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thanksjro · 5 years ago

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More Than Meets the Eye #22- If You Don’t Love Thunderclash, Get Better Soon I Guess

One last issue before we reach Comic Event Hell.

Time to use a dead man to set up the rest of the nonsense that’s got to happen, because apparently 14 issues of setup, including six issues of literal prelude, wasn’t enough.

The first bit of information we’re presented with is the fact that Chromedome and Swerve are on the opposite sides of the camera-shy scale. I guess that’s bound to happen when your spouse has had his video-cam literally connected to his brain for at least several thousand years.

The art may look really gritty and hardcore here, but this is actually due to a filter Rewind has over all his footage that he’s neglected to take off, because it made all the wartime propaganda he would stuff into people’s heads all the more brutal-looking.

No, this is the style of our artist for this issue, James Raiz, who we’ll be seeing a fair bit of over the next several issues. Raiz has worked on the Transformers franchise over the course of multiple license-holders, as well as contributed to both Marvel and DC comics. He also works in special effects, including matte painting and VFX. That’s just neat.

Anyway, the reason Swerve’s completely frozen in place isn’t because Rewind switched out his head-mounted camera for a gun that goes off if it hears you make a self-deprecating joke, but rather because he’s conducting interviews with everyone in the main cast. We get all their introductions, Cyclonus makes a statement about his political stances, Drift sounds like he’s high as a kite, First Aid strikes a sassy pose while not being bitter in the slightest, and Ultra Magnus makes a move that would get him murdered on any given film set in the universe.

You do NOT use your bare fucking hand to clean a camera lens, mister. Go get a microfiber cloth and try the fuck again, you complete and utter duffel bag of a creature.

We get a quick cut of the speech Rodimus made back in issue #1, with an angle that implies that Rewind was in the front row of the front row, then cut over to Rodimus asking Rewind to document their Capital-Q Quest. This is where we establish that this film doesn’t only contain footage from Rewind’s personal camera, but also that of the Lost Light’s security system.

Which feels like the sort of access you maybe wouldn’t want to give some nosy little film buff, especially when you have a secret giant serial killing sadist living in your basement like a disappointing adult child.

See? He was given the job to record the adventures of the Lost Light not five minutes ago, and he’s already using his powers for evil. Eavesdropping evil. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, Rodimus, and you just handed it to the guy with a massive Dominus Ambus-shaped chip on his shoulder.

So Rewind’s got permission to film just about whatever he wants, and Rodimus figures it’ll be nonstop action from here to the finish line! Fights! Intrigue! Mild hijinks and peril! Explosions aplomb! Oh man, I can’t wait to see what kinds of crazy shit will happen on this absolute roller coaster of a Quest!

Smashcut to Swerve literally falling asleep in the middle of a conversation. Yeah, as it turns out, no quest, capital Q or not, is nonstop action. Which is good, honestly, because that kind of seems like it would be exhausting after the first week or so.

Swerve, Tailgate, and Rewind are discussing cool alt-modes, which seems like an odd topic, seeing as Tailgate and Swerve have basically the same situation going on there, leaving Rewind alone in the camp of “does not have wheels”.

I worry about you sometimes, Rewind. Internalized Functionism is a very real problem. Uh, well, in your universe anyway. Us humans have to deal with regular ol’ classism and racism.

Rung gets brought up, and it’s revealed that the wheel on his back is almost purely cosmetic; it doesn’t even actually attach to his body. The lads decide that they’ve got nothing better to do, and set up a gentlemen’s wager- first one to figure out Rung’s whole deal gets 100 space-dollars.

Throwing shit at people’s heads will be a major plot point in the climax of this comic series.

Swerve’s go at trying to win the bet involved tossing a grenade at Rung to hit him in the neural cluster, which is rumored to be able to force an involuntary mode change if done correctly. Obviously, it didn’t work this go around. Then our narrative focus switches over to the crew’s hobbies.

You were listening to Prince, weren’t you, Magnus? Not even deep space is safe from the Cease and Desist.

Skids’ hobby is meeting new people, because he suffers from the terrible curse of being so fucking good at everything he tries, he always ends up dropping whatever he picked up, because what’s the point? This acts as a segue into another flashback, to even MORE bullshit that the fellas got roped into on Hedonia.

These are the Stentarians. They’re like the Cybertronians, if they were better in every way.

And by “better”, I, of course, mean “more bloodthirsty, warmongering, and driven enough to make their civil war last about as long as the Jurassic Period”. Also, they’re all combiners by default, and Whirl seems a little TOO into their whole situation. So much so, in fact, that when the Imperial Guard of their race show up to kill them, he decides to do them a solid by single-handedly ending their entire war.

You know, in most cases you’re supposed to show and not tell for visual media. This is way funnier, though, so it can be excused.

We jump back into the interviews, and Rewind’s just asked everyone if they’re happy. This might seem like an odd question, until you remember that everyone on-board this ship has crippling depression and PTSD, and Rewind’s married to one of the saddest motherfuckers to ever exist, so he probably has this question loaded into the proverbial chamber at any given moment. We won’t cover all of the answers here, because they’ll be more poignant to reflect back on later in the comic run, but let’s take a gander at the characters who’ve completed the first leg of their character arcs this season.

Drift, is that perhaps… an honest expression of your inner thought processes happening right there? Has Rewind broken through your carefully crafted persona, if even for just a moment, with his question? Perish the thought!

Because Tailgate outed himself as being baby in issue #21, I have zero doubt he’s not exaggerating here. He was a janitor, then he fell in a hole and became Dirt-Nap Supreme for six million years; even the most boring day on the Lost Light’s got to be better than that.

And it’s nice to see Chromedome on a good day for once. Hopefully he reveled in it while he had the chance, because this interview takes place maybe a couple weeks before he fucks everything up big time and has to blow up his husband with a missile strike.

Getting back to the Mystery of the Rungian Alt-Mode plotline, we see Rung using his backpack as a wheelbarrow- no idea what he’s actually pushing in the damned thing- and wearing the most disgruntled face I’ve seen him pull in a hot minute. Someone yells for him to come down the eerily unlit and sinister-looking hallway, which he does. Rung would not do well in a horror film.

He winds up at Swerve’s, where Tailgate, Swerve, Brainstorm, and someone who is most likely Trailcutter, given the colors, are hanging out in their alt-modes. Tailgate’s ploy to find out Rung’s deal is to do what he does best- lie! They’re having an alt-mode party, and wouldn’t Rung like to join in? There are, of course, logistical issues with being a car in a bar, especially when your drink is on the table and your head is tucked up somewhere in your torso, but never mind all that! Let’s get crazy!

This doesn’t work either. Maybe we should cut out the middle man here and just get Rung drunk enough to agree to a wet alt-mode contest.

No, I don’t have any idea how that would work.

In our next vignette, Rodimus comes into the comms room, Rewind trailing behind him like a grim shadow of death, to see what the hell Blaster wants, other than just the hugest glass of water.

Raiz’s work is very detailed, and you really feel the weight of these giant metal space robots, but everyone looks like they’ve been put through a food dehydrator.

We get a lot of build up to the character who’s about to be introduced, with a common opinion being shared amongst everyone- even Tailgate, who hates successful people like his life depends on it.

Lovely readers, put your hands together for the ideal male partner for Autobots, Decepticons, and Neutrals alike:

A man with so much charisma and charm that only Rodimus could hate him, Thuderclash brings to IDW what everyone wishes Optimus Prime would, making our disappointing space dad even more mediocre by comparison. He fights for justice, and freedom, and the good of the universe- and he does it all while having a chronic medical condition that forces him to stay within a certain distance of his ship that is also a life-support machine, otherwise he will die. Despite his handicaps, Thunderclash seemingly brings to others what they need most, even if they don’t even realize that they needed it in the first place.

He also, in this one scene, appeals to Drift’s religious sensibilities, does a secret best-friend dance with Ratchet (who he helped to pass his medical exams- yes, Ratchet), and congratulates Rodimus on his questing so far.

Thunderclash is one of those characters that everyone in-universe is supposed to love, and I completely buy it- because he’s completely genuine and humble about all of this the entire time.

Compare this to the last time Roberts wrote Thunderclash, in Eugenesis.

Where he was an ex-Decepticon.

And kind of an abrasive asshole.

And then he died.

Y’know, now that I think of it, Eugenesis Thunderclash and MTMTE Ambulon being basically the same character makes a whole lot of sense, even without the horrors of Roberts’ Twitter getting involved.

Thunderclash reveals that he, too, is on a quest to find the Knights of Cybertron, much to Rodimus’ chagrin. But first he needs the Lost Light to break out the jumper cables, and then for his second in command to stop threatening his life.

Turns out, not everyone is as obvious as the Cybertronians with their naming conventions. Whirl assassinated the wrong folks; I’m sure the Galactic Council is utterly thrilled. Paddox wants to steal the quantum engine technology for the good of his people, so they can kick the ass of the up-and-coming Terradore leader.

Completely unaware of the situation unfolding here in the lab, Swerve is directing Rung towards the warm, loving aura of Thunderclash for another go at winning the gentlemen’s wager- through the power of lying about having friends, Swerve’s “agreed” to get Rung Thunderclash’s autograph, in exchange for getting to check that Rung’s transformation cog is still working. Then they bump into the nightmare currently unfolding. My, whoever will save us from this dreaded menace, who holds a gun to the head of the Autobots’ greatest warrior, confidant, friend, and perhaps even lover?

How about a bartender and a giant vape pen?

Okay, so Rung doesn’t actually turn into a vape. It turns out that the Mystery of the Rungian Alt-Mode is also a mystery to the man himself. Because Rung is old as shit, the Functionists got to see this bullshit for themselves, and ended up testing him over and over and over trying to figure it out, lest he prove to be a flaw in their fascist ideologies. Fun fact: fascists HATE it when people they’re trying to oppress don’t play to their expectations.

The Functionists were the ones who gave Rung his little wheelie backpack, to make him at least appear useful. This sort of treatment tends to warp one’s head a bit, which would explain why he’s bothered to keep it for so long- internalized functionism’s a real bitch.

At least he’s not giving teenagers nicotine addictions under the guise of being somewhat better than cigarettes.

Back with Rodimus and Cybertron’s Autobot of the Year for 40,000 consecutive years, we get the unfortunate news that jump-starting Thunderclash’s ship is going to make the Quest go a bit slower for the Lost Light, much to Rodimus’ horror, though he does his best to put on a brave face; after all, that’s what heroes do, isn’t it?

It’s at this point that it’s revealed that “Little Victories” was being screened to all the Circle of Light members who didn’t get murdered or turned into Legislators on Luna 1, and man are these guys pissy. What was meant to be a recruitment video turned out to do just the opposite, because none of these guys want anything to do with what the Lost Light’s got going on.

Too bad Rewind didn’t have time for a cleaner cut for showing. Maybe they could have at least snagged a couple of these guys to tag along.

As all of the Circle of Light leave the theatre to go call everyone’s favorite Autobot to see if he needs a more crew members, the film plays on behind Skids, back to the interviews, as everyone promises more adventures just waiting on the horizon.

You’re not even on this trip anymore, you dork.

Chromedome gives us the title drop for the movie and issue, and we cut to Rewind organizing a group photo of all the interviewees.

And then Rewind died horribly like a week later. Thus ends season one of More Than Meets the Eye!

While I’m here, I’d like to take the time to cover a little bit of cut content from this issue, a scene between Drift and Ratchet.

Drift, during his interview, recalls the time that Ratchet called him into his office for a very serious discussion about his/Pharma’s hands.

Yeah, turns out they’re haunted.

Well, no, not really, because this is a prank. But Drift doesn’t know that yet.

Ratchet demonstrates this hand-haunting by punching Drift in the face, as he screams damnation at Pharma’s ghost. Drift, because he is a spiritual man, knows exactly what to do to deal with this possession; he draws his sword and chops Ratchet’s hands off, then throws them out the airlock.

This, too, is a prank, not that Ratchet knows it right away, yelling at Drift that he’s crippled him.

Clearly, these two belong together.

This bit of cut script was lucky enough to have gotten drawn by the colorist for MTMTE Season 1, Josh Burcham. Burcham’s line art is iconic- you won’t mistake him for anyone else. It’s rough and angular, and honestly just very charming. I’m a sucker for this sort of style. If you want to see his adaptation of this chunk of script- and trust me, you do- the link’s right here:

https://dcjosh.tumblr.com/post/107665292031/its-done-the-mtmte-22-deleted-scene-in-all-its

#transformers #jro #mtmte #issue 22 #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #comic script writing

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komatsunana · 5 years ago

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My Reincarnation Isekai Villainess Rec List

So. I’ve gone and found myself in Isekai/Reincarnation/Villainess hell. For those who don’t know Isekai is a genre in which character(s) are transported to a different world. Initially you might be thinking “oh, she’s gonna share a both a series like Sword Art Online.” Oh no. You have underestimated the amount of taste I have. By which I mean I have none but that SOA is a taste I’m not here for.

Now a very specific sub-genre of that is the reincarnation one, particularly in which a character is reborn as a character from one of their favorite books or games from their previous, modern life. An even more specific sub-genre of that one is in which the MC is reborn as a villainess from that book or game, thus creating a bit of a challenge as villainesses usually are destined to die in the source material.

So! Here are my favorites, many of which are all 3 but some combine one or two of the above tropes. It’s my list so I do what I want. And most of my faves have a shojo genre tag, or at least a romance tag, because that’s where all the good stuff is:

Survive as the Hero’s Wife by Nokki

Canaria is reincarnated as the villainess of a popular cliche novel. Based on the novel, she is destined to be executed but can she prevent this from happening before it’s too late?

Why *I* like it: So this one was the one that really got me into the villainess reincarnation isekai genre! And it remains the top of my list. The huge draw for me in this one is that I actually really like the main couple! Like not even just lukewarm, I really like it! I’d read fic for it, if that existed. A lot of the villainess genre tend to portray the original heroine as vapid, unworthy of their status of heroine, or the actual villainess but in this case Gracie just turns out to be just an amazing strong woman who doesn’t actually need a man. (In fact I ship the three together full stop tbh lol). In fact, it’s a subplot that Gracie realizes (because of MC’s words) that if she wants to inherit her father’s title even though the law says a woman cannot... That she just should strive to change the law rather than be a tool with no use outside of marriage. And not to spoil anything, but she will definitely do just that.

And since I’m mainly finishing the rough draft of this list out of absolute RAGE at being made fun of for being into this genre.... A compilation of the main love interest, Cesar, because he’s absolutely beautiful. Look at those eyes! He’s such a great example of the sullen, dark love interest because he’s not those things when he’s with his wife, the MC!!! He’s so soft for her. And the whole point is that the love interest shows a different side to their lover right??

And like the great thing is Canaria, the MC, totally doesn’t notice for the longest time. She read the novel in her previous life so she’s *convinced* that one day Cesar will fall for the novel’s original leading woman, and she makes plans accordingly throughout their early days of their marriage. She completely hadn’t thought about the fact that since she’s not being a villainess this time around and not abusing him and everyone around her, and makes friends with Cesar... Like of course the course of events change. It utterly baffles Cesar when his wife keeps bringing up divorce because he’s so completely in love with her and you just gotta eat that shit up with a spoon because it’s so good and perfect drama but also funny.

There’s even a Halloween chapter where everyone wears costumes and basically I believe I was pandered to specifically.

Tbh, the arc going atm is sorta losing my interest but that’s because there’s political intrigue and I’m like just here for the romance lmao. So someone looking for substance and not just fluff might be more pleased than I. But it’s still on-going so. It’s just all in all a fun and great introduction to the genre imo.

I Reincarnated into an Otome Game as a Villainess With Only Destruction Flags by Hidaka Nami (Art) and Yamaguchi Satoru (Story)

Eight-year-old Katarina Claes is the only daughter of a duke, living her life peacefully and without incident until she hits her head on a rock... and then remembers that she is not actually the duke's daughter. She used to be an otaku who died on her way to school after spending the entire previous night playing Fortune Lover, her favorite otome game. After noticing that her current surroundings seem oddly familiar, she is shocked to discover that she has been reincarnated into the world of Fortune Lover as the villainess.

The villainess in the game usually winds up dead or exiled, so Katarina decides to use her knowledge of the game and its routes to avoid any bad situations. But is it even possible for the villainess to reach a good ending?

Why *I* like it: Ok ok ok, lol. So this one is probably one of the most well-known of the villainess reincarnation isekai genre atm! Particularly because of the anime currently running. And for good reason... the MC is so brilliantly stupid in the best of ways. While she plots on how to escape her fate of being killed or exiled by learning to sword fight and how to garden, she’s more or less seduced every capture target in this dating game... AND all the female rivals to boot AND heroine. The thing is that she is completely unaware and continues training for the day she is inevitably killed or exiled, as per the game’s original ending.

It’s just a silly, fun series and all the women’s feelings for her are taken about as seriously as all the guys’... Which isn’t much because absolutely no one really has a chance of getting this woman to understand they are all madly in love with her. Not a series to take seriously which is part of it’s charm, but it retains a lot of heart especially when it comes to the MC Katarina (affectionally called Bakarina by fandom) remembering her friend and family from her past life.

This series also has a manga spin-off about what if she’d been reincarnated while already in high school and bullying the heroine instead of a child... So basically she’s in hard mode, and yet she still succeeds in getting even more people into her little harem she has for herself.

Whether you chose to watch the anime or the manga (or the LN, which I haven’t got to) you can’t go wrong.

It Seems Like I Got Reincarnated Into The World of a Yandere Otome Game by Hanaki, Momiji (Story) and Setsuri (Art)

As a precocious child, Lycoris suffers from a strange sense of deja vu. On the day her father told her about her fiancé, she realizes that her fiancé was a character from an otome game she once played in a previous life.

“I am the heroine’s rival from the game?

And in the bad ending, I get stabbed to death?

What a joke.”

A story in which the protagonist is determined to avoid a yandere situation.

Why *I* like it: Hear me out! I know what you’re thinking... Yanderes??? But here’s the thing... Just by the MC being kind and getting 2 of the “yandere” characters out of abusive environments, they no longer end up as yanderes as they grow up. They aren’t those tropes any more! While the characters remain protective, they aren’t possessive and are happy to see MC branch out, if a little lonely. And the yandere that remain aren’t treated as hot, but annoying. So like sorry to disappoint if you think yanderes are hot but this isn’t the series for you.

Additionally, unlike other series of this trope, the MC is pretty quick to realize she just needs to trust her lover, that he will not turn on her and kill her as he did in the game nor will he fall for the heroine instead of her. It’s somewhat refreshing, as a huge part of the trope is the MC typically doesn’t realize until it’s spelled out that by not acting as a villain.... the rest of the characters don’t want to harm them... And might even have fallen in love with them.

Another fun aspect is how MC doesn’t remember things immediately, but only remembers things from her past life (and of how the game went) until it comes up. Additionally, she wonders some interesting things that aren’t even mentioned in other series like... What if she’s destined to be exactly like the game character? Will she be forced to be exactly like her? It’s a fun exploration of some common reincarnation isekai villainess tropes if you have experience with the genre!

Ascendance of a Bookworm by Shiina You (Art) and Kazuki Miya (Story)

A book-loving student and soon to be librarian ends up crushed to death by the pile of books during an earthquakes and wakes up as a five year old girl named Main in another world where books are scarce only available to the elite. Main, retaining her memories of her past life, decides to create and print her own books so she can read again.

Why *I* like it: So here is we depart from solely the villainess sub-genre (but only briefly!) Because there is another sub-genre of reincarnation isekai and that’s in which the MC uses the things they learned on our planet earth to re-invent things like shampoo and the printing press. And no other isekai does it better than Ascendance of a Bookworm imo. Main’s love for books leads her to recreating things she took for granted on Earth and starts selling them from a young age... Which might just end up saving her life as she ends up having a terminal disease that ordinarily she’d only be able to survive by being a slave to a noble... But by selling her products she has a chance to save herself!!! And the products she creates are available to commoners, not just the nobles who of course make it impossible for the poor to have nice things.

Additionally, a majority of this trope centers around nobles and royalty (and all the best ones are historical settings)... The fun thing about this one is that it actually centers around a povert stricken family. It’s a good break from the noble hierarchy within most isekai.

Finally, this series is the one that hits most closely to my feelings if I were to be reincarnated in another world... Which is to cry at the realization that I will never finish any of the on-going books and manga I had going on. That’s absolute hell, I don’t know how any of these MCs deal!! ;_;

btw there is an anime and manga both. Also LN but tbh almost all of these have LN.

Isekai Omotenashi Gohan by Shinobumaru (Story) and Medamayaki (Art)

Akane, an ordinary office lady, gets summoned to a different world along with her younger sister and pet dog. There, she ends up treating rare guests one after another with hospitality through meals!! Can she satisfy the citizens of a different world with home cooking...?!

Why *I* like it: Continuing our brief deviation from the villainess trope, Isekai Omotenashi Gohan is my favorite example of another subgenre of isekai - one without reincarnation - but one in which a “hero” is transmigrated to another world to save it... The problem? Oppsie, 2 people were taken. Sometimes in this sub-genre there is a question who the true savior is but in Isekai Omotenashi Gohan’s case they figure that out pretty quickly. They quickly figure out the MC’s younger sister is the savior. At first the older sister (Akane) is set aside as unimportant... But her sister only wants to eat the food her sister makes and it quickly becomes obvious that Akane’s role is important.

Akane makes lots of allies and friends by sharing the food from Japan and of course has a very subtle romance going on with her guard. But honestly I just enjoy this series as a person that likes food manga, like that’s it lmao, so much so that don’t be surprised when I make a best food manga list and yeah sorry Food Wars won’t be on it.

But fr, even if you don’t love the food manga genre try it!! It’s a sweet series and mixes domestic with fantasy in a great way. Plus only a few series are complete, with the rest being on-going, so if you want a complete and finished series try this one!

The Duke's Fiancee, Why She Had to Go to the Duke by Milcha (Story) and Golae (Art)

When Park Eunha dies in modern-day Korea, she awakens in the body of Raeliana McMillan, the eldest daughter of a nouveaux riche baron. However, this is no ordinary world; it's the exact same one as a novel she once read. Beloved by her family, it would seem as though she is in a fairy tale. But Raeliana is far from the main character—she is a mere plot device, whose murder at the hands of her fiancé instigates the entire story.

Raeliana has no intention to accept her fate quietly. She sets her eyes on someone in a position of great power—the vieux riche male protagonist Duke Noah Volstaire Wynknight—aiming to completely change the original story. Using her knowledge of future events, Raeliana offers information to Noah on the condition that he acts as her fake fiancé, but the Duke's two-faced nature throws a wrench in her plans!

Why *I* like it: This one is a fun one!! It really plays with different concepts that don’t often get explored in reincarnation isekai like where did the original consciousness of the character the MC became go??? Because MC only remembers her life on earth and is otherwise treated as though she has amnesia.... But is it amnesia? Is she another person entirely?

Also the humor is... great. Listen I refuse to give the best joke in the series just to make you read it but... the series is worth it just for this running joke.

Of course the romance is good too. The dude is kinda an asshole but she gives as good as he dishes out and it quickly becomes flirting anyway. I don’t want to say too much and give any thing away... but s’good!

Who Made Me a Princess? by Plutus (Story) and Spoon (Art)

The beautiful Athanasia was killed at the hands of her own biological father, Claude de Alger Obelia, the cold-blooded emperor! It’s just a silly bedtime story… until one woman wakes up to suddenly find she’s become that unfortunate princess! She needs a plan to survive her doomed fate, and time is running out. Will she go with Plan A, live as quietly as possible without being noticed by the infamous emperor? Plan B, collect enough money to escape the palace? Or will she be stuck with Plan C, sweet-talking her way into her father’s good graces?!

Why *I* like it: Ok, big sigh. How do I explain the pull ‘Who Made Me A Princess?’ has on me? Now a lot of the pull for many people is how cute the budding father daughter relationship the MC (Athy) has with her dad. But like, her dad is the worst and I want to fight him. On the other hand, most of the fandom hates Jeanette, the MC’s sister who has done literally nothing wrong except make everyone around her miserable but it’s not her fault ok, and I’ll fight the entire fandom in her honor. So it pains me to rec this series knowing that more than likely anyone who picks up this series because of me might have Wrong Opinions and I invite you to tell me just so I can shake my head about another wrong person existing in this world.

Never the less, this series is very cute! All the other series I have recced had the MC remember their past life at early childhood at the earliest, if not as a teenager. Athy? She has the misfortune to remember as a *baby* and it’s exactly as hellish as it sounds for an adult to be stuck growing up as a baby and suffer through the absolute embarrassment of having people feed and wipe her ass.

The MC was an orphan in her previous life and the book that she wakes up in is a shitty book even by her standards but then she really only skimmed it it sounds like that’s what interests me. As Athy makes changes to the original events of the novel and depth is added to the world, I start to wonder if the added depth was in the original novel or if the world had to add its own depth to stand as an actual lived in world?

Additionally, since I made the cover image Athy and her dad you might as well see her with her 2 love interests (and Jeanette!). People need to know who to ship, I get it.

Also I need a moment to appreciate, up close, the beauty of Athy’s eyes. So gorgeous.

Living as the Tyrant’s Older Sister by Aperta (Story) and Chyobab (Art)

When I opened my eyes, I was inside a fantasy novel world! The beauty I see in front of the mirror is the future tyrant’s older sister, Alicia! She’s not even a protagonist or an antagonist, but a character that doesn’t appear much and gets beheaded by the (upcoming) tyrant little brother. My life is all about escaping that fate from the novel. In the end, I seduced the male lead’s merchant friend who also doesn’t appear much and was about to leave the country with him. How-e-ver. The face of the man who spent the night with me was extraordinary, and was the male lead himself!

Why *I* like it: ……………...keke. Ok so this one is one I like just for the laughs. The love interest is an arrogant asshole, but see… The important detail the summary leaves out is that the MC’s… cousin (?) wrote the book that she woke up in! Moreover she’s the one that told her cousin to change the MC of her novel and make him good at everything and also make him a freak in the sack. Like who is really at fault here??? Lmao. Especially when she goes out intending to seduce a character she remembers being rich from the novel and accidentally bags the MC from the novel, aka the dude who kills her and her brother in the original novel.

In seriousness though, it really is funny. The facial expressions of the MC is just… chefs kiss. She’s got a pretty face but then she makes all these goof ass faces and I love it. If you need any more reason to at least give it a go, just know that at one point the male lead comes to check on her, expecting to find her crying and instead…. Walks in just as she screams FUCK at the top of her lungs and then begins a tirade of very creative curses including "Bitch oompa loompa ass bitch" which how can you not love her? Anyway the face the male lead makes after that has me maintaining that’s the moment he fell in love with her lmao.. but this is not Confirmed so it’s not a spoiler!!

EDIT: as of August 2020, I’ve since dropped this series. It remains on the list since I’d still rec it to people looking for a laugh.

Seduce the Villain’s Father by bia and dalseul

Upon opening my eyes after a bus accident, I found myself in the fantasy world of a webnovel I enjoyed reading... the only catch is, I reincarnated 20 years before the novel begins! Reborn as Princess Yerenica of the small Lebovny kingdom, I'm determined to change the future in order to prevent the series of unfortunate events that will soon occur!

Why *I* like it: How many times have you yourself had a suuuuuper side character be your favorite in a series and be depressed to see them done dirty? Well MC has a chance to fix that, to save a character that basically one appeared in prologue and basically prevent the birth of the villain character that later kills his own father… by seducing his dad, before he can marry the villainess!!

Yerenica is just adorable in her attempts to thwart the original novel. And like, I have to give her lots of respect for seeing the villainess character and having herself a good moment where she had to consider seducing her instead lmao. She knows when to let well enough alone though so she immediately boards back on the dad train, much to his chagrin because she keeps calling him father……………….. Even though he’s like…. Not a dad yet.

The characters are still relatively early on in their romance, but I have high hopes for it yet!

Edit: As of August 2020, I’ve dropped this series. It remains on this list because I think it’s a cute series and I think anyone who feels really strongly about the main couple will enjoy it.

Death Is the Only Ending For The Villainess by Gwon Gyeoeul and SUOL

Penelope Eckart reincarnated as the adopted daughter of Duke Eckart and the villainess of a reverse harem dating sim. The problem is, she entered the game at its hardest difficulty, and no matter what she does, death awaits her at every ending! Before the "real daughter" of Duke Eckart appears, she must choose one of the male leads and reach a happy ending in order to survive. But the two brothers always pick a fight with her over every little thing, as well as a crazy crown prince, whose routes all lead to death. There's even a magician who's enamoured with the female lead, and a loyal slave knight! But somehow, the favourability meters of the male leads increase the more she crosses the line with them!

Why *I* like it: So this one is another relatively new one added to my list, but it’s shot high up rather quickly!! The other otome game isekai’s that I have on my list are just like the real world, but the interesting thing about this one, is that it also retains otome game mechanics such as she can see the love interests love meter and also she can chose to use the video game script choices to reply to the characters, in the hopes of raising their love meter. This adds challenge, since she knows that if she gets any of the dudes to -10 she’ll be killed even as she sort of wonders if she truly would die or wake back up in reality.

What’s interesting also is that while she is the villainess character in the game… It ends up that the character was actually abused for years and that her title as a villain is unfair and that the game can be played as the villainess as even a player as a ‘hard’ mode compared to the heroine character. It’s up to her to turn things around and it’s actually a fun take on the villainess genre. I’m really looking forward to how things proceed even as my fears about which dude she’ll end up with continue to increase.

Finally, another layer I enjoy is that the MC lead a similar life in her previous life. She’d only just escape her own abusive family before she’d ended up here and MC just desperately wants to escape once again… using any means necessary.

The Villainess Reverses the Hourglass by SanSobe (story) and Ant Studio (art)

With the marriage of her prostitute mother to the Count, Aria’s status in society skyrocketed immediately. After leading a life of luxury, Aria unfairly meets death because of her sister Mielle’s schemes. And right before she dies, she sees an hourglass fall as if it were a fantasy. And just like that, she was miraculously brought back to the past.

“I want to become a very elegant person, just like my sister, Mielle.”

In order to face the villainess, she must become an even more wicked villainess. This was the new path Aria chose to take revenge on Mielle who murdered both her and her mother.

Why *I* like it: If you thought that this list might be in descending order, guess again! This one is one of my favorites. Now this one lacks isekai, but is a reincarnation of a villainess!! Rather the MC was an absolute horrible person in her past life, but finds out at the last minute that her ~pure~ sister had been leading her by nose into acting like a brat just seconds before she is executed. Now that she has a second chance, she’ll be a proper villainess and turn the tables on her sister.

In her last life, Aria never bothered educating herself so now that she’s a teenager again she actually has to learn things again (it’s not just like she gets to act like she’s a genius and good at everything) but she works hard at maintaining a sweet image and making everyone love her, even as she snickers behind their backs, all the while subtly setting her sister up for failure.

This is a proper revenge story, I’m promised by those who read the LN!! Revenge stories about women are rare to come back, especially one that doesn’t make revenge look like a total evil thing lol. What can I say, I have my interests. Anyway, it’s super cathartic to watch Aria slowly unfold her masterplan to foil her sister’s plans and take everything that her sister had cherished in her previous life. And all that not to mention the certain powers that Aria later discovers she has at her disposal... :3c

Beware of the Villainess by Bbongdda Mask (story) and Pureunkanna (art)

I became the villainess of a novel! Do I hate it? No! I find it rather nice. A duke’s daughter equals a jobless rich person. How can I miss out on a chance like this?! This is the best chance to just enjoy life. I should throw out the main plot and just live life how I want to! Not long after waking up as the villainess, I witnessed my fiancé, the crown prince and the novel’s male lead, cheating. I saw him embrace a lady other than I and he was smiling so bright. I was brought to tears… Just kidding, I didn’t cry! My tears are worth too much to be wasted on that garbage. Instead of tears, I yelled out, “Your highness, are you trash?”

Why *I* like it: Listen there are 2 ways to react to waking up as a villain of a series you once read… Either you turn the tables and become a good guy OR you can embrace it! The world the novel is based on has the basic premise of the pure and good heroine winning the affection of 4 bratty, horrible men. MC is the fiance of one of them and says fuck that. She also has some thoughts that none of these dudes deserve the heroine of the novel but this one is still pretty early on so the jury still out on if she’s going to save this poor girl from her fate of ending up with any of these absolute assholes.

This one is along the veins of the previously mentioned Living As the Tyrant’s Older Sister, in that the pull for this series is even less of the romance and more about the comedy aspect… Also MC’s facial expressions are…. Choice. Just so good. Enough with pretty girls making pretty faces!! We need more girls being ugly. It’s what we deserve. Yell at cheaters!!!!!! Tell them to fuck off!! Yes please.

Accomplishments of the Duke’s Daughter by Reia (Story), Umemiya Suki (Art)

Although she had reincarnated as the daughter of a Duke's house, by the time she regained her memories, the Ending was already here.

"After he cancels my engagement, the story would have me confined to a church. Where can I find my happy ending?"

Why *I* like it: I never read or watched Wolf and Spice but I imagine this is isekai Wolf and Spice… Well it’s got a lot about the economy at least lmao. That’s literally the only thing I know about Wolf and Spice. Anyway!! The twist in this one is that the MC remembers her past life just as she’s about to be exiled, the end of the original game. What the series focuses on is her life afterwards, as she scrambles to grab at any semblance of a good life… And she does so pretty quickly!

Her past life comes in handy as she sets to work managing a dukedom and fixes the economy!! Moreover, even though it pains my heart whenever two women are pitted against each other… It does a great job of putting into question the original heroine’s pure shtick as she spends extravagantly on dresses and would rather just donate to the poor one day, instead of Iris the MC who sets to work on fixing the economy and creating jobs for the poor and putting money into bettering their lives in the long run, rather than throwing money at them and running. Also, she’s grabbed the attraction of a mysterious man who takes a job helping her even though he is a prince aka the brother of her ex-fiance who he is fighting for the crown for.

And that’s it!! My list for now!! Tbh by next month there’ll likely be even more faves as I continue to add more and more series to my read list lol. Because this isn’t even a fraction of all the reincarnation isekai series I’m into, just the best for certain reasons.

BTW, if you’re like... wow this list sure is straight then true unfortunately. I’m waiting for the day “I Favor The Villainess” gets adapted somehow. Also there are several isekai in which a straight girl reincarnates into a yaoi novel but I haven’t found a true gem among them yet.

#isekai #i scream #long post #recs #this post was sponsored by pure spite #but frankly yes i know i didn't have to go this far #but this is just who i am... which is too much

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popculturebuffet · 5 years ago

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Star Vs the Forces of Evil Reviews: The Blood Moon Ball (1-15)

Welcome back.. though to most of you probably just joining me, welcome. I’ve been on a sorta hiatus from revewiing due to a combination of procrastination, depression, and being really busy. But I finally decided it was time to put boots to the ground and get back to doing what I love: Going on way too long about children’s television. As such, with She Ra taking a bow a few weeks back and nailing it I got to thinking about another show that just so happened to end the year before: Star Vs the Forces of Evil. Part of it was very simple: She ra ended on a trriumphant note, making a well set up romance that had been it’s backbone canon, having a wonderful final battle, tons of payoff and a throughly happy ending that satisfied all involved and got tons of well earned coverage for having a deep, meaningful relationship between two lesbians finally coming together being the thing that saves the universe. It was freaking great. Meanwhile a year prior Star Vs, after having been treated like toilet dinner by disney for no good reason by having it’s final season shoved out over a few sundays after a yearlong hiatus.. ended not with a bang, but with a wah wah trumpet. The series ending was unsatisfying, left more questions than answers, had the title character loose all likeablity and was in general miserable. I hadn’t been this pissed off at a finale since How I Met Your Mother and hadn’t seen a romance botched this badly in animation since “Merry Christmas Mordecai”. It was BADDDDD. However it did make me want to go back to the series; To revisit the good, the bad and the just plain weird to remember what made me love the series, what made me want to throw my tv into a river before reminding myself “No dude, shit’s expensive. “, and what COULD have been, what SHOULD have been and what WASN’T. So i’ll be reviewing assorted episodes.. and the best place to start for me was with the introduction of one of the series best characters, as well as at the same time the start of a ship that was a good idea at first but would slowly take the series down with it as it started to fall apart. This is Blood Moon Ball. There will be blood, and a dead horse, after the cut.

Before we get into the episode, one of the series most notable and honestly a damn good one, for those 2 of you not familiar with the series a quick refresher: Star VS is the story of Star Butterfly, a rebelious 14 year old princess from the Kingdom of Mewni. Mewni is your standard medievil fantasy kingdom.. but you know with wifi because they have magic compacts that work as phones and large sale acess to the multiverse. Their also ruled over by a long sucession of queens with great and terrible magic power, which is channeld through an increidbly powerful wand that’s passed down from generation to generation. On her 14th birthday Star gets her turn with the wand.. and not long after sets everything on fire. Not wanting the kingdom to get blown up while Star figures out thing, her parents send her to Earth, and after bribing the school principal into enroling her, that’s not a joke on my part but an actual joke from the pilot, Star soon becomes an exchange student, boarding with the Diazes and soon becoming best friends with their teenage son Marco, a saftey obessed, shy talented martial artist. The two are frequently forced to beat up the hordes of Ludo, a spoiled monster king who wants the wand for himself. Things would get way darker... like in literally two seconds as the revelation star’s people stole mewni from the monsters and Star’s hatred being revealed to be partly racisim instead of standard hero and villian stuff. But that’s for future reviews. Today we have demons, internet commentors and ship tease to get to. So with the basic premise set up let’s finally get on with it. We open on the arrival of my boy and yours, hopefully, Tom Lucitor. Tom is the prince of the underworld, basically exactly what it sounds like: fire, brimstone, demons spooky scary skeltons sending shivers up your spine. He’s also Star’s ex boyfriend. How they broke up is.. never really explained. While more details about their relationship, includign the fact Tom bought Star her iconic Devil Horn headband on their frist date, were revealed in the tie-in spellbook, and reveals that star’s arson that got her sent to mewni happened right after her and tom broke up, but never explains WHY. My guess is since the series clearly frames the breakup as Tom’s fault in this episode and on his anger, they probably didn’t want a scene of him screaming his head off at star, either to keep him sympathetic or , more likely, because a scene of a teenage girl watching her boyfriend having a rage fueld breakdown that leads to htem breaking up would be MASSIVELY uncomfortable to watch and unlike some uncomfortable to watch scenes, wouldn’t tell us anything we didn’t know already. So unlike some later things they never pulled the trigger on this one at least makes sense. Anywho, Tom arrives, parking in the handicap spot (a nice little gag as Star’s crush at the time Oskar points it out, while the dead skeletal horse pulling tom’s carriage turns around to look at him), and all the girls stop and stare.. including Janna, who would probably regret this moment once she realize tom was a bad boy because he’s socially awkard and has anger issues. Basically he’s Kylo Ren but his redemption dosen’t come straight out of JJ Abrhams ass. Tom arrives at Star’s classroom, removes his shade and damn if he dosen’t have game.. but naturally showing up unnannaounced to her school (Not that TOm probably gets what school is as Mewni dosen’t have those, but still), basically assuming she’ll go out with him, after they had a messy breakup it dosen’t go well and we get a great cut of Star shoving tom back into his carriage.. we also get the best joke of the episode. Star: So take your invitation and your fire and your dead horse and go. Dead Horse: wait.. i’m dead? Sad but hilarious. Anyways it’s quickly conved to viewers like us that Tom has anger problems, but he insists to star he’s doing better: he has an anger managment counsler he takes with him places, Brian, voiced by the wonderful and weirdly in Disney’s pocket these days Stephen Root, and a bunny he pets. Before star can pet said bunny Marco , KARATE CHOPS TOM’S HAND OFF.. I just.. until this review I hadn’t sat back to consider just how freakishly strong that boy is , that he can just accidently chop off a hand. I mean tom may have weak joints or something but even after taking far worse blows later on his hands just.. don’t come off. Tom flies itnto a rage and it becomes clear that yeah, whatever happened, it was tom’s fault, and given the kind of rage she flies into, you can see why i’d assume the writers really didn’t want the audience to see him at his worst. I certainly don’t. Star both worried and clearly having seen this sort of thing go bad before urges Marco to run but tom quickly recovers, both reuniting with his hand and having calmed down, and he and Marco are formally introduced, with star explaning the invite. We also get a great line with marco encouraging her “Star never go with a preadator to a second location”. This show was damn good at getting shit past the radar and i’m here for it. Anyways, Star isn’t quite sold despite tom clearly TRYING to get better, and Tom , in a really nice move, gives her a bell and tiny hammer to summon his carriage with if she decides to go but leaves it up to her, not pressuring her or anything. For how selfish tom is initially.. this is a spark that shows h’es not a TERRIBLE person, just one who has some growing up to do. Marco however is not convinced and wants to go with, with Star teling him no because A) he wasn’t invited and it’d be rude to ask and B), she appricates the concerns but she can handle this, and implicily, despite her reckless nature knows this is a risk but knows if the night turns she can handle Tom, and that maybe he’s changed. Marco insists Tom can’t change.. which I find hilarious given his massive character arc to the point I had as eires ofessays planned, and one don about his growth before deciding to change formats to doing each ep of his journey instead every so often, to the point where two years on in the series timeline.. we’ve gone from Marco thinking Tom is a predator to...

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But star decides to go and .. it’s clear from the subtext that while part of it is clear concern for star, Marco’s line about “it being fun here all the time” may mean that while he DOES have the best intentions.. part of him is jealousssssss. More on that in a bit. For now we go to the underworld with the second best gag of the episode as Tom is toning down the spookiness to please star, and one of the guys in the picture at the top insults him... and when tom asks which one he says me. We sadly don’t get an answer but it’s small gags like this that made me want to do this episode by episode. Star arrives.. and things quickly go south. Tom tries giving her a corsage that’s a live spider and she rejects it. This admitely looks bad on both as Tom , living in you know, a hell dimenson probably sees it as a sweet gesture, and Star is refusing it.. but star does so POLITELY, and for understandable reasons, and Tom is still clearly pissed about it. Not long after, they line up for what’s essentially a prom photo.. and to get Carried by a bucket of unicorn blood, another nice little gag. Star refuses since well her best friend is a unicorn, one of them anyway, or at least it’s head.. and yes one of the species in this series multiverse is a bunch of headless unicorns. IT’s wonderful. And star also notices tom needs his anger managment bunny and is clearly pissed about it when, having dated her for several months, clearly should’ve KNOWN this might bother her. That’s really tom’s problem here: He wants everything his way on his terms and only compromises if he thinks it’ll get star to do things with him. He’s made the PRETENSE of changing.. but he really dosen’t WANT to yet. He just wants her back and wants to change just enough to get her back so he can stop trying again. He also may , due to the underworld being diffrent and a place where being covered in a bucket of blood is a time honored tradition instead of the thing that turns a young mutant into a mass murderer, and yes I think a carrie x-men crossover would be the shit. He probably dosen’t GET that star wouldn’t like a spider corasge or bathing in her best friends blood.. but the problem isn’t that. that’s culture shock, that can be bridged with some talk.. the problem is tom dosen’t want to talk, he just wants her to do what he wants and things to be all cool and to get his way. Being a prince with two loving parents, we’ll meet them soon enough just not this episode, and tons of servants, I get the impressionf rom this and other episodes tom simply isn’t USED to not getting what he wants.He’s not USED to being told “No”, and thus has no way to deal with it healthily and isntead lashes out like an angry toddler. It dosen’t make his actions RIGHT but it does make them more understandable and makes it so Tom’s later growth FEELS natural depsite some of his sketchier actions beforehand.

Back at Marco’s house, Marco is depressed eating nachos in a sumbrero.. which if I had corn chips, cheese and a sombrero would probably be my daily life right about now. It’s then we get a WEIRD dropped bit, as Marco hears a weird piratey voice telling him the blood moon is the moon for lovers and stuff. This is IMPLIED to be his monster arm, from an earlier episode.. but it’s.. never explained. Whatever it was going to be was dropped. Which would be fine if the blood moon itself and the end of this episode didn’t get a full explination in season 4 with the writers clearly going back to it to resolve the dangling thread.. but still not explaning the spooky voice. I mean what was it? Marco’s pirate ancestor? the sea captain from the simpsons? the monster arm? terry that bastard? Burt Macklin FBI? Old Man Withers the guy who runs the amusment park? Dirk Dastardely? A sentient payphone? The alps? Tell us damn you! Okay that tangent aside Marco decides to party crash at the advice of the ominous voice.. seriously is it Flintheart Glomgold? Nevermind. Back at the ball star is bonding with a small skeletal fish int he magma punch whent his random asshole comes up and whines for a good minute,if hilariously so, about the ball being changed.

He’s feels, looks and acts like the combination of those morons who were mad adora wasn’t “as hot” in the she ra reboot and was aged down to a teenager and the threw it on the ground guy. After that interlude, tom shoos away a guy asking star to dance and the guy makes vauge comments about tom wanting his and star’s souls to be link while making kissy nosies. Before Tom can explain what he means by that, or at least lie about what he means by that, the blood moon is about the drop, the lights turn red and tom walks off because he wants the music to be perfect. And then Marco arrives in his really damn cool calevara outfit. Which fair play, I can see why, besides ship reasons, it gets a lot of art: it looks really damn neat. Speaking of shipping.. it’s time. Star, not realizing it’s marco, dances with him.. quite romantically in fact. It’s here that the show conciously starts Shipping star and marco together. Starco is born, and the scnee is really good: romantic, well animated, jsut great all around. While the ship would .. end up done rather poorly and lead to some really terrible stuff at the time.. it wasn’t abd and already shipping them I loved this and even now, even knowing what woudl come later... it’s not a bad sequence. The only bad thing is what would come later, but I can’t fault the writers of THIS EP for what they would do in a LATER ONE. That’s just not fair. The ship wasn’t bad to start and the later arc springing from it in season 2 would be good.. it just quickly went in bad directions as the series went on , then disappeared, then how it finallyc ame about was just awful. But as much as I want to.. I can’t blame the sequence on this. It didn’t create rabid shippers or poor writing, it was just good and deserves to be praised as such. Naturally tom takes this about as well as me when I found out HBO max wouldn’t be on roku at launch and prepares to murder Marco.. and promptly gets frozen by star who decides to wisely get out of there. It’s a ncie moment.. and reminder that Star is crazy powerful, as is the wand itself, because as we’ll see later, tom is no slouch himself in the power department, but even if her attack was from behind, she still stopped him in one move. So Star takes marco home and dresses him down for sneaking in, understandbly so: while it was an iffy situation, Star knew who she was dealing with and as shown at the end, was strong enough that tom was no threat to her, and given what we learn later, Tom’s parents would likely never let her come to real harm. For all her reckless decision making, Star thought this one out and Marco shoudl’ve repsectied that and didn’t for his own reasons. To his credit though he apologizes, Star admits to liking the dance, then the two speak in unison a few times, and we wont’ get followup on that till the last season! Roll credits. I don’t have the credits for this episode so enjoy this instead:

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Final Thoughts: Blood Moon Ball is a spectacular ep. A good plot, a great introduction for tom, and great animation and humor really make the episode pop and it’s nice to get our first look at the underworld and tom himself. Tom would be back, and i’ll be back to tom eventually, but on it’s own the episode is really good and it’s standout sequence still holds up even as starco ended up in the sewer quality wise. All in all a great ep and a great starting point if you haven’t watched the show yet. Coming Soon: A return to Star in the near future probably since Tom is great and his second ep deserves love too, as do several other star eps, as well as a look at the saluna episodes of the loud house because i’m in a gay mood for obvious reasons, and a loud house mood for less obvious reasons. Until then, feel free to hit me up with asks with suggestions or commisosns for future reviews, and until next time, later days.

#star vs the forces of evil #star butterfly #marco diaz #tom lucitor #startom #starco #animation #shipping #she ra #rider strong #blood moon #blood moon ball

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makeste · 6 years ago

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BnHA 235: How Do I Turn This Flashback Off

Previously on BnHA: Re-Destro plucked off three of Tomura’s left fingers like flower petals and also destroyed one of his Emotional Support Hands in the process, prompting Tomura to have more flashbacks. We learned that AFO specifically gave Tomura the hands so that Tomura would never get over the trauma of the whole experience (like, he even told him this directly, wtf). We then got more flashbacks of Hana, as well as new flashbacks of Tomura’s mother and grandparents. Our boy then started to use his quirk on RD with only two fingers, which prompted RD to be all “wha?!” and let him go and finally realize that Tomura was going through a good old-fashioned shounen awakening process. Not wanting to be on the wrong end of this, he powered up himself and tried to finish Tomura off. But as he tried (and failed) to deliver a final blow, Gigantomachia finally came storming into town. At the same time, Tomura finally remembered everything (!!!) and got this really sad look on his face, and holy shit you guys the hype for this next chapter is real.

Today on BnHA: The tragic story of the Shimura family is finally revealed in all of its inevitably doomed glory. This chapter deserves an introduction from Lemony Snicket. This is not a fun time you guys. Baby Tenko was pure and idealistic and wanted nothing more than to be a hero just like All Might (and hey thanks Horikoshi, that was a nice heart I had once before you ripped it out and stabbed it 27 times here), and his father was a bitter and broken man harboring unresolved abandonment issues which he needlessly took out on his own children because humans are flawed and sometimes terrible. And we all know how the story ends, so if you happen to not have the stomach to watch terrified little boys being beaten by their parents, or cute little dogs getting hugged and then crumbled to dust offscreen, or if you don’t feel like getting faked out by Horikoshi half a dozen times because he’s a fucking troll who knows full well what he’s doing, might I suggest putting this chapter down and taking a stroll on over to the theater next door? It’s not too late to see a film about a happy little elf.

(All comments are my unspoiled reactions from my initial readthrough of the chapter. I did a quick edit for grammar and clarity immediately afterward, and added one or two ETAs in the process, but aside from that there are no changes.)

YESSSSSSSSS

YOU GUYS, I HAVEN’T EVEN FUCKING CLICKED TO THE CHAPTER YET AND MY HYPE HAS ALREADY ASCENDED TO NEW UNPRECEDENTED HEIGHTS. DID I NOT SAY??

AND LO AND BEHOLD, MY GD MIND IS BEING LOST AS WE SPEAK OMG

anyways so yeah I fucking called this back in chapter 222, along with a zillion other people I’m sure. but still, feels good

and this officially makes Tenko the fourth character to receive an “origin” chapter now, after Deku (chapter 01), Shouto (chapter 39), and Katsuki (chapter 62). so that’s actually a pretty big deal! this whole thing just makes me really happy because I love seeing such a carefully planned character arc come together, and it’s so pleasing and gratifying to see the pieces falling into place exactly as they should. it’s like watching one of those “oddly satisfying” youtube compilations. this is the manga equivalent of this. god I can’t wait to watch it play out

anyway so here’s the color spread we were promised last week! awesome

look at all of these characters we haven’t seen in a couple months. it’s a testament to how thoroughly entertaining this arc has been that I haven’t missed class 1-A nearly as much as I would have expected. which isn’t to say I don’t miss them dearly! but it’s just, normally I’d be practically going through withdrawals if you took my favorite characters away for such a long time. and I mean, we cut away right when Kacchan and Shouto had finally gotten their hero licenses, and Deku was going through “AFO’S POWER!?!?” angst, and so forth! and then we just left them for almost half a fucking year! that’s insane!!

but like, the shocking thing to me is that I genuinely have been pretty cool with it. that’s how compelling this arc has been to me. it’s nothing at all like the Basement Arc where I was all but ready to start slapping posters of Bakugou’s face on the walls asking “HAVE YOU SEEN THIS CHILD?” like, I am sincerely shocked to tell you the truth. this arc could go on for another month or two and I probably wouldn’t mind, so long as the quality remained this high. and that’s the biggest compliment to Horikoshi that I can think of. good fucking job dude

that being said, I don’t think this arc will continue much longer, and it is awesome to see the 1-A kids again all the same, so let’s just take in this page real quick before finally getting on to the Tragic Tenko Memories action

I like how Bakugou and Deku have both incorporated elements from their hero costumes into their orange ensembles for no real reason. but they are literally the only two characters who have done this, so I feel it’s worth pointing out

speaking of things that are there for no real reason, Bakugou also has a string tied around his ankle just completely at random. someone want to tell me what’s up with this? should I start inspecting the other characters’ ankles to see if there is a matching one

Mineta looks super cute, there I said it. I’m sorry but it’s true. let’s just cut him out of the rest of the manga moving forward and only have him randomly hovering in the background every so often. Mineta you can’t fly so what are you even doing dude

All Might is just completely defying gravity. just standing on absolutely nothing at all at a 45-degree lean. everyone else who’s mid-air is at least in the process of jumping or landing. but not All Might, no ma’am. he just doesn’t give a fuck

I see you there Inasa. up there spreading joy. and lest you guys believe Seiji and Camie were left out, let me assure you they were not and they are actually chilling over on a bridge just below Bakugou’s mystery bracelet. so that’s nice and also I still ship them yep

Miruko is here which gives me hope we’ll be seeing more of her soon! yes please Horikoshi do this for me

Hawks has no right to look so bored when he so recently texted Dabi a picture of a backpack sitting on his front porch with the caption “your package from Amazon has been delivered.” you are the reason Best Jeanist isn’t in this cover spread, Hawks, so what do you have to say for yourself

Todoroki has the fondest fucking expression on his face, and if you follow his gaze I swear to god it’s landing on Bakugou of all fucking people which makes me believe that contrary to everyone’s initial expectations, he is the one who actually has the matching ankle bracelet. that’s right kids, it was TodoBaku all along, we’ve all been played. either that or he’s looking at Tokoyami. idk guys the whirlwind teenage romance drama continues

anyways I hope everyone is good and cheered by this page, because we’re about to step back into our bleak and violent villain narrative now so say goodbye

okay so the first page is basically just RD thinking about how he’s refined his “stress” ability since childhood and that it can’t be dodged easily, but Tomura still managed to do it

and then we’re cutting to Tomura’s face which has the same sort of weary shell-shocked expression we ended the last chapter on, and ffff you guys I’m not ready but here we go anyway I guess

hooooooly shit

that is some good dramatic imagery. can’t wait to see Viz’s version when it comes out; that last panel definitely deserves to be seen in its fully restored glory

but anyway, so! that’s the Papa Hand! he just took it out of his pocket! and now he’s just holding it and staring at it! SHIT’S ABOUT TO GET REAL HERE YOU GUYS. THE SHIT IS ABOUT TO BUST THROUGH THE WALL AND WATASHI GA KITA THIS BITCH

why does he look so happy oh god :’D this is about to fuck me up isn’t it

so he remembered all the details of the Shimura Massacre and now he’s thinking that he really is just a vicious killing machine? is that what it is? oh god Horikoshi just show us already I can’t take it

but first we’re cutting to Re-Destro posing villainously and looking for all the world like that demon from the “Night on Bald Mountain” segment in Fantasia. I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but the art for RD these last couple chapters has been giving me a strong old-school Disney animation vibe. they came up with some scary stuff back in the day

Horikoshi really got us rooting for the guy who’s arguing for the destruction of the world. smdh. like I said, we’re being played

OH NO OH SHIT HERE WE GO

okay, without knowing anything at all about the context of this scene, I immediately suspect that this shadowy man tipping his hat toward Tenko and Mama Shimura might be All for One up to his bullshit but let’s see

(ETA: this is probably Mikkun and/or Tomo-chan’s dad actually. but I’m still watching you, mister.)

oh shit oh shit oh shit you guys aahhsdfhshah

SHIMURA KOTARO. THERE HE IS, AT LONG LAST. NANA’S SON OMGGGGG

HE LOOKS SO MUCH LIKE HER AND YET HE’S SO STERN AND UNFRIENDLY. WHERE IS THE TRADEMARK SHIMURA SMILE, OH GOD I’M NOT READY FOR THIS ANGST

let me guess, it was a “in this house we don’t speak the H-word” rule. with the four-letter h-word in this case not being what you might typically expect

also! black hair! so that’s also confirmed! so I guess it changed color due to his trauma? oh god

and you can see he’s got the little scratches which were hinted at in the previous chapter, but they’re not nearly as bad yet. I have to assume that habit got much worse also due to the trauma. oh god. again

I haven’t watched that new HBO show about Chernobyl yet, but I feel like this is kind of what it must be like? knowing full well that Very Bad Things are about to go down but not being able to do anything and having to just watch as it all plays out. shit

anyways yep. no h-word allowed

so he was five! one whole year older than I thought omg. my mistake

in other news guys, I’m currently researching how to build a machine that will let me enter a fictional two-dimensional world and then travel back in time in that world to rescue and adopt a small child who needs lots of hugs omfg anyway so if anyone wants to help me out I think it’s a worthwhile endeavor

...why did I laugh omg. Tenko why is your dad the most dramatic bitch

(ETA: in all seriousness I think we should investigate the possibility of the Shimuras being distantly related to the Todorokis.)

HIS ALLERGIES ARE ACTING UP DAD HAVE A FUCKING HEART

anyways it’s all good because Hana will go visit him and they’ll sneak into dad’s office and she’ll show him the picture of their grandma to cheer him up. and then I’m sure eventually his dad will see reason and they’ll sort out their issues and they’ll all live happily ever after. la la la

so now Grandma is suggesting that Kotaro has maybe been a little too harsh on Tenko lately. yes Grandma make him see reason please

also I’m really curious as to whether or not Grandma is Kotaro’s adopted mom, or Tenko’s maternal grandma. if she is the adopted mom I love her even more and that makes me even sadder about their deaths, because they took in this boy whose mother basically abandoned him and then later DIED HORRIBLY, and they did their best to raise him with love, only for AFO to come along and eventually murder the lot of them which is so fucked up I can’t even. they deserved better

Kotaro has such a jaded look in his eyes here that it’s hard for me to be mad at him at all even though he’s being a jerk dad

he’s had a really rough life. yes he’s being a jerk but he thinks he’s doing what’s best for his children though. fml why is this shit so complicated

okay this next page is kind of conflicting on the are-they-or-aren’t-they-his-adopted-parents thing sob

like on the one hand, he literally calls them mom and dad. but then two panels down Tomura says they’re his parents-in-law. so what is the truth. maybe it’s not him talking to them in that first panel? or maybe he’s just really tight with his in-laws idk

anyway so now we’re cutting to Tenko and his mom, and this is the sweetest thing ever and why are you doing this to me Horikoshi!?

FFFF OKAY BUT!!

BABY TENKO’S LIL TRAIN SET OMG SO CUTE. AND IS THAT A PLATE OF ONIGIRI ON THE TABLE. TENKO YOU MADE A MESS AND YOU DIDN’T EVEN FINISH IT, SUCH A TYPICAL FIVE-YEAR-OLD OMG

THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT KIND OF ALLERGY IT IS?? AND IT ONLY ACTS UP WHEN HE’S AT HOME. THIS IS SUSPICIOUS AS FUCK. WHAT KIND OF FOUL PLAY IS GOING ON. OR IS IT JUST STRESS?

MOM SECRETLY SUPPORTS HIS DREAM TO BE A HERO AND HE’S OPEN WITH HER ABOUT IT I CAN’T

MIKKUN AND TOMO-CHAN! OH MY GOD DID YOU GET INTO A FIGHT TO DEFEND YOUR FRIENDS AND THAT’S WHY YOU GOT INTO TROUBLE I FUCKING CAN’T HE WAS SUCH A GOOD BOY. HE REMINDS ME SO MUCH OF DEKU HERE HOLY SHIT

(ETA: they even look alike.)

cuuuuuuuuuuuute

OH MY GOD

SHIMURA TENKO WAS AN ALL MIGHT FAN CONFIRMED OMFG?!

you guys. that is a lot of emotions that just hit me all at once holy shit. where do I even begin

first of all this continues the pattern of “origin” chapters showing how the characters in question admired All Might when they were growing up. we’re 4 for 4 as of now. I love this

second, it just hit me like bam to learn that Tenko felt drawn to All Might, knowing how they’re actually connected. All Might doesn’t even know (yet) that Nana had a grandson, and Tenko has no idea that his childhood hero is actually his grandmother’s protege. and yet he still winds up admiring him even without that knowledge. pow right in the feels

and lastly, I wouldn’t have thought this whole situation could get any more fucked up, and yet Horikoshi still managed it! Tenko goes from looking up to All Might and wanting to be like him, to hating him and wanting nothing more than to hurt and destroy him. fucking ouch you guys. god but that one hurts

oh and also you better believe I immediately went to the wiki to see if there were any characters around Tomura’s age whose first names might believably be condensed to Mikkun or Tomo-chan. specifically, I went to Miruko first because I wasn’t sure if she was one of those characters whose hero name was similar to her actual name! but sadly her actual name is Rumi. so much for my “Miruko and Tomura were childhood friends” theory which lasted for all of two seconds but was a wild ride while it did

you guys baby Tenko has the chubbiest little boy legs lmao I love him so much oh god. and also on a more serious note this makes presentday!Tomura’s almost emaciated appearance all the more jarring. tack on yet another reason to hate AFO to the list. it’s getting to be a really long list

the parallels between him and Deku are off the fucking charts you guys. this is getting ridiculous. god I’m so weak for this kind of storytelling dfsldkjfk

don’t think I didn’t notice the enormous rack you went and gave Tenko’s mom, Horikoshi. but you know what I’m going to allow it because this is just so fucking good and also because for once he’s being pretty subtle about it all things considered

adult!Tomura’s narration is shockingly insightful here

like, he’s so in touch with his five-year-old emotions, and also his understanding of how this all affected him in hindsight. that’s a lot of self-awareness for a guy who only just remembered all of this like thirty seconds ago

doesn’t Tomura have like a 5/5 on the intelligence score according to the character book? for a longest time I was really skeptical about that, but the more I see of him in this arc the more I see that it’s not just talk

oh my goddddddddd

LOOK AT HIS FACE OH MY GOD. he’s fucking entranced. you can tell he’s instantly captivated by her

HORIKOSHI NO, WHY

GODFUCKINGDAMMIT I DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS YOU BASTARD

son of a bitch. well now I’m more subscribed than ever to the theory of Hana also surviving and being taken in by AFO in secret. she can’t be dead! she wanted to be a hero just like him! brother and sister heroes! Horikoshi I s2g if you really did kill her off I’m going to kick your ass. this is the exact spot where I’m drawing the line. this is how much angst you are allowed to have. right up to here and that’s it. the rest of the family can be dead, whatever, it’s sad and it’s fucked up, but don’t you dare touch Hana or I will...!!

and they promised. they made a brother-sister promise about what they were going to be when they grew up! and Tomura only just now remembered it! lord help me this boy is going to need all the therapy after this

OH NO

THAT DAY oh my god this is it strap yourselves in kids, we’re about to luge down this icy hill of Dead Family Feels and I don’t know how to fucking luge you guys

he’s so fucking happy. I’m so fucking stressed rn

oh GOD

TENKO DON’T MOVE!! DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING! OH GOD. HOW DO I TURN THIS FLASHBACK OFF THAT’S IT WE GOOD I’VE SEEN ENOUGH!!

LDSKFHHHH

KOTARO NO GO AWAY, EVEN IF YOU’VE BEEN A JERK DAD YOU DON’T DESERVE THIS AND TENKO DOESN’T DESERVE THIS, AND GOD, ALL FOR ONE CAN FUCKING BURN IN HELL, THIS IS SO FUCKED UP

AHHHHHH

OH GREAT THE WHOLE FUCKING FAMILY IS RIGHT THERE! JUST FUCKING PERFECT. THIS IS ALL GOING TO END SO FUCKING WELL I CAN’T

OH SHIT

KOTARO YOU’RE SUDDENLY CANCELLED YOU FUCKING DICK, BUT YOU STILL DIDN’T DESERVE TO DIE, BUT HOLY SHIT YOU SUCK!!! I DIDN’T ACTUALLY THINK YOU’D REALLY GO THROUGH WITH IT BUT I GUESS I WAS GIVING YOU TOO MUCH CREDIT YOU RAT BASTARD

I’M GLAD MAMA SHIMURA IS YELLING AT HIM NOW BUT I ALSO HAVE A TERRIBLE FEELING THAT HER RUNNING TO INTERVENE IS GOING TO SPARK A CHAIN REACTION, GIVEN WHAT’S ABOUT TO HAPPEN OH GOD

(ETA: or maybe I gave her too much credit. turns out there was no intervening to speak of.)

anyway so now Kotaro is yelling “that’s not your grandma!”, and I can’t decide if this is anger or something else on his face in this moment, which unbeknownst to him is one of the final moments of his life hahaha sob somebody help me how do I stop this ride

also Mon-chan keeps barking and I know that’s going to end really badly in just a moment as well ugh. it’s like those final few seconds after a grenade rolls into a room and everyone sees that the pin is missing and they know what’s about to happen but they can’t do anything to stop it. we’re all gonna die folks

oh no it actually was Something Else on his face oh fuck me

I’m fucking furious at Horikoshi right now for pulling this shit again and giving this scene so much complexity. there’s so much going on here that we’re never even going to get the chance to unpack because it’s all about to go to shit. and Kotaro is an absolute bastard, but he’s also a man who’s still reeling from the pain of being abandoned by his own mother and never came to terms with that. and yet that absolutely does not make this okay in the slightest, at all, and it’s abundantly clear that he is still very much the bad guy here and that what he’s doing is unforgivable. I just really like that he went and gave him this much depth despite him playing such a despicable role here. god BnHA is so good

anyway back to being devastated

HE LOOKS SO FUCKING TERRIFIED AND I’M SO MAD ABOUT EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW HE DIDN’T DESERVE THIS!!!

MOTHERFUCKER HERE IT COMES

[takes a deep breath and clicks to the next page!!]

hey what the

not the panel I was expecting with Tenko reaching out defensively and touching his father and accidentally turning him to ash while the rest of the family shrieks in fear and shock, but okay. I can’t say I was exactly looking forward to seeing that so I’ll take it!

oh Horikoshi. you see, this is exactly the type of shit I’m talking about

okay Kotaro, I can feel sorry for you in this moment and sympathize with the child-you who did not deserve that at all, and also feel yet more rage toward AFO for utterly destroying this family. but that doesn’t mean I don’t absolutely hate you at the same time for what you did to your son. it’s just like that. you had reasons but you’re still a dick. just BnHA character things

Horikoshi why oh my god

RIP SHIMURA FAMILY YOU DESERVED BETTER AND YOU WILL BE AVENGED!!

and yet all the same that does not make it right for you to take out your pain and frustration on your helpless five-year-old son! YOU FUCKED UP KOTARO. but this next page is still going to hurt oh god

[takes another deep breath!!]

oh okay we’re still drawing it out

-- holy shit, wait a sec. is this all taking place after? wait a fucking second

okay you guys holy shit, I just went back to the “house my father built” page and it is very clearly segueing into another flashback. like, in hindsight it’s obvious, but these aren’t actually Tenko’s memories any more. I think what happened was that Kotaro actually did hit Tenko another couple of times and then that was it, and then it cut back to this scene here which is actually taking place after that incident

which means Tenko’s memories were indeed tampered with then if my hunch is right!! let’s read on, but I’m pretty sure AFO is about to come along and murder the shit out of these folks, holy shit is this really happening?!

okay so Mama Shimura is telling Kotaro that she’s done following his rules

like, I’m glad she’s standing up for her children but I really wish she’d rip him a new one much more severely than this though

though he does seem genuinely regretful. but that’s hardly helpful now?? girl just take the kids and leave

oh no we’re cutting back to Tenko and he’s hugging Mon-chan out in the backyard and it’s nighttime now noooooooo

all right, for the third fucking time I’m going to take a deep fucking breath and turn the page holy shit you guys this chapter is taking years off my life

ffff ffff ffffffff

(((╹д╹;)))

(⁽⁽ ⁰ ⁾⁾ Д ⁽⁽ ⁰ ⁾⁾;;;)

(φ Д φ )

...well shit

parting thoughts:

I’m okay with this being the only bit they show and not getting any more detail. please for once don’t give us any more detail, Horikoshi, holy fuck

though if we don’t actually see anything, part of me is still going to suspect AFO of directly interfering right up until the end of the series. the whole thing just comes together too perfectly for him. there’s no fucking way

I still 100% believe he gave Tenko the quirk, too. especially now that we know he was quirkless until age five. we’ve previously established that if a child hasn’t evolved a quirk by that age it almost always means they’re quirkless for life. Horikoshi thinks he’s smooth trying to play it off like Tenko was a tragic late bloomer but WE KNOW THE TRUTH. I will go down with this theory damn it

I would say this is easily the single most fucked up thing we have seen in this series up to this point, but I see Horikoshi eyeing the upcoming Noumu plotline and the tragic tale of Tsubasa and his fucked up mad scientist grandpa and looking for somebody to hold his beer, so. I’ll just keep my mouth shut, I think

anyways this chapter was amazing and terrifying and I can’t wait to see how Tomura’s story moves forward from here. happy 5th anniversary of BnHA, y’all

#bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha 235 #shigaraki tomura #shimura nana #shimura kotaro #shimura hana #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #this chapter had me jumping at my own shadow I swear #every new page I was expecting the worst #that is some masterful tension-build-up there #even re-reading it I was getting nervous again #anyways this recap is dedicated to mon-chan #rip mon-chan #forever best dog #you were the goodest boy and you deserved the world and horikoshi is a cruel cruel man

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impalementation · 6 years ago

Note

Not sure if you’ve talked about it before because I couldn’t find anything from tags but, what’s your opinion on Faith in each season and her dynamic with Buffy?

I’ve gotten a couple different asks in this vein! Sorry for taking so long to answer them, this response got out of hand. Consider this my official thoughts on Faith. Putting it under a cut because it got long.

I think Faith is a crucial addition to the show. Admittedly, she isn’t someone I spend a ton of time thinking about, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t interesting or important. I like Faith for two reasons: first, for how she affects Buffy, and second, for how she ends up transcending the role of “someone who affects Buffy.”

Regarding the first, a lot’s been said about what a classic foil she is, as well as how she’s an example of doppelgänger-type anxiety. Faith is someone that, simply by existing, makes Buffy conscious (even possessive) about her identity, in ways she’s never been before.

Which is one of the big themes of season three: Buffy’s relationship to identity, especially slaying as an identity, and slaying as a symbol of identity. In Anne Buffy abandons her slayerness, abandons her life and name, and fights a villain that literally takes away its victims’ personhood (“Who are you?” “No one.”). She loses her powers in Helpless. Her slayerness makes her an object of social retribution in Gingerbread, and a hunted animal in Homecoming. In Lovers Walk she toys with the idea that she could leave Sunnydale and have an identity that doesn’t have to do with killing demons.

And then you have Faith, a slayer who is presented as an alternate version of/path for Buffy. When Kendra was introduced, the show didn’t do much to emphasize what she and Buffy had in common; if anything, the show emphasized the ways they were different. Kendra was more rulebound, less social, and had accepted the idea of being a slayer a long time ago. Whereas Faith regularly plays up her and Buffy’s similarities: “We’re slayers, girlfriend. The chosen two.”, “You know it could be you.” Buffy herself admits that “it could be me.” I think it’s pretty deliberate that Buffy in The Wish has a jaded, Faith-like swagger. Or that the season features the concept of alternate-universe selves in general.

(That said. Despite the fact that I don’t see Buffy and Kendra as foils to the degree that Buffy and Faith are, I do think season three features Faith for much the same reason that What’s My Line introduced Kendra: both are about being at a crossroads of identity. Buffy in The Wish is a bit like Kendra too.)

I posted before about how seasons three and four introduce the idea of Buffy making choices about who she wants to be, rather than choices about who lives and dies. And how Faith is central to that. Faith makes Buffy aware of choice by (a) being a slayer, meaning that unlike any other character, she’s under the same constraints that Buffy is, (b) openly having desire for things (food, sex, slaying), © making different choices than Buffy, and (d) tempting Buffy to use her powers non-heroically, whether in the Bad Girls sense, or by forcing Buffy to potentially kill her in Graduation Day. Also, by encroaching upon things that Buffy considers “hers”, like her friends, lovers, or family, Faith clarifies for Buffy that she even considers anything “hers” at all. In other words, she makes Buffy notice both her identity as it is, and her identity as it could be.

But for all that Faith has nice symbolic and dramatic reasons to exist, what I actually really like about the way the show uses Faith is that she becomes a character in her own right. It ties into the show’s existentialist themes in a really effective way. I know, I get tired of myself as soon as I bring up the existentialist stuff, but I don’t think it can be understated how existentialist Buffy is. It’s why Buffy is a vampire slayer specifically, even though most of the time she isn’t even fighting vampires. She’s a vampire slayer because vampires are the opposite of existentialism. They’re nihilism. They’re thieves of agency, identity, and life. By virtue of lacking souls, they are incapable of moral choice. They don’t age, they don’t mature. They’re the opposite of “growing up.” They fill the open-ended eternity of their existence with destruction and death.

(You might point to Spike and Darla as exceptions to this vampire symbolism, but I genuinely don’t think they are. Both characters realize that their vampiric nature causes harm to those they love, and this realization leads both characters to self-destruct. Darla by staking herself, and Spike by getting a soul…which also results in his death a season later. Them achieving the ability to make a true moral choice leads directly to them ceasing to exist as soulless vampires.)

To bring this back to Faith, I see something vampiric in the concept of a doppelgänger or foil, the idea of this empty vessel that takes your identity because they have none of their own. Someone whose identity exists only as a reflection of someone else’s. A grasping, black hole of self.

The problem is, a real person can’t be a foil. That’s a literary construct. In real life, seeing yourself as a reflection or extension of someone else just means that you’re afraid of creating your own identity. Maybe for good, understandable reasons, and maybe not. Who Are You? is one of my favorite episodes because it makes this problem explicit. It turns Faith from an abstract foil figure into someone who literally steals Buffy’s identity, and is shown to not have a solid sense of self. I posted earlier about the similarities between Anne and Who Are You?, but I like those similarities not just because they create thematic continuity around identity-related ideas. I like them because there’s this kind of awful, tragic irony to the fact that even Faith’s identity crisis episode uses pieces from Buffy’s arc.

Speaking of using pieces from Buffy’s arc, I also love the way that Buffy’s role in Who Are You? mirrors Faith’s role in season three. Just as Faith threw Buffy’s identity into relief, Buffy now throws Faith’s identity into relief. Being Buffy frees Faith to act in ways she wouldn’t ordinarily let herself, and being treated as Buffy forces Faith to confront whether she actually does or doesn’t want to be treated in those ways. You might say that by fully confronting the ways that she sees herself in terms of Buffy, Faith is able to start moving beyond it. The episode is basically an exorcism of Faith’s foil-ness.

Unfortunately I can’t speak very well to Faith’s arc on Angel since I haven’t seen most of it. Just Five By Five and parts of Sanctuary. But there are a lot of things I like about Faith’s return in season seven. I love that in her introduction she asks whether she’s “the good slayer now”, and when she and Buffy talk in End of Days she tries to pull a “maybe we couldn’t exist at the same time” thing. Because she’s literally talking about herself like she’s a literary device. But by this point she’s also developed enough that it’s only semi-serious; she’s quick to accept Buffy’s point that no, her choices were her own.

I think it’s perfect that season seven includes Faith, because season seven involves Buffy once again grappling with choice, and what it means for her to be the slayer. I think it’s perfect that Faith gets the opportunity to finally understand Buffy’s loneliness, and that the two of them are able to commiserate about being “hot chicks with superpowers.” Because it’s them finally getting to have their slayerness just be something that they have in common. Instead of this big complicated identity thing. It foreshadows Chosen, and the way that being a slayer goes from being something that isolates Buffy, to something that Buffy can share with people. I also really like the reversal of the fact that in Empty Places Faith isn’t the one who wants to take Buffy’s leadership away from her. She no longer wants to take Buffy’s role or Buffy’s friends. Instead it’s everyone else that is determined to perpetuate the idea that only one of them can be in charge, or that Buffy can be replaced. It fits with the way that the season frames isolation as not just a personal problem, but also a social and systemic problem. Even though Faith has grown past many of her issues, that doesn’t mean that the people around her have, or that the fundamentally, systemically solitary nature of being a slayer has changed. See also: Andrew mythologizing Faith’s background, and Caleb calling her the “Cain to [Buffy’s] Abel.” Of course it would be an avatar of the First that tries to get Faith to see herself as an archetype again.

Other things I like: The fact that Faith reveals to Spike that she was in Buffy’s body, because it’s yet another case of her finally owning up to being herself, instead of a reflection of Buffy. The fact that when the night out goes badly in Empty Places, it’s not because of anything that Faith did (that night), the way it was in Bad Girls. The fact that Buffy hands Faith a blade as an expression of trust in Chosen, a reversal of gutting her with a blade in Graduation Day.

Overall I just think it’s a really cool statement on identity that the character who was introduced to give Buffy identity issues, then has to go on her own search for identity. No one in Buffy is exempt from the project of self-creation, least of all the vampires and the doppelgängers. But it’s especially appropriate that Faith go on that journey because she’s a slayer, and slaying is arguably a metaphor for existential striving. It would be weird if she didn’t grow, really. She’s the rare case of the female redemption arc, especially a redemption arc that doesn’t involve her becoming less violent or sexual (or dead) afterwards. Just less unethical about it. She gets to play that role in a more-or-less gender-neutral way, the same way Buffy gets to be a hero in a more-or-less gender-neutral way. Buffy and Faith both start out as archetypes, and both end up humanized in a way that transcends and complicates those archetypes.

[Your ask didn’t mention Buffy/Faith, but a couple others did, so: as far as Buffy/Faith goes, my feelings are the same as most Buffy pairings, which is that I don’t personally have any investment in it, but I can certainly see the appeal. It sounds like a fun thing to ship. I would’ve been totally on board from a story/character perspective if the show had ever tried to make them non-subtextual. Partly because I’d be on board with anything, as long as it was interesting. But also because I can see it making a lot of storytelling sense, given that Faith’s whole job is to shake up Buffy’s sense of identity.]

#btvs #please clap i spent too long on this #buffy #faith #gen

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necroarchived · 8 years ago

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🏐`•.¸¸.•´ｍｏｕｉｐｐｏｎｍｅｍｅ!!`•• .¸.•●☀️ “Unpopular 🔥 Opinion”

Send a 🔥 to listen to Frost complain like a champion.

Specified later to be about major character deaths.

I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAYABOUT THIS.

Placed under a readmore because I’m self-aware enough toknow that this is just going to be a lot of rambling, frothing hatred.

BUT OKAY SO. LET’S DO THIS.

Vol’jin. Fucking Vol’jin. I’ll be entirely honest, I’mone of those people who didn’t pay a lot of attention to Vol’jin until hestarted smack-talking Garrosh and then became a Mega Badass during Mists ofPandaria. I’m woman enough to admit that. But I’m also woman enough to admit that that’s because Blizzard didn’t givehim enough to do throughout Vanilla-Wrath, which is a damn shame because once they started playing around with him, Vol’jinwas awesome. He was so badass. The man took a knife to the throat and survived,then went on to lead the rebellion against GARROSH HECKSCREAM, FUCK YOUGARROSH, YOU SUCKED SO MUCH. (God I miss the days when we were all united inour seething hatred for that dickwaffle.)

Then Vol’jinbecame the Warchief of the Horde, a Warchief that the Horde could bereally and truly proud of, which they neededafter the fiasco that was Garrosh. They deservedhim. Hell, man, I started making Horde characters because I was so excited tohave Vol’jin as a Warchief. I was so excited!

And then!Warlords of Draenor dropped! And Vol’jin… did fucking nothing.

I was willing toforgive that. Warlords of Draenor wasa fiasco on so many levels from a storytelling perspective (not the least beingKhadgar’s somewhat-shitty introduction into the spotlight at the cost of Jainaand Wrathion but whatever. That’s a different salt.) so the lack of Vol’jinmight’ve not been too bad. Warlords didn’t even have a Troll Area, which is howyou knew it was a bullshit expansion. (You needthe Troll Area for it to be a real WoW expansion.) I was forgiving. I couldwait. With the Burning Legion coming back, Vol’jin was definitely going to getto do some kickass stuff as Warchief. He was going to do great.

And then Blizzardfucking murdered him.

I mean, are youjoking? I outright refused for monthsto believe that they were actually going to kill Vol’in after it was dataminedthat he would die, especially considering the immediate outcry from the player base. And people weren’t pissedbecause he was a major character – after all, we also lost Varian, but he was awell-executed Major Character Death.(But this is salt, so I’m not spending time on that.) Not only did Vol’jin diebefore he did anything of worth asthe Warchief, before we got to know how he handled that mantle and saw him inaction, but his death was so. so bad. They literally stuck him like a pig by some random-ass demon in a cinematic thatwas very clearly centered on Sylvanas Windrunner. And the second cinematic,where he named her his successor was again – centered on Sylvanas Windrunner.Blizzard did Vol’jin the disservice of killing him Too Damn Soon and thenmaking his death all about Sylvanas. Hell, even in the scenario, Varian istalking with Sylvanas like she’s incharge, when the fuckin’ Warchief of theHorde is right there next to her. Like damn, dude, at least acknowledgeyour new antithesis!

Now we have Warchief Sylvanas. And Sylvanas is… not Warchief material. “The spirits toldVol’jin she is!” The spirits are Blizzard and Blizzard is fucking stupid. Sylvanasis selfish, ruthless, and disconnected to the extreme from mortality. Thesemake her a fascinating character, but they don’t do well to foster her into aWarchief of worth. And thus far, that’s proven true. Sylvanas hasn’t reallydone a lot as Warchief that she wouldn’t have done as Banshee Queen. Vol’jin,meanwhile, has become ash. It’s just… so, so dumb.

(Not to mention,Sylvanas is functionally immortal and now in charge of a bunch of mortals. That…doesn’t jive well with me. Seems like a really bad situation that, whilepotentially interesting, Blizzard likely wouldn’t handle well.)

The whole dealbetween her and Genn would be so muchmore interesting if it were Sylvanas and Genn fighting each other while Vol’jinand Anduin try to hold them back. Sylvanas, from her Siege of Orgrimmar text,indicates that she had no intention of obeying a troll Warchief to begin with.And Genn obviously doesn’t respect Anduin at all, considering how quick he was to disobey direct orders andassault the Horde when there are MOTHERFUCKINGDEMONS attacking. Like – damn,buddy, I get that you’re upset about your son, and Sylvanas definitely deservesto get socked in the jaw for the shit she pulls in Gilneas, but now is not the time. Down, ya daft puppy. Vol’jinand Anduin could bond over being relatively new leaders of the Horde and theAlliance, the Forsaken-Worgen conflict would have a bit more equality about it,no leaders need to die!! Everyone is happy!

Except no, they’re not, everyone’s kind of low-key unhappy, because Blizzard is dumb.

Arthas’ deathactually ties into a different salt I have against Blizzard, which is that theyset themselves up to fail with their business model with World of Warcraft. Many eons ago, Blizzard decided that they neededto, every year or so, make an expansion and center it around our strugglesagainst a particular Big Bad, likely one from the Warcraft RTS series. These expansions would revolve around usdismantling their forces, killing their lieutenants, salting the earth, andculminating in us sieging their stronghold and slaughtering the Big Bad.

The issue withthis model, friends, is that eventually, you’re going to run out of Big Bads.

Which they’redoing.

Arthas?Deathwing? These were two of the biggest,baddest villains in Warcraft. Deathwing’s been menacing Azeroth for overten thousand years, insidiously pulling the strings of kingdoms forgenerations, and yet I’m supposed to believe that he suddenly decided to becomea Flying Furnace of Rage? That Thrall somehow was cool enough to literally replacehim as the Earthwarder, then wield the Dragon Soul to kill-steal Deathwing?(AND THAT THAT FOR SOME FUCKING REASON RENDERED THE DRAGONS STERILE?Like w h a t the actual fuck, Blizzard, how drunk were you when you made that decision,and how much more drunk were you when you decided to stick to it?)

Arthas, in lessthan a year, razed three of the most powerful nations on Azeroth to the ground,slaughtering and damning thousands upon thousands of people. He ascended to physical godhood in what many considerto be one of the best-written character arcs of Blizzard history. (Though I, ofcourse, might be a bit biased about this.) Under his leadership, the Scourgecame to be one of the three main powers of Azeroth, with just as likely achance to dominate the planet as the Horde or Alliance. Arthas was popular, dangerous.

And then theykilled him.

Like – yeah, froma non-storytelling point, Arthas needed to die. He was a dangerous zombie godwho wanted to turn us into his zombie slaves. The issue is, once they killedhim, Blizzard lost that dangerouszombie god as a threat to pit us against. The Scourge could no longer be usedas a worthwhile threat, because hey, theirzombie god was dead. We won. Plus, the Scourge just wasn’t as cool anymore,because Arthas – the prince we watched fall, the death knight we loved to hate –wasn’t around to make it extra cool. But due to the way they decided to set uptheir expansions model, Blizzard set up Arthas for the slaughter. And now the onlytime you see Arthas is… literally everywhere else, because he was a popular andiconic character, even eight RL years after his death. (Note how often he’sfeatured or referenced in Heroes of theStorm, and how many WoW ads feature images of him.)

Blizzard seems tounderstand that they really Fucked Up killing Arthas, because they’re murderingBolvar’s character in an attempt to make him the new Arthas. The things he’shaving the death knights do is literallythe sort of shit Arthas would send us to do. Hell, Arthas’ ghost even comesback to bitch those very truths at us! And this is a shame mostly for Bolvar, because the interestingpotentials with his character are basically scrapped. A Good Lich King, onewith morals who halfway cares about the world and the mortals within it, wouldhave been really cool to explore. Instead we get a guy who tells us to goassault Light’s Hope and drive the red dragonflight into possible extinction.That’s not Bolvar. That’s Orange Arthas.

Blizzard iskilling off their characters left and right and they’re mostly doing it badly,making everyone suffer theconsequences. For every Varian-level character death, we get a Vol’jin, Kairoz,Deathwing, Arthas, Ysera, Illidan, Kael’thas, all the fuckin dragons atthis point. Deaths that Blizzard did notwrite well, deaths that ultimately harmed the story more than helped it.

And I don’t thinkthey have any intention of stopping.

#salt #chiisana-kyojin #chiisana kyojin #//#ace why must you ask me these things #do you not understand how much rage i'm hiding #do you not bro #do you not #ooc. royal correspondence. asks.#ooc. here a snowflake speaks. mun.

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the-redcapesarecoming · 7 years ago

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Sequel Trilogy is (Mostly) a Fuck

My spoiler-filled thoughts:

There are three things I can almost unabashedly praise: the visuals, the action, and the acting.

-All the actors give tremendous performances.

-The space combat, scale of the ships, and lightsaber/Force scenes are pulse-pounding and awesome.

-This was probably the prettiest Star Wars movie with gorgeous locations, outfits, colors, and cinematography.

There were a few visual quirks I didn’t like.

-While puppet Yoda is cool, his eyes look weird. They seem puffy or maybe his pupils are too big or something because they look weird.

-Leia flying through space like Mary Poppins is ridiculous. It looks ridiculous and it also doesn’t make sense how she did it, without any training in advanced abilities, while on the brink of death.

-Snoke looks weird as hell also. As soon as he stands up and starts walking around I noticed how weird he looks, and not in a good way. His closeups especially look bad. and he. Does. Not. Stop. Talking.

-Hux being Force choked looks weird and underwhelming for such a huge shift in their dynamic.

-It looks underwhelming when Broomboi uses the Force to grab the broom. It’s so quick and pushed to the side of the screen that most people didn’t even notice it. Also how the hell does an untrained child worker know how to use telekinesis when Anakin couldn’t as an untrained child and Luke took three years of waiting while going off of basic training to use it?

-The Falthiers look good in closeups but while in motion they seem fake as hell.

-The Porgs look like stuff animals with strings tied to their wings.

-Luke’s little twirl spin move while fighting Kylo looks weird, as did his Force feather fall while fighting Rey. Brushing dust off his shoulder after he’s fired on is bit much. A bit cheesy.

The story and the characters are almost entirely gutted.

Poe Dameron is awful in this movie.

-His whole arc is learning to be less of a hotshot and more of a leader but they went about it horribly.

-All his interactions with Leia and Holdo reek of mysogony.

-His first conflict with Leia comes out of nowhere and makes him look entirely incompetent and reckless. He has not been shown to be so ridiculously reckless in any previous material.

-His entire conflict with Holdo is ridiculously manufactured. Why is her plan kept secret? It makes no sense! She tells him that she is trying to preserve hope among the crew but she leaves them in the dark and lets them think they are waiting to die? What point is there to keeping it a secret? And then Poe starts a damn mutiny with the younger crew? Poe worships Leia and yet he suddenly starts acting out and disobeying orders and sticking it to the command, a command who is very close with Leia, all out of nowhere. All so Rian Johnson can say, “look, the guy who isn’t Whito Ren gets to do stuff! See I’m not ignoring him!!”

-Holdo is okay but she needed more of an explained background. She seems to come out of nowhere and so her very loving interactions with Leia seem weird to anyone who hasn’t read the Leia novel. Also, while her light speed suicide attack is visually magnificent, it begs the question why the Rebels never use it before, seeing how one light speed flagship can take out like thirty star destroyers.

-A ton of the old Rebellion command, like Ackbar, dies super unceremoniously. And no Lando, which blows for obvious reasons.

Why the hell are they still acting like Lupita Nyong’o is a real member of the cast when they give her one 30 second scene telling some people to find a person. Her character is so underused.

Finn and Rose are underwhelming.

-His arc is about committing himself to the cause of the Resistance.

-Her arc is about educating Finn to the evils of animal cruelty and war profiteering and saying one line about saving those you love rather than fighting those you hate which is? I don’t know? Is it profound? Is it paradoxical? I don’t know.

-DJ exists to say one line about not joining the fight, which doesn’t seem to affect Finn at all despite that being an aspect of his character. Also his betrayal comes out of nowhere and makes zero sense. How the hell was he able to sell the Resistance’s plan to the First Order when himself, Finn, and Rose don’t even know it?

-The worst offence is that this entire subplot is completely pointless. They never achieve their goal and that goal doesn’t even become relevant. If it didn’t exist the movie would be entirely the same. This is a gross misuse of Finn’s character and an awful introduction for Rose as a character of significance.

-The fact that Rose kisses Finn is cool in that it’s an interracial non-white romance but weird because now there seems to be a love square with Rose liking Finn, Finn liking Rey, and Rey with her stupid thing with Kylo. In any case, it didn’t feel significant. I didn’t feel like their relationship developed to the point where her kissing him feels natural or earned. It feel like it was thrown in there to keep Finn away from Rey and Poe.

-No Finnpoe and no Finnrey.

-Violence against Finn is used for comedy again. Which is very bad.

-I will say that his fight with Phasma is pretty cool. She is towering and has such presence but Finn fights hard and I really feel that he was fighting everything the First Order stood for. I really liked how he cracked her helmet and so cracked the entire image her and the FO represent. Although it doesn’t feel like the whole fight really affects him. He’s not really changed by it. His whole arc doesn’t really go anywhere except him trying and failing to sacrifice himself, which seemed OOC to me.

-I feel like his hatred for First Order ideals are not really pushed enough even though that would be a great thing to explore. His attempted sacrifice feels like he is just trying to be a Good Guy when it should be so much more.

-I don’t like how he calls himself rebel scum. I never liked that phrase. I get the whole ‘reclaiming an insult’ thing but it’s used so often as an insult to rebels that I can’t see it as a term of endearment.

-Phasma dying is another waste of her character, a character I was very interested in having read her novel.

-I like the scene with Broomboi and the general theme of heroes coming from anywhere, but I wish they didn’t have to trash on the characters and themes of the OT to do it.

Luke fucking Skywalker.

-I can buy the whole ‘losing one’s faith then finding it again’ arc. I was willing to get behind that back when TFA came out. But they single-handedly created the worst characterization of Luke I have ever seen.

-The fact that he, even if only for a moment, legitimately thinks about killing his own nephew in his sleep because he senses the darkness in him is so OOC it might as well not be Luke Skywalker. This is Luke fucking Skywalker! The man who refused to give up on Darth Vader! Even knowing all the horrible things he’d done, Luke still held on to that hope, to the point where he was almost killed! Yes he’s skirted with darkness before but the whole point of ROTJ was that he learned his lesson! He matured and became a Jedi! This is so horribly out-of-character for him and only exists to make Crylo Ren sympathetic. They killed the Luke we knew to make Kylo sympathetic. That’s horrible.

-It really hurt hearing him say all those horrible things about the Jedi, even if he is plainly wrong.

-His scenes with Chewie, Artoo, and Yoda were all pretty good except I don’t like how Yoda destroyed the tree and claims that Rey doesn’t need that wisdom when she barely learns a damn thing from Luke. She starts her training by saying that using the Force is about lifting rocks and is shown to be wrong. At the end of the movie, she repeats that while lifting rocks. She hadn’t learned a damn thing and suddenly she’s the new heir to the Jedi? Fuck Luke I guess right? Fuck the Jedi as a real religion I guess right?

-I heard people say that Rey takes the books from the tree, which does significantly change the Yoda scene, but I didn’t catch it on my first viewing. Either way, Rey didn’t learn enough about the Jedi and the Force to make me believe she can lead a new order, books or no books, Force Ghost Luke or no Force Ghost Luke. I don’t believe she has that wisdom from what I’ve seen of her.

-Having Luke closed off to the Force is a clever way to get out of having to use Force Ghosts but it’s still dumb as hell to not use Force Ghosts except for the obligatory TESB Yoda moment. There is no indication as to why only Yoda shows up and why only at that moment.

-Finally, Luke returns to the fight. I like how he says in the beginning, “did you think I would take my laser-sword and face down the entire First Order alone?” Then by the end he actually does.

-I like Luke as a galactic legend and uber-powerful Jedi. However, Force projection is a weird and kind of dumb power. He has his X-wing. He could have just fixed it and flown there. Then done some crazy Force power to escape with the Resistance.

-While the binary sunset scene is utterly gorgeous, Luke dying is awful. I know he is obviously a Force Ghost because he vanishes but having him die at all, especially from exhaustion of all things, is a terrible idea. His arc is about rediscovering his faith and he does. Except he doesn’t do anything with it. He shows up, reminding the galaxy that the legendary Luke Skywalker and last Jedi still exists, then just dies. He may not even show up as a Force Ghost for all we know. It seems to be all up to Rey who doesn’t know jack shit about the Jedi. Force Ghost or not, I wanted Luke in the flesh to rebuild the Jedi! I wanted Luke in the flesh to confront Kylo and rejoin Leia and return to his legendary status!

-I don’t remember exactly but I don’t think Han’s death was mentioned outside of one line, a sad look from Luke, and those dice which is so disheartening.

Rey’s character is gutted too.

-She has all this enthusiasm to learn from Luke about the Jedi and the Force but she’s suddenly super interested in the dark side and Kylo Ren.

-I hate that she starts sympathizing and insisting he can become good again even when everything he’s shown her has proved otherwise. Everything he says and does shows how evil and twisted he is and the only thing Rey goes off of is the stupid ‘Luke trying to kill Kylo’ backstory which is dumb and bad.

-She’s thrown into this sexist role of ‘this bad boy is misunderstood and I can save him from himself because I’m so good and pure and he had a rough childhood :(“. Her entire character revolves around him.

-I HATE the Kylo shirtless scene. I hate it so much. It is so out of place and he’s not even good looking and it is total pandering to the fucking freaks and fangirls.

-R*ylos are going to have a fucking field day which I hate.

-I hate that she fucking attacks Luke in the back and starts fighting him, even bringing in the fucking lightsaber, after hearing a story from a murderer she hated five minutes ago.

-The things Kylo say and do to her in this movie are textbook abuse. This coming off of the allegory for rape in the last movie. He literally tells her she’s nothing but she means something to him. That shit is so damn creepy and toxic.

-I hate that even after Kylo straight up tells her he’s still evil they suddenly fight back-to-back like they’re best fucking friends. It’s a dumb red herring to make the audience think a redemption is coming when no one should fucking want him redeemed after his actions in this movie.

-I don’t like how she’s Rey Random. Whether Kylo is lying or not, and I doubt he is because the mirror didn’t show her parents, having Rey be so unbelievably powerful in the Force makes no sense. I don’t like the explanation either. Snoke explains that because Kylo is so strong in the dark side, and I guess there isn’t any other noteworthy Force users, the Force rises in Rey to match him. That is some bull fucking shit. There isn’t some fucking Force lottery where it makes two uber powerful Force users and has them duke it out. This is like the god damn Mortis arc of TCW, which I HATE because how it becomes overly-fantasy in a stupid way.

-Snoke claims that he made their Force bond but that comes out of fucking nowhere. There is no indication he did that. The bond just happens, then halfway through the movie he just mentions that he did it. No foreshadowing whatsoever.

Kylo is the only character with a halfway decent arc.

-I guess that makes sense since this is The Kylo Show (dir. Rain “Incel” Johnson).

-I like how he gets tossed around by Snoke. I like how utterly dominating Snoke’s power is.

-I hate that Snoke dies with no backstory. We still don’t know who the fuck he is, where the fuck he came from, and why he’s so fucking powerful. I don’t hate the fact he died, and his death scene is pretty cool, I just hate how he is barely a character.

-I like the idea of Renperor and making Kylo the actual villain.

-I like how Kylo and Hux’s dynamic shifts from competitive to submissive. It’s cool seeing how now that Kylo has no one controlling him, his Force powers put him in an entirely different position from Hux.

-I like how Kylo is proven to be a shitty Supreme Leader, too focused on destroying his past rather than effectively destroying his enemies.

It is a really long movie and it feels like a lot happened, but in actuality it has never been more the same.

-The First Order has basically taken over the galaxy. They were very strong and they’re still very strong.

-The Resistance is shot to shit. They were an underdog and now they’re even more of an underdog.

-The Jedi are in need of restoring. They were destroyed, were thought to be coming back, destroyed again, and are now thought to be coming back again.

-Finn is now a sure hearted Resistance fighter. He left the FO, fought with the Resistance, tries leaving, then joins back with the Resistance.

-Poe is a Resistance leader. He was a Resistance leader, suddenly becomes a shitty one, then becomes a good one again.

-Rey has the Force. She could use the Force and fight really well with a lightsaber, and now she still can.

-Kylo Ren is the Supreme Leader. His is the only meaningful development. He was a stooge of Snoke’s, finally saw the chance to kill him and seize power, and did it.

-Luke is dead, probably a Force Ghost but that’s unknown currently. He was a great Jedi, then suddenly becomes an incredibly shitty person, then becomes depressed and bitter, then gets better, then dies.

-The state of the galaxy is still the status quo of the beginning of the OT. Any real story and character development is either undone, minimal, or unnecessary.

Most of the humour didn’t work for me.

-It was way too Marvel-like, always undercutting the tension, suspense, and drama for a cheap laugh.

-Some of it worked, especially when it was in a scene designed for comedic relief rather than during what should be a serious moment.

I don’t think there was any new music. What gives? All I heard was music from TFA and the OT. This is the most disappointing Star Wars soundtrack ever.

I get that these are made for kids, now more than ever, but this shows a marked difference between Lucas!Star Wars and Disney!Star Wars.

-Under George Lucas, it told a complete story utilizing mythical archetypes that ensured it would always be a timeless tale. On top of that, he created a deeply complex galaxy with immeasurable developed cultures and rich lore. He created boundary-pushing technology to sell all of this to the audience. And through it all, he kept it fun and enjoyable for everyone.

-Under Disney, it has become just another big budget movie franchise, akin to the MCU and Transformers, where the characters and plot never move forward and they can keep pumping these easily-marketable flicks out with minimal effort at innovation and good story-telling. They just reuse the aesthetic of the OT and slowly destroy and replace the characters we love with their own poorly developed versions.

-I love the diverse casting and female lead for kids to look up to, but this isn’t true Star Wars. It can’t stand next to episodes 1-6 as worthy sequels to a modern myth. That’s not totally a bad thing though. This is made for a new generation and they do seem to be enjoying these heroes and villains. But it isn’t truly Star Wars. It won’t hold up. It’s not timeless. The saga wasn’t continued because there was a story to tell, it was continued to make money. It’s too focused on ignoring the prequels and destroying the OT to replace it with their own brand of Star Wars.

-Really, I wish we got the story that takes place between episode 6 and 7 rather than this. I wanted to see the New Republic. I wanted to see Luke travel the galaxy and teach new Jedi. I wanted to see Ben’s fall to the dark side if they were going to go that route. It feels like Disney destroyed everything the OT characters fought for and accomplished so they could reuse OT aesthetics and draw in that crowd of fans.

-I was willing to give it a chance after TFA, but this is a new and different franchise under Disney. And that comes with a bit of good and a lot of bad.

-For me, true Star Wars is episode 1 to the immediate aftermath of episode 6 (where everything is still good for the characters and galaxy) and all the canon material in between (books, comics, shows, movies). The exception is the non-canon 2003 Clone Wars series which I count as canon and love even more than the canon 2008 The Clone Wars series, which I also count as canon despite them contradicting each other.

-I’m not jumping ship and giving up on Disney!Star Wars altogether, but I do certainly mark the sequel trilogy and whole sequel era as distinct from Lucas!Star Wars and the canon content spanning episodes 1-6. I am not holding nearly as much of a stake in the sequel era as I was.

#*Jokes* Since TLJ is a fusion between TESB and ROTJ what are they gonna rip off for episode 9?#star wars

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aion-rsa · 8 years ago

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Latour Predicts an Action Packed 2017 for Southern Bastards

The fictional setting of Jason Aaron and Jason Latour’s Eisner-winning “Southern Bastards,” Craw County, Alabama is a powder keg waiting to explode. The fuse was lit in 2014’s series’ opening arc when Euless Boss, the local crime lord and high school football coach, murdered a man named Earl Tubb. It’s been a slow burning fuse, especially in 2016, when the series only released three issues. But Earl Tubb’s Marine Corps member daughter Roberta has finally arrived in Craw County, and will soon enact her plans for vengeance.

RELATED: Latour On Finally Tying Up His Loose Ends with Brunner & Renzi

2017 is sure to be a big year for the series, as Boss contends with Roberta, several new and soon to be introduced power players, and his team’s losing streak. We spoke with Latour about the plans for the book, why Roberta Tubb was given a slow burn introduction into the larger story he and Aaron are telling, and how important it is for him to have a book to draw, especially now that he’s known for his work as a writer on books like Marvel Comics’ “Spider-Gwen.”

CBR: There were only three issues of “Southern Bastards” published in 2016, and I imagine that’s partly because you and Jason Aaron are really busy guys. Was it also because you guys want to give the series the time it deserves?

Jason Latour: Yeah, we went into this never expecting anybody to really buy our football-murder comic. [Laughs] We knew we had a chance to do something interesting because we were both so invested in it, and because people who knew Jason A’s work knew that “Scalped” was really good. But the book has been about 10,000 times more successful than I ever thought it would be.

Part of staying the course, to keep it on the level of what we both expect and get out of it, is to put the comic out that we feel comfortable with. Like you said, both of us are very busy with our careers, so we’ve got a lot of fingers in a lot of pies. That hasn’t helped our schedule, no, but there was definitely an organic story-centric need for a recharge at the end of arc number three.

We’re just very committed to making sure this comic is served when the meal is ready. [Laughs] There’s a lot of comics out there that people can consume like fast food. They can get them on demand. They can get them when they’re greedy for them, but this is a comic we try to treat exactly like good barbecue. You cook the pig until it’s right; when the pig is done, it’s done. When it’s gone, it’s gone, and you close up for the day. I’m certain that frustrates some people, but I’m also confident in the product and the effort that goes into making the comic that only we make, the way only we can make it.

That said, I really thank people for being patient because the readers that have been loyal to this comic have gone above and beyond normal fandom. I can’t speak highly enough about their passion for it. It’s really endearing and gratifying and energizing.

November’s #15 focused primarily on the imploding world of Coach Boss, but we did see a little more of Roberta Tubb, who is in Craw County doing recon. What made you and Jason want to give her such a slow burn introduction? And will we finally see what Roberta is capable during the current arc?

Yes, the end of this arc is probably conceived as the most action packed thing we’ve done. It will heavily involve bringing Roberta to the forefront and her enacting the first step of her plan. Hopefully, everything draws together, and by the end this story will have one of the most explosive arcs we’ve done to date.

Easing Roberta into the story was really necessary, because this is a story where the premise has always been that the bastards have won the day. They’re in charge. Wanting to see people like Coach Boss toppled, or feeling conflicted about Coach Boss and not knowing if you want him to fail or not is all very important to the way this comic works. That needed to be set up slowly.

We sort of introduced a white hat early in Earl Tubb, but introducing the real protagonist so soon would have done the comic a disservice, especially considering that, thematically, a big part of this story revolves around setting up this a very toxic and masculine environment. You have to see the consequences of that and get to know the players and the lay of the land before you introduce the person who could potentially up end it in Roberta Tubb.

It was a big gamble on our part where we knew that our fourth issue threw people a curve ball, and then we asked them to wait a long time for any real release. But I think the small releases people have experienced do seem amplified by that.

With “Southern Bastards,” you can always expect us to be true to the story that we’re telling, whether that takes a little longer to actually make the comic, or it takes a little longer to play out some elements. Sometimes what you expect isn’t necessarily what you’re going to enjoy.

Issue #15 also introduced readers to a new power player in Craw County, the mayor’s wife, Leddy. What can you tell us about her? How big a role will she play in the series moving forward?

We’ve plotted through a lot of the next two arcs, and more and more, Leddy keeps popping up in conversations. Where she comes from and her actual hold over things are stuff that certainly needs to be explored. She’s an interesting antagonist or foil for Coach Boss. I am a little hesitant to go into how much we’ll see of her, but she’s definitely going to be a player moving forward. In many ways, she seems like a good mirror for Roberta.

I’m curious about another new character who appears on the cover of “Southern Bastards” #17. He looks a lot like an older Burt Reynolds, and appears to have a pet monkey. Who is he?

[Laughs] That’s Colonel Quick McCluskey. He is a character who we both very quickly (pun embraced) have fallen in love with. I told Jason Aaron that there will be a point in the future where people might look back on this comic and instead of saying that’s where the book jumped the shark, they’ll say that’s where they introduced the monkey. [Laughs]

He is a rival crime boss that supports a rival football team. I’ll leave it at that. He’ll definitely be a major player in this next arc, and maybe even moving forward beyond that. He’s been a lot of fun.

When things are very serious, they sort of reflect how absurd life is. So to me, McClusky fits that sort of Coen Brothers vibe we’re both big fans of. So ridiculous, he’s terrifying. We’re always trying to feed stuff like that into this comic because that’s the way I think we both feel about real life.

One of the things we’ve been reminded of throughout “Southern Bastards” is how big an impact the past has on the present. It looks like March’s issue #18 will show how the past impacts Roberta.

Yes. It was Faulkner who said, “The past is prelude.” That’s the most educated book learned thing you’re going to ever hear me say. [Laughs] I think that’s true of both “Southern Bastards” and “Loose Ends” [a series by Latour, Chris Brunner]. Both Southern fiction and Crime fiction share this obsession with how the ripples of past mistakes can become this tidal wave in the present.

Issue #18 is by me and Chris Brunner. That’s a chapter I’m writing and he’s drawing. What Roberta is going to be weighing in that issue is just how much her father, Earl Tubb, actually got what he was looking for in the end. And how much of the impact he made on her growing up has led her to Craw County — and to this seemingly inescapable momentum that’s put her on a collision course with Coach Boss.

Chris is drawing issue #18, but you’re the regular artist. How does it feel to have a book where you can go and draw when you’re doing so much writing these days?

It’s very difficult, but also invaluable. As somebody who’s drawn his whole life I need that gear shift. Writing is something that I take very seriously, and I’m very fond of . . . when it’s going well. [Laughs]

For me, there’s sort of a meditative quality to drawing. Once I’ve done a lot of thinking about the storytelling on the page I then actually have to execute it. That’s a very time intensive process where you have to sit there and basically break your back over the board for a couple hours every night. It can be almost mechanical at times— but I think it really helps me think through what I want to do creatively. So writing and drawing are two things that are very intrinsically linked for me. I may eventually scale back on drawing some (as if it’s even possible for me to do less, right?) because it’s a lot harder, but I don’t ever want to quit. It’s all storytelling, and that’s what I love.

Does being a working artist improve the collaborations on the other books you’re writing?

I definitely think it has. I’m very fortunate to say that I’ve done every single creative task when it comes to making comics, except being an editor… at least formally. I even lettered “Loose Ends” by hand. I’ve done every one of the jobs on both a creator-owned and professional basis, and I’ve done them to varying degrees of success.

It certainly helps when you’re collaborating on a comic, because on one hand, you know what you’re talking about, and on the other hand you know how it feels to sit in that chair and be that other person. I imagine there have been some times when my experiences doing those other tasks have gotten in the way, but more times than not they’ve helped with communication and the empathy you need to keep those relationships alive.

You know how they say directors should take acting classes so they know exactly what to yell at the actors? [Laughs] That’s sort of what it’s like.

What else does 2017 holds for “Southern Bastards?” The Image site suggests the next issue will hit in January and we’ll be getting one issue a month for the next several months.

That will be the attempt. We don’t want to have too many long gaps on this next arc. Issue #15 is out now. Issue #16 has gone to the printer. There’s issue #17 and then Chris Brunner is drawing #18 from a script I wrote. The last two parts make the arc an even six issues, and will put us to right around the end of Spring for the conclusion.

 Then there’s talk of me potentially tackling a floating issue all by myself, on both writing and art. If that happens or not is contingent on lots of stuff, but it’s something I’m very excited about. Then we’ll probably take a break and assess when we’ll come back for Volume 5 from there.

So I can’t stress enough that we’re far from done with this comic. 2017 is hopefully going to be a more productive year. I’ve been joking that we did less issues in 2016 because we knew it was gonna be a bad year and we want people good and ready to tear shit up in 2017.

Truthfully, I’d say we’re roughly approaching the midway point to the series and I’m very hopeful and excited about what’s to come because every time Jason and I have creative jam sessions about where we’re headed, I leave feeling more and more excited about it. Which is strange for me, given that I never thought I’d draw a comic bigger than a one shot. [Laughs]

So staring down the barrel at a series that could potentially run 30-40 issues is really intimidating, but also exciting. I’m just very grateful for everybody who supported us at this point and I hope they continue to enjoy the little football murder comic that could.

The post Latour Predicts an Action Packed 2017 for Southern Bastards appeared first on CBR.com.

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