#humans werent meant to have this big of a society because at the end of the day we are mammals

[sk3l3t0n444]

i wish i wasnt so scared of everything

[yellowbluemoonshine]

Author is preparing deku to him understanding Shigaraki & characters who are parallel with Shigaraki

did you notice shigaraki is a parallel with the characters who saved by deku or close to deku

like everything is for deku s understanding shigaraki better.

similarities between shigaraki and other characters

1-KOTA

kid who lost his family at young age and who hate society because of that

2- ERİ

Both have light blue hair (almost same hair) and red eyes.

Both have uncommon Quirks, and both accidentally used said Quirks to kill members of their own families.

Both are connected to villain organizations, Tomura as the current leader of the League of Villains and Eri as a Shie Hassaikai hostage.

they were both abused physically and psychologically 

3- BAKUGO KATSUKI

-they both can face the reality. baku cant face the fact that he isnt sthe strongest. shiggy cant face the fact that he killed his own family even if its just a accident. thats why they both have explosive personality

-baku got everything he wanted. also shiggy was raised like that too but difference is no one gave shiggy a love and its really horrible if you really think about it.

4-TODOROKİ SHOUTO

- shouto s mom poured boiling water into the face of his own son. maybe he didnt meant to do it. but still, it was the most painfull memory for shouto. this was what made him traumatized

look at shiggy s father s reaction. similar to shouto s mom s reaction. scared and insane. in that scene, there was an aeron. big posibility, he hit his son with that aeron. this case is also explains that shiggy s keep saying "sorry, father” and his wounds on his right eye and his lips. he is blaming himself, this is also what made him traumatized

shouto loved his mom but his hearth was broken when her mom did that. shgaraki loved hs father the most maybe but after his father s reaction...they both needed the person they loved the most but they werent there for them. “the ones we loved the most are the ones who hurts us the most”

-endeavour educated shouto with his own methods. shouto basically lived in a different world from others. he never had friends, he never socialzae with other kids, he never had proper relationship (until the fight with deku). this is why he is so sad at empathize with other people thats why he cant always understand normal situtions cause he is not used to it

shigaraki was also raised/educated like that but with worse version. he never lived as a human. he lived as an outsider from society. did you ever think why afo talked with him with computer without screen? the reason is to prevent him from establishing empathy. shigaraki never had friends and probably never had a relationship, never even had a proper conversaiton with other people. this is why he cant empathize with others.  and a lot of things.

5- AFO S BROTHER / FIRST WIELDER OF ONE FOR ALL

-they both were a prisoner of Afo. and their apperances are similar to each others. afo manipulated both of them. and interesting part, deku saw this in his dream. not just this, he also saw how afo manipulated people :)

6- DEKU

they had nothing but then their "savior" came when they lost their path. someone gave them a purpose to live. (well in this case, shigaraki s condition is definitely worse and full of manipulation though). season 1: shigaraki fight the heroes at the first time deku fight the villains at the first time after then, afo: shigaraki tomura, next time, show the world that they need to afraid of you! allmight: midoriya izuku, in spor festival, i want to tell the world "i am here!" season 2: deku lost in spor festival to todoroki. shigaraki lost stain in stain arc. also these panels: 

both of them, trying to find their path in season 3: 

they both lost their masters/fathers 

and now, their turn 

season 4: deku vs mirio shigaraki vs overhaul who is a better sucessor. and they proved theirselves 

deku is really heroic and such a good hearth but he is very unlucky, like he is cursed. shigaraki is a tragedy character. his life is cursed. they always have hard times in their own way. (i know you think shigaraki is evil but no, he is not.) these both characters have a lot of similarities but at the same time, they are opposite. like shigaraki is "save me", deku is "i will save you". or deku is really selfless but compared to deku, shigaraki is selfish. they both wants completely different things. but actually they have a lot of similiraties too. they both lost childs and trying to find what they want.

they are both gratefull characters. deku always gratefull even when people around him did nothing for him, he is still ok. shigaraki is abandoned child basically but even he is a criminal, he is really gratefull to afo and kurogiri cause he thinks they saved him. (well they did opposite though). in shigaraki s mind, life is something worthless, because of this feeling he cant care other people. but he is being gratefull when someone did something for him. also another similarity, they both deserves better. deku did a lot of good things he deserves every beatifull things in the world, shigaraki is just a so tragic, sad and pitifull character ....., he had too much pain, no one deserves to be in pain, especially this much, so after he pay his crimes, he deserves to be happy too. (also author said that he is like a fairy tail boy, it means shigaraki was really cheerfull kid like deku when he was a kid) blah blah blah. shigaraki is just a kid who lost his hope, deku is like symbole of hope. and blah blah blah. there are other similiraties too, but i am tired so...hopefuly you got me, they are same and different at the same time :) like soulmates.

-also we know deku will have a six quirks. and i believe nana s quirk was decay (cause shigaraki really similar to her and casue of these gloves thing) so in the future, deku wil have too. and again, he will understand shigaraki better than before. like its all for to deku s understanding shigaraki.

-well lets be honest. every character in bnha could be like shigaraki. also, thinnk about all parallels about him. think about how much victim he is. think about what is this story all about. think about deku s heroic soul.

we all know shigaraki would be completely different person if someone saved him just in time, he would be good person big posibility. also eventually deku would learn shigaraki s past or even he knows nothing, he will see shigaraki s pain. then what would deku say? “yeah he was a victim, but now he is criminal and hurting others. its too late” really would deku say “its too late to someone”? i mean really? we are talking about deku right now. come onnnnn. tragic victim always have tragic endings? i mean, we have a main character who can change the future!!!

maybe greatest villain means the most dangerous villain? he most dangerous villain is isnt the most evil, is the one who is in pain the most, i think. also it doesnt mean he wont pay his crimes. he will still pay it, also we have to stop him. and deku and others are learning to “save and win at the same time” then what would happen if the person that you must defeat and save is the same person?! simple. DEFEAT HIM AND SAVE HIM.

also if deku couldnt save shigaraki, would he say “this is the story how i became the greatest hero”? i dont think so. there is no way he could call himself even a “hero”, if he cant save shigaraki. so definitely he should save him cause this is all about.  dont believe its too late. NEVER TOO LATE TO SAVE SOMEONE. especially we have a victim like shigaraki, there is no way we can leave him like that cause if we ignore his pain, shigaraki will be abandoned by the world for the second time. so i think he should be saved. i think this is what it should be. of course it wont be easy, but it has to be like this otherwise, honestly i would be really disappointed, my opinion. shigaraki is a blowback of this society and you shouldnt kill/destroy blowback. yeah deku and shigaraki are parallel but you shouldnt kill or destroy your parallel. you should save him. yeah shigaraki will go so far but it woul be best if he could turn be a good person again and pay his crimes while living. it would be millions times better than killing him. cause killing him means all this sad scenes for was just making a drama. also stoppng him doesnt mean we have to kill him and deku wont do something like that. i would perefer shigaraki have redemption arc and have happy ending too even though he became a greatest villain. he deserves it and he has a great potential to be a good person. well its my opinion. i hope it can happen.

there might be somethings i forgot to mention and i didnt notice but for now, thats it sory for my bad eng :P hopefully you got meee

[tumblunni]

Okay, I’m gonna babble a bit about playing Oneshot now!! So umm, under a readmore if you dont like long posts. Sorry!

* Man, the setting is just so FASCINATING and MYSTERIOUSSSS! You’re sent to save this mysterious world, and its kinda this unique setup where you start the game with the thing you need to fix it, and you just need to go on this big journey to get it to where it needs to be. And its all fun and cool and surreal cos you’re literally carrying The Sun, which for some reason is a magic lightbulb?? This place is so strange and charming like that, there’s this mix of robots and magic and stuff thats just accepted as normal here. Like... humans MADE robots, but all this weird mechanical-biological combination stuff was always here and they react like ‘WTF’ if you mistake it for a robot. It kinda makes a lot of sense that they’d have such advanced robots even in the most rural areas when the laws of their reality seem to already work like machines in the first place. I mean, some humans just randomly have objects for heads?? That’s just... a thing?? Big metal heads?? ‘Of course I’m not a robot’. This is just like some sort of medical condition I guess?? i was surprised when I finally actually saw a robot with an object head in the very last area, lol. ‘WHOA BUT YOU LOOK LIKE A HUMAN’ xD

* And there’s the whole biological system and economy and etc revolving around blue/green/red phosphor, which is why losing the sun means the end of the world for these people BUT they’re able to survive for a while without it. This stuff just exists that absorbs sunlight and can store it like batteries, but its like a naturally occurring tree sap?? Big glowy cyberpunk tree sap, from trees with neato glowy patterns instead of leaves. And from ALL SORTS OF other biological sources, like being honey secreted by microscopic starlight shrimps, and their land equivelant the phosphor flies in the next area. Its like if solar panels were things you could mine up from fermenting goddamn apples! ITS SUCH A UNIQUE COOL IDEA!!!! And its got so much detail into this worldbuilding and it all looks so pretty and surreal to see these things scattered around the world providing the light and power for every town you find. Its like... there’s always a realistic reason why this person is here, there’s never a single gap in the constant decision to ALWAYS explain the phosphor source for every single room. And it just looks super pretty cos you have these glowy things stacked on bookshelves and in lil tanks and in lil jars and just ITS GREAT how you can even see the differences in each area’s version of the technology?? Like in the Barrens where everyone is robots, there’s very little light at all. All the phosphor sources are mined and installed into generators that in turn power all the robots. They dont need as many light sources cos they emit light themselves, and their vision probably doesnt even work the same way as humans. So its really subtle and sad that you only see a large number of the jar lightbulb thingies in areas that are said to be abandoned human settlements. Its so messed up to think that the robots are trapped by their programming to keep refilling useless lights in places they dont even occupy, wasting their limited power source even faster... And in the Glen because its a more rural area that provides all the farming for the more technologically advanced main city, you just see more ramshackle home remedies for phosphor. There’s robots and technology everywhere but they arent really used by the locals? its like all these facilities have been built on their land by the Refuge citizens, and all the robots are government workers who dont even talk to the citizens. And guards keeping people from going to the Refuge until they work up enough money to afford a visa, and then theyre kinda never allowed to return, it seems?? That would have been messed up even when the world was functioning correctly, but its super disturbing now that we’re all doomed and the Refuge is literally being advertised as the only safe place to live. Which just makes it sadder when you get there and its suffering just as many problems as everywhere else! But just seriously, if it actually WAS the only safe place and they’re sitting here sustaining themself on work from the Glen and the Barrens and keeping all these people out even though without them the place wouldnt frickin BE safe to begin with! GAHH MORAL QUESTIONS, I LOVE THIS WORLDBUILDING GAHHH. And its so nuanced because none of this stuff is ever outright stated, all the characters act like its a normal way for society to work, and Niko is so young they dont really understand it anyway. Its just this sort of thing you realize after a while and it makes it all even sadder. And especially because all the people in the Refuge are just ordinary citizens too, and theyre not even living in the luxury they were promised to begin with. There isnt even really any clear person who upholds the status quo, they dont seem to have any government? Its just like everyone is running on the laws and programming left behind by someone long gone, and they dont have the capacity to question it. And its falling apart because nobody even understood that person’s reasons for making things this way in the first place. Like how the Barrens was meant to be an operation to extract blue phosphor to deliver to the Refuge, but the degredation went faster than expected and all the humans had to withdraw back. So now its just a bunch of robots continuing this mining operation with no end goal, as they slowly break down. They’re just expending energy to mine more energy, which sits there waiting to be delivered to no-one, because their programming is all ‘humans first, robots have no free will’. They’ll keep doing this stuff thats supposed to benefit humans, rather than looking after themselves! And at least they have Silver the one robot who broke her programming and acts as sort of a mayor to the rest. But she’s chronically depressed and alone and even with her help they werent able to fix the generator until you came along, and even when you fix it you’re able to bring some robots back to life but others are just empty background scenery that’s too broken to move T_T And... like... it seems that robots literally cannot become ‘tamed’ unless they interact with humans? Nobody seems to be able to explain how you ‘tame’ a robot, but it seems they gradually learn to step outside their programming and form more of a personality through just... being loved enough. And seriously even if they say they’re unable to feel emotions, all the un-tamed ones still seem to express their own personality and its just like they’re stuck unable to disagree with a bunch of laws that keep it restrained. I FEEL SO SAD FOR THEM! I miss the prophetbot, they were my first friend in this world and i cant do anything for them except give them one nice conversation before i have to move on. They’re unable to move on! Their programming literally stops them from leaving that one tutorial spot, stops them from talking to anyone else except the destined hero. the other robots talk about how prophetbot struggles to try and talk to them when they visit them, but they have ‘great difficulty’, and just... goddd, how chipper and helpful they are to give you the tutorial... god i was the first friend they had in centuries... I hope they get some sort of epilogue maybe in the credits??? SORRY, WHERE WAS I? Oh yeah THE WORLDBUILDING IS REALLY GOOD And anyway, the Glen people live on raw phosphor in sort of local homeopathic equivelants. No phosphor generators outside of the areas that’re occupied by Refuge robots doing research and such. They just have cute lil jars filled with fireflies, and they use the light of un-harvested phosphor trees. Which makes it even more skeevy that the refuge is using them to harvest this stuff, seriously?? And its SO FUCKIN SAD to see that one farmer who has their farm surrounded by tiny pot lights and has faith that eventually something will sprout even though they dont have any sun. And its all so much more sympathetic because they’re cute spoopy shadow bird people! I’m really glad the game gave plenty of cute designs to the normal humans when we finally got to them, cos they’d be so much less interesting compared to all these bots and cool magic people. Hooray for unexplained object heads! And then when you get to the Refuge its constantly bathed in ominous red light! (or a more calming pink in the less spoopy areas) Cos like 80% of all the architecture is just big water generators, its like venice but with blood red glowyness! And apparantly even though they’re burning all this high energy red phosphor constantly, its still barely enough to keep the city running. And they’re trying to run these labs to research stuff in the other cities, and they’re trying to find a way to recall and repair the Barrens robots, and they have loads of machinery that’s sustaining the state of the whole world. So its not like theyre COMPLETELY abandoning everyone else, but still its so creepy and sad to hear some of the scientist npcs talking so casually about their cameras showing that so-and-so area is ‘degrading’ at a certain rate, and oh this particualr robot somewhere far away just died. God, I really hope you didnt mean that exact boat-rowing robot that I met in the first area, you bitches! T_T But anyway it was really interesting to find books with little artworks and bonus worldbuilding on how exactly the three types of phosphor work. The design for the phospor shrimp is SO ADORABLE!! They have little goopy bubbles surrounding a more fragile inner body, they look just like the sparkly pools you find them in! Btw thats the best part of the first area, its this cool eternal night in a desert which makes it look like the surface of the moon, with these small crater-like lakes thatre all that remain of the once vast sea. And the phosphor shrimps inside them glow like stars! I wish i’d taken more screenies when I was playing that part!! And there’s stuff about how red phosphor is the best at generating energy, but it has the shortest lifespan and needs to be constantly in motion to work, hence the canals of water swooshing these crystals around the city. ITS JUST SO FUCKIN FASCINATING AAAA

* and just GODDDDD the REALLY UNIQUE SITUATION of the GAAAAAME Its just this.. like... inevitable doom?? There’s no immediate threat that you can fight, no combat, no villain causing this tragedy. Its just a slow death by lack of resources, and one very tiny shred of hope that this legendary prophecy person might be able to save us all. You have to very personally see the suffering of all the people affected by this, because the premise is going on a pilgramidge to reach the place where you can save the world. you have to walk through every city and you have to trust in these people in order to move forward. You have to get fuckin sad about every single one of them! And its just... not even an ordinary destroyed world. Its this half destroyed world where people are trying to go on with their lives, people are all working together to fix what they can. Its just the inevitable knowledge that ultimately nobody can fix the underlying problem, all they can do is stubbornly cling onto what time we have left, instead of giving up. It reminds me a lot of when you get to walk through the destroyed Lindblum in FF9, and see everyone rebuilding and banding together even as they’re being occupied by these enemy soldiers and forced into obedience. At that moment it feels like it could have been the end, but everyone’s bravery motivates you to keep going, and it just becomes so heartwarming to see the place slowly getting rebuilt in the later stages of the game after the war ends. Its neat that it never fully gets back to how it was, but its something different, yknow? And you get little npc stories like the sweet grandma who was sewing her granddaughter a dress with the last of her savings, then got blinded in the attack on the city and could never see the kid get to wear it. And she’s always going to be disabled now, even after you save the world, but it hit me right in the heart to know i had the power to give back hope to that grandma and make her life just a little bit less painful. It was nice to see all the npcs become more positive again as the place was rebuilding. I wish you could have walked around the game again after you finish it, and see what everyone would be like in the epilogue, yknow? ANYWAY, Oneshot is a whole game that captures that unique sadness, in my opinion! though you dont get to see the cities before theyre destroyed, it can still be equally sad in a different way to come into this situation blind and see everyone dealing with horrible trauma as if its normal, with barely anyone remembering the old world... :(

* And I am SO ON EDGE about the possibility that i might not be able to save the world in the end! There’s a lot of more pessimistic npcs around the world who believe thats gonna be the ending. Maybe I can restore the sun but maybe it’s too late, and the world has been too damaged. I mean... I can’t reverse what’s happened to anyone. The first area reminds you of that very painfully with how some of the robots dont wake up when the generator is fixed. I dont know if the place is too broken for these people to pull it back from the brink, even if i restore light and warmth to it. But like.. even if thats true, I still want to do it! Even if all I can do is just make everyone happy again, and let them pass their final days in peace instead of being afraid right up to the very end. Even if all I’m doing is saving THESE people, saving the ones I met and grew attatched to, but knowing probably the world will still die at some point in the future. Or even if its gonna be faster than that, yknow?? I just want these people to not be sad when they die. if thats all i can do then i still wanna do it, its better than giving up. I dont agree with the one cynical person saying ‘its better to die quick than keep fighting’. :( But still i hope there’s a happy ending somewhere in the multiple endings stuff. :(

* oh and seriously WHAT IS UP WITH THE SQUARES Thats the biggest creepiest part of the whole ‘biological technology’ aesthetic here, the degredation of the world is personified as videogame glitch type effects. But the characters make it clear that this is actually happening in-universe! they dont even have words for pixels, they just know that stuff is all losing its durability without the sun, and falling apart into ‘squares’. Like... everything. EVERYTHING. Natural rock formations, just flaking apart in these unnatural square patterns. Trees and buildings and everything! Robots malfunctioning cos some part inside of them has become pixels, their entire mainframe has magically poofed into the rawest of raw materials as if it never existed. Like it would be bad enough if it was just gears poofing back into raw metal or something, but SQUARES?? Its like if everything suddenly turned into dust regardless of what it originally was. Its the same visceral creepyness as flesh turning to stone! And the pixels seem to be like.. semi-sentient somehow?? or at least mobile and capable of actively spreading outwards whenever they appear. There’s some places that’re just plain square-shaped holes in things, and then there’s some where there’s pixelized light projections spilling out from the broken thing and creeping like moss to envelop and destroy anything else that touches them. Thats why its so important to immediately shut down any ‘square anomoly’ whenever it appears, and like.. still, even if you stop it from spreading you cant fix whatever got square’d. You just have to toss away all these materials and keep mining more of them to replace everything. Everything just has this random chance of being permenantly destroyed out of nowhere, with no chance to predict it or prevent it. It probably makes it feel like ‘why even bother putting effort into anything’. Life is just constantly about replacing and maintaining what already exists, with no chance to progress beyond that. No wonder everyone loves the mysterious Author’s books, its not like there’s much time to create their own books, yknow? (tho i feel really sad for the one librarian who actually is writing their own books and nobody notices them because The Author has become the expert on everything now...) And like... they say that AS FAR AS ANYONE KNOWS, the square degredation has never affected a living person. Yet. But like.. its still happening to robots! They already get to experience a preview of the horror of seeing your own hands fall apart into pixels as you beg nobody to touch you or else they’ll die too. YOU GET TO SEE NPC ROBOTS GO THROUGH THIS. They just beg you not to stand close to them, as they die VERY SLOWLY, and there’s nothing you can do to help! At least it seems like robots can be saved if the squares are caught fast enough, if you remove and replace just the squared parts, before it spreads to the rest. But not every robot is lucky enough to be considered important enough to be repaired, and ones out further away from the Refuge have absolutely no chance... And.. like... everyone is just so casual about this?? It seems its been happening constantly throughout all of living memory! And everyone just acts like its common sense that this is caused by the sun dying, and it’ll stop when Niko brings the new sun to the tower. But I kinda... really dont know?? Is this gonna be the bittersweet part of the ending? This stuff keeps happening even though i can fix every other problem. I mean man it would make a lot of sense that this is what caused the sun to be destroyed in the first place, rather than being caused BY the sun being destroyed. But what caused this to happen??? GAHHHH MYSTERIES I hope at least some of them are answered by the end!

* And OKAY THE BIGGEST MYSTERY Who on earth is The Author? I’m starting to suspect maybe he’s the same person as The Entity?? There’s this mysterious voice you hear on computers that talks to you the player instead of Niko, and does all this random creepypasta nonsense like changing your desktop background and you have to look at that to solve a puzzle, blah. I really dont like that stuff, it just feels pointless and un-fun and like its supposed to be just a novelty that the programmer find a way to do this. And all this OOOO SCARY blablabla doesnt really gel with the more subtle scaryness of a world slowly dying. Plus generally the puzzles are the worst part of the game, no offense. Its always just wandering around a really big and akward place trying to pick up every item and use every item on everything and combine every item. Its like a point and click adventure with a more hard to control interface :P I’m totally here for the story and not the puzzles, i’ve never liked this ‘rpg horror standard’ kind of thing. But anyway I had to mention it cos ‘The Entity’ is kinda integrated with this gameplay mechanic. BUT YEAH ANYWAY Its a mysterious semi-antagonistic-semi-helpful voice that gives you tips for puzzles in a really passive aggressive scary way with interface madness. And even though its helping you it’s constantly being like YOU SUCK and THE WORLD IS DOOMED GIVE UP and EVENTUALLY YOU’LL BELIEVE ME. So i dont really know if this is some sort of final boss villain who caused the pixel infection, or if its some worn-down antihero type who wants to help but has lost faith in the world ever being saved...? I mean.. the only evidence I have for The Entity being the cause of the pixels is literally just ‘it communicates with you via computer, and they’re pixels’. But i dont even know if its literally a talking computer AI thing or its just a guy hacking computers to send you messages... And I’m starting to suspect that this mystery voice might be the same person everyone else knows as The Author? I mean.. you hear about him but apparantly nobody has ever seen him, and his books just constantly keep appearing in the library at a rate faster than you’d think anyone would be able to write. And he knows all this stuff about how the world used to be before the sun died, as if he was there...? And he can apparantly travel everywhere even though nobody else can travel across all these lost wastelands. And everyone thinks he must have a flying machine, but it could also make sense if he was some sort of mystery digital conciousness that can observe everything and manifest via any form of computer screen, yknow! Like.. maybe he is this world’s ACTUAL god?? And I’m just like the only replacement they can get, after he gave up. Which explains why I’m completely fallable and I know nothing about this world even though everyone tells me I’m their god. Me as a characetr is just... me as a person. I’m not even really me in the role of their god, I’m just a player who’s made contact with this other world and has been mistaken for god because god is gone. And I have to do the best I possibly can, to fix the things even god couldnt fix... And its just very mysterious cos some of the books you can read say stuff that outright contradicts the world?? Like, The Author wrote about knowing the head librarian George, even though she says she’s never met him and his manuscripts just appear on her desk very morning. And this part of the book also says how she ‘believed fate was like rolling dice’, whereas the george you meet literally IS a dice-headed human. You’d think it would be weird to even write that down as if it was something out of the ordinary? So like.. maybe this George is some sort of reincarnation or replacement for another one who died??? Maybe all the object head people are actually hyper advanced robots and just dont know it. Like.. Silver looks completely human aside from her glowy armoured body and metallic skintone. And robots are apparantly completely able to become sentient just like humans after being ‘tamed’. As far as everyone knows Silver is the most advanced robot that exists, but maybe like... the object-headed people are her prototypes, and the regular human-looking people are actually all finished robots?? And like.. the world has already died and we’re just left with robots that they tried to make to replace themselves, or to hold their souls or something, and now even they are beginning to fall apart, starting with the least advanced robots. So the pixelization is maybe just like the robots’s glitchy perception of what’s happening when stuff breaks down, or something? Though that’d be sad cos it’d mean even Niko is just a robot designed to be the messiah, and their memories of having a family in another world are all faked to give them a motivation to wanna finish the quest... But whatever, this is just a wild random theory lol. I’m pretty sure the actual ending will be something completely different that makes me laugh at this post in retrospect!

[trendingnewsb]

Justin Timberlakes Super Bowl Halftime Show Was a Total Disaster

For someone so recently tone-deaf, its remarkable that Justin Timberlake managed to get out a note at all during his Super Bowl halftime show.

Then again, the sound design was so poorTimberlakes vocals were only decipherable when no instruments were playingeven that meager commendation is arguable. Whats inarguable is that after a string of jaw-dropping extravaganzas from the likes of Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, and Beyonc, Justin Timberlake delivered the worst halftime show of the traditions recent pop-star era. May the ghost of Prince haunt him forever.

Its one thing when a cynical media is preemptively eager to drag a performance. From the unjust optics of Timberlakes redemption for his part in the Janet Jackson nip-slip fiasco to the rumors that hed be using a hologram of The Purple One against his familys wishes, the lead-up to Sunday nights show was mired in controversy. But its another when the abysmal end product merits the inevitable snark.

Listless, muted, lacking any cohesion and spectacle, it was the Big Games biggest fumble.

These past weeks have served us an unwelcome Justin Timberlake reinvention as a Man of the Woods, with all the conviction of a thirty-something man who grows some stubble and starts telling everyone hes really into IPAs now, as if thats a personality trait. Sundays show thankfully spared us any more of that, opting instead for a stroll through memory lane soundtracked by his hit-laden back catalog. But it was also a reminder of how easily memories can be tainted.

Timberlakes set opened with a performance from what looked like Minnesotas least fun karaoke bar, warbling through his unremarkable new single Filthy with the finesse and enthusiasm of someone forced to get up and sing by their annoyingly drunk friends. Starting underground in the arenas hallway was an odd choice for kicking off pop cultures biggest concert, starting with a whimper in cramped quarters rather than a bang from the greatest stage.

The whole thing was extremely claustrophobican awkwardness that lingered throughout the entire set, as Timberlake moved from one tiny, overly crowded stage to another, and finally into the stands where he was swarmed by fans desperate to film him on their iPhones.

Though its one of his more popular hits, were honestly surprised that he followed Filthy with a few minutes of Rock Your Body, the song he performed with Janet Jackson during the infamous 2004 incident. Youd think Timberlake would want to avoid any reminder of the scandal, especially considering how angry so many people still are over the way he handled it.

As Ira Madison recalled in The Daily Beast, while it was Timberlake who literally exposed Jacksons breast, he swiftly passed the blame onto her. She was blacklisted from TV and her music banned on radio stations, a cloud that hung over her career for most of the next decade while Timberlakes fame skyrocketed, landing him right back on the Super Bowl stage.

Its unclear whether an invitation was extended to Jackson to join Timberlake at Sunday nights show, but after so much speculation she did clarify that she would not be appearing. In response, fans had #JanetJacksonAppreciationDay trending on Twitter, paying respect to the pop star over the white male who disrespected her.

All of this is to say were shocked by the, well, rudeness of Timberlake choosing to sing Rock Your Body again on Sunday night. Its just as well, though, to remind us of how ludicrous we are as a society and selectively unforgiving and hypocritical we can be. We buried Janet for the nipple, but will we forgive Justin for the hate crime that was that Prince duet?

Word leaked earlier in the weekend that Timberlake was planning to pay respect to Minneapoliss greatest pop star by performing with a hologram version of him, a report that was eventually debunkedand at least the third time I can remember that a planned hologram performance was scrapped after public outcry over how tasteless and grim the entire idea is.

Still, the constant pop-culture threat of these things is exhausting. Who are the people who desire these holograms? They are macabre and appropriating and disrespectful and, even excusing all that, cheesy as hell. Its a baffling strategy if the idea is to amp up a live performance. What would make the thrill and the crackling energy of a live show where anything can happen even more electric? I know! A computer facsimile of a human.

Most of us presumed that no hologram meant no cringe-worthy Prince homage, but no, Timberlake dueted with a projection of The Purple One performing I Would Die 4 U. Princes family approved of the use of the projection. Social media certainly didnt.

That so much of the reaction to Timberlakes halftime show is in relation to its egregious connections to two other pop stars speaks volumes; despite the fact that the singer performed a hit-filled set of chart-toppers including Sexy Back, My Love, Cry Me a River, and Mirrors, there was no sense of grandeur that weve come to expect from the Super Bowl stage.

Timberlake has set his own bar as a phenomenal, electrifying live performer. Here, his dance moves werent as lithe and spritely as they once were, almost as if he was marking the choreographylike it wasnt rehearsed enough.

And, because it must be said, he was wearing what might have been the ugliest outfit Ive ever seen. Baggy camouflage cargo pants. A red bandana handkerchief around his neck. A button-up shirt with a still life of deer in a field screened on it. The assault on the very idea of fashion became a grenade to the eyes when he then donned a matching blazer for Suit and Tie, the debonair anthem and ode to suaveness, performed here in a camouflage suit.

Listen, we like Timberlakes hits. Hes a charismatic performer. When that song from Trolls comes on while were at Duane Reade, we smile and sing along and fondly remember that time we spilled wine on ourselves while dancing to it at our sisters wedding. But, momentarily absolving all his thinkpiece-fodder sins, the thing that ruined Timberlakes halftime show was a naked lack of ambition.

There was no political statement, sly as they might have been when Beyonc performed with only women on stage with her when she sang Formation, and then had a dance battle of the sexes against Bruno Mars (that she killed, obviously), or when Lady Gaga opened her show with a patriotic medley saying this is what America means to me, and then proceeded to put on a freak-flag-flying-fantasmic-supernatural-LGBT-empowering spectacular. (And in the first weeks of Trumps presidency, to boot.)

There was no feat of athleticism akin to the sense that Beyonc, Gaga, and Mars trained like a Super Bowl player for their shows, expending every ounce of energy they had in them in their explosive sets. There wasnt even a sense of superb musicianship, a la Prince or Springsteen, or any sort of regal ownership of the right to be on that stage, which Diana Ross, Paul McCartney, Madonna, and Michael Jackson had reigned supremely on before.

I mean, for Gods sake, at least give us a Left Shark. Then again, maybe his entire performance was Left Shark.

No costume changes. No stunts. No guests. (Not even NSYNC!) Just warbled noise. Once upon a time, Justin Timberlake brought sexy back. Now wed like a refund.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/justin-timberlakes-super-bowl-halftime-show-was-a-total-disaster

from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2Erynx2 via Viral News HQ