#she is a fantastic villain and terrifying character

[hyperfixation-tangentopia]

Ah ha, I've got a question for you :3

Who's your favorite LMK villain (aside from Macaque)?

Okay fair restriction XD

LBD. Without a doubt. She was my fave next to MK on first watch.

The scenes where someone attacks her and she does nothing but they just stop is chilling. Her scenes with Wukong are FANTASTIC. She's facing someone who's taken her down once and can fight and beat GODS with so much confidence. Her scenes with MK are BETTER. I have a thing for manipulative villains and DAMN the way she gets into MK's head HURTS. I think the only reason I don't like her more is because I'm too emotionally attached to the characters and try to ignore just how TERRIFIED she makes MK. She has ONE SCENE with Red Son and in not even 5 minutes she emotionally drags him through the dirt before PHYSICALLY YEETING HIM.

OH YEAH I HAVE TO TALK ABOUT THAT FREAKING POSSESSION

ALL OF THEM

So first one DBK! It lasted one episode so not much to say about it EXCEPT NO THERE'S A LOT TO SAY ABOUT IT

FROM HOW IT LOOKS LIKE SHE'S AFFECTING HIM BEFORE SHE EVER ESCAPES to HOW SHE EMOTIONALLY DESTROYS RED SON

SORRY SHE HAS TWO SCENES AND WRECKS HIM IN BOTH

Okay and then THE LITTLE GIRL (Bai He? Something like that? Fanonically?) I KNOW SHE GETS 0 CHARACTER BUT TO POSSESS A LITTLE GIRL TRYING TO GET HER CAT? COLD LBD. COLD.

Okay and apparently I can't go one ask without talking about Macaque BUT HER ABILITY TO TAKE A CHARACTER WE'VE ONLY EVER SEEN CONFIDENT AND SMILING TO FREAKING OUT AND IN CHAINS IN SECONDS IS ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING. DOWN TO ACTIVELY KILLING HIM WITH HER POWERS BECAUSE HE WILL EITHER GET IT DONE OR DIE TRYING. I WILL NEVER GET OVER THAT.

AND THEN THE OBVIOUS. WUKONG. FREAKING. POSSESSED. WUKONG. FROM HER HOLDING HER OWN AGAINST HIM NOT AT HER FULL POWER TO NOT MORE THAN 10 SECONDS OF A FIGHT? HIS COLORS PHYSICALLY DIM WHEN HE'S POSSESSED. AND THE FACT SHE HELD HIM FOR SO LONG DESPITE HIM OBVIOUSLY FIGHTING BACK, WHILE ALSO PICKING AWAY AT MEI AND HER MECH? SPREAD TOO THIN SURE BUT THAT'S STILL ABSOLUTELY POWERFUL.

POSSESSED WUKONG IS PROBABLY THE MOST TERRIFYING THING I'VE EVER SCENE THAT I DON'T TALK ABOUT. FUCKING STONE-COLD (no pun intended). THE THREATS? THE TAKING OUT RED SON IN A SECOND? WITH FISTS IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY?? THE STALKING THROUGH THE SAMADHI FIRE TO GET MEI? THE ICE AND TELEPORTATION? ALSO GETTING WUKONG TO DESTROY NEZHA AND FLING HIMSELF AT MK WITH 0 HESITATION? I CAN'T HANDLE IT.

AND THAT'S SAYING NOTHING ABOUT HIS FINAL FIGHT?? FLINGING WUKONG AT MK, AGAIN, 0 HESITATION, AND THEN DESTROYING MACAQUE AND THROWING HIM ON THE FLOOR, ONCE AGAIN, USUALLY SMILING AND CONFIDENT AS ALL HELL. AND WUKONG ONLY BROKE FREE AT THE LAST SECOND AND HE STILL WASN'T RID OF HER COMPLETELY????

I CAN'T. DEAL. WITH THIS WOMAN.

AND SHE FOUGHT SO GODDAM HARD TO STAY ON HER TRACK, BROKE THROUGH MEI AND WIELED THE SAMADHI FIRE, AND EVEN WHEN SHE WAS DYING SHE WASN'T FUCKING DONE.

WHO WOULD I BE IF I WENT ON THIS RANT WITHOUT MENTIONING IT.

"That pursuit only leads to one thing."

"Uh-huh. To destiny, right?"

*Small, amused smile* "No. To pain."

WHAT. THE. FUCK???

I LOVE THIS WOMAN AND SHE DOES NOT GET ENOUGH CREDIT. SHE MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY DESTROYS MOST OF THE CAST DOWN TO WUKONG HIMSELF, DODGES DEATH MULTIPLE TIMES, NOT EVEN TO MENTION THAT CHILLING SCENE IN THE CELESTIAL REALM, AND EVEN HER DEATH WAS JUST THE FINAL BLOW TO EXPLOSIVES SHE'D BEEN SETTING OFF ALL SEASON.

LADY. BONE. DEMON. NEEDS. MORE. CREDIT.

SHE IS AN AWESOME AND TERRIFYING VILLAIN. NOBODY EVERY DIRECTLY SAYS "SHE'S SO POWERFUL" (THAT I REMEMBER) AND THAT'S BECAUSE THEY DON'T NEED TO. EVERYTHING SHE DOES, EVERY MOVE SHE MAKES, EVERY AFFECT SHE SETS OFF, IS TELLING TO HER POWER. NOBODY NEEDS TO STATE IT BECAUSE IS IT SO. PAINFULLY. CLEAR.

THE HOPELESSNESS AND FEAR THE CHARACTERS FEEL GOING UP AGAINST HER? IT DESERVED. IT'S REAL.

Anyway thank you for the opportunity to rant about the character I for some reason have so much trouble getting myself to ramble about. Anyway. I love the monkies so much and they glow in those first three seasons but LBD? LBD ran it.

[cyber-corp]

wow. WOW.

This one was a nutter. Here are some of my favourite moments from the final Doctor Who special, The Giggle

SPOILERS AHEAD

First of all, I underestimated Neil Patrick Harris as the Toymaker. He is absolutely terrifying and absolutely hilarious all in the scenes he’s in.

The Toymaker was the perfect villain for this special. A unstoppable, petrifying entity that hasn’t been seen since William Hartnell is a very good choice for an anniversary special

The puppets of the past companions were a nice touch, and the Doctor correcting the Toymaker on what actually happened is funny

Furthermore, the Toymaker entering to Spice Up Your Life. RTD saw what Chibnall did with Rasputin and went “OH NO CHIBBIE. DON’T TRY AND OUT-CHEESE ME”

The less-than-subtle political and social allegory through the Toymaker “making everyone’s thoughts superior”, which kind of shook me a little bit with how accurate it was.

Mel!!!! Melmelmelmelmelmel!!!!! Never really knew her in the Classic Series, but she is absolutely wonderful in this episode 🥕

Donna utilising her typing skills as Best Temp in Chiswick

Fourteen’s last words were probably going to be “Allons-y” which is the complete opposite of “I don’t want to go”. Please ignore me while I go cry in a corner

Bi-regeneration? Okay???

NCUTIIIIIII GATWA IS HEEEERE EVERYBODY!!!! HIS SMILE COULD CURE SO MANY DISEASES!!!!!! AND HE DOESN’T HAVE ANY PANTS OOOOOOON

Three guys play with balls

Fifteen giving Fourteen/Ten a hug was my all-time favourite moment from these specials. Someone finally tells the Doctor “Hey man. Slow down.” and that the only person that could tell him is him

The Doctor finally talks about the planet where you communicate with your eyebrows, as mentioned 53 years ago in Spearhead in Space

The Fourteenth/Tenth Doctor finally settles down with people he loves. A satisfying ending to a once tortured character.

Meanwhile the Fifteenth Doctor goes off on his own adventure, ready for a new era of this show.

This was absolutely fantastic, and it also made me cry the most out of all the specials (unsurprisingly). Everything in this episode felt right, and it feels like RTD has been planning something like this for quite some time. A proper end to David Tennant as the Doctor.

Fifteen’s era is going to be amazing!!!!

[whumpsday]

3 whumpy anime to check out this spring!

Go Go Loser Ranger is a heroes vs. villains anime where the villains are the good guys and the heroes are downright evil. Having wiped out all the powerful monsters more than a decade ago, the heroes keep the weakest monsters captive, to parade around and torment on a weekly basis while the public believes otherwise. Because they're immortal when hit with most weapons, they'll always reform to be hurt over and over again, despite feeling all the pain.

Footsoldier D is one of those weak monsters, an immortal shapeshifter made of dust, called a "duster". After escaping the heroes' arena, he forms a plan to kill the heroes and steal the few weapons they have that can permanently kill dusters, freeing the rest of his kind. Given that he has the constitution of a porcelain doll, he can't use strength to fight: he has to rely on wits, stealth, shapeshifting (despite knowing very little about humans or the outside world), and a shaky alliance with a double-agent ranger who seems to be taking advantage of him for her own gain.

Whump tags: villain whumpee, hero whumper, immortal whumpee

Watch it on Hulu, Disney+, or any unofficial anime site.

And if you don't have time to check out a whole anime, the Go Go Loser Ranger opening theme video is also really good, with fantastic visuals symbolizing D's struggles!

An Archdemon's Dilemma is a romantic comedy stuffed to the brim with popular whump tropes. Zagan is a demonic sorcerer who attends an auction for the possessions of another recently-killed sorcerer, when he sees that one of those "possessions" is an elf slave, Nephelia. Having had a destitute, harsh past himself, he feels a rush of sympathy and buys her way out, vowing to ensure her safety. However, Nephelia is terrified, believing she's about to be used as a sacrifice in a dark magic ritual. And unfortunately for both of them, Zagan is a socially awkward loser who sucks at communicating.

It's surreal seeing something that looks like it could be a caretaker-new-master whump fic as an actual, fully-realized anime. It definitely doesn't take itself too seriously despite the premise, leaning heavily on the "comedy" part of romantic comedy, and is mostly just a silly time with lots of whump-adjacent stuff thrown in. Fanfic-y to the point of "there's only one bed" being an actual line.

Whump tags: fantasy slavery (very pet-whump-esque in its tropes), caretaker new master

Watch it on Crunchyroll or any unofficial anime site.

The Grimm Variations is an anthology of horror retellings of several Brothers Grimm fairy tales. With each episode being written and directed by different people, it varies wildly in quality, with episodes ranging from laughably bad to incredibly good, but I'm here to talk about episode 2: Little Red Riding Hood.

The Little Red Riding Hood takes place in a dystopian future where the upper and middle class use virtual reality technology to augment their reality. One man, Grey, is tired of this and craves the real: specifically, the feeling of real blood spraying him as he murders countless women, his wealth and connections protecting him from consequences. But when this serial killer makes the mistake of targeting a woman called Scarlet, he finds himself on the other side of the knife. This episode is a complete and utter gorefest with multiple onscreen torture scenes.

This isn't even my favorite episode of the series, it's like my 3rd favorite. But episode 2 is the one with the gruesome torture scene, so it's the one that goes in this post.

Little Red Riding Hood whump tags: whumper-turned-whumpee, torture, gore

Little Red Riding Hood warnings: sexual assault, eye gore, fingernail gore, violence against women, major character death

Watch it on Netflix or any unofficial anime site. Orrrr if you just wanna watch the big torture scene without any of the context, it's on Youtube.

that's all I have for now :)

(P.S: Dungeon Meshi, while not really whumpy as a whole, is also currently airing and very very good and I might write whump fanfic for it at some point in the near future. Netflix or any unofficial anime site.)

[wasted-women]

ROUND 1C, MATCH 4 OUT OF 8!

Causes of Death & Propaganda Under the Cut:

Cordelia Chase

Cause of Death: Became comatose due to childbirth, eventually died

Propaganda:

A fiercely witty, complex and independent character - she was Always her own woman, only briefly having romantic relationships and it never defined her character for 6 seasons on both Buffy & Angel. Unfortunately the show producer was an abusive misogynist who targeted Cordelia's character specifically for humiliation when her actress Charisma Carpenter became pregnant. He is a colossal dick, and a terrible writer. Cordelia and Charisma deserved better.

I love her so much

Darla

Cause of Death: Sacrificed herself to save her unborn child

Propaganda:

She's a super old kickass vampire who was a terrifying and fantastic villain - she comes back just to be pregnant (it's this whole weird prophecy thing). And be conflicted because she's a killer but she's worried she's probably going to kill the baby once it's born and so she kills herself first and dies in the arms of her ex-boyfriend and HE is sad about it and has to protect the child and she's never really mentioned again outside of flashbacks (still about the male hero, not about her). Yes Angel the Series has so many problems.

Winifred "Fred" Burkle

Cause of Death: Died while being possessed by a demon

Propaganda:

Imagine taking an incredibly smart, traumatised, dorky, strong, paranoid, loving and curious character who is an Expert of physics and portals and basically the brains of the group by s5 and making her entire damn arc about the men she's with. Because she's the only woman left on the show (all the others have been killed off! yay??) and YET still killing her off and making her dying all about how powerless her boyfriend feels. Who gives a shit about her, her boyfriend is sad!

she's quirky and kind and really smart and somehow emerged from a hell dimension relatively sane

[monarchcelebi]

Chaos Theory is everything I wanted it to be! (No Spoilers)

I'll keep it brief; but this show was exactly what I wanted it to be and I am really looking forward to more. Our favorite characters are back and they are all great! There is some drama with our characters that they need to resolve and, at least to me, it always hits pretty hard and never feels forced. There are a lot of specific parts I wanna talk about but I wanna give people a chance to watch the show before I dive into the spoilers more. Suffice to say our characters are amazing, the conspiracy and mystery element of it was fantastic, and we got a new villain! And suffice to say, when she shows up... She's Terrifying.

I've seen a lot of people talking about Chaos Theory being a better realization of Dinosaurs on the mainland compared to what Dominion did. I for one agree; but also Chaos Theory legitimately makes the dinosaurs scary again.

[dapper-lil-arts]

Thank goodness I've found someone who can't stand Fluttercord. To be honest, I'm not too fond of Discord either. It always struck me as weird that the show seemed determined to sell him as this reformed villain who's changed for the better, and yet he's continued to do the same stuff he did as a villain. And let's not even get into the toxcity of his relationship with Fluttershy. "Keep Calm and Flutter On" is one of the worst episodes that's come out of My Little Pony! It's like this show was desperately trying to make you forget about the moral of "Griffon the Brush-Off".

yeahhhh I'm kind of in a weird place in all this because like. if the intent of the narrative was to explore that being born with cosmic power makes you unfit to wield it and an entirely unsympathetic unempathetic creature, they nailed it. Like, making this guy think hes always the smartest in the room while he's also bitter, petty, easily prone to jealousy and even controlling-- That is exactly what is correct to expect from a being of unlimited power that was born with it. In a sense, it would be clever exploration. ...But it's kind of not that, he's supposed to be one of the good guys and regularly fucks shit up on purpose for everyone, and that's just a weird attitude for the good guys to forgive. Celestia wanted him to use his powers for good, but I struggle to think of one example of him doing so. Even when the changelings took over, his powers were nullified, so he could have been replaced by an earth pony. And then the narrative goes to the thing of "He's only nice now because there's one girl thats cute and pretty that he simps for" And that is just kind of insanely fucked up?! Don't get me wrong, power imbalance can be a fantastic way to explore relationships-- But if I was Fluttershy I'd probs be terrified of having a yandere god that only listens to me because I give him attention, and the moment I decide I want relationships with other people, those people are gonna get turned into piñatas. Okay, tangeant almost over. Maybe this affected even more negatively than most because I watched a show called "Jessica Jones" Where the antagonist is an evil mind controling sadist, BUT, he has a huge crush on the protagonist, and she realises that if she were to sacrifice her own life to be with him, she could essentially trick him, if not convince him to use his insanely powerful powers of coercion to change the world for the better. ...And that's just horrific. Sacrificing your life to be the object of affection of a powerful being just because they might do good things with your presence, not out of their own volition. But hey, that's all subtext, the MLP text is generally lighthearted. (nevermind the finale in which discord literally endangers equestria for shits and giggles, and nevermind the fact that gen 5 proved that without fluttershy Discord would lose his shit and do deranged things to the whole world)

The voice acting is great, the character conceptually is great, but goddamn, why did they think that he's more worth redemption than the literal child? #cozyglowdeservedbetterfromthewriters

[celaenaeiln]

Hi! I really love all your takes and character analysis. I'm new-ish to Batman so these are always so educational for me 😅 I was wondering, in your opinion, of all the batkids, who would you say would make the most terrifying villains? And who, canonically, would you say exercises the most self control to prevent exactly that from happening? Like every day, they have to work to prevent themselves from crossing that line.

...(Is it Dick? I feel like you're going to say Dick)

Thank you!

You got me!! Those are good questions!

I had to think a lot about this honestly.

So for most terrifying villain, I would say Dick. Mostly because it's just canon. When Dick was the villain both times in New Order and in DC vs Vampires, he practically eradicated the world based on who he felt needed to go. In DC vs Vampires he didn't care for anyone so by the time he was done there were no humans left. In New Order he lost it when the heroes accidentally killed Bruce and thus destroyed the entire justice league and remade himself as the head of all military operations under the government. Dick also knows exactly how to kill Bruce and he's terrified of it (Nightwing: Knight Terrors). Kory once told him during the Teen Titans (2003?) comic that Dick could stack up all the Titans and could take on the Justice League if he wanted to but Dick states that he knows and that's exactly why he's scared.

Also the way he manipulates every single person in existence in both his typical Nightwing runs is just a hint of the brilliance. Many times when his partners want to chase after a villain, he makes them let them go so that he grab the lizard, its hiding spot, and its family rather than just the tail.

Grayson Annual #3

Dick is not reckless in anyway either, he plans and analyzes and calculates as he moves which makes him a fantastic strategist, detective, and doer all in one.

Or actually I change my mind, I choose Cass. I forgot about her initially. Cass can beat everyone in the world (except Harley). Batman has admitted it too.

Detective Comics (2016) Issue #951

She's unstoppable. So unless the Batfamily sends in Harley, in a straight fight where no one runs away *cough* Batman Issue 137 *cough*, then Cass would win. After her though, in a tactical and fighting sense combined it would be Dick.

Jason is canonically the one who struggles with self-control everyday. But unlike some people, I don't think this a fault of his that should be changed or erased. To me, each robin represents a certain characteristic of society.

Dick - the hope of the people.

Jason - the anger of the people.

Tim - the morality of the people.

Stephanie - the safety of the people.

Damian - the rights of the people.

Dick says the meaning of robin is helping the good. And all the robins do this in their own ways.

Jason's robin represents the rightful anger by the people against the injustice. Like the Boston Tea Party against Britain's taxation, Jason was born and raised in Gotham so his love for the common people on the street is overwhelming. He wants to help every woman and child find a better life and survive because it's reflective of the life he and his mother were forced to face. So when he sees a man sexually assaulting a woman or beating a child or selling drugs, his anger bursts out. And in Gotham, there's a lot of that everywhere. So take a good person and put in him the skills and fuel for hurting the bad and you get Jason Todd. That's why from his Robin days he has struggled with self-control.

"He was a drug dealing pimp."

Batman (1940) Issue #645

"I'm sorry...but that doesn't mean he didn't deserve it."

Furthermore in the Batman Urban Legends comic also in the Batman and Robin Eternal comic it shows that Jason's greatest wish is the Joker's death and that coupled with the Gotham War and Selina's interference, Jason has the most trouble with self-control. But I believe it's rightfully so.

I think after Jason it's Dick who struggles with self-control. Not as robin but as Nightwing. Especially during his darkest days of the Nightwing (1996) comic and the Outsiders comic, Dick has been shown to forcibly stop himself when someone hurts his friends or family.

Okay, the difference between Jason and Dick's struggle with self-control is that Jason feels it all the time because his motivating factor is ever present while Dick only struggles with it when someone hurts the people he loves because that's Dick's motivating factor.

Damian is the one who has the most trouble after that. Then Stephanie, Tim, Cass, and Duke. Although if you're including Stephanie's robin days, she would be tied with Jason.

[bestworstcase]

I have a question about some of your Salem thoughts

If Salem is 110% certain that she can take down the Gods (assuming that's her goal since we don't actually know), why wouldn't she communicate her plan to Oz? Especially if she truly doesn't want anyone to die like you say. Oz would jump at the bit if Salem said "Hey I want to stop fighting" since that would mean their shadow war would stop. I really don't think Oz likes the Gods either, and even if he's afraid of them, if *Salem* is that confident she can stop them (she's far from an idiot), I'm sure he'd at least hear her out (which would tell Salem a LOT).

If she's that confident and truly doesn't want to fight, why wouldn't she tell Oz her new plan? And why would she kickstart her plan by attacking the kingdoms/Academies? Surely she could find a way to steal the Relics without flat out attacking them (like sending in double agents to take the Maiden powers)? Like... she would've known she'd get people killed, including children and innocent people. Even if she did damage control (which I think is just strategic, why bother going after people if she's focusing on the Relics? She's not gonna waste precious time and resources), she surely knew people would get caught in the crossfire.

Don't get me wrong, I like what you bring to the table!! Your posts are thought provoking and unique. But I can't see Salem being somehow secretly good. I don't think the show is setting her up that way, and I think she's a fantastic villain, so from my own perspective, doing that kind of twist would be a disservice to her character. I don't think she's inhuman or a complete and total monster who should go, but she's definitely not a good person especially if she can't communicate that she supposedly doesn't want people dead. She seems to be an "the ends justify the means" kind of person, and the show I think has stated that that isn't a good mindset i.e. Ironwood.

Sorry, I rambled and completely strayed from my point 😅 I don't mean to be mean if I come across that way. I hope my ask is interesting or thought provoking though :P

my position is that salem is right, not that she’s secretly good—that is an important distinction. i think she sees the gods clearly for what they are, thinks the divine ultimatum repulsive and unjust, wants remnant to be free, and believes that humanity is transcendent over their creators; she also, quite plainly, does not have any compunction about doing whatever it takes to achieve her ends and while i do think she is still fully capable of and driven by love, she is so TERRIFIED of being hurt again and so CERTAIN that no one could ever care for her that when she does care for someone else it comes out in very, very twisted and often cruel ways. she’s not good, she’s not nice, she’s just right.

equally the heroes are good but not right, because they have yet to really grapple with the premise of the divine mandate (that humanity as it exists right now does not deserve to exist) or their own role in upholding it (their immediate goal is survival, but when they envision the ending of this war they imagine salem driven back and the relics squirreled away again in hope of at best everlasting stalemate). the point of structuring the narrative this way is that neither side can get to the proverbial good ending alone; they need to work together, salem’s ends with the heroes’ means.

like. she’s evil. lol. that’s not in question and i think it goes without saying that she is doing evil things so i don’t feel the need to make a “but she’s still evil though” disclaimer every time i try to tease out what’s going on in her head. notice how my reaction to salem razing vale was OH GLINDA LAYS SIEGE TO THE EMERALD CITY, WE’RE REALLY IN IT NOW and not, like, shock or dismay that salem would do such a terrible thing. brgdfjs

(i DO think she has mostly been trying to avoid ozma and not reciprocating the shadow crusade against her prior to about fourteen years ago and that she isn’t about wanton destruction or killing for the sake of it; and in that sense i think she’s not as bad as the general fanon reading. but that comes with the territory of thinking she has actual reasons for doing what she does as opposed to being, like, a genocidal lunatic.)

anyway. to your questions. the short answer is she’s just as scared of oz as he is of her.

“but he’s the good one!”—think about this from her perspective for a minute. set aside your opinion of her and oz, presuppose for the moment that i’m correct on her motivations, and consider what everything ozma’s done in the last few thousand years looks like to her.

she knows that the gods were monsters. she witnessed them slaughtering the whole world and she saw how little it mattered to them after. she was alone for millions of years, and then hated and feared for thousands of years because she didn’t look human. all that suffering because the gods are punishing her for praying to them. yes?

then ozma returns to her, somehow. he doesn’t explain how or why—maybe he tells her he just doesn’t know—but that’s alright. what matters is that he’s here. he asks what happened to her, and she tells him the truth: the gods ended the world. cursed her. killed everyone. she was alone for so long. (maybe not the whole truth: there are things she’s afraid to say, because the gods did it all to punish her, and it’s her fault, and she’s so scared that he’d despise her if he knew everything. the only reason for her to fear ozma would reject her is if she blamed herself. you don’t hide things out of shame if you don’t feel ashamed of them.)

they learn each other again. fall in love all over again. things are finally okay. they fix up her house. they’re happy together. one day ozma tells her that he’s worried about how divided people are. she wants so badly to make him happy; she would move mountains for him. salem herself has no interest in ruling over people as a god—if she did, she wouldn’t have been living alone in a rotting shack in the middle of nowhere—all that enthusiasm is for him. to support what he wants.

they build a following, found a prosperous kingdom, start a family. four children! how long do you think they were married—ten years? twenty? and the whole time, the whole time, ozma was keeping these secrets from her. that the god of light, who’d condemned her to eternal suffering for praying to his brother, who’d shown utter indifference to the deaths of millions, had sent him back to redeem humanity FROM HER SINS, from what SALEM did. that the point of all this is cleansing humankind of her defiance and inviting THAT MONSTER to remnant to judge whether this world deserved to be subjugated under the brothers’ tyranny again or else be put to death.

imagine how she must have felt when ozma finally told her the truth, knowing that the first thing she told him was that the gods ended the last one. imagine the sickening realization that their whole marriage is built on a lie, because she would never, ever, ever have agreed to help him unite the world if she had known what he sought to unite them for, and ozma knew she never would. that he deceived her! manipulated her into serving the will of a god she knows to be a monster!

and even then—even to the very end—she loved him enough to try. she was willing to forgive all of that and figure out a way to move past it together, and the only thing she asked was that he walk away from his task of submitting this world to the judgment of THAT MONSTER. and he wouldn’t do it.

there’s a gap we don’t get to see, in between ozma backing away from her and salem catching him leaving with the girls, but we can infer that ozma walked out of that room and salem didn’t. imagine how she felt. ten years, twenty years, however long it was, and he was lying to her through it all, and he left her with hardly a moment’s hesitation when she refused to help him enact THAT MONSTER’S retribution against herself. because that is, ultimately, what this is all about; humanity is found guilty by association with her.

imagine how she felt. used. worthless. duped. like a fool for ever trusting him. did he ever love her at all, or was that a lie, too?

when she caught him in the hallway later that night, they both attack each other in the same instant. ozma remembers her attacking him first, but their volleys meet in perfect symmetry and right before salem throws her first bolt of magic, her eyes flicker down in surprise as she tracks the motion of his staff (which we see in the previous shot)—salem remembers him attacking her first.

because they were both so tense and scared and angry at each other that they snapped in exactly the same moment.

their battle is so intense they blow up the castle, and when the smoke clears, salem is a pile of ash. ash! he incinerated her! imagine how enraged you have to be to burn someone to ash. that level of fury, of absolute hatred of her, is literally burnt into her memory as the last thing he did to her before she managed to kill him, inextricably twisted around the guilt and unbearable grief she feels for her children.

he’s dedicated all but a handful of his lives since then to getting rid of her. finding a way to destroy her. (how far is he willing to go? what would happen if salem tried to move on, find community and solace somewhere far away from him? would he come after her? would he follow his god’s example and go after the people she cared about to punish her? is she willing to risk that he might?)

do you think salem understands why ozma did any of this? she doesn’t. she doesn’t get the luxury we do of jinn narrating his side of the story and showing us the anguish he felt, wanting so desperately to be with salem but eaten alive by terror of dooming the world for his happiness. she doesn’t know.

all she knows is how he treated her: the secrets, the deception, the manipulation, the immediate and absolute rejection when she told him no, the explosively violent anger at the end, then centuries upon centuries systematically erasing her from history and enforcing her exile whilst searching for the relics he needs to summon his god for the final judgment. which she knows will inevitably end in the annihilation of the whole world and yet more torture for her with no hope of reprieve, because if all of this was not enough to satisfy the god of light’s grudge against her for, again, just praying to his brother, nothing ever will.

salem feels about ozma now the way blake felt about adam. why did he lie to her, why did he use her, why does he keep coming back, why won’t he just LEAVE HER ALONE, hasn’t she suffered enough, hasn’t she been punished enough, when will it be enough—and intertwined with that, she is being EATEN ALIVE by the conviction that no one could ever truly care about her or feel for her or want to help her or think that she deserves help or even just see her as a person, because if ozma—ozma, the one who saved her from her father’s tower, who knew her and loved her before all of this happened—if ozma thought her so worthless that he would rather serve a god who ended the last world and promises to condemn this one too than suffer her to exist at all in this world, why the fuck would anyone else be any different?

thousands of years later, she still flies off the handle when anyone lies to her. (except cinder. but cinder is always the exception, to every rule.) there’s a reason she recruits the kind of people she does—desperate, broken, angry people starving for something she can promise to give them if they make themselves useful to her—and it’s because she does not believe that she can get anything better than strictly transactional relationships with people who have literally nothing and nowhere else to turn. and when she actually cares about someone? she fights herself tooth and claw over it because she desperately doesn’t want to open herself up to more heartbreak. look at how erratic and cruel she is with cinder.

it’s not rational. salem is smart and very, very tactically shrewd but she is making all of her plans and all of her choices from the assumption that she is and will always be alone in this, because she is unlovable, because she is worthless, because she is the reason this world is damned. and she’s terrified of ozma because to her everything he does suggests that his conviction and dedication to the god of light has never wavered. she cannot see his doubt. she cannot see his misery. she cannot see how much he misses her and desperately wants to make amends. all she can see is that he’s zealously guarding the relics and spreading his god’s word and training children to fight and die in the name of keeping her exiled.

why doesn’t ozma just go to her and tell her he wants to make amends? because he’s terrified she’ll never forgive him and terrified that he’ll damn the world to annihilation if he follows his heart. they’re the same. they’re exactly the same.

but this is also what makes it so possible—even easy—for salem to undergo a villain-to-hero arc, because the only thing that needs to happen is a spark of real hope. that someone, anyone, could really care about her. like. the things she says in her soliloquies about the transformative power of hope? “even the smallest spark of hope is enough to ignite change,” and “it’s true that a simple spark can ignite hope, breathe fire into the hearts of the weary…”—that’s her. one small reason to hope. that is all she needs to change.

she doesn’t want to be razing kingdoms to the ground or cutting a bloody path through children to get those relics. she is willing to do it because she truly, genuinely, from the depths of her soul believes that it’s the only way to free herself from the torture she’s been subjected to for millions of years. she’s driven to this by desperation. she won’t keep doing it if she’s given a reason to feel less desperate.

but she does need to be given a reason, first. she’s hemorrhaging. this is why the winnowing of her inner circle and the split between everyone else in vacuo versus salem + cinder + summer in vale is important; Those Two are the ones she cares about—technically we don’t know for sure regarding summer yet, but the level of trust she has for the lieutenant holding beacon is suggestive—and that being reciprocated is what ignites her hope.

[endversewinchester]

What are chapters 39-41 of Legendary and why are they the best out of Stephanie Garber’s writing? They are the payoff to everything she’s been building up from the start of the book.

First, we properly meet Dante and we get to know him. From his tragic backstory of a bastard boy no one wanted, not even his first love, who he became magical for. What did he do? Shut down emotionally and build a fake identity who was much cooler and far more beloved than his real self ever was.

And then we have Tella and her equally large fear to love. Because she felt cursed and unwanted after being supposedly abandoned by her own mother, and being raised by a father who only loved himself. So she convinces herself love is for the poor stupid people who are willing to give their hearts to others (knowing they can be broken).

Dante wasn’t meant to fall for Tella. But he did. He let her past the mask of Legend and allowed her to truly know him, and himself to harbor feelings for her. By the end there he doesn’t care about getting the cards and the powers within them. He wants her love, and is even willing to make death pacts with powerful strangers to ensure she’s safe.

And Tella, who refused to fall even for the stories she was told of this fantastic magician, finds herself unable to match the image of the villain she made up in her mind with that of the guy she fell for. And she embraces him, and embraces that love, no longer being afraid of having her heart broken.

And then it all falls apart.

Because while Tella is not willing to give Dante up, she is still the little girl that wants her mother back. And so the love she just embraced within herself is used to sacrifice herself, and get trapped in one of the cards to save her mother.

Dante of course can’t deal with that. So he saves Tella and starts the apocalypse, but this is the second time loving so deeply had devastating results. So he shuts down again. Snaps the mask of Legend back into place and leaves Tella on those stairs because he is fucking terrified of being hurt again by someone he loves so deeply. And so fulfilling Tella’s own fear of having her own heart broken.

Literally all of their actions match the characters we saw this far to perfection. Stephanie is amazing and this series deserves to be in filmed media at some point.

[pinkbowsandprettyprose]

Alright buckle up, because I have Thoughts™️ about how TMMN treated the Quiche/Ichigo interactions this past episode. Throwing this under a readmore because it will be long and not everyone cares.

Huge disclaimer that the below is my personal opinion and you are welcome to disagree with it :)

Okay, I went into this episode really excited to see the kidnapping scene from the manga adapted into an anime form, because it is genuinely terrifying in the manga and a fantastic reveal for the Blue Knight. I didn’t expect the “how can I make you love me” scene to be .. combined with it, and I’m really, really disappointed in the way it was done.

Manga sequence of events are as follows:

Ichigo kidnapping ➡️ Quiche terrorizes her with squishing the strawberries in her face etc etc ➡️ Blue Knight reveal ➡️ Blue Knight kicks Quiche’s ass ➡️ Ichigo runs into Quiche afterwards ➡️ he tells her he’ll save her when DB awakens ➡️ she rejects him ➡️ he pushes her to the ground holding her neck ➡️ he stops and breaks down crying and tells her he loves her “what can I do to make you love me” ➡️ gets up and tells her he’ll give her time ➡️ then leaves

TMMN sequence of events scrambles all of the above in addition to combining two different Quiche/Ichigo interactions into one.

My two main gripes with the re-ordering:

In the manga, there’s a bit of an implication that Quiche is deliberately baiting Masaya’s transformation via the whole kidnapping/terrorizing of Ichigo. This created a duality between the two Ichigo/Quiche scenes, where Quiche is creepy and terrifying first, and then later is frustrated and sad when he (supposedly) has no ulterior motive except to make his case to Ichigo. If you combine them into one, his emotions seem psychotic with wild swinging between the (very separate) moods he has in either manga scene.

By reordering the “how can I make you love me” scene so that Quiche spills his heart out to her first, then literally adding a “if I can’t have you no one can” type of line before he tries to kill her by choking her, you completely negate everything he’s said for the entire scene. This scene now feels like it’s following classic psycho yandare tropes — which, yes, Quiche is a yandare character — but we’re missing all of the character nuance that makes him interesting as a villain. In the original “how can I make you love me” scene, he cries out of frustration before leaving her alone. Having Quiche go to kill her now feels totally misplaced. It’s going to make his redemption arc at the end feel … really unsatisfying.

Starting to get anxious about how they’re going to wrap up Quiche’s character arc in TMMN. It’s not shaping up to be good.

[madsmilfelsen]

how do you feel about beverly keane? i hate her but at the same time there's something about her devotion..... we need more bev/father john fics

it’s 6:59 am and this hit my inbox 4 seconds ago but I screamed! I adore Beverly Keane’s character— she’s awful and righteous and commanding, a truly fantastic lil wool cape wearing villain demonstrating how women can wield religion just as harmfully as men. I haven’t written any Bev/John but I did think she would make a terrifying mother and gave her a daughter to poison in sunday school dropout (mainly to be gross but so I could keep writing in 2nd pov too), which the very talented @abeadofpoison wrote an accompanying piece— soft as snow (but warm inside)

There are two Beverly/Father John fics I know off the top of my head—

Lighthouse of God by @teeth-ing which I can’t find but would eat up all over again at first opportunity

It always felt like a sin by WastelandBabesandWildeLoves (listen……… Bev might be 16 while the Monsignor is in his fifties? My bookmark is private so I must be right lmao but the characterization for that snooty devious lil brat getting what she wants is so so good and he makes her ride it in the confession booth like c’mon it’s madsmilfelsen bait)

[fanstuffrantings]

Mashima seems to really enjoy just turning female villains into very docile women/making it so that most of them have their actions excused. And even beyond that he has so many of his women with shy/withdrawn personalities which can be disappointing because often times it would benefit them more to have a different personality.

Instead of Wendy being a little girl who is terrified and gentle, make her a little unhinged. She's a girl who was raised with only the tribe as her human contact all her life. And even then because they were basically spirits it means she had to fend for herself. Let her be confident, defensive, quick to violence if something was potientially a threat. Let her have brawl sessions with the other dragon slayers and be fully capable of thriving in the wilderness if it came down to it.

Mirajane taking on a docile personality post Lisana death but becoming more bold after getting back in touch with her powers. Give us her friendly rivalry with Erza back and in fact let them have a strong friendship not centered around team natsu that allows us to see Erza connect outside of the main group.

Levy being fearless, not because she's like her Edolas counterpart, but because she's so eager to know things and learn that it supercedes any fear she'd have. And more so just being comfortable around mages that most people fear because she wants to study their abilities and take everything in. It would make the Phantom lord attack on team shadowgear and her subsequent fear of Gajeel that much stronger.

There's one Character I do feel would've benefited from a more mannered/withdrawn personality and that's actually Lucy. Lucy who was raised to be neither seen nor heard, who was a noble lady. A girl who had only friends in her spirits until she met natsu and next to no contact with the outside world. Lucy being shy, nervous, and having the energy of a homeschooled kid finally free of house rules would've been fantastic.

[sprout-fics]

Hiiii 👋💛 Love love your fics, you're actually the reason I'm in the COD fandom! Fell in love with your writing in Stowaway and followed you in fandom blind and now I'm stuck here haha

Palm tree for the ask game? 💛

🥹🥹🥹 I’m so touched you’ve stayed with me all this time! This ask just made my whole day so much better, thank you lovely!

palm tree ⇢ do you have a fictional villain you shouldn’t like but love regardless?

So I actually find a lot of the villains in COD very interesting, so this is hard!

Valeria, aside from being unreasonably hot, is very intelligent and cunning- enough that she even outsmarts Price and Laswell by hiding the third missile in Chicago. Hadir is a great example of ‘doing the wrong thing for the right reasons’ and serves as a fantastic foil to Farah. Graves is charismatic in a way that seemingly hides his selfishness and ego until he becomes vengeful and guiltless.

But if I had to choose I’d say Makarov not because I adore him, but because I find him the most fascinating from the perspective of a foreign policy scholar. Especially in todays global environment I think this character who embodies the power struggle between ultranationalist values versus Western ideals is really fascinating and dynamic. The inherent brutality of his methods reminds me of the term ‘The Bolshevik variation’ which comes in two parts: the first is to win at all cost. The second is to do anything you have to, anything, to win. There are no rules. Makarov is the true embodiment of that, and when you consider that he is built off real life context, he is both fascinating and absolutely terrifying.

[capriddle]

My favorite characters from the wizarding world

Hermione= As a child I immediately saw myself in her for her skill at school, her attention to minorities and her logical intelligence. I find her one of the best modern heroines, full of strengths and weaknesses.

Snape= Exquisitely complex characters, victim and executioner embody lights and shadows. I love his story and we are very similar in character, so he immediately won my heart.

Voldemort= A villain with a beautifully drawn story, a character as charismatic and fascinating as he is terrifying and ruthless. Definitely my Dark Lord.

Bellatrix= Fierce, loyal, brilliant and ruthless. What more could you ask for from a villain like her? In her books the only real flaw I find is not knowing the details of her childhood, for the rest I find her a very well written and interesting character.

Fleur= Even though she is a marginal character, I love Fleur very much. She is brave and confident, she puts up with the Weasleys' stupidity and teaches them all how much prejudice they had about a beautiful woman.

Leta= A fleeting addition to the unfortunate Fantastic Beasts saga, Leta immediately struck me with her dramatic story and her exquisite way of being despite her past.

Notes of merit:

- Dumbledore= Cumbersome and brilliant, full of ambiguity. Definitely one of the most interesting and well-constructed characters in the saga.

- Grindelwald= Another magnificently charming villain. For me he doesn't match Voldemort but he certainly doesn't stray too far.

- Slughorn = a Slytherin with all the trimmings, ambitious but kind. I loved all the parts about it both for the fun it caused me and for the professor's guilt regarding the horcrux issue.

[fictionaltrvlr]

out of order thoughts on the new DW special because I just neeeeed to brain dump (Spoilers for The Giggle!!)

Amazing, wonderful

That villain is terrifying

Was a very good thing that Ten’s face came back and not Eleven’s, because Eleven would have dropped that ball faster than he could blink

“Spent six months teaching my daughter how to play the recorder, til she said ‘This is not me;’ which spawned a whole other conversation, believe you me!”

That bi-generation was absolutely fantastic. Actually the best thing. I love it. It should be silly, but it’s not, it’s amazing.

Rehab out of order!! We get a happy-go-lucky, untraumatized (or at least significantly less traumatized) Doctor, because Fourteen actually does the work. He gets a happy family, he gets to chill. He takes fun little trips and doesn’t lose his TARDIS- I’m gonna cry again

I mean. “Maybe I’ll save you this time.” AND THEN SHE DOES-

Fifteen’s energy is just perfect, I love him so much already

Also love the fact that he’s just trouser-less and no one acknowledges it?? Hilarious.

FAVOURITE NIECE 😭

The fact that they deliberately pointed out the wheelchair ramp on the new TARDIS?? This is not the last we’ve seen of physically disabled characters!! We’re getting more!!

The Master is trapped in A GOLD TOOTH??? of all things 😭

[themattress]

Kodaka's back, y'all.

Between this and the anime Akudama Drive, it's clear that Kazutaka Kodaka has learned from where he went wrong in Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls and Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony. For the former, Akudama Drive took the grim, dark, dystopian city action thriller and actually made it consistently fun by not bringing in extremely uncomfortable subjects that he's clearly way out of his depth in covering and then failing to even follow them through to their logical fatal conclusion. And now in this, what I hope is the first installment in a new series, he revitalizes the Danganronpa style mystery game in a way that balances light and dark tones perfectly, washing out the bad taste that V3 left behind.

For one thing, Kanai Ward is an excellent setting. While narratively it's isolated from the rest of the world, as a player you don't feel any isolation given how huge it is, which differentiates it from the enclosed spaces the Danganronpa games were set in...except for Ultra Despair Girls, but this time the city's a real city, full of people and activity and culture, not just a bunch of mostly vacant arenas to shoot enemies in. The perpetual rain, as well as the musical score, gives it so much atmosphere which is equally parts haunting and comforting.

In addition, going fully 3D rather than stick to the more standard visual novel format helps give the game its own identity, and with full animation the slower pace feels way more justified than in V3. Said pace is also helped by the addition of optional side quests to break up the monotony of the chapter-by-chapter formula, and by the blessing of the R button's fast-forward feature. The only times things feel like they're dragging on is in the Mystery Labyrinths, and even then they're so unpredictable that they held my interest the whole way.

The story and characters are fantastic. Many of them are reminiscent of Danganronpa characters, but have just enough unique qualities to make them distinct, with the standout of course being Shinigami who is like Junko Enoshima / Monokuma if s/he were an anti-hero instead of a villain. She steals the show with her antics and quips, with wonderfully energetic voice-acting by Anjali Kunapaneni. I won't be forgetting the term "boom-kill" anytime soon! However, I think that besides her the characters that left the biggest impression on me, causing me to think about them long after having witnessed their last moments on screen, were Chief Yakou Furio, Director Yomi Hellsmile, and CEO Makoto Kagutsuchi. Long story short, they're twisted as fuck, although each in varying ways: Yakou leaning toward the light, Yomi toward the dark, and Makoto as a solid True Neutral. They always held my attention.

Lastly I need to mention some of the plot points that were executed a lot better than in past Danganronpa games. The first chapter featured a huge subversion of expectations related to the game's characters, but unlike in V3 it didn't overreach to the main character in a way that felt mean-spirited and sapped away my enthusiasm for playing the rest of the game. In the second chapter, we finally got an instance of separate culprits rather than a single culprit or accomplices, which V3 had once looked like it was setting up to do before totally backtracking on it. In the third chapter, we had a murder happen while investigating a different murder done to much greater effect than in V3 where it was expected and ultimately underwhelming. In the fourth chapter, which is the third case in Kanai Ward, we get the return of Case 3 Syndrome where an intriguing and terrifying set-up ends up with a disappointingly mundane revelation fueled by some outlandish criminal motivation, but this is the first time since the original Danganronpa where I was willing to buy it since it fit the characters and situation involved from how they were established. In the fifth chapter, let's just say there's a certain character voiced by a certain VA who is killed due to the machinations of a hateful villain, and it is handled much more tactfully and meaningfully. And in the final chapter, we get kind of a repeat of the Hajime-Izuru situation from Danganronpa 2, but while I liked that just fine I actually found this to be better executed since it had way more narrative build-up in-game.

All in all, a great game. Mystery lovers everywhere should check it out.