#i mean hes the antagonist so he will obviously be back but. its just so heavily zero in here rn and i hate it

[prodkeiji]

ep 9 is a lot to process uhm

[snekdood]

my comic goes by so much faster when i dont put any fun details in it huh

[kanansdume]

Andor is honestly one of the only pieces of more mainstream Star Wars media (so none of the little comics and very very few of the novels) I've seen since the Prequels that REALLY encapsulates the themes of non-attachment and everything that means in the way George Lucas truly intended. The only other thing I've seen that is its equal is the Obi-Wan Kenobi show.

And this makes me want to discuss Timm Karlo.

Yeah, Timm, the character everybody remembers most from Andor right?

That's what I thought.

This is Timm. He was Bix's boyfriend in the first three episodes of Andor. He seems to be pretty normal but he gets jealous when Cassian shows up because Cassian and Bix used to date and he can tell the two of them are cooking up some kind of secret together that he's not involved in. He decides to cover up his jealousy with fear for Bix's safety because Cassian is clearly in some kind of trouble and eventually ends up ratting Cassian out to PreMor security behind Bix's back. This results in PreMor invading Ferrix and getting Bix captured and beaten. Timm himself is murdered when he tries to help Bix.

All we ever get to see of Timm is that he's an insecure little asshole whose actions nearly get Cassian and Bix killed. He's an antagonist in this story.

But Bix loved him. He seems like a fairly average dude before this and presumably treats Bix fairly well outside of this particular incident. He's not a villain, he's just... a dude who lets fear of losing the woman he loves consume him to the point of making a REALLY stupid choice and it costs him everything. But that choice turns him INTO a villain for Cassian. Cassian will now always remember Timm as the man who betrayed him and wanted him dead. Cassian will always remember Timm by the selfishness of his final choice. That's the legacy Timm leaves behind in the end. Bix mourns him, but even Bix recognizes that Timm fucked up and nearly cost herself and Cassian their lives.

And if any of that sounds kind-of familiar, it's because it should. It's Anakin. Timm makes the Anakin choice. He wasn't a villain by default. He wasn't a villain his entire life. He was a normal dude who made one really awful choice out of fear and it ended up being the choice that defined him. He had the capacity for both good and bad in him and he chose to act on the bad and it was the last choice he ever made.

And this choice is what really screws up Ferrix, it calls down PreMor security on them which is what causes the massive screw-up when they try to capture Cassian and Luthen and that gains the attention of the ISB agent in charge of Ferrix as well as Dedra Meero who ultimately brings an entire battalion of stormtroopers and officers to occupy Ferrix. Ferrix gets far far worse as a result of Timm's one choice made out of insecurity in his relationship.

But it also ultimately leads to Ferrix realizing that enough is enough and they rise up and riot and throw the Empire out of their home. It helps push Maarva into joining a rebellion at the end of her life and making that recording that inspires the people to fight back. Maarva says that the Empire has been creeping in like a disease while they slept. And if Timm hadn't made the choice that took their situation from tolerable to intolerable, maybe Maarva and the people of Ferrix never would've bothered to fight back. If Cassian had been able to just silently slip out of town with no one being the wiser, Ferrix would've just kept going on as it had been.

None of this means Timm gets to claim credit for Ferrix and Maarva's own choices, obviously, but much like Anakin, the selfish choices he makes lead to unintended good things happening down the line, too. Anakin's selfishness leads to his relationship with Padme which ultimately creates Luke and Leia who, together, are the ones that manage to bring down the Empire for good. Anakin doesn't get any credit for how Luke and Leia turned out obviously, or the things they do that cause the Empire to fall, but they wouldn't have existed without Anakin's selfishness.

Timm's choice makes Ferrix worse, it calls down the Empire, but it also leads to the push that ultimately pushes Ferrix into rebellion.

Timm makes Anakin's choice. He's the villain of Cassian's story, but he is not WHOLLY a villain because Andor tells us that no one is ever JUST a villain or JUST a hero. People will always be people and that means they all have the capacity for both selfishness and selflessness within them. Timm loses himself to his fear for just long enough to destroy everything he cared about. Maarva chooses to stand up rather than run. Bix chooses to persevere in the face of impossible odds. Luthen gives up his morals to try to create a future for the rest of the galaxy. Mon Mothma sells her family for democracy. Cassian has to give up his dream of a normal happy life and settle for taking control of his own life.

And this is what makes Andor one of the best pieces of Star Wars media I've seen in a LONG time. It doesn't have any Jedi in it, it doesn't have any Mandalorian super soldiers, it doesn't have any Sith or Inquisitors or witches. It's just a group of people from different walks of life all having to figure out what matters most to them in the end. Some of them make the selfish choice and some of them rise above and make the selfless choice. It takes all of the themes that we've gotten from Star Wars via the Jedi and Sith conflicts and applies them to the little people, too. It's not JUST the Jedi and Sith who have to abide by those thematic narrative rules. Everybody else does, too, actually. Timm would never have become a Sith because of his choices, Dedra Meero and Syril Karn are never going to be Sith, but they can still become villains in someone else's story everything they claimed to care about can come crashing down as the result of one selfish choice.

THAT'S Star Wars. THAT'S what it's all about. THAT'S why Andor feels like Star Wars should to me without a single Force user showing up while something like the Ahsoka show feels like the opposite of a Star Wars story despite all of its fan service and nostalgia bait. Andor gets it. Andor took the time to understand the core of Star Wars even when telling a Star Wars story in a very different way.

[sarshles-cheescake-li]

A metaphysical argument for why Lu Guang was the one who risked his intestines falling out to go save his little meow meow

Needless to say, spoilers ahead!

Part 1: Introduction to the bootstrap paradox

There's a lot I could say about the supposed time loop that occurs in episodes 7-8-9 of season 2. Most of them -- the kettle, the lack of a speedboat, Lu Guang's characterization -- have been said better by other theorists. But I'm here to explain the bootstrap/predestination paradox.

The bootstrap paradox is when something is sent back in time, which creates an infinite loop, making the thing seems like it has no origin. The example I learned it with was with time machines. Say you open your door one day to find a book, written by yourself, containing information on how to build a time machine. You take, I dunno, let's say ten years building the thing. Then you use your new time machine to send the book back in time, to your ten-years-ago self, to seal the loop. Works great, right? You've closed the loop, and now you have a time machine.

There's only one problem. Where the hell did that book come from in the first place?

I mean, yes, obviously, it's from the future. But someone had to have written that book, right? But you, the supposed writer of the book, only got it because it got sent back in time by a version of you that already had the book. We assume there was no way you could've figured out how to build a time machine yourself. But that means that the knowledge about the time machine essentially just, popped out of nowhere. Poof! Just like that.

The information about Cheng Xiaoshi and Li Tianchen/Li Tianxi's location is like that. The only reason any of the characters know it is because of Lu Guang. But if their narration is to be believed, then "Lu Guang" only knew it because he was being possessed by Cheng Xiaoshi, who already learned the information in the future. So… how did anyone get that information in the first place?

I generally consider there to be two solutions to the bootstrap paradox. One is an obfuscated origin -- one where the information was obtainable even without the loop, but its origin is hidden by the loop's existence. Say if, without the loop, Li Tianchen releases Cheng Xiaoshi from his control once they're on the boat, and Cheng Xiaoshi figures out where he is. He manages to survive the encounter with the antagonists, and eventually makes it home. But, in the process, Qiao Ling dies. So now Cheng Xiaoshi both has information available to him about where he was during the boat scene, and also a reason to start the loop -- Qiao Ling is dead, and might not be dead if he didn't get taken in the first place. So he takes Lu Guang's photo, and starts the loop.

This particular version of the obfuscated origin theory is… probably not the case. Largely because we don't know how changing the timeline so drastically interacts with Cheng Xiaoshi's ability, specifically, what would happen if he were to clap back into a "present" that technically no longer exists. However, my personal theory -- that I'll discuss in another post -- does fall under the obfuscated origin solution, just slightly to the left.

The second solution to bootstrap is just an allowance for these types of paradoxes to exist. Each story handles it differently. In my model of time -- which I'm pretty sure Link Click doesn't follow, because why would it -- these types of loops are a close relative of magic, because of their self-defining nature. Now, I'm going to say that this is not the case in Link Click, based on what we've seen of Cheng Xiaoshi's power so far.

Part 2: Cheng Xiaoshi's power is weird, man

For the second solution to be valid, we should ideally have at least one of three proofs.

This is the most convincing proof -- if we have another example of an exclusive, stable time loop (exclusive as in the events involved in the loop would not have happened without the loop's presence, stable as in the loop doesn't contradict itself the way it does in, for example, the grandfather paradox). This would just plainly prove the fact that Cheng Xiaoshi can create the loop we see in episodes 7-8-9.

Cheng Xiaoshi's dives should be able to have causality effects up to and including his decision to dive, at the very least. Essentially, Cheng Xiaoshi needs to be able to create an effect on the world that shows up before the dive concludes. This demonstrates the flexibility of the timeline -- that it allows Cheng Xiaoshi to make changes to events that precede his dive, instead of only events that succeed it. While this isn't as strong as the first proof, it would show that, at the minimum, Cheng Xiaoshi is able "cause" his own dive.

In cases where Cheng Xiaoshi observes a person who he has/will dive into, he should be viewing the "dived" version and not the "original" version. This demonstrates that the timeline "knows" about Cheng Xiaoshi's dives before he performs them. This way, it makes sense if the "Lu Guang" Cheng Xiaoshi saw was a "dived" version, instead of original-Lu-Guang. This is our bottom line, because without this, then… Well, there's really nothing showing that Cheng Xiaoshi was even possessing Lu Guang during that first run of events that we saw.

Let's go through them one by one. The first proof is pretty much a no-go. There is only one dive in the entire series where this type of causality is even discussed, and that's during the dive into Li Tianxi (referred to as Xixi from now on. By the way, fun fact -- although the English sub appears to subtitle her nickname as "Xixi," it's actually pronounced "Xiaoxi" in Mandarin. I was confused about this for a while because Xixi and Xiaoxi would both be valid and common nicknames for her, in terms of convention, haha. If anyone ever wants to hear me talk about some hard-to-translate linguistic details in Link Click, let me know!). In this dive, Lu Guang tells Cheng Xiaoshi to pick up the photo, saying that if the photo disappears, then "the future that we live in will cease to exist." You could make an argument here that Cheng Xiaoshi's act of picking up the photo allows for the dive to happen, fulfilling proof 1. However, this proves stability -- that the dive does not contradict, or nullify itself -- but it doesn't prove exclusivity. That is, we have no way of knowing what would've happened to the photo if Cheng Xiaoshi hadn't dived. It's plausible that Xixi or Li Tianchen would've picked up the photo in the end anyway, regardless of Cheng Xiaoshi's influence. Thus, this is much closer to just being their typical motto while diving -- leave the past untouched, or as close as they can get it to the original.

The second proof is harder to say. We can't say for sure whether or not we've ever seen the effect of Cheng Xiaoshi's dives occur before he makes the decision to dive, for two reasons. One is the butterfly effect -- many causes may have effects, but those effects may be extremely hard to trace back to their original causes. It's possible that maybe Cheng Xiaoshi as Xu Shan Shan asking Qiao Ling about what Lu Guang saw in him might've, I don't know, kept Qiao Ling occupied where otherwise she would've gone "Oh I forgot my phone in the studio" or something. And the fact that Qiao Ling never came back to the studio demonstrates that Cheng Xiaoshi created an effect prior to him diving. But there's no solid proof for this being the case. The second one is that it's just much harder to prove impossibility than simple absence. That is, even if we've never seen this happen, it doesn't mean it can't happen -- it just means we haven't seen it yet.

However, from a writing perspective, there's some solid evidence that, while Cheng Xiaoshi's power has the potential for "effects," those effects are only observable to Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang themselves after the "cause" has already occurred. That is, any effects of Cheng Xiaoshi's dives only become evident after the dive has already happened. The strongest proof for this is Chen Xiao's camera in episode five, and Lu Guang's narration. As a result of Cheng Xiaoshi's actions while possessing Chen Xiao, the camera that presumably would've been destroyed in the original timeline is preserved. Chen Xiao's father then finds the camera and brings it to Chen Xiao, who then brings it to the studio to get developed. Lu Guang says here that this is why they don't ask about the future -- because the future is inevitably changed by their actions. While this was an emotionally touching scene in terms of storytelling, I believe it also serves a double purpose, showing us the limits of Cheng Xiaoshi's diving. It shows explicitly that his dives can change the timeline, but he himself will only experience the effects of that change after he's already dived. This makes quite a lot of sense, combined with part three, which is that:

I'm nearly 100% sure that Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang themselves always experience the "original" series of events when they go through things in real time, and never otherwise.

The best example of this is with the Xu Shanshan dive in episode 10. After combing through the episode and comparing it to episode 8, there are three major deviations in Cheng Xiaoshi's behaviour during the dive versus Xu Shanshan's during the first run through. First is a general difference in voice, mannerisms, and expressions. Especially near the beginning of the dive, Cheng Xiaoshi sounds different than Xu Shanshan. Even later, does small things like turn his head and make expressions at a different time. However, I'm not going to take this one as seriously, considering we're not sure if this is showing actual reality or is for the viewer's benefit, demonstrating the difference between the two. After all, we, the viewer sees that anyone possessed by Cheng Xiaoshi has their eyes turn gold, but no one in the story itself notices it. Me, personally, I think I would notice if my best friend took a photo and then came back with differently coloured eyes. I don't know though, I might just be built different like that.

Second is that Xu Shanshan says "I'm not like a certain someone, leeching off other people" (second half paraphrased) whereas Cheng Xiaoshi says "I don't [want to be like] a certain someone, leeching off other people." Again, this one is questionable, because the dialogue actually spoken is the exact same (in terms of words), and the English sub is the exact same, but the Chinese subtitles has a 像想 in place of 像 in the second run-through. Which is weird, because [want to be like] is actually 想像 and not 像想… confusing. Like, this is 100% a typo by the subtitles team, but what was the original intended version? No one knows. The last, and only actual deviation I found, was that Xu Shanshan goes "Hey, Qiao" when asking about how Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang get their information from photos, whereas Cheng Xiaoshi just says "Qiao."

This, combined with the fact that Lu Guang is able to "see" the original in the first place, all make a strong case that, in Link Click, the timeline doesn't "know" that Cheng Xiaoshi has dived until he actually does it, at which point it tries to catch up. This is consistent with everything else we've seen. It makes sense that the effect of his dives are only noticeable to him after the fact, because the timeline has to basically make live edits to itself to deal with his existence.

With this in mind, the Lu Guang we see in episode 7 simply couldn't've been Cheng Xiaoshi. This was a real time event, so it had to have been the undived version of Lu Guang doing… all that. Of course, the question here is how Lu Guang even got the information about Cheng Xiaoshi's whereabouts in the first place. I might make more posts theorizing about Lu Guang's powers and their limitations, the nature of his loop, etc… But for now, I've been grinding this post for about two hours. That's all. I hope you all enjoyed reading this!

[jmdbjk]

Praise and worship

I finally figured out the meaning of the Standing Next to You MV!!

But first, did Kookie wax his pits or does he always have that landing strip of hair there?

Anyway, sorry for the immediate digression but you know it is imperative to dissect everything, even pit hair.

Back to the MV...

The opening scenes include this very non-inclusive sign:

Only limos, no sportscars, SUVs, pick up trucks, family sedans or mopeds welcome here. They are keeping the riff-raff out. ONLY LIMOS THEY SAID CAN'T YOU READ THE SIGN?

Obviously makes sense when we see this dystopian scene where less than a dozen people are walking around inside some sort of derelict compound. A FORTRESS FOR ONLY THE STRETCH LIMO PREFERRING POPULATION!

Incidentally, stretch limos represent 1 percent of the options available from limo companies in the U.S. (I googled it).

Amazing that they found this many in Budapest.

What was once a sign of affluence has now fallen on hard times... hence the decrepit dystopia pictured above.

Enter our female antagonist. Who does she represent? I'll get to that later...

Our antagonist is antagonizing beautifully throughout but starts off antagonistically in her leather coatdress and 1980's heavy black eyeliner and bobbed hair. After all, the song is a throwback to that era of the late 70's/early 80's. All she is missing is the peach blush in the hollows of her cheeks. Hand me a Maybelline Blooming Colors Blush Palette and I'll fix it.

Then the dark angel makes his appearance. Ah, yes, sweet angel, come closer.

I think he has come down or up from where ever dark angels habitate in order to correct an injustice... the injustice being the duck-billed cups of this atrociously antagonistic dress our antagonist is made to wear:

For real... they couldn't find a better fitting dress? At least grab a roll of toilet paper and stuff those titty cups to fill them out? They are so sad and droopy looking... props to her Maybelline Expert Eyes Turquoise eye shadow though.

I suppose the stacked pancakes... I mean bra cups... could have meant to be an homage to another 80's icon: Madonna and her cone shaped bra... but ... nah... try again. They look like hamburgers. Now I can't unsee it. So, so sad.

We do a lil spin and our protagonist spins himself up into a jewel encrusted, crotch grabbing, finger pointing master of his game.

I think he's here to conduct a worship service.

It's time to be churched:

Stretch limos (because no riff-raff remember?) enter the opening in a temple-of-Petra-like giant wall emblazoned with JK's sacred heart logo. Very symbolic.

In they go to gather for worship. Others sit in theatre seats while Ms. Antagonist sits on the car like a hood ornament.

So... who is she and what's going on here?

No clue. She sits haughtily and antagonistically on her outdated stretch limo, while her little minions sit in the rows watching the object of their desire preaching the holy choreography.

However, Mr. Protagonist is about to really lay down the religion.

But first, gratuitous shot of Kookie prancing in heeled chelsea boots.

Back to religion... the religion of Bangtan dance... one of these is not like the other.

(*covers Hobi-hyung's eyes* Don't look its too painful.)

Did they not monitor this mess?

I don't meant to be disrespectful and I know these guys are some of the best dancers in the industry but next to Jungkook, they look like a herd of elephants. Just sayin'.

Anyway, Protagonist proceeds to become angry at the sloppy choreo and all the limo drivers gather for a gang-brawl in the middle of the church. Probably arguing over the spelling of chauffeur. I couldn't find an urban slang reference for limo, limousine or limo driver. I'm sure some exist but being the innocent thing I am, I don't know what they are.

Mr. Protagonist brings down the wrath and puts the fear of Hobi into his crew:

Then the climax of the whole darn thing: a dance break. Holy communion commences with serious thrusting into crotch grabs (some are enjoying it more than others):

Service concludes and I wonder how many takes before they got one where Kookie didn't bust out laughing with his bunny giggle?

But seriously, the MV does seem to be an homage to an era where Michael Jackson thrilled us with his brilliant music and dancing. Jungkook is continuing to pull us and BTS as a group along, forging new paths for them in the music industry. Like Kookie, I am anxious for them to reunite and get back on that stage together. And like Yoongi, I too believe they will devour the world.

(It's humor, y'all.)

[ceofcatgirls]

//suggestive

Going to finally make a post about this bc its been haunting my mind for a good month or two at this point--

This is a brief-ish post about guns being used as a metaphor for masculinity, power, and potential stand-in for phallus imagery in the dollars trilogy. I'll also be speaking about these things from a general stand point too, but I'll try to focus on how and where they interconnect.

I doubt most ppl will read all of this but I have brainworms so I need to put this out somewhere .

I think a lot of these points can be said about Westerns in general, btw. Not just Leone movies. However I'll focus on the dollar trilogy because this is already too long and needs to have a focus.

Now, I'm sure masculinity will need no defining, but I'll briefly show what definition of phallic imagery I use;

(Yes I'll eventually tie all this to the homoeroticism present in the movies, with a slight feminist bent to this analysis)

(I want you to keep in mind throughout this post that guns are metaphoric stand ins for dicks lol, just so i dont have to keep repeating that all the time)

I think this definition is quite good as it incorporates the concept of power into itself, which imo is a must-have when discussing masculinity in artwork.

As expected, there is an undeniable connection between phallic imagery and masculinity, which is also tied to power. A lot of masculinity throughout human history has relied upon genitals (even if not completely) to assert itself, which in turn, would affect the power relations men and women have, but also between men themselves. After all, the patriarchy is dependent on gender, with the male gender having the upper hand. This would mean, within a patriarchal society, men with more masculinity have more power, so we can see how sexuality is so tied to the patriarchy also, and how men will inevitably compete.

I'll start with perhaps one of the most obvious examples of this from the trilogy; which also conveniently has phallic imagery, or phallic metaphors.

Specifically, I'll start with the first proper interaction Colonel Mortimer and Manco have in For a Few Dollars More

(I'll link the clip just in case)

I'll state the obvious first; this is obviously a competition to define who would have the most power (and thus upper hand) in their relationship. That's why neither character backs down, and why there is a tense animosity between the two. Of course its also more complicated than that; Manco, the youngest of the two, is obviously taking this more seriously and is the more antagonistic. Mortimer seems to just be entertaining him at times, whilst also trying to show that his years of experience can give him the upper hand. Its a perfect scene presenting power, age, experience, who the characters are, and how their relationship will be forward from this.

And of course, as any western, guns are used for this.

Perhaps it's the perfect genre for what Sergio Leone wanted to present. Guns are the perfect metaphor for a phallus; they display power, they display masculinity, and they even have the shape! They can define life or death, much like how male sexuality, and therefore a phallus, can define a man's position in the patriarchy.

The shootout ends in a draw, as both Mortimer and Manco are skilled with their guns. Their stand-off for power and dominance led to a standstill and an equilibrium between the two. This will then define their relationship, as they form a equal partnership.

(And of course, perhaps Mortimer was being kind to Manco and held back a bit. He did the same in the end of the movie, by letting him take all the rewards. To Mortimer, there is more to gunslinging than an attempt to assert masculinity. And the fact that he holds back in his competition with Manco presents a level of respect he has for him, which adds on to the already existing homoeroticism of two men using guns to assert their dominance onto each other. I'd even argue that's what makes the homoeroticism purposeful, in this movie's case.)

There are other examples of guns bring used to impose masculinity throughout For a Few Dollars More. That is the crux of every final duel after all. But Mortimer and El Indio don't have significant homoerotic undertones so I won't get into it.

My other favourite example of this occurance in the dollars trilogy, is in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

It's a quick, small moment in a wider, longer scene. However I like how it gets across its message in a simple way.

It's the end of the scene where Angel Eyes forces a partnership onto Blondie.

I think it's important to mention how this is how Sergio Leone chose to end a scene where Angel Eyes and Blondie form a partnership. Its basically telling the viewer that Blondie consents to working with Angel Eyes. On a surface level, Blondie is sliding the gun to its holster to show that he's making peace with Angel Eyes. However, further introspection on the subtext also reveals other things.

For starters. The slow sliding in and the zoom in on the gun, with it becoming the centre point of the scene, easily becomes homoerotic (I don't think I need to explain how sexually suggestive it looks), but with it being seen as a sign of peace, it can also be seen as a sign of not only consent, but also submissiveness. Blondie here is admitting that he's under the thumb of Angel Eyes, and he can't do anything about it, not even with a gun. He can't challenge his power, nor his masculinity. The phallic imagery here only adds on to all of these points, for reasons mentioned previously.

Moving on from specific scenes, I'll mention something present throughout the movie that the definition I used above also mentions; cigars can also been stand-ins for phallic imagery, and masculinity.

Do I really have to mention how The Man With No Name is literally always having a cigar in his mouth ??? Its a very obvious oral fixation, one that Sergio Leone uses to his advantage.

Leone doesn't just use a cigar to make TMWNN look cool. The cigar, much like how a gun was used to represent Manco and Mortimer's, and Blondie's and Angel Eyes', relationships and partnerships, its also used to represent the relationship between Blondie and Tuco.

The scene where, imo, Blondie's and Tuco's relationship changes, is where Blondie offers Tuco a cigar after eavesdropping the conversation between Tuco and his brother.

And Tuco takes it, smokes it and grins!

Notably, Tuco's and Blondie's changing relationship is shown through a cigar rather than a gun, which is objectively significantly less violent, which sets them apart from the other relationships. There is also a closer contact between them, as in the other iterations of TMWNN never gave his gun to any ally of his, much less shared such a close contact as mouth-to-mouth.

The homoeroticism is rather obvious, and in this cade, it's present without power but still with phallic imagery.

(Another notable example was, if my memory serves correctly, in a Fistful of Dollars, Joe lights up a cigar for Ramone. But I won't mention that much since I could be confusing this for another movie, but if it did happen, it's also another scene packed with symbolism, and quite the opposite to Tuco's and Blondie's cigar scene).

Continuing to speak more generally, there are often focus and zoom ins on the guns in the movies. This peaks at the final Mexican standoff in GBU, where the guns are in their holsters and belts. Its natural that they'd be near their crotches too, but that only emphasises the masculinity, power and phallic imagery already present in the movie (as well as tension in the scene).

It comes with no surprise when Blondie chose Angel Eyes to shoot at. After all, Tuco and he had already made peace with each other. The only true masculine competition was between Angel Eyes and Blondie + Tuco.

There are also scenes where TMWNN shows off his skills with his gun; displaying his masculinity again through phallic imagery, so it's no wonder he went to become a figure of masculinity.

There is also the scene where Tuco acquires a new gun after being abandoned by Blondie. That represents what was mentioned previously; how men often fight for power. In this case Blondie takes away Tuco's power and masculinity by humiliating him in a desert. Tuco acquiring a new, polished and refined gun is his way of reclaiming his masculinity after Blondie emasculated him.

I won't speak much about A Fistful of Dollars, because the relationship between Joe and Ramone isn't as developed as the other relationships in the other movies. But it's also worth noting how a focal point in the final duel includes Joe's pistol and Ramone's supposedly stronger gun.

"When a man with a .45 meets a man with a rifle, you said the man with the pistol is a dead man. Let's see if that's true. Go ahead, load up and shoot."

In here, Joe reclaims his masculinity through a final duel. I wish the movie had been longer so I could connect potential homoeroticism to this scene like I did with the other examples, but I think it's a good scene, so I mentioned it nonetheless.

Sergio Leone movies are very much centred around men. That's generally how westerns work, too. But I think it's interesting, as it adds aligns with the analysis that men uphold the patriarchy between themselves, and this is even more true with Leone movies as they include little to no women (whereas many westerns have at least one or two), so most interactions are between men.

I'm not suggesting Sergio Leone intended all this. I do think the homoeroticism, phallic imagery and masculinity is purposeful. He was a Marxist, so perhaps the feminist angle to all this was also purposeful, but I don't think that's the case. Much like his contemporaries, Leone focused on class analysis when critiquing power structures (this mostly in his other movies), so the patriarchal angle was perhaps unintentional. I like to give the benefit of the doubt to artists when analysing their art, though, so I'm always happy to be proven wrong.

As I said. This is way too long and no one will probably read all of it. There are far more examples but I won't include every bc this is already a long asf post.

What the conclusion? I need to stop thinking about gay people!!!!!!!!!

A look into how my braincells look whenever I think about these homos a bit too much;

And this is how I felt writing this post:

And the thing is there's so much more I can say but I don't wanna make this too long esp since this is me ranting more than a proper analysis but jfc Leone always made sure to make his movies so damn gay it's actually insane

[lych33dragoncookie]

alright so the main reason i wanted to make this blog; those new Wind Archer trailers.

I already had a lot to say about the first one, for... One big reason.

The fact we're going to the laboratorium is pretty exciting, but I did not expect for us to already catch a glimpse of the Ultimate Cookie. In fact, I had almost forgotten about that; I thought Matcha making MyCookie was more of a byproduct of the Beast cookies needing bodies to inhabit, but...

Well, I guess Dark Enchantress's original ambitions haven't left her. And she's really, really close to realizing her dreams; the dreams she carries on from White Lily Cookie.

It really makes me wonder how White Lily would react to these developments. To see her dreams realized, every bit as horrifying as she most likely knew they'd be, carried on by a part of herself. I really, really wanna see where they go with this.

On another note...

sorry, i just much prefer his Japanese VA HE'S BAAAAAAAACKKKKK~

You have... No idea how frustrated I was to see that the first Beast cookie to release was Mystic Flour and not him. And while it's not guaranteed we'll get him this time, either (even if i really hope we do)... Come on, it's just nice to have him back. He's a really, really fun antagonist. Sometimes, when all your antagonists have complex motives, believing that despite everything they've done, ultimately they're the ones in the right (with even Dark Enchantress only committing as much harm as she has as a response to the revelation that the world, on a fundamental level, was seemingly much more cruel, uncaring and pointless than she had ever thought; a desperate need to make a difference, no matter how many lives and pain it takes), it's incredibly nice to have that one villain, that one villain who doesn't try to find an excuse for what they do, having fun, not believing that they're doing everything that they do for some greater motive, but just to have fun, to make the entire world one big, brightly burning play area for them to toy with as long as they want, however they want. I love Shadow Milk, because he perfectly offsets the usual monologuing, self-righteous villainy we tend to see (And often enjoy, don't get me wrong, both Dark Enchantress and Mystic Flour have grown one me) with just pure, uncaring, show-stopping villainy for the sake of villainy.

He's manipulative, playful, silly, over the top, more concerned with putting on a show first and foremost than actually accomplishing his objectives; because you and I both know that he knows that he could probably just brute force his way into getting his soul jam back, into taking down the heroes without any opportunity for them to do anything about it. If he wanted to, he could very, very easily create an unwinnable scenario. But he doesn't. Because that's no fun.

And I absolutely adore him for it. Every single scene he's in is an absolute delight.

... Right, uh. Wind Archer.

I'm excited for him! It's been a while since we've gotten any Ovenbreak legendaries, and with Wind Archer in the game, it means we're likely very close to seeing Fire Spirit and Millennial Tree (Both pretty big faves for me, though Millie is the one that does unholy things to my brain just from looking at him). And honestly, this feels like a really, really good use for him! No beating around the bush, no overcomplicating anything, just going straight to the point and trying to stop the current threat at its root. He's going to fail, obviously. Even if he takes out the ultimate cookie, chances are it can just be rebuilt, and the beasts on an individual level would be way too much for him to handle. And with Shadow Milk having awoken... Yeah, he stands just about no chance. But, it will be very fun to see, methinks. It's also just a pretty natural fit; a protector of nature that hunts down anything that may disturb or corrupt said nature being sent to strike down what's pretty much a threat that's entirely artificial, unnatural, bodies made through forbidden, arcane magic and ethically dubious means, stumbling upon the culmination of someone's ambitions to create perfect life by artificial means. It works out really, really well, methinks.

But yeah that's my thoughts so far on the 2 Wind Archer update trailers, I'm actually really excited for where they're gonna take this, we've actually got some good plot progression going on and a lot of interesting writing ideas that while I don't fully trust the devs to execute perfectly, I do still really like and feel pretty hopeful for!

... Now just give me Shadow Milk and Millennial Tree and my life is yours. And Lychee, maybe. That one might take a bit. how are they even gonna do Longan in Kingdom. that's... quite a lot to try to adapt without either rehashing content or completely hijacking the plot. god i hope this doesn't mean they'll just stop at Lotus. I miss my dragons. Except not really because OB has been doing some good stuff with them.

Sorry for the really long post, but I wanted to dump some thoughts and have a sort of primer for the kinda stuff I wanna make for this blog.

Oh, and expect some shitposts along the way, too.

[diiambee]

So like. Love in paradise!! Rambling and me dissecting the lyrics ahead! Prepare for a long post lol

Going to ramble more about the ending because god. It's Calypso's wording in particular that gets me.

It's no secret that the entire time she's been singing in Love in Paradise she was very insistent of sellung her Island to Odysseus, down right ignoring him when he says he has a wife and insisting even with his continued refusal—

For reference I won't mention on the matter of her SA of Odysseus due to never reading the odyssey on full myself, and i feel thar based off past songs and how Jay seems to plan to take this she'd be more a sympathetic villain than an outright evil one.

— Going back to my main point, people habe already pointed out her use of calling back to earlier character's phrases as if she's attempting to make herself more comforting for Odysseus, the use of open arms for polites, in your heart for hisother, and perhaps even the use of Ody for eurycholus.. but I want to ramble more on her phrasing for the earlier lyrics as Odysseus sings his heart out in agony.

Whether or not this was intentional— I can't help but be so scandalized (/pos) at how cleverly Jay seems to write a toxic conversations between the two. Perhaps it's more one-sided, as it seems neither of the parties are even listening to one another!

I especially want to highlight how Calypso deflects or downplay all of Odysseus' pleas here. Even if arguably you could say she cared for him and loved him, that's why she's begging him not to hurt himself— her love is so obviously not genuine, its superficial. She loves what he can give her, not who he is.

It's evident with how surface level her words of comfort are. He's screaming about agony, about all of those he's lost and how much he wants to just end it all but all her response to it are either shallow or with selfish (whether she realizes it or not, they're still selfish)

"It will be fine dear, come back inside dear, love of my life come back to paradise—" isn't really bad, its definitely comfort and a show that she cares, but it's the lyrics after that definitely highlight just how superficial her love is for odysseus, how it's not right.

"I know your life's been hard—" only time shes acknowled his troubles (in this song). "I'll stay inside your heart." Following it up with a call back to his mother.

"I love you, my dear.

I love our time here,

Life would be so much worse if you had died."

It's these lyrics in particular that truly cements, for me, how dark love in paradise really is even with a song with an upbeat middle. Jorge's a freaking genius being able to portray the sense of something is wrong even when the music tries to tell you otherwise— similar to how Calypso tries, and tries again to convince Odysseus to stay in paradise after everything he's been through, but Ody refusing because he knows this isn't the place for him.

She doesn't listen to him as he begs, and begs. She continues to speak, to try to comfort him with surface level comfort that truly doesn't help him or his state at all.. and it's with these lyrics you can really see her comfort with selfish intentions (note: I say selfishness not in a way to demean her, just to say that her words of comfort definitely come from a place of where she isn't thinking of Odysseus. She may or may not realize it, but it's still what I've observed regardless).

Yes. She truly did wish to ensure Odysseus wouldn't hurt himself, but take note of the reasons and what she says when she tries to do so— She only mentions herself, in which I mean she paints it as she's the only person Odysseus can rely on right now. She's the only person for him now. And yes.. that is quite literally true, it's just odd to me as it's as if she didn't truly understand odysseus within those 7 years. Like he hadn't with her, if you may.

Finishing this off with my belief again, I don't hate Calypso, but I don't like her either. She's a good antagonist and a good test of someone's (mine) media literacy LMFAO.. and again. This isn't me saying she didn't care at all or loved Odysseus within those 7 years, just that her love wasn't right. It never was and I doubt it was ever painted to BE right.

[moth-p]

Tpot 12 ramble because if I dont infodump to anyone I will unironically fucking explode

Spoilers obviously.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT OKAY. SO

1. Since in my tpot 11 ramble I discussed Three on point nr.3 i think its only fair that I talk about One first.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT?

Okay so they went in a completly different direction with one that I thought they would. I thought that she was gonna be a co-host, but honestly? I like the direction they took her character in. We didn't really have a true "villan" in bfdi like. Ever? I think? I mean yeah there are characters that are sadistic, antagonistic, live in your walls and make bad decisions but I don't think we ever had a real villan. A threat. Because you CANNOT. CANNOT tell me that One doesn't have sinister intentions. She's unnerving, and if I learned one thing from the Shrek franchise its that you dont fucking make deals with people that are clearly evil (im talking to you Fanny, Ice cube and possibly anyone else who made a deal) also, she knows a lot more that I think she has the right to. I mean, yeah. She's the stalking type, i get it but she came out of the fucking moon at the END END of tpot 9. (I think?) So thee fact that she knows so much about the contestants is kinda scary. I think the obvious motive for her is uh.. Three. I AM STILL STANDING BY MY POINT THAT THE HAND FROM TPOT 11 IS THREE. I KNOW EVERYONE AGREES ON THIS BUT. I SWEAR.

Also one is very silly. So uhh. Yeah

Point 2, the teams. I will be very honest I did not expect a team swap so soon but then again Just not had exactly three people so I don't think it would be very fair (No teardrop what are you doing here no no no you are not a part of this discussion shoo shoo /aff)

I thought I would dissect them one by one.

Point 2.1 - Death Pact yet Again (DPYA)

Ill be honest? Probably the best team. I like every single character on here.

Gaty is literally top 5 of my favs

Astrobiology is on a team together (yet) again, were winning. I love them both separately too, esp Black Hole after the recent-kinda-still-ongoing-arc. Tree's sass is something I need.

Pin! One of the "Top 4" of the original season. I love her, she was the first character I humanized, and she is actually acting like herself because early Tpot did her dirty as hell.

Marker is silly as always,

And Fanny. Need I say more? Besides, she's the only one we have actually witness make the deal with one. She's getting a lot of screen time lately and I am NOT complaining.

Oh and also Robot Flower I guess. If my tpot 13 predictions are correct, Basketballs deal with one will help her go back to normal. Good. I miss her actual self. (And Flower, I love you. Honest to god I love you. But you did really act like a bitch in the first season huh. Still top 5)

Point 2.2 - Team 2/Two

ERASER. I am so sorry you got separated from your boyfriend 💔💔💔 Probably my favorite from the team, his "rivalry" with Bottle might be interesting.... if she doesn't get voted out next. (I think she will) I think his dynamic with Snowball might be interesting since they are already friends. I think. Right?

Book and Taggy! To be honest JnJ are feeding my heart wholesome yuri and I am very happy. Books dynamic with Ice Cube will be fun to explore because uh... yeah. Also Taggy is developing which is great. Before tpot 10 I thought of them as more of a Naily 2.0, so I'm very glad that JnJ did something with them. Thank goodness they didnt get eliminated, I was kinda worried.

Snowball. Big guy. My man. I was hugely neutral about him before TPOT but god he kinda stole my heart. His relationship with grassy is so cute, and I'm begging for some interactions between him and Ice cube.

Grass boi. Thank you for not being annoying as f-ck anymore. I think youre cool. (Though he is the one I would care the least about if he god eliminated.)

Icyyyy... glad you got your legs back girl.... uhh...

Same as with Fanny. remember kids! Don't make possibly soul binding contracts with unnerving strangers!

Point 2.3 - 🎶🎶/BAGGED

Pen. I'm gonna say the same thing but I am so. So sorry that you got separated from your boyfriend 💔💔💔. His rivalry with Need- NEEDLE, I SAID NEEDLE was cool and I like how he got more competitive. (I voted for him Btw. If he gets eliminated I WILL. Cry. Vote 4 pen propaganda

TV, this one is kinda short because uh.. I dont uhh. Really. Care? I think he has a lot of potential but I dont really remeber him doing anything huge sooo

Needy! Oh. Oh no. *gets slapped into outer space* I like her. The thing with Pen was cool and I just generally enjoy her. Shes the gaslight gatekeep girlboss of the group and honestly? I hope she gets a bigger role.

Tennisball. How many times will I have to do this bit. I am so so so so so so sorry you got separated from your girlfriend 💔💔💔💔 you malewife. Its like actually the first time he and GB weren't on a team together and I think it could be interesting to see him try to kinda. Cope with that. (And also with being a leader, my boy was not made for this kinda stuff)

Basketball! .. dont make deals children.

Also, she is being set up to be an important character (obviously). With the robot flower stuff, her thing with one and rivalry with gb that i think the writers forgot about (or did it get resolved. Idk) she has had a shit ton of screen time and will play a major role in the one stuff.

And Bottle! I uhh. Yeah! Your thing with Eraser is interesting I guess! ... (She will get eliminated)

And finally (but not really)

Point 2.4 - CloudYAY

This is the last time I do this. Gb. I am. So, so so so so sorry that you got separated from your malewife boyfriend 💔💔💔

But seriously I love GB. Your team cant handle your girlboss levels. I seriously hope they will listen to you because if it turns into the 8ball situation again I will do something. (Seriously, why do people hate GB as a leader that much? She is bossy as hell, yeah, but like. Shes a pretty good leader imo)

WINNER! My non-binary pal. My sassy gender neutral gay i mean gay i mean guy. I really hope they do something big with your character again. The clock thing was pretty fun and I hope to get to know them more. Besides, Loser is like. Free. He's probably still being a celebrity like usual. I hope we get to expand even more on their past together. (I voted for them btw)

Barf bag, my dear. Jnj, please do something with her. (Ooh, but Moth, tpot 9 this tpot 9 that she played a big role in tpot 9) DONT CARE. GIVE ME MORE CONTENT OF HER.

Donut. .. so. I really like donut. His friendship with Barf bag is cool, his connection to four back in bfb was cool and i generally like him as a character. That being said.. i dont have high hopes for him. Don't get me wrong, I DONT want him eliminated, but... i dont know. Its a hunch, okay? I dont feel good about this.

Yellow face. You racist motherfucker. You took Icy's legs, donut's arms (possibly creating two traps for one, con fucking gratulations) and you also live inside my fucking walls. Despite what I said i think hes hella entertaining even if his morals are uh.. far from great.

And finally, Pillow. If i had a second guess to who would be getting eliminated, I would say its her. She has had a shit ton of haters recently and uhh.. i can see WHY.. I would love to explore her relationships within the new team. But if she gets eliminated then eh,, whatever.

. Whew, finally we got trough that, huh?

3. . No. NOT AGAIN WE ARE NOT DISCUSSING THREE AGAIN N-

So. In my Tpot 11 ramble i therorised that Three was locked away in Fours for possibly doing something terrible, and while that theory still stands...

Why did they close the door?

I think Three uhh.. lets say.. isnt feeling the best in terms of sanity right now. I mean, the whole vibe of their cage is creepy as hell. Maybe they went insane enough to develop the need to stay there? I dont know

They could have just closed it because they are afraid of four, but the whole vibe off the scene suggests otherwise (but then i am a deltarune fan and we all know about the ending of chapter 1 being a fakeout?? Whatever. sooooo)

4. Four is acting kinda strange. Is it just me? His voice sounds different and they got a very unnerving vibe from them, kinda like one does. Also why do they need the couch? I am kinda concerned.

Okay thats it its almost one am i have enough bye

[abrisaber]

Full Moon kinda sucked :/ (Another HB Rant - Spoilers for Full Moon)

I hate to say this but I think Vivziepop has finally lost me. Now I'm not saying I'm no longer an HB fan, JMI was geneticlly enginered to get me addicted to whatever he's in meaning I could'nt stop watching HB even if I tried. However I am starting to doubt Vivziepops talents. I have no idea what happened between the first half of Season 2 and the second half but this kind of seasonal rot has to be studied in a fucking lab.

I want to like the episodes after "The Circus," I really do. I don't even hate Cherubs, but aside from Oops and the Mid-Special, every episode following The Circus has ranged from disapointing to awful compared to S1.

It's not even like I hate the episodes after The Circus either. Seeing Stars was okay for the most part, Exes and Oohs tried to do something, even Unhappy Campers introduced a potentally intresting character (and thats it). But these episodes have so many glaring flaws in my book that it's hard to grasp.

In my opinion, Helluva Boss was at its best during the balk half of season 1/The beginning of Season 2 (Truth Seekers-The Circus) and the decline in writing quality started at around Seeing Stars.

I made a long post that explains what about Truth Seekers I like so if you care even a little bit about my opinions, you can suffer through that rant, but to shorten it here, Truth Seekers is my favorite episode of the series because it balances the comedy and the drama expertly imo. Truth Seekers feels like Helluva Boss had finally stuck the landing at what kind of show it wanted to be. It showcased how Blitzo felt about his past relationships and his current one, it gave Moxxie a chance to be heard outside of his flaws (before the show decided they wanted to retread the same fucking plotpoint a couple more times), and it was pretty funny (comedy is subjective tho so feel free to ignore my feelings on comedy from here on out).

Ozzies is a good episode because, well, Asmodeus, but also it does more for Blitzo's character. It contrasts with Truth Seekers via two of the three halucinations calling him out on his shit, and it starts to build upon how he views his relationship with Stolas.

While I don't really like The Circus, what it did at the end for Stolas and overall how it setup the relationship for him and Blitzo was genuinly good imo. How it started with Blitzo initiating the one sidedness of their relationship and whatnot.

Notice how I'm talking almost exclusively about Blitzo as my reasons for enjoying these episodes more than others. And thats because Helluva Boss is at its best when it treats Blitzo as its main character. Even from the beginning he was the real star. Obviously you have characters like Stolas and Moxxie also getting focous, but even in those episodes, Blitzo still gets development, because Blitzo is the main driving force for the show. He's the Helluva Boss. He's the center, the emotional core. HB should be about HIM and HIS relationships to others.

Some of the worst episodes are the ones where Blitzo isn't really the main focous, I'm not saying that Blitzo automaticlly makes the show good or that he should be the only one get focus, but when you pull back and look at the series, almost every beloved episode have him (or him and Stolas) at its emotional center.

To keep this already long post from being absurdly long, I'll skip ahead to why I really didnt like the newest episode, Full Moon.

SPOILERS AHEAD

First things first, the Cherubs and Dhorks fucking suck ass as antagonists. They're annoying, they're not funny, and just like Crimson and Striker in Oops, they serve zero narritve purpose outside of being glorified cardboard cutouts for the main characters to fight. They are everything wrong with B-plots in media. Their only existence is to create artifical narritve throughlines that makes artifical suspence to keep the audience engaged like babies watching those baby sensory videos. "Oooo look its the Cherubs from the most nothing burger episode of Season 1. Oooo it's the Dhorks that are easily the most forgetable aspect of Truth Seekers. OOOhhh isnt it sooooo fucking hilarous how the Dhorks killed a bunch of children? Ohhh aren't you so invested to see these characters that mean absolutely nothing to the plot that Vivziepop is trying to sell the show with? DONT YOU JUST LOVE THESE KEY JINGLING ASS CHARACTERS YOU FUCKING BABY-"

I got a little carries away there, but my point is that Dhorks and the Cherubs are worthless slop that should be removed from the plot entirely.

Usually I wouldn't even care since 2/3 instances where useless villans show up to be useless, the main plot not involving them is really good (Refering to Oops and Truth Seekers).

But the main-plot in this episode is just as bad, if not WORSE than the B-plot.

Regarding my previous rant again, I was an avid defender of Stolitz up until maybe Western Energy, although in that case with the aftermath of Ozzies being handled mostly offscreen is more me being skeptical about Vivs pacing and writibg style. I didn't have a problem with the actual idea of Stolitz yet, just with the execution.

In actuality, my problem with the writing started in The Full Moon.

Even with me being an avid defender of Stolitz, even with me analyizng and disecting Blitzo's mentality and reasonings and emotional trauma, even with me trying to justify BOTH sides of this toxic relationship with no real abuser,

THIS does NOT come off as Blitzo begging to keep Stolas in his life because he cares about him and wants to be with him. I'm sure theres some of that in there and I still have faith that Viv try to put more of that into the execution going forward. But no matter how many times I watch this ending scene and the scenes before it, no matter how long I sit and think and think and think about this dynamic, this scene does NOT feel that way to me.

To me, this scene looks like a lower class citizen begging on his knees to the person whos essentaily employing them to let him keep his job to be able to feed his family and keep his colluges/close friends in work.

This feels like a man whos society is stacked against him trying to keep the one thing he has afloat.

I don't feel this way towards the entire scene. When Blitzo tries to avoid the whole conversation by trying to keep the transaction going, thats when I see more of the emotional side, but it still doesn't sit right with me how the dynamic is being represented.

Stolas explains it pretty well in the moments after. He says "This transactional thing we have, its not right anymore. It hasn't been. It never was. And now, all I can see is how wrong it is to be teathered to someone in such an unfair way. And not know how they feel."

To me, this finally feels like Stolas coming to his senses and realizing that he and Blitzo's relationship is unbalanced. He sees that Blitzo's reliance on him is unfair, so he works to end it.

My problems start to arise again when Stolas reacts to Blitzo trying to play it off again as Roleplay.

I can understand his side of the coin, how he feels that Blitzo only wanted him for sex and nothing more, or how he believes that Blitzo doesnt really care for his feelings and only stays for the book, and when giving Blitzo the option, he chooses to ignore it.

But I still cannot get over how icky this scene makes me feel. Blitzo has made it clear how he thinks Stolas feels about their relationship. In the Just Look My Way music video it seems that Stolas somewhat realizes that Blitzo is hurting in some capacity. When Blitzo vents his frustraitions, Stolas says "I didn't know you thought so lowly of me" which doesnt make any fucking sense in response to what Blitzo is saying.

Again, its that image of a person mistreated by society begging someone who is privlaged to let him keep his job. I cant stomach this idea that Stolas got his fucking feelings hurt over someone he indirectly played with for his own pleasure and to escape his marrige venting their frustraitions about how THEY feel about it. HE HIMSELF admitted that the relationship was unfair, so when Blitzo says "You treat me poorly and expect me to believe when you suddenly express your feelings for me? Can I get a minute to actually process what you said," its litteraly just parroting what Stolas was saying.

Stolas knows how Blitzo feels. He knows Blitzo is hurting. And yeah past relationship trauma isnt an excuse to be shitty, but it's not like Stolas made it very obvious that he did actually care about Blitzo's emotions.

Up until this point the relationship has been one sided on both sides. Both parties think the other doesnt care or that the other is just using them for something. Both sides caught feelings and didnt want to admit it, and Stolas was the bigger person for trying to initiate that discussion. But with the ending line Stolas says and all the promotional matreal being released for the upcoming seasons, the show feels like its going to make Blitzo out to be the one in the wrong when he isnt. Blitzo did the same fucking things Stolas did, so why does it feel like the next few episodes are just going to be "Blitzo sucks and we hate him." Like are you fucking serious??

Maybe I'm reading the whole thing wrong, who knows at this point.

[twistedtummies2]

Top 10 Appearances of Disney's Evil Queen

Not so long ago, Disney released the teaser trailer for an upcoming live-action remake of its first great animated feature, “Snow White,” scheduled for release in Spring of 2025. When I saw the teaser, two thoughts immediately sprung to mind. The first was, “May God have mercy on their souls for this stupidity.” The second was…while the trailer largely did not impress me, I was genuinely intrigued by the first looks at Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen. Ever since her casting was announced, she was the one part I was genuinely interested in seeing, and for all the problems the trailer presented, I remain hopeful that she, at least, will turn in a worthy performance. This got me thinking of all the past times the Evil Queen has shown up in Disney properties since her debut in their premiere animated motion picture. I’ve done similar lists in the past for two other Disney Villains - Maleficent and Scar - and I decided it would be fun, in light of this news, to give the Queen a look-see, too. Now, a few key rules must be established: first of all, I’m only talking about DISNEY’S Evil Queen. Other versions of the fairy-tale icon aren’t counted here at all; I made a separate list of my favorite versions of the character in general a while back. Second, and slightly tied to that, I am NOT including the characters of Regina from “Once Upon a Time” and Queen Ravenna from “Snow White and the Huntsman.” This is because I feel, while each certainly has been influenced by the Queen from the original Disney movie, they really stand as their own versions of the character. I’m only talking about the original Disney Queen and her reappearances. Third and finally, I can obviously only count appearances I’m actually fairly familiar with; for example, there’s a somewhat famous Disney comic series called ‘The Return of Snow White” which I’ve heard is very, VERY good…but I sadly haven’t read it yet, so I don’t think it’s right to include it here. With that said…“dip the apple in the brew, let the sleeping death seep through!” These are My Top 10 Appearances of Disney’s Evil Queen!

10. Kingdom Hearts.

“Kingdom Hearts” is one of my favorite video game series of all time, and a big part of why is the appearances of the Disney Villains. From Maleficent to Hades, from Pete to Ursula, it’s great to see all of these famous baddies show up, and - when the chance arises - to battle them in delightfully crazed combat. HOWEVER, not every villain is a knockout antagonist. I think partially because, as time has gone on, the series has focused more and more on its own original lore and characters than on mingling the Disney worlds INTO that lore, the villains seem to be taking a step back with every other installment. Case in point: the Evil Queen. While by no means the worst of the Disney Villains in this universe, I’ve personally always felt slightly disappointed with the Queen’s appearances in KH. She’s kept perfectly in character, and her times onscreen do lead to some great moments, but she has very little to do with the overarching plot of games like “Birth By Sleep” and it feels like there was more that could have been done with the character than ultimately was. However, it was great to see her, and her presence did lead to possibly my favorite boss fight (at least for the Disney characters) in all of KH history. End of the day, I’d be remiss to leave this off the running entirely. I really just wish we'd gotten more of her.

9. Villains Tonight!

This now-retired spooky spoof was a tongue-in-cheek musical farce originally performed on Disney Cruise Lines. The main character of the show is Hades, who - at the start of the play - is trying to reform…not because he actually desires redemption or feels genuinely repentant, but simply because he is so sick and tired of being foiled time and time again by Hercules, he’s had enough. However, things change when the Fates inform Hades that he needs an upgrade in evil-ness, otherwise he’ll lose control of the Underworld (and, really, that’s all Hades has left). So, the God of the Dead decides to summon some of his fellow villains to his lair, hoping their collective wickedness can help him out. While most of the villains in the show are essentially cameo appearances - showing up for a single "spotlight moment" musical number, and then departing till the end of the show, a-la “CATS” - the Evil Queen actually plays a fairly sizeable role in the story. Hades sends out Pain and Panic with physical invitations for both the Queen and Maleficent. It’s revealed that the two arch-villainesses are not only rivals, but also old flames (har har) of the Lord of the Underworld. Their competitive spirit nearly gets the better of them, but later in the show, they put their differences aside to spoil the day (they’re certainly not SAVING it), and help Hades get back into the evil groove. This is by far the silliest of all the Queen’s appearances on this list, but it’s a lot of fun; the back and forth between herself and Maleficent is so delightfully catty, and it’s cool seeing these two end up being the…ah…“heroes” that help Hades in the end.

8. Disney’s Villains’ Revenge.

I only recently rediscovered this PC game from my youth. While not everything in it still holds up in my adult years, I’d generally say it’s still a pretty interesting title! Made as a sort of promotional method to advertise some of Disney’s older films (which were being either released or re-released to video en masse at the time), this game features four of Disney’s resident rogues: Captain Hook, the Queen of Hearts, the Ringmaster from Dumbo (...okay, that’s the odd one out…), and - of course - the Evil Queen. The plot begins when Jiminy Cricket (in an uncharacteristic show of abject stupidity) decides to meddle with a magical storybook, tearing out the last page from four of the tales contained within (you can guess which ones). Because of this, the villains are able to rewrite their stories the way they want to, twisting things around and coming up with the “unhappy endings” they want most. With help from the Blue Fairy, Jiminy and the Player thus travel into each story to set things right again. In the Snow White section of the game, the Evil Queen has written the Prince out of existence. She tricks Snow White into eating a poisoned apple, and then - just for good measure - she begins to force each of the Seven Dwarfs to take an apple as well, putting them to sleep one by one. Jiminy and the Player need to work fast to find a way to bring the Prince back from the proverbial void before all of the Dwarfs are knocked out. Later, at the climax of the game, the Queen joins in the final battle with the other villains. Instead of being killed, her punishment for her evil deeds is to be forced to remain in her hideous old crone form for the rest of her life. Serves her right, I’d say!

7. Fantasmic!

This nighttime spectacular - an extravaganza of stunts, dance routines, and special effects, all tied together by a loose plot - is generally considered one of the greatest shows ever put on at the Disney Parks. While the exact size of the Queen’s role in the story has changed a couple times through different evolutions and interpretations, she has always been an integral figure in the proceedings. The story - what little there is - begins with Mickey Mouse taking the audience on a tour through his own dreamworld, “where beauty and love will always survive.” The Queen’s arrival is a major turning point: she’s having none of this happiness and harmony rubbish, thank you very much! So, with the help of the Magic Mirror, the Queen summons some of the other Disney Villains to help her “turn that little mouse’s dream into a Nightmare Fantasmic!” (Hence the title.) Although Maleficent is ultimately the final obstacle Mickey must overcome to save his dreamland, it’s the Evil Queen who spearheads the conflict and is the true leader of the villains in the show. Through every change and iteration of Fantasmic, this has remained fairly constant; whatever alterations the nightly spectacle goes through, it’s a fair bet she won’t be leaving Mickey’s dreams alone anytime soon.

6. Kingdom Keepers.

It took me a bit of time to warm up to the Evil Queen in this book series, but once I did, I found she was more than worthy of praise. The “Kingdom Keepers” series is a sort of “Night at the Museum”-esque series of novels, with the premise being that, every night, all of the rides and attractions at the Disney Parks come to life…and so do a great many Disney characters. Not all of these characters are good guys, of course, and a number of them - mostly Villains, naturally - have banded together to form an organization called “The Overtakers.” You can guess what their evil scheme is based on that name alone. While the main leaders of the Overtakers are Chernabog and Maleficent, the Queen plays a notable role in the latter half of the initial series of novels: first, she takes charge as the main antagonist of the fourth book, “Power Play,” leading the Overtakers in a scheme to release the imprisoned Dark Fairy and Black God. The Queen remains a prominent character for the next couple books, and once again takes command in the final novel of the series, “The Insider,” after the main protagonist of the series - Finn Whitman - succeeds in slaying Maleficent. While I personally feel that, in “Power Play,” the character felt like a sort of “Diet Maleficent” - the two characters just have a lot in common in general - the Queen really came into her own as the series progressed, and we saw her interact with other characters more and more. Part of the fun throughout the books was her interactions with her main henchperson: Cruella DeVil. The Queen and Cruella made for a truly odd couple of baddies, since, while Maleficent and the Queen have a lot in common, Cruella and Her Majesty are almost polar opposites. I haven’t read the sequel series to the original seven books, but I can only hope the self-proclaimed Fairest in the Land is just as good (bad?) there.

5. Snow White’s Scary Adventures.

As far as the Parks go, I would argue this ride…USED to be the Queen’s magnum opus. Originally simply called “Snow White’s Adventures” in past iterations, the ride was later more appropriately titled in light of the fact it REALLY leaned on the darker, more macabre elements of the story, with the Queen - seen primarily in her Witch form - basically being the star of the show. Throughout the ride she menaces the riders, tempting them with her Poisoned Apple and cackling with glee, popping up at unexpected intervals as the guests navigate their way through her dungeons and the spooky woods beyond. It was widely regarded as one of the best of Disney’s film-themed dark rides, and when I visited Disneyland (a whole twelve years ago, jeeze I feel old…), it was probably my second favorite after “Peter Pan’s Flight.” UNFORTUNATELY, this ride basically doesn’t exist anymore, at least not at the American Parks: at Walt Disney World, it was replaced with the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train roller coaster, and the Witch has almost nothing to do for that one. (Though her one brief appearance near the end IS done with a VERY impressive animatronic.) As for Disneyland, the ride was recently refurbished as “Snow White’s Enchanted Wish,” which effectively neutered the original ride and, in my opinion, lacks the emotional impact the original, much darker attraction had. It’s truly sad how some of the best things must always remain in the past.

4. Mirror, Mirror.

This was the sixth of the “Twisted Tales” series of books released by Disney, and it is the first one I ever got to read. The series, created by author Liz Braswell, works off a very simple formula: take a random “What If?” question about a Disney movie, and then create either an alternate universe or a sequel or even a prequel out of that concept. While Braswell spearheaded the series and wrote the vast majority of the books, she was not the only author involved; a few other creators also joined in to handle various subjects and stories. Enter Jen Calonita, whose first entry into the books was this one. As the byline on the book’s cover indicates, the concept is based on the idea that, instead of using the Poisoned Apple to kill Snow White right off the bat, the Queen instead tricks the Prince. However, there’s a bit more to the story than that: while the Queen is still utterly despicable, the book gives her a sympathetic leaning, with a backstory that explains more of her wicked actions, while still keeping it clear that her deeds are reprehensible. The twist to the plot also allows Snow White herself to take a more proactive role in the story, as she goes from a humble and sweethearted young lady like in the film to the one who has to face the Queen to save the kingdom. It’s an interesting turnaround that takes the classic fairy-tale and turns into a more complex and action-oriented story, and while I don’t think it’s the best book of the Twisted Tales series, it’s nevertheless a personal favorite.

3. Snow White Live!

Nowadays, we take Disney’s stage musicals somewhat for granted. From Beauty and the Beast, to The Lion King, to Mary Poppins, and more, it’s almost more surprising when an especially popular Disney movie DOESN’T have some kind of staged version out there, be it Broadway or some other avenue. (I mean, by God, they have a stage version of “The Aristocats,” for crying out loud!) However, this was not always the case: the very first attempt at doing a full-length stage musical treatment of a Disney film came in the late 70s/early 80s, as part of a plan to save the prestigious Radio City Music Hall. And what better movie was there to choose than “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”: the first animated feature film Disney made would also be their first foray onto the New York stage scene. This production has gone by several titles, some longer than others, but I’ve always known it by the colloquial name “Snow White Live!” in reference to NBC’s fairly recent live TV musicals. This production was, in fact, recorded and aired on TV and in video release at its height of popularity…but since it has never been re-staged, to my knowledge, and has never received a DVD or Blu-ray release, it’s largely fallen into obscurity. This is a shame, because it’s really a very good production! Part of its appeal, of course, comes from the villain: the Evil Queen is played by two different actors in the show. In her radiant, Queenly form, she is played by Anne Francine; most well-known onstage for her work in the musicals “Mame” and “Anything Goes,” and recognizable to film audiences for her appearance in the movie “Crocodile Dundee.” As the Witch, the character was played by a male actor, Charles Hall, who also voiced the Magic Mirror. Hall would go on to be a constant presence at Radio City, playing the role of Santa Claus for many years in a row during their famous Christmas Spectacular. Both do a great job putting their own spin on the character’s dual identities, and I love them almost as much as the original Queen from the movie! If you haven’t seen this show before, you can easily find it on YouTube; definitely go and check it out.

2. Vil Schoenheit, from Twisted Wonderland.

Well, if you know me, you should have known this guy was coming. In case you haven’t been paying attention to or just didn’t know about my frankly unhealthy addiction to this mobile game, let me give you the basic summation: “Twisted Wonderland” is a gacha-style game, wherein the player gets transported to a parallel universe, and begins life staying at a School of Dark Magic. This school has apparently been inspired by “The Great Seven” - seven of the most infamous Disney Villains - and throughout the game’s story you encounter different figures based on the Great Seven, as well as other Disney characters (mostly villains). The Evil Queen is one of the Great Seven, and while she, herself, has virtually no bearing on the game at all, the analogous character to her is this lad: Vil Schoenheit. Vil is the resident celebrity of Night Raven College, the school in question: he is a professional actor, dancer, singer, and model, who also dabbles in directing, costume design, photography, and even commercial fashion. He is vain, domineering, and carries himself with an icy, sometimes deadpan authority, and is highly persnickety about personal appearances. His Unique Magic allows him to place a poisonous curse on anything he touches, and he is, in fact, a very skilled potion maker and poisons expert: it was this knowledge that allowed him to become the leader of Pomefiore, the house inspired by the Queen. Admittedly, when the game was first released, Vil was actually one of the characters I was LEAST interested in…but as time has gone on, and we’ve seen more of him and learned more about him, he’s become more and more of a favorite of mine. He wouldn’t likely be in too many other people’s top three, but he’s certainly in mine.

1. Fairest of All.

As much as I love Vil, you really can’t beat the original Evil Queen. And as far as other works beyond the film go, I don’t think anything has ever beaten this story. This was the first - and, in my opinion, the best - of Serena Valentino’s book series collectively entitled “Villains.” The series explores the origins of different famous Disney antagonists, and shows their own side of the story for their respective films. As the series went on, it began to build its own lore and a broader universe, which I’ve always had mixed feelings about. “Fairest of All,” however, as the first book, doesn’t have any of the issues this budding lore presents in other novels of the series: it stays with its subject, not really deviating from it, presenting simply the story of how the Evil Queen became so evil. Even more than the later “Mirror, Mirror,” this book makes you sympathize with the Queen, and explains her origins and motives in a way that is both tragic and disturbing. At the start of the story, she actually tries hard to be a good mother to dear Snow White, and a worthy bride to her husband, the King. However, as time goes on, personal insecurities and the pressure of her power begin to twist her heart and mind, ultimately transforming her into the villainess we all recognize. There have been many sympathetic takes on the Evil Queen, both by Disney and by others, but this may very well be my favorite take: it inspired me a lot when I was working on my own twist to the plot…but that’s another story (literally). Bottom line, for somehow being both beautifully simple and wonderfully complex, “Fairest of All” is, in my opinion, the best appearance of Disney’s Evil Queen.

HONORABLE MENTIONS INCLUDE…

House of Mouse.

The Queen had multiple small appearances throughout this show, but nothing super substantial. Still, it was fun to see her pop up and all the shenanigans she’d get up to. I think my favorite was the time she sold Pete a poisoned apple like a used car saleswoman. XD

Once Upon a Halloween.

A Halloween special in tribute to the Disney Villains, where the Evil Queen consults not the Magic Mirror, but rather the Black Cauldron, in a plan to - what else? - take over the world. At the end of the special, the power of the Cauldron overwhelms the Queen…though thankfully, her end is much less horrifying than the Horned King’s.

Snow White: An Enchanting Musical.

This was a stage show at Disneyland that was a reimagining of the original Disney film, with some minor changes to the plot and new dialogue. It featured a pre-recorded Patrick Stewart as the Magic Mirror. Fun show, but I find the other appearances more noteworthy of interest.

Disney’s Golden Anniversary of Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs.

An EXTREMELY weird (and very, VERY cheesy) 1987 TV special made in tribute to the film’s 50th anniversary. Jane Curtin played the Queen, seeking revenge on the Seven Dwarfs, with the help of…uh…Sherman Hemsley. (pauses) Weird choice for the face of the Magic Mirror, that one…

[namorthesubmariner]

Namor & Talokan

So these are my thoughts upon watching Black Panther: Wakanda Forever twice now.

I loved Namor. I truly feel they captured the characterization so well in so many ways and it’s amazing how good of a job they did in this movie, how Tenoch owns that role, how perfect everything is. This is what it means to adapt a character, changing things but keeping the essence of the character and tbh the changes were such a great choice because in the end it served to enhance the character and bring him to new audiences and fans to enjoy and he is still NAMOR. So many people complaining about how bad it is they stripped Namor of everything obviously think that Namor begins and ends with Atlantis and know nothing of his character.

The overarching theme of Mothers, and their children, Namor & Fen, Shuri & Ramonda, play a central role amidst all the grief of the past/losing someone. Colonization is the enemy, not Namor who was just Wakanda’s antagonist. 

Talokan mirrors Wakanda but asks the question: What if Colonization had won, what happens to the survivors who escaped? Wakanda never had to deal with the Invasion of their homeland, while Talokan did.

In the comics Namor is often the “Voice of Reason” when placed within a group dynamic, such as the Illuminati, it’s Namor who points out their plans are stupid or finds the most straightforward path to his goals, he is a very honest character and doesn’t hold back his words/thoughts. So it makes sense that just as Coogler holds up Talokan to mirror Wakanda so he would hold Namor up as a mirror to Shuri and gives her the option that others in Wakanda could not, to take on the world and give into those feelings of Rage. Ramonda (and by extension Wakanda) wants Shuri to grieve properly in a healthy and begin to move on with her life, which Shuri cannot do because in part she blames herself for not being able to save T’Challa. Survivors guilt is strong within her even though she really couldn’t do anything but that’s how guilt works. Which plays off really well because Coogler wasn’t afraid to let Namor be exactly like his comic counterpart and follow through on his word/promises even if that meant he was going to do things no Morally White/Good aka Hero character would do, since Namor is a Morally Grey character he has the space to make and follow through on choices he finds benefits himself and his people.

Spoilers beneath the cut, so this is your warning.

While Namor is much older and had time to rule over his people and deal with the grief of losing his mother for hundreds of years he chose Rage & Vengeance as his crutch to get through losing her. He focuses his anger on the world. He isn’t wrong, the Spanish Colonizers are the root cause for all the evil done to him and his people and by extension the surface world. Namor is a Hero to his people and he is their Protector. Which means he will be viewed as an enemy of the surface world. Namor was superhero comics first anti-hero and Tenoch!Namor is the same.

As a general overview before I get into details, Namor’s arc is very complete. His goal was an alliance with Wakanda, he makes it clear the first time he comes to ask them for help because Namor does not ask for help, not in the comics, not unless he trusts that person or is willing to trust that person. Namor + Trust is a very important trait. Listen if you think Namor couldn’t find the scientist and kill Riri where she stood on his own than you don’t know how capable Namor is. He and his people are not primitive/lacking of skills or smarts, he doesn’t need Wakanda’s help but he recognizes it would be smarter in the long run to have an ally that would empathize with him and his people. He chooses Wakanda because its the Nation his mother told him about, and he recognizes that they and Talokan are both very similar. Namora and Attuma were literally using a hunting trick for Riri, have someone else draw her out into the open before taking them down. Why else would they have been waiting close enough to take Riri if Namor had asked the Wakandans to bring her to him? If Namor had truly trusted them to find AND bring Riri to him he would have waited instead he had a back up plan which were Attuma and Namora. Namor’s trust of the surface, even Wakanda only goes so far. 

Let me get into details. You don’t know how much it’s killing me to not have pics to go along with my text but I will have to wait till the movie is out on dvd to be able to gif/screencap everything.

I’m starting off with character design first:

Wings.

His wings are AMAZING. There was no easy Superman gliding and swooping here! His air walking was astounding, at times it felt like he had to really push himself to get up to a certain height level like a bird putting more effort into its wings getting off the ground vs catching a air current. He was so agile and FAST, turning on a whim and aware of his surroundings, honestly some parts felt like he was just swimming or dancing through the air, the way he twists his body/hips to change positions. I am so happy they included the wings because it’s so important to his character.

His wings flap rapidly like a hummingbird, and it’s always been one of my personal headcanons that’s how Namor’s wings move and it was really cool to see! There’s a sound you hear when his wings move, like a rattlesnake/buzzing, I think its because he is called K’uk’ulkan, Feather Serpent God, so that rattlesnake buzzing is a nod to the serpent aspect of that.

Edit: AresisKander on Twitter added this comment after reading this post and I am including their comment:

About the sound of the wings or when he flies, I think the reference is to the ayoyotes or chachayotes many people in Mexico still use to do/reenact traditional dancing

A photo of Ayoyotes.

/End Edit.

I did some searching online today to try and figure out what bird/feather pattern they modeled Namor’s wings off of because in the movie it’s not pure white wings and had some light patterns of grey/light brown with the white. I think its modeled after the Osprey (Pandion Haliaetus).

The parts I’ve highlight here are what stood out to me the most in the movie, the tops of his wings had the same white feathery look and his lower feathers had that pattern. The bird makes sense for Namor as the Osprey is found near rivers/bodies of water and is a fish eating bird of prey, with excellent eyesight to see underwater to hunt their fish. They are excellent divers too.

Tenoch’s ears were so cute, and while Namor has pointed ears, the rest of his people do not, so some people like Namora, use jewelry to give themselves the pointed ears like Namor, others use jewelry on the outside of their ear to mimic the pointed ear shape.

GILLS.

THE TALOKANIL (or is it Talokaneil?) HAVE GILLS. I AM SO HAPPY THEY KEPT THAT FROM THE COMICS!!! The Gills have always set Marvel’s Atlanteans apart from DC, and even Namor has gills in the comics even though artists forget to draw it but it was an important plot point in a couple of comics. Seeing their water masks covered not just their mouth/nose but also the gills on their necks was so cool. I can’t wait until high res stills come out so I can show you all how cool their costumes were! the gill masks were soooo pretty!!! There is just so much detail on their look/costumes/mayan influences that I can’t do it justice with words but it was beautiful, Namora had a few outfit changes through the movie which I loved.

Speaking of Namora, she was not at all like her comic counterpart and like I guessed before she is basically a mix of Namora and Andromeda. It makes sense why they wouldn’t use the character Andormeda since she is Attuma’s daughter in the comics so they wouldn’t have time to explain why his daughter is the same age as him etc. since comic atlanteans are long lived and look the same ageish. Andromeda operates as Namor’s right hand woman, the captain of his guards/army, a highly respected close friend and long time ally who would always fight beside Namor and offer advice.

Namora is smart, loyal, and such a badass in the movie. Mabel played her beautifully and I adored her. Anyways I loved this interpretation of Namora and I hope we get to see more of her and Attuma. Attuma’s character does not get alot of lines, we have no clue to his motivations and if he hates Namor or not like in the comics, in the comics they were enemies, but the recent King in Black: Namor tells the story of Attuma’s origin and friendship with Namor before it all went bad.

Namora, Attuma, and Namor all wear different outfits throughout the movie. The character designs were brilliant, and the costumes were gorgeous, so I really hope they win an award for that again.

It also feels like they each have an “Avatar” of sorts. Namor is the Feathered Serpent, Attuma is a Shark, and Namora is a Lion Fish, remember the Lion Fish is a deadly venomous creature so those spines Namora wears are a warning threat to her enemies.

The Plot

I will be focused on the Namor/Talokan plot mainly.

The first scene we get with Namor is literally ripped from the pages of Marvel Comics (1939) #1. In the comic, two divers go exploring a ship and Namor darts by too fast for them. Later Namor cuts the lines of one diver killing him, then goes after the second diver.

In the movie the divers are sent to check on a drill in the ocean, it had struck vibranium, which the Americans were after since they had a Vibranium detection machine. Namor swims by too fast for them to see, they are too focused on their find, however one diver’s life support signal stops, when the scientist lady on the ship asks the second diver to turn around to check on her partner and see if he was ok, she turns only to find cut life support lines. Namor comes for her next. I want to say very quickly that while Vibranium was included in the backstory/plot of the movie it also has it’s roots in the comics but only since the 90s:

Golden age - two divers on an exploratory mission - Marvel Comics (1939) #1 Silver age - expanded: two divers were sent there because the captain of the ship was Captain Leonard McKenzie on his return to the Antarctic waters after decades to search for Fen. The Sub-Mariner (1968) #44 Modern Age - The original cause of two ships coming to Antarctica is because the first one (The Endurance) was on a mission to find Vibranium, while the second one {The Oracle, Namor’s father’s ship) was on a mission to find The Endurance. Namor, the Sub-Mariner (1990) #52

So as you can see they just cut off the Leonard part since Fen’s origins have changed as well, and they kept the scene from the first comic and their motivation is Vibranium. There was a very Depths!Namor vibe to the character which I adored because Sub-Mariner: The Depths is such a good comic.

Meanwhile above there is a siren song luring the crew to their deaths in the sea. I loved the Sirens, they are a highlight of the Talokanil. The ship is now under attack by the Talokanil, and the scientist lady escapes into a helicopter. Attuma and Namora arrivals are great! The Talokanil are efficient at their tasks.

Namora watches as the helicopter goes higher into the sky but doesn’t do anything because she knows Namor will stop them. The first scene showing Namor’s full strength is amazing, it cannot be understated how Namor is a Power in the comics, he is literally called a one man navy. Namor is the guy the other characters call in when they need the Big Guns. He wrecks that helicopter and the scene ends with a visual of Namor hover over the sea in the dark, it really reminds me of this visual.

Marvel Fanfare (1982) #16

So as you see Namor has been called Devil, Sea Devil, Sea Demon in the comics which makes the Spanish Priest’s words to a young Namor really hit home because humans have always viewed him as something not human, evil, and otherworldly even though they themselves are not good people.

The next time we see Namor he is rising out of the water in Wakanda to speak with Ramonda and Shuri, he carries with him a shell, a conch shell, which in can be symbolic of a declaration of war or something else depending on the context as written here and here by Aztec Empire on twitter. The soundtrack to Namor’s arrival is freaking awesome, and Namor’s first show of pure astonishment/wonder at Wakanda is so endearing. Alot of people complained about this online saying he wouldn’t do that, but the truth is Namor does know how to smile, he loves the wonder and beauty of Nature, he isn’t a scowling angry fish man all the time. Tenoch’s micro expressions are amazing, he goes from wonder to being a Threat in the space of seconds. What I really like is how he captured Namor’s humor which is not an easy thing to do since in the comics Namor has a very dry gallows humor that makes people around him think its very serious but he’s actually telling the joke more to himself than for the benefit of others. Namor says “- I took care of it” meaning he totally killed all those people but he’s acting like it was nothing more than a small chore or something. lol. Also there is something else I wanted to point out about the beginning of this scene, Ramonda and Shuri are alerted by elephants who sensed Namor and ran, in the comics when Namor is running amok in New York for the first time he releases several wild creature from the zoo, which also had elephants. Now I don’t know if that was in reference to that scene in Marvel Mystery Comics (1939) #8 but it did remind me of it.

And as stated earlier, Namor was willing to extend his trust but still Attuma and Namora followed Shuri and Okoye in the later scenes.

MCU!Attuma is strong and a capable warrior, I greatly enjoyed him baiting Okoye on the bridge into a fight. The way he looks at Riri (whom Namora told him to kill) and decides she isn’t going anywhere so he might as well have a fight for fun with Okoye was Peak Character for him. Namora is annoyed and snaps at him to stop playing around. I love their dynamic with Attuma playing the Strong Muscle character and Namora though tiny was clearly in charge. Both of them have consistent characterizations, both are very loyal to Talokan and they get stuff done. Attuma is 100% ready to kill Riri and so is Namora. They are looking out for the future of their people. BUT when Shuri asks them to take them to Talokan alive they confer with each other, they treat Shuri like the royalty she is and they take her wish seriously since they also know Namor wants an alliance with Wakanda. If Namor had ordered them to kill the scientist at all costs, I don’t doubt they would have been done there on the bridge.

When Shuri and Riri are in Talokan, Shuri is treated as according to her social status, a Princess, with all the respect given to her from one Nation to another which really stood out to me. They give her traditional clothing, and they aren’t unknind, they care for Riri and give her food while Shuri goes to speak with Namor. I’m just pointing out that Coogler isn’t depicting the Talokanil as some hostile people who are unreasonable in wanting to kill Riri, they are only hostile when the safety of their people is in question.

The biggest change I would say character wise in regards of the transition from the Atlanteans to the Talokanil is that the Atlanteans actively hated and looked down on Namor for being half human/atlantean, its a major source of isolation for Namor. Namor’s character is rooted in his biracialness, is rooted in being a man of two worlds without fitting into either world and struggling with his two people. Changes seem to have taken away that biracial aspect in the form of two different races of human/atlantean since it seems Namor is a full Mayan/Talokan now however it doesn’t mean it’s lost, Namor is never a part of the Talokanil proper, he is respect and revered yes but also set apart in isolation because of his slowed aging meaning he would outlive all of his people, and that he is seen as their deity. When Shuri meets Namor he is open and honest with her. He RESPECTS her in a way the Elders of her people didn’t, because they saw her as a child. He respects her because she is a Princess and because Namor respects women. I know there is alot of bad Fanon out there regarding Namor’s treatment of women in the comics but as a person who has read all of his comics, so much of it comes down to out of context weird fanon and also some moments of really bad writing however Comic!Namor was raised by his single mother Fen and has great respect for women, so of course Namor would respect Shuri and treat her in accordance with her social stature.

I’ve already begun to see NamorShuri shipping discourse so let be preface this by saying I literally do not care. I don’t care what people ship. However this meta is my, a comic fan’s, thoughts on Namor’s character and the rest of the movie, and I would appreciate it if people don’t use my words out of context nor they drag me into any shipping wars. Once one of my other metas was used out of context to promote racism and I don’t appreciate that. Also I personally believe that shipping is not the end of all things. I believe shipping is a fun addition to the source BUT it’s NOT the end all reason behind character’s actions. So people saying Namor was totally hitting on Shuri, or flirting with her, or whatever, that’s fun fanon for you but I personally do not see it that way.

Namor is charismatic in the comics and Tenoch!Namor captures Namor’s charisma, anger, sorrow, and light heartedness but most of all he captures Namor’s loneliness. When Namor opens up to Shuri and tells her the story of his people, of his mother, he is trying to find a connection, some empathy, a friend.

Princess Fen and her people.

They don’t say Fen is royalty or some high ranking woman in their Nation, however they don’t not say that either. Until we get more information about her then I will only speak on what I saw. Fen and her people are suffering from smallpox brought over by the Spanish Invaders, her people are dying, and she is pregnant. We see Fen place a stone, a funeral rite, into the mouth of a dead man who was placed in a dug grave, he had already passed. The unnamed man died of smallpox, and I personally believe this could have been Namor’s father but also it simply could have been a person who was her family/friend/she had some connection to since we aren’t exactly sure who he was. In the comics Fen is the most beautiful Atlantean ever, and I love the actress they chose for Fen, Maria’s beauty takes my breath away to be honest. In the comics Fen meets Namor’s father after she was sent to spy on the Americans and she falls in love with him. She is strong, smart, and fierce princess of her people. I have very strong feelings about Fen as she is one of my favorite characters.

The Shaman creates the potion/serum they drink to turn into water breathers/Talokanil, however Fen hesitates because her concern is her child. The Shaman promises her that this will save her child and her and then swears that her son will be their new king since he will be the first born of their new people. This new backstory for Namor fits the tone of the movie. I loved both Fen and the Shaman, their actors were so good.

Fen being a central character in Namor’s life is so important and I’m really glad that the movie didn’t skip over that. Fen is a guiding force, the reason why Namor is the way he is in the comics, her love and protection, even her naming him “Namor” which in the comics/atlantean it means “Avenging Son” all shaped Namor into the character he is. Fen and Namor are so important to me.

Namor speaks about how he grew up slowly and his mother aged normally, and how for her death she wanted to be buried in her homeland on the surface. Namor carries out his mother’s wishes. Fen in the comics is also buried in her homeland in the antarctic waters of her youth.

Now. This scene. The Child without Love. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I have not been able to stop thinking about this since.

Namor is the AVENGING SON, he gets his identity from his mother. When I learned she wouldn’t be naming him that I was honestly very upset because its so central to who Namor is, but then I saw the adapted scene and I feel it works in this context. In the comics his name is a warning to the surface world/white people who hurt his people in the original comics. In the movie the name was bestowed upon him by a Spanish Priest who calls him a devil after Namor saw their evil and punished them for it. Namor wears his name as a promise to his people and a threat to his enemies,“My enemies call me Namor”.

Honestly the burial of Fen was so sad, Namor even places a stone in her mouth as well. She missed her home and wanted to be returned there. This really speaks to me about immigration and displacement, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard my own family members, the older ones, who don’t live in the homeland anymore talk about how they must be buried there. I think its something that only people who leave their homeland (not out of choice but a need for a place that will be better for lives because their home isn’t safe or they have better opportunities in foreign land) can really understand that no matter how far away they are, the need to return there, be buried there for the rest of time is a such a human need. The themes of immigration/displacement/colonization is prevalent throughout their story.

In the comics Namor’s first motivation is to wage war against the surface (white) people who hurt his people and he does cause a ruckus but then he faces the true Evil of Humanity when he finds out about the Nazis, he fights alongside the humans to stop them in WWll because he knew that they would come after his people next. 

In the movie, the Evil of Humanity is the Spanish Colonizers. There is no romanticized version of this, there is no Spanish colonizer myth of them being benevolent people bringing advancement to the Natives. They are shown in their full evil glory as colonizers who hurt, killed, and destroyed Nations of Native people. This is the first time Namor sees humans, and its the worst they have to show.

When Nakia is searching for Namor/a way to find Shuri and Riri, she speaks to an old woman who tells her where Namor was sighted, and how he returns, and those who go after him with ill in their hearts do not return. So it means Namor is standing on a beach, returning over the years, because there is only one thing that would bring him to the surface world, his mother’s grave. Namor was visiting Fen’s grave in her ancestral lands.

The Sub-Mariner (1968) #17

Namor’s core character is that he is a hero to his people, and their protector, which the movie displayed so accurately. After the story of his people’s origins, Namor takes Shuri on a tour of his capital city. Another time one of his jokes comes into play, he is telling her all the ways her body would die under the deep water, and then goes “We have suits!” he neglects to mention its the SAME suits that he had taken from the scientists he had killed in the beginning of the movie! lmao. I love him. I really love this character even more now even though I’ve been such a huge fan of Namor for years.

Talokan’s Capital City is so pretty. I can’t wait to zoom in on all the details.

I honestly wish I could get my hands on that 400 page Talokan design book of it’s history/lore. I wish I had better pictures of the stone ring in which Namor does the Rising Sun hand gesture to activate the water currents that take them from the cave to the capital city. It’s clear the Talokans have advanced science/machines which they use all the time, and how they harrassed the power of undersea vibrainum like the Wakandans. Namor even says “I brought my people the sun”. I know there is like 30 minutes of cut footage so I will be waiting for that to come out in an extra dvd feature soon I hope.

¡Líik’ik Talokan!

The term means “Rise Talokan” or “Talokan Rises” the Mesoamerican symbol is the hand symbol connected to the sun (source & source) Namor and the Talokanil use it in greeting to each other.

The Mesoamerican worldbuilding of Talokan is more than I ever hoped for. One of my main ongoing complaints of Namor’s world in the comics is that Marvel is more interesting in destroying it than building it up so it’s just really great to see that Coogler and team had Mesoamerican experts and a language teacher (who played the Shaman) to make sure everything is the best it can be. I know this is a fantasy take of Mesoamerica but I feel they really respected the source material, and Namor’s transformation from Prince/King of Atlantis to  K’uk’ulkan is a wonderful way to bring about the comic fantasy coding of native (atlantean) people to actual native mesoamerican people representation.

After their tour Namor gives Shuri his mother’s bracelet. The bracelet is made with fibers of the blue vibranium plant that the Shaman gave to Fen and her people. I know people are saying “it’s romantic, he gave her his mom’s bracelet” but like, if y’all could just take off those shipping glasses for one second to understand not everything has a romantic intention behind it. Imo Namor gives it to her as a gift, a sign of trust, everything he’s done so far has been to extend his hand in trust to what he hopes will be allies to his people. That has been his motivation, that’s what compels him to go to Wakanda, he is seeking an ally, and why not the Princess who has a chip on her shoulder, who wants to burn the world as he does?

While Namor is gone, answering Queen Ramonda’s summons/falling for her distraction tactic, Shuri and Riri escape with Nakia and in the process one of Namor’s people, a young woman, is killed. Namor and Ramonda’s confrontation is tense, and again he carries the shell, remember it’s significance of a object that represents war or other intentions.

Until now Namor had been trying to reach Shuri and get her to see things from his POV about why the scientist should die, but he makes it clear to Ramonda that he will kill Shuri along with Riri if it ensures his people will be safe. That is a character who all throughout the movie has made his goals very clear and then the rest of his character follows through on his threats/promises.

When Namor comes back to Talokan he finds that the entire ruse had been a betrayal, a trick, to get him to leave and in the process it costs him the life of one of his people. If there was one thing in the comics that was always sure to set Namor off was one of his people dying, and it’s no different in the movie. He gathers his people to make a speech about how his hopes was for naught.

The attack on Wakanda was Namor’s retaliation for the murder of one of his people.

In the comics the first time Namor attacks Wakanda, he was possessed by the Phoenix Force and not in control of his mind/actions. However there is a Namor and Shuri plot where Shuri sends her warriors to slaughter Atlanteans because of the Phoenix Namor attack, and then he sends the Black Order to Wakanda. Shuri in the comics does have innocent Atlanteans killed and Namor retaliates. Again they adapted stuff for the movie, and it plays out differently but I just thought to share that to showcase how different things were done. You can read Namor and Shuri’s interactions (they don’t have alot in the comics) in my Black Panther (T’Challa) & The Sub-Mariner thread here.

Edit:

I forgot to add another scene that was Comic to Movie:

Black Panther (2009) #1 - there is a scene in the movie that is exactly like this, where they fly above and comment on how fast Namor is in the water.

/End Edit

The action scenes, every time Namor is flying around fighting and breaking stuff. Once again they show that Namor is A THREAT, and he will follow through on it. And again, the Sirens are so pretty, I love them. One thing I really found interesting is how we see Namor’s moral code even in battle, even after Ramonda, he knows he could crush them but instead he gives them time to grieve. Some people might go “why did he give them a week, etc.” but like, it makes sense for his character, he isn’t a murderer because he likes killing, everything he does is in accordance to his moral code and no one elses, honor is a huge thing with Namor in the comics too. Not to mention Namor’s over all goal throughout the movie, he wants Wakanda on his side, he will do what he can to get that. He points at Shuri and says “You are queen now.” He puts the heavy burden of caring for an entire nation on her shoulders, now she will finally be forced to either step up or let it crush her. Namor is pressure that presses Shuri’s character into change, either she will crack or become a diamond.

Good characters are not stationary, good characters grow and change.

The final three scenes I want to talk about:

The big Wakanda vs Atlantis fight takes place on the Sea Leopard, now this could just be a fun name they gave the ship but it could also be a deep dive reference into a Namor comic character, a villain called Sea Leopard. 

Okoye vs Attuma fight again and I loved it. Namora was such a badass!!!! I didn’t mention the water bombs the Talokanil use but its so freaking cool, they use it all throughout the movie and they also use Whales to launch their people out of the water with their tails, or the people ride them. I just love all the worldbuilding of Talokan. I know I haven’t talked about other parts of the movie so far, but my favorite characters are M’Baku, Okoye, and Nakia. I enjoyed every moment M’Baku was on screen!!!

Namor vs Shuri, the big fight, Shuri has finally taken the mantle of the Black Panther, and this action scene was so freaking good. Shuri’s plan to use Namor’s weaknesses against him gains her the upper hand and to be honest all those whiney fanbois crying “but SHE is a girl and SHE can’t fight and beat Namor!!!!” need to shut up because they are WRONG. They aren’t jobbing Namor, they aren’t writing him out of character, these weaknesses are the same weaknesses Namor has in the comics!

Namor’s main weaknesses are: Pollution/Poisons, Being dried out/overheated, his wings being hurt, and some forms of mind control/amnesia.

The fight was more than fair imo and Namor isn’t flawless, he has weakness that were used against him. Honestly I would have been mad if he somehow was unaffected. ALSO I LITERALLY FREAKED OUT WHEN I SAW “IMPERIUS REX” ON SCREEN. lol, my arms were flailing for real.

Shuri weapon is against Namor’s throat and she has the power to avenge her mother, to kill Namor, to take that step further into violence and vengance, to burn the world and move further away from healing and dealing with her greif.

“When my mother died, the last person who truely knew me died with her” Shuri’s loss drove her to become the Black Panther.

Namor’s mother dies, and the last person who truely loved/knew him for him, for being him, not a protector, not a leader, that love dies too.

Ramonda’s words “Show Him Who You Are!” is echoed to Shuri, it’s the same words Ramonda yells at T’Challa in Black Panther, when he fights M’Baku at Warrior’s fall. This is Shuri’s defining moment, her path forks and she has to choose mercy and moving on, dealing with her grief or accepting vengence to forever take a place in her heart. Shuri demands Namor yields, and  Namor yields, he got what he wanted, Wakanda’s alliance.

When Namora confronts Namor about him yielding, he even says as much, that what he hoped to achieve he got, and now Wakanda would turn to them when it was time (for them to face the surface world/colonizers)

The action scenes in the movie are amazing, I could watch it a hundred times, the final confrontation between them ends in peace between their peoples.

As I’ve said, this post was mainly focused on Namor & the Talokanil, and I didn’t go into depth with the other plots/characters because I’ve been a Namor fan for years so all my interest is hyperfocused on him and his people.

My complaint: Everett Ross’s entire plot was not needed in this movie, it literally could have been a phone call with the first scene and we could have gotten more scenes with Namor & the Talokanil.

Personally my one biggest gripe is that in the end Wakanda & Talokan should have gone after the main people who were a threat to their nations which was the american government, it was a earlier plot point with Queen Ramonda at the United Nations that was just dropped as the focus shifted over to Namor. I do wish they had keep that plot thread going and both Wakanda and Talokan had teamed up to fight the Government/Surface World etc. but this is a MCU Marvel/Disney movie and Disney/Marvel is never going to do anything so controversial as calling out the American or other governments in present day for their colonizing ways, which is why I feel keeping Colonization as something that happened in the distant past isn’t true. I know the realities of the studios politics and the message the movie was sending and tbh it really followed through on alot of things and my complaints are minor and doesn’t take away the sheer enjoyment and happiness I felt watching Namor and the Talokanil on screen. Also I’m so glad we got to see Namor’s artistic side, which he has in the comics as well.

Once again I am so glad that Namor is shown as a Man of Color and his people are Native Mesoamerican. I’ve always personally felt the coding in his comics meant that we would lose the impact of his story if they stripped him of his biracial poc coding and cast a generic white man. It was always my biggest worry when it came to thoughts of Live Action Namor.

I love how multifaceted Tenoch’s acting was with Namor. Tenoch Huerta is MY Namor, he is the perfect choice for Namor and I’ve stood by his casting since it was first announced.

Created in 1939 by Bill Everett, Namor is imo one of the best characters ever created in comics, and the mcu version is one that is equally as wonderful and complex. I love both versions very much.

[mihai-florescu]

Putting a message i sent earlier under a read more, it has some thoughts ive expressed before tho. ES, of course

My thoughts as an EichiP... i view ! and !! as different stories in the way they're approached tbh, what i fell in love with enstars for was the character driven storytelling of one event seen through different perspectives, where you see the antagonist in one perspective become a protagonist in another story and can empathize with the entire cast like this. I fell in love with eichi's story of second chances, getting what you want and regretting your actions in the process, redemption, desperation, overcoming fate and asserting one's self into the story, saving a school in a dying industry that saved your life by giving you a dream; i consider it an arc fulfilling to the reader at the end of ! era. But we still had to continue... and it's not like we didnt get inklings of eichi's dreams of idol utopia, the idol soldier idea goes back to main story 1, but !! loses the charm of the original series through expanding the worldbuilding so much and shifting to a plot driven story that opens 10 cans of worms instead of offering resolutions. There's not really room to breathe if the stakes just keep getting higher and higher...

As for the colonisation plotline, it's been here since the beginning of ES2. The SS arc makes it obvious, but i remember even before, the talks about ES taking over from local businesses, trying to be seen as the standard, it was always the direction ensemble square as an institution would take. But the "antagonist in one story, protagonist in another" approach doesnt work anymore with such subjects. The guys responsible for this are your coworkers you share dorms with. I read the stories but cant empathize anymore, so i've been feeling disconnected from eichi for a while. I see enstars with eichi at its core but i didnt care for his center event, i read it, didnt like the ending, and overall felt off. Eichi becoming the villain of ! to attone for the war kind of loses significance if a year later he is a cartoon villain idol colonialist you can't even sympathize with anymore because of the magnitude of events. However i do think !! has done good things for some characters pushing them further or developing them in a way ! didnt. But for others...

I also have my issues with sci fi elements becoming the norm, even taken metaphorically or as hyperboles, when one of the central themes i love about enstars is humanity. Then again, i am a war era fan that relied on manipulating human desires and perceptions, and the fact that there were no monsters or gods, just humans framed as such, playing on people's fears and beliefs, it's a bit jarring to me to have them introduce AIs forming from escaped comatose brains (im minimizing the switch climax rn, i didnt even hate it as a whole, just this resolution im unhappy with)

It also feels like we've lost some of the meta aspects of the writing i liked, a certain awareness of being characters in a story and there being an audience. But im still struggling to word my thoughts on this matter. I felt it present in main story 2, even if it annoyed me at parts in its obviousness ("good thing we're not protagonists, no one would want to read about us" youre right aira you are not interesting to me. And yet i'll read your story to try and empathize nevertheless. I have other thoughts on aira too, perhaps for another time). I wish we explored a bit more what it means to no longer be the central protagonist, from trickstar's perspective...and brought back the successors topic. But i havent read every ts story yet so i'd be foolish to complain before really making sure i've checked everything. To me ! ended satisfyingly with room left for elaborations and imagination, but i dont feel like !!'s ending is really ending anything at all. Not necessarily bad since it's not like the game is shutting down, but overwhelming worldbuilding wise while underwhelming character wise...

Let's see... im not sure how to end this. Just a bit of a stream of consciousness as a ! fan who still loves enstars despite my critiques. Mainly, well, no one's gonna take away the stories that already exist that i do love and impacted my life greatly. And i do think !! had some really good things too it brought, or at least stories i hold dear too. Change is scary and i don't think it's always for the best, but it's also fun to see where it goes next...

[ms-scarletwings]

A Messy, Sedulous Necropsy of Zib Membrane

That’s what we call him right? Not Invader Zib? Hell if I know, we’ll let the tags decide.

Whatever he is christened by his author, enemies, or fans, this titular villain of the Zimvoid is such a mind blaster to me. I wish we had more time with him within the comics. I wish he had been a concept explored in the show. I wish he had a movie. I am having fun with a little hyperbole here, but I truly do find him just as interesting and potentially pivotal of an antagonist as Tak was, if not even more.

Both, of course, were so badly underutilized for sake of the series status quo. To that, Zib was a much bigger threat than Tak, and especially to that of the comics’ own. He potentially changes everything, and somehow absolutely nothing by the end. The TV show always had a more overt tone of cruelty and the macabre floating about its themes. These print issues? I don’t dislike them. It’s still recognizably invader Zim, and the more the merrier, content-wise, but longtime fans can feel that there was this change of essence in the transition. More obviously, in the art, but more subtly, there was an audible softening of that bluntly darker, cynical tone the show was made iconic for. To put it very generally, they lean a little more into the whackiness of this world, there’s a lot more dark comedy to be found in what I’ve seen so far rather than in your face darkness, and in the absence of the ost and voice acting the show accustomed us to, the comics leave a lot more room to be read as you wile. To me, they’re goofier and more episodic in spirit.

This all is not a critique or rating on the comics.. It’s purely, I feel, why Zib stuck out to me all the more jarringly in his context. His reveal was a genuine twist that brought forth stakes higher than arguably any other threat in the entire franchise. He represents a plausible while horrifying prophecy of our main characters if only they made worse decisions. The most interesting of all, for every piece of amazing information he fed to us, he bred dozens more questions about everything than he answered, from Irken machinations, to his ambivalent backstory, to the secrets hidden by the sum of his parts.

Though he was left evidently alive at the end of his story, I don’t see any chance for him making a return, so he is memorialized as another defeated one-off the writers have brisked past and left behind for good. Therefore, I’m here today to take what we got and present it on the metaphorical autopsy table. I want to really pull apart why this character alone pulled me back into the TV series, really just flay open the bits I can’t get out of my own head and dig harder until we find something or we run out of threads to tug at. Starting with the one already hanging out of my mouth, but

• B.E.F

“Bad End Friend” is a term I learned the meaning of within the last 12 hours or so of writing this, and I’m exuberant over that discovery. It’s a niche trope i didn’t know ive been a giant fan of since I was a child. Summed up, fictional characters from beloved media, typically, animated child protagonists… given the worst case scenario treatment. Their “bad ending”, whether that means a corruption arc, demonic possession, a lovecraftIan tragedy… usually something that’s anywhere along the lines of a fate worse than death to a full villainous turnover. As a treat. The concept is strongly associated with fanworks and AUs of popular media, but just as often this is something that becomes explored in the source material as well. A couple great examples I know would probably be Ice Prince Finn from Adventure Time or what happens in Undertale when you decide you want to run the most depraved playthrough possible. From a more mature story, “Evil” Morty is another validly arguable sample.

Besides a bit of a fondness I got going for certain dark or spooky themes in general, what I REALLY love about canonical BEFs the most is their utility as characterization tools. They’re the “having your cake and eating it too” option! The perfect way for an author to explore certain things about any character without actually committing to well… a bad ending.

Almost always, they are necessarily hypothetical or reversible. If they’re not reversible, they go often hand-in-hand with a little universe tampering to make happen. Sometimes, this means the story goes the way of time travel and branching off butterfly effects. Sometimes it means confirming multiverse theory, which can be the same thing depending on your semantical position.

And Zib crossed off the BEF qualifications by far and away. His implications are extremely dark given any pause think about them, and he’s a living, disturbing tragedy in aftermath. If you want to view a rigamarole about that aspect of his characterization as he appeared in the comics, someone else long beat me to that and I’m enthusiastically recommending a peek at their own work. I’m thrilled to do so and build a little upon that with those extended what-if-wonders.

• Lessons From a Lost Episode

Elephant in the room I haven’t seen someone ask yet, uh..

By show rules, isn’t Zib supposed to be a clear case of the writers committing the sin of retcon? By show I’m including the unaired scripts, including “10 Minutes to Doom”. In that one we had what looked like the potential setup for a Zib case, and it was deconstructed across the whole episode.

In short recap, Dib learned the hard and reckless way about the true nature of what Irken PAKs actually are. This is not an inventory bag, it is not “gear”. It’s the actual Irken entity- at least, the primary component.

Detaching it from the organic shell essentially caused a temporary split into two instances of Zim, desperately trying to connect back together under threat of obliteration.

Like let me be very clear about this,

The PAK is an autonomous instance of Zim’s consciousness, and it’s the main one. We’ve seen it act to save his life when his body has been out cold or flatlined, and he doesn’t appear the least bit disoriented or confused once “he” wakes and jumps back into the action. There’s no known separate computer assistant AI or security autopilot in there. That code, that program, IS Zim. As Long as the PAK is active, he is capable of staying fully conscious and able to react to what’s happening around him, and that’s what we’ve been seeing, his own actions.

Zim proved me right when Virooz tried to replace him and detached the PAK. Take note of his phrasing after the chair event™.

“I” activated the protocol. Immediately after Virooz ran off with my shell.

“I” Voluntarily chose to do so.

I don’t remember it playing out like that in “10 Minutes to Doom”.

Attaching to a new host wasn’t the first reflex. Dib was not the least bit aware that that he has literally holding the actual Zim captive in sense, and the latter was fighting like a cornered animal to escape him. Failing that, alongside the distance between him and his original body growing fast, he made a last desperate gambit, and he willingly connected himself into Dib’s body.

I can see why he thought this was better than nothing, no matter how repulsive the notion might have been. If he couldn’t fend Dib off physically, he could incapacitate him in some fashion by trying to overtake his will. Maybe give the shell a better chance to catch up, maybe in the longshot hope of being able to pilot dib in order to become whole with the correct host again. And you can say he succeeded, at least in dominating bodily control away from Dib, but at the cost of his already tenuously held sanity. This could be because of the interference of Dib’s own mind still resisting to fully submit, or malfunctions because of the biological incompatibility; however, the thing that Dib mentally becomes is only the basic idea of what “Zim” is. Instead of remembering it needs to reunite with its shell ASAP, the PAK mistakes Dib’s body for its own and goes through the manic motions of following the Invader mission. And it does this, weirdly enough, with almost no regard for blowing its cover.

When things are set right again, Zim’s later words near the episode ending revealed that he knew that was an unsustainable state.

Such a risk was not just accounted for, he was actually banking on it if that clock had hit zero. If Zim had truly lost, if he was really doomed to meet his end on this nasty rock in the middle of Nowhere, Space, then by every damned circuit in his being, he was going to take down this insolent fool boy and as many other humans possible with him. A dying act of vengeful rage.

• The Exceptional… Exception

Now, wouldn’t all of this be the definitive reason for Zib’s existence to be an aberrant impossibility? Yes, but actually no. Fun thing about multiverses is if something doesn’t work in one setting, you can just tweak a few dials and suddenly you have a world where the impossible becomes possible. But that’s a pretty cheap answer, isn’t it? So, what exactly was that crucial difference?

What happened in Zib’s timeline that went down so, so divergently from the events of 10 Minutes to Doom?

Because the only one who was in any position to explain it for us was Zib himself, and he’s proven to be one of the most unreliable of narrators. It’s as @dana-chan-the-control-brain already spared no effort to demonstrate, when he does tell us something about his past, his story is pocked with contradicting half-truths or outright lies. Ergo it helps to break down each recount of events to pick out the real facts.

Version 1: This is an alternate version of dib who defeated his complementing Zim (logically sensible) and went on to achieve all of the success and respect he sought after in his timeline (absolute bullshit). He kind of gestures and only implies about what has happened to his body while explaining that he came to his current understanding of Irken technology by studying it through Zim’s lab (a partial truth). He lets slip in passing that he has in fact fused with the PAK in order to learn how to alter and reprogram its coding, lessons he has applied to Number 2 in order to have a brainwashed pawn (also apparently true).

Version 2, when cornered and red handed: This is an alternate version of Dib who managed to specifically stop Zim's mission (Again, makes sense) but somehow could not convince the world of his findings or his warnings about the Irken Armada (*VERY eyebrow raising). Frustrated with the people’s lack of cooperation, he decides he has no choice but to physically merge with Zim’s PAK post-mortem (concerning and evidently mostly accurate), dominate the Earth himself, and enslave humans to help him in his efforts (highly troubling and probably true). The construction of his EMP super-weapon is successful, but ultimately led to the creation of the Zimvoid when the device was field tested (self evident, absolutely horrifying).

You know what I noticed was missing from both of these accounts? Exactly how his Zim was defeated. Which honestly could have been some beyond useful wisdom to pass along to the main Dib??? More than anything else? I’m not going to fault our boy for not pressing that matter better under the awing circumstance; however, there’s an implication I’ve been reading between lines. 

When Zib mentions “defeating” his own Zim, he’s talking about something different than ours.

When our Dib has always talked about “defeating” Zim, he’s meant incapacitation and capture. Throughout the show he explicitly wants to present Zim before an audience alive and whole. Yeah, he fantasizes about other people torturing or disassembling him for study, but HIS role was supposed to be reaping the fame for an undeniable, ground-breaking discovery. Conspiracies and cryptids are all this kid breathes and lives by! And as long as pop culture has always been fascinated with the paranormal, and he has to know this full well, people keep bringing forward hoax after hoax after scam. I mean there’s a freaking current one or few still going IRL about this exact topic. Dib would want no room left for being dismissed as another one of those con artists. 

Nonetheless, I actually doubt this is the reason Zib couldn’t get through to the scientific community. A genuine alien lifeform, even a dead one, could still be confirmed by any basic medical examination. The world thinks Dib is too crazy to listen to, but his father is still Professor Membrane. In "10 Minutes to Doom" OUR Dib got as close as having Membrane literally analyzing a PAK, or at worst, preparing to. “Ultimate Dib” gets his hands on the same thing and pulls a move I’d expect from an HP Lovecraft Protagonist instead.

We’re assuming way too much to what these two Dibs have in common, because this ^^^ is really what made the Zimvoid an outlier in the multiverse. That world didn’t only have a very different, more threatening Zim from the main timeline, it had the Dib who proved even more formidable, cunning, and ruthless, even before the fusion. 

He didn’t obtain that PAK ala the “10 minutes to Doom” accident, it’s a personal trophy. This is extra strange remembering that capturing an Irken is realistically more easy than killing one. They’re seriously more tenacious than kudzu and will even fight back in PAK form alone. I’m convinced that whatever sort of final showdown made the Ultimate Dib the victor, there are two optional endings on the table.

Option 1: There was not a body even left intact enough to bring in to research. Maybe Dib’s fault, maybe an accident, maybe even Zim’s own luck running out and his incompetent antics finally swallowed him (and possibly GIR). This theory assumes that the PAK was the only sort of remains to come into Dib’s recovery/possession.

Option 2: Curiosity Killed the cat,

but satisfaction brought it back.

Or, the one I personally headcanon. Dib… all Dibs, I assume, don’t just hate the Irken species. They are mesmerized by them, and all that they represent from his perspective. Firstly, the epic villain he gets to roleplay nemesis to in order to feel his own worth and importance. Secondly, an unknown wonder from beyond the boundaries of the cosmos. He’s not really a ghost buster or a Men In Black agent at heart, but a scientist, like his father. Underneath his contempt for Zim’s plans to destroy the world is a genuine and appropriately childish awe for alien presence, especially for Zim’s technology. His silent, dopey smile when Tak’s ship ended up in his backyard said more than words ever will.. 

Earlier in the show, a great deal of Dib’s time and effort was spent on trying to infiltrate the lower levels of Zim’s base. Sneaking into the house was hard enough, but the computer security can’t be bypassed like the gnomes. Not even by Zim himself unless he really is all himself. Perhaps you’re starting to sniff where I’m going with this one when I refer back to “Bolognius Maximus”. I’ve another reference that’s a little more on the nose, and a lot more… dark.

Were an expired Irken husk before you, you too might take your victory and cash in then. Still, who knows what sudden impulse may run through the head of a less humble version of yourself, one some could call greedier, obsessive to a fault, a screw or two loose, yet, a hell of a smart cookie. Smart enough to see it for what it actually was, the keys to a whole world of discovery that went so many layers deeper than they could ever imagine. It’s possible the Ultimate Dib already learned beforehand the same hard lessons about the PAKs that our own did, and took that understanding toward not repeating the same mistake this time. What happened to Zim? I think he was murdered in cold blood, body, and entity. “10 Minutes to Doom” showed us a fight between 2 brains clinging to one body, struggling until one overpowered another, but that’s not what this is. Through whatever means of science were available to him, this Dib has probably tried to “disarm” the technology by either erasing Zim’s consciousness out of it altogether, or by forcing the autonomous code into a kind of dormancy. His intentions were to render it back to its basic hardware without losing its precious knowledge and usefulness, something like the brain-filled tank that was wired into Skrang’s head. Zim’s PAK doesn’t cling onto his body like a parasitic teratoma this time; it’s merged in a literal sense with his nervous and circulatory system. As well, he has fooled the device’s ability to detect and reject a foreign host shell, the exact same way he deceived the the base’s security AI. If an Irken biology is what these measures authorize to command them and their secrets, then he had the tools on hand to give them just that- in an atrocity I like to call

the darker harvest.

Within this theory, there is not as much room to wonder exactly what became of Zim’s organic remains. 

But where Dib fucked up was, for the second time, in his ignorance to the true nature of what he was even playing with. That was a mistake that even the mighty Elder Brains of Judgementia lost themselves to; How much more vulnerable was the weak, human mind? Though Zim can be devoured, he can never be digested. In that fact was born this aberration against nature, sanity, and humanity alike.

"Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects… don't have politics. They're very… brutal. No compassion, no compromise. We can't trust the insect. I'd like to become the first… insect politician. Y'see, I'd like to, but… I'm afraid, uh… I'm saying… I'm saying I - I'm an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it. But now the dream is over… and the insect is awake." - Seth Brundle, The Fly, 1986

By fusing what is half-mad and what is utterly mad, neither being was cured, only assimilated into the birth of a new madness. The madness of the creature that snickers behind the curtain in the Zimvoid. I rightfully fear that lonesome thing, but not I think as much as I pity him.

• Dejavu, or Re:Plagarism

One more thing about the Zimvoid arc I find curious is the way it makes you question more and more just how much of the aberration is actually still Dib, and how much of it is Zim's infection haunting him. He does nothing with all of his intellect, his resources, and his time in the void doing anything but surrounding himself in everything he claims he despises. He decries alien tyranny in one breath while lording over a homemade, cruel dictatorship in another. He calls for eradication of the very race who's technology and physiology he has thoroughly appropriated. He laments feeling unable to protect the Earth from the Armada alone, yet sneers literally through Irken teeth to insult humans as inferior and of no value to him any longer. Our Dib spent the whole damn show longing for the support of other people, but Zib pushes away potential allies in his arrogance. His broken timeline never became a Dibvoid instead because while only half of his mind can't stand Irkens, both of the souls inside him remember that they loathe and look down upon a Dib, deep inside.

The corruption goes as far as even subverting his own creativity. None of Zib's plans are wholly original. His anti-Irken weapon was already a concept blueprinted inside of that PAK before the merge. Our Dib has several times shown a propensity for some DIY ingenuity, sometimes dipping a toe into the supernatural. Zib entirely calls upon, scavenges and regurgitates Irken designs with a few modifications or upgrades. The Dib Virus, I think is his most uninspired creation yet, for it's original form was always something inside of Zim, even if the latter himself was not aware of the fact. Like all else, it is a weapon he has plundered, customized, and turned around on everyone else for his own selfish ends. This brief point I will end on one  more reflection. The one kind of help Zim ever allowed at his side were the likes of GIR and his own creations. Unable to connect and cooperate with his peers and own kind, his ego preferred to be around those defective machines he related to- drones to be owned by him and always loyally at his beck and call. A slave to admire him unconditionally is the only companionship he's ever been willing to admit to desiring.

And what was Number 2's purpose again? What role exactly were the arena combatants auditioning for, when you think about it?

[corvid-gae]

I believe i can make a better Minecraft movie than the garbage that is being produced rn. This isn't even "oh i'm totally a better writer than these professionals" this is because they seem to be ignoring the 'themes' of Minecraft in favor of corporate sanitation, and I can do better than a corporation.

So where to start? Well, by analyzing the 'themes' of Minecraft I mentioned. And what are those? Well, 3 major things imo.

Number 1; Creativity; Minecraft itself is a sandbox game, naturally one of the major themes it carries is creativity. You can create anything you want, the worlds your oyster in Minecraft.

Number 2; Community; While Minecraft can be a single-player game, the whole of the game has become about a community of people. SMPs, Minigame servers, even outside the game Minecraft is about community. As much as people may not like the mob vote, we come together as a community to decide things that we want to come to the game!

Number 3; Love; Now you might look at me weird for this one, but Minecraft is full of love. Love by Minecraft content creators who LOVE the game for all its worth, mod makers who love to create new content for the game, even the Minecraft End Poem. "And the universe said I love you, because you are love-" the game is full of love.

Now are these things the end all be all of 'themes' in Minecraft? No, of course not. It's a sandbox game which means themes can be all over the place, but these are the themes I personally would use in a Minecraft movie since without these themes a movie would fall flat. And if we're all honest with ourselves, just from that newest trailer the Minecraft Movie has NONE of these.

There's no creativity (just another jumanji isekai ripoff) no community (aka no one in the community seems to be liking it) and no love (it's a corporate cash-grab through and through)

But how would i fix that? Well, I have a few ideas.

First and foremost; who are the protagonists and antagonists? Well OBVIOUSLY Steve and Alex are our protagonists. Steve has lost his memories and must find out what happened to them, and Alex? Well she is related to his missing memories (also NO, no romance between them. No "oh she's a STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER" in the Hollywood way) And the antagonists? Well, one would first assume Herobrine- but i think that's too easy. What about the Piglins like the actual live action? Also no. So who the hell is the antagonist? Well that depends, an antagonist would be in opposition to all of the themes that I listed- Creativity, Community, and Love. What in Minecraft fits this? A destructive force that acts alone and out of hate (or at least some kind of hate.)

The Wither.

But hasn't Minecraft Story Mode used the Wither for its story? Yes, yes they did. But why fix whats not broken? The Wither is a GREAT antagonist if the themes of Minecraft are as I listed above. Not to mention you can do a LOT with the Wither. It doesn't just have to be a large monster, it can be many things. For this movie the Wither is akin to a blight spreading across the land, killing anything in its path, reducing it to a greyed out violent form of its past self.

Next; What would the general plot be? Well, the general idea is that Steve wakes up without his memories. All he has is a journal with his name on it and a few entries (how to craft, certain creatures and what they drop, etc. The basics of Minecraft) but there's also a map that leads him to a village, which is when the plot truly kicks off when he defends the villagers from some Pillagers (Villagers who have been affected by the Wither blight.) The story follows Steve as he finds Alex (who is related to his unknown history. She admits she also has very little memory. All she knows is that she knows HIM and they need to stick together) and then they travel to find what caused the Wither blight; what happened to their memories; and how the hell are they going to stop the blight/get their memories back. The climatic point of the story reveals that THEY are the reason the Wither blight is spreading, both had accidentally unleashed it while exploring a Stronghold that held the Wither, which also explains their lost memories (somehow, i don't have the specifics its OKAY- this is a concept for a reason)

At the climax itself Steve is dying. There's a reference to the End Poem, he comes back to life (because obviously it's Minecraft. You revive) and him & Alex manage to stop the Wither blight as well as reverse it, obviously saving the day.

Now there's a lot of holes in the idea, but as I said it's a CONCEPT i'm toying around with because I do believe this basic structure would provide a much more fulfilling movie than game isekai with popular actors #12. I'd love to see people add on to this since as I said, COMMUNITY is one of the largest parts of Minecraft, and personally i love building on others ideas.

[sixstepsaway]

i've had some thoughts bouncing around for a while about ofmd s2, and in light of the news, i'm going to brain dump some of them. if you don't feel like listening to me complain about HBO and would rather just go cry about OFMD not getting season 3, that's chill, go ahead, no hard feelings

so.

season 1 was absolutely the definition of lightning in a bottle. it had great acting, great writing, gorgeous set and costume design, it was great, and not only that but it was unabashedly queer

jim had a whole episode dedicated to "actually i'm not a woman i'm just jim" and then everyone - even the bad guys, even the antagonists, even their nun nana, everyone - referred to them as they/them after that, no questions asked

the main character went through an arc that was basically figuring out his sexuality and going "oh shit, i love a man" on a show that was not directly advertised as "OUR QUEER MEANS DEATH" like a, y'know, Queer Show would be

and stede and ed's romance felt like it was important. It felt like the pirates of it all was mostly incidental, background, filler, just fun to pad out the situation and give them things to be challenged by (the badmintons!) while also being fun on its own. it's the kind of show where if you pulled all the characters out and slapped them into a whole other situation like space agents or time travellers or everyone lives together in a loft runs a bakery... it'd still work. sure, the badmintons would be less murderous and run a competing bakery or something, but it'd still work, because the focus was on the characters, and on the romance between stede and ed

the first three episodes of season 3 felt that way too. the love between stede and ed was paramount and if you swapped to a mafia au or a bakery au it'd still work (with some gentle adjustments for ed's Behavior™ to be fair)

but.

season 1, they kept saying it was a rom com, and it felt like one. it was just a rom com that was set at sea! how fun!

now, rom coms have tropes. they have genre-specific things that you kind of expect from, well, a rom com. you expect mess. you expect things like ed fucking off with jack because he doesn't feel good enough

(i've recently been rewatching new girl and although some of the humor makes me cringe, it's still a great show, and one of the main things about it is that everyone is messy. no matter how much schmitt loves cece, he's going to make mistakes. no matter how obviously nick and jess are going to end up together and belong together, they're going to sleep with the wrong people, make mistakes, break up etc. it's as much a rom com as ofmd.

one of the things that makes new girl so good and makes me love the main couples so much is how hard they work to be together, how they fight adversity and the mess of their own flaws and toxicity and still get together because they love each other most, in the end)

i remember in s1 thinking how if stede had been a woman, jack would have been too, and ed would've had at least one romantic/sexual scene with jack when he ran away with him

but i also remember thinking, "yeah, but the show hadn't explicitly done the his name is ed reveal and the kiss on the beach yet, and the reveal hits so hard, it makes sense not to do that earlier", and tbh i stand by that

which brings me to s2, after the first three eps, where they tried to go back to rom com and it just felt... forced.

rom coms usually have adversity. they have other characters that directly and truly threaten the main pairing by being interesting to those characters! no matter how you feel about izzy, he was framed as a love interest or as an ex that was still complicated, but the show very much tiptoed around that

does "i have love for you" and "i loved you best i could" make sense for the characters? yeah.

do i feel like if ed was a woman, she and izzy would've had a messy rebound relationship for stede to have to contend with, for the two of them to come out the other side of wanting each other from? yeah.

ofmd s1 felt unabashedly queer. s2 felt like they didn't want to be too gay.

they put olu with a Woman™, they put jim with a woman almost like it was less queer and more acceptable this way than queering olu, they completely waved off olu and jim's relationship and dropped any concept of polyamory because that would've made it even queerer, not less queer

(i'm using queer here as a definition more of breaking boundaries and being outside of the norm to the extent it makes cishets deeply uncomfortable and the queer in question aren't conforming to society's standards. and this reading of s2 (and s1) is entirely subjective, it's just what's been bubbling here for me)

pete and lucius went from "we don't own each other" to marriage, with no footnotes of what marriage meant to them specifically, whether they were, in fact, conforming with the 'norm' of marriage (exclusivity, labels, definitions etc) or whether they were still chill about these things or whether this now meant no more penis drawings

the queerest episode was probably the party episode (which was so good), but even that was especially queer because some cast members fought to make it so (con wanting izzy's drag to be beautiful not funny has HAUNTED ME, because that means it was originally supposed to be played for laughs!!) not because it was that way naturally

the fact i read somewhere that the party and the drag was originally lupete's wedding makes so much more sense to me because yeah, they WOULD have a wedding like that, but instead they got a lame final episode wedding because it would have been way too queer to do it at calypso's birthday with drag and queer joy everywhere

it also would have been more realistic to the lucius and pete we got in season 1.

there were a lot of things in season 2 that felt... weird. we've talked about it. we have all talked about it.

the final episode, even outside of the thing i hated most, was just horribly written imo. there's big sweeping gestures and no kind of real emotional pay off for the main relationships (lupete included), and everything got tied with a neat little bow at the end

i remember when we were told s2 was 8 episodes and how much the budget had been chopped thinking, "ha, we're so not getting a season 3"

i remember when i realized how weirdly rewritten most of season 2 had been thinking, "yeah, there's not going to be a season 3"

i remember when bitching about ed's arc being totally truncated and handwaved thinking, "mm, we're not getting a season 3"

and i remember when the Revenge sailed off into the sunset with everyone but ed and stede on board thinking, "oh yeah, we're done."

just enough was left open that a season 3 could happen.

just enough was left open that if a miracle happened, there'd be something to do with season 3.

but i genuinely, 100%, hand on my heart, think djenks knew he wasn't getting a season 3

and don't get me wrong, i'm not absolving him of the poor writing choices he made in season 2, but i am saying it makes a lot more sense if you think of it from the perspective of corporate meddling and having everything taken away while he was actively trying to make season 2

we already know HBO cut the budget a ridiculous amount so they just had to make everything work with what they had. we already know HBO cut the episode number.

season 2 plays out like they prepped a good chunk of it, ready for 10 episodes, and then HBO cut the budget and cut the episodes

and so things had to be changed and chopped about. ed's arc got lots of screen time and focus for three episodes (before the cuts) and then things got quicker, and fast

characters were cut for time and for budget reasons.

and then i think towards the end of production and the end of writing, djenks learned the odds of season 3 were minimal at best, and he panicked

i think the original plan was probably for ed's arc to go for the majority of season 2. maybe a middle piece where he and stede tried but it still wasn't Right (last night was a mistake) because ed had so much to work on and so much to heal

i genuinely wonder if the finale was completely rewritten at the last minute because to me it makes way, way more sense from a narrative standpoint for things to have been more staggered out. let's consider ten episodes instead of 8:

episodes 1-5: same as they were when aired, including the gravy basket giving us set-up for what ed's dealing with internally, giving us something to latch onto and prepare for his redemption. NO KISS AT THE END OF EPISODE 5. episode 6: ed is still wearing the bell. he's sort of done his amends with lucius, but now he needs to do amends with the rest of the ship. stede is still learning his piratey ways, so there's hijinks in the background. jim and archie and olu try to decide what their relationship is after the garlic and all, and debate room arrangements. lucius and pete announce their engagement. stede and ed nearly kiss. episode 7: more ed redemption arc. he's still working at things, he's shying away from violence because violence is what took him down this dark path to begin with. maybe we get some discussion of his father. stede, blind to ed's flaws, insists he's nothing like his father! ed tries to make amends with izzy but somehow this is the hardest of all because he hurt him the most of all. izzy gets chance to apologize for what he now sees as his part in pushing ed down into the darkness (trying to drag blackbeard back) and izzy's apology makes ed feel worse somehow and gives him some absolution when he finally figures out how to return his own. ed kisses stede but says he wants to take it slow. episode 8: wedding episode!! calypso's birthday!! ed uses his loot to bankroll lupete's wedding. stede reacts with violence to ned and we know from everything before that ed is actively trying to distance himself from the violence of piracy because, yeah, of course he is. is it a good idea? nope. does it make sense to his character for him to still be putting a good chunk of the blame on piracy for his actions, rather than accepting the parts of his whole and learning how to regulate those parts healthily? yes. anyway, stede reacts to his own violence by clutching for ed, ed feels after like his boundaries were pushed. same as show. episode 9: ed is having a meltdown. he and izzy have started to heal, so izzy watching him stare at fishing boats and just chatting to him like nothing happened actually makes a lick of sense. lupete are on their honeymoon at jackie's. olu gets to hook back up with zheng and archie and jim want to go along because they're not super happy on the ship still because although ed is doing better, the past of what he does still hangs over everyone. olu, zheng, jim and archie do not discuss the poly of it all properly, and it's hilarious and a mess, and gives us something to look forward to handling in season 3. ed freaks out about stede being violent when he's the one thing he felt like wasn't violent (and thus safe for him to be with), and about taking it not at all slow, breaks things off and runs away. izzy gets stede to come back to the ship. stede gets into a fight with zheng, the bombs go off, whatever (not a fan of this for her sake but if it has to happen, it can happen) episode 10: ed is off fishing but it's not going well and he's pissing pop-pop off all the time because he's not good at fishing. stede and co are handling the ricky of it all. the episode is mostly the same at the start, but instead of ed immediately going "omg, i gotta save bae" he doesn't find out about the attack until right at the end of the episode. stede and co make it back to the revenge and escape safely, and when ed retrieves his leathers and returns he thinks they're dead! he threatens/tortures/whatever some english and they say no, stede escaped! they all escaped! the season ends with ed, all decked out in his leathers, with his sword, now in the position stede was last season: staring out over the water, planning to find the man he loves.

this sets season 3 up for ed to be on his own for a little while, for him to handle and figure out how to channel his violence into something 'good' (wanting to find his love, wanting to protect his crew etc).

maybe season 3 flashes back to baby!ed again and the fact his first act of violence against his father wasn't motivated by anger or spite, it was motivated by wanting to protect someone he loved: his mum.

then season 3 they find each other again, and maybe they meet in the moonlight for the parallel to hit even better, they finally get back together properly, for good, with maybe some comedic issues along the way, and ed finds his place in the world to be less "blackbeard, the terror of the seas" and more "ed protects those he loves."

i honestly think this is probably how the show was originally meant to go, or at least something close.

i think midway through season 2, djenks heard it was over and he (rightfully) panicked and threw together a finale that tied up as many loose ends as he could because he knew.

and i dont think there's anything that could've been done about it. i think it was dead in the water (no pun intended) the moment all the MAX/HBO/whatever reshuffles happened, I think it was too queer and I genuinely think executive meddling made a lot of the more queer elements go away, possibly right down to trying to wipe away the exes/love interests of it all with that whole father figure thing

and, again, i'm not absolving djenks of some of his more baffling writing decisions. he's a grown man and he makes his own choices. but i am saying i think it explains a LOT about why the finale we got is what we got, and i'm not sorry stede and ed ended the show together rather than apart or with their lives hanging in the balance or something

anyway these are just a bunch of thoughts i've been having, tied together by the cancellation.