#even without the backstories they would’ve been shipped equally hard

[thenwhatthefukcisthis]

I guess sth like this happened in 2012

TDKR : what’s up jgl and TH will be in the same movie.. again!

inception fandom : HELL YEAH

TDKR : but they never share screen together and not even off handedly mention each other

inception fandom : oh ok :/

TDKR : but- they both have quite complementary tragic backstories which we are not gonna tell you a lot but only nicely hint at them and guess what they both had been orphans and both have a soft spot for kids

inception fandom : .... fuck

[imagitory]

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker review [SPOILERS]

Hey, everybody! So I just got back from seeing the newest Star Wars and...whew, am I tired!

For those of you who want a spoiler-free review, I’ll just say that there’s a reason people are so split about this movie. In some ways, I could argue that TRoS is trying to be its own stand-alone thing, and it does so by shoving in way too many plot beats and new characters without enough development or even a satisfactory conclusion for them...and yet at the same time, it tries so hard to evoke the original trilogy like The Force Awakens did, whether through iconography, cameos, or other kinds of fanservice. To put it very simply, if you disliked The Last Jedi, you might come out enjoying this more, since this movie and its director clearly shared your view, but even if The Last Jedi is a flawed film, I feel it still ended up having better direction, character arcs, and storytelling than this film did.

For those of you who don’t fear spoilers...journey on.

The Good!

+Just like in the other installments in this new trilogy, there were some great action moments. I liked when Kylo and Rey were fighting over the First Order ship with the Force, pulling it back and forth like they had previously done with Anakin’s lightsaber. Poe’s lightspace jumping in the Millennium Falcon was a cool trick, and I actually really enjoyed the short suspenseful bit with Poe, Finn, Rey, and the droids sneaking around in the wintry planet Kijimi, too.

+The trick at the end where Rey passed Kylo Anakin’s lightsaber through the Force and the two battled side-by-side while in different locations was neat. I might’ve liked to see that trick used differently (see below), but it was still really cool.

+Poe and Finn were acting like SUCH boyfriends during this entire movie. I don’t care how much “NO HOMO” J.J. tried to slap on these guys in the script (and I’ll discuss that in a minute), these two were friggin’ boyfriends and that was canon, end of story.

+I liked that Leia was able to mentor Rey, and Leia’s death was appropriately sad. It felt like I was mourning Carrie all over again, especially since we’re so close to the anniversary of her death.

+It was kind of cool to see Luke’s old X-Wing again. I might’ve had it reappear in a different way, but it was still cool.

+Rey hearing all of the Jedi in her head for the first time when she was facing Palpatine at the end was great. I might’ve pushed it further and made it more visually interesting, but I’ll get to that in the more negative section.

+For all of the rather unnecessary fanservice, there were a few music cues that really worked -- namely, the Imperial March echo when Rey arrived in the old throne room on the Death Star, Leia’s theme upon her death, and the Jedi theme when Poe saw the fleet of reinforcements arriving.

The Not-So-Good...

+The Reylo-ness of it all. *dodges knives* OKAY. LISTEN --

If you’re a Reylo shipper, then good for you. I mean that sincerely. But I’m sorry, I am convinced that this ending could only have been satisfying to you if you were on the Reylo ship from the very start due to your own personal shipping preferences, because there is NOTHING in the films that justifies the powerful emotional bond that these two supposedly share. Rey and Kylo only met two movies ago, and in both movies, Kylo showed no interest in improving himself and being a better person. None. I don’t care if Rey “sensed” goodness in him -- that is a terrible, weak short-cut for a writer to use, to tell us that Kylo is good without showing it to us. We still see him slaughter people en masse in the very first scene of this movie. We still see him trying to force Rey to join him, even if it puts the people she cares about in danger. We still see him hooking up with Palpatine -- FRIGGIN’ PALPATINE -- after he’d only just rid himself of Snoke. I don’t care if Kylo thinks he can get rid of Palpatine like he did with Snoke -- I don’t care if he’s conflicted and worried about Rey -- we the audience see no evidence that Kylo has truly changed his ways and is worth saving. Leia SACRIFICED HER LIFE to try to help him -- for what?? I know she’s his mother, but I’m sorry, Leia: if your husband couldn’t save your son from himself, why would you be able to? Why didn’t you almost dying in The Last Jedi not affect your son more, if he really cared? Why was calling his name all you had to do? Why didn’t you do that before he started killing all these people? Because it wasn’t dramatically convenient? Because he was fighting Rey at that exact moment and the writers needed to find a way to end that action scene that otherwise could’ve ended with either Rey or Kylo dying? And I’m sorry, but this whole storyline resulted in the one thing I’d dreaded more than anything would happen in a story that shipped these two -- Rey became a tool to Kylo’s redemption. Rather than standing apart as someone with no legacy who builds her own through being a good, noble person, she became defined by her familial and romantic relationships more than she was by her actions. I know Rey ended up defeating Palpatine in the end, but most of her screentime still ended up devoted to her “bond” with Kylo Ren and showed how her love brought him back to the Light. Because seriously, screw the love Kylo’s parents showed him, or Luke showed him -- all they did was sacrifice themselves trying to help him while also standing by their morals and never being tempted to fall like Kylo did -- no, only Rey could’ve brought him back to the side of Good.

And before any of you even try to wave the Sith Lord of my Heart, Darth Vader, in my face, as Snoke said in The Last Jedi, Kylo Ren is no Vader. Vader was tethered to the Empire and to the Emperor, thanks to the injuries he sustained on Mustafar that left him trapped inside his mechanical suit -- if he’d left the Empire, he would’ve died, and on top of all that, he’d already lost his entire family and turned everyone he’d ever cared about -- who were all Jedi -- against him by falling to the Dark Side. Vader had been Anakin -- a slave who was bought out of enslavement by the Jedi, who then turned around and taught him to -- to borrow a phrase -- “conceal, don’t feel,” even if it meant turning a blind eye to the death of his wife and unborn child. Kylo Ren turned to the Dark Side because...honestly? WE NEVER GET A GOOD ANSWER. The best I can get from the films is that Kylo Ren was manipulated by Snoke, who went on and on about how powerful Kylo was and how he should use that power to “bring order to the galaxy” and stuff like that, and then one night Luke held a lit lightsaber over his head for a minute. That justifies falling to the Dark Side and slaughtering all the wittle Jedi? No! And yet Kylo never once has to grapple with what he did -- he never has to make amends. He’s just forgiven, like that! And although Vader likewise never got the chance to make amends, his sacrifice means more than Kylo’s because Vader, through his sacrifice, finally learned the true meaning of love after an entire lifetime of knowing so little of it. The only people who had ever loved Anakin either died or left him -- Kylo always had people who were willing to forgive him, and he spat in their faces. Vader had no one, until his son discovered who he was and tried to reach out to him. And when he reached out, Vader didn’t stab him through the chest or immediately brand him with the murder of his evil master -- Vader followed orders and brought Luke before the Emperor, yes, but when Luke was about to die, Vader saved him.

Kylo Ren’s story could not and SHOULD NOT be Vader’s story, so giving him the same ending is completely unjustified and mismatched with the story being told. Even if the story of a girl and a guy saving each other with “the power of love” was somehow equal in emotional resonance to that of a son trying to reconnect with his father and his father sacrificing his life to save him, that story of a guy and a girl was not built up properly, as we never get much backstory about why Kylo fell, much action on his part to acknowledge his mistakes, or rationale for why we should care about him despite what a terrible person he was and still is. He cares about Rey -- great! Does he care about the Resistance? Leia? Luke? Han? Lando? Chewie? ANYBODY excluding himself and Rey? Han as a Force Ghost at one point suggests that Leia will never die as long as they remember what she stood for -- since when is that something KYLO REN ever cared about?! Leia DESPISED the Empire and Darth Vader, and yet Kylo Ren and the First Order have done nothing but wrap themselves up in their rhetoric and iconography!

On that note, though, I will acknowledge that Kylo Ren, as a character, has always given me certain troubling real-world-like vibes, and that may be part of the reason why it really infuriates me that the movie tried to redeem him. Kylo Ren is a privileged young man from a respected, powerful family who embraces and romanticizes the atrocities of a previous generation, resents others (rather appropriately, a young woman and black man with no greatness in their family names) for taking what should be “rightfully his,” and vows to bring things back to when that previous evil institution was in its full glory -- isn’t that exactly what modern alt-right Neo-Nazi types do? Romanticize the Third Reich and the Klan and wrap themselves up in their supposed “glory,” while being nothing but a pale, pathetic, anger-driven imitation? Even if you don’t personally see Kylo the same way I do, I hope you will at least respect that -- given this lens I see the character through -- it makes sense why I dislike any attempt to give this character sympathy.

+ *inhales heavily* ...Rey...is a Palpatine. *groans in aggravation* J.J., ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS? Did you not get why Rian Johnson made Rey’s backstory the way he did, or were you just so in-line with anti-TLJ fans that you wanted to spit in his face in film-form? I know a lot of people were pissed off when Rey was determined to be a “nobody” after what felt like hints of a more developed backstory in TFA, but I seriously can’t help but think that those people missed the point. Rey being a nobody and yet being talented in the Force fixed the whole problem brought up by the Midiclorians in the prequel trilogy -- namely, the thought that you can only be born special, because of your genes. With Rey not being a Kenobi, or a Skywalker, or a Palpatine, it says, “Yes -- you don’t need to have been born special. Anyone can tap into the Force, because it is everything, as are we.” This is even why it’s hinted in previous movies (and once or twice in this movie, though it doesn’t go anywhere) that Finn is Force-sensitive -- Finn, a ex-Stormtrooper! But by turning Rey into a Palpatine all along, J.J. has once again made the Force only something that a select few can tap into -- only special people can have the power needed to stand up to evil. Sure, ordinary people like Poe and Finn can blow things up, but only special people like the Skywalkers and the Palpatines can stop the Sith from destroying the entire rebellion. Instead of this being a story about a girl who had no legacy and yet earned the title of heir to the Skywalker legacy purely through her noble heart and selfless deeds, this became a story of two people -- one from a good family and one from an evil family -- having to come together to deal with their family drama and save the galaxy. Maybe some people wanted to see that from the start, but frankly I didn’t, and even if that story could’ve been told well, it was not the story that we were set up to watch, after we saw The Last Jedi. It also irritates me because of how much the film tries to play Rey’s parents SELLING HER ON JAKKU as them “saving her” from Palpatine. I call BULL. Even Luke was only “saved” from Vader by being given to relatives on a backwater planet -- Rey’s parents ABANDONED her. If you thought that Frozen 2 retconning Elsa and Anna’s parents’ attitudes toward Elsa’s magic was problematic, whoa, boy, have a gander at this. (I actually kind of like Agnarr and Iduna as individual characters in Frozen 2, but I actively have to distance Frozen from its sequel because of canon discrepancies like this.) Rey’s parents didn’t need to have a “good reason” for dropping her off on Jakku -- this film even acknowledges that Rey’s real family is the family she found: Finn, Poe, BB-8, Chewie, Leia, and the Resistance. Rey’s parents could’ve been assholes. Many people’s parents are assholes. Rey is not their child anymore: she is a Skywalker, and that’s all that matters.

+Oh yeah, and speaking of The Last Jedi, NOTHING matches up in this. J.J. literally wrote two complete movies and shoved them together in this one in a vain attempt to completely retcon the last film. Poe earning back his position in the rebellion after learning a lesson about not always barreling into danger without thinking? His character arc has vanished and he shows no more talent for strategy or leadership than he did before. Rey only seeing herself when she was looking for her family? Nope, turns out she was a Palpatine all along: the Force was just trolling her, I guess. Kylo accusing Rey of killing Snoke? Doesn’t come up at all. The young boy using the Force to pick up the broom? Never appears. The signal sent across the galaxy asking for help? Poe says half-way through the movie that nobody came, so it may as well have never happened. Rose and Finn? No mention of the kiss on Krait or anything -- they act like they barely know each other, and Rose has almost no screentime. Even Lando’s return, which should’ve been great, happens when he appears on this random India-like desert planet -- why was he there? Why does he no longer live in Cloud City? Wasn’t he its leader? Wouldn’t he have better fit in a planet like Canto Bight, one that was glitzy and kind of seedy, instead of a pastoral place like that? It’s like reading the first six books in the Harry Potter series, only to end on a version of Deathly Hallows where -- surprise! -- Hermione was actually a pureblood witch all along and she’s actually related to the Lestranges and also Hagrid pops up in Godric’s Hollow to save Hermione and Harry from Nagini for no reason at all, plus Ginny is just a side character now and the author seems to want you to think Harry likes Hermione even if Ron and Harry totally have more chemistry but NO HOMO YOU GUYS COME ON.

+Hahaha, on that note, WOW, have I never seen a film more desperate to try to prove to its audience that its two male main characters are not totally boyfriends. Even though J.J. decided to placate angry fanboys by rather unfairly marginalizing Rose Tico (come on, she may not have been written the best in Last Jedi, but you’re not going to fix that by IGNORING HER ALL TOGETHER), he still thought it best to introduce two new female characters, Zorii and Jannah, who both could’ve been very interesting if they’d had their proper amount of screentime and development, but instead only serve to be substitute “love interests” for Poe and Finn. That might sound harsh, but they literally have no other substantial relationships that get explored in this movie outside of the ones with their respective “guy.” It felt like the film was going, “Look -- Poe’s not gay! He’s got history with this chick, and he gives her a look at the end! And look -- Finn’s not gay! He might’ve been trying to confess his feelings to Rey which totally made his not-boyfriend uber jealous BUT THEY’RE NOT GAY YOU GAIS, and he’s doing stuff with this girl, who was also a Stormtrooper!” Sorry, film, but methinks you doth protest too much. (Even Poe’s actor Oscar Isaac apparently thinks so.)

+Another theme from The Last Jedi that I loved and J.J. clearly didn’t is that the dichotomy between “Jedi” and “Sith” doesn’t inherently equate “good” vs. “evil,” and therefore just because the Sith are evil, it doesn’t mean that the Jedi -- who preached detachment from all affectionate emotions and familial ties -- were right. Even the Resistance is flawed. It’s actually something the prequels and the Clone Wars TV show preach too, and it brings so much more grayness to the Star Wars mythos. In The Rise of Skywalker, however, the Jedi and the Resistance are just seen as the good guys, period, end of story. Who cares if it results in your story being shockingly simplistic and oddly shallow, when compared to the rest of the Star Wars universe?

+The treatment of the Stormtroopers in this movie was actually kind of infuriating. We consistently get reminders about how the First Order’s Stormtroopers were child soldiers who were stolen from their homes and brainwashed, as evident by both Finn and Jannah, and yet throughout the entire movie, they still get cut down in the hundreds without care. Even Finn -- an ex-Stormtrooper himself -- shoots them up like they’re NPCs in a video game! For a film trilogy that did something so powerful by showing the humanity underneath the white helmet, we sure got a film that didn’t give a shit about these people unless they had their helmets off.

+Speaking of the First Order, I saw the Hux-as-the-traitor “twist” coming and I hated finding out that I was right. Honestly it could’ve been played very interestingly if Hux maybe tried to overthrow Kylo and take over the First Order himself, therefore showing how Kylo’s fear-stoking and hatred don’t bring out any loyalty in his followers, but it only results in Hux immediately getting axed off and replaced with another First Order officer we’ve never seen in any of the previous films and therefore don’t care about. Why couldn’t we have reused D.J. the hacker from the previous movie as the spy, or better yet, have the “spy” actually be Kylo, leaking information that he thinks might coax Rey to the Dark Side? The last two films built Hux up as an interesting character, but he was tossed out even more unceremoniously than Commodore Norrington was in the Pirates films.

+This problem of “replacing one antagonist with another out of the blue” is replicated on a large scale with the return of Palpatine. This entire film series has been centered on Kylo Ren and the First Order, but all of a sudden, out of nowhere, we’re just expected to turn all of our focus onto Palpatine and the Knights of Ren, both of whom have had no bearing on the story previously. It could’ve been cool to learn more about the Knights of Ren, but we don’t learn anything about them -- we just see them suddenly being there, when they’d never been there previously. As for Palpatine...did we REALLY need him brought back? Really? The First Order was a threat because they’d wrapped themselves up in their romanticized, false view of the Empire -- that was a choice they made. It didn’t have to be because Palpatine was secretly alive all along and was pulling the strings -- people can do things of their own accord, without a grand, evil mastermind coming back from the dead out of nowhere. Kylo Ren finally got out from under Snoke’s shadow in The Last Jedi and I was so excited to see him come into his own as a villain, but instead all he did was skirt around the coat-tails of Palpatine the entire movie, and it was really disappointing. I WANTED a final confrontation between Kylo and Rey in the climax, like the films had been building up to -- instead all we got was a half-baked “redemption” for Kylo where he teams up with Rey to fight somebody else who just wandered into the story out of nowhere. Even Palpatine’s plot didn’t make any sense -- he tells Kylo for the first half of the movie that they need to kill Rey even though Kylo really wants her to turn to the Dark Side instead, only for Palpatine to (I guess) change his mind at the last minute when Rey arrives in his lair, and yet they play it off as him having planned for that to happen all along because he needs Rey to kill him so she can become one with him and all of the other Sith -- look, I know Palpatine’s whole characterization is hinged on him being a criminal mastermind, but all I want is some consistency! How are we supposed to know what the threat is if we don’t know what our villains want?

+“The Force” is used to rationalize a lot in this movie, from where Rey decides to walk to what plot devices our heroes will need later to why our characters do what they do. Even Finn, who in The Force Awakens accented that he made a choice to break away from the First Order because he saw what he was doing was wrong, now apparently believes that the Force decided that he should join up with Poe and Rey...and I just don’t like that, let alone buy it. The Force was never equivalent to “destiny” -- yes, Anakin was the Chosen One, but he only fulfilled it because the Jedi believed in it enough to train him and he fulfilled the prophecy in a way no one could’ve imagined...and even so, the Force doesn’t dictate everything. Everything is part of the Force, and the Force is part of everything -- but it shouldn’t just be a deus-ex-machina that moves the plot along or does whatever the author needs it to do. For instance, why can the Force suddenly heal wounds?? Since when is that something it can do?? If it could do that, and someone largely self-taught like Rey can do it, then why didn’t Jedi Master Anakin or Obi-Wan ever do that? Why didn’t Anakin use some of his life force to save his dying mother? Why didn’t he think to use it on Padme, or why didn’t Obi-Wan use it on Padme? Why didn’t Luke think to use it to save his father? The only reason why the Force can do that now is that the writers needed to justify why Kylo could give up his remaining life force for Rey, but in order to do that, they give the Force an ability it’s never had previously and doesn’t match up with the previous canon.

+If we’re talking about the Force, though, I have to write a separate bullet point accenting this -- WHY. DOESN’T. FINN. USE IT?? The film clearly likes the thought of Finn being Force-sensitive, but it’s too cowardly to just make Finn a Jedi. When Kylo and Rey were fighting over the ship, why didn’t Finn do something to help?? Why didn’t he blast Kylo or, more relevantly to this discussion, show off some of his latent Force talent by helping Rey yank the ship back? Why didn’t Finn use his Force ability to reach out to Rey while she was fighting Kylo, or fighting Palpatine? He could’ve been the one to wield Anakin’s lightsaber and fight side by side with Rey in that final battle, if Kylo had been the villain like he should’ve been. Maybe Finn confronts Commander Hux inside the command post while Rey’s fighting Kylo, and when Rey tries one last time to connect with the Jedi of the past, she’s able to connect to all of the Jedi, living or dead -- including Finn, as he also has been nurturing a talent in the Force! Through their new mental connection, Rey and Finn are able to help each other, while also being surrounded and spurred on by the corporeal, translucent spirits of Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Mace Windu, Ahsoka Tano, and the rest, all appearing and disappearing one after another around Finn and Rey as they fight. Poe should’ve been commanding the troops from above in Luke’s old X-Wing, it being the only ship he could get his hands on (because I’m sorry -- Han gave Rey the Falcon, she should be the one using it, yet this film just stubbornly kept her out of the driver’s seat for some reason), giving them all of the support he could from the air so that the rest of the First Order can’t interfere with the four-way duel between Finn, Rey, Kylo, and Hux. Maybe when the electricity in the ships gets messed up, Poe’s even able to remember something Rey or Finn told him to tap into the Force enough himself to keep himself airborne until he’s able to crash-land safely. While Hux and Kylo fight to destroy their opponents individually, each seeking glory and victory solely for themselves, Rey and Finn fight together as friends, taking lessons from the Jedi that are their mentors but also standing apart from them and being better than them.

+This movie really felt like two stories smashed together because there were way too many plot lines that were dropped like a hot potato not long after they were introduced. Finn having something to tell Rey? No conclusion. 3PO getting his memory wiped? Resolved quickly a few scenes later with little fall-out. Chewie supposedly getting killed? We find out within minutes that he survived. All of the new characters we meet, like Zorii and Jannah? They get one or two short scenes each where we barely get to know them at all. Even the India-inspired planet I mentioned earlier gets blown up because the First Order thinks it’ll upset the Rebellion and get them to come out of hiding, but...this film is the first time we’ve even seen this planet! We barely spent any time on it! This is really the obvious first choice of a planet whose destruction would upset the Rebellion? We don’t even know any of the characters who live on it personally! At least when Alderaan got blown up, Leia’s parents were on it, so we feel sad for Leia’s sake, but we haven’t built up any emotional investment in that planet that was just blown up.

+Along with this movie feeling like it had too much stuff in it, it also felt very, VERY long. The pacing was very bad, with there being no organic rise and fall to the action and the climax really just feeling like a bunch of plot turns stacked haphazardly on top of each other. When I came out of the theater, I even heard a little boy say to his dad, “That was really long,” and I had to agree with him. It’s not even that long compared to other Star Wars movies, but I just felt like I was being yanked around by the arm throughout the entire run-time, so rather than feeling invested in what was happening, I found myself tuning out and wanting the filmmakers to just get to a point.

Overall, I really don’t think I can recommend this movie. Every Star Wars fan should probably see it, and it’s possible that quite a few of you might get more out of it than me if you disliked The Last Jedi and want to see a movie that “sticks it” to that movie for whatever reason...but even if you do, surely you would agree that stories should not be written like this, where one part is completely invalidated by another and there’s no build-up for anything that happens? Stories should not be just something that you’re passively pulled through by the author -- they should engage you: make you feel for the characters, make you think about its themes, make you guess what might happen next. A story doesn’t mean less if you can make educated guesses about where the story might go if you see where it began -- it also doesn’t mean less if it subverts old literary or canon tropes. But this movie didn’t subvert anything -- instead it openly contradicted and retconned just about everything in the last movie, to the point that Rise of Skywalker clearly wanted to be two movies but didn’t have enough development or care put into it that could prompt a real emotional reaction from its audience. In short, it ended up being an overly complicated, watered-down retread of Return of the Jedi with none of the power in its supposedly “bittersweet” ending. The first two installments in this trilogy got me excited for a new take on Star Wars, to the extent that I for the first time actively looked into the fandom surrounding the films instead of just enjoying the films on my own. It’s therefore quite disappointing to me that the trilogy had to end on such a weak, petering note.

Overall Grade: D

[tippitv]

TippiTV recap: SPN 15.01 “Back and to the Future”

First a quick note on the format of this recap: I'm dealing with some neck/back/shoulder pain so I'm not going to make a bunch of captioned screen shots and diagrams and other visual aids like I usually do. That stuff, while hugely fun to do, is time-consuming even under ideal conditions. I will instead attempt to provide you with mental images of graphics I would have made.

Now, let's get on with things.

Welcome to the 15th and final season of Supernatural, everyone! If the show were a person we could give it a Quinceañera.

[Graphic: The Impala in a beautiful taffeta gown and tiara and like... satin mudflaps instead of gloves.]

It's been 5140 days since the show premiered. That's 123,360 hours. Our solar system travels around the center of the galaxy at 490,000 miles per hour. This means we have moved through 6.04464e10 miles of space since this show premiered. I don't even know what that means. Once numbers start getting letters in them, I'm lost. But it's got to be nearly as many miles as are on the Impala's odometer.

[graphic of our solar system and the Chevy Impala zooming through space together, perhaps in friendly competition]

The road so far: Man, I do not remember a lot of this. Relevant to this episode is God throwing a hissy fit, killing Jack, and releasing all the souls and/or demons from Hell.

Currently: Jack's eyeless corpse is lying around as corpses are wont to do. The surviving members of Team Free Will are fighting a lot of freshly risen dead bodies that were possessed by the released souls. If it were me just out of Hell, I wouldn't waste time in a rotted corpse. I'd just fuck off as quickly as possible and possess someone who's eating a deep-dish cheese pizza.

The risen dead are polite enough to mostly attack the Winchesters one or two at a time, so they get to grab Jack's corpse and run into a mausoleum for shelter. Okay I understand why the souls can't get through the iron doors but what's stopping the disembodied ones from just going through a window? Or through a stone wall, for that matter?

Sam asks Castiel if he can bring Jack back but he sounds like he already knows the answer. A mid-level angel without all his original powers isn't gonna be able to undo what God's done unless the plot requires it.

[Graphic of Sam's incredibly sad face as he says or thinks "maybe the plot will require it later?"]

Everyone tries to figure out what they're going to do next. Dean snarkily wonders if they're going to starve to death. I mean, no, because the ambulatory corpses will break in before long. Failing that, they'd die of thirst unless Castiel has like a TARDIS bladder that holds Dasani, and then they could eat Jack. Mmm nephilim jerky....

Proving my point for me, a resident of the mausoleum or perhaps a neighbor tries to bust through some of the loose stones just as Sam starts chipping away at them in search of an escape route. Castiel smashes its head with a big rock, causing the ghost to flee? I guess? Whatever it is looks like a glowy skeleton and ghosts usually look like their living selves for the most part.

"What the hell are we gonna do now?" Sam asks.

Ol' Eyeless Jack pops up and says in a friendly tone of voice, "Hello!" Nobody's super shocked by this turn of events.

[Graphic of Jo and Ellen saying "nobody stays dead on this show except us"]

It's just Jack's bod with a demon in it, though. Was he the one that looked like a glowy skeleton? Whatever. He happens upon some budget sunglasses on the floor nearby. No seriously they're sunglasses to save the budget because it wouldn't be cheap or timely to have to CGI empty eyes for the whole episode.

He introduces himself. "My name is Belvegar." The fuck? That sounds like a horrible portmanteau for shipping Mr. Belvedere with Garfield the cat.

[Graphic of Buckleming: "We'd write that!"]

I suppose I should check IMDB to see how that's spelled...

BELPHEGOR???

Oh okay apparently Belph is a prince of hell and "Lord of the Gap," which is like half a step up from being Lord of Old Navy. I'm looking this up on regular Wikipedia not Supernatural Wiki so the show didn't just make him up. It says here he seduces people by suggesting inventions that will make them wealthy. One time I came up with an idea for pills that would turn people's urine into toilet cleaner. I was going to call it Vita-Wiz. And that's why I've never been able to seduce anyone with my inventions.

Anyway Castiel shoves Belph up against a wall, as is customary on this show, and demands he leave Jack's bod. But Belph says he has some mojo that will get rid of all the hellish souls and demons currently trying to get into the mausoleum. Much like how Vita-Wiz gets rid of hard water stains and leaves your toilet with a minty fresh scent!

[Graphic: a colorfully jaunty ad for Vita-Wiz with Sam's endorsement a la the "Changing Channels" Herpexia ad. "I've got powerfully clean urine."]

Belph knows all about the Winchesters but is slightly surprised this latest fuckery is God's fault. He makes himself out to be a low-level demon so either he's lying or the show's not going with the prince of hell backstory. Judging by his delivery and mannerisms he thinks he's auditioning to be in Goodfellas: The High School Years.

[Graphic: High School Musical promo poster but make it mobster]

He goes on to say that, like the Winchesters, he wants all the souls back in Hell where they belong and he can get back to torturing them. "I like my job!" Unrelatable. He can't fix the main shitsplosion that's going on but says he can get them all out of the cemetery safely.

Using some "graveyard dirt" from the floor and angel blood from Convenienstiel, he works a little spell that turns all the risen dead back into just... dead. Unoccupied corpses litter the ground by the dozens. Man, what a mess. You know who isn't gonna like their job in the morning? The groundskeeper.

Also, that sure is a useful spell. I wonder if it will ever come up again...

"Where are all the ghosts?" Dean wonders.

Cut to two teenage girls somewhere else acting like teenage girls Dabb has seen in Troom Troom videos. One of the girls sees herself as a ghost in the mirror and claws her face clean off. Man, that ghost's wig is terrible. Is she Bloody Mary? I don't remember her wig being this bad. I can't believe they couldn't afford a better one even with the Budget Sunglasses.

Back to Three Men and a Belphy. Riding home in the Impala, Sam checks the news. So far, no mention of any kind of worldwide Ghostpocalypse. It seems like you're mostly safe in this universe as long as you don't live in middle America. Belph suggests they may be able to contain the ghosts before things get too out of hand and he just happens to know the right magic.

"Imagine a salt circle a mile wide," he says. Castiel points out that Harlan, Kansas is less than a mile from the cemetery so Dean hatches a plan to get everyone out so as to not trap them inside with the ghosts and demons. Is it gonna be a lame plan that would never work in reality?

But first they stop for a wrecked car on the side of the road. There's blood on the inside of the windshield but no body. "This look familiar to you?" Dean asks Sam. It looks like a lot of wrecks where someone got wanged on the head and wandered off in a daze, but they figure it's the Woman in White. "If she's back then they're all back," Dean goes on. "Every last one that we ever killed."

Okay shout out to everyone who answered my post where I asked if ghosts used to be obliterated rather than going to Hell. The consensus seems to be that the Winchesters didn't really know one way or the other early on and were guessing.

Cut to a woman running through a house with her young daughter in her arms. The aftermath of a destroyed birthday party can be seen. How late in the day were they throwing this kid's party?? To make a long story short, the ghost of John Wayne Gacy is chasing them. I'll just reiterate my hatred of this character, not because Gacy is a serial killer obv, but because it lacks internal logic! Why is he dressed like a clown?? He wasn't executed in his old clown outfit!

Suddenly it's daytime. It's like Bugs all over again. Sam, in a jacket with an FBI decal on it approaches what must be the dumbassiest dumbass sheriff in three states. He convinces the sheriff to evacuate the whole town because of a benzene leak and the sheriff just... takes his word for it. Like, he's never heard of a benzene pipeline in his hometown but doop de doop this handsome giraffe in a cheap jacket said to evacuate so it must be true!

Also why isn't the sheriff down at the cemetery?? Someone would've called that in by now! You know what I don't really care.

Meanwhile, Dean is in the car and tells Castiel to take Belph to go get supplies for the spell. Cas says he can't do it, he can't even bear to look at him. And Dean! Rolls! His! Eyes! Like, Jack's the closest thing Cas will probably ever have to a child. He was with Kelly through her pregnancy. It's only been like eight hours since the kid died horrifically. Don't roll your dang eyes!

Cas leaves and Dean puts the Equalizer gun in the glove compartment along with a copy of The Complete Works of Anton Chekhov.

Belph notices that everyone walking down the street is good-looking. Yeah, that's casting agencies for ya. He says back in his ancient penis-worshiping days, people were uglier. Belph appears to be an equal-opportunity ogler. He turns to Dean. "I mean look at you. You're gorgeous!"

[Graphic: Belphegor replacing his penis-shaped rock altar with that Skittles poster of Jensen Ackles.]

"So who was he anyway?" Belph asks, referring to his meatsuit. "He was our kid, kinda," Dean says. The show manages to resist making a Gay Dads joke that I feel like it would've given into in an earlier season. So, yay progress I guess?

Sam and Castiel split up to check every house for ghosts. That seems super time-consuming. How many Reapers are left besides Billie? I feel like they should get one on the horn unless they're all dead. Anyway, Cas's house is where the Troom Troom girls were killed. The ghost's wig looks even worse in daylight. Do they get their wigs from the Hobby Lobby doll crafting aisle or something?

Sam's house, meanwhile, is where John Wayne Ghosty went on a sartorially illogical rampage. Somehow the mother and daughter are still alive. Dumbass ghosts can't see behind a shelving unit, I guess. The instant Sam gets them safely down, Ass-Clown immediately slices him across the belly. Castiel shows up to blast the ghost with rock salt.

Meanwhile, Belph is fanboying over Dean's torturing skills. Gasp! The show remembered Dean was in Hell. It'd be nice if they were consistent about it but whatever. Belph casually mentions that all the doors in Hell opened and Dean realizes this means the cage, too.

[Graphic: That dancing gif of the actor who played Adam that says "Still in Hell" but now it says "Maybe not in Hell."]

Castiel heals Sam's wound and the fabric of his jacket! The mother and daughter are still standing there seeing all this. Cas is like, "Whatevs, I'm an angel of the Lord & Taylor." The mom is pretty flabbergasted, and even more so when Sam mentions the wound he sustained after shooting God. Castiel can't heal that one, though, because it's probably gonna be a recurring plot point judging by the flash of Evil Sam we see.

The sheriff is making a final sweep through town when he happens upon the Woman in White. The sun looks to be setting, which means it's probably been 16 hours since all the souls and demons escaped, but they're still basically within a mile of the cemetery? Even I, burdened with an easily exhausted flesh body with shitty joints could have gotten farther than that.

Anyway, Belph needs a fresh human heart for his spell so it's pretty handy of the sheriff to die! That way none of the mains need to do the morally objectionable thing of murdering someone.

Dean senses a sudden drop in temperature. "Winnie the Pooh, right now!"

WHAT THE FUUUUCK??

Hold on. I'm watching this at 1.2x speed. Let me rewatch it at 1x.

Okay he says "we need to move, right now."  My apologies to Mr. Pooh for thinking you could ever be a part of this.

[Graphic: Winnie the Pooh chipper as anything. "I CRAVE THE BLEAK ABIDING COMFORT OF DEATH AND HUNNY."]

At the same time, Sam and Castiel are walking the two survivors through town. The little girl pauses at a badly placed fish pond because she sees a woman in it. Is it Bloody Mary? What's she doing in a pond? Seriously though putting a pond right on the street corner is just asking for trouble even without spectral shenannigans. How many people have driven over the curb and right into that thing?

Okay I gotta stop getting hung up on landscaping issues. Even if they are HIGHLY IRRESPONSIBLE AND NONSENSICAL.

Dean is attacked by the Woman in White. Ass Clown goes after Sam and the others, and is soon joined by... a tall ghost and... Lizzie Borden? Sam accidentally shoots Cas full of rock salt when Lizzie vanishes, which is pretty funny although move ya pretty self out of the way, Cas. When she pops up behind him, she tries to choke him with the ax handle. It reminds me of that lesser known poem about Miss Borden.

Lizzie Borden had an ax Gave her mother 40 whacks Tried to choke the angel Cas 'Cause axing would've been too fast

In the ensuing fisticuffs, everyone has time to throw punches while Belph performs the spell. All he does is put the heart on a little pile of salt and chant some Latin. Is like the thing Ruby 1.0 did with that poor virgin girl's heart a million years ago?

Oh sweet Jeebus the sight of these ghosts chasing everyone on foot is... bad and funny. Y'all are ghosts! You can just blip in and out of wherever you want to go! One of the only upsides to being dead has got to be not having to do cardio anymore and here you are running the hundred yard dash like it's 6th grade PE class. They come screeching to a halt where the spell has created an invisible boundary. This might be worse than Hell.

[Graphic: Parisian street mimes trying to escape an invisible box]

But wait... Why wasn't Belphegor affected by this spell? Did he write in an exception clause? Or is it only for ghosts and not demons?

The Good Guys plus Belph bring the mom and daughter to the high school down the road where all the evacuees are sheltering. With no sheriff to coordinate things, isn't it all just gonna... fall to pieces now? How are they gonna convince everyone to stay away from their homes? What if someone needs their prescriptions? ("Oh no my Herpexia!") They can't get rid of the ghosts as long as Hell isn't in business anymore, right? This is a mess. Dean seems to know it.

Dang why are Castiel and Dean on such icy terms? Why do I not remember last season?

Now that they have a five second breather before the shit hits the fan, Dean wants to see Sam's godly bullet wound. It looks a little crusty but not too bad except... "There's no exit wound," Dean notes. He gives it a swipe with some alcohol which will surely kill whatever supernatural E. coli is in there.

"So when Chuck said this was the end I guess this is what he meant," Sam says. Yes being trapped in a high school with my neighbors seems like end times to me, too. Tonally, things seemed a lot more dire in All Hell Breaks Loose 2.

Dean's feeling a bit embittered about discovering they didn't have as much free will as they'd thought, that everything was part of Chuck's personal lab experiment. "What did it all mean?" he wonders. "It meant a lot," Sam says. "We still saved people."

But what even are people, man? I'm going to have an existential crisis and I can't drink as much as Dean because I have that "Asian flush" gene thing. One drink and I turn super red and hot and queasy and then I pass out.

Sam thinks God has fucked off to who knows where because he hasn't seen the promos for episode 2 yet. "He gets bored and starts another story." Ah yes like me and my WiPs. Relatable. Overall, Sam is feeling much more optimistic. "Once we win this, God is gone... and it's just us. We're free."

Dean catches his optimism cooties. "I like those odds," he says of fighting billions of evil souls. You know what that means? We got work to do. Quick intercut of Baby Winchesters with Middle-Aged Winchesters saying the same thing and closing the trunk of the Impala.

[Graphic: Impala with the solar system again. This time the Impala is pulling ahead. "ONE MORE TIME AROUND, SONS O' BITCHES"]

So there we are at the first episode of the final season. Reblog or reply with what you thought of the episode and thanks for reading!

One final note:

You can read more about my writing and general life situation and GoFundMe here: https://tippitv.tumblr.com/post/188224749207/supernatural-final-season-recaps-and-assorted

If you enjoyed the recap and are able, please visit my virtual tip jar: paypal.me/TippiBlevins or https://ko-fi.com/A4017DA

Henry Hound and I could use the financial help!

See you next week.

[travllingbunny]

The 100 rewatch: 1x09 Unity Day

This episode was never one of my favorites, but I didn’t dislike it first time around, so I was surprised to which extent I did this time. It’s an important episode that moves the plot along in crucial ways both on the Ark and on the ground, but it has so many of the things I disliked in season 1 (the Jaha/Diana plot – which reaches its climax and ends with this episode, Finn the peacemaker, and the first appearance of Anya – always one of my least favorite characters, who starts the tradition of Grounders being extremely hypocritical in their interactions with the Arkers) or that I’m indifferent to (the very rushed Linctavia romance - the Romeo and Juliet “we just met and we’re already in love” type romance was never my thing, I just don’t find it relatable).

Rating: 6/10

The scenes I liked the best were just the little moments of the Delinquents having fun during the Unity Day celebration. And I don’t mean just the scene where Clarke and Bellamy spend a few minutes eye fucking flirting totally platonically interacting, but also Clarke having fun with a couple of random Delinquents (Fox and Sterling, who are both introduced here) and the start of Jasper’s and Raven’s friendship and him telling her that she now kind of has a family with the Delinquents. And I liked Miller’s snarky remark while watching Jaha’s speech, that he can now try to take credit after the 100 have done the toughest job.

This was the first time we got the backstory of the 12 stations joining, and the unofficial fact that the 13th station was blown up, which the show explored more in S3.

It’s also the first time we hear the “…May we meet again” prayer for the dying, when Kane says it to his mother.

At least the Diana/Jaha conflict is finally over. This is how not to do moral greyness: instead of having sympathy for both sides, I disliked both sides equally, which results in indifference. Diana’s political stance is supposed to be about protecting the working class, but it’s kinda hard to trust that when all her people did in the previous episodes was manipulate one member of the Ark’s working class to do their dirty job and assassinate Jaha and then another one to try to kill the former one. And here they stage a terrorist attack and fail to kill Jaha, again (this guy survived probably more near-deaths during the show than anyone else), but blow up a bunch of innocent people, including children.  And on the other side you have Jaha, with all his oppression, executions and constant lies. But I guess this show loves the “people being total a-holes and destroying everything” plots, like this one.

Something that I always disliked but couldn't put my finger on why, but now I know: Finn’s new role as a peacemaker is just Finn doing Finn things again: he is saying so many things that sound right (peace, we should all get along, stop the cycle of violence etc.) but the way he goes about it is so frustrating and stupid, it’s basically “How not to do pacifism”. 

First, he goes to talk to Lincoln on his own and suggests negotiations – nice, but Lincoln tells him straight up that he has no power to negotiate a truce, and Finn is like “Find someone who can”. What makes him think any of the Grounder leaders will listen to Lincoln? He knows nothing about the Grounder society, so it’s dumb to assume they don’t have a strict hierarchy and act the same as an informal group like the 100. He assumes the thing is already as good as agreed on and that everyone will do exactly as he wants them to, including the Grounders not bringing any weapons, because he said so. Then he tells that to Clarke alone – Lincoln identified her as the leader of the 100; I wonder what Finn would’ve done if Lincoln had thought Bellamy was the leader – and brings it all to her as a done deal, telling her to do as he says, insisting that there should be no weapons, and silencing any arguments to the contrary. 

First off, this is really stupid: there’s nothing unusual about bringing guards to peace negotiations, in fact, I’m pretty sure that’s what leaders always do – and of course the Grounders are going to bring armed guards and backup to the meeting. This shouldn’t have been a surprise. Secondly, how presumptuous is he? Now that I’ve seen S2, everything Finn does looks like an attempt to be a hero and to prove himself as a hero to Clarke specifically and to have her need him, like Raven did on the Ark. 

Clarke, on her part, obviously thinks to herself – the same as she later does during the conversation with Anya – “there’s no use arguing with someone so unreasonable”, and you can see her starting to learn to be sneaky to get things done. So she goes to Bellamy for armed backup, of course. Later, Finn is surprised that, oh look, the Grounder “leader” is coming with armed guards (duh) and is clearly upset when Anya tells Clarke to come to talk to her on the middle of the bridge by herself, not letting Finn come with her. He lost the opportunity to be her knight protector. How do you think you can protect her, Finn, when you didn’t bring any weapons? In fact, not only does Anya come with armed guards, but she has a knife herself, and archers hidden in the trees nearby, including one ready to shoot Clarke any moment. 

Bellamy made a mistake bringing Jasper, the guy who was speared by the Grounders – but having seen S2 and S3, it’s clear that even Abby has no clue about PTSD, so it’s not surprise that Bellamy didn’t. Though he seemed to have learned by S4, when he acted very differently with Riley. Jasper’s PTSD certainly was partly responsible for the way he jumped to the conclusion that the Grounders were going to kill Clarke. I don’t think they were intending to – or they would have done it immediately – but the archer was clearly there to shoot any moment she does anything suspicious, so her life was in danger for sure – it could’ve easily ended up as one of those “I thought he was reaching for a gun” situations.

I love the way Clarke and Bellamy just looked at each other and rolled their eyes at Finn when he started blaming Clarke for bringing up backup and said “All you had to do it trust me”. Geez, Finn, not everything is about your relationship with Clarke. And this didn’t even make sense – she could trust him but still think he was being dumb, he could not vouch for the Grounders, and he was wrong in his expectation they would do what he told them to and come without weapons.

I’ve always found Anya really annoying, and with the info we find out later, it’s even worse, because it’s obvious that everything that came out of her mouth during that meeting was utter BS. I had forgotten that she actually told Clarke: “You’ve started a war you don’t know how to finish”. Really?

Not the last time the Grounders will blame the Arkers for the things they did themselves, or for defending themselves against them. Even more annoying is the fact that some fans take the “you started a war by destroying our village” argument seriously, in spite of the facts that Grounders speared Jasper way before that and engaged in intimidation tactics, that they must have known exactly what the 100 were like for quite some time since 1) at least one person, Lincoln, followed them and noted info about them, and 2) we learn in 1x10 that they had captured and tortured Murphy and that he told them everything. And you have to be extremely stupid to conclude that 100 unarmed kids going around having fun are an invading force, or that their first action would be to blow up a random village, rather than find out more about the Grounders, target their leadership, do anything strategically important. Lexa was not stupid, so I think that she was probably thinking along the same lines as Bellamy was in 1x04 when the crowd was lynching Muprhy – “give people what they want”. People want to blame someone, they want blood for blood, so let’s give them an enemy. 

Anya’s other arguments are even worse:  the Delinquents also supposedly started the war because “you captured and tortured one of ours” – forgetting that they did it right after the Grounders had killed 3 of the Delinquents and were just about to attack and killed more when the fake signal for the acid fog interrupted them. She says she has no reason to make a deal that Clarke cannot guarantee the Ark leadership would observe. True – but we now know that Anya is not the actual leader of the Grounders or even Trikru, so she has no authority to do guarantee the rest would listen, either. The deal was negotiated over a few hours, so I doubt they could have consulted Lexa in Polis (and it’s questionable if even Lexa could guarantee anything, since the clans were not united, and Trikru were at war with the Ice Nation so much of the time). 

And her reply to Clarke’s warning that the soldiers from the Ark would come to destroy them with their technology, “They wouldn’t be the first to try”, seems like empty bragging. That has to be about the Mountain Men, but they never actually tried to destroy the Grounders. Why would they destroy their continuous blood supply? They just wanted to enslave and harvest them, and it doesn’t seem like the Grounders were ever able to do much about it.

Body count: a ton of people from the Ark, but I don’t know the numbers. Dozens of people in the terrorist attack, including Kane’s mother and the cute girl who was giving the speech. Then everyone on the Exodus ship, including Diana, when it crashes – which we now know was caused by Mount Weather. The Mountain Men killed so many Arkers in S1, before they even appeared on screen. (They said before that the Exodus ship can take up to 700 people, so I guess it must have been around that number, or at least a few hundred people?) And Diana’s actions crippled the Ark and it lost power, so she’s responsible for the imminent deaths of a lot of people who remained on the Ark. On the ground, Jasper shot 2 Grounders, but I don’t know if they died.

[downbadforfictionalwomen]

Debunking Some Things

Okay, so I was talking to a friend about the 'Bumbleby ruining the team dynamic' thing as well as a few other things so I'm gonna post what I said about that here. I'm also gonna post some of my other debunking rants because what else am I gonna do, really. After this really long post, I plan on doing typical rwby and Bumbleby posts.

'Bumbleby Ruins the Team Dynamic' - First of all, the team dynamic was never an 'everyone cares about everyone equally' scenario. Yang and Ruby are sisters. They would've died for eachother right off the bat and Blake and Weiss didn't even know the others on the team (they probably wouldn't of died for any of them). Team JN(P)R has never had that full team dynamic, either. Pyrhha would've died for Jaune. Ren and Nora would've died for eachother. While Jaune would've died for Pyrhha. But they're side characters. That's different. But their dynamic was worse in equal caring. Either way, they all care about eachother enough to die for eachother. Team RWBY is the same way right now. They would all die for eachother because they all care deeply for eachother. That's what's important in a team dynamic. And from a realistic standpoint, do you care about everyone in your family and all of your friends equally? I seriously doubt that. There are family members you are closer to as well as friends your closer to than others. A team would be the same way. Especially since team RWBY has a pair of sisters [Ruby and Yang]. There are also people that complain about chapter 6 of volume 6 saying, "Yang grabbed Blake instead of her own sister". Yes, that's true but Blake was the one that could've nearly died. It was only reasonable for Yang to be the most worried about her rather than the other two. The team dynamic, even without Bumbleby, is still not completely equal, no matter how hard you try to make it. Either way, Ruby and Yang are still sisters. They would all die for eachother, that much is known. They all care about eachother like team JN(P)R does. Blake and Yang's relationship, however, got the most focus because they spent two volumes apart and Yang's abandonment issues made their relationship far more rocky than the others. Yang's relationship with the others were never about feeling abandoned. She knew where Ruby was, and could go after her when she wanted to. She knew Weiss was taken by her father back to atlas, so she knew where she was, as well. But she knew nothing of Blake's whereabouts, and Blake chose to leave her team. Yang's relationship with the others weren't rocky to begin with so they didn't need as much focus. Blake's weren't rocky with the others, either, except for her relationship with Yang. Henceforth, Blake and Yang's relationship got more focus.

'Blake and Yang are Killers, Heros Don't Kill' - Both Blake and Yang gave Adam a chance to back down but he refused. He had the intent of killing both of them. Now, most people are more inclined to say Yang's the killer because she didn't have to grab the other half of Gambol Shroud to kill Adam. To debunk this, Yang didn't know Blake would've gotten her half of Gambol Shroud. Yang didn't want to risk someone she cares so much about to die. About the 'heros don't kill' thing. This honestly annoys me because what does that make the poeple in the military? Risking their lives to save millions they've never met. They've killed many times, some more than others. They are heros. Good guys can kill and they will still be good.

'Yang's PTSD is Poorly Written' - Okay, look, I know someone that has been in the military. Infact, he's my uncle. He knows plenty of people that have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I've met them. Their PTSD doesn't run their lives. Infact, it rarely comes into play even in situations one would think it would. I'm fully aware that Yang seeing Adam should triggered her PTSD. It did. But not in the way a lot if people think. We've seen that it was Blake being in danger that triggered her PTSD more so than Adam himself. And throughout the show we don't see Yang joking about Blake's absence the way she could about her arm. Blake leaving was more emotionally scarring than the lose of her own arm. This means that it is a huge part of Yang's PTSD. The arm is still part of it, and Adam is as well. But it's Blake that has the most affect on her PTSD. I've never seen someone with PTSD complaining about Yang's PTSD. So this is more of people thinking PTSD is easily processed and pretty simple. Which is false for any mental illness.

'Adam was Nerfed and is Badly Written' - Not gonna lie, in volume 5 he was nerfed. But in Volume 6 he was less nerfed and more lacking control. Blake said in chapter 5 of this volume (volume 6) that Adam's real power comes from control. We see multiple times during his fight with both Blake and Yang he tries to manipulate them. He fails and dies in the end. But we see that when they were fighting him by themself instead of together, he would've won. The only reason Yang did better than Blake is because Yang has been practicing while Blake hasn't had nearly as much practice. Adam also knows Blake's fighting style but doesn't know anything about Yang's. Yang changed her fighting style, too. It would've thrown anyone off even if Adam was able to still beat her. He was holding his own incredibely well, all things considered. He lost control of the battle, he was going to loose. Plus, there wasn't much left in his arc. He was becoming a pain to the writers at this point. He was a good villian. He has a backstory, and it can be explored. He has a character with a purpose. And a realistic one. He could've been written better. That's true. But he wasn't as horribly written as so many people make him out to be. People who have been in abusive relationships have told me that he's a good example of an abuser. Has a facade until they don't. Like I said, he could of been written better but he was written as good as a no-arc charcter can be. This one may be more of an opinion. But in my opinion he was a good example of an abuser, and atleast semi-well written.

'Bumbleby Came Out of Nowhere and it was Dragged on too Long' - You've heard of slow burns, yes? Well, thats what Bumbleby is. It's not an 'after a few weeks or so' kind of thing. Honestly, I'm glad to see this kind of thing because slow burns are far more realistic. To put this in perspective, I'll be using Renora. Now, everyone loves Renora. It took 4 volumes to become canon. That was when they were together (4 volumes as friends, in the same setting). If you do the math, Bumbleby spent the same amount of time together (Volume 1-3 + 6). At the end of volume 4, Renora was confirmed (so heavily implied it's hard to deny). At the end of volume 6, Bumbleby was confirmed (heavily implied). Now, for the came out of nowhere, I can see where you're coming from. If they leave things to interpretation it can be interpreted as friendship. I interpreted many of their interaction as nothing more than friendship for quite some time. After awhile, I saw more in detail of what they were trying to do and seeing the romantic coding. I made connections and saw the relations and references that were being made. If you asked me when I was watching volume 5, I would've said Blacksun had a higher chance of being canon. Now, with Blake and Yang back together, I believe otherwise. To me, no ships come out of nowhere as long as they have had a decent amount of focus. That is exactly what Bumbleby got in volume 6, so I personally believe it didn't come out of nowhere.

Now that my rant is over I'd like to say be respectful of the people's opinions. I didn't proofread so sorry if there are any mistakes (which there probably are quite a few). If you disagree with me that's fine. I would honestly love to hear your guys' opinions on the matters I discussed in this excruciatingly long post. I hope everyone who read this has a nice day.

[dontcallmecarrie]

Hello! So you keep everyone pretty in character, and you seem to understand them really well (In my opinion), so I’m curious- How much do you think it would take for Wanda (And Pietro, I guess) to be on semi-friendly terms with Tony? Would it even be possible?

…oh, boy. Um. This has been sitting in my inbox for a while, because I had a tough time quantifying things, plus didn’t have the time to do it justice before now, but…Okay.

Okay, pull up a chair because this is going to take a while because I know there’s a buttload of very well-researched posts out there but there’s some things I still need to get off my chest when it comes to the Maximoff twins. 

Just as an fyi, though: my take on them’s 100% based on the movies, because my comics knowledge of them is next to nil—I think they’re apparently Jewish, and Romani(?) in the comics and that the writers erased that when they cast the people they did, but that’s about it—and apparently they’re very different in the MCU, which I’m not even caught up on since the last film I saw was Doctor Strange. 

Heads up: this post will not be Maximoff friendly, especially for Wanda, but I’m also doing my best not to bash—more like me lamenting what we could have had, via picking apart my interpretation of their characters. Also features quite a bit of my rambling because this also turned into a meta ‘why I think AoU sucks’ rant, sorry. Under the cut, because it got long and RIP mobile users otherwise.

Now, for me, I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, even if I don’t like them. Try to make an attempt to like them, try to get a feel for their character instead of flattening them…but it feels like a futile endeavor, in this case.

Admittedly, I’m rather biased towards Tony […understatement of the year, probably, he’s the reason I even got into the MCU], so that didn’t help. But…just. 

Okay, taking a step back, I can’t help but feel that AoU was a tire fire on a number of levels. The twins’ entrance in the MCU could not have been handled worse, in my opinion, and the choices made had me gritting my teeth when I watched it. This, coming from someone who liked the Star Wars prequels […that’s a thing for another post, I guess, but even if it was cringey at times it still had its moments]. 

The narrative was a mess, and the way they forced so much of it [hi, Bruce/Natasha ship and obligatory Damsel In Distress tropes] did everyone involved a major disservice, and by introducing the twins the way the writers did actively sabotaged them, in my opinion. 

Because in the cutscene during one of the prior movies, they could’ve introduced them in a far, far better light than what they went with. If the twins had been kidnapped and experimented on by HYDRA preying on the local populace and taking advantage of the teeming number of orphans due to the conflict going on? That, I could stomach. Hell, make up some bullshit backstory of how the Tesseract’s radiation affected people who grew up in a certain radius of some abandoned building if you want an excuse to give them powers if we’re not going the X-Men route, it’s not that hard!

No, instead, the writers made them HYDRA volunteers.

That, I—I can’t. Worst part is, I think I get what the writers might’ve been going, for, but…look. If you want to make an attempt at criticism of American policy via using a fictional country as the staging ground of what seemed to me to be a deja vu of the Soviet-Afghan War, and want to have your heroes come out of that, and keep them sympathetic, do not code them as affiliated with Nazis. 

Because the rest of it? I could almost get. Even if it hurt, seeing them go after Tony like that right off the bat, I could see why. To these people living in a war-torn country, grown up only seeing the bad side of American interventionism their entire lives, I don’t think I would’ve resisted the urge to punch someone who symbolized it either. 

After all, for decades Tony was it, perpetuated the military-industrial complex and took it to new levels, designed bomb after bomb and skewed the balance of power in a huge way. Even if Tony changed tracks, after Afghanistan, and worked to fix it, that doesn’t erase what happened. […plus, y’know, there’s the convenient bomb with his name on it, probably courtesy of Obadiah’s double-dealing.] So, that part, I get. I don’t necessarily like it, but I get it. 

By including HYDRA, however, the writers ensured that 95% of my sympathy vaporized before I had a chance to get attached to them. At the time, my then-optimistic self was still trying to see them in a good light, and…okay, bit of a military history lesson here, for context, as to why I mentally made the connections I did [and why I felt they fell so flat in the movie]. It’s probably me reaching, but this was my thought process for it.

Minor disclaimer: this is just what I remember off the top of my head, so if it sounds incredibly simplistic, that’s why. Apologies if I get anything wrong, by the way.

The Soviet-Afghan War happened in the ‘80s, lasted nearly a decade, and devastated the local populace in a manner not unlike Vietnam. The Soviet Union basically invaded Afghanistan after shit went down in their government, and the locals fought tooth and nail to kick them out. If I remember correctly, it’s been considered the USSR’s Vietnam War, due to that…plus, y’know, the fact that the US sent in their guys to low-key help. Not by sending in troops, mind, but they sent in guys to train up the locals to fight back better. Not sure what else, but I know that part because it ended up biting everyone badly later on, since that war’s also where al-Qaeda got its start, and its training. 

Reason I even brought this up is, Sokovia’s situation to me had a metric fuckton of parallels to that. I probably screwed up on the conflicts the writers were thinking of, but that’s what I was seeing, and to me, it’d make sense then that the twins who grew up in such a place wouldn’t think very highly of the Avengers, or SHIELD, etc. 

…anyway, that’s the implied backstory I picked up on in the movie. From there, makes sense that the twins would reach out to shady groups to get power to fight back, and if it’d been AIM, or literally any group other than neo-Nazis, I feel like it would’ve made them more sympathetic without flattening their characters. 

To me, that was strike one against the twins, in regards to things I can’t forgive. Maybe it’s simplistic of me, but given the shit that’s gone down lately, my tolerance for anything that smacks of Nazis is borderline nonexistent. Sorry not sorry. 

But, removing that element, the twins could’ve been interesting. We could’ve had a story where the Avengers run into people who do not think of them as heroes, and see where that went. Could’ve seen an American-based group deal with people who aren’t friendly, who have a good reason to be that way. […I’ll just ignore the evil AI trope, this is supposed to be a character study not me bashing AoU even more.] 

Removing the HYDRA element, we have the Maximoff twins: 

Pietro, who’s bitterly sarcastic and fiercely protective of what family he has left after essentially growing up in a war zone. Pietro, who’s speed means he can raise hell in the blink of an eye, made himself a nuisance because of it more than once throughout the film. Pietro, who we only know in the the one movie he shows up, since he gets tragically killed off in the end.

And then there’s Wanda.

…okay. Um. Here’s the thing: I’ve only seen her in two movies, and AoU was a train wreck and Civil War was a tire fire. 

So.

This is my perception of Wanda: 

Once you remove the ‘hey let’s flatten our female characters this round!’ lens the writers apparently had going on during AoU, as well as me removing the HYDRA element […which, for me, is absolutely necessary], and you have Wanda Maximoff: a very, very driven young woman, who’s been [understandably] angry at the world for the better part of her life and only now has the power to fight back. Wanda, who’s equally protective of her brother since he was all she had left, and whose loss was devastating on a number of levels because of that. Wanda, who now has to pick up the pieces of her life and carry on, and deal with the huge burden of responsibility that comes with a power as potentially insidious as hers. 

For the most part, throughout AoU, that was the impression I got from her. Pietro I’d actually liked because of his snark, since the start; Wanda, on the other hand, I’d actively disliked [yo, triggering someone with PTSD? Not cool] but had been steadily warming up to—until Johannesburg. 

For me, the dealbreaker with MCU’s Wanda was when she took the biological equivalent of a nuke, and aimed it at the largest civilian population she could find. She could’ve turned the Hulk against the Avengers, could’ve had him running off in a random direction and thus forced the team to chase after him in the most high-stakes game of keep-away there ever was, but no. 

No, instead Wanda unleashed the Hulk on the biggest city in South Africa. 

I mean, taking a step back, I can see why the writers went there: this is an action movie, after all, so why not throw in some hero-fighting-hero scenes? But in-universe, that choice was what cinched it for me, that this was not a hero in any meaning of the word. If the writers wanted her to be one, they’d need to throw in a redemption arc, after Johannesburg—and they didn’t. 

No apology, no acknowledgment, not a word of responsibility, like it never happened. 

…and then there’s Civil War to consider. Where the writers butchered her character along with everyone else’s, because now they’re calling the young woman who grew up in a war zone, who knowingly and willingly underwent experimentation for the chance to fight back, who lost everything and still carried on–a child. The sheer lack of agency they removed from her was an insult in and of itself, in my opinion. That, and the fact that apart from Natasha [who’s got her own thing going on, but I digress], she’s the only non-American on the team. 

Which leads me to yet another opportunity missed: the perspective Wanda had to offer, because of that. Having grown up the way she did, in a country screwed over by others’ interventionism [hi, Stark weapons, what’re you doing here in Sokovia?] she would’ve had a very different opinion on how to do things than a team that, for the most part, was born and raised in the US, with all the biases that includes. Where the rest of the team’d be more inclined to just rock in to other countries without hesitation, Wanda’s knee-jerk reaction to hearing that would be a “fuck no”, for instance, and…um. 

Okay, irony is, I can’t help but think that Wanda, as a non-US national, would’ve been 100% on board with the idea of ‘hey, this US-based team can’t just barge into other countries and fuck shit up, cut it out’. Which, incidentally, is what the Accords were about in the MCU […but that’s a rant for another post], even if Ross was undoubtedly angling for something shady when he was presenting them the way he did. 

…I rambled, didn’t I. Oops. 

So, as for the latter part of your ask: 

what would it take for her [and Pietro, had he lived] to get along with Tony?

In canon, I find it highly unlikely. As in, the world’s more likely to end, and apparently something like that happens in Infinity Wars if the spoilers I’ve glimpsed are anything to go by? [Nowhere near caught up means I have no clue what’s going on anymore, and some people don’t tag their stuff which leaves me even more confused, but—rambling again, oops.]

As for in any fics I’d write, with my take on their characters: 

Okay, for that to happen, we’d have to go wildly AU. Me being me, I’m removing the HYDRA element […’nuff said], and Johannesburg didn’t happen either, so what you have left is the Maximoff twins, and the guy who embodied everything they hated about the US/the world in general, even if he was doing everything in his power to change. 

Suffice it is to say, it’d be a rocky start, but. 

But, I’d like to think they’d eventually get along, somehow. Slowly, and painfully, but over time the twins’d realize that Tony’s actually human, and not an amalgamation of everything they hated, not the boogeyman they grew fearing. Would see that he’s just one man, and a flawed one, struggling with severe PTSD […I’d like to think Wanda’d feel pretty bad about triggering him the way she did, later on, but that’s just me] and doing his best to atone for being the Merchant of Death. Would see that he’s just a man, doing his best to make the world a better place—the twins’d realize it’s not an act pretty quick, and from there, they’d have common ground.

Don’t get me wrong, there’d be plenty of mishaps along the way, but. 

Over time, and with Tony asking—and actually listening to them, taking them seriously when they give their opinions on what they think about how to approach something, instead of dismissing them because of their age—they’d start to warm up to each other. Because at heart, Tony’s an ally, and trying to be an even better one, and I’d like to think the twins would pick up on that pretty quick. And Tony, between his guilt complex and seeing what the twins have done with the tools they’ve had at hand, would reciprocate, and forgive Wanda for doing what she did once she apologized […again, my opinion of triggering people with PTSD rears its head].

Or, worst-case scenario I can think of: the twins tolerate him, because he’s trying to be an ally and even if they might never like him personally, they can respect that. 

To me, though, this feels a bit static for their characters, especially given how dynamic we’ve seen them in the past [going from antagonist to Avenger in the same movie, anyone?], so I’d rather see the one where character growth happens instead.

Incidentally, your ask also brought to mind a scene I’ve low-key wanted to see but haven’t yet: one way I can see Tony and the twins bonding is via very, very dark humor. Because Tony was raised to be the heir of a weapons company, and the twins grew up in a war-torn country, there’d be plenty of morbid humor to go around, weirding out almost everyone else on the team [barring Natasha]. 

Specifically, something along these lines, during a time when things are still pretty rocky:

“Okay, guys, I know you hate my guts because of that bomb, but you’ll be pleased to hear that something similar happened to me a while back.”

“…go on.”

“So I’m in Afghanistan, headed back from a presentation, when the convoy I’m in gets attacked, we’re getting shot at with my own guns. But that’s not the best part, even—not five minutes later, I get a bomb with my name on it. Literally, I’m not even kidding here.” Tony said, his hand drifting to his chest unconsciously. “That’s where the shrapnel came from, by the wa—oh, hey Steve…why’re you looking so pale? Geez, take a few deep breaths or something, that’s—um, guys? Give me some space, will you?”

aka the twins [and the team] get a sneak peek at Tony’s tire fire of a mental state and his tendency to cope via joking, and realize that yes, he is legitimately that self-deprecating. If the twins didn’t start to ease up on their dislike before, they do now, if only because it’s not worth directing their anger at a guy who hates himself even more than they possibly could. Waste of energy, that. 

also, afterwards, cue a lot of bonding over that sort of thing, such as hating Hammer Industries for doing what the Merchant of Death used to do, and quite a few brainstorming sessions about how to approach the military-industrial complex, etc. 

tl;dr: my take on the Maximoff twins in the MCU’s mostly had me Photoshopping my headcanons into where they’re supposed to fit, due to a myriad of reasons; AoU and CW did them a huge disservice, but apart from the remarkably bad writing, they had a lot of potential. My take on them would’ve had the twins warming up to Tony eventually, realizing he’s trying to be an ally, but said take would also have gone wildly AU not ten minutes into their introduction, so. 

[kimmysfandomblog]

9 and 20 for Hinaegi, 5 and 14 for Komahina !

  Thank you for the ask, Chloe!!! 😀

From here! https://hajimehinata-kun.tumblr.com/post/180161745002/asks-21-otppairing-questions

Hinaegi:

9. Favorite aspect of them/their relationship dynamics?

I think my favorite thing about HiNaegi is more to do with potential interaction. They do things in different ways, but their basic ideals are the same. Naegi and Hinata don’t think much of themselves, but while Naegi kind of accepts he is average, Hinata doesn’t. He has too much ambition to give up on the dream of doing something bigger. They are both the type to listen and care for their friends, and they end up leading even if they don’t think of themselves as leaders.

I think that if they were to interact, they’d be digging into the things they hide behind their “average” exterior. It’s a lot more noticeable with Hinata, being that he’s a Reserve Course Student. I think Naegi would be one to say he feels out of place among the Ultimates, since they are so weird for the most part. They could get into how, even if they are Ultimates, they are friends and don’t even care about Naegi having the talent of luck, which he doesn’t even consider a talent since it rarely every affects him. Also, I feel Naegi will really be able to sympathize with Hinata. He might want to know what the Reserve Course is like, and he’d be able to validate Hinata’s disdain of being stuck there.

As for Naegi, he really accepts way too much from his friends- in terms of being a bit too passive. And he’s also too forgiving, I think ^^; maybe Hinata would be able to help him out a bit with that, or sympathize with him a bit (I mean, Souda was able to drag him into crashing a beach party, but Hinata was able to draw a line with the matching speedos, lol) Maybe he could get Naaegi to show off his more assertive side instead of hiding it like he does (and Naegi certainly does have an assertive side! It’s just one that doesn’t usually come out unless in a threatening situation)

I do perceive friction, however. I think that Naegi can be too optimistic about things, and sometimes you just can’t accept optimism. With Hinata, even if Naegi were to say that it doesn’t matter that Hinata is in the Reserve Course because he still has people who know that Hinata is a great person, and that is worth more than a title, I think that if something were to happen, like what Juzo did to him in DR3, that could cause Hinata to snap. If we recall what happened in DR2′s 6th trial, Hinata respected Naegi, but he couldn’t just accept Naegi’s plan, which put Hinata’s whole self at risk. It would also be something like, they are very similar, but the differences just rub at them even harder because they have certain expectations out of each other.

And then of course there is a canon AU with post-DR3… I can’t imagine Hinata being happy about Naegi making a new Hope’s Peak Academy. Hope’s Peak Academy has been pretty much the source of Hinata’s problems. He played his own part, of course, but a lot of it is to do with the environment and mentality that HPA created. I think that maybe the only thing that settles it is if the way Naegi runs HPA is different, like that these students do have to pay a fee unless they aren’t able to financially support their education (it isn’t government run, or not completely), that there are no talent scouts, and instead they apply to become Ultimates (like in V3), and that just overall, there are no special benefits (they still have to take the normal exams, but there is time allotted to their talent. They kind of have to have a longer school year because of that, and it may be needed to waive things as long as it is made up some other way, but there is no special treatment which would make the Talented superior. The point of the school is for talents to be fostered, but for the benefit of society and not scientific exploitation and the separation between talented/”average” people. This would also mean that you are not prohibited from letting friends visit the campus, as long as it is not disruptive.

I do think even then, there’s gonna be tension, but maybe Naegi’s optimism, that he is going to do everything he can to make sure this is not going to turn out the same way it did with the previous HPA, and just general sincerity that he believes in thisnew school, Hinata gives it a chance.

20. What made you decide to ship them?

I have a few guesses, but the exact reason why… I honestly don’t know. It was surely not immediately. Naegi was always a character I liked a lot, but didn’t love, so HiNaegi snuck up on me. By the time DR3 was rollong around, I was already attracted to the idea that they meet and interact in a meaninflgful way again. A part of it was that, due to them being protagonists, they often are featured together, and it screamed cute potential to me. I know the reasons why I ship them: they have this feeling of balance to them somehow, like they have a lot of similarities, and fill in for their weaknesses. They both look like they would trust each other and sacrifice for each other’s well-being in their own different ways. Of course, this could be platonic as well as romantic (and I do love both!). The moment I realized this… that I wanted to see them romantically involved as well… I am not sure. I just know that when Hope Arc gave me them goving each other that look, I was already deep in XD I just supressed it, like all the other fans did, because who was I gonna share my passion with? I am very glad that I broke out of that. The Hinaegi community has been very supportive, and I love them! (Some of us are also partners for the Hinata Project, so that wouldn’t have been even a thought without them!)

KomaHina:

5. Favorite canon moment of them?

Most definitely, it would be the Prologue and CH1! I love the way that they met, with Komaeda being really concerned over Hinata, whose fainted on the beach. I love that they are together for the introductions, and how Hinata kind of leans on Komaeda with trust. I like that Hinata really and truly didn’t want to believe that the Komaeda he was thankful for waking him up (sorry dr2 stage moment but-) was the type to kill someone, and that utter betrayal he felt later. I like how despite that, Komaeda was still hoping/expecting Hinata wouldn’t treat him differently (but accepts it anyways). Prologue and CH1 were truly just the best moments for me. A close second would be CH3, when Hinata is super concerned about Komaeda’s well-being despite all the feelongs in him :’) (yeah, that may be why I get mad about people criticizing him for not staying with Ko)

14. Is there a pairing that you think rivals them?

In all honestly, it is hard to compare ships, since in general, despite the tropes (like rival ×rival), changes in personality and backstory really change how I view that pairing. The only thing I got is my feeling, and KomaHina is just WAY up there in my interests. Sometimes I wish it was less popular, or maybe more like, I wish it wasn’t popular enough to have a vehemently rabid side with equally rabid antis XD Admittedly, most of the reason I like KomaHina is because I love the characters (specifically Hinata, but Komaeda as well), but that relationship they have truly feels unique to me.

This is more than just shipping the rivals together like some certain other pairs in these kinds of stories. There’s a complexity there, since Komaeda actively pushes everyone away, but feels comfortable around Hinata, but also doesn’t want to hurt Hinata with his presence so he pushes away even more. And then there is Hinata, who wishes he could hate Komaeda, but actually he is still concerned about the guy, even if Komaeda’s logic frustrates him, he still sees Komaeda as smart and tries to understand him, if not very openly saying he wishes to understand him. I have other OTPs that were rival×rival (was into SasuNaru for a long time, was into USUK if that works as rivals?), but somehow this pair feels different.

I guess the only pair I love equally, within this fandom at least, is KamuNami. The relationship has potential at complexity, though I guess because of the DR3 writing, no one that would have been okay with it initially, likes it. Rather, they quite hate it, and it’s… too bad. There would’ve been more complex interactions had they known each other, especially given how different their values are. Kamukura doesn’t care if he has killed or not, whether it was in self-defense or a casualty in his grand schemes. Nanami is adamantly against that- and she’d be annoyed at him too, I think, for his attitude. At the same time, there would be something that forces her to interact with him, whether it was the need to keep an eye on him (as class rep or as the Observer, for example), or general curiosity (him being an AI too, his connection to Hinata (whether as the same person or two seperate people), or if in some other AU some other similarity that makes them unique, like it could be how he beats her at games). As an AI, he would be the only one there besides Usami, and he has all the answers as to how her friends are doing. I can’t imagine her being too friendly when she realizes the lengths he had to go to and how unaffected he seems to be about it, but in the end, he did help it to help them, and it’s a rare case where such a thing was necessary. And he acts cold and unfeeling, but there was a glimmer of emotion in him at the same time. This is similar to human Kamukura as well, I think. If we set this in an AU, she would definitely struggle interacting with him, maybe even starting to believe he is cold and lifeless and nothing more. But then he’d say something and she realizes he’s human, but it’s harder for him to express emotions. They are the type of people who would rather isolate themselves and let others ignore them, but Chiaki has this self that cares about others, making her break away from her comfort zone. I headcanon she would go to extreme lengths, even going head-to-head and almost on par with Izuru if it came to it, to protect her friends, and that would shock him, I think. He’d observe her more carefully since she’s the one who did something interesting, but he’d get annoyed when she tries to make him see the world differently. He’s rather arrogant like that. I don’t think she’ll ever fully succeed, but he’s eventually going to be softer on her (in my headcanons, this is pretty much how it goes hahaha).

Another part of the reason why KamuNami is so important is because it has a lot to do with how accepting the community has been! I used to be ambivalent to the ship because of the shipping wars, to be quite honest, but the KamuNami community, however small we are, actually support each other with comments and reblogs. The mod of KamuNami Paradise is the sweetest and most understanding person, and she tries really hard for the community. I really look up to her! In a way, I guess that solidified it. My love for KamuNami was but a handful until KamuNami Week 2017, and the support of the community, as well as how well Mod Kibou fostered this ship, is the reason why I love it as much as I do. That blog… without it, I would have kept that KamuNami side of me hidden and let it die. I am thankful that didn’t happen!

For KomaHina, the community just feels too big sometimes. I have a lot more ambivalence about the fans who like KomaHina than I do for other ships, simply because KomaHina is the most popular ship (well hopefully remains that way lol. I do and don’t like the popularity, but I want the ship that beats it to be meaningful. And here in my salt corner, I don’t think this ship I’m talking about that has the potential to overtrow KomaHina is even a quarter as meaningful). I mean, it’s like there is this belief somewhere in there that anyone who doesn’t remotely ship it is like… homophobic, or ignorant, or ognorong canon- just overall a bad person. I never felt comfortable with that. Yet, at the same time, I made a lot of friends through KomaHina! Which is puzzling to me since I was so expecting, well, nothing to happen. That was my experience with every other fandom, you know? A lot of my mutuals also love KomaHina, so at least with this ship, I know I’ll feel validated. There is so much content for it as well that, for the most part, I don’t feel as starved for it XD (MOST of the time… it never truly leaves you lol) Also, participating in KomaHina Secret Exchange is just such a pleasure! You’re honestly another mod I admire XD That event is always fun! It’s incredible to see the amount of love for this ship that I care about, we care about.

I guess when it comes down to it, what I need in my OTPs is that potential for complexity, especially if it surprises you. I also like validation, apparently XD It is just lonely shipping something no one else cares about, you know?

On a side note, fave ship is still KomaHinaNami for very indulgent reasons XD but I’ve overexplained at this point lol

[goprandall]

DC MASTERPOST >3

It’s no secret the DC universe is something of a DCpointment. There’s no cohesion in sotrylines, films are released at odd and illogical times and I decided to rewatch and give proper reviews.

MAN OF STEEL 2013 7/10

This film is something of an outlier on the DCEU, because it is not terrible.

The strengths of this film are defiantly the first act, I feel it was a clear and concise way to create backstory without the stereotypes of following him through childhood into adulthood, they did a great job of creating krypton and establishing an antagonist with a clear motive. I liked the jump straight into adult with flashbacks when confronted with items from his past, it allowed us to understand his past without saturating his journey all at once. Arguably the first arc of this film is completed here with Clark/kal discovering who he is and why he is here. The second arc of General Zod trying to bring back his people is still very well done, providing us more relevant backstory and shows logical actions from both sides of the fight nearing the end of the film. The biggest weakness of the film in my opinion is that it is 20 minutes too long. When superman destroys Zods ship killing the artificial children of krypton, I feel this arc was complete, although the after fight solely fought between SM and Zod does show us the struggle superman goes through becoming the last kryptonite in exaistance, this does not outweigh the pointless mass destruction this causes, on top of a already destroyed city. In my cut this would be disregarded.

Final thoughts of the film; my favourite part was the shot of ‘ALERT’ that slowly turns to ‘Toner empty’, a good transition and piece of direction. I’m giving this film 7/10, in my classification would make it a good Netflix film, one I’d be happy to watch but not pay money to solely see. It was a hard choice to not make it a 6 however, I rank wonder women as a 7, and this is more than equally as good, the only things preventing me from giving it a higher rank is it’s rewatchability. Personally I rarely would due to its lack of joy and humour, and overall darkness, not just in plot but also in cinematography and colour grading.

BATMAN V SUPERMAN 2016 6/10

Batman v superman had all the the ingredients to be the summer blockbuster, but as predicted it followed every DC film and tanked.

Their are some aspects of this film that are genuinely good, giving it a 6, one of those things is the first act of the film where we are introduced to Batman, although I didn’t personally feel the need for another origin story, the way this scene is directed especially with the earl sequence is fantastic, adding depth and differing from older versions of the same story. The other good thing about this film is the Batman fight scene, it is so well articulated and choreographed, i struggle to see how it fits within the wider film which is strangely badly directed, edited and in-cohesive.

Continuing from this idea, I feel the dream sequences are one of the leading problems for the in-cohesion of the film, the issue with these sequences is, if they are not well done it stops the audience trusting more daring scenes, ultimately taking you out of the story. Next, I feel another reason this doesn’t live up to its hype is, again, DCs continuous frenzy of oversaturating it’s film with characters. Here I argue Wonder women is not needed in the end fight, the fight could just have easily gone on sitbout her, or, if they had released wonder women before this film so we felt more engrossed in the character it wouldn’t been fine. However her and all the other justice league promo clips, should not have been in the film in the context they were as they’re a corporate shoehorn, promoting further projects. The other character I feel is unneeded is ‘Doomsday’, he’s quickly thrown in at the end of the film, and honesty an antigunist shown to us at the end of the film will never give the depth and fear of a hero fight, as a villain shown throughout the movie.

To me, Batman V Superman is a movie. Not a film, crafted and worked on to create a narrative for the audience, but a summer movie to get the kids out the house. The idea of having two meta humans as important as Batman and superman battling each other should boggle the mind, as the first avengers did for me or civil war for a closer comparison. But the difference with the MCU spectaculars is, they earned their right to blow people’s minds, DC is playing catch up and trying to get praise and awe without the hard work.

SUICIDE SQUAD 2016 3/10

Wow. This review has been hard to create and will most likely feature ideas from other reviews via podcasts and YouTube due to the fact this movie boggled my head in the sheer awfullness that ensued.

As always, I begin with the strengths of the film. In this instance it’s slight. I loved the aesthetics of the branding for the film, the colours, the neon animations, I loved it all. The mini descriptions in the film were funny and added to the VeRy little personalities of the characters. It is important to point out this clearly wasn’t present in the first edits of the film, but due to good feedback of later trailers that were released they were added, which is why this element of humour is the only of its kind that lands in the film.

Next I normally look into the storyline and the character arcs of the film, arguably my second favourite aspect to look for in a film. In suicide squad there is none, and there aren’t any. That sounds harsh, but the reality is there is no cohesive storyline, it follows no one character individually and the film darts back and fourth between every character, no matter the timeframe. Dean Dobbs (from adventures with dean and Bertie’s podcast) best describes this as ‘like playing a video game where someone is skipping every cutscene’ and this is absolutly true, especially when looking at the relationship of the joker and Harley Quinn. This film is so badly edited, As jack Howard describes, this film contains no scenes, it is obvious the whole film was rehashed and re-edited after the release of BVS (which crashed at the box office) and the final trailer was released, which was very different from the first few as it showed humour and action, and it is evident they cut out almost everything apart from these things. I would best describe it as many GoPrandall videos I have scrapped as I tend to forget to film opening sequencers and filler clips to show the progression of the story told apart from the action, and this is exactly how I felt about the editing of this film, they did the best with what they got but it wasn’t enough.

Although there was a lack of character arcs, this film had an ABUNDANT amount of characters to fill its shoes. This film crams as many famous faces in as many characters

As it can, because for some reason DC refuses to create stand alone films due to the catch up to the MCU that’s going on. We’ll start with the joker, or more exactly the 10 minuets of joker we got. Many scenes with the joker were so heavily edited, and deleted, it is hard to judge Jared Letos performance, because he didn’t have chance to give one. But, as a side note the hand on the mouth laugh is one of the WORST cinema moments I’ve experienced only closely beaten by ‘were bad guys it’s what we do’. Yuck. But we’ll finally look at the ‘suicide squad’, although looking at them it’s hard to identify why they are in this squad. We’ll start with reason no one on the team seems to have a reason to be there, aprt from deadshot, who had his daughters arc to think about. All the others just seem to around and don’t want to die and get out of prison. VERY good motives DC, you’ve outdone yourself this time. Next we can look at the abilities of this so called ‘meta human’ squad and how under utilised they really are, which could show why this film failed so badly. Firstly deadshot- ‘never misses a bullet- amazing at trick shots.’ Who in the film performs close quarter headshots, the same as the Seal team next to him, and in the film performs 1 trick shot. 1. That was in establishing scene right at the beginning, but he isn’t the only victim, we can look at Boomerang, my favourite character by far, with one the coolest abilities, who throws a total of:5 boomerangs and catches: 2. Let’s be honest Harely is there as the jokers Love Interest and to keep him in the film. We can also look at el deablo, the man that can shoot fire but refuses until he’s bullied for a whole minute. The worlds worst archaeologist who starts the entire battle, after BREAKING AN ANTIQUE immediatly after finding it (bravo) who if wasn’t attempted to be weaponised, would’ve skipped this whole mess. Slipknot, a man who could climb any wall or anything, who immediatly dies after climbing a wall, but don’t worry because they don’t even want you to worry about this due to the fact they don’t even intro him before he magically appears on the squad, hoping the audience will react ‘oh he’s going to be important!!! What a mystery man!!’. This is almost as bad as Katana, who adds nothing the story apart from a short intro and when she cries to her dead husband, at which point I began to cut my toenails, something I gave more of a shit about.

But, it is obvious I’m a teenage marvel fanboy just shitting on DC,and I hate when people complain without offering another viewpoint, therefore, to fix this, I would dedicate this film to the viewpoint of deadshot, giving him the character arc of changing with the goal of seeing his daughter- eliminate the extra characters- slipknot/katana and either dedicate more time to the joker and harley sub plot or eliminate entirely, NOT BOTH. With this, better editing around these eliminated plot points could make a more coherent story with more empathetic story arcs. I have a full idea for a plot but this is too long as it is.

WONDER WOMEN 2017 7/10

Wonder women is a refreshing instalment into the DCEU, showing they seem to e learning, but are still falling behind on some of the most basic hurdles.

Firstly, as always we’ll start off with the strengths of his film, firstly it is vividly important to recognise that this is the first major Superhero film to be directed, and sustain a heavy female cast. It does so fantastically and leaves me more excited for the next instalment now knowing female directors and stars now have evidence for an accomplished superhero movie, which arguably has outdone the past 2 major films. With this we see a brilliantly refreshing opening act with a subtle and bright, vibrant origin story.

However, this film slowly returns to madness throughout the film when major plot holes appear, and the film making quality slowly deteriorates. Firstly, the iggest plot hole that has been so easily overlooked is the WW1 aspect. Given a World War Two film, having the Germans be the sole enemy is obvious and logical, however WW1 is not as simple as this and the use of Germans as the enemies is vaguely lazy. Also, as DC loves to do, it adds in extra characters and neglects to give them logical and coherent backstory and arcs. We only need to look at the ‘best marksman in the war’ who doesn’t fire a single shot, and continues not too all the way to the end of the film, showing no growth. The final plot hole is what draws it into the wider EU. The entirety of this film is showing Diana that the human race is bad and should be left alone, although when she defeats arias, this is meant to break this curse and peace seems to be restored. But, in BVS she claims to have stopped helping mankind because of their evils, neglecting Stalin, WW2 and the Vietnam war to name a few, but making a reappearance for- lex Luther. Wow.

Although in almost most of its entirety this was a pleasant watch, my personal issue stopped this at the third act when the final fight begins. To me the film returns to DCs favourite colour scheme of dark and clouded, and uses quite frankly some of the worst CGI I’ve seen recently, making me wonder why they didn’t at least try to incorporate real elements, such as Marvel, but this is still the best DC film after man of steel and I’m excited to see more female led and directed films come to screen.

JUSTICE LEAUGE 2016 5/10

This will be the shortest of the DC reviews, this is the film I’ve seen least of the lot and I feel I’ll need at least another viewing to get a full understanding. To premise this I fully understand Zack Snyder had personal issues leading him to leave and Joss take over, and this is in no way mocking him.

But I’ll dive in, maybe the fact I’m struggling to write this review tells me a lot about the movie. Wonder women was one of the only saving graces of this move, she was well understood and I feel her likeness as a character was well transferred from WW to JL. Contrary to this, I’m struggling to write about cyborg and flash, we were given next to no backstorys, although the flash’s was hinted at at least twice that I recall and what we were given were quite chaotic. Batman was a major letdown for me, coming down from BVS where he was a certified badass taking on superman, he turns into a wimp and hides for a majority of the film, quite evidently showing Ben affleck Clearly does not want to be there. I feel the overall plot of the film was almost underatsnvle, but had the taken the time to set up this storyline in previous films it would’ve been much better, this movie lacked the right to have all these characters on screen together. The characters had adequate screen time each, but contrary to its biggest rival ‘the avengers’ this really wasn’t that special, most of the characters had the same abilities, barring the flash, and the way the avengers films have shown all the characters working together simultaneously in cinematic mastery, you can see hints of Joss attempting this, but with a bad set up it’s an impossible task.

I conclude, not going into the issue with the CGi because I don’t have that much time.

[cococrazies]

Lovestruck Series Review: Starship Promise (Season 1)

Personal playing order: Orion - Jaxon - Antares - Nova - Atlas

Warning! Minor spoilers ahead for Antares’s/Nova’s/Atlas’s routes, as well as CGs under the cut.

Orion: I’m torn on this one. I really enjoyed the story -- a lot more than I thought I would, given my lack of enthusiasm for the series concept -- and Orion himself. (If anyone ever wanted Shang from Mulan but in outer space, this is it.) The writing also had a very natural cadence and flow; it pulled me in easily, never getting too heavy-handed with sudden plot twists and cliffhangers... except for one instance, but more on that below.

And the MC! She was a pleasant surprise. I hadn’t been too impressed by her in the first-ep sneak peeks we get in each route, but she’s really cute -- she can be a bit of a space cadet at times (sorry, bad pun intended), but she isn’t dumb. Furthermore, she really develops over the course of the route, which is impressive given everything else stuffed into these mere 12 episodes.

So now to the things I didn’t like about this route: for one, the romantic development. It seemed really sudden and almost shoehorned-in as a result of the route length, which was jarring given how well-paced everything else had been up to that point. 

Also, the Antares plot twist; it felt cliché and gimmicky, especially since I could see it coming from a mile away. I think I would’ve preferred for it to be a Season 2 reveal, or at least presented to us right from the start -- as it was, it just seemed like it was there for the “shock factor” + to forcibly give us a reason to care about the antagonist if we didn’t already. But since this was a pilot season, I guess I can understand how they wanted to tease at an intriguing backstory as early as possible to get players invested.

Overall, they still did succeed with the latter, because now I’m pretty curious about where they’re going with this. And also because I need more Orion/MC in my life; rushed or not, those two are simply way too cute.

Jaxon: Whoa, this story was jam-packed with action scenes and chemistry between the OTP. The pace is hella fast, but you never get the sense that we’re skipping past important details; the writing makes the most of every episode it has got. Not a single scene is wasted or filler-like.

Jaxon himself is a bit of a harder sell. His gargantuan ego, jokester personality, and YOLO take on everything make him one of those characters that you either love or hate -- although for me, he fell somewhere near the middle of the spectrum. I like his concept and find him a refreshing addition to Lovestruck’s character lineup, but he’s not really my type as far as romance goes; and sometimes he toes the line for being near annoying.

(The fact that I constantly seemed to make the wrong choices -- at least judging by the sheer amount of weird looks or lukewarm responses he gave me after 90% of my choices -- didn’t help. Heads-up: don’t try to play it cool. This MC really, really can’t do cool. I had several near-death experiences from sheer secondhand embarrassment while playing this route.)

That aside, he makes a surprisingly good team with MC. Except from some cringey non-heart options (which were brutal this route, by the way), they naturally eased into working as a combo. I like how they both are able to pull each other out of their respective emotional ruts, as well as complement the other’s shortcomings. Jaxon’s character turnaround near the end felt a little sudden, but I like the teased insight on his past, and am looking forward to learn more about it.

Antares: Oh, MC. Trust me, I of all people totally understand crushing on the hot, mysterious, and possibly noble anti-hero holding you captive for unknown reasons, but even so. Being constantly unable to focus on anything but your attration to him -- and using it as a basis for your foundation to trust him almost straight away despite how he works for the Big Bad, and is literally using you as a tool(-fixer) for whatever evil purposes the Empire has in mind for the galaxy -- is like a whole new level of uncool.

(Also, how is a sheltered colony girl’s reaction to seeing a military leader telling his troops not to leave a single ship standing “swoon, he’s so charismatic” instead of “holy shit, he kills people”? Priorities, MC.)

Beyond that, Antares’s route was very intriguing to me. Out of Lovestruck’s villain routes so far this is the one that has done the least to paint the love interest as less of an antagonist, or the side he sympathizes with as more morally grey. I also appreciated seeing another side of Antares himself that actually knows the definition of the word chill  isn’t perpetually dressed in bunny-ear mecha armor  that’s not completely absorbed by his thirst for vengeance against his brother.

Similar to Orion’s route, the romantic development also dropped on us out of the blue here... but strangely, I didn’t mind. In a way, it seemed to make sense for Antares’s emotionally dysfunctional personality (to the point that it gave me Chance S1 in GiL flashbacks). I think I almost preferred this to him doing a sudden 180 and going all mushy on MC when any potential romantic build-up outside of premium choices has been minimal. I’m holding my thumbs now for a gradual turnaround -- much like Chance got -- in his future seasons.

Nova: I keep going back and forth re: how I feel about this route. To again start with the positive -- I’d been worried that Nova would be a Space Medusa 2.0, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that she wasn’t. For all the kuu in her kuudere demeanor, Nova still spends a fair amount of the route bonding with MC through actual conversation, and unlike Orion’s/Antares’s routes this season the romance didn’t even seem that rushed. Furthermore, I was intrigued by Nova’s backstory (not to mention that she’s hot as hell).

But to be entirely honest, this story is also the most formulaic, “typical otome”-esque route I’ve read so far in Lovestruck -- not so much in concept as in execution. It reminds me of one of those Voltage JP fantasy routes where we spend the first 1/3 of the route with semi-slice-of-life scenes interspersed with action, the middle 1/3 of this route discovering the LI’s angsty past and them distancing themselves to protect MC, and the final 1/3 with MC dissolving into hysterics/apocalyptic depression, stupidly running after LI alone, and declaring their undying love for them after having known them for a couple of days in the middle of a life-or-death situation.

Since I do play Voltage JP games I’m not saying it’s necessarily a terrible thing, just... jarring. I might seem like I’m awfully hard on Lovestruck’s writing a lot of the time, but that’s because I have high expectations of it. In a sea of near-identical mobile otome clones Lovestruck stands out with a more Westernized and creative take on standard otome tropes, hence often avoiding common pitfalls associated with the genre. The writing in general is a cut above what I expect from mobile games as well, hence all my criticisms; I don’t balk (as much) at LIs doing sudden 180s or MCs being stupid in a Solmare game, but I do with Lovestruck because I know -- and have seen firsthand -- that they can do better.

So this route was confusing to me. Because, if I were to go for my usual standard from what I would expect run-of-the-mill Voltage JP route, for example, or a Shall We Date? one -- then I’d think it’s fine. Or even good. But for Lovestruck? I don’t know. I wouldn’t say it’s bad, just not... good. (The GiL-esque Pokémon-battle narration for action scenes -- yes, this is my official pet peeve now -- didn’t help.)

With all that said though, I didn’t dislike Nova’s route. (Hence the confusion.) And definitely not Nova herself. I just don’t really know how I feel about its writing direction, and how it measures against my expectations of a Lovestruck route.

Atlas: I fell head over heels for this route. Seriously, this was Astraeus-in-season-3-of-AFK level instant love, except without the devastating angst and with a decent helping of fluffy feels on top. Not that it was all fluff -- we had our share of prospective angst here too, if less literally earth-shattering. And hell of a lot of action, character development, and tons of other goodies tightly stuffed in a 12-episode-package of awesome.

Similar to my review for Astraeus, I don’t even know where to begin talking about this route’s good points. The prose, for one -- there were just so many beautifully worded narrative transitions, and the dialogue didn’t lose out in that aspect, either. The sass, sarcasm, and the humor were well-timed, but didn’t go overboard/seem out of character for MC or the rest of the cast.

Then there’s Atlas himself. Breaking down tsunderes is one of my favorite otome pastimes, and doing exactly that to our resident grouchy pilot was no different. First of all, I love that he maintains a healthy balance between insults that are obviously all bark and no bite, and genuinely worded criticism that should logically be voiced. In fact, there’s so little unnecessary tsun here that he could almost pass for a kuudere. 

Regardless of whatever mold he’d better fit into, finally crumbling down that cranky demeanor of his and seeing him dere was a sweet, sweet reward. (I actually caved and went premium twice despite my agonizing wallet because I couldn’t resist seeing more of it.)

Or heck, even the platonic moments building up to that were great. Because the romance with Atlas was really well-paced; I love how we went from almost-hate (my favorite trope!) to begrudging respect, then to friendly equals/teammates, and finally something more -- all the while there was obvious chemistry between him and MC interlacing every interaction. I was kind of worried whether we’d get some last-minute romantic confession slapped on near the end, but thankfully we got a development that, for all its unrealistic corniness, still had me squealing. Especially with that cliffhanger; dammit, how am I even supposed to emotionally last until I get to his second season?

The main plot was really interesting, too -- probably my favorite premise out of the ones we’ve been offered so far. Even though it starts out similarly with MC on the run, I like how 1) we see the Union as evil right from the bat, avoiding having another MC-gets-out-of-her-naïve-colony-girl-mindset mini-arc; 2) rather than being perpetrated for some valuable information/artifact that the Starship crew might benefit from, MC is in a situation where they actually have no reason to keep her around, adding more tension to the intro; and 3) how all of this tied into Atlas’s own personal character arc. (Not that I minded how the other premises played out, it just made for a fresh change of pace.)

To wrap this gigantic word-vomit ramble up, I’d just like to conclude by gushing one last time how fantastic this route is -- I’d warmly recommend it to anyone interested in giving Starship a chance, because after this, the series personally had me hook, line, and sinker.

Final character ranking: Atlas > Orion > Jaxon > Antares > Nova

....This got a little longer than I intended it to be, oops. Kudos to anyone who has made it to the end of this season review. (I’ll try to be a little more concise in my next one, i.e. GiL S7.)  You can follow my tag #coco reviews lovestruck for more reviews of Lovestruck games, or check out the ones I’ve done so far on this list.

[lilacnestor-blog]

The Difficult Concept of Caring

Ship: antiaverage (anti and chase) 

(platonic? romantic? you decide cause i sure can’t)

TW: talk about suicide attempts, mentions of depression, talk about abusive relationships, talk about panic attacks/mental breakdowns, self-hate

Words: 2488

Anti and Chase talk about Yanderiplier’s obsession with Anti, and things get heated. People get angry, backstories are talked about, and demons have issues.

Anti knew about Yanderiplier’s unhealthy obsession with him. Whenever he and the rest of the Septic Egos would have meetings with the Egoipliers, he could feel Yan’s eyes on him, boring into his skin. He tried to avoid making eye contact with her, but he was always uncomfortable at those meetings, especially because she’d always try to corner him afterwards. She was in love with him, she told him, and he was in love with her, she claimed. He just “needed time to see that.” She creeped him the fuck out, and he’d never admit it, but she scared him more than Darkiplier. Dark was an evil, ruthless megalomaniac, who was prone to fits of rage when things didn’t go his way. But Yan was insane. She knew she was insane, and she embraced it. She was unpredictable, and her rage could rival that of Dark’s. There was nothing you could do to keep her stable, you had to walk on eggshells around her, because the smallest thing could set her off.

When the Septic Egos came back from the latest meeting, Anti was equal parts exhausted and enraged. “I can’t keep dealing with her bullshit. I mean, I don’t want to set her off, I don’t need any new scars, but I can’t keep doing this.”

He collapsed on the couch in the home that the seven egos shared, and Chase sat down beside him as the other egos dispersed to their rooms, this being a common occurrence for Anti. “Hey, it’s going to be alright. At least the next meeting isn’t for a month and you don’t have to see her until then. I know what it’s like to have toxic people in your life, and even if you want to, it can be hard to cut them out. Believe me, I don’t like her either. The way she looks at you, it’s like she wants to kill you, but then she spouts her love confessions? You don’t do that if you really love someone. Even if they don’t love you back, you should never try to make them feel uncomfortable, especially that’s your way of trying to make them love you. I almost feel bad for her, because she truly doesn’t know how to love someone healthily. And something tells me that no matter how many people try to teach her what love should be, she’ll never learn. It’s just her personality.”

“Yeah, that was real comforting, now I feel bad for the little shit.”

“Sorry, I’m not good at comforting people. It’s usually you comforting me, because I’m usually the one who breaks down in the middle of a conversation for no good reason.”

“Stop putting yourself down. You have a perfectly good reason for your breakdowns. One, you work yourself too damn hard on your tv show, and two, you have depression, which we’re trying to treat. It’s perfectly normal for it to get to be too much for you every now and then.”

“Shut up, this is supposed to be about you, not me.”

“Well I’m sorry that I like talking about you.”

“Look, let’s just get back to the whole situation with you and Yan, okay? I think the reason this keeps going on is that because you aren’t denying her “love confessions”, she thinks it’s okay to keep trying.”

“I’m not denying the fucking things because I don’t want to set her off! I’ve already got a scar on my neck, I don’t need any more from her. I’ve seen her with that fucking katana. I don’t like saying this, but she scares the hell out of me. I don’t want her to go crazy and hurt me, or any of you guys. Especially you. I see the way she fucking glares at you whenever you go to speak in front of everyone at meetings. Maybe it’s because I’m closer to you than I am to the others, maybe she just doesn’t like you, but if she got herself into a rage, I could see her going off on you. She could seriously hurt you.”

“Anti, I can take care of myself-“

“I don’t care if you can or can’t. As an ego, she’s more powerful than you are. She’s a horror ego like me and Dark are, you’re a comedy ego, like Bim Trimmer or King of the Squirrels. Yes, you have a little horror in you, but that’s just because you needed to fuck with your audience a little bit. She’s insane, unstable, and carries a weapon on her pretty much 24/7. You’re relatively sane, emotional, and the closest thing you have to a weapon is a nerf gun.”

“Yeah, but that’s only because *someone* won’t let me have guns in the house anymore.”

“Don’t try to joke with me about that. I was scared. You almost died that day, okay? And we still don’t know if you’re a regenerative ego like I am. We don’t know if you can die for good, so I took precautions so that we wouldn’t fucking find out.”

“I’m sorry I was just trying make light of the situation. I know you’re worried about me and all that, but if I’m the one who almost died, then I’m the one who can make whatever jokes I want about the situation. Or do you want me to be so sheltered that I cry every time suicide is mentioned?”

“What the fuck has gotten into you?”

“Maybe I just don’t like the fact that you’re always calling me weak. Always thinking I need to be protected. You’re almost as bad as the fandom. I’m not some stupid fucking cinnamon roll, Anti. I’m an adult. I went through hell and back before you met me, and I’ve survived this long. I don’t need your help.”

“You don’t need MY help? I’m sorry, but who was the person who helped you through becoming an ego when you first got here? Who learned how to deal with your mental breakdowns and your panic attacks and help you through them? Who built your confidence up enough to face your abusive ex-wife in court? Who helped you through months of hearings and lies and breakdowns? Who was there at your bedside for hours after you attempted suicide and Schneep was trying to bring you back? Who got you on medication for your depression? Face it, Chase, if it wasn’t for me, you’d be dead, alone, or both.”

He knew he shouldn’t have said that. Oh god, what had he done. He had always been a person of violent words, that was what he was created for. But he thought he was getting better. He just got carried away, he was so frustrated that Chase lashed out at him, when really it was his fault for telling him not to joke about the damn thing. What he should’ve said was that he didn’t think Chase was weak, or needed to be protected. He just cared about him, but didn’t want to say it. Because things didn’t go well if it was a demon who cared about you. And Anti really was a demon; he’d just proved it with his biting words. And now Chase was crying, with that hurt look in his eyes that told him that he’d fucked up badly. Because if Chase was so hurt that he didn’t even have it in him to be angry, then he’d crossed a line that he didn’t want to.

“I see how you feel about me then. I’m just dependent on you, like, like a fucking parasite. You’re right that I’d be dead or alone without you, but maybe I’d be better off that way. If you don’t want me to need you, then I don’t want to need you. Maybe I should just leave. I’ll be forgotten by the community eventually if I’m not used for videos, and I can’t be used for videos if I’m not here. You’ll be better off without me hanging off you all the time.” Chase said the words chokingly, between sobs, with eyes that were dull with hurt, almost even betrayal.

And Antisepticeye, feared demon, horror ego, the most powerful of the Septic Egos, who didn’t feel pain or death, started to cry. He’d only cried one other time, and no one had seen it. He’d cried after he heard that Chase was dying, that he’d put a bullet through his head after the final verdict had made him pay copious amounts of money to his emotionally abusive ex-wife in child support, and had lost all visitation rights to his children because she’d said that he’d been making everything up about the abuse, and was a compulsive liar who couldn’t be trusted with children. Except Anti hadn’t known that until after Chase was in the hospital; it was the one hearing he hadn’t gone to because Dark and Wil had pulled him into a meeting for just the three of them. He’d told Chase that he’d ditch them to come, but Chase had insisted that he’d be okay, that it looked like everything was coming out fine. But everything was not fine, and Anti had cried that day, thinking that the last words he would ever hear Chase say would be, “Everything’s going to be okay, go to your big shot meeting. I’ll be fine with this one.” Schneep had seen him with puffy eyes when he walked into the hospital room after he’d finished operating, but didn’t say anything, because Anti looked like he would’ve slit the doctor’s throat. When Chase woke up, it had been one of the few true good things that had ever happened in Anti’s life. And he was so grateful that fate, luck, or whatever higher power had let him have Chase back.

And now here he was, months later, saying things that had killed the spirit inside Chase’s eyes, knowing so fundamentally that he’d fucked up, that he would do anything to make the situation better, being faced head on with the fact that he cared so much about Chase, that he couldn’t handle it. He started to cry, and he cried inky black tears that showed the world that he was inhuman, a demon to be feared, even at his weakest moments.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry that the word doesn’t even make sense anymore. You are not a parasite, you don’t cling to me, and you are not defined by what I’ve done. You were so brave through everything you went through, and I was just on the sidelines. I twisted it so that it seemed like you were defined by me, that you were nothing without me, but you aren’t. You’re everything, with or without me. I’m just scared, and that doesn’t excuse a single fucking thing I said. I’m just a scared little demon who can’t stand up to some bitch with an obsession with me because I’m too afraid someone’s going to get hurt. I never wanted to treat you like you’re weak, or needed protecting. I just cared about you and didn’t know how to show it, so I became overprotective of you. I was manipulative and horrible and convinced you that you needed protecting, and when you realized you didn’t, that you were your own person, I lashed out at you and tried to break you.

I really am just as bad as Yan. You would be better off without me. I speak without thinking and then hold my regrets in because I don’t want to say I was wrong but I am saying it, everything about how I treat you is wrong. I’ve got so many issues with myself and how I treat others, and even when I’m trying to play nice it all leaks out. You don’t deserve to have to be around me, when all I do is tear you down and make you cry and break your spirit. If it’s anyone who should be leaving, it’s me, but I can’t, because I’m rooted to this fucking place, to the channel, to Jack, and to being an ego. I can’t exist in the real world because I’m not human, but I shouldn’t exist here, because I shouldn’t exist at all. I’m a heartless demon whose only purpose is to be violent and over the top, I should’ve known that trying to get close to people would only hurt them, but fuck, I care about you, and even though I shouldn’t, even though it’s not good for you, and that I’ll just end up hurting you again and again, I can’t seem to stop caring.”

Anti closed his eyes as black tears still leaked our of them. He put his head down on the couch and just sobbed because he’d never known a pain like this. He’d felt pain the day that Chase had almost died, but that was different. That was loss. This was heartbreak and self loathing and the scared feeling of pouring your heart out to someone, hoping they’ll accept your apology and that they won’t just leave. But then he felt a soft, warm feeling, a slight pressure on his right hand, which rested on the couch cushion. He opened his eyes and saw that Chase was still crying, but he was smiling too, and he had his hand on top of Anti’s. He looked at Chase in confusion, unsure of what this meant.

“Anti. You are manipulative and violent sometimes, but it’s in your nature. It’s how you were created to be. But every time you realize what you’re doing is hurting someone, you stop. You apologize to them, and you try to make the situation and your behavior better. You don’t know how to express your emotions safely, without manipulating or hurting someone, but you’re trying to learn. It’s not that you want to be a bad person, it’s just your preset. The fact that you are trying, truly trying to be good, tells me you deserve to be here. Yes you’re manipulative and violent, but you’re also caring and supportive. You’ve helped me through so much. You’ve always been at my side every step of the way, making sure I’m doing alright. And I care about you so much. You have your issues, but you’re fixing them. Me, I’m just selfish and weak. I don’t know why you’d ever care about someone like me.”

“You’re not selfish or weak. You’re the bravest person I know. You’ve gone through everything that life has thrown at you and you haven’t complained. You’ve been all smiles even on your worst days. Even when it’s been unhealthy and I’ve had to pry the mask or happiness off your face to help you through things, you just want to make other people happy. You’re not selfish or weak, you’re brave and loving. And that is why I care about you.”

[alo-piss-trancy]

Are there any sdr2 characters that you don’t like or just aren’t very interested in?

BIG SPOILER WARNING FOR SDR2 BELOW! DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED THE GAME!

It's actually neat getting this question because I can see where some characters I used to dislike/find annoying in the beginning have worked their way up. For example, I initially despised Te/ruTeru, but after his backstory reveal I ended up feeling some sympathy for him and realized despite some traits, he wasn't entirely a bad guy (and I'm assuming his social link will endear him to me a little once I get around to it in island mode).

In fact, I can only really think of two I actively dislike/hate now: Nag/ito and Hiy/oko.

Real quick: Obviously these are all solely my opinions! I have no problem with my followers viewing characters differently, so even if you're the biggest fan of these chars I hope y'all know you're always welcome on my blog! 💛 Feel free to ramble in my inbox about them or chatter about omo, I genuinely enjoy discussing things or seeing different hcs even if I don't share them and I love seeing people be passionate about whatever makes them happy! Heck, sometimes fan ideas even end up changing my mind or at least make fun aus!

Now back to the question:

Hiy/oko's behavior in many instances was just appalling, and the way she cared about Mah/iru, while sad/sweet, still couldn't make up for all of her other bullshit. I can't stand little snots and I don't like 'loli' characters, so she's basically a 2-for-1 special on tropes I find irritating. Also high pitched voices are grating on my ears. After finishing the game I still stand by my original sentiment: Good Riddance Bitch. She will not be missed. As a note, I haven't done her FTEs yet so maybe it'll change, but I think it's pretty unlikely.

Na/gito is just. Idk where to start with him tbh. He definitely serves his role in the plot well, has great interactions with the rest of the cast, and really made me feel like I was struggling and he was so smugly one step ahead. I appreciate him as part of the story and it wouldn't be the same without him (Some of the memes about him are also really funny lmao). That being said, as far as his character and my personal tastes go, I fucking hate him lmao. Not 'villain I love to hate'. I just can't stand him and am lowkey annoyed at how popular/'woobified' he is in some parts of the fandom. My feelings on him are pretty similar to Ak/echi from p/5, except at least Ake/chi was understandable, whereas every time Nag/ito goes on a long spiel I'm just braindead and confused lmao. That or annoyed because he repeats himself like 30 times. I really thought doing his FTE's would endear him to me a little but it actually just made me dislike him more. He's just... he goes 120% ALL THE TIME and he's all over the place, it was overwhelming and gave me whiplash. Also while I do feel bad for him and the clear issues he had, the CONSTANT 'I'm worthless trash please kill me haha I don't deserve your kindness' talk really got on my nerves. Maybe it wouldn't have bothered me so much if I played the game back in the year it came out? But in this day and age all it reminded me of was certain 'Crabs in a Bucket' people I've known or witnessed who formed their entire identity around self-hatred and desperately tried to drag others down with them. (Note: I'm not talking about the general struggles with depression, etc. here. But I don't want to go into a lecture on exactly what I mean so I'll just leave it at that.) Nag/ito's not entirely the same thing and I get that, but it just rubbed me the wrong way because of that association.

Overall I just find him obnoxious and tend to avoid stuff that focuses on him. I might try writing a short omo thing about him being tied up because, like, how could I not? But besides that don't expect much from me. All of that said, I don't mind other people talking about him and y'all are free to send me asks with your own opinions or hcs, I might give my own occasionally. And I do like seeing art sometimes.

Also though, I ship him hard with Ju/nko (and in a poly with her and Mik/an). I'm also interested in him x Chi/aki since they're yin/yang parallels and have some similarities in design and the art of them together is neat. Not sure how much I ship them as far as actual canon or writing goes, but aesthetically it's pretty neat.

I think it's also worth mentioning that Ka/zuichi So/da toes a real weird line for me. Not in the sense that I actually hate him (his design is neat and he can be likeable at times), but that I hate what the game did with him. Which was not doing ANYTHING with him. His character had a lot of potential to be interesting, but they never let him break past the two running gags: Being confused about EVERYTHING, and obsessing over So/nia (to the point about making multiple sex jokes/getting flustered over her during the middle of the most serious trial in the game (Na/gito's death), which makes no sense even for him and completely ruined the mood). Every other survivor had important spotlight moments in the plot, developed their character as they went, and formed meaningful relationships with at least one other character to drive them forwards/give them angst. Kaz/uichi had none of that and I can't think of a single instance where he ACTUALLY had bearing on the plot, positively or negatively. He's basically the Fortune Teller Guy of this game: completely useless and ignored unless he needs to question something for exposition or drag the protag somewhere, scraping by only because he isn't hated or liked enough by anyone to get murdered and is too scared to kill. He didn't survive because he was genuinely fighting/had the ability to, but because everyone just forgot about him and left him alone.

A lot of his issues could have been fixed by just having a point in the game where he learns to treat So/nia as a person instead of being so obnoxious about following her around (he dislikes Ter/uTeru but then pretty much is just as annoying, only difference is he's a little less immoral and more just unable to take hints). Haj/ime even pointed this out in the last chapter with his thoughts of 'Dude just take a hint already'. If the game put them on more equal footing and he like, actually got to know her, it would've been way easier to believe he was fighting FOR So/nia in the same way all the others were fighting for someone they loved, and he might have actually done more throughout the game. He might have had some actual development and maturity, but instead he's pretty much the exact same person he was at the start of the game (I don't remember them even really touching on how he felt about the final chapter's Big Reveal). Because his obsession and cluelessness was one of his defining traits, they never let him do anything besides that. I spent most of the game convinced he was going to get a case in a trial or big moment eventually since they kept giving him so much screentime and let him make it so far, but there was just nothing. He's just a giant mass of wasted potential and for that reason I struggle to enjoy him without getting irritated.

Quick note to clarify: I'm not hating on him because of the ship with So/nia or because he 'gets in the way' of Gun/dham. I honestly don't mind that, the problem is just the lack of development I mentioned above. I could def enjoy the ship or a love triangle if they gave him smth. (And I realize part of that was the point, that G/undham 'gets the girl' bc he actually respected and talked to her, but still. The chapters after that point would have been the perfect time to let So/da have some viewpoint shifts and make efforts to change but they didn't).

Actually tbh even if they wanted to keep his obsession, I would've been fine with that, IF they had given him some other plot/character besides that. Like if he had some important tasks to do and was pretty good at them, but they also turned it into a flaw where he would prioritize helping/following her sometimes over what he was supposed to do and caused problems as a result, that could have been interesting. Creating tension within the surviving group or having her get mad at him over it, just SOMETHING.