#imo the foreshadowing is pretty blatant

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Hey, I was wondering why you think Roxy was destined to end up with Eridan? I get the shared wizard interest and the quirk foreshadowing I guess, but that still seems like a large stretch. It's kinda like saying that Equius and Dirk are going to end up together because they both like robots and horses. It's just seems like the sort of character remixing that Hussie uses a lot in Homestuck. But what do you think?

Roxy

- fucking LOVES WIZARDS

- is a hipster and literally wears a colorswapped version of eridans scarf

- is pink and bubbly

- uses riflekind

- has a perfectly opposite powerset to eridan (can create anything by stealing its void away vs. can destroy anything with pure belief) and are connected to each other through the matriorb

- has a crush on a troubled, eccentric prince so you know that's her type

- quirk cameo with momlonde

Eridan

- Is a wizard

- Is a hipster and literally wears a colorswapped version of roxy's scarf

- Uses riflekind

- Had a huge crush on Feferi, a bubbly pink girl whom he (wrongly) believed to be so nice she might not even be capable of pitch, so we know that's his type

- The equal and opposite powerset & quirk cameo

At the end of the day I can't tell you what to ship, nor am I interested in making anyone ship anything, but I'm kind of just saying, the things that make Roxy predisposed to liking Eridan are, like, the biggest parts of her character, and Eridan is very easy & would pretty much say yes to anybody, but Roxy is also definitely His Type and Eridan is a simp who thrives under any sort of positive attention & would do anything someone asked if they were giving him positive feedback. or attention at all. case in point kanaya fucking hates him but at least she talks to him and he's constantly praising the shit out of her

Jane and Jake also have their introductions IMMEDIATELY followed by talking about how they've got a thing for "cobalt" hunks and "cerulean babes" respectively, so setting up roxy with eridan also fits into a pattern of the b2 kids being set up to date a dead troll. still rereading this part of the comic, but it really jumped out to me how blatant it was for jake and jane

[terramythos]

Work was slow and it is once more time to step into tlu blogging and we are still trans about it. In fact this one is quite the doozy! We get to explore this story with more dialogue than before.

No specific commentary on this i just like it

#31 coming in strong!

Im aware that this is a reference to myths with this specific trope. However I feel I must count it in the spirit of this reading. #32

Number 33 and WOOF. To be honest this one is pretty blatant.

Oh you KNOW this is #34 BTW

This one like kind of hurts and is also 35.

The transition (hah) of her eyes. #36

This counts as #37 (!) To me.

Another very blatant one imo, #38. The cat can see who you truly are, despite appearances? Come the fuck on

FORESHADOWING IS A LITERARY DEVICE IN WHICH--

we have 4 chapters left! And the next one has haggard's monologue, a personal fave.

[delilahprofitt]

-I found Bloodrayne uploaded to youtube in hd so it's next on my watchlist. I skipped around the timline to see if it really was or it just wanted to me to visit a website that would give me a virus, and I did catch a glimpse of the Mrod accent. In love already

-I think you posted about having a physical copy of The Assignment, but I found it on some russian youtube site. It's a good place to find a lot of Mrod movies in hd tbh. Tubi also has a bunch and it works with adblockers and screen recorders.

-I would have loved to see Frank sitting in a back corner with his drink at the bar, staring at the table when Johnnie comes up to hit on him and he looks like a deer in headlights. It definitely seems implied that he came up to her, but watching him sit there looking like his brain can no longer form thoughts would have been infinitely better

-The look on Johnnie's face when Frank first fucks her deadass startled me during the first watch. It is like Awkward Fuck Frankie to not be able to read that look, though. Man breaks out "I'm not a mind reader" regularly but he just straight up can't read blatant tone or facial expressions because he only interacts with people for work

-It doesn't seem like he was too into her during that first coffee, but I guess he could have started chickening out on trying to connect and that's why he drops the "I'm leaving town real soon" right after he gets her number. I needed more of a "Fuck, what's wrong with me?" look on his face after she leaves I think

-Frank already has pretty chunky heels on his boots when you see him tape the extra bullet on at the beginning lol. I think he should be put in platforms personally. Or those boots Letty wears during Race Wars

-Loving every new addition to the rewrite you're sharing. Perfect expansion on Johnnie's character. I'll always find joy in bad films and it's nice to see them get made into something legitimately interesting

hi assignment anon! if you watch bloodrayne i'll have to rename you

imo it's worth watching just for katarin/rayne potential and also the fact that every single other woman is wearing a vaguely period gown. when rayne's original crop top and capris combo gets destroyed the stronghold tailor (who presumably also makes katarin's clothes) immediately makes her a second even sluttier crop top and capri set so i imagine it's just one tortured man with prophetic visions of y2k. also the guy playing katarin's very campy dad gives a performance that is actually decent. which makes him stick out like a sore thumb lol

i've been watching the shitty blurry youtube version so i don't have to deal with my dvd player so i might switch to the russian one! i dunno if it's the sound quality or just the performance but half the time with the one i have i CANNOT figure out what honest john is saying

at first i thought maybe frank couldn't see johnnie's face because he's staring at himself in the mirror (side note: because the version i'm watching is so low quality i had to watch him rip the condom open with his teeth like four times because i mistakenly thought he was tearing off his fake moustache) and it was meant to be foreshadowing that she had an ulterior motive. but then she literally gives him that look so i don't know what was going on there

maybe it's supposed to be sultry? or he's just not thinking. i imagine about ninety percent of the blood flow in his body goes to keeping that cock up and running. once his system wasn't trying to support that anymore i bet it was like that movie where scarlett johansson unlocks one hundred percent of her brain's capacity

anyway setting sexual chemistry aside after writing my own ending i'm honestly more miffed that frank and johnnie didn't end up together!! i dunno why he couldn't forgive her seeing as she was the world's least effective informant and didn't impede his plans in any way. (also, how long did honest john know about that? the whole time, right? if i were him maybe i would have asked johnnie to try to prevent frank from fucking killing all my men! i assume john promised the doctor he wouldn't kill frank but once frank started picking off his guys i feel like john could have reneged on that deal.) if i were making a movie about a hitman getting REVENGE and calling it REVENGER'S TALE then maybe for character development reasons i would have him forgive someone at the end but i guess it's supposed to be meaningful that he's leaving johnnie alone in reno and not seeking REVENGE on her

my new theory is that he fell in love with johnnie as soon as she used the word "fuck buddies" because he's so jersey that "buddies" is the only kind of relationship he can conceive of

mm, letty's new rocks. i feel like i'm cheating on her and mia a little bit but i gotta get frank and johnnie out of my system

this rewrite is honestly just for you and me and maybe like two people browsing the "medical experimentation" tag. it'll be up by...monday, maybe? i've written maybe 30 scenes out of 69 (nice). full warning i have no idea how to write a screenplay. i have learned a lot about custom ao3 workskins, lol. so it'll at least be in courier new

<3 <3 <3

(thank you for the link!)

[haleigh-sloth]

What Present Mic said to Shiragiri in this chapter bothered me, and I know it's best to wait until the full translation but I doubt the translation is going to make it sound better I'm pretty sure it's going to be the same thing still. I'm tired of the villians being dehumanized.

It's good that it bothers you, because it's supposed to.

Mic was never the one who was going to be super tied to ShiraGiri's influence on the battlefield. That was always, always Aizawa.

Mic is barely a character. I mean he's been there from the beginning, but beyond knowing his attachment to Shirakumo and Aizawa, he doesn't have much to him. So it wouldn't have made sense for him to have an open mind.

Not to mention, I feel like people forget this actually, look at the difference in his and Aizawa's reactions to Aoyama:

Mic has a slightly averse reaction to Aizawa saying he "feels the same as the kids" (foreshadowing much?). And then:

Mic says this, meanwhile Aizawa:

I mean, imo Mic hasn't earned the "suddenly an open minded old gen hero ready to change the status quo" role in the story. I expect him to ultimately side with Aizawa and the kids in the end, but only because that story calls for it and not because his character was necessarily built up to it.

That talk Aizawa had with Aoyama is so obviously meant to be repeated later...to someone else.

"I feel the same as the kids". Blatant foreshadowing for Aizawa. Not to mention him thinking about Kurogiri RIGHT then and there when he is saying those things. It's almost like he knows this speech might apply to more than just Aoyama, at some point, somehow.

Look at all the adult characters who have relevance and impact on the plot: All Might, Endeavor, Aizawa, and Gran Torino. Out of those characters, the only one who has the same type of arc as the kids who will save the villains is Aizawa. ShiraGiri is his villain. It's pretty much the exact same type of set up.

He has to reconcile the current version of his villain with who they used to be. Midoriya sees the crying kid inside Shigaraki, so the next step is tying that kid to the person Shigaraki turned into, and helping those two parts of him reconcile--thus he is saved. Shouto knows Touya is his brother, and by god he is TRYING to view him as Touya, but he keeps treating him as Dabi. He's trying. Toga, same story. She was a normal teenager like Ochacko, experiences the same feelings as her. Ochacko has to accept Toga for who she is now by acknowledging who she used to be.

Aizawa---it's exactly the same. Accept ShiraGiri for who he is. Someone different, but still the person he knew in his childhood nonetheless.

Mic doesn't have that ingrained into his arc. He's kinda just there, and he's presenting the opposing ideals that are set up to eventually be shut down later. He sounds like Gran Torino--"death is better". We as readers know BNHA doesn't believe that. So his beliefs will be shut down later.

[eemcintyre]

Random thoughts I had during my fifth viewing of the cinematic masterpiece "Cocktail" (1988)

Well... more like my 5 2/3 viewing bc I got like 2/3 through it and then my mom was like "why didn't you tell me you were gonna watch it, I would have wanted to watch it too" so I lied about how far I was through it "there's still a lot left we can start it over" and I watched the same movie almost twice in a row in the span of a few hours :)

"Wild Again" by Starship is one of the only good songs tbh, although "Addicted to Love" and "When Will I Be Loved" are also pretty alright. But the soundtrack is lowkey horrendous imo

I stand by my previous standalone post- no one has ever been that excited to get on a fkin Greyhound bus

Benefit of the bus, however- the scene with him and the baby; I feel like Tom just vibes really well w kids because he's such a smiley, fun, and chaotic lil guy and gREAT now I have baby fever again thx 💖

Oh the blatant plot exposition about his parents that they beat us over the head with oh-so-subtly

Oh the foreshadowing throughout that is even less subtle

One of my favorite quotes in any movie, bc it makes me feel better about my life being in disarray and not knowing what to do about it, I guess, is the “Most things in life, good and bad, just kinda happen to ya.”

Tom's still got his high little baby voice 😩

Even as a college graduate, the interviewing scene hits way too hard 🥲😩

Someone needs to acknowledge that the Red Eye looks like the most disgusting thing

Wish the dress shirt and tie fit had been featured more because it does things to me, but the scenes contrasting his first and second shift at the bar are when I first developed TC brain rot and fell in love w that lil goofball

I can’t judge the girl giving him the "fuck me eyes" bc have you seen him, plus she’s showing restraint compared to what I would do tbh

The adult learners usually drove me nuts in my classes (which I know is terrible but shhhhh) but I felt so bad for Sheila Rivkin

This professor really thinks he’s doing standup comedy or smth

Honey don’t put your face on the subway stairs that's arguably more disgusting than a Red Eye

The timeline of this movie is pretty hard to follow tbh; much as I adore it, you never know every time a scene changes whether it's been two days or like 3 months

What the actual fuck was the whole yuppie poet thing about- it's like when I used to watch those 60s Frankie and Annette movies where the weirdest shit would just happen for no reason and I felt like there was some social commentary or inside joke or smth that was just going way over my head that, if I had existed in that time, would have just been like "oh yeah that makes total sense"

The amount of raw sexual energy that this man exudes- I remember someone's post from a while back that was like "why is Cocktail like a 'mom' movie that all the moms are still obsessed with" but just like imagine if you saw this in theaters when it first came out

The only man allowed to wear beach shirts and look sexy, change my mind

I've always thought Elisabeth Shue is so incredibly underappreciated as an actress, smth about her line delivery and expressions just seems very genuine and naturalistic idk

She just orders “a beer” WHAT KIND???

So scary tbh how much he was becoming like Doug even being apart from him for a while

The side eye and shade Jordan gives Doug in this scene cracks me up every time without fail

The reggae singer absolutely popping tf off in his silver lamé suit ✨

Brian and Jordan both pulling the “I’m not like other girls” lmao

Sure she’s lowkey a manic pixie dream girl but I still love her

WATCH THE ROAD WHILE U DRIVIN THE CAR BRIAN 😤

If this movie was remade in modern times (God forbid) Brian would 100% be one of those guys with a hustle culture boss up motivational entrepreneur Instagram account. And Doug would perhaps be one of those cringy creepy pickup artists that talks about low-value women and compares them to horses and thinks he can mind-trick them into falling madly in love w him

If someone was waking me up early every morning to drink carrot juice I would commit crimes

The artist guy who made that exhibit looks like the oiliest man I’ve ever seen

Jordan’s dad says “bartender” like it’s a slur

When Brian tears up the check it always makes my lil heart just 💗💫🥺 the character evolution

Why did I only have this thought on my like fifth viewing of this movie, but I wonder if he hadn’t escorted Kerry back to her apartment if he would have gotten back in time to save Doug, and then who knows what would’ve happened bc then he wouldn’t have felt compelled to tell Jordan how much he really loved her and ask Pat for help and all that

WHEN HE FIGHTS EVERYONE OFF TO GET TO JORDAN what can I say, I'm a sucker for grand and melodramatic romantic gestures and proclamations of love

The teasing and singing along at the wedding is getting a little too real guys stop making this awkward 👀😬

I don’t care how unrealistic the end is, and that in real life they would have 100% soon gotten divorced, bc I want to believe that people can change and that all of the tribulation was worth it + enough for Brian to become a good dad/husband and successful but with it not being above and at the expense of his family; he would be such a fun and chaotic dad and their life would be so hectic w twins but I want to believe they could do it :( it comforts my cynical and depression-addled brain to believe they could do it :(

[queenaryastark]

I don't understand what GRRM is doing with AA. As the books progress it becomes more obvious that Stannis is the fake while Dany is the real deal. The foreshadowing for Dany as AA is overwhelming. Yet, in ADWD he throws in blatant foreshadowing for Jon as AA through Melisandre. Surely GRRM isn't having Stannis be a red herring for Dany who is then a red herring for Jon? But it doesn't make sense to introduce Jon as a contender this late in the game either if Dany is AA. Am I overthinking this?

I agree with you that the foreshadowing for the Azor Ahai prophecy seems to lead to Daenerys. She has already filled the prophecy, technically, with Drogo as Nissa Nissa and her three dragons being Lightbringer. The only foreshadowing that points to Jon is this passage:

Yet now she could not even seem to find her king. I pray for a glimpse of Azor Ahai, and R'hllor shows me only Snow. -- ADWD

In my opinion, there are three possible explanations for this: a) Snow being capitalized is a typo and all she sees is actual snow, which Stannis is swimming in at the moment, b) her visions aren’t accurate and she’s being manipulated by the fire side of the main villain, or c) the AA prophecy is meant to be filled by more than one character, with Jon and Dany being two of the characters meant to fill it.

IMO, b an c are the most likely options.

I do see the possibility that Mel is serving the fire side of the main villain to be pretty high. She’s often wrong, she burns people alive, she wants to burn an innocent kid alive, the power of her god creates what GRRM referred to as fire wights meaning they’re the fire version of the wights the Others are creating, and she sees Bran/Bloodraven as the enemy of her god. All of that together makes me think she’s an unknowing pawn in the service of the main villain(s). Since her visions mislead her even though she’s an extremely old veteran of the process, she’s probably being actively misled. So when she sees Jon or Snow, that could be a way of manipulating her into turning Jon into a fire wight the way Beric was.

My hope is that Dany, Jon, Bran, Arya, and Tyrion are all chosen ones on some level meant to work together to defeat the great enemy.  Since Dany needs two other riders for her Lightbringer dragons, any of the other four could fit the bill.

[cannotescape]

Thoughts on The ballad of songbirds and snakes

I was curious to read the latest installment in the hunger games saga and I wasn’t disapointed. I’ll try to stay spoiler free in the review. In any case, the spoilers will be after a read more.

Many successful YA authors has been revisiting their work these past years. I... wasn’t impressed by most of them. The only sequel I’ve read that was worth the original work was La belle sauvage imo (not the entire Book of Dust series, sadly).

After reading The ballad of songbirds and snakes, it seems that the key for writing a sequel is actually to make it a prequel lol, with 0 to 1 character from the original. Add to it foreshadowing and a few hints and you get a winner.

A Snow redemption arc?

Knowing the premise, my first fear was that Snow was going to be the protagonist. I was smelling the redemption / justification arc from miles away. But Collins isn’t Rowling and Snow isn’t Snape (there is a Snape-like character though. he’s pretty interesting). The book can be summarized in one sentence: explaining a behavior isn’t the same as excusing it.

The book put the reader through an interesting experience: should we root for Snow, knowing what he will do in the future, and how long can we excuse his behavior? My reading experience was basically me trying to guess what Collins wanted me to think. I was waiting for the end to make up my mind about the book. There were hints that made me pause and go “huh” but I truly wasn’t sure how all of this was going to end.

I understood really late that Collins just let her readers choose what they wanted to think. You want to excuse Snow? You can, there’s enough material for that, and there’s enough good people around him for you to root for him. Linking his fate to Lucy Gray’s was clever. Making us believe that they were in the same boat (the hunger theme and the attention given to food made sure of that), when they couldn’t be farther apart? Well done. I can’t believe I fell for it.

So yeah, in my mind, Snow definitely isn’t redeemed or even excused in the end. You end up hating him even more. Collins doesn’t do manicheism apparently, so you get to empathize with him. Life and people put him in a difficult situation. But his pride and the importance he has given to his family’s status is what allowed people to blackmail him into doing... things.

Hints that Snow wasn’t being redeemed:

- talking about Lucy Gray like she’s his property - his strategy of differentiating her from the districts and immediately making her a potential Capitol citizen - not visiting Clemmensia in the hospital (it was emphasized enough times to make me pause) - choosing ignorance when faced with a situation he doesn’t want to deal with (refusing to acknowledge what Tigris must have done to survive during the war) - being quick as fuck to justify killing people (self-defense, yeah, but for how long?) - being condescending against Sejanus and district born people.

2. Just another Hunger Games book?

I started reading the story thinking it was going to be a hunger games book. It’s not. First of all, the games are nothing like the future ones. For historical and plot-related reasons (they’re building the games after all). What is striking is the lack of excitement: from the audience in the Capitol, and from the readers. Collins knows how to build suspense, she proved it with the first trilogy. It made the catharsis worked 100%: we were as much the spectators of the games as the Capitol.

Removing the excitement from the games? Making them dull and exposing them as the sheer horror show they are? Bold move. I also noticed that, overall, the tributes showed more empathy than in Katniss’ games. The war ended 10 years before. They had yet to forget “who the real enemy is”.

Just like in the THG, Collins used metaphors of the games in different parts of the book. The mentors have their own games going on (with a “prize” that is often presented as a lifesaver) + what happens in the very end. It didn’t bother me. I like symbolism and the games pervading every aspects of life is a good one.

What doesn’t make this a hunger games book is also the fact that... Katniss isn’t Snow. We’re following his story but he isn’t the real protagonist. Lucy Gray is a much better candidate, but the book is an actual demonstration of what happens when the narrative is taken away from you. The third person narrator was a nice change too. I think it allowed the narrator to present his thoughts as the truth without being immediately seen as biased. Free indirect discourse also makes you forget that the thoughts being expressed are Snow’s. Until the very end, when it becomes impossible to separate him from the narrator.

3. Class analysis

The rise of the bourgeoisie / nouveaux riches vs the fall of an ancient aristocracy grasping at straws to stay in power. Classic.

I don’t remember who theorized it (Gramsci maybe? or Paretto?) but the best way for a system to stay in place is to welcome a few “exceptional” people (and the word is meaningful in the book) from the lower but rising class. The Capitol is actively implementing this policy. The war made them aware of the benefits of having allies in the districts, mainly the richest families. The end of the book emphasizes the link between bourgeoisie and aristocracy - between money and status. And the most succesful citizen will be at the intersection of them.

Bonus: mockingjays and jabberjays being metaphors of the bourgeoisie and aristocracy. Mockingjays are a district evolution of the Capitol-made jabberjays, and they’re slowy but surely taking over.

Meaningful quote: “Give it up,” he muttered to the thing. “You’re no jabberjay.”

Oh, and what happens when the decaying aristocracy doesn’t want to bulge or evolve and the rising bourgeoisie is getting tired of being refused power and privilege?! Yep, a revolution. Not saying a revolution led by the working class can’t happen (it’s basically the hunger games’ plot), but the bourgeoise / aristocracy allyship certainly can slow the process down.

4. The hanging tree

Loved to read about how the song was created. And seeing its meanings change the more the story progresses. At first a remembrance of the Capitol’s cruelty, then a way to communicate a meeting place. Finally, a mourning song about treason. The line “they said who murdered three” only hit me with its full meaning two days after finishing the book lol. The murderer wasn’t hung after all.

Meaningful quote: “Music caused trouble”. I fucking love the simple irony in all those little sentences when you know how all this will end.

Tldr: All in all, I really enjoyed this book. It gives you insight into Panem’s world (and ours let’s be honest, the parallels are blatant) and makes Katniss’ story even more powerful imo.

Also, the only love story worth mentioning was one between two girls lmao so there’s that (it’s a blink and you miss it kind of thing, but it’s there).

Spoilers under the cut (not very spoilery tbh but better be safe).

5. Lucy Gray

Like I said, the real protagonist. Her legacy has literally been erased, which is fucking heartbreaking. There’s a reason why I couldn’t remember if she was even mentioned in the original trilogy.

And yet her legacy lived on. The song she wrote not only was passed down from one generation to the next depite being immediately forbidden, but it also became the symbol of the rebellion. Same symbolism can be seen in the mockingjays, who are deeply associated with her.

I just have a lot of feelings about her and I’m happy that Katniss made everything worth it in the end. And despite being two very different characters, Katniss became her reincarnation designed specifically to haunt Snow. And I just love that Katniss doesn’t know anything of Lucy Gray. But she’s unknowingly reenacting her life. Because her legacy was that powerful. Or because everything that Snow hated in District 12 are very present in these two strong girls. Funny what an environment can do

Meaningful quotes: “Well, I hope old you doesn’t haunt new you. We’ve already got enough ghosts between us.”

“Good-bye Lucy Gray, we hardly knew you.”

“She could fly around District 12 all she liked but she and her mockingjays would never harm him again.”

6. The philosophy behind the book

Freedom vs order and security, the social contract, what an individual can do against a corrupted society, is it possible to change things from the inside? (interesting to have Plutarch’s ancestor mentioned), the elite reproduction (hi Flickerman!), what do cricumstances do to human beings (the Mary Shelley’s quote at the beginning).

Meaningful quote : “People aren’t so bad, really,” she said. “It’s what the world does to them. Like us, in the arena. We did things in there we’d never have considered if they’d just left us alone.”

[bladekindeyewear]

Random Homestuck Discourse from a perceptive friend over Discord:

Übermensch Bodhisattva:  I read through the whole Ballet of the Dancestors today

And accidentally solved it

BlastYoBoots:  the... like that section of homestuck talking about, umwhich part of 'em? their post-scratch lives or

Übermensch Bodhisattva:  The Meenah Walk-arounds.

BlastYoBoots:  hm. elaborate?

Übermensch Bodhisattva:  Okay so first thing's first: Act 6 is really divided into four quarters: Acts 1 through 3 form the first quarter, up to Caliborn Enter, and is the section where, much like Homestuck's first three Acts, the Board is unfolded, and the pieces are set.

We meet the Alpha Kids and get our intro to them, their Dynamics, and the way their game works.I don't want to get into the final two quarters right now, just the second quarter.

The Ballet of the Dancestors is in fact the Thematic foundation of Act 6 "quarter 2" and actually lays important foundational ground for all of Act 6 as a result.

If there is one overwhelming theme present in the Ballet it is the way in which we MUST critically examine stories and histories or else we will stagnate toxically.

And that is a central theme to Act 6 in general, and arguably, Homestuck as a whole.

So like, we see the Thematic framework for the Beta Kids' relationship with the Alpha kids foreshadowed in the way Karkat, Kanaya, and Terezi deal with their respective Dancestors.

Their relationship with their counterparts is a microcosm of the difficulty the Beta Kids (particularly Dave and Rose) have stemming from a feeling of inadequacy they have because of unexamined ideas about their guardians/ancestors/forebears.

And Karkat's little motivation speech to Terezi in part 2 of Meenah's walk-around adventure serves as a kind of in-story recognition of this moral; you're never living in anyone's shadow unless you decide to do that, you always get to be your own person as long as you don't make an idol a stumbling block to you.

Meanwhile, we see in the quartet of Meenah, Rufioh, Horuss, and Damara a relational/mechanical foreshadowing of the exact relationship Drama that would make emotional progress impossible for the Alpha Kids.

With Dirk and Horuss being parallels (and foreshadowing the way in which Dirk is going to be a wretchedly bad partner for Jake because he's self absorbed and primarily uses others as a canvas for his own expansion and self improvement.)

BlastYoBoots:  mhmm

Übermensch Bodhisattva:  Damara's revolt against her coplayers foreshadows the way in which Jane's jealous spite will make her ripe for manipulation by the Condesce

BlastYoBoots:  or her frustrated sense of inferiority too, kinda a mix

Übermensch Bodhisattva:  And just like Jake, Rufioh's charisma and bravado are a shallow front for a person who is spineless in terms of relationships and in terms of adventuring.Well, that's not fair to JakeI decided today that Jake doesn't get enough sympathy, the narrator does him dirty.

BlastYoBoots:  quite literally, yes

Übermensch Bodhisattva:  He had it as bad as any of the trolls and nobody shows him an ounce of compassion.

Fuck Dirk, Jake's awesome.

BlastYoBoots:  he's getting a damn good showing in hs^2, really

Übermensch Bodhisattva:  I love that screwball.

BlastYoBoots:  bonus material too

Übermensch Bodhisattva:  And uh, he needs to officially be PTSD representation what the fuck is up with What Pumpkin not addressing Jake's Trauma at all.

Jake obviously has PTSD.

A hundo percent.

Anyway I got distracted, cause I have one more point, a realization of a subtle thematic reflection that I missed

Meenah and Roxy are each others' foils.They are thematically and narratively parallel, and while they are archenemies, there is a platonically ideal sense in which they are estranged sisters.

Like Jasper and Amethyst, if you will.

BlastYoBoots:  that's a pretty good breakdown, better articulated than most of us might've half-felt playing through it  (edit: and re. jake ptsd he’s not the only one, and the story’s been pretty blatant about that imo)

you should post that on a blog somewhere

like mine

may i?

Übermensch Bodhisattva:  You may! I'll expand on my thoughts on Meenah and Roxy's relationship as foils later, probably after finishing, honestly.

BlastYoBoots:  #Random Homestuck Discordse

Übermensch Bodhisattva:  Not random at all!

I've been sort of like

Analyzing and theorycrafting my way through Homestuck

As I do my fourth read-through

And like taking note of bits and bobs I missed on my first read-through, but mostly doing overarching thematic and mechanical analyses.

One thing I've been really vindicated on is my analysis of Rose as the primary human antagonist of the first half of the story, contrasted against Vriska, who is of course the primary troll antagonist. Both anti-heroes

Both dangerous, reckless loose-canon variables who while critical to ensuring the validation of the timeline, both cause untold woe because of their rapacious grasping for agency and relevance.

BlastYoBoots:  (I forgot to mention like, when you brought up PTSD, plenty of the kids lowkey or highkey have it)

Übermensch Bodhisattva:  Both manipulated by Scratch directly

Both beloved of Kanaya

Who by the way

BlastYoBoots:  (John, Dave-- I even hoped Jade was free of it and was proven wrong by the epilogues)

Übermensch Bodhisattva:  Directly compares Rose to Vriska.

BlastYoBoots:  (even though it was obvious)

--yeah, it makes some sense

in a story about escaping Canon and relevance, it's the Light players who dig them deeper in instead

dammit i have to include this part too, more editing

Discord is a fucking bitch to paste from

[bigskydreaming]

All right, you have officially sold me on Bobby Drake. Where do I start reading?

Its a good question, lol! Honestly, it mostly just depends on how far back you want to go. I mean, he’s been around for sixty years, lol, so there’s a shit ton of appearances to wade through, and it depends on how familiar you are with the X-Men as a whole. 

If you’re not familiar with the X-Men or Marvel in general, this is actually a really good time to jump in with reading the current books without much prior knowledge. Just last year the X-books underwent a huge status quo shakeup in the two limited series House of X and Powers of X, that pretty much like....transformed their entire place in the Marvel Universe as a whole and gave them a whole new playing field that was all pretty clearly laid out within just those two series. So its a really good starting point to kinda catch up quick to where things stand now and then just branch out from there to whatever catches your interest. 

Bobby’s a main character in a book called Marauders currently, which is only on issue #6 or #7 right now, and the book is pretty central to the major happenings in the X-Men’s corner of the universe. Plus a lot of great characters in the rest of the cast - Storm, Bishop, Emma Frost, etc.

If you want to start from way far back and have a good long, consistent read, the original X-Factor (the first series, vol 1) is where I would go. I don’t think anyone really needs to read the original X-Men series from the 60s to get a handle on the characters or universe, and personally I’ve always found X-Factor a much better read using all the same characters except with the added bonus of no Xavier. As he is. The Worst. 

Between the original X-Men run and X-Factor’s debut, Bobby, Angel and Beast popped up on various other superteams, like Bobby and Angel were on the Champions together for a bit, and then the three of them were on a team called the Defenders for a while...if you can find old Defenders issues online (this would have been back in the 70s/early 80s), they’re worth checking out just for Bobby’s brief romance with a shapeshifting character named Cloud who he first met as a woman but later shifted into a man. And while they decided to just be friends at that point, given that this was the era of the Comics Code when gay relationships were ‘frowned upon,’ this was the earliest and most blatant gay-coding of Bobby, literal decades before he was made canon gay in the comics. Plus, they’re just pretty fun stories and Bobby and Cloud were super cute together.

But yeah, then X-Factor ran for a number of years without interruption, staying consistent with the same core cast of just the original five X-Men and the supporting characters they introduced in that series, like Rictor (another future famous gay X-character, just a wee punk teenager at the time, lol). It was pretty fun overall, IMO, should give anyone new to the Marvel U a pretty solid grasp of all the major players in it, and its where a lot of big names like Apocalypse made their debut. And of course, I think Bobby was well written throughout it. X-Factor was also where a couple of the things I mentioned in that post happened, like the storyline where Loki kidnapped Bobby to use his powers to make his army.

After that.....basically, the original X-Men left that title to rejoin the X-Men when Marvel relaunched the X-Men line with a brand new X-Men #1 in the early 90s....and at the same time, they kept the already existing Uncanny X-Men title going, which was around #280 at that time. 

Since they had such a huge cast of characters at that point, they split the X-Men into two fairly iconic lineups, the Blue and the Gold....the Blue team were the chronicled in the adjectiveless X-Men book, and featured Cyclops, Gambit, Psylocke, Beast, Wolverine, Rogue and others, while the Gold team were the main characters of the continuing Uncanny X-Men title from again, around #280 and onward. The Gold team was Bobby, Jean Grey, Colossus, Storm, Archangel, and then later Bishop as well, etc. 

This era was where a lot of the best Bobby stories took place, IMO. Very early after the Gold team was formed, Bobby had a mishap with Mikhail Rasputin, the older brother of Colossus, whose powers shifted Bobby into his organic ice form for the very first time, where he became living ice that he could control and shapeshift and heal, rather than just cover himself with ice. This was the beginning of them exploring the versatility of Bobby’s powers and what eventually led to them making him an omega level mutant, though even back in X-Factor they’d established that he was far more powerful than anyone had realized before that.

Then Uncanny X-Men #311 continued this and launched one of the most pivotal periods in Bobby’s development. An accident led to a comatose Emma Frost’s mind jumping into Bobby’s body and taking control, and she used his body and powers to seek revenge for the deaths of her own students, and in the process pushed his powers even further than anyone had thought possible. This is where he came to realize he could literally teleport by melting into any body of water and recreating himself anywhere else connected to that body of water, like traveling from one end of a river to another, or even across oceans instantly....as well as proving to him that he could literally get holes blown in his ice form and just fill them up with new ice and transform back into his flesh and blood self, none the worse for wear. 

This period also led to him showing up in Generation X a lot, where Emma became one of the teachers for that generation of young mutants, because during this time, Bobby and Emma like....clashed a lot, because Bobby had a lot of issues about her hijacking his body and then taking it on what was essentially a suicide run at the time, and was also resentful of her being instantly able to do things with his powers he hadn’t even conceived of with years of training with them, and Emma was....prickly at the best of times, back then even moreso than now, so she tended to taunt him with this and push his buttons by insinuating she knew more about him than he did himself, and she knew what really was holding him back all these years, etc, etc....but then they eventually formed a very unconventional but real rapport, and decades later, they still have this weird thing where they’d probably never admit to even liking each other, but they probably respect each other more than just about any other of their teammates combined. (Also, the Christian that Bobby is currently with in the comics is Emma’s older brother).

Back to Uncanny X-Men....to take his mind off of everything that the body-jacking by Emma had brought up for him, and because Rogue was having a lot of similar issues due to her new relationship with Gambit and the glimpse of various secrets of his that she’d gotten via her own powers....Bobby and Rogue decided to take a road trip together, that went on for about a dozen issues all in all, and are some of my all time favorite Bobby stories. This includes Uncanny #319, where they go visit Bobby’s parents together and Bobby tells off his dad in epic fashion (this was literally the first comic I ever read, and still one of my faves today, lol....also he made a giant ice palace off the coastline that was as big as a city and that has nothing to do with anything except for the fact that it was very pretty and very gay. Foreshadowing!)

Then there were a couple of big iconic crossover events that took over all the titles for awhile - the first was the alternate universe Age of Apocalypse event - and its worth tracking down and reading in its entirety, IMO. Definitely one of the most pivotal ‘events’ in Marvel history, but it was actually pretty good, too? LOL. And the Age of Apocalypse version of Bobby was pretty bad ass. (He returned in Rick Remender’s X-Force title about fifteen years later, but we don’t speak of Rick Remender or that return, for both are bad and wrong).

Then reality was restored, and the Onslaught crossover happened, and like.....really the only thing you need to know about that is its basically where the entire Marvel Universe teamed up to fight the evil brain baby slash hatechild of Professor X and Magneto. I’m just saying. Read it at your own peril. I’m not even saying its BAD, I’m just saying. Read it at your own peril.

Then in Uncanny X-Men #340.....that’s the issue where Bobby left the team for awhile to take care of his dad after he was almost killed at that hate rally I mentioned in one of my Bobby posts today, so I forget where the whole ‘going undercover in Graydon Creed’s campaign’ storyline started, but back up a bit from there and you’d be good to go. He and Sam (Cannonball) went undercover together and that was basically the start of the epic Bobby and Sam bromance slash subtextual romance that I still love to this day, too.

Then he was out of the books for awhile, off taking care of his dad, and didn’t really return until this big event called Operation: Zero Tolerance happened, wherein the government went after the X-Men directly and captured pretty much all their big guns, and Bobby came back to help and had to single-handedly rescue a bunch of random mutants from Sentinels and make an interim team with which to like, save the day themselves. O:ZT is actually a really good story for him, I really like how competent he was portrayed there, and also it was the introduction of Dr. CeCe Reyes, who is also a fave. She was also briefly a sorta/not sorta love interest for Bobby, that of course didn’t ultimately go anywhere. On account of, y’know. His Massive Gayness.

Then Bobby left the team again to go return to taking care of his dad, and also because certain writers hated him (though tbh, Bobby’s actually one of the longest running heroes in the Marvel U, as in....he’s spent the longest consecutive times active in various books/teams without taking breaks, compared to pretty much all other characters who aren’t Wolverine, Captain America or Spider-man. He was a constant presence in books pretty much from his creation up until the mid-90s, so like, he was due for some time-off. I GUESS. WHATEVER).

From this point, he didn’t return until a storyline called The Twelve. It was very bad, and very dumb, and you should not read it. Your brain cells will thank me later.

Then there was a miniseries called X-Men Forever - this you SHOULD read, as its where the term omega mutant was essentially coined for the first time in the way its been used ever since, and its where both Bobby and Jean found out they were omega level mutants for the first time. And Mystique and Toad and Juggernaut were also there because....idk, tbh. That was all very strange to me. But! Still! Worth a read!

Then came a veeeeery underrated Iceman solo miniseries of four issues, that is weird but also very worth tracking down as it was a great Bobby, very poignant and also kinda sad, but like. I’d highly recommend. Especially as it was pretty much the last good Bobby for awhile, with the exception of Joe Casey, who wrote a decent Bobby but a terrible Everyone Else.

Then we enter the Dark Ages of Bobby. Where everything is bad and all the writers are the worst.

First up is Chuck Austen. Bobby was a core member of his X-Men lineup, throughout his run. This is not a good reason to read Chuck Austen’s run. Do not read Chuck Austen’s run. You’re welcome.

Then there was Peter Milligan’s run. Peter Milligan’s run was not as bad as Austen’s run. This is not a good reason to read Peter Milligan’s run. Do not read Peter Milligan’s run. You’re welcome.

Then Mike Carey took over. You CAN read Mike Carey’s run. You probably even SHOULD read Mike Carey’s run. He is not perfect, but he liked Bobby and we like him for liking Bobby. His Bobby actually spoke in complete sentences and displayed more than one emotion per issue. And Supernovas is a pretty good arc and was actually where the Children of the Vault were first introduced, and they were just brought back in the most recent X-Men issue to be a recurring antagonist, so they’re like. Relevant and stuff.

And then there’s Messiah Complex, which is basically the Advent of Oh Hai, Everything’s About To Get Just Fucking AWFUL For Mutants From Here For the Next Ten Years Or So, and there’s like....blechness with Bobby and Mystique, which...I mean....all else aside, she’s Rogue’s MOM, but WHATEVER. Look, there were....plot reasons. Kinda. So. Whatever. Just blink rapidly and move on from that as quickly as you can.

You can pretty safely jump ship at that point, because Divided We Stand is No, Second Coming is Ugh, and Schism is Why. And also there’s Age of X in there somewhere, which is to be avoided because Age of X basically just wanted to be Age of Apocalypse and its not Age of Apocalypse. Just like Age of X-Man is similarly not Age of Apocalypse, and even Age of Apocalypse 2.0 is not Age of Apocalypse. Stop trying to be Age of Apocalypse, everybody. NONE OF YOU ARE AGE OF APOCALYPSE.

You may have one (1) year of Marjorie M. Liu writing Astonishing X-Men, as a treat. She wrote a great Bobby, this was where the whole ‘freezing the whole Earth, whoopsie’ thing happened, and it was a great and very underrated story.

Then post Schism there’s stuff like Wolverine and the X-Men, where Bobby’s a main character after being lured to take Logan’s side in the Schism instead of Scott’s, with the promise of Being Relevant. ‘Twas a lie. Bobby ‘twas there, but hardly relevant. And Jason Aaron is not as good a writer as advertised, since he’s mostly the one doing the advertising and like.....dude should not trust his own hype. There’s weird and whimsical, and then there’s just plain WEIRD, and most of Wolverine and the X-Men is the latter, claiming to be the former, and like. You can’t trust anyone these days.

Then comes the Era of Bendis. Die, Era of Bendis, Die. 

Do not read the Era of Bendis. Do not speak of the Era of Bendis. If the Era of Bendis bursts into flames on the street next to you, look pointedly away, and trip anyone who runs up to try and douse the Era of Bendis with a bucket of water.

Just trust me. The Bendis, and then the Hopeless (that’s the name of the actual writer who took over on All New X-Men, but it pretty well sums up the feelings of Bobby fans on the matter too, ‘twas fate), and then the Bendis again....bad, bad, bad and also Superbad, but not the movie.

You will hear promises, siren songs, of a young, teenage time-displaced Bobby Drake having his first boyfriend, an Inhuman named Romeo. THIS IS A LIE. ITS A TRICK! A TRAP! DO NOT FALL FOR IT! 

Basically everything is blah blah blahful for awhile....until the Bobby solo series by Sina Grace, which gets a bad rap, but I maintain its worth the read. Like, I’m not going to call it my favorite take on him or anything like that, but its still good fun and a vastly more competent and compelling Bobby than anything Bendis ever eked out.

And that basically catches us up to the present, where we’re at with Marauders.

So!

There you go! Umm....this was supposed to be just a brief list of arc titles to check out, but then I went and hyper-fixated like a BUFFOON, so....umm. Yeah! Have at it!

[kateofthecanals]

Idk, 'a hound will die for you' seems like pretty blatant foreshadowing, especially if we tie in the maid slaying a giant in a snow castle prophecy....methinks sandor is slated for death both books & show, but that he will have a tender romantic moment with sansa in the books before meeting his end. Show wise he's probably going to have a touching moment with Arya before she gives him ~mercy~, as was clumsily foreshadowed in their last scene together before they left for kings landing :/

I agree regarding the show but I don’t agree regarding the books. I just do not think George will go to the trouble to save him from death once just to kill him off again?? Lame. ESPECIALLY if it has anything to do with Gregor. Sandor’s whole arc in the books is about him finding a way out of his self-destructive path of hate and vengeance and towards something more noble and rewarding. Elder Bro makes it pretty clear how Sandor’s fixation on his trauma and revenge has literally ruined his life. It would only be the worst regression for Sandor to leave the Quiet Isle still seeking revenge…. against whom, exactly?? Gregor is dead, and Sandor knows this. Ser Robert Strong is a hollow husk. If they ever do cross paths, it would be the antithesis of everything George has built with this character to just have him murdered by a zombie. 

His “a hound will die for you” line is not, imo, foreshadowing his death. The way I see it, (a) it was meant to be taken as an oath to Sansa, a declaration that he WOULD put his life on the line for her if need be, and he would (and he already has), but also (b) “the Hound” is already dead. ;-)

[bthump]

I fear casca will get some kind of sickening cute fairy power up and then she will support schierke while guts fights griffith and kills him

I mean maybe lol. Personally even though I’m pretty pessimistic about the rest of the story I think there are still plenty of reasons to hope it’ll be better than that, but yk, it’s always good to prepare for the worst.

But like tbf the most blatant moments of foreshadowing are pointing in a different direction imo. Ofc maybe all the beast of darkness + armour foreshadowing, the “your wishes may not be her wishes” foreshadowing, Skull Knight’s hidden agenda, the behelit, etc, yk maybe that’ll all culminate in a conflict that will be solved with the power of friendship and then everyone will team up for a good vs evil fight.

But who knows, maybe it’ll make things interesting instead.

[kihocrystal]

Spring 2018 - Final Impressions

Sorry this post is so late (again)! I had a *really* busy July, which really didn’t help at all. But anyway, here’s my thoughts on the shows that I finished this past season! All but one are sequels, though (and the one non-sequel was a carryover from last season)... Don’t worry, I’ll watch stuff like Megalobox and Hinamatsuri eventually! :’D

All “reviews” are listed in alphabetical order!

Amanchu! Advance - 8.0 / 10 (B-)

I liked season 2 as a whole! (Except for one episode / thing…)

QUEERBAITING SUCKS

I dunno if this is the fault of the anime or the source material…

…but this is still the most blatant example I’ve ever watched >_>

episode 11 didn’t need to happen!!! Why couldn’t Kokoro just… be a girl

or y’know, just let Pikari and Teko continue to “love” each other as they have! OTL

maybe why it annoyed me so much is that it’s like… a total bait & switch that went on for 2 SEASONS

to be fair, the reveal kinda went over my head? But when r/anime pointed it out, that’s when the salt began :/

yet the finale still has them blushing over reading thank you notes? It’s like this show wants its cake & eat it too

at the end of the day, the Kokoro stuff just… got in the way of Teko & Pikari’s interactions, platonic or not >_>

Also I’m one of the few people who actually liked the Peter arc

and it gave Ai some spotlight time!!!

it’s nice to have a little story arc to change things up (as opposed to an episodic structure)

(though I understand why many didn’t care for it… it leans a lot more towards supernatural than usual)

IMO they at least gave precedent w/ that one lucid dreaming episode w/ Teko, though

AND THERE’S ACTUAL SCUBA DIVING THIS TIME \o/

the underwater moments can be very magical… definitely the visual highlight

And the cast of characters is still enjoyable to watch too~ (def. a good group dynamic there)

Kokoro is considered a polarizing character for sure

I didn’t mind him that much until, y’know… his gender reveal led to the queer-baiting thing >_>

The finale was really nice though! It had pretty diving scenes and had cute Teko & Pikari moments~

In any case, this is still a very relaxing and heartwarming anime~

It has all the things I enjoyed about S1 here; it’s just the things added on top were a mixed-bag

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card - 8.0 / 10 (B)

EVERYONE IN THIS SHOW IS BEING VAGUE AS SHIT

But at least the mystery is interesting!

It’s just too bad it took like… 20 episodes to start getting any kind of explanation :’)

I actually watched the original series through a r/anime rewatch at the end of last year!

(meaning there wasn’t much time for me going from that series to this sequel)

I enjoyed the callbacks to the original series as well!

(including going from *anime* canon! i.e. the 2nd movie actually being canon)

The visuals look nice! Even though it almost looks a bit… *too* rounded in comparison to the original

I enjoyed watching Sakura capture all the new cards in different ways~

Even though this season was VERY light on plot (mostly), this aspect provided the action~

Also I enjoyed watching the character interactions too ^^

But yeah… the lack of overarching plot development and VAGUENESS kinda holds this season back

that being said, the final episodes set up some potentially interesting developments to come

and the finale itself *definitely* was not a conclusive one, so S2 better be confirmed soon!

Overall, I still enjoyed this continuation for the things it did right! I’ll be looking forward to a S2~

Darling in the FranXX - 8.0 / 10 (B)

Well this is/was a… polarizing show, to say the least.

I enjoyed it overall, but certain things about it hold it back from a higher score for me.

There’s two main elephants in the room with this series, really

#1 is… the heteronormativity

this was basically from the get-go, and in the roots of the story / themes itself

since the themes revolve around male/female partnerships & the importance of that… Yeah

one of the core quotes being “a female and a male aren’t complete w/o the other” …Yeah, again

also the sex-like positions of the “stamen” and “pistil” while piloting also doesn’t help

the workings of this world’s society has hetero relationships as the standard and doesn’t really allow for other options

(i.e. the FranXX piloting, Ikuno’s female attraction not working out in both operating the mech & her feelings for Ichigo, etc.)

at least Ikuno and Ichigo got a scene to talk about their attraction feelings & make up somewhat ^^

plus the Nines are basically gender non-binary but are seen as antagonistic forces for most of the show… Yeah

and just basic hetero things (like sex & pregnancy) were like being attacked in this show (when it’s not in real life???)

there’s an image meme that’s like “no, Prime Minister Abe… this will not get people to have babies” (…agreed :’D)

sure, there are *many* ways you can interpret this show, but the fact that so many people have seen it as such is Not Good

#2 is… the show supposedly “jumping the shark” towards the end

the main culprit of this (for many people) seems to be the “suddenly aliens!” reveal in episode ~20

this didn’t really impact my enjoyment of the show at all, but I definitely understand why people would be disappointed

in a way, it does kinda shift the story away from the themes it was using prior to this…

perhaps the lack of foreshadowing was another reason the shift in plot didn’t go well

plus it tends to directly riff off of certain visual cues from other mecha (like Eva & Gurren Lagaan)

Those two main gripes aside, the directing & visuals in this show were what kept me interested throughout

music choices, visual choices, etc. just really made certain moments better than they probably should’ve been

I enjoyed the characters as a group as well (even if most of them individually weren’t anything to write home about)

Goro’s a good bro, Ichigo went through good development, Kokoro & Mitsuru developed as a good pair…

Futoshi ended up being kind of a fat joke to the end though (& it was interesting that him & Kokoro didn’t end up together)

of course, Zero Two is the one everyone loved (& I liked her & Hiro’s dynamic as well)

sure, some people felt like she had “no personality” after she realized the truth about Hiro, but I didn’t mind the change

Plus I like that this show had a… pretty good ending, actually! (All things considered)

Directing as always was on point, and we got to see everyone’s lives over time (& Hiro + Zero Two eventually re-uniting as kids)

I just wish the main group got to see the two of them again :’)

though I do wish VIRM actually got full-on destroyed instead of a “we might come back” ending :/

and the ending was also kinda like “oh yeah, all the Children sent away didn’t actually die!” ???

This show will likely have a legacy not unlike Guilty Crown going forward, but I thought it ended better than that show, for the record

But yeah, this show is far from perfect and has questionable themes. But I still enjoyed it over all for the things it did well~’

Nanatsu no Taizai S2 - 8.0 / 10 (B-)

Unfortunately, not as good as S1 (but I still enjoyed this season overall)

S1 felt like its own self-contained story, but this season is clearly a “Part 1” for things to come

I wish Diana had more to do this season… she lost her memory early on and STILL doesn’t have it back

she was out of the main conflict (& separated from the group) for most of it :/

she also had these WEIRD ANGLES & POSES all the time… the fan service w/ her was *Really* distracting

the only consolation is that we got to learn some backstory for her & meet her fellow giants

oh well, at least she’s met up with King again and is enjoying his company by the end :)

The Gowther twist is interesting, but the way they revealed it was kinda… underwhelming

plus that *also* hasn’t been resolved yet (like many other things this season)

Some good moments this season were centered around Ban

such as his relationship w/ Jericho, time w/ a resurrected Elaine, and the small arc w/ his foster dad :’)

Also the final Sin got introduced w/ Escanor! PRAISE THE SUN

he’s a fun character; skittish by night and INVINCIBLE by day

The addition of power levels was kinda weird

it wasn’t necessary in S1, so why add it now???

The training arc gave us a full flashback to Melodias’ past w/ losing Liza, which was nice (and sad ;~; )

plus the vs. 10 Commandments fight actually showed Melodias full-on dying? That doesn’t happen much

it was a brutal death too! Hard to watch ;~;

plus they even changed the OP animation to reflect that he died… now that’s commitment

of course he came back later on, but there’s a catch… (since he loses some emotions every time)

There were some good fights, mostly during the “tournament” arc

(especially Melodias vs. all commandments… a sakuga highlight for sure)

The finale had a good stopping point, but it definitely makes clear that the story’s not over

so yeah, unlike season 1, this season *needs* a season 3 to be worth the watch

So yeah, there were some good moments & fights this season, but as a whole, it’s weaker than S1

Shokugeki no Souma S3 (Part 2) - 8.5 / 10 (B+)

I enjoyed this season! Continuing on the darker tone that the first half of S3 set up

This plot line of Central taking over the school is still my favorite plot point thus far, tbh

in other words, shit is finally going down!

…even if many of Central are just mustache-twirling villains :’D

Erina’s gotten great development from this arc too…! She’s not just a typical stuck-up tsundere anymore

her backstory is definitely a harsh one. It was great seeing her gain the courage to stick up to dad!

We also learned more about Souma’s dad! :O

Especially about how he was seen as feared, and the pressure of success got to him :’(

along with how this backstory tied into Asami’s motivations as well

Most of the season was kinda a gauntlet of opponents for the “resistance” to face off against

seeing Akira turn evil (for a bit) was interesting, but it’s a good thing he turned good again~

we oddly haven’t seen a lot of the Elite Ten in cooking action yet???

The final part of the season started off the big Team Shokugeki! …but it only got through the first round

the stakes are definitely high for this one, and also seems like the big conflict of this arc for sure

it’s just, y’know… the season ending in the middle is not a good look, really

at least the ending wasn’t abrupt; it was open-ended but still had a sense of conclusion

All in all, a good second half of season 3 (with some of my favorite plot content thus far!). Keep it up!

[lighteningmccain]

🌻

I love Dangan ronpa. I love it a lot it’s probably my favorite game series. I know it’s edgy and “cringy” and has a lot of flaws but I really love it anyway. The only game I don’t really like is Ultra Despair Girls (for reasons I won’t get into right now), but I still like parts of it (Toko and Komaru are the dream team). But anyway, I love all the main-series games, including v3 and SDR2. I think that SDR2 is probably the best one, and that v3 is actually pretty brilliant despite it’s flaws but like. One thing that’s ALWAYS bothered me in those two games? Okay so you know like how in the first game they were like “We gotta get out of here! Oh no, we don’t have any way of contacting the outside world!” and then by the time they find a working television, that tv becomes like a HUGE plot point? It’s SUPER IMPORTANT and RELEVANT that they can finally see what’s going on?

but then in the next two games there’s just. A tv in your bedroom. And you can’t even interact with it?

You’d think they’d be just as desperate for information, seeing, as far as they know, they’re locked away from the rest of the world as well. You think they’d at least CHECK it. Even if the tv in SDR2 only showed the weather or like, cheesy travel infomercials for jabberwock island that just played on repeat, I think that’d make good foreshadowing to the ending, since it’d feel Cheesy and Fake enough to be on their fake little island. It would have been a nice nod to the previous game and also make everyone’s course of action more realistic if they checked EVERY method of getting off the island or calling for help or even getting one-way communication. HELL it might tell them about where they are or what’s going on! And in nDRv3, if they checked the tv and it was static, it’d fit right into their plotline and just. It’d feel more Real. AND V3 IS EVEN WORSE, THEY HAVE A PHONE RIGHT IN THEIR ROOMS AND THEY NEVER EVEN CHECK IT? Like I get the whole “don’t have unnecessary information” thing but I feel like it’s unrealistic to ignore BLATANT OPPORTUNITIES FOR ESCAPE OR AT LEAST GETTING MORE INFORMATION. Like even if the player could interact with it on their own, get a tv with nothing but static and a phone that only connects to other rooms (or just a dead line), I feel like that little step would have made things feel better paced. Since the beginning kinda skips the whole “Live here forever!” thing and the  “lets escape!” thing and goes right into “HSUDAHS YALL HAVE TO KILL EACH OTHER!” thing, and while I understand how that fits the plot overall, it feels very rushed and like they really didn’t try to get out at all. 

I feel like the first game probably has the best pacing imo. It’s just really solid all around.

new ask game send me a 🌻 and ill just tell you whatever the fuck i want

[dustydreamsanddirtyscars]

Things about 13x08 “The Scorpion and the Frog”

Alright, since I am awfully late with watching the episode and I don’t think anyone really needs a ton of my rambles on my live watch, I figured - also since I didn’t find much noteworthy to meta or talk about while watching - I’d just make one bigger “impression” post on the episode.

Overall, I have to say - while this wasn’t one of the best episodes ever written - I did not mind the episode. I can’t say I adored it or liked it massively, but I certainly didn’t dislike it as I did with the previous two. I actually found the episode entertaining somewhat. The pacing was alright and I did enjoy the characters introduced in the episode - even though they felt too close to certain other beloved already deceased characters, which kind of left a bad aftertaste imo. In general though and despite it’s silliness, I think the episode worked as a true one off and filler (and I usually tend to say fillers don’t exist, but with this one to me it truly felt like filler - and yes, despite the fact some of the big themes were worked into the episode - but I’ll go into that in a bit).

Alright, here are some aspects I feel like commenting on a bit more.

First of all there is the title - one I think worked pretty well in relation to the context of the episode, because the fable the title is inspired by, I suppose, is explored directly within the episode by the characters and all their “deal making with the natural enemy” that like Dean said right in the beginning usually never works out for them. And of course we saw that ending up being the case with Alice (though in the end she was freed), but most of all Barthamus (who I did enjoy - he was kind of cross between Balthazar and Crowley to me - though tbh seeing him just made me miss Crowley so much more than anything else) and Luthor Shrike as well. More than how the title related to the episode’s arc however it is important to see it in relation to the overarching theme of the season of “nature vs. nurture” especially considering it was the lead up episode to the mid season finale which features Jack heavily, who is the main character through with the whole “fighting against your ~nature”-theme is explored by. If the fable is anything to go by and it’s dark moral then it would allude to Jack going dark side (even though he has been taught and socialized differently) as this is simply part of his “nature” as Lucifer’s son. In this regard it feels also noteworthy that Aesop (which Dean has read) wrote a similar tale about a “Farmer and a viper” where a farmer finds a snake freezing to death and takes pity on it and warms it in his coat - revitalized by that the snake ends up biting the farmer and kills him), which feels even more fitting in relation to SPN lore and how Lucifer is seen as the “serpent”.

Then there is the whole talk on Solomon and him keeping tabs on the Queen of Sheba, which reminded me that earlier this season we had a scene featuring the “Song of Solomon”, which makes interesting, if Solomon ends up popping up a third time this season I’‘d call it a pattern and it’s probably interesing to di into all of that history a bit further.

As for the episode’s characters. I actually liked Grab, he was a kind of “one off”-demon - he wasn’t plain stupid or over the top cringeworthy evil like demons (and angels as well tbh) have been portrayed a lot on SPN the past seasons. I wouldn’t have needed to see him again as a character, but he was enjoyable for the time of the episode. I also liked Barthamus and how the actor played him, but in general to me just no one can in any way replace Mark Sheppard and Crowley so that’s that. And lastly there’s Alice. She was alright (the actress did an okay job), though tbh, to me she felt too much like a clichè and too much like Charlie 3.0 (seriously, they even had to give her a line featuring “Charlie”? Sorry, but… meeeh, I’m not a fan). Hell, they even sent her off with a bus scene and her showing the “victory”-sign. I mean…. how much more blatant can you be?

Now let’s move on to Luthor Shrike. I personally felt reminded of Magnus/Cuthbert Sinclair a bit with his collection of artifacts and such (forever disappointed they never picked Magnus as a big bad, that guy would have worked as that imo). Especially as he was described as “doing anything and everything to add to his collection”. Tbh though I did find him a bit stupid tbh. I fully believe he has his entrance video trapped (he just seemed like that kind of guy) so he must have seen Sam walking in an out of the devil’s trap and then when he hands Sam a shot of gin he hadn’t mixed holy water into that to test him? Seriously? That just seems to me awfully stupid for a 200 year old immortal being. Which brings me to the other character I had to think of aside from Magnus with how he lived secludedly: Cain. Like Cain, Luthor also seems to have drawn away from socitey after losing a loved one. And yes, of course the parallel to John giving his life for Dean and Dean then later dying was prettyy apparent, but I suppose it was alos meant as a possible moment of foreshadowing for Lucifer and Jack’s story. Will Lucifer in the end maybe sacrifice himself to save his son? While I really don’t need or want a Lucifer redemption arc, I’d take it if that meant we’d finally be rid of that character lol. In visuals also to me Luthor was aligned with Cain who was also immortal and got stabbed by the demon killing knife and then later died like Magnus by beheading.

And last but not least on to the Winchesters. I have to admit if Jensen wasn’t as good as an actor as he is the “compass hand thing” as well as the “paw thing” would not have worked. They were silly yes and once more Dean was used as comic relief, but Jensen delivered it. So I didn’t mind those a lot. What made me a bit moody was when the “Nerve damage”-scene rolled around, because it captured so much with nothing much said, but only “I lived off of that stuff when I was a kid, What is it like 10 times the legal amount of caffeine?”. Yeah, nice callback there to how Dean never was a child from 4 onwards and literally ran on coffeine to make it through. Like… how is that not yet another example of how friggin awful Dean’s life was and how much he had to shoulder at a way too young age? Aside from that I found it rather interesting that Grab called Dean a “hand puppet” - of course that as due to the spell he had cast on him, but I can’t help but rather think of that comment in a much broader sense with Dean as a vessel - yes, I am still stupidly hoping that someday Dean as Michael’s vessel will be rendered of import by the narrative again. Silly me…

And now truly lastly, the ending scene with the burning of Bart’s bones and the spell and how slow the Winchesters were there and how Bart just stands watching in slow mo almost when Alice patiently picks up the lighter after he just said he is sooooo quick was just… eye roll worthy imo. Also, lol, Bart saying Sam is the smart one? Apparently not when it comes to keep something from burning. ;P I mean, come on Sam, you blew on that? Really??? Bahaha.

Anyway… So yeah, that’s kind of all I have to say. Not much stuff for meta, but a few very pretty eye candy moments, so maybe I’ll try some editing. Anyway overall verdict: Alrightish irrelevant episode. Score: 6 out of 10.

[kinetic-elaboration]

April 19: Thoughts on 1x11 We Are Grounders Pt 1

It’s late, I’m all upside down, and I just reread some of my old meta so I’m thinking about how Smart I am and also how bitter I am about this show. So here’s more of my rewatch!

Today’s episode, We Are Grounders Part One

I wonder if Jaha was so quick to throw up his hands and walk away from the DNR group in S4 because, especially prior to what was basically a religious conversion, he has a similarly strong death instinct himself. I’m not saying he didn’t do everything he could in favor of survival many times, but honestly how many other times has he been like ‘well, okay, tried everything, time to die’? Like compared to other characters? I’m not saying he actively wants to die so much as that he is more comforted than the average bear by the possibility of a ‘good death.’ (Also I think this has a lot to do with having lost his son tbqh.)

Note to self: someone I’m assuming is a station rep referred to her constituents.

An incredibly bleak but fitting ending for this show would have been to kill the Ark in S1 and then to have the delinquents and grounders kill each other in an escalating S2 war. It would have fulfilled certain foreshadowings/themes of the first season (all the war escalation stuff, the nuclear-age throwbacks) and it also would have been an appropriate ending for all these truly terrible, morally rotten people.

Literally Jaha v. Kane is Jasper v. everyone else (or at least, like, Clarke and Monty) in S4. Truly this show ran out of original ideas after 2 seasons, see again my previous point lol.

Speaking of Jasper there is my angular boy.

There is nothing about the delinquent camp I don’t like. Raven in like a council-level position, ish, Bellamy’s speeches and blatant emotion, everyone’s outfits.

I completely forgot Tristan existed.

I also forgot how many fake out main character deaths this show used to do. Abby, Finn. Can’t get away with that 4 seasons in. The audience knows anyone important is getting a real death scene.

Omg Bellamy has a whole like war plan with little figures and stuff.

Bellamy has this reputation for being all emotion and I think that’s him at heart but ignoring Clarke, Monty, and Finn’s disappearance is a logic-based decision. A sort of...overcompensatory logic-based decision. Also not in line with the show’s morality, like, at all. Hence why he drops it later.

Yet again impressed by how Jasper managed to change more than any other character over 4 seasons while still remaining IC. Even young and comparatively innocent he could be snarky and sarcastic and he also was honest and straightforward in his confrontation with Bellamy, and he kept on being all of those things later, but with bitterness and bite.

Murphy (having just obviously suffocated a boy): He stopped breathing. I was trying to help him. Jasper (nodding slowly): Yep, sounds about right, totally legit, lots of evidence that that is what went down. Yep.

Also I’m like 99% this ep is basically their last canon interaction so btw this was the end of what is absolutely, canonically (see the pilot and the Pike-class flashback) a same-station-forged friendship. And probably also explains why Murphy’s reaction to Jasper’s death was like ‘Jasper who???’ though that doesn’t make it any less an unforgivable sin.

There’s nothing not perfect about this scene overall, but the most perfect thing is “Tell Bellamy what?” coming from Jasper’s pocket. I love both that he tried to be sneaky and the comedic value of it.

TWO HEADED HORSE TWO HEADED HORSE TWO HEADED HORSE.

Lincoln was criminally underused. He not only saved Finn and Clarke, he “killed one of his own people to do it.” This isn’t about Octavia. He’s just been looking for an excuse to rebel his whole life.

Jackson’s being so lovely and supportive and Abby’s still calling him by his last name. Knowing this show they probably forgot it was his last name.

Today’s reminder that Octavia likes literally 4 people in the universe lol. And one of them was Jasper. Until the show forgot about that too but whatever not bitter.

RE: Raven getting in under the floor. I’m thinking about my fic and my work around for opening the dropship from the outside and okay on the one hand if such a device existed, Raven would probably know about it as much as Monty but on the other hand, there has to be a way to close the dropship from the outside, because it’s closed in S3 and there’s no one in it. So logically it should open from the outside too, without recourse to loose panels and stuff. So maybe I was a little, like, short-cut-y in my solution but the show is not consistent so we’re even. (We’re not even but I’m self-conscious now.)

Bellamy talking on the walkie with Murphy might honestly be the most beautiful he’s ever been.

Legit question: who do the Grounders battle? They have this coalition, with like Ambassadors and shit. Which doesn’t mean they can’t battle each other but there’s also some diplomacy going on, like, clearly. Which should make battling less necessary, one would think. And even if they do battle each other, over fucking what??? Land? Literally never seen solid evidence that land boundaries matter to them. Shits and giggles? Bragging rights? They have an enemy in Mount Weather but Lincoln sure as shit wasn’t fighting battles against them.

T100 drinking game: take a shot any time says ‘cauterize the wound. Take two if they actually cauterize a wound.

“We lost Clarke, we can’t lose Bellamy too” is probably the first indication literally anywhere in the show that anyone acknowledges Clarke as an delinquent leader.

I miss the Raven + Jasper dream team. Tbh Raven has so few people who can appreciate her professionally. It’s literally Monty, Wick for a hot second, and Jasper (even though his skills aren’t the same as hers, they fit with hers nicely).

I miss my alternate universe where Jasper lives but becomes pacifistic in nature, where he abandons this ‘give me something to shoot through’ attitude and eschews the use of weaponry entirely.

I don’t think this show is 40% as badass or sick as it makes itself out to be but every now and then it lives up to that ideal. I mean this extended psychological torture sequence in which Murphy makes Bellamy hang himself is super fucked up.

The young Jaha and Griffin families were adorable.

“If you were never [in the tunnels] how did you map [them]?” / “Spoils of war.” I realize this is probably just quick plot-hole filling but nevertheless I sense a story here.

The Reapers were also a sick and twisted invention of this show. I feel like in S2 it was pretty clear that the Reapers were given dead bodies to feed on, so either I’m wrong/the Mount Weatherians were more efficient in their use of their limited resource of Sky People bodies versus Grounder bodies/the show has bad continuity/that living dude in the cart is an outlier/some combo of the above.

“The Eastern Sea” lol. The Chesapeake probably.

I never cared for Luna but she could have been cool and also she and Lincoln are ex’s pry this headcanon from my cold, dead hands.

I’m pretty sure Finn pounding in the Reaper’s head was his first kill. Would his S2 story be possible without that moment?

“They look up to you. Almost as much as they look up to Clarke.” Okay I’m sorry, this is just textually, canonically wrong. This is the show retconning Clarke’s position as a leader. And it’s so unnecessary! Her story line works better if she isn’t positioned as the main delinquent leader, imo. Like, lines like that are outliers that don’t make sense within the universe; they’re obviously outwardly pointed: here audience, Clarke is protag 1 and Bellamy is protag 2 and she’s the REAL leader, don’t forget that order! If you do, you might occasionally question her leadership credentials later, when we lazily write everyone just following her regardless of their actual interactions with her or the most recent developments of her storyline! (Not that I think they were already setting up the laziness of S4 this early, but I do think they were tipping the hand of their own biases and their inability to tell the difference between what’s going on in-universe and what the audience sees and understands.)

On the other hand “Well I think the princess is dead, but I know the king’s about to die, so who’s really going to lead these people, huh?” is a good line and I do like positioning Bellamy as king (of these people specifically) versus Clarke as a princess (of the Ark--an old position based on a class background that is irrelevant to their current society).

Lol @ Murphy’s plans being delinquent-domination though. Like that was going to happen.

Actually I think Finn’s S2 story line is created in the moment when he washes the blood off his hands: he’s killed, which changed him, and Clarke comforts him in that critical moment, and he comes to associate her with that event and its aftermath. He also says “I should have fought for you,” which I see as this...hard to describe but like...the creation of a devotion beyond what he’s so far felt. Not that he loves her more but that he’s convinced himself he loves her more, that she can save him in some way, that she is necessary to him. He has a lot of idealistic notions and I think this narrative gets created within him with Clarke at its center and everything else gets blurred out. Or something.

This Jasper and Bellamy scene is the best because it combines two things I love: Jasper’s hero-worship crush on Bellamy, and Jasper’s intense devotion to Monty. I’m a little sorry that Clarke and Finn’s return/these loser Grounders robbed us of a Bellamy and Jasper rescue mission though.

I guess it’s possible Bellamy said “Whatever the hell we want” all the time but really I think it was just the one time and the writers have already forgotten that Jasper never heard him say it omg sometimes I just want to knock their heads together their memories are such shit. (Yes I’m also bitter about Jasper’s pilot outfit returning out of nowhere in S4 and Clarke wearing his intact goggles in S5 even though he already smashed the plastic out of the lenses sometime in S3.)

Poor Jasper. He thinks Monty’s come back with them. He barely even has time to process that disappointment before they start debating whether or not they should leave.

Basically I have a lot of Jasper feelings.

Bellamy’s speech is better than Clarke’s. Come on Griffin, never start with ‘my opponent is right’ that’s a bad rhetorical move. I also find it intensely unrealistic that they’re all like ‘yes, Clarke, we will do what you say!’ when, I cannot emphasize this enough, she has literally never led them before. All of her leader decisions have been strictly BTS. Her only real advantage here is that they know they have no gunpowder and few other resources, so it’s probably just a straight up fear-flight.

“Crowds make bad decisions. Leaders do what they think is right.” I mean basically the theme of the show there lol.

I’m going to rant about this next time I watch but just gonna say here that Clarke is definitely, unequivocally, ultimately wrong in this and Bellamy was right. They should have stayed. People literally died because Clarke tried to take them out when she shouldn’t have.

The camp doesn’t look like I expect or picture in my head...where are their tents? How much land did they claim?

I remember watching this the first time and thinking Jaha’s plan to get them to the ground on the Ark itself was the outright coolest thing I’d ever see and you know what? It holds up. I stand by it.

[bthump]

chapter 358 comes out on april 26. what are you expecting from it?

I’m pretty confident we’ll be sticking with Griffith’s narrative for at least a few more chapters.

Personally I think it’s high time to get some more blatant hints about Griffith’s feelings, and if we’re going to see a wedding/coronation type thing soon that would be the ideal time for it imo. Griffith sealing the deal on his dream is the perfect time for a stronger reveal re: his pesky emotions lol. I can’t say I really expect that, but it seems plausible and I’m hoping.

On the more negative side, I could also see us getting foreshadowing for Griffith attacking Elfhelm, which is a plot point that seems likely to happen but I’m hoping against it. Still, even if that is the case, I can maintain hope that a Griffith and his apostle army busting into Elfhelm to fuck shit up plot can still be complicated and made engaging and interesting depending on what happens with Elfhelm on Guts’ side.

Like I’m theorizing that Danann’s going to turn out to be Up To Something and Guts’ sidequest is about to go very badly, at which point Griffith suddenly showing up may not necessarily be framed as A Villainous Deed lol. I mean come on, given how Griffith’s side of the narrative has been framed not just with him in the role of protagonist (and I don’t mean to Midland but literally by the narrative, its beats, its tone, its visuals, etc), but with his entourage being portrayed largely as good, sympathetic, and/or likeable people, including the apostles, it really doesn’t seem like we’re headed for a boring good vs evil conflict here.

Oh I guess in the extreme short term, like what we’ll actually see next chapter, idk I’m kind of just expecting a triumphant return to Falconia lol. I’m getting a little too used to completely insubstantial chapters. But maybe we’ll skip ahead a few days and go straight into something happening.