjiro and the others knew, but they were people.

Remind me, who did Dabe kill again? Can you think of any faces? Their voice? Do you know how they died? Did Dabi corner them? Or did he kill them in a burst of hellfire? Were they even aware they were going to die or surprised? We don’t know any of that. The only hint we got that Dabe’s actions hurt anyone was a reporter, but that’s it. The manga doesn’t want to focus on the people that were hurt because they want Dabe to remain sympathetic. Ultimately, his victims mean nothing.

And yet, Demon Slayer did better in making the villain sympathetic;

The Spider Demon Mother was once a human turned demon who joined Rui for protection. She was then forced to change her face and become a “mother” despite being younger than the rest.

We see that she was abused, hurt, and scared--

--So much that she longed for death.

So much so that we pitied her along with Tanjiro.

However, we knew she had to die to atone for the people she killed. There’s no cushion to her crimes; we saw her torture and kill teenagers who were just as terrified as she was. And also know that because she was a demon she had killed and eaten innocent humans regularly.

Shinobu put it best herself when facing Spider Sister; "Bitch you killed a bunch of people and expect that to be okay?" Okay, she didn’t say that. Here’s what she actually said;

Shinobu is pretty merciless here to this demon begging for help but  it’s not unwarranted. Like it or not, she has a point; 

The spider demon here killed many people over the years quite mercilessly. Nature or not, she still did it, and even if Shinobu did show mercy, there’s no evidence that the demon girl wouldn’t just eat more people when she was safe.

However, there’s the fact that the demon here really can’t help it. She was turned into a demon against her will, and her mind is clouded by demon instincts. It’s like getting mad at a cat for killing a bird. It’s sad, but it's nature.

The compromise comes from our hero. Tanjiro knows that he has to kill the demons because they’ve hurt people and will continue to hurt others. However, he still remembers that these demons are people too. So when he kills them, Tanjiro isn’t cruel, or merciless.

Tanjiro made her death as swift and painless as possible. He took no joy in it it, but did what he had to do. Because she wouldn’t stop and those kids that were killed right in front of him deserved justice. The Spider Demons were were victims but they were also killers. THAT’S why they were villains. And so, Tanjiro and Shinobu held them accountable.

Speaking of which--and lacking a better transition--One of the things I love about Tanjiro is that he never allows the villains to use the victim mentality on him. One actually tries it once;

During the sword village arc, they accuse Tanjiro of bullying the meek when said meek is a fiendish killer who spent both his human and demon life blaming his failures on others.

(Picture says it all, doesn’t it?)

How does Tanjiro respond? He calls them the fuck out.

He all but states they’re not victims but attackers. They’re the ones killing innocent people without care and refusing to take responsibility.

Tago reminds me of the meek demon. She is responsible for killing thirteen boys and several thousand people when Shiggy destroyed a city. Yet all she’s thinking about is herself.

During her entire fight with Ochako Tago is thinking of ONE person; herself. Even though thousands are dead and dying because of her. But oh, Ochako’s at fault here for not listening, boohoo! Fuck off. And before you say it, the fact that she’s a teenager only gives her so much leeway.

Ochako calls her out for this and tells her the same thing Tanjiro did.

Unlike Tanjiro, Ochako is treated like she was in the wrong, and it becomes all about poor Tago, who by the way, killed an old lady just to trick her.

See, the difference? Demon Slayer makes its villains sympathetic and accountable, My Hero Academia—like a lot of shows—doesn’t. From here on out Ochako is treated like she did wrong for not “listening” to Tago. (I’m gonna have to make a vent post about this chapter eventually.) But for now, I digress.

And while I tend to give Hori a lot of leeway in BNHA, as I know that the story is heavily influenced by editors and publishers, I know this on him. Why? Because he did it in his other story. I’m going to use the Aquarium arc as an example. Here, whale man abused the animals whom he gave human form and even killed them.

Yet in the end, it’s hinted that he’s going to be welcomed back and given another chance.

But here’s a surprise; Hori could get away with that shit here because most of the main characters are animals. Cruel, but killing is different in the animal kingdom because—as sad as it is to say—there’s a law of survival of the fittest. The animal mentality is different from a human's in a blue and orange way.

In BNHA the people being killed and doing the killing are human. There’s no blue and orange, it’s black and white. Hori can try to say it’s gray all he likes but it's not. He says the heroes are just as bad as the villains but when have we ever seen that? Have we ever seen a hero hurt an innocent? Refuse to save a person? Demand they be paid before doing their job? Nope. The worst we see is Endeavor as an abusive father, and that’s a different can of worms.

So, in conclusion;

Sympathetic villains are great when done right. It makes them engaging and can create empathy for others while showing a different POV. However, most writers refuse to hold them accountable, which can be even more dangerous than creating a villain like Maleficent or even All for One. Why? Because then the audience will use it to justify their own shitty behavior, a fear the creators of Bojack had, especially after an incident with the Rick and Morty fandom and the Mulan sauce.

The show runners of Bojack even had a character in their show flat out state,

“You know that’s not the point of the [show]--for guys to watch it and feel okay.”

“I don’t want you, or anyone else, justifying their shitty behavior because of the show.”

--Diane, Bojack Horseman, Head in the Clouds

And personally, I hate the victim mentality more than anything, especially when the characters exhibiting it have done some truly awful things.

OUAT Regina: "You’re the one who added evil to my name!"

Me: Uh, yeah! After you spent years murdering, raping, and slaughtering villages, then cast a spell that kidnapped hundreds of people and mind raped them. All because your mother—who you KNEW was a manipulative bitch—tricked an eight-year-old into telling a secret!

OUAT Rumpelstiltskin: "Why can’t I have a happy ending?" (Paraphrasing)

Me: Because you caused nearly everything that went wrong in the show and emotionally manipulative and abusive, controlling bastard.

OUAT Zelena: "Sister, why can’t we be BFFs?" (Paraphrasing)

Me: Many reasons, but the biggie is that you raped her boyfriend and eventually got him killed.

OUAT Mary-Margret and David: "Oh, our daughter hates us because we lied."

Me: Uh, there's also the fact you kidnapped an unborn baby from her mother. Then filled her with "darkness" that made it so every choice she made would result badly for her, then sent her to another dimension to die. Oh, and you did that just so you could manipulate your daughter's future instead of letting her have free will! (And how did that work out, btw? Oh, right. She became a thief and went to jail, all “without” darkness in her.)

(Note: Please don't misunderstand, the OUAT actors did a great job, but the writing failed the characters.)

WandaVision Monica to Wanda: “They’ll never know what you gave up.”

Me: Oh poor baby, Wanda had to give up a fantasy family that she literally made up and could create literally anywhere else to set a town free that she mentally enslaved to play out her TV fantasies. Something she knew she did because the government told her so when they came to save them! Wanda mentally tortured a town of innocent people for a year just so she could have her fantasy family life. And no! Her past doesn’t make shit like that okay.

HP Snape: "Why didn’t Lily love me?"

Me: Because you never viewed her as a person but as your dream girl. Also, Lily knew that you looked down on anyone with muggle blood to the point you joined the magical Koopa Klan. (You all know what I mean.) And Lily told you that to your face!

Do you see my point? I could come up with more examples but this post is long enough. The sad backstories of villains are supposed to help the audience understand so we can prevent ourselves and others from ending up like them. They are NOT supposed to be an excuse for their actions or a justification to wipe the slate clean. But that’s what most writers tend to do nowadays, which is why I prefer my evil for the luz villains. They’re fun, entertaining, and interesting, and they don’t waste time making excuses.

Does this mean I want the BNHA villains to die? No. I mean, I won’t cry or anything, but I’ll call it even if they go to jail for a couple of years and spend their lives repenting afterward.

And you know what? I can live with it when fans do stuff like this because that’s what fandoms do. It’s a whole different story when the creators do it as they should know better.

It’s like when a kid says, “fuck you” and when an adult says it. Sure, it’s insulting and infuriating but it's just kids being kids, so you blow it off. If an adult does it, that’s a whole different story as they know the meaning and ramifications of that word.

Anyway, this is long enough, so I’ll end this here.

[a-student-out-of-time]

Like I'm pretty sure that SDRA2 tells that in killing game you should trust nobody think about that. Kokoro end up trusting Teruya that he protect her but he mess up and she died. Setsuka end up trusting Hibiki and her sister and end up dying. Shinju was one of characters who says that they need trust each other end up be a tool that Nikea used for his plan. And Syobai survives who was isolated and trust nobody and he survivor unlike people who trust in someone.

//I think you're misunderstanding the real issues here. One, this is a terrible message in general because you can't get through any sort of game like this without trusting someone.

//Two, LINUJ absolutely has this very cynical perspective on human nature, but it feels incredibly selective and haphazardly applied. For example:

He's talked about how he created Kizuna to be the most hateable character in DRA and someone you'd want to suffer the worst death, yet he gives her some very sympathetic moments and backstory elements that show there's depth to her behavior. Everything about her sudden turn to murder doesn't feel like she's showing her true colors, but a contrived turn out of left field to make her a villain because that was the plan.

He'll talk constantly about how we should hold characters accountable for their actions and how no element of their backstory makes what they do okay. And he'll say this no matter how much those characters clearly show compassion, camaraderie, regret, guilt, sorrow, or how tragic their backstories are. He has this weird habit of giving them understandable backstories, but instead of using them to contextualize behavior or provide some sympathy, it's like he tells the audience "No, you can't agree with them, they're bad people."

Despite that, when Sora deliberately tries to save Yuki's life by using an unconscious Nikei's hand to injure Shinji, he was baffled and hurt that a lot of people were angry at her, when he felt she deserved sympathy for that. Honestly pretty hypocritical there, ngl.

When his characters aren't regressing as people or dying, they're just stagnant. Iroha doesn't undergo any kind of growth in this game, and her true colors turn out to be those of a self-centered coward. It honestly gets pretty insufferable, yet he hasn't really had a bad word to say about her.

He also has this uncomfortable desire to see the nicest and kindest characters suffer the worst deaths, and for no other reason than its emotional impact on the audience. Yet he's also sad that he did it and wishes it didn't have to be like that?

Third, your points don't make any sense within the story's logic:

Syobai does not survive because he "doesn't trust anyone." He survives because he has literal cheat codes and can leave the simulation whenever he wants. Plus, as a Broker, he makes deals with people, and deals require trust. He even made a deal with Emma and only broke it when it was clear his life would be in danger if he still upheld it.

Kokoro died not because she made a mistake trusting Teruya, but because she made the absolutely boneheaded decision to confront Emma about her status as a Void and her abusive father without any protection at her side. Bringing Teruya with her would not have been hard at all.

Setsuka's death happened because Kanade is a jealous clingy freak, and also because she read ahead in the script. Hibiki didn't betray Setsuka, she was in her puppet state and couldn't act on her own at the time, having no conscious awareness of her actions.

The closest you could really say was genuine betrayal was from Nikei, but that had nothing to do with Shinji. It was because Nikei wanted to ruin Mikado's plans out of petty spite, and that meant hurting Yuki by getting him to kill the guy who was there for him the entire game.

//Moreover, SDRA2's themes are so weakly-presented and executed that any messages you take away from this game feel accidental at best. Yes, it's the conclusion of the Another series' story, but there's no obvious exploration of themes or ideas in place, so I really can't say LINUJ had an aesop he wanted to share with us.

//So, no, it isn't saying anything about trust or betrayal. It's not saying much of anything beyond "Let's watch Yuki Maeda suffer for 6 chapters."

//LINUJ is capable of good ideas, but he has this very bad habit of failing to take advantage of them, undercutting them or throwing them out in favor of bad ones instead.

[tobiasdrake]

So that was Temenos Chapter 5.

Kaldena makes for an odd foil to Temenos. In the sense that Temenos is a proper misotheist, applying a level of scrutiny and skepticism even to the heavens and refusing to accept "Because God said so" as a valid reason to do something even if it's true.

Where Kaldena is a Hollywood Misotheist. "I hate the gods for the sin of making humans! Humans are wicked and all deserve death, and gods are wicked for making such wicked things as humans! I will kill all humans and kill all gods out of spite! Death for all and all for death!"

Like Trousseau, basically every single line out of her mouth is just, "I am the bad guy. Please beat me to death with a stick." She has pretensions of a sympathetic backstory but there really isn't anything more going on here than "Card-Carrying Supervillain wants to exterminate the globe because she's evil."

She also gets marked down in the Magneto category, under the header "Can we please stop making victims of genocide into heinous supervillains who want to perpetrate more genocides"? Like, the Cycle of Violence is irritating enough as a victim-blaming villain motive, but writers constantly applying it to genocide is several degrees of magnitude worse.

Being a victim of genocide does not typically make people want to go out and commit more genocides.

Kaldena feels like she could be a tragic figure. Falling into the sway of what is presumably the same dark force that drove the Moonshades to commit the massacre of the Kal in the first place. She didn't survive the extermination of the Kal, but rather, converted to the enemy's side.

But she's so far over-the-top about it that it becomes impossible to see her as anything more than Insert Bad Guy Here. It feels wrong to call something an overreaction to genocide but like I said, the jump from "My people were slaughtered and my dad died in front of me" to "exterminate the globe and burn the heavens, all must die for my vengeance" is such an extreme leap that this stops being any sort of identifiable character at all.

It's likely that we're going to find out that Trousseau and Kaldena are acting like this because they're being controlled by the Shadow. But that doesn't change the fact that as characters, they're pretty disappointing. They feel very much like hollow vessels of evil rather than people. Which is not mitigated by the likelihood that they might literally be hollow vessels of evil.

As villains go, a nebulous force of pure evil will never be as interesting as a person.

(Also, given how hard Temenos plays the "Doubt is what I do" card, pitting him up against a Heretic in a straightforward "Non-Believer DARES to threaten our Church!?" scenario is a terribly unimpressive way to wrap up his story. They whip out The Line in an attempt to make it triumphant, but it falls flat as a response to "Why won't you kill the world with me?" when all other contexts were about his relationship with faith.)

Not loving this one. Hopefully the endgame investigation into the Moonshades, who are explicitly motivated by My God Said So, will be a better conclusion for him.

[niaking]

Bebop Thoughtz, part five

If you don't want Cowboy Bebop spoilers, stick with part one.

I just finished rewatching the cartoon. I thought I'd make a list of things the anime does better, and things the live-action version does better.

Things the anime does better:

humor - The humor of the anime version largely comes from visual gags like people having animals on their heads. (They go back to this well three times, and it works every time.) The humor in the live-action version mostly comes from Spike's dry wit and Faye's use of oddly childish obscenity, which largely fell flat for me.

characters - The characters of the cartoon manage to be charming, at least at times, despite their obvious flaws. For example, Faye reveals herself to be pretty amoral (stealing from Spike and Jet, lying/breaking promises to Ed), and yet her tragic backstory makes her compelling and somewhat sympathetic in my view.

racism/sexism/homophobia/transphobia - The caricatures of Native Americans, Black people, and Latinos in the anime are wildly racist. I personally think the episode Mushroom Samba takes the cake for racism, but Heavy Metal Queen is a close second. Jet and Spike are constantly talking trash about women. (Spike also hates children and dogs. This is our hero!) The homophobia and transphobia mostly comes out in Gren's two-episode story arc, which I'll get into later.

fatalism - The ending of the series is BLEAK. [Major spoilers coming] Ed and Ein leave the crew, possibly to reunite with Ed's dad who can't seem to remember her name, gender, or the fact that he left her in an orphanage. Faye leaves in search of her childhood home, finds it destroyed, and returns to the Bebop. Spike basically commits suicide by storming the HQ of his enemies, after watching the alleged love of his life die. I say alleged because their love story is not developed at all in the anime.

Things the live action does better:

make sense - The episodes of the live-action show all have fairly linear, easy-to-follow storylines, whereas some of the anime episodes feel more like fever dreams.

provide an overarching plot that tied the episodes together - Some of the anime episodes feels like the creators came up with an idea for a villain, and based the whole episode around that, rather than trying to build a coherent narrative. I like how, in the live-action version, Spike and Vicious' relationship is the through-line, and each development brings us closer to their final confrontation. Knowing that we are always moving forward, to the resolution of the overall conflict, gives you something to hold on and a reason to pay attention.

family dynamics - Though I found the live-action versions of the characters charmless, we like them because they are willing to risk their lives for each other. Each has lost a family. Spike is an orphan. Faye was frozen, lost her memory, and the closest thing she has to a family is a woman who scammed her into believing she was Faye's mom. Jet is divorced or separated from his wife, and his daughter, who he has minimal contact with, now calls one Jet's cop ex-buddies "daddy." The members of the Bebop represent a chosen family, and even though they are often not honest or kind with each other, they always seem to show up for each other when most needed. What the live action lacks in charming characters, it makes up for in heartwarming vibes.

develop the backstory for Spike and Vicious' relationship - Episode 9 is one of my favorite eps, and it's one of the ones that strays the most from the source material. This ep is pure backstory and it gives us a reason to care about Spike, Vicious, Julia and their weird love triangle, which was barely perceptible in the anime. It also tries to humanize Vicious by giving him an abusive father, but... I'm not sure that justifies his impulsiveness or bloodlust.

bigger roles for Ana/Annie and Gren - These are extremely minor characters in the original who get much better developed in the live action. In the anime, Annie owns a... porn store? Liquor store? Corner store? Unclear. Her and Spike clearly have an affinity for each other, but we only really see her once before she gets murdered. In the live-action version, Ana is a powerful Black disabled woman: a jazz club owner, a spy of sorts, a liaison between rival parties within The Syndicate. In the original, Gren is a man who grew breasts due to a hormone imbalance. In the live action, Gren is trans femme without breasts, and also Ana's right hand in running the club and keeping the troublemakers at bay. Ana and Gren were my favorite characters, and least to have to least-compromised moral compasses of all the characters. I loved Tamara Tunie as Ana. She and Spike have a cute flirtation going, but I never understood, in either version, why this character was so loyal to Spike.

surprise betrayal - One of the major plot points of the live-action version is Vicious' scheme to overthrow the Elders. In the anime, the scenes of the actual betrayal are pretty confusing, and involve, I believe, an exploding bird? In the live-action version, Vicious overthrows the Elders in a surprise twist that really got me, so I don't want to spoil it for you.

give women agency - In the anime, no one really cares what Julia wants. She's just "the girl," a prize to be won by either the "hero" or the villain. In the live-action version, she claims her power in a way that I, as a viewer, did not at all see coming. She's a much more well-developed character: smart and manipulative.

The humor of the original and and charm of its characters carried it a long way. Perhaps remakes are destined to disappoint, but this one did some cool things with casting, storylines, and of course, fight scenes. The fact that John Cho was almost 50 when he filmed them makes it all the more impressive.

[m34gs]

There was a 'put in the tags' post requesting people put in the tags a villain with a "good reason" to be evil...and I just thought that seems very subjective and also how can I just choose one...so I am gonna just ramble a little about some of my favourite villains/antagonists and why I like them so much :D (link to the 'in the tags' post here)

Not every villain needs a tragic backstory or a 'sympathetic' motivation, and I think you'll find that very few of my favourites actually do. It's 2023. Let the villains be actually evil. Potential for spoilers ahead.

These are not listed in any particular order; just listing them as I think of them:

Ursula (from The Little Mermaid)

I love Ursula. She's just so unapologetically herself. The only time she changes herself to fit 'societal norms' is to trick the prince. And even then, she isn't doing it out of lust for him or to fill some sort of need to fit in; she's doing it as a means to an end, that 'end' being having Ariel to use as a hostage against Triton. This lady is cunning, she is confident, and she takes what she wants. I loved her as much in the cartoon as I do in the recent live action movie; both versions were good. (whether you like the makeup or not, I don't care, the live-action Ursula was hilarious). She gets the trident, the power over the seas, and what is the First Thing she does? Tries to smite Ariel because she hates her, and also Ariel is the reason her beloved eels perished. Ursula wants immediate revenge. Love that for her. She has her priorities.

The Sheriff of Nottingham (from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves)

He's played by Alan Rickman. That's it. That's the reason. LOL. I mean, I love the way that Mr. Rickman brought the character to life, I loved the comedy, the dry and dark humour he brings to the role. I just really love it. And he looked very handsome as the Sheriff, I must say. Also, the Sheriff's death scene always kinda makes me giggle just because it is So Drawn Out. Like, my dude. Die already!!!! But nope, gotta stumble around the Entire Tower Room first.

Eddie Gluskin (from Outlast: Whistleblower)

Eddie is, by the time Waylon Park stumbles across him, completely deranged, completely twisted, completely unhinged. He is running around chasing other prisoners to take them as 'brides', and cutting off the parts of them he doesn't desire. He makes a wedding dress. He has a tailored suit that he *wears*. He sings songs that he likely learned in his childhood, about marriage and love. Now, if there's one thing I love, it's a villain with a THEME. Also, this man did all this within the span of hours. HOURS. That is some crazy productivity...like holy shit. I know people who do less over the course of an entire week; AND get paid for it. Eddie was like 'hold up I got this' and prepared a wedding while doing some..."art"... on the side.

Usagi (from Juuni Taisen: Zodiac War)

Similar to Eddie, Usagi is just. Wild. A beast. I mean, it makes sense. He's in a 12-man battle royale where the winner gains whatever wish they desire. We don't get much on backstory for Usagi but I honestly think that's just fine. You can tell from his appearance and several of his voice lines that he hasn't had many friends...but when he kills the corpses reanimate and are completely under his control. "Friends" that can never run away. It's kind of fascinating to me, that he has so many trust issues he can't fathom having any friends that he can't 100% control. Also, he is in the skimpiest bunny outfit, complete with a giant tail to store his swords in, and stiletto heels. Iconic shit.

Sukuna (from JJK)

What I like about Sukuna is he is so evil and ready to kill and destroy...aaaaand he's stuck in the body of a teen who can somewhat limit his abilities and keep him locked away for the most part. Gotta love that frustration. Also, even though Yuuji has Sukuna inside him, they undoubtedly talk a lot, and pretty much have to be civil to each other...Sukuna still does not give Any Fucks about Yuuji's happiness. The cruel reminder comes when Sukuna refuses to save Junpei (My Baby!!!!😭😭😭), and honestly despite the fact it made me cry, I absolutely respect the writing that has a villain stand by his convictions. Don't get me wrong, I am a SUCKER, for character development and the villain becoming part of the Found Family whether they like it or not (which is how I write Sukuna in The Bar AU), but I also love and adore when a writer will Go There and be like "Yeah, no, you're not changing this guy so easily. He's evil." (I am nowhere near caught up with the manga but so far in my current observations this remains to be very true).

Azula (from Avatar: The Last Airbender)

This girl is so iconic. I love her methods. I love the outward confidence and the crazy consequences she doles out that are really just hiding a scared young girl with a perfection complex. I love that we get a such a rounded character; that we as the audience see her fail at flirting, see her lose her temper over trivial things, see her enjoy a day AT THE BEACH?! UNIRONICALLY???? Azula is just such a great character. When she loses her battle at the end and goes batshit spitting fire while bound...My heart. It aches for her. Even though I think she needs a whole lotta counselling. Truly.

The witches (from Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters)

I like the witches because they are just. Evil. (yes I know there's a 'good witch' in the story, but I'm not talking about her right now). I like that they fully commit to the evil. They feast on children. They kill without remorse. They cast disgusting and foul curses that cause some really gross gory scenes. I just like that return to a character who is just Evil and will never be good or be persuaded under any circumstances to act good. I thought, in an era of "pretty" witches who all seem to be "morally grey" at worst, it was fun and refreshing to have a witch just go "Nah, I want to eat a child" again.

Those are some of the ones I can think of right now. I just wanted to ramble a little about them. :D

[rickrakontoys]

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: 9/10

James Gunn has crafted a terrific trilogy that transcends the MCU, forging its own unique and highly influential legacy. This "finale" for the original group is a satisfying and emotionally affecting entry, filled with incredible action setpieces, character moments, and Gunn's twisted sense of creativity and humor and impeccable needle-drops.

It is incredible that Gunn has managed to take a character like Rocket Raccoon (an obscure D-list character in the Marvel pantheon) and make him into, not only a household name, but an emotional core of series. Vol. 3 focusing on Rocket's tragic backstory helps to provide a unique trajectory for the film, mostly avoiding the "stop the bad guy from destroying/conquering the universe" trope in exchange for a smaller, more personal story of revenge, trauma, and redemption. The middle of the film meanders a bit with protracted side-quest, and new characters such as Adam Warlock feel a bit sidelined, but ultimately the film coalesces into a fantastic third act, providing everyone with some moments to shine. The High Evolutionary is also such a wretched and effective villain with no redeeming qualities. Despite being less powerful than other antagonists, he is by far one of the most interesting that the guardians have faced, and there isn't any attempt to make him sympathetic or relatable. Those sensitive towards depictions of animal cruelty are warned. He does some absolutely heinous stuff, making you understand why Rocket is (according to Gunn) the "saddest creature in the universe".

The entire cast do their best work yet in each of their respective characters. Nebula in particular has always been a favorite of mine, and watching the character's growth across multiple Guardians and Avengers films is one of the most interesting aspects of the entire MCU. Gamora is given an interesting role here, having turned into a complete a-hole due to the time-travel shenanigans from Avengers Endgame. The film thankfully avoids giving her a sappy boyfriend-girlfriend reconciliation with Peter Quill. Drax continues to be a doofus, but shows his worth as a kind parental figure in the end. Mantis is given a new familial relationship with Peter (thanks to the Holiday Special), which changes their dynamic quite a bit, also allowing her to mature. Kraglin and Cosmo the Dog also make a fun pairing in their scenes, and are given greater emphasis than before.

Special mention must be made of the wonderful practical effects on display here, showcasing a variety of fun creatures and aliens and settings. The computer effects also stand out here by providing Rocket (and other CG characters) with genuine pathos and expression. This is the most polished looking live-action comic book movie in recent years, avoiding the poor compositing and rushed looking VFX that plagued Quantumania and Wakanda Forever.

There is a fantastic "oner" hallway fight in the third act that is perhaps the best action scene in the MCU, and it perfectly encapsulates the unique cinematic joy that Gunn infuses into these movies that so many other MCU entries lack. These are James Gunn films first and foremost. It should be no surprise that when directors are allowed to use their own creative voices in their work, that the work becomes enjoyable beyond mere franchise appeal. Of all the MCU entries since Endgame, this one feels the most like an actual movie made by someone with a clear vision.

On a closing note, I will never hear "The Dog Days are Over" by Florence + The Machine the same way again.

[someoriginalandcoolurl]

Bertolt ultimately deciding to continue the cycle of violence in hopes that this time, the cycle will end... is supposed to be tragic. He was brainwashed from childhood to view the islanders as traitors, and that if they were just gotten rid of, the suffering would end. He wants to take up the mantle of devil if what evil he does will ultimately end the suffering. Of course this isn't true! Of course this is a bad position to take! Of course this means he's an antagonist! Who does bad things!! He's a tragic, brainwashed antagonist who believes what hs's doing is for the greater good. (Even though, obviously, it's not!)

But Eren suddenly randomly taking on that extremist worldview in the end, even though he has none of the groundwork that Bertolt had that led him to the decision he made... it doesn't make any sense. Eren suddenly randomly starts parroting what Bertolt felt without any of the backstory, brainwashing, or anything. He just randomly woke up and chose to be a dick.

It's not sympathetic for him to swing back and forth on a pendulum of emotions, to feel resolute and then apologetic, because unlike Bertolt who had to contend with loving his friends on the island dearly, as well as feeling responsible for his mission he was brainwashed into... Eren didn't have any of that! His feelings ring hollow because he was NOT being strong-armed into that devil/monster role the way Bertolt was by his superiors, by Zeke, by his brainwashing! Eren had NONE of that!

So Eren blubbering about how sad he is to "has to do this"... he doesn't have to do it. He wasn't brainwashed into a mission. He already destroyed all of Marley's military might, leaving behind only the weakest of titans to defend them. The wars won't cease. The strife won't cease. And he KNOWS they won't because even when he was 15 he knew that humanity putting aside their differences and banding against a common enemy is a fairy tale! There's no compelling reason why he'd do something so extreme other than "final battle has to happen."

It's just bad!! It's bad!

[theheavenlyrose]

Being Bothered by JJK's Character Writing pt. 1 (Geto Edition)

My man, your plan was nonexistant.

What exactly was Geto's plan to rid the world of cursed energy/non-sorcerers to protect sorcerers? He wasn't going for Yuki's goal to somehow turn everyone into Toji, that we know.

The Night of a 1000 Demons was a diversion to isolate Yuta, but like... why did he need Rika? What was she going to do for him? Having more cursed energy wouldn't let him defeat Gojo and I don't think he wanted to fight Gojo in the first place. Did he want her near unlimited cursed energy? What for? I'd think it was to power some kind of genocide machine, or use a Rika powered Uzumaki to somehow eliminate all non-sorcerers. But like... sorcerers make up a very small percentage of humans, so how does he expect society to function when most of its population goes poof?

From his backstory in Hidden Inventory I get that his actions were driven by hatred of non-sorcerers, who create never-ending garbage for him to swallow and result in the deaths of countless sorcerers, as well as treat sorcerers like trash in the rural parts of Japan. It never feels like his actions are driven by a love for sorcerers primarily, just the hatred of non-sorcerers. I can't believe that the man was ever very compassionate when he just murders his parents, who did nothing wrong, in cold blood with zero remorse. I don't know if the intention was to portray Geto as a good person corrupted into evil by a system he feels powerless to fix, but if that's the case the execution was... bad. Being depressed and going on a murder spree doesn't make you tragic. How the hell do you go from supposedly being in favor of protecting those who can't protect themselves to hating them all with extreme prejudice without once reflecting on your actions in over a decade? It makes more sense for someone like Naoya, raised in a powerful sorcerer family with little to no contact (presumably) with non-sorcerers to have these kinds of beliefs, not Geto who was raised as a regular human in a family of humans. Even with the Toji trauma, you'd think he'd view the situation with more nuance and gravity, since he grew up around non-sorcerers. (But this ties into a bgger problem of Gege refusing to show the human world in a good light even once.)

I don't know if its supposed to be that he was waiting for someone to stop him because he knew his nonexistent plans would never work and he just wanted to be a beacon of hope for non-sorcerers. Wanted to direct his compassion somewhere he could justify and where it would be cherished when it was just exploited while he was working as a sorcerer for the benefit of non-sorcerers. That would have been pretty tragic, and would have made his "I could never wear a genuine smile in this world." line from JJK 0 carry more weight. As it stands the narrative reads as if he was always twisted and just needed the right trigger to snap. The weak were either the helpless cattle he so graciously gave his everything to save, or the parasites eating the strong. Its believable that he could have fallen so hard as to justify genocide at some point, but we never see him view the situation with the maturity of an adult, its very black and white thinking. Suitable for our teenage cast, not so much for a near thirty year old. Again, I don't think I would be nearly as bothered about this if we saw him have an ounce of internal conflict at any point and really show his love for his sorcerer family. But in-text, Gojo showed more compassion to others that Geto ever did.

TL:DR: Geto is not a complicated villain who chose a dark path to save people he cared about. He's a sociopathic murderous manchild lashing out at the world for a decade. There's little indication that he was a caring and compassionate person even in HI, which reduces him in JJK 0 to just a one-note "haha I'm evil" villain with a sympathetic veneer to try and mask that fact. It's a shame. I think Gege had a really interesting character on his hands that he could have made incredible even if he didn't know where JJK was going to go after 0.

[yourstormthlaylirahh]

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