#i would like to see his characters faith just get nuked so

[useragarfield]

I had sense that billy howle get emmy nommition as allen laffery while Andrew will get emmy nommition as jeb pyre , Andrew working with Adam Driver in slience

look

this is his true detective era

that is ENOUGH he is coming for his EMMYYYY

[dbphantom]

Watched the first 2 episodes of the Fallout show and was pleasantly surprised. I have a few complaints but I actually did enjoy the first episode a lot and the 2nd was pretty decent too

I really really enjoyed the sets, especially the Vault. Really well done and the vibes are perfect. The scene in the farm where the film of the projector burns and looks like bombs going off around them during the raid was great. A touch cheesy but I appreciated it bc I am a cheesy media connoisseur

I really like Lucy and the ghoul (don't remember his name). Maximus is on thin ice cuz dude is... a bit unhinged in the first 2 episodes. But he was raised by the brotherhood so I'm wishing him the best character arc. I am hoping he realizes how shitty the brotherhood is and defects by the end of the season... I'm convinced that's what's going to happen, but we will see what they do.

One scene that made me roll my eyes was the raider husband coming back to life after Lucy cut his jugular so that the dad could get the kill on him. Like why not let that moment impact her more?? Why did the dad have to be the one to kill him? Was it supposed to foreshadow that the dad was a raider or something? Cuz honestly I'm mostly suspect due to the raiders taking him with them, it's classic to have the father be a criminal but he's reformed because of his dead wife and kid... Would be awesome if they twisted it so it's the mother who was the raider, but didn't they already say she was from this Vault and the dad was the one transferred over? Regardless, that totally ripped away a character moment for Lucy. That man stole her kill...

Another thing I didn't like was the appearance of the Brotherhood so soon in episode 1. They appear before the viewer even knows what the wasteland looks like for everyone else. You see the Prydwen before you see your first established settlement and that kind of ruins the idea imo. People are struggling to live, but the brotherhood is hoarding tech. Show the people struggling first, THEN have the Brotherhood appear.

Maybe they're doing it this way because you're supposed to be viewing things like Maximus (loosing his faith in the brotherhood as the season goes on because he was raised by them and was indoctrinated, please, it would be a nice parallel to Lucy), but it still makes the pacing feel off. The friend I watched it with (hi @bautistawithadrive) agreed w/ that and he isn't even a Fallout fanatic. It just feels weird. I get that pacing is gonna be wack cuz it's an 8 (?) episode season, but it just isn't working for me.

The ghoul is fine. His intro scene at the start was cute. I found it interesting the shot of the bombs going off around them, but I'm 90% sure it's canon in lore that the Fallout nukes are less powerful than ours so I have no real complaints. If it's not canon, then it's a widely accepted fanon. I was just confused why the little girl wasn't blinded by the flash because I'm pretty sure there are logs in the games of people who were blinded when they saw the flashes? I could be misremembering tho I don't have enough room for all the Fallout lore in my brain. Anyway it's an insignificant detail overall afaik, so I'm being fussy, I think.

I am kinda bummed the ghoul doesn't look worse tho. Weird complaint probably but I was hoping he'd be a bit more idk... Ragged? Given all the other gore in the show, I was interested to see how they'd do the makeup for the ghouls, but just like nexus modders, they took the cowards way out. He looks (and sounds, oof) like a generic bald dude with some liquid latex on his cheeks and a missing nose.

The best friend of Lucy is another fave, I really.enjoyed every time she was on screen. Good actress, I hope she either becomes a villain (that eyepatch in the end credits bit of ep 2 is throwing me haha) or follows Lucy out of the Vault (or both).

I'm also curious to see where the brother's character is going to go because they could do a lot with him since he was pretty bland at the start. He could follow Lucy out (maybe with the best friend) or start some kind of political change in the people of the Vault so it will cause conflict when (if) Lucy returns, or he could convince them all to leave the Vault. It'd be cool if he found what their specific Vault experiment was meant to be, then either put it in action or made sure no other Overseer would be able to continue it. Maybe I have too much hope for such a short season... But it would be a fun way to introduce Vault experiments to the audience.

One thing I am VERY nervous about is if they're going to make Lucy pregnannte. I could see them doing it bc that sex scene with the raider felt like a Chekov's gun situation (plus the BFF being like "I can't wait to raise our kids together!" which initially had me like 'wait what are they a lesbian couple forced to get with dudes to make babies? That'd be an awesome storyline!' but thinking abt it I'm wondering if it is foreshadowing for the bestie to also leave the Vault and track her down. Which I want to happen, I loved her character). Idk they could have just included a sex scene for the sake of having one... But I'm also thinking about all the morning sickness vs radiation sickness jokes they could be making, so if there is a scene of her puking in the next few episodes (beyond the gore-fest), I am SO calling it

But like to be clear I don't WANT it to happen, usually that kind of thing in shows makes me turn it off immediately because I'm so not interested in watching a character slowly become 2D for a wailing potato we're just supposed to like because it's a kid, so I hope they surprise me, but I also wouldn't be shocked if it did because all the set-up is there 😬

[toksinblack]

I usually don’t share my thought on much of anything on the internet, but seeing how negative people, especially on Twitter are about Dream smp ending really rubbed me the wrong way. 

I want to preface this by saying that this is all coming from my subjective experience and taste. You have complete right to disagree with me, I would love to have a conversation.

It feels like no matter what the ccs would have done, people would have been unsatisfied, because it seems like people had huge expectations for a silly minecraft roleplay server. I feel like if we look back at the lore streams themselves, they were never serious with maybe the exeption of exile and even then exile had plenty of goofing around, which people forget in favour of dramatic scenes. The fandom ourselves being angsty and hyperfocusing on those scenes does not help either.

Like with a lot of things the problem is that people take everything too seriously, at least regarding the ending, not the abuse portrayal (I have no experience with it, so I can't speak on it). I’ve consumed a lot of media in my life and spent a lot of time dwelling on how things could have been better. And don’t get me wrong, being able to critique is a usefull skill that helps us learn on other writer’s mistakes. But also being able to enjoy things not for what they could have been but for what they are made my life so much better.

It’s kinda funny how people say that the ending was rushed and dragged out simultaneously. Was it rushed? Personally, I don’t think so. Were lore streams far and few between? Yes. But also I don’t wish for them to have streamed everyday, like during quarantine. Again, personally, I have a full-time job, personal life and other interests and hobbys, so I wouldn’t be able to keep up.

I understand, that people probably wanted something grandiose, that involved every person on the server. But I have the feeling that it was simply not possible. I understand people being upset that Techno’s house is gone. I am too. But even if it was around, we almost never would've see it in lore. I'm content with going back to older vods and seeing both the house and Techno preserved in that small window in time. Unchanged. Forever.

What I don't understand is people on Twitter posting shit like "abuse apoligism??!!" And oh boy I'm gonna bite someone's fingers off. No, not it's not. People have already said this but I'll repeat for thr people in the back. Sympathy =/= forgiveness. Different people will have different interpretations of Tommy's last words. I saw the sorry as "I'm sorry things had to be this way" when he realized him and Dream ultimately wanted the same thing. It's this bitter realization that if things went differently they could have had happy lives. Or it could be "Sorry I have to kill you, I didn't want to kill anybody in the first place". It can be different things and forgiveness is not one of them. You think a guy who, just a few days prior, scolded c!Dream apologists will have his character forgive his abuser? Guys, please, have more faith in him than that, jeez.

I don't know which one it is: viewer's either a) inability to engage with media critically and taking everything on a surface level or b) willingness to engage with media and ccs in worst faith baffles me, either way.

There are also sentiments floating around that fans' time and energy, that they put into supporting the story over the past 2,5 years, was somehow 'wasted' by an unsatisfactory ending. Sure you can dislike it, but it shouldn't and does not take away from the fun and enjoyment we collectively had in that time period. It's not about the destination, it's about the journey.

Regarding the nukes, it's great that they used an already established pieces of lore, instead of pulling something out of their asses or going with a Deus Ex Machina. Admittedly, I haven't kept up with Tubbo lore, from what I've seen the nukes got stolen and they dropped the storyline, so to bring them back in an impactful way creates nice continuity.

I also understand from what I've seem that people wanted a good ending. That after all that suffering the characters deserved a nice happy live. I've got nothing to say on that, I enjoy angst. It has a right to exist.

And I understand the ccs wanting to flip over a new leaf, instead of letting everyone live and continuing with their characters. Yes, people have emotional attachments to these characters, but if they stayed in the same world they would've had to navigate through 2 years of lore and relationships that have accumulated and viewers would have been not happy if they got that lore wrong. So starting over allows them to have new storylines, new relationships without having to trip over preexisting convoluted mess that is dsmp lore. Everything has to end. Let's let go.

On that note, what upsets me is that a lot of lore streams are fucking lost media now. I loove how Wilbur made his lore videos, they're bite sized and easy to follow. I was trying to pick out important exile streams recently and god damn it's impossible. There will be them joking around, one important line and then another hour of not really important stuff, I swear.

In conclusion: let's enjoy thing for what they are and engage with media in good faith please. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

[secretgamergirl]

Can we talk about this sniveling little worm for a moment?

So I’m still locked out of my twitter account (and consequently bleeding followers on Patreon and probably going to freeze or starve to death soon) but people keep posting fresh examples of the new CEO finding new and innovative ways to run the whole thing into the ground, and while I’d love to check the actual ratio, of what I see, something like 80% of the statements people are pointing and laughing at come not just from standard out there posts, but stuff he’s saying in the replies of this particular little worm here. Which is odd for a number of reasons, but the thing is I have a pretty involved history with this particular random nazi loser that makes it feel extra surreal.

Once upon a time, starting around the summer of 2014, there was a big ol’ nazi uprising on the internet. Which came weirdly close to coinciding with when I started this blog, especially after I nuked some of the earliest posts for safety reasons, and as I certainly hope everyone knows I got pretty heavily involved in countering nazi BS, both independently and networking with other people fighting that particular good fight.

Somewhere in there, I wound up as part of a sort of combination support group/think tank/resource center for major victims of nazi crap, and that’s where I first encountered this particular little worm... and if it wasn’t clear I’m going to continue to refer to him as such for purposes of not coming up if he goes vanity searching. Among other things he has a history of stalking me which I’d like to keep as just history, you know? Anyway, the hell of a thing with it is he DIDN’T first come to my attention as a gross little nazi, but as an anti-fascist activist beyond reproach.

So that angle makes this tricky to talk about because it makes someone else look real real bad and I don’t want to go starting THAT fight, but there was an individual who was a major early target people were aware of and had a lot of faith in, and who frankly was an absolutely terrible judge of character and particularly vulnerable to flattery. So this little worm wrote some messages to that major target, who proceeded to present him to everyone else working to do anything about the whole mess as “one of the few good reporters out there on this” and later because of course this came up, talked him up as a “former nazi” when in reality there was nothing former about it, and he was just using this person’s susceptibility to boot-licking as a way to undermine anti-nazi things and/or make himself feel important by proximity to people who were in headlines.

Anyway, I’d never say anything this cruel about someone who isn’t a literal, wrote a high school essay about how much he loves Hitler nazi, but I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who was as generally worthless and oblivious as this little worm. Like, in the brief period where I interacted with him, I remember him coming to me for advice because he’d boot-licked his way to editor at a very minor game review website (I’ve held such a position) and a woman was complaining about being harassed by a coworker. Totally taken off guard by the only sensible advice anyone could give there, fire the creep. He instead wanted some magical trick to make this woman just somehow be OK with it. Shortly thereafter, there was basically no staff left, he’s trying to hire someone new to write for the site, and is deeply confused that nobody’s interested in committing to writing... I want to say it was 8 thousand-word articles per day, 7 days a week, for a grand total of 80 dollars a month. He was also thoroughly thoroughly convinced that all political unrest in the country would just stop completely the day a video game he was looking forward to was released.

I’d speculate on how he managed basic tasks to get through the day like meals and hygiene, but he’s highly infamous for ranting about his bed, keyboard, and various other things being covered at all times in ants and being at a complete loss as to what to do about it besides just crush them by sleeping/typing right on them. So, there’s that. Look him up and you’ll find plenty of other stories of just how jaw-droppingly bad at just existing and having thoughts this guy is.

This guy who the rich idiot running Twitter into the ground is discussing every single move he makes with. It’s just weird, right? He’s still this generally clueless, still an outright self-applies the term even nazi, still in deep last I checked with outright child sexual exploitation sites, and here he is playing evil vizier. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say he’s playing Brainy Smurf. So far as I can tell he’s just repeating all his bad ideas back to him and trying to rephrase them into something sensible enough to get a “yes, exactly!” back. I’d say bootlicking is the one thing this guy is good at but... no. People who are actually good at that sort of thing get something out of it, materially. This weird little clown just stays in the spotlight with no real benefit.

But the important thing is that yeah, the current head of what’s left of Twitter is actively palling around with a notorious neo--nazi and is enthusiastic about all his feedback. Heck of a thing to see.

[necro-hamster]

9 12 18 22 !! fallout and/or fc5

( this post )

9) worst part of canon

for fc5 i'd have to go w the endings, touched on it in a previous response but i think they both suck ass tbh. i end up just making up my own shit.

for fallout..... well that's a hard one because fallout's canon isn't very good. and has a lot of weird shit in it. i mean honestly i could just broadly gesture at all of it. fo has So Many Problems. but to point out smth specific, the way ghouls are handled comes to mind almost immediately. tons of missed potential and a lot of inconsistencies. wtf was up with the ghoul kid in the fridge?? lil man was NOT in there for 200 years. his ass would've fucking died. they still have to like. eat and stuff. plus it's just weird how 200 years post nuke ppl are still like EWWW AN IRRADIATED PERSON!!! like? bro you're all fucking irradiated. i know about your 11th toe and that weird spot on your butt cheek. you'd think ppl would get used to it by then. i get that obviously hatred of groups like that doesnt just go away over time magically but it just feels unrealistic the way they handle it. also boring.

i guess if you want an easier answer then i think it's stupid that the brotherhood of steel is still going strong on the east coast lol

12) the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

grinding my teeth together. preston garvey for fallout. i will defend him until the day i fucking die. i'm convinced that the reason so many ppl hate his ass and are annoyed by his very presence is bc he's black idc. kiss my ass. he's my best friend.

also!! raul!!!! nobody ever fucking talks abt him but he's my FAVORITE new vegas oc. i think if he looked more fuckable ppl would pay more attention to him honestly 🙄

for fc5. hurk jr. the only reason ppl don't give him as much attention as sharky is because he's fat. idc. i will stand by this until the day i die. but i guess i'll fuck him since everyone else is a coward about it

18) it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...

CODSWORTH. it's criminal that bethesda's lazy asses slept on him too!!! he's got SO MUCH potential as a character but they didnt even give him a side quest???? i need yall to integrate him into your sole's story more PLEEEAAAASE. also raul again lol

far cry 5 im absolutely gonna have to say faith, she's so interesting but gets pushed aside so often and it pisses me off to no end. but that's the boring answer. that's the answer everyone expects. so i'm also gonna point out that i think it's super lame how so few ppl actually focus in on the cult and what average ppl were going thru inside of it. because, like, this isnt just Fascist Murderers or Literal Human Traffickers like the other games. they're cult members. many of them are victims of this shit too. obviously some of em were definitely just having fun killing ppl but like there were prolly a ton of ppl who were also just normal folks in desperate need of help and community and they ended up here. please have more discussions abt this shit.

22) your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

for fallout, prolly civilization as a whole? specifically settlements/cities/towns/etc. a lot of ppl focus on being Alone In The Wastes (which is fun and cool) but i rlly like that we see time and time again that society has rebuilt in plenty of places. there's a city on a boat for gods sake. can we talk abt that shit more pls pls pls pls.

for fc5..... god. again my mind just turns toward faith and her craziness. ppl hate talking abt how much of a freak she is. so ig i'll go with the environment. how hope county is a rural place and the way that must've shaped many of the characters, including ocs who are from there. yall dont get it 😩😩😩

[rantsandsparkles]

My Most Anticipated Movies of 2023

Honorable mentions that didn’t make my list in no particular order : Killers of the Flower Moon (if it actually comes about this year. how many years have we been saying this is coming out?!), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Napoleon, John Wick 4,  and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. And now to my top 10! 

10) Barbie

A lot of people are losing their shit over Barbie. I didn’t really care until I saw the photos of Ryan Gosling as Ken. I’m not the biggest fan of Greta Gerwig, I mostly enjoyed Little Women (although I am still BAFFLED at her decision to make it seem like Jo decided to be with Laurie and then got rejected like umm what ?!) , wasn’t too crazy about Lady Bird. And I won’t get into her non-performance in White Noise lol, but  she is a competent director so I’m intrigued. I think Blake Lively would have made a better “Barbie” but Margot Robbie is always delightful so I’m looking forward to this one.

9)  Creed III

I’ve never seen any of the Rocky movies, but for some reason I watched the first two Creeds, and I liked them both. Jonathan Majors looks isancely ripped in this trailer and yes i’m shallow enough to let that be enough to get my butt in the seat lol.  But more seriously, this is Michael B. Jordan’s directorial debut and I’m very excited to see his directing chops.

8) Wonka

I am still scratching my head over who at Warner Brothers decided to cast Timothlee Chalamet as a Wonka, and make by default a Wonka that fucks. But here we are. When I heard about this casting news a couple years ago I literally said ‘wtf’ out loud, but when I saw the pictures I was sold. He has that mischevious Wonka smirk down pat. I am a little nervous about this after hearing the reaction to the footage that played at CinemaCon , and I’m like one of the few people on earth that didn’t love the Paddington movies, so the Paul King element isn’t comforting to me. But I’m excited to see Timmy in a musical. And the goddess Olivia Colman gushed about his performance, so I have faith.  Although if the rumors are true that it was between him and Tom Holland , and Timmy isn’t good in this I will be so upset.

7) Oppenheimer 

This cast list is insane, and the fact that he allegedly got to set of an actual nuke is absurd and suck a yep Christopher Nolan still a jackass thing to do lol.  Don’t know much about the plot, and haven’t read the book, but looking forward to this one for sure. 

Its also fun that this movie is coming out same day as Barbie. That is going to be a wild double feature day 

6) Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

James Gunn’s first Guardians of the Galaxy is probably my favorite of the MCU movies. The second one , was uh , definitely not. I’m hoping that the trilogy ends on a high note and this one captures more of the charm from the first. Even if its bad, I know at least it will have a killer soundtrack. 

5) The Super Mario Bros. Movie 

I know the internet hates Chris Pratt , but I still like him. I think if he was truly a trash person then his co-stars wouldn’t speak of him so highly, and I’ll take the word of people that actually know someone over the opinion of the internet any day. But with that being said , I think it is almost INSANE that he was cast as Mario. Like it makes me laugh every time I think about it. I think its hilarious that multiple studio execs agreed , “yep, he’s our Mario.” I have no idea what this movie is going to be about and I don’t care, just going in with zero exception

4) Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Ant Man’s Scott Lang is one of my favorite of the marvel characters and I really enjoyed Jonathan Majors’ Kang in Loki. I’m excited to see what’ll happen in this one and hopefully it’ll have better muliverse content than DS Multiverse of Madness. I have to admit however that the trailers have been disappointing in terms of visuals - I’m not paticialry looking forward to an entire movie essentially filmed in the volume.

3) Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lsFs2615gw

The fact that this movie’s title is Mission colon  Impossible dash Dead Reckoning Part One is ridiulous , and I hope the movie is just as ridiculous lol Tom Cruise is a freak of nature , and seeing this clip in Imax last month got me hyped. And anything with Rebecca Ferguson? Absolutely. 

2) Challengers 

Zendaya as a milf in a love triangle with Josh O’Connor and Mike Fiast? Ummmm Sign me the fuck up.  I will admit though I am nervous about this movie though because I didn’t love the script that was posted online, and although I know he’s widely known and respected as a great auteur filmmaker , I can’t say that I’ve ever really loved any of the Luca Guadagnino’s films that I’ve seen. I’m hoping that Zendaya gets to play this as a femme fatale kind of sex bomb character, and that it cements her as a movie star that can open a big movie. 

1) Dune Part 2 

I have truly have no idea why, but I have become almost obsessed with Dune over the past year. I watched it when it came out in 2021 and I thought it was fine , but I didn’t have an urge to revisit it. Then all of a sudden I got an urge to to watch Dune and after seeing it again I got really into the story. I’m really looking forward to seeing what Denis has planned for the second part of this adaptation, particialuar how he’s going to handle the trippy spice /water of life stuff, how they’re going to do Alia, ect. And everything the cast had crew has said about part 2 , that its bigger more cinematic etc has me so excited. And it seems like ever day we are getting another 🤯 cast announcment. I’m counting down the days for this one - November can’t get hear soon enough :) 

[bbq-hawks-wings]

Maybe a little late to the party, but Seteth and/or Hawks for the character bingo?

Thank you for breaking the seal, my friend. I have been dying to give my thoughts on this character.

Just for context, the less opaque lilies is just me being a little facetious. Not here to make completely objective, absolute judgements; just here to have a good time. They're there just because I can't like a favorite character a normal amount.

His design? *chef's kiss* A delightfully balanced, simple-yet-ornate, straightforward, appealing masculine character design! The back of the cape, robe (sorry, folks, it clearly takes inspiration from the cassock, but for me it's a little too different from a standard cassock to call it that) and boots are all dark, creating a solid, imposing silhouette. The length of both cape and robe - and specifically from the front with the light cape lining - modestly shows off his conventionally attractive masculine figure.

No matter the wide, medium, or close up shots of him in any given scene you'll find all of these light, little ornament details that are not too distracting but are nonetheless elegant and sensibly placed. Assuming he's chosen to dress this way for himself as it's not like any uniform we've seen in the game, it's quite the interesting insight.

From a writing standpoint - he's so constantly full of little surprises?! Especially if you played Crimson Flower first, it's easy to get this overly stern, controlling, stubborn, intolerant, and insensitive impression of him; and it feels like a lot of players may have gotten stuck there because they didn't realize you have to read a lot into where he comes from and the person he used to be to really get the full scope of his character and how he thinks. Even as far back when you get his and Flayn's paralouge mission and notice his interrogations of Rhea in the school phase, the veil begins to lift if you pay attention.

He particularly shines in Silver Snow by virtue of being Byleth's advisor, and we get a lot of extra personal insight into him in that route that we don't get in any other - rarely ever directly or completely controlling tactical plans but nonetheless being indispensable and diligent in his role, lacking key information that we would assume he'd be privy to, proposing the single most culture-shaking lore drop of any character in the series (of which he was the single most diligent person hiding it up to that point) because the secrets cause nothing but trouble, and so on.

And the best part about it all is that it's easy to perceive him as this great, unflappable, pedestal-worthy mythical figure until you look a little closer and realize he was just Some Guy™ working at what was a random church at the time (maybe he was a priest?) who didn't get Thanos-snapped off the map when the rest of his species got nuked in a single night.

He is ultimately a very boring and straightforward person who has done awe-inspiring, difficult, and unbelievable things because he had to, and that's very sexy of him.

AND DON'T GET ME STARTED on how well his faith and spirituality is woven into who he is and why he does the things he does. The man has lost functionally everything from his old life and has basically given up any hope at living a happy, peaceful life with the much long-lasting companionship he craves to have.

Enter Byleth, this scraggly little nobody weirdo who shows up out of nowhere and turns the monastery on its head, magically fuses with THE Goddess, takes on major species identifiers that he assumed he'd never see again, drops off the face of the earth for five years after a major battle that changed the tide of history, and then she (I personally view F!Byleth as canon) just shows up one day again and says, "Hi! Sorry I was out. Fell asleep."

"Yes, yes that right. You fell asleep after sustaining heavy damage. Never woke up until you were done. Hey, it happens! Good to see you, by the way, want to help end a war? Oh thank you, Sothis, for the first break I've had in a millennium and it's a damn good one!" It's a wonder he didn't faint on the spot.

Things in life hit a little different when you're fundamentally religious in a way that can be hard to communicate. I rarely get to see that written very well so to see it in Seteth is quite the treat. He's a character whose historical plaque says, "It is said that he was a compassionate yet stern figure whose faith was so true he was able to perform miracles." yet you first meet him you can tell he's actively in the middle of a crisis of faith if you know where to look. By choosing to befriend him and develop him as a unit and a character, you help him grow and heal and move on in a way that's so respectful to him as a hypothetical person; and it was treated with so much care, particularly his religious world view, that it was especially moving to me and something I'm kind of sad I haven't seen discussed in the bits and pieces of fandom I've found so far. (Might get to see more with the new game!!!! *rubs hands together*)

Charming, intriguing, delightful, emotive, intelligent, compassionate, flawed, reasonable, fascinating, surprisingly relatable. Seteth gets an S rank with me. (And an S-support, too.)

[rjalker]

I'm gonna rate Charley's adventures with Eight out of 10 stars.

under a cut since it's long, doesn't have spoilers.

-

Storm Warning 10/10

Charley cries when she meets an alien for the first time because the universe is awesome.

-

Sword of Orion 8/10

Great continuation of setting up who Charley is and who Eight is. Both willing to run the hell forward to get their hands covered in blood to help stop the bleeding.

-

Stones of Venice 8/10

would have gotten all ten stars if the writers hadn't chickened out at the very last second. Solidarity or drown, motherfuckers.

-

Minuet in Hell 5/10

Really ableist. Like. It's set in the 80s or something. And there's that much casual ableism that we're supposed to just pretend is normal. WTF. Also I don't think these people have ever met or spoken to an American from the southern states in their lives....

-

Invaders from Mars 0/10

does nothing for the characters or the universe. transmisogyny and ableism galore, though, because Mark Gattiss thinks bigotry is funny.

-

The Chimes of Midnight 10/10

everything. yes. I cried.

-

Seasons of Fear 10/10

so fucking funny. so funny. Eight truly does not give a single shit about the web of time and it's so funny. Hea is setting such a bad example for Charley.

-

Embrace the Darkness 6/10

Loses starts for being ableist and making characters blind only to magically cure them because god forbid disabled people actually exist.

-

The Time of the Daleks 7/10

note that I am taking away a metaphorical star because. time travelling through mirrors? That is the worst idea I have ever heard. please stop that.

-

Neverland 10/10

I need to murder the Doctor's brother. And Romana. And all the Time Lords on Gallifrey who have ever had anything to do with the government. Move the hell out of the way Master, THEY'RE MINE.

Also Doctor I'm gonna kill you.

-

Zagreus 10/10

must. kill. rassilon. I love Charley Pollard. I love the TARDIS. Have I mentioned I hate Rassilon? I hate Rassilon. I love his voice actor though. He is extremely good at his job. Also applause for whoever voice acts the computer. extremely scary. good job. did I mention I love the TARDIS.

-

Scherzo 10/10

I don't have words the sound baby ate them all. I love everything about this. The only thing it would make it better is if a later episode let Charley be mad but nooooo after this it all goes downhill because I gues????? none of these people bothered to listen to Zagreus?????

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The Creed of the Kromon

0/10 Do not listen to this. It is a hate-crime and I do not say that lightly. I am not being hyperbolic. Do not listen to this. I hope everyone who let this get past the script approval stage dies.

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The Natural History of Fear 7/10

I love the sound of explosions in the morning. Loses points for not actually mattering to the characters, though.

-

The Twilight Kingdom 5/10

idk I got bored of it like 20 mins in on this re-listen. I don't remember what the plot was. I remember C'rizz pisses me off though. Probably attacks Charley.

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Faith Stealer 8/10

Miraculite please mine my dreams for crystals I would like some pretty glowy crystals. I love that god. I would die for that god. Loses points for repeated Crimes Against Women by referencing The Creed of the Kromon. I will kill C'rizz with my bare hands.

-

The Last 4/10

Ableist. Could have been great minus the ableism and if, once again, the writer didn't chicken out at the very last moment. I have never wanted to see a nuclear bomb go off so badly in my life. If I could teleport in I would shove Eight out of the way so I could set the fucking nuke off myself. Hea was taking way too fucking long. And then of course there is the chickening out. What, tell me WHAT is the point in setting off a nuclear bomb that destroys your whole planet if no one remembers it? What is the point of that? This story could have been so good. But for no fucking reason the author decided to go "lol and no one remember but the Doctor because uh.....reasons?". coward.

-

Caerdroia 10/10

the scene with the cows is so funny. Though I am of course obligated to ask: why the hell are there cows. Where did those cows come from? Hello??????? anyways Eight is. Hilarious. "I'm so mean and edgy now I don't care hahah1!!! I'm mean now!!!!!!!!" sure you are :)

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The Next Life 0/10

this audio is literally so brain-numbingly boring I couldn't even pay attention to it the first time. I have literally no idea what the fuck happens because I could not make myself pay attention becaues it was that boring. All I know is that Charley(!??!?!?!?!) and C'rizz are both calling Rassilon (don't ask me why he's there, it doesn't make any fucking sense no matter what stupid justification they probably tried to give) "my lord" and it's like. Did you not listen to Zagreus. Charley will spit in Rassilon's face. She would fucking stab him if given the chance. What the fuck's she doing calling him "my lord"??? I don't know because this audio is such boring shit I literally couldn't pay attention no matter how hard I tried!!!!

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Terror Firma 9/10

I love this writer. I love how they actually gave C'rizz a personality I don't mind. This is the only audio where I don't want to murder C'rizz with every fiber of my being. It's funny. It's sad as shit. It loses a point for the ableism towards Davros and the misogyny for no reason.

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Scardey Cat 2/10

so boring I once again have no idea what the plot is because I stopped paying attention because it was boring. I vaguely recall Eight randomly deciding that Actually He Does Care About The Laws Of Time seemingly just so he can yell at C'rizz for breaking them. Ok.

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Other Lives 0/10

ableist, stupid premise that immediately throws suspension of disbelief out the window, just no.

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Time Works 3/10

it would have been almost fine............if it were part of the Divergent Universe Arc. as it was clearly meant to be. But then they shoved it all the way down here for some reason?? which makes no sense. Along with the "this was clearly meant to take place earlier" thing the voice acting is just bad for the side characters and the music is.....overwrought? They're trying too hard and it just makes it annoying. The way the side characters are talking is extremely stilted and awkward. Just bad all around.

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Something Inside 5/10

Eh, nothing bad about it, just not very entertaining.

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Memory Lane 6/10

Same as Something Inside, kinda boring. Gets an extra star since we get to see Charley's mom again.

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Absolution 0/10

this. where do I even begin. oh my god. I don't even know where to start. Just. Search my blog for Absolution. It's so horribly written it is, literally, unbelievable.

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The Girl Who Never Was 4/10

Charley is extremely out of character and there's literally no reason for it at all. The plot does not demand she be out of character. The plot would not change at all if she was in character. It's just. stupid. There are also some plot holes and again. Charley's ridiculously OOC. For no reason. It's really annoying. if Charley were in character it could maybe work, but the premise is also stupid as shit. And it doesn't need to be. Just throw the fucking whole premise out the window. There's no reason they couldn't have just been separated by Normal Eight And Charley Shennanigans. The plot wouldn't even need to change. It's just stupid.

All four stars come from the last line. because holy shit.

[doodlebloo]

hi i would really really appreciate a breakdown of c!tubbo's character as i am just now realizing, as i go to write a fic, that my characterization of him is completely based on the fanon version rather than who he actually is. you're the resident c!tubbo expert, so i figured you'd know best. (you absolutely don't need to do this, i just wanted to ask lol)

Hello! (C!Tubbo expert anon you flatter me lol)

Okay so I think when looking at canon vs fanon cTubbo, the same thing that happens with most characters happens here, which is that they lose a lot of depth/get watered down. C!Tubbo really commonly either becomes a gentle yes-man with no backbone or a trigger-happy nuclear scientist (although both of these interpretations are a lot less common now!) Another problem that I see ppl run into is letting c!Tubbo and cc!Tubbo bleed together too much. And that's really easy to do because the distinction between the two is not always super clear, but they ARE different and oftentimes I feel like more chaotic interpretations of c!Tubbo are drawing more from the cc than from the actual character.

Overall, c!Tubbo's most prominent trait (when writing him currently, s1-s2 cTubbo is a whole other deal) is probably his way of thinking logically and taking caution. The basis of his character at this point is that he's been so affected by everything he's lost that he's always on guard, always careful, but never rude. He tries not to start conflict because he's been taught in the past that everyone else is stronger than him, so he's got a tendency to try and people-please even if he doesnt like the person. This arguably stems from his early L'Manberg days, but working under Schlatt really shaped him a lot and caused his aversion to talking about his problems.

He genuinely believes in peace and the greater good, even his nuclear weapons were meant to be a scare tactic and not to actually be used, but c!Tubbo would also sacrifice himself in a heartbeat if he thought he'd be more useful to others as a sacrifice than alive, which we can see by the suicide button he put on his nuke.

Another common c!Tubbo-ism is that he will claim to be optimistic when he actually isn't. For example, before a big event he'll tell people that he has faith it'll go well and that everything will be fine, and then after the event he'll admit that he hadn't really believed it was going to work. C!Tubbo can and will lie to make someone else feel better or to make them like him more, and he does so often.

C!Tubbo is the kind of character to speak in a way that's blunt without being necessarily impolite. He says what he means and moves on, and is oftentimes uncomfortable with emotional convos because he's been taught that showing that you care about something will get you or the thing that you care for killed. His grief has shaped him probably more than anything else, because everything he's ever loved has died at least once (except for Michael_B). C!Tubbo's very first house was burned to declare the very first war on L'Manberg, and he hasn't been able to catch a break since.

He carries a lot of guilt and blames himself for things out of his control, but it isn't prominent unless you look for it. He doesn't like sit and wallow in his guilt, he just accepts as fact that everything is his fault and gets up and moves on. If you're in doubt about what c!Tubbo would do in a situation, the answer is probably that he'd throw himself into a project to avoid thinking about his issues. C!Tubbo is like the character most likely of all of them to casually say something very very worrying about himself and then just move on like nothing happened, that's like his whole deal lol.

At his core, what c!Tubbo has really been searching for is a sense of community. He constantly oscillates between isolating himself so he doesn't get hurt again and seeking out others out of loneliness and boredom. C!Tubbo doesn't want to be alone, he wants to be a useful and productive member of a community. He wants to help people and be helped in return, but he can't do that unless he actually has a community that he can trust to keep his loved ones safe, which leads to him isolating himself. And with every loss, he seems to close himself off more and more and have less things to care about.

But this depth rarely ever comes to he surface with him. C!Tubbo will try and keep himself seeming perfectly fine and casual, out of a mix of emotional repression, inability to be seen as weak and an unwillingness to bring down anyone else's mood. If you didn't know him well, you'd assume he was perfectly fine and not someone who has literally forgotten how to grieve because his dead loved ones keep returning.

C!Tubbo is tragic and he contains multitudes, but he can also easily be inserted into a story as a side character and not lose too much depth. If you're looking to study his character more the easiest suggestion I have is to rewatch Wilbur's "One Year Later" L'Manberg anniversary stream, if you go into that with the knowledge that what you're seeing is an exception to the rule that c!Tubbo doesn't cry it's the most brilliant character study we've gotten of him maybe ever. Also there are a lot of other c!Tubbo enjoyers on here that have really good takes on him, if there's any specific aspects of his character you're curious about I'd be happy to point out some of their analysis/find some clips/etc! :)

[rainbowloliofjustice]

I hate how so many people just... lack any kind of critical media literacy across so many different genres and how just about every genre and common tropes, issues, etc. within them just get boiled down to "Oh this is bad because ableism/racism/homophobia" even though the tropes largely have nothing to do with that. It's like they have such a surface-level understanding of something and then proceeds to read into said surface-level understanding in a contest to see who can come up with the most disingenuous, bad faith, uncharitable and just all-around god an awful interpretation of it.

"Characters having prosthetics as an allegory for losing their humanity is ablest because it is saying that if you got into an accident you are a monster." No, you absolute peanut. Robotic parts specifically are an allegory for the loss of humanity in characters that just get rid of their human body because they were being reckless, stupid, thought that it was not perfect enough, too weak, etc. Oftentimes, this is juxtaposed with a character that is a robot but is more human than the cyborg or person that just gets another piece of them replaced with a machine.

Ironwood getting increasingly mechanical parts as he is making increasingly inhumane choices in regards to himself and others is not saying he's a monster because he had an oops boo boo and had to replace his arm. ESPECIALLY when his character is juxtaposed by a character who has a robotic arm (Yang) and a character who is a created robot (Penny). The reason why Yang said that her robotic arm (and even taking pride in it at that) is "just extra" because it is just an extra asset to who she is as a person, but not her whole person. In terms of Penny, she is entirely made of machines but has what amounts to a human heart and compassion because she makes a choice to be kind to people. The allegory here (that y'all failed to understand) is that it is not whether or not someone has prosthetic or robotic parts that determine their humanity, but rather their choices and how they treat others.

It is often also the same in stories where it has characters who have robotic parts such as Alita Battle Angel or anything that genuinely comes from cyberpunk dystopia. Alita (Who is completely robot mind you) is often more kind, compassionate, etc. than characters who are fully human. Hugo and his crew regularly steal parts from cyborgs who've done nothing to him and this is juxtaposed by characters like Grewishka and Zipan who are mechanical and monstrous but not because of their parts but because of their choices. Which is a strong contrast to Alita who is fully kindhearted and has a strong sense of justice and doing what is right regardless of whether there is a price tag on it.

In more dystopian stories wherein no short words, the corrupt government controls technology and spies on its people using it, it can be a question of how much of your humanity (in this instance, privacy and agency over oneself) you're willing to sacrifice for comfort or just because you had to. But of course, rather than looking at these stories as a potential warning that we should make laws that would prevent the government from using technology against its people under the guise of safety, convenience, etc. Or even having people question wtf do they do should the government get so corrupt that it can just hijack someone's arm or even just stop someone's pacemaker because lol why not.

Yeah I get it, it's uncomfortable but unfortunately, the people who need it the most are going to be the people most at risk to a corrupt government which is like... kinda the point.

But anyways moving on

The same can go for when stories use animals as a means of telling stories revolving around discrimination. But ofc people can only see it as a surface-level "racism" and then do their damnest to force characters into being black/poc or white (and for some reason, only those two races) while failing to realize that the reason it was done is that discrimination has more than one axis. I swear this logic is what has convinced me all the talk of intersectionality in activism is just a joke they say to get other people to just shut up and let them speak over them and ignore problems/issues they don't want to focus on. It's like the only thing they can understand is racism and even that racism is only if it is hatred and black people vs white people. And somehow even that is on its most basic level.

The reason stories like Zootopia and Beastars work when it comes to discrimination because it doesn't solely focus on the narrative of race and allows it to explore the implicit and explicit biases of every character that doesn't exclusively revolve around racism. It allows characters to be on the axis of sexism, racism, class, etc. and explore various -isms that are not always "negative" in the sense that it is just hatred, racial slurs, etc. and that it can be the "positive" racism like saying "you're one of the good ones" or that "they're a token to xyz for not being as bad as everyone else."

It allows characters to fall on multiple axes without people arguing whether they have it "too good to complain" because of just one axis of discrimination that they give more weight to than others for some arbitrary reason.

Even when it comes to things like nudity being a symbol of being true to oneself or purity (such as Sailor Moon or Kill La Kill) people manage to, unironically boil it down to just the writers feeling horny and therefore ignore any other kind of lore, storytelling, etc. that revolves around it. They took one thing, scrubbed, bleached, and then nuked it of any kind of context/meta just to say lol writers horny this bad it literally means nothing else even though there are whole ass plot lines revolving around it. Like do you just pick and choose what kind of plot or storytelling is Valid (TM)?

And this extends to things beyond that and I just don't understand how people can lack such media literacy when you can literally go and read anything you want online. Is it because of people being willfully ignorant? Just lacking media literacy for some reason? Only consuming and understanding media that has to have every meaning shoved down their throat like the tentacle down an anime girl's throat in a hentai??? Like there are so many questions as to how people can come up with so many dumbass takes.

[quaranmine]

/rp I wrote a lot of this in my reblog tags on somebody's post a day or two ago, but I feel like I hit on something here that I want to be its own post.

I think Tubbo probably feels a certain amount of expectation to be the upbeat and hopeful one. He's always been the chipper, hopeful one. Ditzy and well-meaning and eager to please and optimistic.

Tommy mentioned it on their way to fight Dream, how he appreciated Tubbo always being hopeful and looking on the bright side. Tubbo had faith that they would win, and was telling Tommy that he was confident they would win.. But....Tubbo wasn't actually very hopeful was he? He was ready to die when it came down to it and was alarmingly apathetic to the thought of dying. He gave up the fight long before Tommy did. And afterward, he admitted that he had never expected to live.

That wasn't the first time he's done this, either. He seems to do this a lot where he is extremely hopeful and then reveals later that he was actually pessimistic about the outcome. He was confident about the nuclear test at Snowchester, but said later he hadn't expected it to work.

This isn't a particularly radical character trait. I think it's pretty common for people to try and be hopeful even when they don't really feel hopeful. So Tubbo projects that into the world, partially to reassure others but partially to reassure himself. Saying things out loud helps you sooth yourself or rationalize and put your thoughts in order. So he repeats the hopeful messages to try and give himself and others hope that he doesn't really have.

I think Tubbo is interesting in this way. I think there's a lot of his character we don't necessarily get to see because he doesn't vocalize it very much. Part of this is because CC!Tubbo doesn't stream in 100% lore mode. He acts and does plot but he's not one of the people on the server who is always partially in character. So he's upbeat because CC!Tubbo is in a good mood and not really ~acting~ at all moments. So outside of major plot streams, you're always wondering how much "in character" CC!Tubbo is being.

And this makes his character hard to nail down, I think. How much of the positivity is fake and how much is real? When is he genuinely happy and hopeful and when is he projecting? We get glimpses that Tubbo doesn't actually think the outcomes were going to be good. We've gotten multiple instances of Tubbo having no regard for his life or no will to live. His plans to resort to mutually assured destruction with nukes if threatened is fairly telling. So...what exactly goes on in his head? Beyond the happy and hopeful exterior?

An example of the opposite would be Ranboo, I think. We know what his mental state is like, even though we don't know everything due to plot and character development reasons. He gives us a lot of information about what his character is thinking and what his character thinks about others. CC!Ranboo is really dedicated to always being partially in character, and makes an effort to be consistent with his character even in non-lore streams, which means he could drop lore at any time.

Tubbo? Tubbo's just cheerful right up until the second he drops the act (or even starts to act) and isn't. It just breaks my heart over and over and over.

[artist-issues]

@snowybookworm

I’ve seen the logic behind both schools of thought: that Old Steve could only have sat back and allowed events like Bucky’s torture to unfold (thereby being super out of character) OR that he created an alternate timeline where he stayed in character by solving all sorts of problems while living out his happily ever after. And I’m not going to go into that, I’m not going to swing one way or the other. But suffice to say, I don’t think that the portrayal of time travel rules in Endgame supports the idea that Old Steve could only return to prime 2023 via the same portal he left from, because if that were true, how do you explain the Avengers’ big push to get the Infinity Gauntlet into Scott’s van in the final battle? If the only way they could be returned to the timeline they were snatched from was with the same portal, tossing them into the van, a DIFFERENT portal, would’ve been reality-suicide for our heroes.

But I’m not here to argue about what Steve Rogers did when we DIDN’T get to watch his actions. I’m here to argue about what we DO know for sure based on what we WERE given to watch. I’m here to prove that if you think it’s not like Steve Rogers to leave Bucky in the present to live his days out with Peggy, you’ve missed his whole character arc. You’re one of those people who doesn’t see that he HAS a character arc. Captain America has DEPTH. He has LAYERS to who he is. It’s not just “do the right thing,” as close as that may sound to the truth.

He is not the same exact guy Bucky had to lead out of back-alley fights in the 40s. He might have all of the same excellent qualities that we know and love, the BEST qualities, but we’re not at the same point in his story. He’s learned and he’s grown and Peggy Carter is symbolic of him moving on.

Now, that may sound oxymoronic to you, “because he literALLY TIME TRAVELED TO THE PAST to be with the lady he missed out on! HOW IS THAT MOVING ON?!” you ask. Because you’re missing it. Let’s rewind and look at Steve Rogers and his character development, shall we?

In Captain America: The First Avenger, Steve Rogers goes from a guy with everything to prove, who is so willing to take on the world and all it’s evil that it doesn’t matter if he’s 90lbs of asthmatic shortness, he’ll fight bullies and stand up for what’s right! And he’ll do it ALONE if he has to! That’s important, the word “alone.” He’s so committed to that identity that Bucky Barnes, his best friend and brother figure, keeps having to remind Steve that through all of life’s challenges, he’s not alone, that he’s got someone with him “til’ the end of the line.” And Steve believes it: Bucky will be there for him when he needs dragging out of the gutter and cleaning up, when he has nobody else and nothing else. But Steve knows, or thinks he knows, (AND YOU AND I DO TOO, if we pay attention to the actual movie instead of our fill-in-the-blanks headcanons) that however LOYAL AND TRUE Bucky is to him, he doesn’t believe Steve can win. Bucky doesn’t believe in Steve. Now hold your offense: it’s okay that Bucky didn’t believe in Steve. Have you seen Skinny Steve? He’s an amazing moral giant, but physically he’s not going to live past middle-aged. Bucky believed Skinny Steve was righteous, and a hero, and would never give up, but Bucky was resigned to having to help that righteous hero or watch him die eventually because all that gold was locked up in the wrong-sized package. Sebastian Stan has hinted at what the films portray subtly; that Bucky’s is more cynical than his friend Steve from the get-go. He’s always poised and worried that he’s about to watch his hero Steve get killed standing up to the darkness of the world—not WIN against it. Bucky was ready to help Steve out of fights, but—and here’s BUCKY’S character development in that first film—he’s not ready to follow Steve into fights until after Azzano, when Steve finally has the physical capabilities to back up what Bucky has always known was there on the inside: the will to fight the darkness of the world and win. That’s when he realizes, “he’s the little guy from Brooklyn, too dumb to run away from a fight—and now someone’s actually gone and juiced him up with the means to literally take on the jaws of death.” All that heroism and goodness Bucky’s always seen in Steve has gone from being what might get him killed to something that Steve can actually use to do the right thing, however dangerous. And Bucky chooses to keep his promise and follow Steve back into battle after enduring torture, because he is with him til the end of the line. But initially, cynical yet loyal Bucky Barnes didn’t believe his best friend could win.

Steve sees this about Bucky. He knows how Bucky sees him. In the Erskine Enlistment Scene, this line from Steve is so telling: “Look, I know you don’t think I can do this...” and Bucky responds after Steve’s ‘men-laying-down-their-lives’ speech with “right...cause you got nothing to prove.” sarcastically. Steve knows that Bucky loves him and is there for him, but he sees that Bucky doesn’t believe in him. And they’re still friends. They’re still brothers and everything we know them to be, because the word that defines their relationship is “LOYAL.” But you know who did believe in Steve?

Peggy Carter.

She takes notice of Steve’s heart of gold while he’s still skinny, and asthmatic, and everything that Bucky has seen since they were kids. But where Bucky sees a heart of gold about to be snuffed out by harsh circumstances, PEGGY sees something else. She sees something else because she has a similar hopeful outlook on life, a kindred spirit with Steve’s forever-the-fighter character. Peggy Carter, a woman in the 40s, has had to fight and fight and take one step forward for every three steps she’s been pushed back. She’s had to prove herself over and over, every moment of her career, when nobody (except her brother Michael) believed in her. That’s their conversation in the cab. That’s the crux of why they love each other. Peggy has always noticed Steve as never giving up, but until he talks to her in the car on the way to get Super Soldiered, she might have assumed that he was just trying to prove himself for HIMSELF. Then he explains that he doesn’t have anything against running away, and his philosophy about bullies. And she relates to him. She sees that heart of gold and she wants to STOKE it, not just protect it. She knows what it is to want someone to not only acknowledge her potential, but BELIEVE in it. That’s why she has a picture of Skinny Steve on her desk and not a newspaper clipping of Captain America; she loves Steve Rogers for what is inside, for his moral character, and for their kindred fighter spirits. You can see that through her urging him to not settle for being a dancing monkey. “You were meant for more than this, you know.” “If it could only work once, he would be glad it was you.”

And Steve Rogers recognizes that Peggy Carter believes in him. Here’s how. When Bucky and Steve argue at the World Fair before Bucky’s deployment, Bucky leaves with a sort of “I give up,” so-done, snarky “don’t do anything stupid until I get back” attitude. We know and love it. But that’s important. Steve is about to go lie on his enlistment and try to go to war. He’s about to do this risky thing. And Bucky leaves it like “even though I’m against it, I know I can’t stop you, so please just be careful.” When Peggy is faced with a more extreme, but still similar situation where Steve is about to jump headfirst into a risky thing, that’s not her attitude. “I can do more than that.” “Get back here! We’re taking you ALL the way in!” She’s not going to follow him, and she’s not going to shrug and say “fine, go get yourself killed.” She’s not even going to say, like Bucky might’ve, “if you’re dying, I’m dying with you.” JEEZ, the last thing she says to him before he gets on a plane that becomes his tomb is “GO GET ‘IM.” When he says to her “this is my choice” before he ‘dies’ she accepts it, but she still makes that appointment for the dance- almost like a sad, sweet little ‘if you can get out of this, I’ll still be waiting.’ But whenever he goes into danger, throughout that film, she’s going to HELP him. Because she believes in him. She really believes he can do this. She has faith. That’s the word that describes Peggy and Steve’s relationship. “FAITH.”

Bucky = Loyalty.

Peggy = Faith.

And how does Steve grow in this movie? He learned from both Bucky and Peggy: “I don’t have to fight alone.”  Whether it’s because he’s scrawny and everybody else would run away from a fight they can’t win, or because he’s an icon and the world’s first super-soldier-miracle, he’s always had this loneliness complex. He lifts the weight of the world because he knows that if you can, you should. But Peggy says to him “you won’t be alone.” It’s a quote important enough for him to experience it in a flashback the first time we see him in The Avengers.

In The Avengers, Steve has to share the spotlight with a whole other cast of heroes, PLUS the writers had to show us what it would be like for a 1940s superhero to lose 70 years of time and wake up with nobody left of his old life, so his growth is smaller. It’s setting up for more growth later. But still, there’s that quote. “You won’t be alone.” And now here he is. Alone. In the 21st century. Worse than a skinny kid nobody believes in, now he’s a cultural phenomenon in a world where everyone looks up to him but nobody believes in him, really, not directly. Whether it’s how well he can stand up against gods and iron men, what makes him special, or why cops should listen to him in the heat of interplanetary battle—in this bold new world he’s woken up in, Steve is on a lonelier pedestal than ever. He’s quickly disillusioned with the government that used to give him order and structure when it loses the Tesseract, which it was making weapons of mass destruction out of, then tries to nuke an island full of innocent people to win one battle. But Steve finally realizes, toward the end of the film, that just because SHIELD and the larger world are new and different and don’t know who he really is, that doesn’t mean he’s alone. When the other Avengers join him in going to take on Loki in their own way, and when Tony, in particular, proves that he’ll sacrifice himself for the greater good, Steve remembers his lesson from Peggy. He’s still not alone.

But being surrounded by other misfits, even ones who are willing to sacrifice everything for the greater good like he is, isn’t the same as being surrounded by people who know Steve Rogers, the punch-drunk kid from Brooklyn. He’s looking for purpose at the end of the Avengers. What do we see the other characters doing? Thor’s off to deal with the family drama that defines a lot of his character arcs in his movies. Tony is seen embracing the whole “work with others” thing by starting construction on Avengers Tower. Bruce is going with Tony, proving that he’s learning to trust himself with the Hulk like Tony suggested, and Nat hands him the bag, meaning she trusts him too. Clint is reunited with her and getting in a car with the SHIELD logo stamped on it, and where is Steve? What’s his foreshadowing/cap to the movie character arc? Is he getting in the SHIELD car, too? No. He’s on a motorcycle. Alone. Driving off to Lord-knows-where. He’s the only Avenger that drives off alone—but before he went, he shook Tony’s hand. That send-off says he’s willing to be on this team, with these other fighters and misfits...but he’s still lonely. Nobody really knows him yet. He’s not alone in fighting, but he doesn’t know what he wants or where he’s going.

In Captain America: The Winter Soldier Steve’s character development is centered around solidifying what parts of him need to change now that he’s “The Man Out of Time” and what parts of him stay true. The whole film is about trust. And yes, that trust is best driven him when Steve is literally willing to die rather than give up on Bucky, the man literally beating him to death. Because loyalty. But don’t miss the scene with Peggy, however brief. Their conversation has nuances, especially in light of Endgame. There’s a lot going on in the scene that shows how in love he is with her, but the part that’s most important is just his reaction when she relapses and realizes that he’s alive all over again. The last thing Old Peggy says is “it’s been so long.” And she repeats it, for emphasis. And he points out the dance. Because remember, there’s this theme that she would have waited for him. That’s their relationship: faith. But she didn’t know he was alive, and how could she? It’s been so long. She’s not smiling. She’s crying when she realizes he’s still alive. Because they missed all that time they would have had together. And his face is the perfect micro expression of grief. To me, it doesn’t read “I’m so sad because I missed out on Peggy,” though I’m sure there’s some of that in there. To me it reads more like Steve always reads because he thinks of others first: “I’m so sad because Peggy had to mourn me and our relationship for so long.” I mean, look, it’s 70 years later and she’s devastated that he’s alive but they weren’t together. (You can be devastated about your lost love AND accepting of your life and other children without him, it doesn’t have to be one or the other, but more on that another time.) Steve never moves on from Peggy because that’s not the kind of guy he is. It’s not nothing to say she was the love of his life. And he wanted to go back to her not just for himself, but for her. Because he’d seen the future where she was still heartbroken that he missed their dance, and I know that sounds cheesy, but it’s literally RIGHT THERE in probably the best-written Marvel Film, Winter Soldier.

In a film that’s all about how what he thought was good and right is literally crumbling or growing Hydra tentacles around him, there are two things he doesn’t let go of. The first is Bucky. Bucky is an assassin now who any other hero would have put down. Heck, STEVE would have mournfully put down any other threat to the greater good, for the sake of Doing What’s Right. But there’s two (2) exceptions to that rule, and the first is Bucky. Loyalty. He won’t kill or even fight his best friend. And the second thing he won’t let go of, thematically, is Peggy. It’s how we go from “I’m alone in the future” in the Avengers to, “and if I’m the only one, so be it. But I’m willing to bet I’m not.” Peggy founded SHIELD. Steve didn’t have to take time out of the very carefully synchronized and tense mission to stop Project: Insight to make that announcement. He could have assumed everyone was HYDRA and got to work. But he stopped, he made a FAITH-BASED decision to let HYDRA know they were there and shoutout to any good people in the building because the movie was about trust. And Peggy showed Steve how to have faith and trust in people because she extended it to him. He puts so many eggs in the Big Risk basket during this movie based on trusting others even though Nick Fury’s crucial words were “Don’t Trust Anyone.” That’s the part of Steve that won’t get corroded away by the new world he’s come out of the ice into. And he shows it by loyalty to Bucky, brainwashed warts and all, and belief in people, which Peggy taught him. There’s a lot that could also be said about Sam and Natasha, too, but more on them later.

The main thing, in CA:TWS and Avengers, to remember about Steve’s character arc is that while he’s learning to hold on to IDEALS like belief in people and defending freedom and innocent people from bullies like HYDRA and Loki, how does he express those ideals? The only way he knows how. By fighting. By finding a mission to complete or a cause to serve and going for it. How else? He doesn’t know how to do anything else. “I guess I just like to know who I’m fighting.” Sam asks, “You thinking about getting out?” And hid knee-jerk reaction is “no.” Then, “I don’t know.” AND WHY DOESN’T HE KNOW? Because he doesn’t know what makes him happy. Seriously! What makes him happy?? People who know him. He won’t go on a date because he has “no shared life experience”. He has no fun plans Saturday because his “barbershop quartet are dead.” Hes straight up politely walking away, kind-celebrity-style, from a potential new friend in Sam until Sam starts talking about being a veteran. He tries to relate to others through fights because that seems to be the only thing left. People see Steve as Captain America, leader of the Avengers, Fighter for Freedom, in the future. Nobody sees the kid from Brooklyn anymore. And he doesn’t know who he is without a war.

Bringing us to Avengers: Age of Ultron. This one’s character development is so obvious it feels like they’re beating you over the head with it Hulk-style if you just take half a second to focus on Steve’s scenes. It starts with how he views the Maximoff twins—he can relate to their lab-rats-of-justice ideals, but nobody else shares that sympathy, as seen in the conversation with Maria Hill by the elevator. Then there’s the scene at the party. No, not the one where he reminds Bruce that he waited too long for Peggy, although HELLO HE’S STILL IN LOVE WITH PEGGY. But I’m talking about Steve and Sam’s conversation. Sam mentions home. In the middle of a party, Steve is asking about Bucky, his one remaining person who knows him, and reminiscing about Peggy, the other person who knew him. Home is in the people who know you. Steve wants that to be the Avengers. He wants them to be the people who get who he is, and I think they come close. Nat, Sam, and Tony especially. But Tony never separates who Steve is from this idea of him handed down from Howard Stark, and Steve is made aware of that over and over. Plus Tony doesn’t trust Steve; the team keeps clashing over trust issues in this film. And Tony even says, in the pivotal argument with Steve over the lumber pile, “isn’t this why we fight? So we can END the fight? So we can go HOME?” Steve can’t go home because Steve feels he has no home. He’s made The Fight his home. And he defaults right back to it in this argument: “every time someone tries to stop a war before it starts, innocent people die.” So, again, he’s not ALONE anymore, in the sense that others will fight with him. But he’s still stuck on FIGHTING. And nobody really knows him. At the end of the film he says, almost reluctantly, “I’m home” and proceeds to go in and try to train new Avengers. Sam comes flying in among them—that’s a subtle reason why Steve is willing to make the Avengers/the Fight his new home. The one guy who might actually know him and represent who he is when he’s not behind the shield is missing, and Sam was supposed to be looking for him. Sam is with the Avengers, NOT looking for him.

But all of that is wrecked in Captain America: Civil War. Peggy, the love of his life, dies. Bucky, the friend he’d all but given up on finding, reappears and is in trouble. Without Peggy, there’s only one person left who knows who Steve really is, and with all that Bucky means to him, Steve isn’t going to give him up. It just so happens that that goal of remaining loyal to Bucky is synonymous with hanging on to his ideals: combatting the Sokovia Accords with a little moral kick in the seat from posthumous Peggy. I’m not going to go into why his actions about the Accords were in-character in this film. But it should be obvious from everything I’ve written, anyway. And remember, his faith is in people. Peggy taught him that, as we’ve established.

The main point of character development in this film for Steve is that he’s realized that he can’t give up who Steve Rogers is to be who everyone thinks Captain America is. When the rest of the world says that the Avengers should be little better than Government weapons and operate out of fear, Steve remembers that he’s the kid from Brooklyn who will fight for what’s right, shield or no shield. And Bucky symbolizes that aspect of who he really is, because Bucky knows him in a way that no remaining living character does. So when Steve is fighting Tony to keep Bucky safe, it’s not devoid of their conflict over ideals, either. Stave drops the shield but promises to still be there for Tony if he needs him. He’s not going to be everyone’s Captain America. He’s going to stay the good man Erskine gave a chance to, the good man Peggy believed in, and the good man only Bucky is alive to remember.

Now we get to Infinity War. And here there’s so much going on with so many characters that for Steve, it’s just important to realize that, although he’s finally hit a rhythm in this post-ice life as Steve Rogers, Fighter from Brooklyn, HOW is he hitting that rhythm? Settling down in Wakanda to hang with Bucky and the goats? Leaving the justice and peacekeeping to Tony Stark and the law-abiding heroes? No. He’s still fighting. And not just in response to Thanos—we’re shown hints and evidences that Cap and his Secret Avengers have been doing some behind-the-scenes peacekeeping. So why isn’t Steve finding peace with Bucky? Ask yourself that. He had time. He had anonymity, in Wakanda. He’d given up the Captain America mantle. They could’ve been roomies in that little hut, like when they were kids, right?

Wrong. But why?

It’s not because the Russos didn’t think of it. It’s not because of lazy writing. It’s because of Bucky.

Bucky is still Steve’s friend and Steve is still loyal to him. They don’t mean any less to each other than they did in 1945. But Bucky is not Bucky anymore. If you believe that Sebastian Stan did a good job playing Bucky, you have to remember that Sebastian Stan played him as if he would “never go back to being that guy you see in The First Avenger.” Bucky has evolved. He’s part Winter Soldier, now. Does he still know Steve better than anyone? Yes. But that is corrupted by the fact that Bucky was programmed to see Steve, the country Steve represented, and all of Steve’s ideals of freedom as targets to be destroyed for 90 years. That changes things. Steve is always going to do what is best for Bucky, because that’s the kind of friend he is. It was the kind of friend he was in 1945 when he rescued Bucky from Azzano, it’s the kind of friend he was when he wouldn’t fight him aboard Project: Insight, it’s the kind of friend he was when he gave up the Avengers and the shield for Bucky...and it’s the kind of friend he was when he left Bucky in the present.

In Avengers: Endgame Steve Rogers has experienced what it’s like to fight and lose again. He’s lost everything. He’s lost Peggy, and now Bucky, too. He’s lost everything and everyone that ever symbolized home...except, perhaps, Natasha. His friend who knows what it’s like to give up everything for ideals and fight to prove yourself. His friend who can’t stop fighting, either. But he loses her, too. Before he does, though, what does Steve say? In that first conversation before everything sets into motion? He says that maybe the fight doesn’t need to be fought by them. He says they need to get a life. But Nat says “you first.”

Who knows him the closest at this point? Nat. So who’s the best-qualified to point out where he’s at, character-development-wise? Nat. He sees his flaw. Steve Rogers sees that he can’t figure out who he is, without someone who knows him helping him. He sees that he defaults to finding a cause, a mission, a fight. Heck, the posters of him say “one last mission.” Not “one last sacrifice (of everything for Bucky).” One last MISSION, because that’s the only thing Steve knows how to do when he has nothing else.

“But he DID have something else! He had BUCKY! And his new family with the Avengers!”

Now we get to the part people don’t understand. They think, “how could Steve just leave everybody, especially Bucky, to fend for themselves?”

You didn’t see all that character development, especially in the first film where the differences between what Bucky means to Steve and what Peggy means to Steve are established.

Bucky is not the streetsmart protective charming brother figure he was in TFA. But listen. He’s not the broken Winter Soldier anymore either. Not in a way that needs Steve’s help. He’s not on the run. He’s got his memory back. He’s pardoned. He’s got Sam. Don’t you see, Bucky’s biggest problem is Steve’s, at this point? They MIRROR each other. Steve can’t figure out who he is if he isn’t fighting for everyone else because he’s been fighting for so long. And Bucky can’t figure out who he is with his friend, his brother figure, doing that and him. Because if Steve is fighting, Bucky will always be there to have his back. But fighting isn’t what Bucky needed anymore. It’s not what he wanted. Fighting is what Bucky is tired of.

And Steve Rogers can’t not be where the fight is.

Because without a fight, who is he?

Peggy Carter knows.

Steve Rogers left Bucky because Bucky needed him to leave. They needed to be friends from afar. And Steve left Bucky because Peggy Carter was home. Being with the woman who knew who he really was, as Steve “Kid From Brooklyn” Rogers, was the right move for his character because it shows that he’s finally ready to stop fighting. Stop being Captain America, lonely hero, man out of time. He’s ready to go and figure out who he is apart from all of that, with someone who really knows him. Could he have done that with Bucky? I don’t know. Seems to me, from what we’ve seen, that Bucky represented passively understanding  Steve while Peggy, at the point they were separated, represented understanding Steve and moving him forward.

Bucky was “I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.”

Peggy is “I had faith.”

Bucky was the guy to have Steve’s back in the fight. Peggy was the woman to show him he was meant for more. She represents his potential. She represents his ability to move on, see who he is when he’s doing more than following orders or standing up for honor or proving himself. It would have been out of character for him to stay in the present because new fights would have arisen, and he never would’ve put down the shield. He would’ve fought until someone killed him. And guess what? Bucky would’ve been right behind him, dragging himself into a fight when what he really needs is to step away from Steve and the baggage of his past for a bit. Not completely, but enough.

But this way? With Peggy? We get to see the guy who was always lonely and always learning how to be less alone actually do it. If you miss how significant that is, and you miss how much sense it makes, you don’t understand Steve Rogers at all.

[arkus-rhapsode]

MHA Chapter 315 Discussion-An Almost Great Conclusion, But Misses It’s Mark

Hi guys, Rhapsode here and it’s time for another MHA discussion. I haven’t really done one in a while, but after reading 315, I had a lot of thoughts I was working through. And before I start I want to say, I do not think this chapter is overtly bad. I think there’s a lot of good ideas to it, and overall nothing objectively bad. However, as the climax to this Deku vs Lady Nagant fight, I felt it didn’t quite hit its mark (pun not intended).

If you want my brief opinion of this current arc of “solo Deku”, I actually enjoy it quite a bit. I’m happy Horikoshi refocused on Deku after such a long war arc. As well as Deku FINALLY be proactive in his hero duties. No longer on the rails of the school setting. And I have especially enjoyed his current fight with Lady Nagant.

In terms of sheer action, it’s got a tried and true set up of a sniper battle, but then adds to it by taking the fight into the air. The action is hectic in all the right ways with the unpredictable bullets cutting up Deku as he dodges them with Danger Sense. As well as the introduction to a new quirk of OFA.

But where this fight really shines is Nagant and her origin. Lady Nagant was hero assigned to maintain the illusion of order by getting rid of potential threats and heroes up to no good for the Hero Safety Commission. Until being told to kill in the name of improving society and any of her activities being covered up finally weighed on her and she killed the then president of the Commission and placed in Tartarus. While she’s only hunting down Deku because she’s assigned to, she says that even if AFO wants to rule the world, it’d be more transparent than a return to the status quo.

It’s honestly a great reveal as it finally puts out in the open the actual corruption in the system that’s hinted at, but was never really delved into. But now it also finally has Deku confront the problems of the status quo that he’s grown up in. This isn’t an ideological battle like with Stain on the definition of hero or reaching people who have fallen through the cracks of society like Gentle. This is real flaws with the system that people have had faith in from the mouth of someone who has done their dirty work.

It’s something I think a lot of people have wanted to see. And I’m glad Horikoshi finally did dive into it the structural problems of hero society.

So how does this all get resolved in 315? How does all this end? Well after Lady Nagant targets Overhaul and shoots at him to make the situation harder for Deku to focus, Deku without hesitation goes into trying to save Overhaul (despite knowing Overhaul is a villain), Deku homages All Might and then shatters Nagant’s arm, and finally Deku makes an observation that Nagant wasn’t really going to hit Overhaul and that if she seeing the darkness of society, she knows where to expose it as she still has the heart of a hero. Nagant should join Deku.

But then AFO activates an explosive power right as Nagant is coming around. The blast fries her as Hawks arrives and we’re left on the cliffhanger of “is she going to survive.”

Now after reading this, my feelings have been… mixed. Let me get out this out of the way there is nothing with this chapter I disagree with: I have no problem with Deku making an emotional appeal to Nagant, I have no problem with AFO acting like a heel, and I have no problem with Nagant not being fully evil and never intending to kill. I know that last one has upset some people, but given Nagant’s backstory of killing innocent people for others because they told her so is the reason she fell off her path in the first place. So it makes sense she never intended on killing anyone.

And I know some people have nitpicked how it’s the female villain who isn’t fully evil, but that honestly doesn’t matter to me. As narratively, this arc started with the attack by Muscular and Deku couldn’t reach him. So it’d make sense to potentially end this mini arc on an example of Deku reaching and reforming a villain. It also helps that Nagant has actual layers to her motivation that could actually allow her to be swayed away.

Now my real issue with this chapter is honestly a problem that I was afraid Hori would do after he introduced just how messed up the Commissions back dealings, it’s that Deku doesn’t really take any concrete stance on what should be done about this status quo. Instead, Deku focuses more on telling Nagant she is a real hero and he ultimately wins her over after showing how much a real hero he is.

While Nagant uses the term “fake”, “sham”, and “phony” when discussing heroes and hero society, it doesn’t address the bigger issue. Namely that she feels this way because of the corrupt and unheroic things the Commission has done to maintain faith in it. Deku offers no actual answer to the very real and very hard question she poses.

And his only real response is this:

(I’m being generous as there can be something lost in translation here and it’s a bit on the flowery side )

While Deku did acknowledge this world isn’t Black and white and he’s saying she can expose corruption if she works with them, he dodges actually offering a solution to her concerns about the status quo. Instead more time is devoted to the same kind of “I will save anyone” appeal he always does.

And while one could argue Nagant’s only on the side of AFO because his reign would keep the Commission from having the power they did, even if she doesn’t fully believe in him. She still poses why being ruled by AFO has its appeal to her and Deku doesn’t actually counter that. No pointing out the obvious anarchy that could result from this or how AFO uses even the people he claims to love like Shigaraki. Deku doesn’t rebuff anything and once again passes the tough decisions onto other people. With Hawks appearance here at the end and his baggage about killing Twice, I can very easily see cleaning up the commission as becoming his motivation going forward. Once again resolving Deku of actually needing to make hard calls or form stances.

This is compounded by the fact AFO just blows Nagant up. It really doesn’t matter if you rebuff anything that AFO has said or offered to convince Nagant to join you, there’s no way she’d work with him after he attempts to kill her. Which feels like it undercuts this conversation about morally gray society.

Look we all know that AFO is evil. The audience knows and this is absolutely what he would do, but if you’re trying to give all of the illusion that we’re finally confronting issues with society and bringing this up and why we would get people loyal to AFO or people like the liberators or people like stain. And trying to sway someone away, then just having him nuke them for having a change of opinion. then it undercuts any actual ambiguity of a clash built on addressing moral grayness. Which I feel is always been one of the strengths of MHA.

I was not expecting Deku to have a thesis on how he plans to dismantle the shady parts of society. Or go full Eren Yeager and become his own revolutionary. But when confronted by a villain who isn’t like Shigaraki or Toga or Twice, who fell through the cracks in the system and needed a safety net like Deku wants to be, Nagant was a part of the system. The corruption of society runs deep in her motivation and Deku doesn’t really address it beyond acknowledging its flaws. And yet his actions of “true heroism” are enough to sway her. It just feels incomplete. There is a brief line that you can interpret of him wanting to clean up the system, but it feels way too short for a moment like this. Deku being confronted by all the darkness of a system he admires should cause him to make some kind of stance.

And no, I’m not going to speculate on if Lady Nagant is actually dead and this will finally forced Deku to take a firmer stance or what have you. I do want to keep these discussions at least relative to when they are released and in this moment the thing that wins over Nagant is the same “save everyone”/“inspiration by example” Deku usually does. Which doesn’t feel as satisfying a conclusion as it could be.

Not helped by a good chunk of this chapter being taken up by explaining all the bits and bobs of OFA’s power system and finally explaining what exactly his third quirk does. This feels like padding when I wanted the space could’ve been used for character dialogue or a continuation of their conversation about the status quo.

I do want to repeat though that there is nothing outwardly bad with this chapter. There is no real objective failure in the writing. It’s just a case of, “ this could be stronger.” And that’s the frustrating part.

Tl;dr there’s a lot of things that are good about this chapter from a technical and narrative level. The natural progression of characters and the switching of allegiance makes sense.  however it’s just all shy of really living up to a lot of the stuff it sets up about society and going back to the status quo. As Deku doesn’t seem to have any real concrete stance beyond his usual.

And because a lot of the things around it are very good it makes it a lot more noticeable when it doesn’t quite stick the landing. Not helped by what feels like nothing more than padding with the explanation of quirk ability instead of character introspection about this very legit and difficult revelation. There is nothing outwardly bad, it’s one of those cases of something that could be an 8-9/10 ends up more as a 5-6/10.

That’s my opinion at least. But I am extremely interested in seeing where Hori goes with this. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time.

[theseerasures]

Hey just wanted to know if you had any thoughts on the Ironwood vs Winter solo fight's purpose after the end of the Season and the Penny -> Winter power transfer happening. Also does Salem getting hit with lightning count as an additional increment on Winter's blindspot attacks counter?

sadly i am never WITHOUT thoughts on this topic

i’ve already written quite a bit on Winter vs. Ironwood, both before and after (you can tell i’m an academic bc my blog comes with required reading!!!), so to sum up: what’s neat about the fight is that even though everything except the VERY broad strokes of the outcome (i.e. Winter victory and Winter...sad) came utterly out of left field, it remained perfectly in line with the thematic throughline i laid out beforehand.

in the days after the episode aired i’ve seen a number of not...bad per se, but...ungood? ungood’s probably the word i’m most comfortable with using here--that critique the fight for ultimately coming down to Sword gets beaten by Gun gets beaten by Magic Nuke. i say that these takes aren’t bad because they’re not like. basing everything on bad faith power scaling bullshit that doesn’t exist, but i don’t agree with them because they reduce the show to flat axes of morality where everything in show has to have a Watsonian-plot justification and that in turn has to be translated into a specific didacticism about how our world should work.

here’s the thing: the outcome of Ironwood vs. Winter is a WRITERLY decision, more than a lot of other fights in this show are writerly decisions, because the fight was a life-or-death struggle between two members of the principal cast. it’s about the abused throwing off her abuser a la Blake vs. Adam, it’s about the future throwing off the past a la Cinder vs. Ozpin (a comparison that i made before i was aware of the extent they’d play it to the hilt! hahahaaaaa), and above all it’s about isolation.

*gingerly sidesteps the obvious Elsa joke* Ironwood is all about romanticizing his loneliness: when he talks about sacrifice he’s talking about how no one likes him anymore, how no one is grateful, and Winter is in the process of shaking off his influence over her, particularly in this arena. so every iteration of this fight imaginable HAD to ramp up to a point where Winter is backed into a corner, alone, and Ironwood has her at his mercy, because that is the only satisfying way for it to go from a character/narrative perspective. there had to be a moment where we’d think that Winter would lose, where Winter would think she’d lose, specifically because she was alone--because she reached out to people who could help her, but too late. that was the whole point of the setup in Worthy: that she got so close to reaching her family before Ironwood delayed her.

the consequences of Winter’s self-isolation--however heroic it was, to give everyone a head start--had to reach a crisis point. i had assumed that there were two ways to go from here: either Winter would die (unlikely), or she would be forced to rely on herself to survive, and kill a part of her in the process (a la Cinder vs. Rhodes). the show, as per usual, Took the Third Option, so that when we thought Winter was alone, when WINTER thought Winter was alone...someone came for her. salvation didn’t come on a motorbike this time, but it came anyway. ultimately Winter “lost” her solo fight against Ironwood for the same story reason as when she got knocked out early in the fight against Cinder last season (which i remember there being...similar umbrage over): so Penny would save her, so Winter would know that she could be saved.

(and if you want a thematic reason for why Penny is coming back instead of reasons of plot mechanic...this is the most compelling one for me by far, because it’s an affective strand that deserves closure.)

so like: on paper yes, Winter won that fight because she got a power boost, but on a thematic level that’s not what that resolution hinged on. ultimately, Winter won that fight because she fights for her friends (as opposed to James, who makes it explicitly clear in this fight that he fights for himself), because Penny is part of her. even when Penny is no longer physically present, Winter carries Penny in her, and she always has.

to end on a somewhat...belletristic note: i love making fun of Winter’s blue glitter cloud because i’m me, and i think the most practical reading of it is probably that it’s a snow effect. but--and maybe it’s because we see it right before she gets the Maiden powers--something about it always makes me think of how Aura dissipates from the body, and the particle effects ARE pretty much the same shade as Winter’s Aura. it could be read, then, that Winter, a person who has tried to deny her humanity and self-worth at every turn, is now flying on soul stuff.

Penny gave her that gift.

[zeta-in-de-walls]

Themes in the Dream SMP

Hey guys, I’m kind of into analysis. I tend to like examining character motivations and why they take certain actions rather than speculating on lore and theories. Heh but right now the fandom is flooded with egg speculation. I am very curious about the egg and where the story might lead though! So I thought I’d look at it in terms of themes the story might end up exploring. 

Themes are certain ideas/concept that keeping coming up in a work and get explored. Good themes can be traced from the very start of a work and carry on through to the end - they’re like threads that run through a work. Strong themes can help a story to feel more coherent and satisfying with the way they can tie a work together. Now the Dream SMP may be a bit of an improv roleplaying server but somehow a few themes can end up cropping up anyway.

What themes are there in the Dream SMP?

Here’s a few I identified, I guess they are topics that interest me? Also certain POVs may have different themes. I don’t watch Fundy myself but I’m pretty sure his viewpoint has some strong themes that are rather unique to his story. Certain arcs may have very strong themes as well which aren’t explored over the narrative as a whole.  

-Power/control. A very common theme in stories. What drives many characters is to seek out power, either to have control over their own lives, or over others. The leadership of L’manburg was hugely important in S1. And now many individuals are hungry for power especially the powerless who have been pushed around by others for so long.

-Corruption. Linked to the above. Often when seeking power, people can become corrupted by it and their ability to control others with it. Dream is an excellent example. Wilbur as well. Technoblade believed corruption was inevitable and that any concentrated power was bad. But is it inevitable? Or were the systems just a little flawed? Is a way to handle power sensibly?

-Words over violence. More of a S1 theme but I’d love to see it explored more. L’Manburg most notable was not wearing armour because they believed in fighting battles with their words, not violence. Technoblade challenged this, believing violence is the only way to be really understood.

-Attachment. This is a very strong theme, one really ties the whole story together well. It’s most explored in the Tommy vs Dream conflict but it’s also noted that every character get attached to things and that’s what so often drives conflict. Yet these attachment can also inspire and unite people. Dream sees attachments as a way to control others. Attachments are both a strength and a weakness.

-Complacency/Neutrality The server is marked by many wars but in every conflict there are those who stay on the sides. Those people may see this as a strength but those who stay neutral are most in danger of being forgotten. Likewise, staying neutral may be allowing disaster to happen. In Doomsday one striking thing was how many people stood on the sidelines. L’Manburg was not merely destroyed, but abandoned. And now with the egg, it’s been in the background for a long time and it’s been overlooked. Now people are finally paying attention but is it already too late?

-Seeking Peace. After all the conflict on the server, many character long for a lasting peace. Both Tubbo and Tommy just want to have a quiet life, with Tommy staying independent and working on his little project while Tubbo builds Snowchester as a safe haven with nukes to discourage any who wish to challenge his peace. Dream also had his vision for a peaceful server by way of him attaining absolute control over everyone, crushing any sort of defiance. And now the egg, it means to take over the world and in doing so will try to unite everyone under its control. The people will lose their free will but it may mean an end to conflict too.

-Choosing People over sides. An interesting yet messy theme which became prominent with S2. When two people are in conflict is it possible to help both? Or are you inevitably choosing a side? Or is this just another impossible view of utopia where everyone is united under the same side, (like Dream envisioned) and there is no need for any conflict?

-Revenge/Forgiveness. When someone hurts you, can you reconcile or should you seek retribution? Once you suffer a betrayal is that relationship broken or can it be fixed? Does you own pain justify hurting others? What is too far? What is justice? Probably not the most consistent theme but I really like the few times when this topic does get explored.

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So, those are a few concepts that stick out to me about the Dream SMP. There’s probably more (like I was kinda thinking on one about history repeating itself/destiny or something about becoming what you hate maybe) also yeah, themes are probably not necessarily consciously thought of by the writers but that doesn’t mean they don’t end up trying to fulfil the themes and ideas that their story has started exploring.

SO that said, i think it’d be very cool if the egg arc really starts to challenge some of these themes. What’s interesting was how Bad, I believe, chose the egg because it had Skeppy and he wantd to be with his best friend. I wonder if perhaps therefore the egg will continue to use people’s desires to control them. 

It creates an interesting parallel with Dream, trying to get people attached so he could control them. I wonder if Dream has any connection to the egg. It was discovered a long time ago now, during the Pogtopia arc I believe(?) and maybe that reflects Dream’s descent into villainy when he began to stop caring for his friends. and the eggs been so much more present this season as Dream’s also become increasingly detached. Maybe it means nothing. Either way it’s interesting how love and attachment may be used against the characters again in this fight against the egg. And whether love and trust in others might be a way to defeat it? 

I also found something poetic about how they placed vines within L’Manburg’s crater and its one of the places its growing very vigorously. It was once a place with so many memories and with so much meaning and in its place we have the egg. 

As I alluded to above, if the egg were to consume everything, there would be no more sides, no more conflict, everyone would be united in one ‘big, happy, family’ and there would be peace. Yet it’s like a warped vision of their beloved SMP. It’s peace, yes, but not the kind of peace anyone wants. The egg is terrifying. 

And its spreading and it’s going to affect everyone. (And if they can’t be infected they will be killed.) So the time for neutrality must end! The people couldn’t band together to save L’Manburg because they’d lost faith in it, but it’s not too late to save the SMP if everyone were to band together and fight for the server they all love. Many of them did it once to imprison Dream. To do this, they might have to put old grudges aside, but it can be done. 

As to why it affects people differently, I think we’ll be given an explanation. I’d be intrigued if it was to do with attachment or maybe something about power and corruption. (Metawise I’m pretty sure Tommy was unaffected because it woud seriously muddle his character to have a supernatural force messing with his head when his story had been a somewhat realistic depiction of manipulation and you do not want those two to mix and harm the impact of the exile arc.) But yeah, not sure what the reason is right now, but I figure they have one in mind already.

I’m liking this Egg arc. It seems like its been really well-planned and set up so I’m looking forward to seeing it all realised as I bet they have some great plans ahead and they potential for it to fit in with the existing themes would be amazing and again help the SMP as a whole to feel really satisfying and cohesive. If it wants to be wildly different of course, that can be great too, but everything seems very cool. Do love how it involves a huge cast of characters too - it’s very ambitious!

[dreamsmp-au-ideas]

Fire emblem AU

The third and final house is The Red Ravens House, where those from The Badlands Kingdom reside! (Also the route with the best exclusive boss music we get freaking dubstep in our medical fantasy game. Three house’s ost is so good oh my gosh)

The Badlands was the first to break away from the SMP, albeit in a more peaceful manner. Badland’s territory connects to the foreign nation of Errata and the two nations have had many clashes at their border. However, something odd is happening in Badlands. Mysterious red vines have started covering small villages and wiping out crops. It’s being kept secret by the king so that Badlands doesn’t appear weak. The Kingdom only has so much land however and the problem can’t be ignored forever. The Raven is chosen because of its cunning and willingness to do whatever is needed to survive. This years Red Ravens consist of the following

Bad-Bad is the prince of The Badlands and set to be its next king. Bad’s father is a decent king but his main flaw is his refusal to work with Errata due to them being enemies for a very very long time. Bad hopes that when he becomes king he can end the fighting between Badlands and Errata. He knows that their Kingdom needs help because of the new vines problem. Bad is seen by his father and royal court as too much of a softie and they hope he will toughen up at the monastery. Bad is one of the nicest people at the monastery and he is considered a bit of an oddball, such as his dislike of any swearing. Despite this, Bad is not to be underestimated. While he’d rather have a peaceful outcome to problems, he’s still willing to fight to protect his kingdom. Bad has strengths in bows, riding and flying. He has a weakness in axes. Bad has one crest

Skeppy- Skeppy is Bads retainer and best friend. However, it didn’t start out that way. Skeppy was an orphan commoner who was forced to do crime to survive. He would go from village to village and steal from the richest people there. One day, Skeppy was hired to steal a rare book from the royal families castle. While he really didn’t want to, winter was coming and he needed the money to survive. Long story short he gets caught by the king who is about to kick him out. That is, until Bad happens to spot him and asks his father if Skeppy can stick around because he looks hungry and needs a friend. Skeppy works as a servant in the castle for years and he becomes the best friend of Bad. It helps that Skeppy now has a place to stay and three whole meals everyday. Eventually, Bad asks if Skeppy is willing to train to be his retainer and Skeppy says yes. Despite Skeppy messing with Bad a lot, they’re still best friends and Skeppy does feel he owes him a lot. As a result of this, Skeppy is very loyal to Bad and doesn’t like hearing what all the adults are saying about him. He hopes that when Bad becomes king he won’t change too much. Skeppy is the biggest prankster and has a love of making puzzles. Skeppy has strengths in bows and swords. He has a weakness in heavy armor. He has no crest

Sam- Sam is a minor noble whose family is famous for scientific discoveries. It was his grandfather who invented a device that determined what crests people had. Before, people had to be put in dangerous combat for the crest to activate. Sam studies magic so that he can invent new spells to make lives better. He was raised by his grandfather and feels he has big shoes to fill. Sam is considered a dad friend among his classmates and is good friends with Puffy. He’s that guy who won’t directly give you the answers to homework but will help you with it. Collects texts that the church has deemed inappropriate. Sam has strengths in reason(lighting) and riding. He has a weakness in faith. He has one crest

Ant-Ant is a minor noble who lived in a small village close to the border. A couple of months ago, his village was one of the first to be overtaken by the vines. Many of the people of his village mysteriously disappeared after they claimed that the vine were to be worshipped. Ant is at the monastery so that he can hopefully find a cure for the vines. He worries that he has been infected and doesn’t know it yet. Ant is a more distant type and appears to have dislike for Bad. This is due to bitterness at Bad’s father for not wanting to confront the problem and being more focused on fighting Errata. He also thinks Bad is just pretending to be nice at first. Ant does eventually warm up to Bad, but he’s still the most likely to challenge him if he feels he is making a bad decision. Ant has strengths in bows,riding,and faith. He has a weakness in flying. Ant has one crest

Punz- Punz is a part of a mercenary group. His goal is to be the next leader of the group. Leaders are chosen by beating the current leader in a sparring match. Punz is at the Monastery so that he can get the best training possible. Punz is well known for being the one who trains a lot. He’s also known for being willing to do almost anything for some cash. He’s the guy you go to if you want to buy a homework assignment. While some of his classmates fear he would sell them out for the right amount of money, his true friends know that...well, if you’re a friend he won’t sell you out but otherwise ehhh. Basically, Punz was raised by his mercenary family to not trust easily. Once someone proves they are trustworthy, make sure to repay that trust tenfold. That’s the mercenary way. Punz has a strength in swords and heavy armor. Weakness in bows. He has no crest

Purpled- Purpled belongs to a family of merchants. Him and Punz actually knew each other before going to the monastery because their two families work together when traveling to protect each other. Purpled’s family is also unique in another way. Their family lived in the foreign nation of Loxbor and have only recently come to Carmine. This is because Carmine is considered to have more variety in resources. Purpled is smart and very business savvy. He’s at the monastery mostly to make new connections, hopefully with nobles. While he was a bit annoying with the nobles in his class at first, he eventually learned that the best way to get allies is to just treat them like normal people. Purpled does look up to Punz and Punz in turn teaches him some of his sword techniques. Purpled also sometimes get his family’s products in the mail and will advertise it to the students. Purpled is a nice and smart guy even if he can act a bit callously. Purpled has strengths in reason and axes. He has a weakness in faith. He has no crest

If Karl teaches The Red Ravens, the main plot is les s focused on winning the war and more focused on taking care of the the whole egg situation. Probably more lighthearted than the other routes.

There are 21 chapters in this route. In the 18th chapter there’s a decoy egg that is set. What the group thinks is that a certain spell needs to be performed by two people, one of whom has to have whatever Bad’s crest is called. So, that chapters mission is getting Bad and one other Red Raven(besides Karl but other than him whoever you send over there) to the decoy egg and doing the spell. Then, it is revealed that it is a trap! The spell actually causes Bad and the other person become overtaken by the egg.

19th chapter is when the person decided by you is saved by destroying an egg that is near them. That person vaguely remembers where Bad went and so the army goes after him.

20th chapter is rescuing Bad, which basically means you have to defeat him and the egg that is with him (which would be a pain gameplay wise probably). So, Bad is knocked out and when he wakes up he knows where the main egg is located.

The 21st chapter actually starts when the Red Ravens have broken into the main egg and have to fight whatever is inside it and ready to hatch out. Honestly, I think it would be really cool gameplay wise to have the final battle set in the egg. You can do a lot with that visually.

Also in that chapter where TWSITD send javelins of light (nukes) on Fort Mercues, it’s instead this huge seed that comes down on the fort and completely covers it in red vines in like a minute or two.

After seeing this Bad gives everyone permission to say one swear word right then and there.

There’s also a point where Bad helps Errata with the egg and they in turn send soldiers and supplies. So, yay peace!

So yeah that’s all houses done! Now, what’s next I wonder?

Holy hell. Okay. That’s great. That’s honestly great.

This is the arc I would be playing the most if it were a game and that’s solely because of the characters and everything.

Love all the little things in here too!

As for what’s next, well, assuming that it isn’t a rhetorical question, then uh...I don’t know why and it’s highly impossible but now I’m just thinking of trying to find a way where I can get everyone to be happy.

Fuck. I love all of them too much and now I’m attached to them all.